Diversity and Philosophy Journals: Reforming Philosophy

There are several reasons why a low representation of women, minorities, and people from low-income families is a serious problem in higher education. Equal opportunity is one of them, and another is our need to recruit the most capable people. Each of these is a sufficient reason for much stronger measures to broaden recruitment than what we have yet seen.

But I would like to focus on a third reason, which applies more to some disciplines than others: We need perspectives and viewpoints from the underrepresented groups. People with other life experiences than well-to-do white males have widened the scope of historical and social research by focusing on previously neglected parts of the population. Much more work of that nature is needed. We don’t understand a society unless we are able to see it from the perspectives of its underprivileged inhabitants.

In my view, this third reason applies to philosophy as well. This is because philosophy is ultimately concerned with the human condition. We try to understand some of the fundamental aspects of human thinking, beliefs, and strivings. We should do this inclusively, i.e. with regard to humans in general rather than only to those with certain backgrounds and characteristics. Therefore, we need to include a wide variety of human experiences.

An unworldly ideal

This is not an uncontroversial standpoint. There are those who think of philosophy as operating on such an abstract level that our humanity has no role in it. Bertrand Russell expressed this very clearly:

“A philosophical proposition must be such as can be neither proved nor disproved by empirical evidence. Too often we find in philosophical books arguments based upon the course of history, or the convolutions of the brain, or the eyes of shell-fish. Special and accidental facts of this kind are irrelevant to philosophy, which must make only such assertions as would be equally true however the actual world were constituted.” (Mysticism and Logic, p. 111)

Much of modern philosophy aspires to this unworldly ideal. That is why we have epistemological theories that programmatically disregard our cognitive limitations, metaphysical theories intended to bypass the effects of our neural systems on our conceptions of the world, and ethical theories alleged to be equally applicable to hypothetical intelligent creatures that are radically different from ourselves. The ideal seems to be a philosophy that is unaffected by our humanity, a philosophy which might just as well have been conceived by a brain in a vat.

But is this unworldly ideal at all viable? Can we develop philosophical theories that are unaffected by empirical facts about ourselves and the world, but still relevant for how we humans should think, act and live? I very much doubt it. Don’t misunderstand me; I am firmly convinced that we often need to put problems in a more general and therefore also more abstract context. But this tends to be like stepping back to get a better view. If you step back too far, you lose sight of what you tried to see. Some of those who exclude philosophy as a study option may have understood this danger better than what we do ourselves.

The art of seeming smart

Recent research has revealed a common feature that is shared by philosophy and several other subjects dominated by white men, such as mathematics and musical composition. These disciplines are all believed to require a special innate giftedness, a form of brilliance not obtainable through training, dedication and hard work. Such exceptional “raw” talent is usually ascribed to white males. This is a serious misconception that deters people from other groups from studies or research in philosophy.

As Eric Schwitzgebel has pointed out, this view of our discipline leads to a recruitment based on the ability to seem smart. Just like seeming honest, seeming smart is an ability that can be developed by people who are sensitive to social codes and have the requisite acting skills. One of the best ways to seem smart in philosophy is to pick up some tricks and turns for finding fault in papers written by others. This is also relatively easy to learn. It takes much more training to learn how to write good papers oneself. (By the way, “seeming deep” is even easier to learn than “seeming smart”.)

The seeming-smart syndrome is shared by so-called analytical and so-called continental philosophy alike. We have strong reasons to believe that it has a considerable negative effect on our recruitment. It also seems to foster unrealistic expectations that contribute to the many cases of writer’s block and low productivity that we see in our discipline. (Note that in philosophy, the major alternative to “publish or perish” is “promotion by seeming smart”.)

What journals should do

There is a long list of things that philosophy journals should do to improve the representation of women and minorities. I would like to emphasize two items on the list that may not be among the most obvious ones. First, we should stick to anonymous peer review as the crucial tool for deciding what to publish. This is because it is the best method we have to ensure that these decisions are based on the merits of the paper, rather than the merits and the perceived status of its author.

Like other editors I have received angry letters from rejected authors (as far as I can remember always white males) who find it incomprehensible that their paper was rejected. One (rightly) famous philosopher wrote out to the whole editorial board to complain. He has written many great papers, but the referees had shown beyond doubt that this was not one of them. Anonymous peer review helps editors to publish good papers by unknown authors, rather than deficient papers by established authors.

Secondly, journals have important roles in determining the identity and the ideals of their discipline. Editors have to decide what topics are within the scope of the journal, and what problems and debates are interesting enough for publication. These are usually small, piecemeal decisions, but we need to see them in a larger perspective.

As editor of a general philosophy journal, I receive a large number of submissions, most of which are written by white men. (Their dominance is even larger in the small minority of submissions whose authors have not even attempted to satisfy basic standards of scholarship.) My impression is that general philosophy journals receive fewer submissions from female philosophers than the applied and specialized journals. One reason may be that many female philosophers work in areas that are not perceived as “core philosophy”. It is still often taken for granted that the most abstract and unworldly work defines what is central to philosophy, whereas applied and interdisciplinary work is seen as peripheral. This assumption has to be challenged, and we need to be more open to different views on what philosophy is and should be. Journal editors have an important role in this process. Broadening our discipline can make philosophy – and its journals – more interesting, more relevant, and hopefully more attractive to many of those who now feel uninvited.

Sven-Ove Hansson

Sven Ove Hansson is editor ofTheoriaand professor in philosophy at the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden.