The APA and other academic institutions have made efforts to gather and report demographic information about persons in philosophy. One motivation for doing so is to ensure that various voices and perspectives are not being shut out, and to invite perspectives to participate in doing “philosophy.” I wish to call your attention to a group often not recognized as worth recording data about: philosophers, particularly graduate students, with invisible disabilities.
According to the National Institutes of Health, an invisible disability is “a physical, mental, or neurological impairment that is not obvious to others, but may impact upon a person’s movements, senses, activities, and day-to-day life.” The adjective “invisible” in referring to disabilities is juxtaposed with those disabilities that include physical manifestations or markers; a wheelchair or someone missing a limb are such examples of “visible” disabilities. Navigating the world with any disability comes with its unique set of experiences and challenges; my goal here in emphasizing invisible disabilities is not to compare, but to bring attention to this group. I want to highlight some of the reasons we should take notice of those with such conditions and offer encouragement, and motivate some reflection on how this relates to current professional practice. Importantly, I am not a disability specialist or lawyer. Rather, I am myself a doctoral student in philosophy with various invisible disabilities seeking to raise awareness.
While the experience of people with disabilities varies widely, even among those with the same conditions, I want to briefly highlight a few barriers that I have faced in my philosophy education because of my invisible disabilities.
I have autism, sleep apnea, narcolepsy with cataplexy, and various mental health struggles. After years of being a hyperactive insomniac, I am now chronically exhausted. Not “grad student pushing himself” tired; exhaustion equal to two or three days’ worth of sleep deprivation is my baseline. I have to take naps throughout the day, and I have chronic brain fog. My words sometimes come out all jumbled, and I am not nearly as quick in my thinking or exchanges as I used to be. Writing and reading, too, are impacted; without strong medication, if I sit down, I am prone to fall asleep. Thus, I have to rely on audio reading or dictate many of my papers so I can physically pace. As you can imagine, this makes editing papers difficult.
Doing grad school in these conditions has significant consequences. I miss deadlines and sometimes fall asleep in seminars. Cataplexy can make my arms, legs, and neck buckle in conversation or while I am teaching or discussing. I have entered a sleep state mid-seminar and began sharing my dream out loud. I have also missed transportation and, therefore, conference presentations because I fall asleep and can no longer drive.
Narcolepsy also interacts with my other conditions in various ways; for example, exacerbates my depression and makes me more prone to rejection sensitivity. It interacts with my autism, and can make social exchanges, networking, or even just clear verbal articulation of original ideas very difficult. This semester fatigue and brain fog from narcolepsy intensify my autism-related struggles, including tracking and manipulating symbolic information, negatively impacting my ability to complete and pass the required metalogic coursework.
I share all of this not for sympathy, but to show just how deeply an invisible condition impacts my ability to do philosophy and graduate school. While I hope the examples I shared from my own experiences offered intuitive and compelling reasons to highlight those with invisible disabilities, allow me to offer a few more.
First, hidden disabilities often create a catch-22. On one hand, if people disclose their disability(s), they may experience social alienation, disbelief, poor treatment, and dismissive attitudes from those in their academic sphere, whom they must rely on to succeed, such as professors, department chairs, and future employers. Even well-meaning faculty can accidentally infantilize, condescend, or in other ways negatively respond. Alternatively, if they say nothing and push themselves, they risk alienation for missing deadlines, having inconsistent or periods of poor performance, and being unable to keep up without some support or accommodation in place. Furthermore, these people can experience increased health struggles, heightened feelings of insecurity or imposter-syndrome, and declining mental health. In fact, there are many invisibilities such that this sort of stress drastically increases the frequency or intensity of their symptoms! Grad school and the philosophy job market are hard enough on us all; there is no reason to make anyone feel “stuck and hopeless” because of a hidden disability.
Second, and related to the first point, people with invisible disabilities can feel forced out of academia. If the catch-22 cannot be resolved, or if they experience harm from it, they may feel forced to abandon work that they love and likely have sacrificed immensely to pursue. Invisible disabilities are in no way indicative of philosophical or teaching aptitude. We are depriving ourselves of the chance to engage their work and them of the chance to do their work.
Third, there are ethical and professional concerns regarding access to education and opportunities. Professors and programs may need to evaluate their requirements so that they are not making this field unnecessarily harmful to students, faculty, and peers. In the same way that demanding a person in a wheelchair to run a race to obtain their degree, job position, grant, or opportunity would be obviously morally wrong, there may be analogous requirements built into various spaces in philosophy that make harmful demands on people with invisible disabilities. I am not advocating for us to abandon requirement or rigor; rather, I am suggesting that in our profession, often if something is legitimately necessary for a degree or opportunity, there are many possible ways to meet that requirement. Insisting on doing it one way out of tradition, convenience, or preference may be perpetrating a moral harm.
Fourth, individuals who are additionally disadvantaged or marginalized in the field have extra barriers to receiving diagnosis and treatment, reducing their access to support or barring them from it completely. Even if they do receive support, it is often lower-quality care. While many graduate programs offer medical insurance and funding, the quality of that insurance and the amount of funding vary significantly, often in relation to a program’s ranking. Funding packages at lower-ranked institutions are contingent on a heavier workload and may not be guaranteed for the duration of a doctoral program; more universities are moving to a “yearly review” model of funding, where consideration for funding is guaranteed rather than the funding itself. This can add significant stress to a person navigating an invisible disability and exacerbate their situation.
Grad school is difficult. Navigating an invisible disability is something that can unnecessarily increase that difficulty. By noticing this group of people, and growing in response to that recognition, philosophy can continue growing and avoid alienating these particular voices.
My aim here is not merely to share my personal story or to argue on my own behalf. Rather, I argue that invisible disabilities are un- or mis-recognized in philosophy, and that this shortcoming generates preventable professional harm. My challenge to all of us is to remember that philosophy prides itself on examining hidden assumptions. Invisible disability challenges us to examine the hidden assumptions built into our professional norms, and to make changes accordingly. If we fail to do so, we risk losing not only talented philosophers but also the epistemic diversity necessary for the discipline to flourish.
If you have an invisible disability and are in grad school, or are hoping soon to be in grad school, for philosophy, what takeaways do I have for you? Well, I am no expert—I am navigating this myself. However, I would echo an article that I once read, saying: be your own advocate! As you go along your journey, find those who would advocate for you and with you. Above all, know that invisible disability does not mean that you are invisible. You matter, and you belong in philosophy.
Michael Hyde
Michael Hyde is a second-year philosophy doctoral student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His current research explores ways that embodiment and aesthetic experiences shape one’s ability to reason and shape their psychology. Drawing from his own experiences with invisible disabilities, he advocates pedagogical reform and greater inclusiveness in academic philosophy.
