A Reflection on Jenkins' Open Letter to Junior Philosophers

But here’s a thing. Philosophers, even senior philosophers, are very far from being a unified bunch with respect to their opinions on current issues in the profession. Whatever you said, there is a decent chance that a number of senior philosophers out there were thinking (or even saying) if not it, then something isomorphic to it. In fact, whatever you said, there is a decent chance that a number of senior philosophers out there who will regard you as more hirable, tenurable, and so on, for having said that. There exist senior philosophers on hiring and tenure committees who are impressed by junior folks who have Things To Say about important issues in the profession, and who regard a willingness to do this as a desirable quality in a potential colleague. So while it’s true what you’ve said could do you professional harm, you never know: the opposite could be true....Even the de facto loci of concentrated professional power and authority are up for discussion and debate, along a plenitude of dimensions. This is a cat that’s not going back in its bag any time soon.--CSI Jenkins, "An open letter to junior philosophers who’ve seen something and said something"

I read Jenkins' piece and shared it on my facebook page yesterday. Jenkins is a big deal in the profession (Canada Research Chair and Associate Professor at UBC), and (with an awe-inspiring publication record) on her way to being a bigger deal.* Her "open letter," which makes quite a few empirical claims, is as much an encouragement to the young and junior (these are not co-extensive, of course), as a status report from within the professional elite, and -- perhaps I am reading between the lines --, a call to senior figures to step up, and a plausible form of self-fulfilling prediction: "as contributions to these critical and exploratory conversations become more varied and greater in number, over time there is correspondingly less focus (and less burden) on any one individual who has something to say."

I was incredibly moved by Jenkins' piece, and some time I'll try to articulate, perhaps, why this is so beyond the vain idea that I felt strangely vindicated by it.

But what I found especially interesting, even startling was Jenkins' suggestion that, in fact, a candidate's participation in the meta-discourse about the profession (its mores, its methods, its norms; its patterns of exclusion, and even local injustices, etc. ) can now play a legitimate role in the evaluation of hiring committees (i.e., "who regard a willingness to do this as a desirable quality in a potential colleague") in possible negative and positive fashion.

As an aside, that a candidate's participation in the meta-discourse about the profession does play such a role does not surprise me--hiring is very much the projection of a committee's (often conflicting) fantasies of a candidate's possible future based on extremely limited data. That this involve lots of tacit biases is thanks to the good work of the terrific folk at feministphilosophers, now well known within the profession. But we shouldn't ignore that the projected fantasy also involves a form of self-flattery; we look for possible futures in candidates that will vindicate the best images of ourselves. (That in doing so we also often just recycle other features of ourselves we overlook is, alas, tragic given the importance to philosophy of self-knowlegde since, say, Socrates.) Among our best images of ourselves is the very idea that we have, as Jenkins writes, "Things To Say about important issues in the profession."

 

Now, in my view the crucial move to make here (and, hopefully Jenkins agrees) is to realize that in "Things To Say about important issues in the profession" one ought not just be (a) reflexive about where one says it from (that is, one's privilege and social location), and (b) who one includes and excludes in one's sayings and, perhaps, (c) be receptive to alternative Things To Say, but also that "important issues" are ultimately and fundamentally, (d) judgments of quality and (e) judgments of relevance. Now, I know some folk get nervous in the slide from (a-c), to (d-e); what many of us would prefer (at least that's where I started my journey) is to be inclusive along a whole lot of dimensions, without changing how we think about any of the really important philosophical stuff (that ultimately we care most about). Yet, the fact is that people are trying to hire not just "potential colleagues," they are, especially, hiring potential philosophical colleagues. For as philosophers we recognize that the ability to impact judgments of quality and judgments of relevance is what makes "professional power and authority" so significant in the long run and beyond any self-interest. 

are animated by the concepts that you -- who sees the otherwise impossible reality clearly -- can develop. - See more at: http://digressionsnimpressions.typepad.com/digressionsimpressions/2014/03/please-dont-be-demoralized.html#sthash.V8tjQCNx.dpuf

Jenkins' letter is addressed to junior faculty that have "seen something and said something."  Now, I think the most important philosophical task is that those who see the otherwise impossible reality develop the concepts that make what needs to be said clear, compelling and available for new discussions and other actions. So, in my view the very best discussions about the profession are, in fact, philosophy.

 

*Not to mention a Monad forever!