Colleagues: When I was on the medical faculty at Georgetown in the 1980s the then-Dean, Dr. Milton Corn, wrote in a newsletter that he was consistently impressed that faculty could repeatedly discharge firearms into their lower exremities [sic] without activating pain receptors. It appears that his words apply to much of contemporary philosophy, including Brian’s introductory posting, but with the exception of posters above, such as Ken, whose pain receptors have been activated.
from Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog.
Obviously the discussion’s more complicated than this, but I think it’s funny how these philosophy folks—who apparently think that the discipline of philosophy is the only place that philosophy happens—are still willing to allow shitty reasoning like “That means there are precious few young philosophers out there working race and ethnicity” to occur. I mean, you’re a philosopher: aren’t you supposed to be able to see that the effect: “oh shit! no one applied for our job!” doesn’t justify the explanation “oh well. guess no philosophers work on race.”
I also think that part of the problem is identity politics. No, not the race-gender-sexuality identity politics scapegoat we’re used to, but disciplinary identity politics. I can name at least ten young scholars who are working on issues that could be construed as philosophical, but in the absence of specific philosophical training—which is more about reproducing the discipline in the same way it’s traditionally been, that is, of preserving its disciplinary identity—these folks aren’t recognized as philosophers by philosophy departments.
Which is to say, that it’s not the fact that people aren’t working on the subject that explains the effects; the effects also need to be explained by the shape and borders of—and the disciplinary policing that goes on within—the discipline, and how maintaining the discipline’s identity to itself might also mean the exclusion of other people who do work that looks like philosophy without necessarily calling it that.
