March 12, 1998
Dear Professor Swartz,
Thank you for supplying the information regarding your unpublished
article, "Philosophy as a Blood Sport." I did read it
and must, much to my dismay, agree on the substance of it. No
academics are so good at "going for the jugular" as
philosophers are. However, I would not be so quick at condemning
the whole class of philosophers, or at making this an exclusive
feature of philosophy. I attended numerous APA meetings, Conferences
and university colloquia, and must admit that the kind of behavior
you described is more the exception than the rule.
I concede that such meetings have an adversarial nature; their
point is to submit one's ideas to severe Popper-like tests. Despite
this inherent nature, I cannot fail but notice that most questioners
make an effort to be courteous. Of course, there are G***B***'s,
but I do not think they are restricted to philosophy. I occasionally
attend colloquia in other departments of humanities and witness
G***B***-like behaviors. I cannot say what it is like in the
sciences, but, a priori, it seems to me that the nature of a science
colloquium is to make public a useful discovery that others may
wish to adopt for their own work. In that sense it is less adversarial
than the humanities.
I have read and received readers' reports that were plain cruel,
but again this feature is not exclusive to philosophy. It must
be true that anonymity unleashes all kinds of unexamined fury.
In fact, I now notice this behavior in Internet discussion lists,
and these are not even anonymous. There must be something that
gives some people the audacity to be insulting of others. It does
not seem to matter that you are in the company of other people,
that you are protected by anonymity or that you are circulating
in cyberspace.
Your suggestion that the adversarial nature of verbal philosophy
discourages women and other sensitive human beings from pursuing
it, if true, is disturbing. It implies that philosophy persists
by intimidation, that all the ideas and doctrines which we debate
are not insightful, but have been forced down our throats. I think
this is a bit too strong. Although I cannot deny that some individual
philosophers persist by intimidation, I am not ready to admit
that the same individuals are capable of holding back new insights.
I prefer to believe that intimidation is a short term measure.
Best regards,
Bernard Roy
Department of Philosophy
Baruch College of The City University of New York
111 East 18th Street
New York, NY 10010
Tel.: (212) 387 1684
email: bernard_roy@baruch.cuny.edu
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