March 17, 1998
Dear Norman (we've not met, but I hope you'll allow me to presume)
I have to say that I don't share your general perception of the field at
all. My experiences at graduate school (at Harvard, and at lots of
seminars at MIT) and at many professional conferences (like the annual
colloquia here at Chapel Hill, and at Oberlin; the meetings of the Society
for Philosophy and Psychology; a SOFIA conference I attended in Lisbon; two
NEH gatherings at Rutgers) is that there's a great deal of contention and
challenging, but not that there's any "blood lust." What characterizes
most of the meetings I mentioned was genuine cooperation and mutual
interest. Lots of them involved what I'd call energetic exchanges, but
what might look to someone else like battles. I myself find significantly
less posturing and blathering in philosophy than I find in other
disciplines. Most philosophers I know understand what it is to have a
point. (Cf. Steve Martin and John Candy in Planes, Trains, and
Automobiles) I've only witnessed a couple of performances akin to the one
you describe, and two of them were at talks by literature people.
I think we should be careful about confirmation bias. Philosophy is known
stereotypically as the contact sport of the humanities, and it's easy to
see philosophical discussion in that light. I do think we all have more to
learn about making discussions comfortable and accessible to people who
don't like fast-paced exchanges in adversarial mode. But do note that many
very prominent and well-respected philosophers do not regularly employ this
mode, and seem not to have been hurt by it. (I think most quickly of Jack
Rawls, whose picture you'll find if you look up "gentle" in the
dictionary.)
I want to concur with Harriet Baber that for at least some of us women, it
is really liberating to be in a field where it's OK to speak your mind, and
where you are not expected to be "nice" (bland, uncompetitive,
uncontentious) all the time. I attended the conference that Harriet spoke
of, and I agree that it was a terrific conference. But I wouldn't say that
there was a high level of aggression. We certainly had disagreements,
which were thoroughly aired. And we all got a lot of exercise, which
everyone enjoyed. But the spirit was unfailingly cooperative and
constructive -- everyone agreed that they'd learned a lot, and had been
really energized. And that's not atypical of MY experience.
Louise Antony
Philosophy
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
email: lantony@email.unc.edu
|