Royce asked:

What do you think of the status of academic philosophy? Is it relevant? accessible to the rank and
file? Do academic philosopher-practitioners work in a highly insular environment detached from the
"real world"?

(Note: On occasion, very good books appear in the lay press which tackle difficult subjects and treat
the subject matter in digestable understandable terms. . . examples: Ian Hacking and Rorty.)

============

With the passage of time, I find it harder and harder to understand what makes an academic
philosopher tick. As a graduate student at Oxford I thought I knew it all. I was up there. I knew where
the action was. I read the latest articles and attended the biggest seminars. We were hounds in
pursuit of truth, and truth had nothing to do with disseminating knowledge that the non-academic
public can appreciate or make any sense of, still less with practical utility.

The first thing to understand about academic philosophy is that it is a group activity. You can't be an
academic philosopher on your own, without students or colleagues. The search for truth is seen as a
collective effort of argument and debate rather than the product of the inspiration of isolated
individuals.

The second thing to understand about academic philosophy is that it is founded in hard, economic
reality. Academic departments of philosophy exist in order to provide employment for philosophy
PhD's who want to make a career out of their vocation.

The third thing to understand about academic philosophy is that to keep your job, you must be seen
to be producing 'research'. It is not enough to be a good teacher. Research is anything that you can
persuade an editor of an academic philosophy journal or book publishing house to publish. Work
which you can't get published is so much waste paper.

Academics who have succeeded in getting tenure regularly bleat about the plight of young
philosophers who can't find jobs, or who find jobs but can't keep them. In reality, the system is
founded on massive waste. The waste of talent of all those who fail to make it to the gravy train, as
well as the wasted time and effort devoted to maintaining one's status and place there.

Despite this, the best academic philosophers have produced, and continue to produce work of solid
quality. My own bookshelves are lined with books by academic philosophers. To say that the cause of
philosophy is not bestserved by the current, wasteful system is not to deny that good comes out of it.

Is there a better way? I like to think my way is better, but then I would say that, wouldn't I? The
Sophists of Ancient Greece suggest an alternative model of how things might be conducted. The
internet provides the forum — the contemporary equivalent of the Athenian marketplace — where, if
you have something to say, you say it. You don't have to be admitted to the Academy. There are no
editors or faculty boards to please. If others find value in what you have to offer, word gets out.

I don't know if this structureless, potentially anarchic system can ultimately be made to work in the
cause of philosophy, or if it will work against it. The experiment has only just begun. Ask me again in
a few years time.

Geoffrey Klempner