Research-University-Biased Perceptions of Professional Philosophy
What do you do as a philosophy professor? What does it take to get a job as a philosophy professor? To get tenure? What is teaching like? What is a philosophy department like as a work environment? How much does college or university administration affect your work? What are plusses and minuses of the job?
When these and related questions are taken up, it seems they are often answered with a certain type of institution in mind: R1 Universities. These are universities that, according to the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, have “very high research spending and doctorate production.”
The focus on these types of institutions is not all that surprising, as a good number of people thinking about these questions are graduate students in philosophy, that is, people who by and large are at such institutions.
Currently in the US there are 187 R1 universities. But, according to Carnegie, there are over 3900 institutions of higher education in the country. Even taking into account that there are generally quite a bit more philosophers per R1 university than there are at the average institution of higher education, there are still plenty of philosophers who work at non-R1 institutions.
Based on data from Humanities Indicators published earlier this year, 744 departments in the US award degrees in philosophy. Of these, 200 (27%) award graduate degrees, with 120 (16%) awarding PhDs.
Across all of these institutions, there are around 8,620 full- and part-time philosophy faculty members. Fewer than half teach in departments with graduate students:
US philosophy faculty data from “Philosophy Departments Today” by Humanities Indicators
Given these numbers, it may be that the conventional answers to the questions at the start of this post provide a somewhat biased picture of the profession of philosophy.
So I thought it would be a good idea to open up a space for people to identify particular distortions or misconceptions about various aspects of professional philosophy that may have arisen from overgeneralizing from a nonrepresentative sample of professional philosophy positions.
There seems to be an idea (how widespread I do not know) that that in order to get ahead young philosophers should concentrate ferociously on their AOS and eschew any forays into other areas of philosophy. There was even a recent thread on Philosopher’s Cocoon in which a young philosopher worried that having a non-AOS publication might actually be *bad* for them on the job market since it might violate a supposed norm against non-AOS publications: https://philosopherscocoon.com/2025/10/01/norms-for-publishing-outside-of-ones-aos-especially-for-grad-students/. I suppose that this kind of ferocious concentration on your AOS might work as a short-term strategy for maximising paper output, but in my view it is likely in the long term to make you a subpar researcher. But setting that aside, I argued, on that thread, that a narrow concentration on your AOS is likely to make you less marketable as an undergraduate teacher, especially in small-to-medium departments where breadth and versatility are at a premium. My own department is just the kind small-to-medium outfit that I had in mind (though perhaps importantly, NOT in the US) with eight permanent faculty, two of us at 0.5 FTE, which brings us in at a full-time equivalent of 7 staff. In order to cover the ground we have to be versatile: the logician teaches existentialism, the Spinoza scholar the Philosophy of Science and aesthetics, the Philosopher of Time teaches ethics and critical thinking, the expert of Kant’s politics teaches epistemology, political economy and environmental ethics, one of the meta-ethicists (that’s me) teaches (or has taught) political economy, social epistemology, the philosophy of math and the philosophy of literature. I suspect that this sort of thing is fairly common in small-to-medium departments, which means that in such departments, evidence of breadth, such as a non-AOS paper is likely to be a plus.
The figures here reinforce my line of argument. It seems that more than half of US philosophers work in departments with an average of 8.3 members and a median of 6. In these departments teaching versatility is likely to be desirable, as is evidence thereof such as non-AOS publications. However, wrt *this* issue it is SIZE that matters rather whether or not the institution has a research orientation. At my institution we are supposed to spend 40% of our time on research and we have a small cohort of post-graduate students. Nevertheless, a large slab of our bread and butter consists undergraduate teaching and in order to provide a reasonable smorgasbord of courses for our students we have to be versatile. The same will be true, not only in teaching-focused programs, but also in other small-to-medium *research-focused* departments. Given that there are rather a lot of small-to-medium departments in the US, if the big Leiterific departments are indeed urging they charges to focus exclusively on their AOS, they are probably giving them bad advice.
It might be interesting to point out here that in Europe most universities would qualify as R1. Thereby I am not making any claim about the quality of their research, just about the fact that most European universities would have significant focus on research, would train PhDs, and so on. So I wonder how much this is an American phenomenon – ‘wonder’ here is meant to signal a question, not criticism.
Also in Australasia. All or most technically R1.
More fundamental than many of these distinctions is that between the philosopher who is paid and the philosopher who is not. A powerful explanation indicating how the distinctions favor certain sorts of institutions and certain sorts of work done in them as philosophical, as more philosophical, etc., can then be given in terms of how at these institutions the work may be done in a style that pretends getting paid has nothing to do with the work..At institutions less like these the philosophers still like to pretend but they more readily admit to working for pay. Large portions of this enterprise, across the institutions, rely on finding or creating more philosophers to work for less pay, or none at all. A time honored strategy for doing so is to persuade them that they’re not philosophers yet, but that they can become philosophers if they stop wanting to be paid.
This is a really good conversation to have. I teach at a non-R1 in the US. We have no graduate program. We have 6 tenure-track faculty, two full-time non-tenure-track, and one part-time NTT. And even if this is only a US phenomenon, this conversation will likely generate some advice to people on the job market, which might be valuable to anyone from a European university who is applying for jobs in the US (like I did). I’ll make three comments.
First, I want to echo Charles’ point about non-AOS publications. The idea that young scholars should avoid publishing papers outside of their AOS is new to me. Is that what it takes to get a job in an R1? I don’t know, but what I can tell you is that having publications in one narrow AOS doesn’t necessarily help you get a job at a non-R1. Having AOS publications is of course impressive and it is something that we value highly, but it is not the only thing that we value. Having all your publications in your AOS is great if we are solely hiring for that AOS. But we almost never hire anyone to just teach one course or one topic. As Charles points out, we need to hire people that can teach a breadth of topics. We typically prefer to hire people who can teach more than one thing, and this is true no matter how prestigious a candidate’s publications might be. It often happens for us that the candidate who gets the job is the one who has broader interests, which is shown by their non-AOS publications.
A second related point is that it is often better for us to hire candidates who specialize in “non-central” areas of philosophy. In my experience, a person with an AOS in a non-central area will typically also have some competence in more central areas, but the reverse is not necessarily true. For instance, a person with an AOS in medical ethics can likely teach a general ethical theory course, but a person with an AOS in ethics may not be able to teach a course in medical ethics (at least, not readily). I know that there are exceptions and that this is a bold generalization. But as a general point, it typically serves us better to hire people with an AOS outside of the mainstream. I mention this for two reasons. First, because it relates to the previous point above. If you are a job candidate with an AOS outside of the mainstream, you should be prepared to apply for jobs at non-R1s. And that means that you should be prepared to sell yourself as having a breadth of teaching competencies. And second, it also concerns the intellectual community that you would find at a non-R1. You won’t find so many people who are hyper-specialists. You will find people who are interested in making broader connections across areas.
The last thing I will mention concerns the what-is-it-like-to-teach question. In discussions of teaching load, I think we often overlook the importance of having graduate students acting as teaching assistants. We have no graduate program, so we have no teaching assistants. So, not only are we teaching more courses — some people at my institution teach 3/3 and some teach 4/4 — but I can’t hand off the grading to a teaching assistant. I’m sure that some departments at non-R1s have work-arounds for this. My department does not. What is it like to teach at a non-R1? It is a lot.
But your AOS is precisely what you publish. So if you publish on X, X becomes your AOS? No?
I work at a non-R1 school. We have no philosophy department, and do not have a philosophy major, despite efforts to convince administrators that this would be desirable. The philosophy crew consists of myself and two teaching professors (aka, lecturers). Of course, we have no grad students in philosophy (or indeed in any of the humanities), and no colloquia. I teach 3/3 and my two colleagues teach 4/4. All this to say that many of the concerns voiced by philosophers in fancy universities have no echo in my working experience.
I teach at an R1 with a graduate program, in a teaching role. No research support (or expectations). It’s worth pointing out that my department currently has 23 people in faculty positions, and 11 of those are in teaching roles like mine. So even the “conventional answers” to these questions that derive from the experience of people at R1s may not apply to the experience of the majority of people working in philosophy at those very institutions.
I work at a non-R1 public university, and our department of philosophy only have undergraduate students. Other than the obvious higher teaching load others have said, we also have high service load. Since our department is small, everyone is literally on every departmental committee–curriculum, climate, learning outcome assessment, adjust hiring, part-time people’s evaluation, full-time people’s promotion and/or reappointment, etc. All of us are on some university-wide committees too. Also, when I was in graduate school, my department has academic advisors helping undergraduate students. My current school does not have those roles. So, while we do not have graduate students, we need to be undergraduate student advisors, helping them sort our their academic plans/schedules, answering questions, reaching out to them when they do not attend classes regularly (as reported by other instructors)…
Also, since we are not research-oriented, we do not receive research support. I am lucky that my department has some endowed money to support 1-2 conference travels per year. But we do not have any research funding for buying books, electronic devices, furniture, etc.
I realize the survey is only taking into account departments that issue BA degrees or higher, but the R1 skew becomes even more apparent when you look at philosophy at the community college level (which is still “higher education.”) At my institution (6 full-time philosophers), 5/5 teaching load is standard, substantial service and shared governance expectations, no research expectations at all (though some of us do it for love of the game.)
This tends to make folks at R1s or who aspire to R1s a little queasy. But it can be a very good gig! (I will also admit to getting a bit queasy when I hear what life is like at R1s and R1-adjacents. Different strokes, different folks. But we’re all philosophers!)
This post and the comments from Charles and Christopher remind me of an old Leiter post: https://leiterreports.com/2024/10/09/three-models-of-a-phd-program-faculty-princeton-mit-pittburgh/
There seems to be a division about specialization, research and teaching expectations between those who work on contemporary philosophy using contemporary anglophone methods, and those who work in various traditions and/or historical eras. Of course, this depends on your institution/department’s focus–some institutions do not fall under any of Leiter’s models, and many do have historical specialties allowing for a non-contemporary core/track in a department. But it generally seems the case for all of the models Leiter gives and at many of the philosophy departments he names. If someone works on contemporary issues in the contemporary anglophone way, they generally are allowed to specialize more narrowly and to research and teach more within their specialty. They are also, generally, more in the “core” of the department. On the other hand, if someone works more in historical eras/traditions, they generally have broader teaching duties and research. They also, generally, seem more peripheral to the philosophy department, and many of them are members of other departments (for some, their primary appointment is in another department).
That at least seems the case. I’d wonder if others agree with that distinction holding at research-focused institutions.
Forgive me ‘Applying to PhD’, but I think you’ are completely wrong about this. Over-specialisation is not a vice characteristic of philosophers who use ‘contemporary anglophone methods’ (by which I presume you mean philosophers in the broadly analytic tradition) nor is it a vice that is characteristic of philosophers who, unlike the historically minded colleagues, are not particularly interested in the history of the subject. Some of the brightest stars of Analytic philosophy have been notable for the breadth of their interests. Witness Putnam with publications (often seminal ones) on logic, the philosophy logic, the philosophy of language, metaphysics, the philosophy of mathematics, ethics, meta-ethics, the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of science, the philosophy of literature, economics, Jewish philosophy, pragmatism and Wittgenstein. Furthermore, some of those analytic stars have been notably wide-ranging, despite a *relative* lack of interest in the history of the subject (which was not true of Putnam). Witness David Lewis, with publications on logic, convention, the philosophy of language, moral psychology, political philosophy, metaphysics, the philosophy of mind, social philosophy, political philosophy meta-ethics, the philosophy of time, the philosophy of religion and the philosophy of mathematics. [The word *relative* is doing a bit of work here as David did have a couple of historical papers, but then he had papers on just about everything.] Indeed, I can think of two big-name philosophers with over a thousand citations apiece who have been known to make extremely disparaging remarks about the history of philosophy (which one of them describes as ‘text-fondling’) but who have nonetheless managed to write about the following subjects: the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of biology (including the the evolution of human intelligence), ethics, politics and the philosophy of religion, perception, the philosophy of logic (conditionals), epistemology, meta-ethics, metaphysics, philosophical method, social theory and the philosophy of language. And although the cases I have mentioned are perhaps bit extreme, this sort of thing is relatively common. 65% of my departmental colleagues have published outside their original areas of specialisation, sometimes extensively. I myself have managed to develop three areas of specialisation beside the one I started out with, as well as side-hustle papers on four or five other topics.
So the problem is not that either analytic philosophy or history-indifferent philosophy makes for narrowness. The problem, if there is one, is that *young * philosophers *nowadays* (*unlike* their seniors) are encouraged and/or incentivised to concentrate on their areas of specialisation to the exclusion of anything else. I think that this will have an adverse effect on their research, and I say this as a straight-down-the-line, fully-paid-up, card-carrying member of the analytic philosophy club; many of whose members (including myself) are not only wide ranging *within* philosophy but are notable for their interdisciplinary interests. Since the problem, if it exists, is a RECENT one. It is therefore NOT due to the broader culture of analytic philosophy (whether or not it is informed by history) which has been going on for DECADES and has moved itself to be quite compatible with breadth. It is probably due a) to bad advice and b) to the oversupply of PhD’s which incentivises young philosophers to push out publications at a rate of knots in a desperate attempt to get a proper job.
I have heard the same advice given to young scholars in other disciplines (e.g., psychology): That they should focus intensely on the specific area in which they’ve specialized, and even quite narrowly within that area. That publications “all over the map” could be perceived negatively when it comes to job prospects, and so on.
So I think you may be right, although the only point I’d then add is that this seems to be a more academia-wide problem, underpinned in part, perhaps, by the nature of the academic job market at present. I also think you’re right that it will hinder them in their research, but also, I think it will hinder research period.
Thanks Felix, and apologies again for coming down on ‘Applying to PhD’ like a ton of bricks, but I get fed up with this analytic-philosophy-is-narrow bullshit, which seems to me almost the reverse of the truth. The history-of-philosophy-is-a-must bullshit isn’t quite as bad (since some of us find the history of philosophy to be both useful and interesting), but it is obvious that you can be a top-notch *and wide-ranging* philosopher whilst taking little or no interest in the history of the subject. (And I say this as somebody with papers either *about* or *drawing on* on Hume, Nietzsche, Martin Luther, Plato, Russell, Cicero, Hobbes, Marx, Adam Smith, Godwin, and Richard Price.) Apparently Gilbert Harman had a ‘Just say “no” to the History of Philosophy’ sign on his door. This did not stop him working ‘in virtually every area of systematic philosophy—philosophy of language and linguistics, epistemology, philosophy of mind and cognitive science, and moral philosophy—[making] major contributions in each of these areas’ (Adapted from his Obit page on Daily Nous.)
A couple more points.
1) When researching my post (I like to check my facts) I took the trouble to sample the webpages of the top professors at some of the leading Leiterific Schools. Most of them list more one than one speciality, some of them several. Even when people list just one AOS the AOS itself is often rather broad. For instance, Sharon Street of NYU bills herself simply as an ethicist, but since her project consists in bringing evolutionary biology to bear on meta-ethics and normative ethics, she is anything but narrow. So if – perhaps a big ‘if’ – the top professors are urging their charges to stick to a single AOS, this is a case of ‘Do as I say’ not ‘Do as I do’.
2) On a different thread, several of us have suggested that a good way to boost or maintain student numbers is to develop interdisciplinary majors, such as PPE. This involves talking productively to economists and political scientists. You are not likely to be much use at this, if you are so hyper-specialised that you can’t even talk to your fellow-philosophers. When it comes to teaching undergraduate classes in small-to-medium departments, breadth and versatility are at a premium. So too when it comes to developing interdisciplinary programs.
I agree with most of what you said, because I myself hold that analytic philosophy is not a narrow field/tradition. Nor did I ever suggest in my own post that philosophers of the analytic tradition are overspecialized as a characteristic vice of their work (they are not, and many philosophers of other schools/methods are themselves susceptible to overspecialization). I am grateful for the response, though I will say that I asserted very little of what you imputed of me as regards many of these points. My point as stated was itself more narrowly construed, and it was precisely because I did not wish to express views like the ones you oppose (which I also oppose on many similar grounds). I apologize if that failed to come across.
Dear Applying to PhD,
Sorry If misunderstood you. Perhaps I should have read your post more carefully. I am afraid I must defer continuing this conversation for the moment as I have deadlines to meet. The key point I think is that this stick-to-your-AOS doctrine is *new*, perhaps not confined to philosophy, and has to be explained by *recent* developments. So it does not have much to do with the background philosophical culture. It is very much at odds with the ethos that prevailed when I was a young philosopher. It would be nice to have an explanation from those pushing this line as to why they are doing it. Also testimony from those on which it has been pushed.
Okay, now for a more careful (and I hope charitable) response to Applying to PhD. In the Leiter post to which you refer, BL distinguishes between three models for American graduate schools: the Princeton model, the MIT model (best exemplified by Rutgers) and the Pittsburgh model. At Princeton it is mostly recent and contemporary philosophy but with substantial slabs of the history of philosophy, though these slabs are not really integrated with the recent and contemporary material. At MIT/Rutgers it is mostly recent & contemporary stuff with a very light smattering of the history of philosophy. At Pittsburgh it’s a mix of contemporary and historical material with a serious attempt to integrate the two. (This is the model that Leiter prefers, except when it leads to construing Hegel as an inferentialist which is clearly an attempt to bring him into disrepute.) Leiter suggests that the MIT model is becoming more prevalent, perhaps because of the placement successes of the Rutgers department.
So much for background, now for what I take to be your argument. You say that ‘it generally seems the case for all of the models Leiter gives and at many of the philosophy departments he names, [that if] someone works on contemporary issues in the contemporary anglophone way, they generally are allowed to specialise more narrowly and to research and teach more within their specialty.’ The implication seems be that if they were encouraged do more history of philosophy they would be less prone to over-specialisation.
Here is why I don’t buy it.
1) It is not clear that any of these systems actually *do* lead to a high degree of specialisation. After all, there are many different strands in recent and contemporary philosophy, and there is no particular reason to suppose that a graduate of these programs could not take an interest in more than one. A specialist in cognitive science (for instance) might well acquire an interest in contemporary meta-ethics, the metaphysics of modality or the application of game theory to current affairs.
2) There are lots of philosophers whose doctorates were far more specialised than those of a US PhD, who have nonetheless published outside their original areas of specialisation. British, European and Australasian doctorates are usually thesis-only and tend to be focused on a single subject, but that has not stopped many of us from publishing on other topics. My doctorate was on meta-ethics, I had no formal classes on anything else while iI was doing it, but I have published, inter alia, on the analytic/synthetic distinction (my first paper), truthmaker theory, the philosophy of maths, and conspiracy theories. And I am very far from being not alone. I won’t bore you with examples, but there are plenty I could name who are likewise notable for their off-piste adventures.
3) US-style doctorates with a predominately contemporary focus have been going for quite a while now, but the AOS-fixation appears to be something new.
4) If Felix is to be believed, this seems to be an academia-wide problem in which case it is unlikely to be due to the contemporary focus of some philosophy schools.
So other reasons need be sought this pernicious trend, if it is indeed as widespread as some people take it to be.