Agree totally re: Parfit's two books, and this is a really interesting explanation. A couple of thoughts:
1) In order for crowds to meaningfully exercise their wisdom, there has to be a good mechanism for successfully translating this wisdom into action; markets are such a mechanism, so is voting. Filtering this wisdom through the pen of a single author, especially one in Parfit's position (he knew his work would pass peer review, he saw himself as in a race against time to produce a magnum opus that would surpass R+P) seems like a much worse mechanism. To be frank, I think that in Parfit's case, responding to more superficial, sympathetic, "insider" criticism gave him a kind of "cover" that enabled him to avoid really taking in deep reservations about the work without seeming obviously unduly rigid.
2) I don't know if the wisdom of crowd hypothesis applies when it comes to explanations of the sort that major works of philosophy are, or should be, in the business of offering. Lots of peer input can save you from errors, but it's also a source of disunity, and explanation seems to be about unity -- assimilating the unfamiliar to the familiar.
Two hypotheses, very theoretical. I haven't read On What Matters.
1. Maybe the reason it probably won't make a lasting splash is that it's 1,500 pages? Like, imagine an argument that, somehow, definitively proves controversial and substantive philosophical conclusion, C. However, imagine this argument has 40,000 steps. It's not going to convince anyone, save for ChatGPT.
2. Maybe the reason is that the project is just misconceived? Parfit had this notion that secular ethics had just started, and he seemed to think (didn't he?) that we could actually reach consensus on matters once religion had fully receded. I think that second conviction (I'm not sure he held it, but I think he did) may have motivated his attempt to dot every i, but it probably--hell, I'll say definitely--underestimates the role that sentiment plays in our philosophical conclusions.
Aside from the alethic/aesthetic distinction you make, there is also the consideration that provocative new ideas may be hard to defend in their original form, but after going through committee that actual important new insight that wasn’t fully understood yet by the author has been removed.
I love this post so much. Thank you! You've definitely achieved interestingness!
I have a lot of stories about the journal review process that are relevant here. But one might build on your point and take it to a new area. Last year, I refereed a submission for a major journal. The article engaged with some empirical literature that has been unnoticed by philosophers and then showed why it should change how we think about the ethics of war. It was a straightforward, elegant argument with a profound conclusion. I recommended publication. The editor informed me that the other referee was opposed to publication because the article was not sophisticated enough. It was clear that this referee did not find fault with the article's argument at all. Instead, they saw the simplicity of the article as a weakness. Apparently, they believe a good philosophy article should be complicated. It makes me wonder if we've developed a kind of aesthetic of alethic work. Aesthetically, philosophy should be impenetrable, bewildering, and abstract. Maybe what you're calling on us to do is rethink the aesthetics we've been trained in.
"If I had to characterize 1 [Being Basic/Uninteresting], I’d say it is an irreducibly aesthetic value". I disagree with this bit.
Being interesting is relative to people's minds, sure, but what makes a philosophical essay interesting to people *often* is the fact that they find it to have a decent probability of making significant progress on the essay's topic. That doesn't seem to me to be "irreducibly aesthetic" at all. No?
Thank you so much Parker. No one usually comments about the quality of our writing in philosophy, they just want to fight us on our ideas, so it’s great to hear compliments!
I did my initial graduate work in systematic theology. The program ended up being taught half by theologians who engage with continental philosophy and half by analytic theologians. Even the analytic theologians knew puns were king and you ought to write well. Once I finished up and started my philosophy grad work, I started getting slammed for puns, wordplay, rhymes, and other literary devices I worked so hard to cultivate. I was often told to cut my favorite parts of essays before submitting to journals and conferences so this topic is very near and dear to my heart--my profs and the other phil profs I knew who were helping me and telling me to cut were right, but I'm mad they were right because the writing was diminished. Not that I know the right recipe or anything, but I am working backwards now to try and become a better writer even while becoming a better thinker. Your piece here is a big encouragement.
You are right on the money. I wrote a rant on this very topic: https://hilariusbookbinder.substack.com/p/why-must-philosophy-writing-be-so. Quasi-relatedly, did you know Parfit? Here’s an anecdote you might find amusing. When I was a grad student, Parfit came to give a talk. This was just a few years after R&P came out. He had a massive shock of white hair and seemed like he just drank an entire pot of extra-caffeinated coffee. Several of us were were sitting with Parfit in the dept lounge and one of my fellow grad students asked him if he was a big Star Trek fan (for obvious reasons). Parfit said he had never seen it.
I think journal editors can alleviate this situation. They should recognize more often when a referee is drowning the author in nitpicks and unilluminating objections, and should communicate to the author the crucial directions to revise and allow them to ignore the more pedantic issues.
Right now, I get the sense that editors at most major philosophy journals largely defer to referees and only publish if all the referees give enthusiastic yeses. But I think we would all be better served if editors exercised their discernment and followed their vision.
Could this sort of issue could be solved by more liberal use of appendices or endnotes? Make the main body aesthetically pleasing; flesh out the nitty gritty elsewhere.
What are some other examples of analytic philosophy that are aesthetically great? For me: On the Plurality of Worlds, David Lewis's other papers, and Davidson's papers. And I've just started reading it, so I can't offer a final judgment, but I think The Grasshopper by Bernard Suits may fall into this category.
In mid-twentieth-century analytic philosophy, John Wisdom. O. K. Bouwsma. Some of Richard Wollheim. Some of Stuart Hampshire. (Only to read them in 2025, you have to be aware first that they ever existed.)
Agree totally re: Parfit's two books, and this is a really interesting explanation. A couple of thoughts:
1) In order for crowds to meaningfully exercise their wisdom, there has to be a good mechanism for successfully translating this wisdom into action; markets are such a mechanism, so is voting. Filtering this wisdom through the pen of a single author, especially one in Parfit's position (he knew his work would pass peer review, he saw himself as in a race against time to produce a magnum opus that would surpass R+P) seems like a much worse mechanism. To be frank, I think that in Parfit's case, responding to more superficial, sympathetic, "insider" criticism gave him a kind of "cover" that enabled him to avoid really taking in deep reservations about the work without seeming obviously unduly rigid.
2) I don't know if the wisdom of crowd hypothesis applies when it comes to explanations of the sort that major works of philosophy are, or should be, in the business of offering. Lots of peer input can save you from errors, but it's also a source of disunity, and explanation seems to be about unity -- assimilating the unfamiliar to the familiar.
Great point regarding 2. The relationship between good explanation and truth is a difficult one that’s long been puzzling to philosophers of science.
Two hypotheses, very theoretical. I haven't read On What Matters.
1. Maybe the reason it probably won't make a lasting splash is that it's 1,500 pages? Like, imagine an argument that, somehow, definitively proves controversial and substantive philosophical conclusion, C. However, imagine this argument has 40,000 steps. It's not going to convince anyone, save for ChatGPT.
2. Maybe the reason is that the project is just misconceived? Parfit had this notion that secular ethics had just started, and he seemed to think (didn't he?) that we could actually reach consensus on matters once religion had fully receded. I think that second conviction (I'm not sure he held it, but I think he did) may have motivated his attempt to dot every i, but it probably--hell, I'll say definitely--underestimates the role that sentiment plays in our philosophical conclusions.
Aside from the alethic/aesthetic distinction you make, there is also the consideration that provocative new ideas may be hard to defend in their original form, but after going through committee that actual important new insight that wasn’t fully understood yet by the author has been removed.
I love this post so much. Thank you! You've definitely achieved interestingness!
I have a lot of stories about the journal review process that are relevant here. But one might build on your point and take it to a new area. Last year, I refereed a submission for a major journal. The article engaged with some empirical literature that has been unnoticed by philosophers and then showed why it should change how we think about the ethics of war. It was a straightforward, elegant argument with a profound conclusion. I recommended publication. The editor informed me that the other referee was opposed to publication because the article was not sophisticated enough. It was clear that this referee did not find fault with the article's argument at all. Instead, they saw the simplicity of the article as a weakness. Apparently, they believe a good philosophy article should be complicated. It makes me wonder if we've developed a kind of aesthetic of alethic work. Aesthetically, philosophy should be impenetrable, bewildering, and abstract. Maybe what you're calling on us to do is rethink the aesthetics we've been trained in.
What a toxic aesthetic! But 100% people have it.
Great article.
This piece spurred my thinking, like a lot. I was gonna write a long comment, but it was so looooong I turned it into an independent piece. https://outpacingzeno.substack.com/p/is-the-aim-of-philosophy-truth-or
[I'm not a trained philosopher, so don't necessarily have super-high expectations for it, but I still think it's decent enough lol]
Awesome essay John, thanks so much for engaging!
"If I had to characterize 1 [Being Basic/Uninteresting], I’d say it is an irreducibly aesthetic value". I disagree with this bit.
Being interesting is relative to people's minds, sure, but what makes a philosophical essay interesting to people *often* is the fact that they find it to have a decent probability of making significant progress on the essay's topic. That doesn't seem to me to be "irreducibly aesthetic" at all. No?
We have very different orientations toward philosophy Bryan.
This isn't about us though, right? It's an empirical claim about what it means when philosophers find an essay to be "interesting", no?
Yes, worth surveying, but also worth determining whether the sense of “progress” is alethic.
Barry, this really is a wonderful piece. Thanks for writing it. I'll need to come back and read it a few times. Man, thank you!
Thank you so much Parker. No one usually comments about the quality of our writing in philosophy, they just want to fight us on our ideas, so it’s great to hear compliments!
I did my initial graduate work in systematic theology. The program ended up being taught half by theologians who engage with continental philosophy and half by analytic theologians. Even the analytic theologians knew puns were king and you ought to write well. Once I finished up and started my philosophy grad work, I started getting slammed for puns, wordplay, rhymes, and other literary devices I worked so hard to cultivate. I was often told to cut my favorite parts of essays before submitting to journals and conferences so this topic is very near and dear to my heart--my profs and the other phil profs I knew who were helping me and telling me to cut were right, but I'm mad they were right because the writing was diminished. Not that I know the right recipe or anything, but I am working backwards now to try and become a better writer even while becoming a better thinker. Your piece here is a big encouragement.
You are right on the money. I wrote a rant on this very topic: https://hilariusbookbinder.substack.com/p/why-must-philosophy-writing-be-so. Quasi-relatedly, did you know Parfit? Here’s an anecdote you might find amusing. When I was a grad student, Parfit came to give a talk. This was just a few years after R&P came out. He had a massive shock of white hair and seemed like he just drank an entire pot of extra-caffeinated coffee. Several of us were were sitting with Parfit in the dept lounge and one of my fellow grad students asked him if he was a big Star Trek fan (for obvious reasons). Parfit said he had never seen it.
I doubt he ever watched any television!
I think journal editors can alleviate this situation. They should recognize more often when a referee is drowning the author in nitpicks and unilluminating objections, and should communicate to the author the crucial directions to revise and allow them to ignore the more pedantic issues.
Right now, I get the sense that editors at most major philosophy journals largely defer to referees and only publish if all the referees give enthusiastic yeses. But I think we would all be better served if editors exercised their discernment and followed their vision.
Could this sort of issue could be solved by more liberal use of appendices or endnotes? Make the main body aesthetically pleasing; flesh out the nitty gritty elsewhere.
What are some other examples of analytic philosophy that are aesthetically great? For me: On the Plurality of Worlds, David Lewis's other papers, and Davidson's papers. And I've just started reading it, so I can't offer a final judgment, but I think The Grasshopper by Bernard Suits may fall into this category.
Suits is amazing. Many people like Tom Nagel.
Also, Naming and Necessity.
In mid-twentieth-century analytic philosophy, John Wisdom. O. K. Bouwsma. Some of Richard Wollheim. Some of Stuart Hampshire. (Only to read them in 2025, you have to be aware first that they ever existed.)
Their vision is to get to “no” more efficiently, so as to keep going thru more papers.
There are ethical universals to the extent we share priorities. Here are the first four and their implications: https://kaiserbasileus.substack.com/p/the-mandate-of-libertarian-fascist