Toby Handfield mused on a philosopher requesting advice about an upcoming talk:
I don’t know any of the existing literature for this talk, said the visitor, without a hint of embarrassment.
My colleagues earnestly continued to offer advice, not batting an eyelid at this remarkable statement.
This is the wrong response. The visitor had just admitted that he is not competent to give an academic presentation on this topic. He should decline the invitation to speak.
Handfield suggests this reveals a tendency to make philosophy:
something like an elaborate parlour game – in the seminar room we are primarily witnessing a demonstration of cleverness and ingenuity, rather than participating in an ongoing collective enterprise of accumulating knowledge
~ * ~
A thought:One of my Ph.D. advisors frequently incorporated technical material outside of philosophy, as one does in Philosophy of Science. He said that professional philosophers were a difficult audience because they assumed they should be able to absorb and understand any necessary outside material in the course of the seminar. Thought: such folks would likely also feel qualified to present with little preparation. Ego is part of this, but maybe hereditary norms are another.
Famously, some people can do this, at least sometimes. Von Neuman & Feynman spring to mind – the “Feynman Lectures on Computation” for example.[1] I shouldn’t be surprised to hear it of, say, David Lewis. I’ve known a handful who seem close.
If Popper was right that much of philosophy is copying what famous philosophers do, I wonder if the parlour game comes from acting like the top (past) players in the field, when most of us are not. (Or pushing our luck, if we are. )
[1] With Feynman we always have to wonder how much preparation is hidden as part of the trick, but it remains he was highly versatile and quick to absorb new material.