現在的哲學學術圈都是些什麼人？一羣秘密失敗者_風聞

【原作者 Rachel Anne Williams WUSTL（聖路易斯華盛頓大學）哲學博士】

Have you ever spent two years pouring your heart and soul into a project that only three people will ever see? In academia, we call that your “dissertation.”Philosophers spend a lot of time writing things and trying to get them published in journals nobody reads—not even other philosophers—because in order to get a job, you need to have these papers and journals on your C.V.

你是否曾經花了兩年時間全心全意地投入到一個只有三個人能看到的項目中？在學術界，我們稱之為"論文"。哲學家花了很多時間寫東西，試圖把它們發表在沒人讀的期刊上——甚至其他哲學家也不讀——因為為了找到工作，你需要把這些論文和期刊放在簡歷上。

Those two years you spent every day working on that paper—all that effort reduced to a single line on a C.V., just to ever-so-slightly improve your odds of getting a good job as you compete against people who also have those lines on their C.V.

那兩年你每天都在寫論文ーー所有這些努力都變成了簡歷上的一行字，只是為了稍微提高你找到一份好工作的幾率，因為你要與那些在 C.V.也有這些字樣的人競爭。

Nobody reads this stuff because most of the journals are behind paywalls so expensive that only large libraries at academic institutions can afford to access them (and even then, many university libraries are cutting some journals off for budget reasons). Even within the halls of academia, where people do have access, there are simply so many papers published every year, even within niche fields, that nobody has time to read anywhere close to all the papers/books being published, especially considering the amount of reading it takes just to teach classes, etc.

沒有人會閲讀這些東西，因為大多數期刊的付費牆是如此昂貴，以至於只有學術機構的大型圖書館才負擔得起訪問它們(即便如此，許多大學圖書館還是出於預算原因削減了一些期刊)。即使在人們可以訪問的學術大廳裏，每年發表的論文數量也是如此之多，即使是在小眾領域，沒有人有時間在任何地方閲讀接近正在發表的所有論文/書籍，尤其是考慮到僅僅教授課程就需要閲讀的數量，等等。

Although there is already a growing mountain of philosophical research that’s impossible to keep up with, it’s common for journal referees to reject your paper because you didn’t engage with [X] paper/book, where often [X] is either written by the referee themselves or someone they’re chummy with.

儘管現在已經有越來越多的哲學研究無法跟上時代的步伐，但是期刊審稿人拒絕你的論文是很常見的，因為你沒有參與到[x]論文/書中，通常[x]要麼是由裁判自己寫的，要麼是和他們關係密切的人寫的。

As an end-result, academic papers usually end up popularity contests, a game of who’s-who where the goal is to develop incestuous citation networks so that your impact factor will look better for hiring and/or tenure committees. Analysis of these citation networks in “top” journals reveals they mostly revolve around a small group of influential people (btw, they’re like 97% white men if you were wondering).

作為最終結果，學術論文通常以人氣競賽告終，這是一個誰是誰的遊戲，其目的是發展亂倫的引用網絡，以便你的影響因子看起來更適合聘用和/或終身教職委員會。對這些引用網絡在"頂級"期刊上的分析表明，它們大多圍繞着一小羣有影響力的人(順便説一句，如果你想知道的話，他們大概有97%是白人)。

And speaking of men, philosophy is absolutely notorious for not being a great place in academia for women, especially grad students. Recent high profile cases of Big Shot Male Philosophers losing their jobs because of women coming forward and speaking out about sexual harassment indicate that sexism is alive and well in academia.

説到男人，哲學絕對是臭名昭著的，因為它在女性學術界不是一個好地方，尤其是研究生。最近一些備受矚目的男性哲學家因為女性站出來談論性騷擾而丟掉工作的案例表明，性別歧視在學術界依然存在。

Philosophers use “rigor” to justify badwriting.

哲學家們用"嚴謹"來為糟糕的寫作辯護。

Even if academic philosophy were publicly accessible, I doubt the public would be interested in reading any of it. Philosophers often go to great lengths to make their papers as boring and difficult to read as possible. This is done in order to seem “rigorous” and “technical,” but most of the time that “rigor” does nothing but make it harder for non-philosophers to understand.

即使學院哲學可以公開獲取，我懷疑公眾也不會對其中的任何一本感興趣。哲學家們常常不遺餘力地使他們的論文儘可能地枯燥和難以閲讀。這樣做是為了顯得"嚴謹"和"技術性"，但大多數時候,“嚴謹"只會讓非哲學家更難理解。

But I think the ultimate sin is that academic philosophy is filled with people—mostly men—who spend a lot of time talking about things that are almost entirely abstracted from the pragmatic realities of human existence.And not in a good way.

但我認為學院哲學充滿了秘密失敗者——大部分是男人——他們花費大量時間談論幾乎完全脱離人類存在的實用主義現實的事物。而且不是好的方面。

Contemporary academic philosophy is embarrassing.

當代學院哲學是令人尷尬的。

I will never forget sitting in our auditorium listening to a long talk about meta-ethics when, right outside the doors of the university, Black Lives Matter activists were marching (this was in St. Louis at the time of Ferguson).

我永遠不會忘記，當我們坐在禮堂裏，聽着關於元倫理學的長篇大論時，就在大學的門外,“黑人的生命很重要”(Black Lives Matter)活動分子正在遊行(這是弗格森時期的聖路易斯)。

I could hear them chanting; the stark contrast between the esoteric subtleties of meta-ethics vs. the concrete realities of what would be considered “applied ethics”—a term usually uttered with slight contempt—made me deeply uncomfortable.

我能聽到他們在吟唱：元倫理學深奧的微妙之處與被認為是"應用倫理學"的具體現實之間的鮮明對比——這個詞通常帶有輕微的蔑視——讓我深感不安。

How could I justify this exuberance of abstraction when there were so many real-world problems that needed the minds of intelligent people? I know, I know: the value of pure research, etc., etc., But lemme just give you a flavor of what contemporary “pure research” in philosophy looks like. I went to philpapers.org → topic: metaphysics → top trending article. The abstract of that paper reads as follows:

當現實世界中有如此多的問題需要聰明人的思考時，我怎麼能夠證明這種抽象的繁榮是正確的呢？我知道，我知道:純粹研究的價值，等等。但是讓我給你們一個當代哲學"純粹研究"看起來是什麼樣子的味道。我去了philpapers.org→話題:形而上學→熱門話題。該文件摘要如下:

“I argue that if David Lewis’ modal realism is true, modal realists from different possible worlds can fall in love with each other. I offer a method for uniquely picking out possible people who are in love with us and not with our counterparts. Impossible lovers and trans-world love letters are considered. Anticipating objections, I argue that we can stand in the right kinds of relations to merely possible people to be in love with them and that ending a trans-world relationship to start a relationship with an actual person isn’t cruel to one’s otherworldly lover.”

“我認為，如果大衞·劉易斯的模態現實主義是真實的，來自不同可能世界的模態現實主義者可以彼此相愛。我提供了一個獨特的方法來挑選出那些可能愛上我們的人，而不是我們的對手。不可能的愛人和跨世界的情書也被認為是。我預料到會有反對意見，因此我認為，我們可以站在正確的立場上，與那些僅僅可能愛上他們的人建立關係，而結束一段跨世界的關係，與一個真實的人開始一段關係，對另一個世界的愛人來説並不是殘酷的。”

I don’t mean to pick on this particular paper, or the author—who I happen to know is a very smart and nice individual—merely to give a flavor of what I mean when I say contemporary academic philosophy is almost wholly divorced from the messy world we live in.

我無意挑剔這篇論文，也無意挑剔這位作者——我碰巧知道他是一個非常聰明和善良的人——僅僅是為了讓讀者明白我所説的當代學院哲學幾乎完全脱離了我們生活的混亂世界。

Which is not necessarily a bad thing—I enjoy thinking about philosophical questions and find many of them interesting. But I would often feel uncomfortable listening to philosophers give talks about their research because I had this gut feeling we were all wasting our time arguing about things we would continue to argue about for decades to come (that’s what we call a “research project”).

這未必是一件壞事——我喜歡思考哲學問題，並發現其中許多問題很有趣。但是，當我聽到哲學家們談論他們的研究時，我經常會感到不舒服，因為我有一種直覺，我們都在浪費時間爭論那些我們將在未來幾十年裏繼續爭論的問題(這就是我們所説的"研究項目”)。

Before anyone jumps down my throat, let me say that I think philosophy and even academic philosophy does a noble service to the world. Teaching young people how to think critically and analyze the world around them carefully and reasonably is a fantastic thing.

在有人強烈反對我之前，請允許我説，我認為哲學甚至學院哲學對世界有着崇高的貢獻。教導年輕人如何批判性地思考，如何仔細合理地分析他們周圍的世界，是一件很棒的事情。

But there is a big difference between the hard working philosophy professors who teach logic and critical thinking and the rarified discussions and the technicalities of what academic philosophers do with their research. The dense jargon and technical details make much of contemporary philosophy exhausting for the average person, who likely does not have the patience or time to slog through a maze of technical wizardry.

但是，在教授邏輯和批判性思維的勤奮的哲學教授和那些稀少的討論和學院哲學家們在他們的研究中所做的技術性工作之間，存在着巨大的差異。密密麻麻的行話和技術細節讓當代哲學讓普通人疲憊不堪，他們可能沒有耐心或時間在技術魔法的迷宮中艱難跋涉。

Philosophers are exemplified by contrarian assholes.

哲學家被舉例成反面的混蛋。

Academic philosophy is primarily an experience in constant rejection and criticism. Everyone is taught how to brutally attack the arguments of their peers. Have you ever hung out with someone who disagrees with everything you say? Philosophy conferences are pretty much like that. All the time. It’s a never-ending parade of people attempting to one-up each other in verbal combat, all under the pretense of being lovers of wisdom.

學院哲學主要是一種經常遭到拒絕和批評的體驗。每個人都被教導如何殘酷地攻擊同齡人的觀點。你有沒有和不同意你所説的一切的人一起出去過？哲學會議就是這樣的。一直都是。這是一場沒完沒了的口水戰，所有人都假裝自己是智慧的愛好者。

Along with the constant rejection comes the publish or perish mindset. If you don’t publish in “good” journals, your chances of getting a good job are slim to none. Often you’d see jobs posted with hundreds of candidates, all with similar PhD holding qualifications, most with publications in similarly ranked journals.

伴隨着不斷的拒絕而來的是發表或者消亡的心態。如果你沒有在"好的"期刊上發表文章，那麼你找到一份好工作的機會微乎其微。你經常會看到數以百計的求職者，他們都擁有相似的博士學歷，大多數都在類似排名的期刊上發表過文章。

The task of standing out is nearly impossible. Usually it comes down to informal factors, like having an influential advisor or coming from a “top program.” My school was ranked ~25–30ish (in the world) for its philosophy PhD program, and it would be polite to say most grad students struggled on the job market. “Struggling” doesn’t begin to describe the pain and anguish of sending hundreds of job applications and not landing a single interview. That’s not uncommon.

脱穎而出的任務幾乎是不可能的。通常來説，這歸結為一些非正式的因素，比如有一個有影響力的顧問，或者來自一個"頂級項目"我們學校的哲學博士項目排名在25-30左右(全世界)，禮貌地説，大多數研究生在就業市場上苦苦掙扎。“苦苦掙扎"並不足以形容發送數百份求職申請卻得不到一次面試機會的痛苦和苦惱。這並不罕見。

But instead of realizing the nightmarish futility of the adjunct vs. tenure-track system, so many young PhDs buy into the academic insecurity that equates dropping out with failure.

但是，許多年輕的博士們並沒有意識到輔助教育和終身教職制度的可怕徒勞，而是陷入了學術上的不安全感中，這種不安全感將退學等同於失敗。

So they continue to slog away for years in that nether-world between PhD and tenure-track, jumping from adjunct position to adjunct position, post-doc to post-doc, always moving, never stable, never secure, always on the job market, always facing rejection, never making enough money. (For reference, I make ~2.5x more delivering pizza, working fewer hours than I ever did with a “fully funded” grad stipend at a university with a 7.5 billion endowment.)

因此，他們在博士和終身教職之間的虛無世界裏繼續艱難跋涉，從兼職跳到兼職，從博士後跳到博士後，總是流動，從不穩定，從不安全，總是在就業市場上，總是面對拒絕，從不賺足夠的錢。(作為參考，我在一所擁有75億美元捐贈的大學拿着"全額資金"的畢業生津貼，工作時間比以前少了2.5倍。)

This is the future of academia. The ratio of adjunct to tenure-track jobs has been sliding towards the adjunct side for decades, and things are accelerating in that direction. Philosophy departments are being axed for being “economically useless.” The job market is getting more competitive. An increasing number of people who make their living as “philosophers” are adjuncting.

這就是學術界的未來。幾十年來，兼職工作與終身教職工作的比例一直在滑向兼職工作，而且事情正朝着這個方向加速發展。哲學系因為"經濟無用"而被解僱就業市場競爭越來越激烈。越來越多以"哲學家"為生的人都是助教。

Philosophy is a silly profession.

哲學是一種愚蠢的職業。

When I used to tell people I was a philosopher, a common refrain was “So what’s like, your favorite saying?” People often have no clue what it is academic philosophers do—because we are often so absurdly high in the ivory tower that any attempt to come down is seen as being “not serious.”

當我告訴別人我是一個哲學家的時候，經常有這樣一句話:“那麼，你最喜歡的那句話是什麼樣的?”人們往往不知道學院派哲學家是做什麼的ーー因為我們常常荒謬地高居象牙塔之上，以至於任何想要下來的企圖都被認為是"不嚴肅的”。

Those who work on contemporary and pressing issues like race, gender, and bioethics are seen as doing something “less pure” than the “real” philosophers who work in “serious” fields like metaphysics and metametaphysics. No, seriously. There are books and conferences about “metametaphysics.” The deeper into the world of abstraction, the better. The less connected to real world issues, the more pure it is.

那些研究種族、性別和生物倫理學等當代緊迫問題的哲學家，被認為比那些研究形而上學和形而上上學（元形而上學）等"嚴肅"領域的"真實"哲學家做的事情"不那麼純粹"。不，我是認真的。有關於"形而上上學（元形而上學）“的書籍和會議越深入抽象的世界越好。與現實世界的聯繫越少，它就越純粹。

I left academic philosophy because I couldn’t stand its essential stuffiness. But I will nevertheless contend that philosophers as a whole are a curious and intellectual bunch who, at the very least, are good conversational partners. They also drink a lot. Most good philosophy is done in the pub. I do miss it sometimes. Being surrounded by people who are equally excited about weird questions like “Do holes exist?” is a unique experience, to say the least.

我離開了學院哲學，因為我無法忍受它本質上的沉悶。但是我還是要説，哲學家作為一個整體，是一羣充滿好奇心和智慧的羣體，至少，他們是很好的談話夥伴。他們也喝很多酒。大多數好的哲學都是在酒吧裏完成的。有時候我真的很懷念。周圍的人都同樣對一些奇怪的問題感到興奮，比如"空洞存在嗎?“至少可以説是一次獨特的經歷。

But I don’t need academic philosophy to do philosophy. Blogging over the past ten years, I’ve reached a larger audience than I could have ever hoped to find through the traditional academic journal system. And that’s ultimately why I dropped out: it was holding me back.

但是我不需要學院哲學來研究哲學。在過去的十年裏，通過博客，我已經接觸到了比我希望通過傳統的學術期刊系統所能找到的更多的讀者。這也是我最終選擇退出的原因: 它阻礙了我。

（翻譯 泥瓦匠）