The Philosophers' Cocoon

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Job-Market Reporting Thread (2025-26)
Job-Market Discussion Thread (2026-27)

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  • Disconnected from the public/social aspects of the profession?

    In our September “how can we help you?” thread, a reader asks:

    I know this is a little open-ended, and is more a confession than a question, but does anyone feel just ‘disconnected’ from the more public-facing sided aspects of the philosophy community? There’s a vibrant philosophical community on social media, a vibrant community of people at conferences. Is it odd to just…not care? I enjoy my colleagues, my friends from grad school, the scholars working on adjacent work to mine, but beyond that, I feel no real pressure to have a ‘presence’ as a philosopher in this social-philosophy-sphere. I enjoy my teaching, I enjoy doing my research, I enjoy chatting about my and others’ work when I’m at conferences, but the ‘being connected’ into ‘what’s going on’ in the discipline I just feel is not for me. I don’t care what people are arguing about, who said what, the newest controversy about rankings or AI or the APA…I just really couldn’t care less. Maybe relevant is that I’ve been tt job-hunting for a few years now, so admittedly perhaps there’s some disillusionment I feel. Idk. I guess I’m just curious about how others feel about this, if anyone commiserates, or if I’m just being a wet blanket.

    I empathize with the OP, particularly after becoming a father. I have a toddler and home and being present for her and invested as a parent has become a much larger (and rewarding) priority for me.

    What about other readers? Are you heavily invested in the public/social aspects of the profession, or are you more like the OP?

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  • A literature responding to prominent non-academic posts about AI?

    In our September “how can we help you?” thread, a reader asks:

    The Cocoon may not be the right venue for this query, but I’m looking for some direction when it comes to a literature base. Are there philosophers working in philosophy of AI that issue responses (direct or indirect) to the Dario Amodeis of the world? Amodei’s essays and pieces in the LessWrong part of the web are more complex than op-eds in periodicals, but I haven’t found a satisfying counterweight to these because it seems the actual work in philosophy of AI (viz., published in philosophy journals) is more fine-grained (as I think it ought to be). Thanks in advance for any leads.

    This is something that I’ve found to be very frustrating. It’s impossible to keep up with all of the blog posts (at Less Wrong, Anthropic, OpenAI) and non-peer-reviewed work that’s constantly being put out at an ever-fast and furious pace. We academics tend to move much more slowly and deliberately, and I think for good epistemic reasons. But the incentives in industry and public discussions on messageboards pull in the opposite direction. There are some people (such as Gary Marcus) who push back a lot in public venues (e.g. Substack) against the Dario Amodeis of the world, as well as an ever expanding list of online personalities. But in the academic world per se? I’m not sure. If I didn’t have a 3-year-old at home along with an academic career, I might spend more time trying to do this kind of thing myself–but alas, I just don’t have the time.

    Any helpful thoughts or insights from readers?

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  • TeachPhilosophy 101: an online resource

    David Sackris (Arapahoe Community College) writes in:

    The teaching resource Teachphilosophy101.org has recently been updated in a collaboration between the journal Teaching Philosophy and the Philosophy Documentation Center. TΦ101 presents strategies and resources for faculty members and graduate assistants who teach philosophy courses, especially at the introductory level. It also includes material of interest to college faculty generally.

    The mission of TΦ101 is to provide free, user-friendly resources to the academic community, and it is an especially useful resource for new college instructors. All materials on this site are provided on an open source license and you may print or distribute as many copies as you wish. All Teaching Philosophy articles linked to on TΦ101 are now open access. If you have questions or would like to contribute to TΦ101, please send an email to d26988123@gmail.com.

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  • When someone cites but (woefully) misrepresents your work?

    In our new “how can we help you?” thread, a reader asks:

    Happily, someone cited my paper. Unhappily, they attributed to me a view which is the diametrical opposite of what I (and a very well-known, major international figure in philosophy of science on whose view I was elaborating) claimed. They made claims in the form of “Contra Scholars X and Y, I argue z.” Nothing in their argument rides on it, but I defended the very kind of framework they were advocating while they positioned themselves as doing the contrary. Their paper is in a top philosophy of science journal. What should I do?

    I suppose it might be possible to write the editors requesting a correction (erratum). But I’ve never encountered this kind of situation, so I don’t know! Sadly, I suspect it’s likely to become more common in the age of AI, as (or so it seems) more and more researchers offload things like literature reviews to bots. So, it may be increasingly important to be on the lookout for this stuff and correct it.

    What do readers think? Any helpful insights or experiences to share?

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