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.”P(pán)hilosophers 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(jīng)花了兩年時(shí)間全心全意地投入到一個(gè)只有三個(gè)人能看到的項(xiàng)目中？在學(xué)術(shù)界，我們稱之為'論文'。哲學(xué)家花了很多時(shí)間寫(xiě)東西，試圖把它們發(fā)表在沒(méi)人讀的期刊上——甚至其他哲學(xué)家也不讀——因?yàn)闉榱苏业焦ぷ?，你需要把這些論文和期刊放在簡(jiǎn)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(xiě)論文ーー所有這些努力都變成了簡(jiǎn)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?yàn)槟阋c那些在 C.V.也有這些字樣的人競(jìng)爭(zhēng)。

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(méi)有人會(huì)閱讀這些東西，因?yàn)榇蠖鄶?shù)期刊的付費(fèi)墻是如此昂貴，以至于只有學(xué)術(shù)機(jī)構(gòu)的大型圖書(shū)館才負(fù)擔(dān)得起訪問(wèn)它們(即便如此，許多大學(xué)圖書(shū)館還是出于預(yù)算原因削減了一些期刊)。即使在人們可以訪問(wèn)的學(xué)術(shù)大廳里，每年發(fā)表的論文數(shù)量也是如此之多，即使是在小眾領(lǐng)域，沒(méi)有人有時(shí)間在任何地方閱讀接近正在發(fā)表的所有論文/書(shū)籍，尤其是考慮到僅僅教授課程就需要閱讀的數(shù)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.

盡管現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)有越來(lái)越多的哲學(xué)研究無(wú)法跟上時(shí)代的步伐，但是期刊審稿人拒絕你的論文是很常見(jiàn)的，因?yàn)槟銢](méi)有參與到[x]論文/書(shū)中，通常[x]要么是由裁判自己寫(xiě)的，要么是和他們關(guān)系密切的人寫(xiě)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(jié)果，學(xué)術(shù)論文通常以人氣競(jìng)賽告終，這是一個(gè)誰(shuí)是誰(shuí)的游戲，其目的是發(fā)展亂倫的引用網(wǎng)絡(luò)，以便你的影響因子看起來(lái)更適合聘用和/或終身教職委員會(huì)。對(duì)這些引用網(wǎng)絡(luò)在'頂級(jí)'期刊上的分析表明，它們大多圍繞著一小群有影響力的人(順便說(shuō)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.

說(shuō)到男人，哲學(xué)絕對(duì)是臭名昭著的，因?yàn)樗谂詫W(xué)術(shù)界不是一個(gè)好地方，尤其是研究生。最近一些備受矚目的男性哲學(xué)家因?yàn)榕哉境鰜?lái)談?wù)撔则}擾而丟掉工作的案例表明，性別歧視在學(xué)術(shù)界依然存在。

Philosophers use “rigor” to justify badwriting.

哲學(xué)家們用'嚴(yán)謹(jǐn)'來(lái)為糟糕的寫(xiě)作辯護(hù)。

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(xué)院哲學(xué)可以公開(kāi)獲取，我懷疑公眾也不會(huì)對(duì)其中的任何一本感興趣。哲學(xué)家們常常不遺余力地使他們的論文盡可能地枯燥和難以閱讀。這樣做是為了顯得'嚴(yán)謹(jǐn)'和'技術(shù)性'，但大多數(shù)時(shí)候,'嚴(yán)謹(jǐn)'只會(huì)讓非哲學(xué)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(rèn)為學(xué)院哲學(xué)充滿了秘密失敗者——大部分是男人——他們花費(fèi)大量時(shí)間談?wù)搸缀跬耆撾x人類存在的實(shí)用主義現(xiàn)實(shí)的事物。而且不是好的方面。

Contemporary academic philosophy is embarrass

-ing.

當(dāng)代學(xué)院哲學(xué)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(yuǎn)不會(huì)忘記，當(dāng)我們坐在禮堂里，聽(tīng)著關(guān)于元倫理學(xué)的長(zhǎng)篇大論時(shí)，就在大學(xué)的門(mén)外,'黑人的生命很重要'(Black Lives Matter)活動(dòng)分子正在游行(這是弗格森時(shí)期的圣路易斯)。

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(tīng)到他們?cè)谝鞒涸獋惱韺W(xué)深?yuàn)W的微妙之處與被認(rèn)為是'應(yīng)用倫理學(xué)'的具體現(xiàn)實(shí)之間的鮮明對(duì)比——這個(gè)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(dāng)現(xiàn)實(shí)世界中有如此多的問(wèn)題需要聰明人的思考時(shí)，我怎么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(jià)值，等等。但是讓我給你們一個(gè)當(dāng)代哲學(xué)'純粹研究'看起來(lái)是什么樣子的味道。我去了philpapers.org→話題:形而上學(xué)→熱門(mén)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(rèn)為，如果大衛(wèi)·劉易斯的模態(tài)現(xiàn)實(shí)主義是真實(shí)的，來(lái)自不同可能世界的模態(tài)現(xiàn)實(shí)主義者可以彼此相愛(ài)。我提供了一個(gè)獨(dú)特的方法來(lái)挑選出那些可能愛(ài)上我們的人，而不是我們的對(duì)手。不可能的愛(ài)人和跨世界的情書(shū)也被認(rèn)為是。我預(yù)料到會(huì)有反對(duì)意見(jiàn)，因此我認(rèn)為，我們可以站在正確的立場(chǎng)上，與那些僅僅可能愛(ài)上他們的人建立關(guān)系，而結(jié)束一段跨世界的關(guān)系，與一個(gè)真實(shí)的人開(kāi)始一段關(guān)系，對(duì)另一個(gè)世界的愛(ài)人來(lái)說(shuō)并不是殘酷的。'

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(wú)意挑剔這篇論文，也無(wú)意挑剔這位作者——我碰巧知道他是一個(gè)非常聰明和善良的人——僅僅是為了讓讀者明白我所說(shuō)的當(dāng)代學(xué)院哲學(xué)幾乎完全脫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(xué)問(wèn)題，并發(fā)現(xiàn)其中許多問(wèn)題很有趣。但是，當(dāng)我聽(tīng)到哲學(xué)家們談?wù)撍麄兊难芯繒r(shí)，我經(jīng)常會(huì)感到不舒服，因?yàn)槲矣幸环N直覺(jué)，我們都在浪費(fèi)時(shí)間爭(zhēng)論那些我們將在未來(lái)幾十年里繼續(xù)爭(zhēng)論的問(wèn)題(這就是我們所說(shuō)的'研究項(xiàng)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(qiáng)烈反對(duì)我之前，請(qǐng)?jiān)试S我說(shuō)，我認(rèn)為哲學(xué)甚至學(xué)院哲學(xué)對(duì)世界有著崇高的貢獻(xiàn)。教導(dǎo)年輕人如何批判性地思考，如何仔細(xì)合理地分析他們周?chē)氖澜?，是一件很棒的事情?/strong>

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(xué)教授和那些稀少的討論和學(xué)院哲學(xué)家們?cè)谒麄兊难芯恐兴龅募夹g(shù)性工作之間，存在著巨大的差異。密密麻麻的行話和技術(shù)細(xì)節(jié)讓當(dāng)代哲學(xué)讓普通人疲憊不堪，他們可能沒(méi)有耐心或時(shí)間在技術(shù)魔法的迷宮中艱難跋涉。

Philosophers are exemplified by contrarian assholes.

哲學(xué)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(xué)院哲學(xué)主要是一種經(jīng)常遭到拒絕和批評(píng)的體驗(yàn)。每個(gè)人都被教導(dǎo)如何殘酷地攻擊同齡人的觀點(diǎn)。你有沒(méi)有和不同意你所說(shuō)的一切的人一起出去過(guò)？哲學(xué)會(huì)議就是這樣的。一直都是。這是一場(chǎng)沒(méi)完沒(méi)了的口水戰(zhàn)，所有人都假裝自己是智慧的愛(ài)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.

伴隨著不斷的拒絕而來(lái)的是發(fā)表或者消亡的心態(tài)。如果你沒(méi)有在'好的'期刊上發(fā)表文章，那么你找到一份好工作的機(jī)會(huì)微乎其微。你經(jīng)常會(huì)看到數(shù)以百計(jì)的求職者，他們都擁有相似的博士學(xué)歷，大多數(shù)都在類似排名的期刊上發(fā)表過(guò)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.

脫穎而出的任務(wù)幾乎是不可能的。通常來(lái)說(shuō)，這歸結(jié)為一些非正式的因素，比如有一個(gè)有影響力的顧問(wèn)，或者來(lái)自一個(gè)'頂級(jí)項(xiàng)目'我們學(xué)校的哲學(xué)博士項(xiàng)目排名在25-30左右(全世界)，禮貌地說(shuō)，大多數(shù)研究生在就業(yè)市場(chǎng)上苦苦掙扎。'苦苦掙扎'并不足以形容發(fā)送數(shù)百份求職申請(qǐng)卻得不到一次面試機(jī)會(huì)的痛苦和苦惱。這并不罕見(jiàn)。

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，許多年輕的博士們并沒(méi)有意識(shí)到輔助教育和終身教職制度的可怕徒勞，而是陷入了學(xué)術(shù)上的不安全感中，這種不安全感將退學(xué)等同于失敗。

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?cè)诓┦亢徒K身教職之間的虛無(wú)世界里繼續(xù)艱難跋涉，從兼職跳到兼職，從博士后跳到博士后，總是流動(dòng)，從不穩(wěn)定，從不安全，總是在就業(yè)市場(chǎng)上，總是面對(duì)拒絕，從不賺足夠的錢(qián)。(作為參考，我在一所擁有75億美元捐贈(zèng)的大學(xué)拿著'全額資金'的畢業(yè)生津貼，工作時(shí)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(xué)術(shù)界的未來(lái)。幾十年來(lái)，兼職工作與終身教職工作的比例一直在滑向兼職工作，而且事情正朝著這個(gè)方向加速發(fā)展。哲學(xué)系因?yàn)?#39;經(jīng)濟(jì)無(wú)用'而被解雇就業(yè)市場(chǎng)競(jìng)爭(zhēng)越來(lái)越激烈。越來(lái)越多以'哲學(xué)家'為生的人都是助教。

Philosophy is a silly profession.

哲學(xué)是一種愚蠢的職業(yè)。

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(dāng)我告訴別人我是一個(gè)哲學(xué)家的時(shí)候，經(jīng)常有這樣一句話:'那么，你最喜歡的那句話是什么樣的?'人們往往不知道學(xué)院派哲學(xué)家是做什么的ーー因?yàn)槲覀兂３；闹嚨馗呔酉笱浪?，以至于任何想要下?lái)的企圖都被認(rèn)為是'不嚴(yán)肅的'。

Those who work on contemporary and pressing issues like race, gender, and bioethics are seen as doing something “l(fā)ess 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(xué)等當(dāng)代緊迫問(wèn)題的哲學(xué)家，被認(rèn)為比那些研究形而上學(xué)和形而上上學(xué)（元形而上學(xué)）等'嚴(yán)肅'領(lǐng)域的'真實(shí)'哲學(xué)家做的事情'不那么純粹'。不，我是認(rèn)真的。有關(guān)于'形而上上學(xué)（元形而上學(xué)）'的書(shū)籍和會(huì)議越深入抽象的世界越好。與現(xiàn)實(shí)世界的聯(lián)系越少，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(kāi)了學(xué)院哲學(xué)，因?yàn)槲覠o(wú)法忍受它本質(zhì)上的沉悶。但是我還是要說(shuō)，哲學(xué)家作為一個(gè)整體，是一群充滿好奇心和智慧的群體，至少，他們是很好的談話伙伴。他們也喝很多酒。大多數(shù)好的哲學(xué)都是在酒吧里完成的。有時(shí)候我真的很懷念。周?chē)娜硕纪瑯訉?duì)一些奇怪的問(wèn)題感到興奮，比如'空洞存在嗎?'至少可以說(shuō)是一次獨(dú)特的經(jīng)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(xué)院哲學(xué)來(lái)研究哲學(xué)。在過(guò)去的十年里，通過(guò)博客，我已經(jīng)接觸到了比我希望通過(guò)傳統(tǒng)的學(xué)術(shù)期刊系統(tǒng)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。