The Publication Emergency

“Graduate students now believe that they must publish in order to get a job, and most of them are right.”

“Graduate programs will need to favor applicants who show promise of being able to publish after only a few years of study”

“Graduate students will spend time on navigating the publication maze instead of experimenting with a variety of sub-disciplines. Philosophers will become narrower and narrower—well qualified, perhaps, to run the narrowed publication maze but unequipped to open up new frontiers in the subject.”

“First, philosophy journals should adopt a policy of refusing to publish work by graduate students. Second, philosophy departments should adopt a policy of discounting graduate student work in tenure and promotion reviews. These policies would be designed to halt the arms race in graduate-student publication.”

“the proposed policy is not to require a Ph.D. in philosophy for publication; the policy would be to reject submissions by students who are in the process of earning that degree.”