Thursday, June 11, 2020

Diversity in Philosophy Departments: Introduction

[Cross-posted from The Blog of the APA]

This is the first in a several part series discussing ways to improve diversity in philosophy departments.

At least with respect to gender and race, philosophy departments in the United States are less diverse than most other departments in the university, both in their faculty and in their student bodies. In series of blog posts to follow, several philosophers will discuss what can and should be done about this issue. This post will present some statistics and general reflections.

I begin with gender and race because they are the most frequently studied and the easiest to find data on. In its 2018 membership data, the American Philosophical Association reports 26% women among members responding to a demographic survey, 74% men, and 0.2% “something else”. Similarly, in 2017, Schwitzgebel and Jennings found that 25% of faculty in U.S. departments rated in the Philosophical Gourmet Report were women and that 29% of philosophy PhD recipients placed in academic jobs were women. Data from the Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED) shows that women have earned approximately 29% of philosophy PhDs since the early 2000s. Data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) shows that women have received approximately 32% of philosophy Bachelor’s degrees since the 1980s.

The decades-long flat trend lines among students give little reason to think that gender proportions in philosophy will dramatically change anytime soon, absent more assertive action or cultural change in the discipline. Despite earning 57% of Bachelor’s degrees in the U.S., women constitute a minority of the “pipeline” into philosophy and may also disproportionately leak out of the pipeline, with progressively smaller proportions at more advanced stages of study and career. The Data on Women in Philosophy group website contains detailed department-by-department data on faculty.

Data on race are more mixed. In its membership data from 2018, the APA finds 80% of respondents identifying as White/Caucasian, compared to 60% in the general U.S. population. Also in 2018, White students received 84% of PhDs in philosophy, compared to 70% of PhDs overall (excluding temporary visa holders). However, the racial composition of philosophy undergraduates was close to representative of undergraduate degree recipients overall: White students received 60% of Bachelor’s degrees in philosophy and 57% of Bachelor’s degrees overall, across all majors. NCES and SED data show that racial diversity among philosophy students has been increasing for decades at both the graduate and undergraduate level.

A closer look at these data, however, reveals that most of the growth has been among Hispanic/Latinx and Asian/Pacific Islander students. Black or African American students remain sharply underrepresented in philosophy, with approximately flat trendlines over several decades. Currently, Blacks or African Americans constitute 13% of the general population, 10% of Bachelor’s degree recipients overall, 5% of Philosophy Bachelor’s degree recipients, 3% of Philosophy PhD recipients (only 10 total recorded by the Survey of Earned Doctorates in 2018) and also only 3% of respondents to the APA’s demographic survey. American Indians / Alaska Natives are also underrepresented, constituting about 1.3% of the U.S. population, 0.4% of Bachelor’s degree recipients, 0.3% of Bachelor’s recipients in Philosophy, and 1.1% of APA members who reported their race. In 2018, the SED recorded no American Indian or Alaska Native philosophy PhD recipients.

Other dimensions of diversity are less commonly measured, but data from Shelley Tremain suggest that people with disabilities are substantially underrepresented. Anecdotal evidence and some mixed evidence from the SED suggest that philosophers might hail disproportionately from higher socio-economic status backgrounds. As Bryan Van Norden has extensively documented, non-“Western” philosophical traditions tend to receive little attention in the philosophy curriculum in most departments. Uwe Peters has recently argued that philosophy lacks political diversity.

One might think that these facts simply reflect a natural sorting by interest in a diverse but egalitarian society – that men are, for some innocuous reason, more likely to be drawn to philosophy and Black people less likely to be drawn to philosophy. We ought not expect a perfectly even sorting of all social groups into all disciplines, even if no group faces disadvantages.

We should reject that perspective. There is nothing about philosophy, as a type of inquiry into fundamental facts about our world, that should make it more attractive to White men than to Black women. Philosophical reflection is an essential part of the human condition, of interest to people of all cultures, races, classes, and social groups. If our discipline and society were in a healthy, egalitarian condition, we should, in fact, expect people from minority groups to be overrepresented in academic philosophy, rather than underrepresented. Academic philosophy should celebrate diversity of opinion, encourage challenges to orthodoxy, and reward fresh perspectives that come from inhabiting cultures and having life experiences different from the mainstream. We should be eager, not reluctant, to hear from a wide range of voices. We should especially welcome, rather than create an inhospitable or cool environment for, people with unusual or minority or culturally atypical or historically underrepresented experiences and worldviews. The productive engine of philosophy depends on novelty and difference.

Philosophy should be among the most diverse of the academic disciplines, not among the least diverse.

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In 2018, the Blog of the APA ran a companion series on the lack of diversity in philosophy journals, which readers might also want to check out. Here is the introductory post.

[image source]

5 comments:

Modal Logician said...

"There is nothing about philosophy, as a type of inquiry into fundamental facts about our world, that should make it more attractive to White men than to Black women."

Maybe. This kind of assumes that men solely pursue philosophy because they are interested in philosophy itself. I am not sure this is correct. Thus, we might be overestimating genuine male interest in philosophy. For example, I think status plays a role in why many men pursue philosophy: philosophy makes them feel smart and rejecting the arguments of others may make them feel superior. Women might not be any less interested in philosophy itself, but they might be less drawn to this status element of philosophy and thus less drawn to this discipline of philosophy.

There are also empirical facts about human nature to consider. For instance, it is often said that women are more practically minded on average. I am not sure if this is true, but if it is it might explain why fewer women are interested in things like modal logic. I am not sure why women should be less interested in modal logic, but they might be nonetheless. (I am also not sure why men should be interested in modal logic.)

"Philosophical reflection is an essential part of the human condition, of interest to people of all cultures, races, classes, and social groups."

Maybe certain parts of philosophy. Figuring out how to live a good life, for example. I don't see how something like modal logic, though, is an essential part of the human condition. I don't see why everyone ought to be interested in it. I don't even see why I ought to be interested in it. Even ethics has many sub-fields which are quite divorced from human life. I don't see why I ought to be any more interested in them than in obscure topics in math. Even things that are concerned with how to live a good life. Ethics might not be interesting to certain religious people who believe the word of God is the final word. Aesthetics might not be of interest to ascetics.

"If our discipline and society were in a healthy, egalitarian condition, we should, in fact, expect people from minority groups to be overrepresented in academic philosophy, rather than underrepresented. Academic philosophy should celebrate diversity of opinion, encourage challenges to orthodoxy, and reward fresh perspectives that come from inhabiting cultures and having life experiences different from the mainstream."

I think it is a mistake to think that the type of reasoning philosophers engage in is something all cultures share in. Even much of Western culture doesn't celebrate philosophical thought, questioning the reasoning of others, etc. Most adults (at least most adults I know) are uninterested in philosophic thought. If you live in an academic environment, you might fail to notice this. I also don't really know what fresh perspectives people from other cultures would bring to the table in many areas of philosophy, e.g. modal logic.

"We should be eager, not reluctant, to hear from a wide range of voices. We should especially welcome, rather than create an inhospitable or cool environment for, people with unusual or minority or culturally atypical or historically underrepresented experiences and worldviews. The productive engine of philosophy depends on novelty and difference."

Agree!!! But if philosophers were genuinely interested in the wide range of human experiences and worldviews (and the many complexities of human lives as lived by humans), they would explore literature and the thought of other cultures much more than they do.

Philosopher Eric said...

Modal,

That seems like a reasonable assessment to me. It could be that it isn’t discrimination which restricts women and non-whites from pursuing philosophy PhDs, but rather that these people tend to be somewhat more sensible. It could be that the institution of philosophy is essentially broken, though if fixed then a more broad spectrum of the population would find value in its pursuit.

I believe that two varieties of philosophy will be required in the end. The first is the traditional kind where no consensus agreement ever becomes reached. Here philosophy remains an art to potentially appreciate for those who have the means. Perhaps white men will always excel with this.

Beyond that however, I believe that a community of respected professionals will need to develop various principles of metaphysics, epistemology, and axiology, which they are able to agree upon. If scientists in general were to find such principles useful for their own work, then associated exploration might appeal to more women and non-whites. Furthermore I believe that our mental and behavioral sciences remain “soft”, specifically given that they do not yet have any generally accepted principles of metaphysics, epistemology, or axiology from which to work. So let’s see if we can develop a new practical variety of philosophy which thus shouldn’t turn off women and non-whites, and should also help provide our soft sciences with tools from which to harden up.

Modal Logician said...

To be clear, I wasn't saying that there is no discrimination (or other barriers) restricting or discouraging people who aren't white men from pursuing degrees or careers in philosophy. I was just saying that the expectation that we should know what the demographics of this group of people should look like isn't well founded. There are a lot of factors to consider.

Philosopher Eric said...

Right Modal, there might be some structural discrimination. It’s neither your point nor mine that no discrimination against women or non-whites exist. (We white men suck!) But what do you think of my position that our mental and behavioral sciences fail specifically given that these fields are provided with no guiding principles of metaphysics, or epistemology, or axiology from which to function? Shall this “white men club” continue to be shielded from blame regarding how soft scientists have not yet been provided metaphysical, epistemological, or axiological foundations from which to build?

I did a post in April which gets into this a bit.

https://physicalethics.wordpress.com/2020/04/10/what-i-stand-for-part-one/

Eric Schwitzgebel said...

Thanks for these reflections, Modal and P Eric. I agree with at least one of the core ideas in your comments: That there are likely many different factors that affect the demographic distribution of interest, and that it would be difficult to predict exactly how things would play out in the absence of any prejudice or structural obstacles, and that it might vary by subfield or topic.

I disagree with the idea that some cultures or groups of people don't have much interest in philosophy, and maybe this is because we have different ideas of what is paradigmatic philosophy. If paradigmatic philosophy is modal logic, I agree. But I'd rather think of philosophy, paradigmatically, as inquiry into fundamental questions about what kinds of lives are worth living, and how societies ought to be structured, and the human position in the cosmos -- and all reflective people are interested in such matters, regardless of culture, though they might be turned off by how we tend to approach such matters in mainstream Anglophone philosophy.

BTW, this isn't to say that modal logic isn't important philosophy. I think the mistake is that philosophers often forget that people need to be *led there*. To bring ordinary people to understand the value of the more recondite corners of philosophy, start with issues they already care about and then show how they end up being connected with issues that they didn't think they cared about (and it's all connected).