By Scott F. Aikin and Robert B. Talisse
Conference season is drawing near for many academics. In our discipline, Philosophy, already the regional conferences are in full swing, and the American Philosophical Association will have its large Eastern Division meeting in early January. This has got us thinking about these conferences and the many papers that will be presented at them. The trouble, as we see it, is that the paper sessions are so often disappointing, and so frequently less fruitful than they otherwise might be.
It's not that the papers chosen for presentation are poorly written or intellectually inept. To the contrary, the content and even the style of the writing of the papers tends to be of very high quality. What makes conference sessions in Philosophy so frequently disappointing is that, for reasons we cannot fully grasp, the disciplinary norm still heavily favors reading one's paper to one's audience. That's right: At professional Philosophy conferences, it is most common for speakers to read to their audiences. Conference presentations tend to last 20-30 minutes; then there is often a second speaker who offers a critical comment on the first presenter's paper, and the commentary often runs for another 10-15 minutes. And sometimes there is yet a third recitation — the first presenter is given the opportunity to respond briefly to the commentator's critical remarks, and this, too, is often read from a prepared text. Then, with what time is left, the floor is open for questions from the audience. And even when a speaker elects to present her work using presentation technology, still the dominant tendency is to simply read from the projected slides.
Many Philosophy conferences run for two to three days. Imagine three full days of being read to in this way. Even under the best circumstances — with dynamic readers and exciting content — it's simply exhausting.
That philosophers should be in the habit of reading their papers out loud to each other at professional meetings strikes us as bizarre. Notice how the disciplinary norm differs when it comes to pedagogy. These days, it's almost unheard of for a professor of Philosophy to read her lectures to her students. It is far more common to speak extemporaneously from notes, which forces the instructor to devise fresh formulations and to think on her feet. After all, we are educators, and in our classes we often present to our students highly detailed and challenging ideas. And when teaching material in our own research areas, we commonly take ourselves to have no need for a prefabricated script. Moreover, as almost everyone in the profession will readily admit, the really exciting exchanges at Philosophy conferences occur in the informal setting of the conference reception, or, even more frequently, the hotel bar. Why, then, should we persist in reading to each other in the official conference sessions? Why not adopt a new practice of talking to the audience?