In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, Hermias writes:
Suppose that you are exempt from trying to get a job and all that (you win the lottery, you decide to stay in the parental basement, etc.). How would you maximize your engagement in philosophy? e.g., if you faced no need to publish articles/ get peer approval, would you work on one big book, or write in a dialogue format, or abandon text and start doing street epistemology, go full Diogenes? etc. Put another way; stripping out all the trappings/context in which we are constrained to philosophize, how would you do it, ideally?
Interesting questions. One reader submitted the following reply:
I think your question needs to be fleshed out a bit. It all depends what one values and who one wants as an audience. If you want to write a book, and you want it to be read by professional philosophers, you are best to pursue a professional career, and aim to published with a strong reputable publisher (think OUP or CUP). But if you want to write a popular book, with a broad readership in mind, perhaps one can do that outside of the academy. But then you need to have some means for people be attracted to your book – when was the last time you read a book by someone living in their parents' basement? Look on your bookshelf – how many of the authors live in their parents' basement?
There are, of course, many authors who write popular books outside of academia, including ones who write on philosophical issues (see Sam Harris). But it's also presumably very difficult to find success and to do good work this way. This is probably the route that I'd try to go–either that or podcasting, or writing on a Substack, or some such. Not sure.
What about the rest of you? If you were freed from the trappings of an academic job, how would you stay engaged with philosophy (assuming, of course, you'd want to!).
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