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Norms for co-authorship in philosophy?

In our new "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

I would like to hear people's opinion about co-authorship in philosophy. To make my question more concrete, let me cite a specific example. In a manuscript by Samuel Elgin (https://philarchive.org/rec/ELGTGO) who is the single author, Elgin says in a footnote that "I am especially indebted to Pauliina Rumm, who first raised the puzzle of the grounds of nonground to me. Though the theory I develop here is my own, credit for identifying the puzzle goes entirely to her."

Elgin is very generous to give the credit for identifying the puzzle entirely to Rumm, but I was wondering whether Rumm deserves to be listed as a co-author. If the above information is not enough to answer the question, then hypothetically, what kind of contribution to the paper is sufficient for Rumm to earn a co-authorship in philosophy? What do people think?

PS: I notice that Pauliina Rumm had given a presentation earlier in July at the International Wittgenstein Symposium entitled "A Puzzle About Grounding and Specification" (https://centerforgermanphilosophy.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/International-Wittgenstein-Symposium-Program.pdf). But I didn't attend the Symposium so I don't know what Rumm has said in her paper. Perhaps someone who's attended the Symposium can provide some more information.

Because this comment singled out his paper, I reached out to Elgin, who said he's happy to see the issue discussed but shared the following for context:

A bit about this particular case: when I started writing that paper, I reached out to Rumm to ask if she would be interested in coauthoring with me. (In my view, coauthorship would be appropriate given the sizeable impact she had on my thinking).  She declined, because she thinks that I am wrong – and (quite understandably) didn't want to attach her name to a theory she believes to be incorrect.  She may well be developing her own, competing account – but, if so, I do not know what that account is.

This seems like exactly the right thing to do. My own view has always been that if any of the main ideas for a paper come from someone (including, say, a problem the paper addresses), then they should be a co-author–unless, as in this case, they decline because the main line of argument/theory isn't theirs or one they would endorse. I'd add that in general, one should always play it safe and err on the side of offering co-authorship, particularly (though not only) when someone more junior is involved. 

What does everyone else think about norms for co-authorship? 

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18 responses to “Norms for co-authorship in philosophy?”

  1. Looking for Kant

    Does anyone know the contact info for Kant? I need to see if he wants to coauthor a paper with me

    Reply
  2. Assistant Professor

    Fields that more commonly publish co-authored/multi-authored papers have established norms around what constitutes co-authorship that are not necessarily a direct correlation to philosophy publications, but can be a helpful resource for thinking about authorship attributions: https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html
    I agree with Marcus’s points and would add that in suggesting a possible co-authorship, it can be helpful to spell out exactly how you hope the co-author to be involved and how you anticipate dividing up the work and attributing authorship order. Obviously these things might change during the course of the collaboration for various reasons, but it can be incredibly helpful to set up expectations on the front end (and may also help a potential co-author decide about saying yes if they know a rough timeline and workload the project entails).
    For early career folks, I’d also suggest being thoughtful about whether writing WITH a mentor is productive for your goals or not. I tend to think that in general it can be helpful to carve out one’s own voice and identity and let the mentor play a mentoring role rather than an authorship one, but I am certain others will chime in with different views!

    Reply
  3. co-author

    As assistant professor notes, there are different norms in different fields. I have published with scholars in at least three different fields (four if you count philosophy), and all of them have different norms for authorship. I have been quite fortunate in that my collaborations have been easy (at least with respect to authorship and ordering authors – and different fields order authors differently).
    I also agree (but will say it more forcefully) that it is imperative that you have single author papers in philosophy. Certainly in the part of Europe where I work, you need to have a record of single author papers. Co-authored papers are also great, but you are unlikely to get a permanent position in philosophy with ONLY co-authored papers, at least where I am.

    Reply
  4. The Real SLAC Prof

    Interesting. I think the standard proposed is far too high.
    If I go to a conference and hear a paper that presents a puzzle within some area I’m working on and it sparks some ideas in me for a paper of my own, I certainly think I ought to credit the conference paper that inspired my thoughts, but I don’t think I’m now under any special obligation to seek co-authorship with the speaker. I can similarly be inspired by published papers. Surely, I don’t need to propose co-authorship with the author of every published paper that I may borrow from in crafting my own argument, right?
    Some people find co-authorship valuable and others would prefer to work on their own. As long as people are giving credit for others’ contributions, I think people should work as they prefer to work.

    Reply
  5. grad student

    What I find especially disturbing about Elgin’s paper is how he advertises the paper as “the first paper on this topic”, both in the abstract and in the conclusion, presenting himself as the founder of the field inviting further contribution, where clearly the core idea isn’t even his original. Not to mention Rumm as I know is an undergraduate student (!) who is in a much more junior status, and not to mention that Elgin’s way of not co-authoring while acknowledging Rumm’s contribution is merely mentioning it in a footnote–not even citing her. To write up a paper AT ALL on this and especially like this seems extremely inappropriate to me.

    Reply
  6. recently hired

    “I’d add that in general, one should always play it safe and err on the side of offering co-authorship, particularly (though not only) when someone more junior is involved.”
    Coauthoring among non-peers is a very fraught matter. I’d try to avoid it whenever possible. That’s because there’s a flip side to what Marcus says, and it’s the position of the more junior person.
    In grad school, I sometimes found myself in the situation where I thought I was running an idea by a mentor, charting out conceptual space and locating myself within it under the guidance of someone more experienced — and then that mentor assumed they’d be entitled to coauthorship.
    I’m still unsure how kosher this was, especially since I was in no position to object (power differential-wise). At any rate, this wasn’t very good for me, since it meant that some of my ideas weren’t attached to me personally, leading to some job market woes (or so I think). I would have preferred, in the end, to be told to figure it out myself before the threshold to coauthorship was crossed.
    Regardless, it had the effect that I would be a lot more cagey with my ideas around this mentor, and ultimately only came to them with very mature drafts, dodging even casual questions about my latest thoughts. Again, maybe this is how it should be, I genuinely don’t know. And there is of course the possibility that I was simply out of line. I wouldn’t be the first graduate student or philosopher with an outsized regard for their own contributions.
    On the other hand, and to Assistant Professor’s point, this coauthored work was much better philosophy qua philosophy than I could have produced myself at this point in time, in virtue of e.g. addressing a wider literature, anticipating more objections, etc (the kind of stuff for which longer experience is needed). It was just worse qua me making a name for myself. It also certainly was instructive to be led through the drafting, responding to referees etc process with someone more experienced.
    On balance, these coauthorahips made me a more precise thinker and writer than I’d otherwise be (or at least they helped me get there faster). I tend to think that coauthored papers are, by and large, better. So for my goals of writing the best philosophy? Yay for coauthorship. For my material and reputational needs? Eh.
    All this could be much more pleasant and easy (for everyone), if we would be less biased towards single authorship. Right now, there’s a huge reputational gap between being the single author and being a coauthor. But that’s not necessary (other fields don’t have this bias), and given what I say above it might be hurting our field.
    For the time being, with the mentees I now have myself, I try to let them do the opposite of erring on the side of coauthorship: telling them to publish solo unless it would be unethical not to add my name (and I plan never to get in this situation in the first place).

    Reply
  7. Michel

    This sounds far too permissive to me. By these lights, supervisors should be co-authors of our dissertations, and articles which defend ideas raised elsewhere would seem to require a similar credit.
    To my mind, authorship requires–well, authorship. That is to say, it requires writing. (And probably also a shared commitment to authoring the project, but we needn’t get all conceptual analysis about it.) Unlike other fields, it does not strike me as appropriate to credit the least contributions with authorship, and that includes providing the impetus for a paper. It’s appropriate to credit such contributions, but not under the aegis of authorship.

    Reply
  8. Advice

    I virtually never post here, but felt it is appropriate given this topic. The mere existence of these sorts of conversations has a substantial chilling effect on my interacting with other philosophers on topics I’m actually working on. If I present at a conference and someone raises a good point which I incorporate into the paper, I would definitely acknowledge (at least the conference, if not the specific individual) in the acknowledgements section. But if this person expects co-authorship for this? No way, and I would frankly never entertain a suggestion to the contrary. I’m not tying my horse to your wagon because you made some peripheral (or even incisive) comment.
    Another problem, which I have encountered on several occasions, is I will be talking with someone about an area in my AOS, and they only raise points which I have already thought about extensively. At least twice, the person I was speaking with asked about co-authorship! Now I am in an irritating position, because if I incorporate what we discussed, the person may accuse me of stealing their idea, even though I had it well-thought out beforehand. And this does not even begin to address the issue, as others have raised, that my thoughts are substantially shaped by what I read, but I would not coauthor with someone just because their article inspired something in me.
    In sum, I think the best advice is to not speak about your ideas until post-publication, or at least very late stages of drafting. It may make for a somewhat worse paper overall, but is necessary to deal with the reality that people are not your friends.

    Reply
  9. Assistant Professor

    To the point from Advice about being wary about talking about ideas wanting co-authorship: this is exactly why I encourage mentors to be mentors (or conversation partners be conversation partners) rather that wade into (or worse, assert!) authorship roles. I’ve similarly been in a situation where a mentor talked AT me about a topic I mentioned I was working on and hit on points that I was already addressing in my work that they didn’t ask me about, and it was especially uncomfortable because I did not even ask for their input on my project.
    The ICMJE guidance I linked above includes a lot of conjunctions regarding authorship (substantive contribution to ideas AND drafting or editing critically AND review and accountability for final work – these are not OR statements where one can contribute an idea and have that count toward authorship).
    To be clear, what I agreed about in Marcus’s point is to suggest a potential collaboration with someone if you think you have a similar idea as one they are working on that could be fruitfully developed together. But I agree with others that being inspired by a conversation or a presentation to develop your own idea is not a reason for co-authorship. I love writing with other people because it makes me think and write better, usually, and I would like the field to develop norms to embrace collaborative authorship better and to not create a chilling effect on even talking about our ideas – which seems so antithetical to what we are doing in philosophy.

    Reply
  10. prospective coauthor

    What are the norms in philosophy around authorship order? Is it more common for all authors to share first authorship, or is it more of a ranked system like in other fields? How do you determine who contributed the most?

    Reply
  11. other grad

    I’m a little confused by grad student’s complaint. If Rumm was offered co-authorship and declined, mentioning her in a footnote seems acceptable (especially since nearly every reference in the text is in footnotes; it’s not like Rumm was especially slighted by being located in a footnote). Also, what would the in-text citation even be to unless Rumm has her own manuscript floating about? A conversation at a workshop or conference? Moreover, if grad student’s conclusion is correct and writing up a paper at all on this topic is wrong, then the moratorium on the topic lasts… until an undergraduate publishes their first paper founding the literature on this topic?
    In general, echoing TRSP and Michel’s points, it seems to me that ideas for philosophy papers come incidentally from all sorts of places, through normal conversations, receiving questions at conferences, etc.. But I was under the impression that thinking of an idea isn’t the big hurdle to producing a paper; co-authorship should involve a substantial part of the execution (in most cases, the writing). Partly because in many cases, how one approaches the question is the central contribution of the paper, more than just noting the mere existence of the question itself (as in this case, where Elgin develops a positive view that Rumm herself disagrees with).

    Reply
  12. Not my problem, just curious

    Do those who weighed in above think it in any meaningful way “looks bad” for a junior person to co-author with an advisor or mentor? Or, what would have to be done for it to not “look bad”? If, say, a grad student also had a publication of their own? Multiple publications? Multiple publications in different topics from the coauthored paper? (And then assume that the co-authoring involved no pressure from the mentor or anything else untoward, and that these were genuinely shared ideas that both would rather develop together than alone, and so on…) Is this just not worth it?

    Reply
  13. Michel

    Prospective coauthor: That’s a good question. I don’t think there are norms, just a fair few different practices. Personally, I don’t really care for using author order to reflect the scale of contribution. Then again, it’s not always feasible to use a note, either. So: I don’t know what’s best! But I’m pretty sure we haven’t yet formalized anything. (I’ve come last as a very junior partner who came on late and didn’t do the grunt work, I’ve been placed first or last alphabetically, etc.).
    Actually, upon reflection there’s maybe one negative norm (or quasi-norm) that applies: I don’t think anyone in philosophy interprets author order such that the last author is the primary author. Or, if they do, they’re a real outlier in doing so.

    Reply
  14. Daniel Weltman

    Re: prospective coauthor: my sense is that there are not strong norms. Many people have many different ideas. In my co-authored work my co-author and I order our names by alphabetical order and include a footnote explaining the contributions that we each made to the authoring of the paper. This is what I think ought to be the norm, but many people do things differently.

    Reply
  15. JDF

    I agree with others that the standard proposed here is too high. At least, if the suggestion is that merely raising a puzzle is enough to count as a co-author, as Marcus’s post suggests, that seems wrong to me since the person hasn’t actually done anything to assist in authoring the essay.
    Even the weaker idea that if someone raises a puzzle, you owe them the opportunity to co-author strikes me as way too strong. Almost every conversation I have with other philosophers result in an invitation to co-author.
    In my own work, if someone raises a puzzle on which I then write an essay, I just say “Thanks to X for first raising this puzzle to me” without ever considering co-authoring with them. My assumption is that if they want to write on it, they can write their own essay, since it’s very unlikely we will have the same views on the topic. I’d expect the same but no more if I raised a puzzle and someone else wrote on it.

    Reply
  16. Assistant Professor

    On author order: I think philosophers generally author with one other person, maybe two, and that author order is not seen as important (overall), for things like promotion and tenure (note this is NOT true for folks publishing in other fields, especially STEM or adjacent ones). That said, if someone was the main driver of a project in terms of content and writing, I would list that person first (rather than defer to alphabetical order). As mentioned by others, in other fields author order has different meanings, with the first author typically being the primary driver/writer of the paper and the last author being the “senior” author overseeing the research. If I were a student writing with a mentor I would probably use this approach borrowed from the STEM fields and plan to be the lead author and my mentor be the second (out of two) or last author (out of more than two).
    On does co-authoring with a mentor “look bad”?: I don’t know! I would not only co-author with a mentor as others have said. Having solo pubs in addition is good. I would also plan to be the primary author and have my name listed first on the paper. I think those things would look better overall.

    Reply
  17. sisyphus

    I wish there were established norms for co-authorship in philosophy. I say this because I’ve co-authored a number of papers with someone who is senior to me. As it happens, alphabetically my name comes prior to theirs. Thus, even though we have intentionally placed my name first in order to indicate that I was the first author on the papers (which is to say, the primary argument in the paper was largely my idea and I produced the first draft), it’s likely the case that many interpret this as merely following the alphabetical convention. It’s frustrating.

    Reply
  18. random

    For what it’s worth, I’m an associate professor who has never coauthored and probably never will. And I think many of the suggestions about the minimal standards for coauthorship here are far too low. However, I will say that I also think there is something wrong about (even with permission!) a faculty member using a puzzle that an undergraduate came up with and writing and publishing the first paper about it. I think there should be a norm against writing up such papers, even with permission of the student, and instead we should encourage students with promising ideas to write their own papers (and make them the first paper on the topic!) or, better yet, volunteer to coauthor the paper that the student wants to write, rather than the one that we want to write. And I think that in general there should be norms against higher-status and people further along in their career (but especially faculty when the lower-status people are undergraduate or graduate students) writing up papers that are spurred by strong and coherent ideas that come from the students. I think that’s consistent with the idea that we also shouldn’t have such a low bar for what counts as coauthorship.

    Reply

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