11 types of speakers you’ll meet in a philosophy conference

These past few weeks I’ve been traveling a lot and attended 4 philosophy conferences. Now I’m back in Torino and the sun is just killing me. Therefore I decided to write something easier and funnier for now. Here are the 11 types of speakers I usually meet in philosophy conferences. Have I forgotten some ideal Weberian type?

1. „This distinction solves everything“ guy

Duns Scotus was called doctor subtilis, for some subtle distinctions

This is a rather technical affair. There is some perceived contradiction or difficulty in some philosopher, which seems to be hard to resolve. Step one: introduce the problem. Step two: introduce some distinction, philosopher you are speaking about, never used. In the best case scenario, a possibility of such distinction is hinted somewhere in the margins of the thousands of pages the philosopher produced. Usually, even a distinction used by another philosopher will do. Step three: show, that all the problems can be dealt with simply by sorting if x1 or x2 is meant when the philosopher uses x. The question is: if there is some distinction at work in the text, why didn’t the original philosopher mention this?

2. The detail guy

Although Russell never went that far, this type of doing philosophy was advertised by him

These beasts breed more among the analytic philosophers. If you’re lucky he will start with a sufficiently broad context and there will be only a few formalizations. However, very detailed, precise and specific arguments with dozens of premises can turn into nightmare if they are presented in the hot afternoon by the last speaker in the panel. And if everything is formalized… One can see people with tense faces give up one after another. Like sparks that turn dim. I hope someone was able to follow everything till the end. Ugh… Formal epistemology type of fun…

3. The rockstar

Slavoj. Not the Rockstar we need, but the Rockstar we deserve!

Rockstars don’t read texts. Even their slides are minimal. They have the rhetoric, the use of language and preferably a good sounding accent. And of course, a good sense of humour. While most of us stick to a small problem, it seems that Rockstars speak about philosophy as a whole, with broad problems and a big set of references. Usually, even the ones who are far away from the field can follow and understand a Rockstar. Q&As also go well, Rockstar, as opposed to many other philosophers, can actually understand and answer questions. Only envious professors hate them!

4. The fake doubter

Socrates knew nothing before it was cool

Fake doubters pretend to be thinking on the spot and to have little to no answers. They are rarely reading a text and one can recognize fake doubter by slow speech, a bunch of raised questions and doubts. But don’t be fooled, the monological Socrateses of our conferences know more than most others, and what is more, they know they do. They can be very interesting and stimulating in a conference, but a real trouble in a bar after it!

5. „I don’t believe anything I said“ ironist

The reason these guys exist is the structure of our universities, not some dead inspirational white male

For the most cases, an „I don’t believe anything I said“ ironist reveals himself only in Q&A sessions, where he states that he actually thinks that philosopher he build his career on is a piece of garbage. But he could be recognized by a certain disconnectedness and distance he has in his speech towards the material. Don’t confuse him with the „fake doubter“: fake doubter pretends to doubt himself, however things he talks about are of utmost depth; ironist doesn’t doubt himself, he simply rejects the things he is presenting.

6. Organised one!

Imagine how good Aristotle’s texts would be if he would actually write them for publishing!

Ordnung makes miracles. The organized one takes a small problem, or a well-defined debate. The presentation is easy to understand and follow even to non-specialist, the knowledge of the field is excellent, small original idea is also there, and for dessert, you will be served one or two uncanny jokes. Organized speakers usually finish even before their time is up and can be a real refreshment in a long conference.

7. The simplifier

Markus Gabriel simplifies even Heidegger

The simplifier works on the history of philosophy. He chooses fields considered to be very complicated and metaphysical, like German Idealism, Leibniz, or some ancient Greek philosopher. The main weapon in his arsenal is the sentence „By this he simply means x“. Now, simplifier can go all the way, or bring things to earth only a little. There are good and bad simplifiers. Kant simplifiers usually suck, there are some good Hegel simplifiers. Some of them say they provide „the deflationary interpretation“.

8. The time eater

Late Derrida used to give very lengthy seminars

„Yeah, but I just hope you don’t subscribe to this metaphysical notion of the objective time“ — that’s how in recent „Forget Žižek“ conference Slavoj Žižek answered the remark that he has 30 minutes for his talk. Time eaters are horrible for many reasons. The primary one is the fact that the schedule gets screwed and the only way to fix it is to take time away from Q&As of the other speakers. The other is that they usually talk that long not because they have fifteen interesting ideas, but because they present a lot of historical context. And a big ego.

9. The Fresh one

One can only imagine the feeling after first Kripke’s revolutionary lectures

He has some fresh and unheard ideas, even if the build up could be better. Basically, it’s them who eventually move philosophy forward, so lay back and enjoy the thought.

10. The memoir writer

There is no photo because any experienced philosopher can be a Memoir writer. Memoir writers can be really charming and useful, especially for the young. Memoir writer usually takes us through the history and formation of some general problem. He starts his presentation with something like this: „When I started to work on this in the sixties“. The best emanations of memoir writers personally knew the main protagonist of the story, so the presentation is intellectually rich, warm and gives you a sense of belonging.

11. Who let him in?

Another one without a forerunner. Unfortunately, you can meet a surprising number of really dumb and completely clueless people in many philosophical conferences. What is more, they usually read the text and Q&A just gets embarrassing. It is what it is, isn’t it?

P.S.
The types are gender-neural.

P.P.S.
Something’s really wrong with our civilization. As your reporter, I can confirm, that no matter what the theme of the conference is, people are still peeing on the floor in the bathrooms. Penetrating Hegelian system or considering problems of philosophical semantics is easier than peeing into the hole. I just hope the situation in women WCs is better.