What’s Up With the World Congress of Philosophy?
The World Congress of Philosophy (WCP), which takes place every five years, convened in Rome earlier this month. The WCP typically has a very large program—around 550 pages long this year—and from what I’ve heard, with over 1000 speakers, the conference was somewhat overwhelming. Also underwhelming. – According to two WCP participants who wrote to me separately, a surprising number of sessions were unattended—by the very speakers scheduled to speak during them. One of them writes: Initially, I went to a talk but upon speaking with the session chair, I discovered that the speaker was absent. I brushed it off, thinking this was normal—people fall ill, have personal emergencies, or face other unexpected situations. However, in the following days, as I spoke with other attendees, I realized that many had similar experiences with speakers failing to show up. I attributed it to the size of the conference, reasoning that it wasn’t improbable to encounter others with similar experience. What ultimately compelled me to write… was an incident during a two-hour session, where six speakers were scheduled to present. Long story short, not a single one of the six speakers turned up for their talks! The chairs had no information, neither did the conference organizers, and the attendees simply waited in the room for two hours, only to leave without hearing any presentations. After this incident, I discussed with other participants and I discovered that almost everyone had encountered similar situations, with many speakers failing to appear. It’s bad enough when conference-goers only attend the session in which they’re giving a talk and skip the rest—that is really poor conference behavior, folks. (Which is not to say that at large conferences nonstop attendance by all is expected or even desirable.) But ditching your own session? On purpose? That’s no longer just obnoxious free-riding but academic fraud. How common was this at the WCP? Of course I’m more likely to get emails from people with complaints than those without, so it would be helpful if more WCP attendees could comment on it. While I’m especially interested in whether people found themselves in sessions that were missing their scheduled speakers, discussion of other aspects of the WCP is welcome.
The post https://dailynous.com/2024/08/20/whats-up-with-the-world-congress-of-philosophy/
.
https://dailynous.com/2024/08/20/whats-up-with-the-world-congress-of-philosophy/
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"content": "What’s Up With the World Congress of Philosophy?\n\nThe World Congress of Philosophy (WCP), which takes place every five years, convened in Rome earlier this month. The WCP typically has a very large program—around 550 pages long this year—and from what I’ve heard, with over 1000 speakers, the conference was somewhat overwhelming. Also underwhelming. – According to two WCP participants who wrote to me separately, a surprising number of sessions were unattended—by the very speakers scheduled to speak during them. One of them writes: Initially, I went to a talk but upon speaking with the session chair, I discovered that the speaker was absent. I brushed it off, thinking this was normal—people fall ill, have personal emergencies, or face other unexpected situations. However, in the following days, as I spoke with other attendees, I realized that many had similar experiences with speakers failing to show up. I attributed it to the size of the conference, reasoning that it wasn’t improbable to encounter others with similar experience. What ultimately compelled me to write… was an incident during a two-hour session, where six speakers were scheduled to present. Long story short, not a single one of the six speakers turned up for their talks! The chairs had no information, neither did the conference organizers, and the attendees simply waited in the room for two hours, only to leave without hearing any presentations. After this incident, I discussed with other participants and I discovered that almost everyone had encountered similar situations, with many speakers failing to appear. It’s bad enough when conference-goers only attend the session in which they’re giving a talk and skip the rest—that is really poor conference behavior, folks. (Which is not to say that at large conferences nonstop attendance by all is expected or even desirable.) But ditching your own session? On purpose? That’s no longer just obnoxious free-riding but academic fraud. How common was this at the WCP? Of course I’m more likely to get emails from people with complaints than those without, so it would be helpful if more WCP attendees could comment on it. While I’m especially interested in whether people found themselves in sessions that were missing their scheduled speakers, discussion of other aspects of the WCP is welcome.\nThe post https://dailynous.com/2024/08/20/whats-up-with-the-world-congress-of-philosophy/\n.\n\nhttps://dailynous.com/2024/08/20/whats-up-with-the-world-congress-of-philosophy/",
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