Anthony's farewell (of sorts)

Some reflections, some confessions, some gossip

As I step back as editor-in-chief of The Philosopher today, I thought I’d offer some thoughts on the past six years and give you all an overview of how the future is looking for The Philosopher.

2018:

I take over as editor when the role was offered to me by former editor, Michael Bavidge, who had been and continues to be a great friend and philosophical mentor. It’s fair to say that The Philosopher was not in good shape at the time. Two 24-page issues a year (stapled together!!), with an ageing (and frequently dying) list of subscribers who probably felt too embarrassed to cancel their direct debits. I decide that the only thing it has going for it is its name and the fact that it was started in 1923. So, I emphasise these bits as much as possible in early emails to esteemed philosophers.

In a philosophy event, Michael describes me as a “philosophical entrepreneur” (presumably with less shade than when Brian Leiter described Simon Critchley as a “philosophical used car salesman”). Michael is referring to my tendency (probably related to my public school education) to be relatively fearless when approaching big name philosophers. Timothy Williamson agrees to write the lead article for the first issue under my editorship. Williamson’s essay emerges from an event I organise in Newcastle upon Tyne (where both Michael and I lived at the time). He stays at my house while I stay with my partner. Based on the complicated knot tying the cord to my radiator, it turns out that Williamson does not know how to use a Venetian blind. How many leading metaphysicians does it take to…

I start dating Joanna Ciafone shortly before taking on the editorship. Joanna proves herself to be a devoted supporter of The Philosopher, even helping set up the first version of our website. Over the years, Joanna will come to be much less of a supporter of The Philosopher.

My childhood friend William Eckersley agrees to design and typeset the print issues. He is still doing it.

The year ends with me assigning the first issue as issue 1 of 2019 rather than issue 2 of 2018, thus creating apparently endless headaches for the few librarians who stock The Philosopher. Michael has to deal with the fall-out of this decision for months (maybe he is still dealing with it).

2019:

With some credibility established via the Williamson issue, I turn to his friend Jason Stanley who has ditched the hardcore analytic philosophy to become a philosopher of fascism. Stanley takes the lead in the second issue, but seems to struggle with the writing process, apparently pulling an all-nighter to get it done on time.

I stumble on Chi Rainer Bornfree during an online search and ask them to write something for us. They ask us how much we pay. I had never thought that academics were paid anything for essays. This opens up a can of worms that culminates in us almost going bankrupt in 2022 (more on this shortly). Chi joins the editorial board and becomes an immense source of support and guidance in the years ahead.

Nick Halliday (of Halliday Books) agrees to do our covers for a fraction of his normal price.

In these pre-Covid days, The Philosopher runs a series of very popular in-person events, mainly in Newcastle and in London. We organise a “mini-tour” for Martin Hägglund to promote his new book, This Life. A very jet-lagged Hägglund is on fine form in discussion with Lea Ypi at Conway Hall, London. After a lovely drive from Newcastle (where he lectured in an extremely cold castle) to Edinburgh, with Hägglund and his partner Alisa sleeping most of the way, Hägglund then discovers that he has lost his laptop with lots of new writings on it just before the event. Despite presumably being in a state of some panic, he puts in a great performance. It turns out he left it at King Edward VI School, Morpeth where he had chatted with some students earlier that day. I manage to get it back to him on the platform at Newcastle station the next day minutes before he heads off to York for the final leg of the tour. An interview with Hägglund, an essay by him, and some responses to his book, make up the bulk of the fourth issue. He has remained an extremely generous friend of ours ever since.

We also put on an awesome event with Elizabeth Anderson and David Graeber discussing work, bullshit jobs etc. Joanna and I take Anderson out for a very expensive Peruvian meal the night before and she turns out to be an extraordinary interlocutor, overflowing with ideas and highly amusing as well. In the pub after the event, Graeber turns out to be absolutely hilarious. We still have a recording of their conversation somewhere if someone wants to transcribe it.

The Philosopher remains a somewhat DIY project, with me bagging up the print issues and taking them to the local post office, updating the website, commissioning and reviewing pretty much all the articles etc etc. Pretty amateurish stuff, really, considering we are beginning to project some image of competency.

2020:

A number of important new faces come onto the scene, including Jana Bacevic, Darren Chetty, Adam Ferner, and Alexis Papazoglou. With more people involved, the fact that The Philosopher has no organisational infrastructure becomes increasingly obvious. The phrase “lack of transparency”, that would haunt me for years, makes its first appearance. The reality is that it’s still just me making decisions with no accountability (and often not much thought).

Our second issue of the year features an essay by Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò (the Cornell one). Someone on Twitter asks the other Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò (the Georgetown one) if it is him. He says no. I ask him if he fancies writing something for us. He agrees. When I receive his essay, I don’t really get it and pass it on with a question mark to Adam Ferner. He immediately recognises its importance and it proves to be by far the most popular essay we have ever published. Táíwò also joins our ever-expanding editorial board which makes us look pretty cool. It’s not long before he becomes something of a sensation in philosophy circles, at which point he steps back from the editorial board.

With Covid, our in-person events grind to a halt. I spend the summer putting together a series of digital events. I assume that when September comes around everyone else will have done this. But, in the philosophy world at least, very few people have done it. As a result, the events are hugely successful right from the start, giving The Philosopher a global reach that our print issues certainly never achieved. By the end of the year, people from over 110 countries have tuned in. You can see the archive of event posters here and the archive of video recordings here.

2021:

Alexis starts his excellent podcast, “The Philosopher and the News”, that runs from the beginning of 2021 until the middle of 2023. This is an immense amount of work for him and the result is fantastic. Although he eventually becomes too busy to continue with it, I am delighted that he will be back again in the autumn, running “The Philosopher and the News” as part of our events series (much less work for him).

I establish a friendship with Joanna Borkowska after we feature her amazing artwork in our “Nothing” issue (Winter 2021). Joanna agrees to be our “art consultant”. The result is that The Philosopher comes to feature images by many very awesome artists (mainly from New York). A personal favourite of mine is Peruvian artist, Nicole Franchy. I end up buying one of Nicole’s images for (by my standards) an eye-watering price, which leads to a series of arguments with Joanna (wife, not artist) as I didn’t tell her about it until I had done it. The image is also absolutely massive and it turns out that it will cost another eye-watering amount to get it framed. Still, Joanna likes it now and has forgiven me.

2022:

In 2022, I decide to put together four issues called “The New Basics”. This is a slightly shady reference to Nigel Warburton’s Philosophy: The Basics. Warburton speculates about this on Twitter, asking if we could not call it “The New Concepts”.

Joanna’s career in England ground to a halt with Covid, with her lack of UK citizenship meaning that she would have a wait a long time to move into her career of choice. In July 2021, she moved back to the US to study at Yale School of Nursing. I follow in March 2022 and we marry in June. By now, the immense stress caused by The Philosopher is a major feature of our relationship. Joanna is officially “against The Philosopher”.

2022 proves to be an especially difficult year, with the aforementioned bankruptcy fears caused by a number of very poor financial decisions by me (as well as the need to redesign our website). I write an essay about the situation at The Philosopher, and am blown away by the generosity of our supporters who help us make it into 2023. With this scare, I begin to actually think about how we can try to make some money (as well as how I can spend less of it). We offer an optional donation for events, set up a donations page, a Patreon page, and establish a Substack newsletter to promote our work better (any new Patreon memberships or donations always hugely appreciated…).

2023:

This is by far the worst year of my time at The Philosopher. After a crisis with the editorial board early in the year precipitated by my bad handling of a relationship with one of the members, a road trip around New England with Joanna is ruined as I collapse into a state of panic and overwhelm. Fortunately, The Philosopher rides this crisis out, with Jana and Chi doing a lot to help me get through this period.

It is around this time that I should have thrown in the towel and walked away. But as the infrastructure was still so weak, there was little likelihood that The Philosopher would have survived. And I felt that it was worth fighting for. I persuade Joanna to have faith in me that I will eventually step back as editor, even if it takes another year. Actually, I think I suggest end of 2025. She says end of June 2024 and I agree.

Now that I live in the US and have to work in order to get health insurance, and not only that but I have to work full time to get health insurance, the screw tightens further. In the more stressful periods, I find myself waking up at 3am and working on The Philosopher until my job begins.

There are some good things though. 2023 is our 100th anniversary. Nick Halliday designs an excellent anniversary logo. I spend time I don’t really have designing anniversary merch that no one buys. We reduce to two issues in 2023 as part of the stress reduction strategy. Both of them are excellent (I think). We also run a trial version of the groups/classes in the spring (a project that Kate Warlow-Corcoran has gloriously built upon this year).

2023 also features an amazing stroke of good luck. Maryam Aghdami had attended one of the groups/classes and has some funding from her PhD funder to do 16-hours per week for a year with a philosophy organisation of her choice. She chooses us. Maryam is basically a godsend. Together, we start to get the organisation organised. Other people start coming forward as well, including Kate and Andrés Saenz de Sicilia. The exit strategy begins to seem plausible.

2024:

It has taken an immense amount of work, but The Philosopher is now officially a well-run organisation. While I am stepping back today as editor-in-chief, I will remain on the editorial team. Maryam is taking over as editor-in-chief until the end of the year, with Andrés, Kate, and Nishok G U (a PhD student from India) sharing editorial duties. We are supported by the editorial board. (You can find a list of all the members of The Philosopher here.) We have various organisational documents, our finances are now managed by the PSE (the charity that runs The Philosopher), and all feels healthy and exciting. The editorial presence of the different members is making itself felt, shaping the future content of The Philosopher in new directions that will doubtlessly make it more interesting than when it was basically just a reflection of me and my limited philosophical interests.

I plan to engage with The Philosopher as a hobby. I will continue to update the website (along with Jordan Lee), write the Substack newsletter (along with Andie Cook), commission a few events, and commission the reviews for the print issue. I am aiming for 10 hours per month, which would make it my third most time-consuming hobby. Loosening the grip is feeling a bit painful, but with the quiet summer months ahead I am confident that I can embark on a very different life.

One of the main drawbacks of all the stress is what I have sometimes referred to as “ideas burnout”. It’s the feeling that no idea can surprise me, that I have been so drowned in ideas these past years that nothing seems that new or interesting. I plan to start reading philosophy again “for fun” (the last philosophy book I read from cover-to-cover was Andy West’s The Life Inside back in 2022 (and that was the first one I had read for ages). I used to like writing reviews, so I plan to start that again.

Overall, then, it’s been a wild ride. I cannot imagine having another job (I’m calling it a job even though I never got paid) that will provide me with anything close to the freedom and exhilaration I have got from running The Philosopher. I suspect it will be the pinnacle of my professional achievements (which isn’t saying much, to be fair). Philosophers are generally awesome people and it’s been wonderful to be able to meet so many of them, occasionally become friends with them. I am grateful to so many people for supporting me these past years. But, as you can sense, primarily to Joanna (wife, not artist), for sticking with me despite everything. To riff on the Buddhists, any merit I may have cultivated through my editorship, I dedicate it all to you.