My thinking was that Because they were doing influential research and brought in funding? FHI’s work seems significantly better than most academic philosophy, even by prestigious university standards.
But on reflection, yes, obviously Oxford University will bring more prestige to anything it touches.
Erm, looking at the accomplishments of FHI, I’d be genuinely surprised if random philosophers from Oxford will be nearly as influential going forwards. “It’s the man that honors the medal.”
I might not be tracking all the exact nuances, but I’d have thought that prestige is ~just legible influence aged a bit, in the same way that old money is just new money aged a bit. I model institutions like Oxford as trying to play the “long game” here.
The point I’m trying to make is that there are many ways you can be influential (including towards people that matter) and only some of them increase prestige. People can talk about your ideas without ever mentioning or knowing your name, you can be a polarising figure who a lot of influential people like but who it’s taboo to mention, and so on.
I also do think you originally meant (or conveyed) a broader meaning of influential—as you mention economic output and the dustbins of history, which I would consider to be about broad influence.
Interesting example! I don’t know much about Tate, but I understand him as a) only “influential” in a very ephemeral way, in the way that e.g. pro wrestlers are, and b) only influential among people who themselves aren’t influential.
It’s possible we aren’t using the word “influential” in the same way. E.g. implicit in my understanding of “influential” is something like “having influence on people who matter” whereas maybe you’re just defining it as “having influence on (many) people, period?”
This seems like quite an in-group perspective. From the perspective of a generic philosophy faculty, that looks like a very small list of papers for a department that was running for nearly two decades. Without knowing their impact factor (which I’d guess was higher than average, but not extreme) it’s hard to say whether this was reasonable from a prestige perspective.
I don’t think it’s just an in-group perspective! Bostrom literally gives and receives feedback from kings; other members of FHI have gone on to influential positions in multi-billion dollar companies.
Are you really saying that if you ask the general public (or members of the intellectual elite), typical philosophy faculty at prestigious universities will be recognized to be as or more impressive or influential in comparison?
When did he get feedback from Kings? Googling it, the only thing I can see is that he was invited to an event which the Swedish king was also at.
Also, most of Bostrom’s extra-academic prestige is based on a small handful of the papers listed. That might justify making him something like a public communicator of philosophy, but it doesn’t obviously merit sponsoring an entire academic department indefinitely.
To be clear, I have no strong view on whether the university acted reasonably a) in the abstract or b) according to incentives in the unique prestige ecosystem which universities inhabit. But I don’t think listing a handful of papers our subgroup approves of is a good rationale for claiming that it did neither.
I’m at work and don’t have the book with me, but you can look at the “Acknowledgements” section of Superintelligence.
I agree that it’s not clear whether the Department of Philosophy acted reasonably in the unique prestige ecosystem which universities inhabit, whether in the abstract or after adjusting for FHI quite possibly being unusually difficult/annoying to work with. I do think history will vindicate my position in the abstract and “normal people” with a smattering of facts about the situation (though perhaps not the degree of granularity where you understand the details of specific academic squabbles) will agree with me.
I claim that on net FHI would’ve brought more prestige to Oxford than the other way around, especially in the counterfactual world where it thrived/was allowed to thrive (which might be impractical for other reasons).
I might think of FHI as having borrowed prestige from Oxford. I think it benefited significantly from that prestige. But in the longer run it gets paid back (with interest!).
That metaphor doesn’t really work, because it’s not that FHI loses prestige when it pays it back—but I think the basic dynamic of it being a trade of prestige at different points in time is roughly accurate.
My thinking was that Because they were doing influential research and brought in funding? FHI’s work seems significantly better than most academic philosophy, even by prestigious university standards.
But on reflection, yes, obviously Oxford University will bring more prestige to anything it touches.
Erm, looking at the accomplishments of FHI, I’d be genuinely surprised if random philosophers from Oxford will be nearly as influential going forwards. “It’s the man that honors the medal.”
Influence =/= prestige
I might not be tracking all the exact nuances, but I’d have thought that prestige is ~just legible influence aged a bit, in the same way that old money is just new money aged a bit. I model institutions like Oxford as trying to play the “long game” here.
The point I’m trying to make is that there are many ways you can be influential (including towards people that matter) and only some of them increase prestige. People can talk about your ideas without ever mentioning or knowing your name, you can be a polarising figure who a lot of influential people like but who it’s taboo to mention, and so on.
I also do think you originally meant (or conveyed) a broader meaning of influential—as you mention economic output and the dustbins of history, which I would consider to be about broad influence.
Andrew Tate is very influential, but entirely lacking in prestige.
Interesting example! I don’t know much about Tate, but I understand him as a) only “influential” in a very ephemeral way, in the way that e.g. pro wrestlers are, and b) only influential among people who themselves aren’t influential.
It’s possible we aren’t using the word “influential” in the same way. E.g. implicit in my understanding of “influential” is something like “having influence on people who matter” whereas maybe you’re just defining it as “having influence on (many) people, period?”
This seems like quite an in-group perspective. From the perspective of a generic philosophy faculty, that looks like a very small list of papers for a department that was running for nearly two decades. Without knowing their impact factor (which I’d guess was higher than average, but not extreme) it’s hard to say whether this was reasonable from a prestige perspective.
I don’t think it’s just an in-group perspective! Bostrom literally gives and receives feedback from kings; other members of FHI have gone on to influential positions in multi-billion dollar companies.
Are you really saying that if you ask the general public (or members of the intellectual elite), typical philosophy faculty at prestigious universities will be recognized to be as or more impressive or influential in comparison?
When did he get feedback from Kings? Googling it, the only thing I can see is that he was invited to an event which the Swedish king was also at.
Also, most of Bostrom’s extra-academic prestige is based on a small handful of the papers listed. That might justify making him something like a public communicator of philosophy, but it doesn’t obviously merit sponsoring an entire academic department indefinitely.
To be clear, I have no strong view on whether the university acted reasonably a) in the abstract or b) according to incentives in the unique prestige ecosystem which universities inhabit. But I don’t think listing a handful of papers our subgroup approves of is a good rationale for claiming that it did neither.
I’m at work and don’t have the book with me, but you can look at the “Acknowledgements” section of Superintelligence.
I agree that it’s not clear whether the Department of Philosophy acted reasonably in the unique prestige ecosystem which universities inhabit, whether in the abstract or after adjusting for FHI quite possibly being unusually difficult/annoying to work with. I do think history will vindicate my position in the abstract and “normal people” with a smattering of facts about the situation (though perhaps not the degree of granularity where you understand the details of specific academic squabbles) will agree with me.
This sounds like it’s disagreeing with the parent comment but I’m not sure if it is?
I claim that on net FHI would’ve brought more prestige to Oxford than the other way around, especially in the counterfactual world where it thrived/was allowed to thrive (which might be impractical for other reasons).
I might think of FHI as having borrowed prestige from Oxford. I think it benefited significantly from that prestige. But in the longer run it gets paid back (with interest!).
That metaphor doesn’t really work, because it’s not that FHI loses prestige when it pays it back—but I think the basic dynamic of it being a trade of prestige at different points in time is roughly accurate.