On taking risks. With an afterthought on peer review

Jumping over a puddle is both fun to try and to watch. It’s a small risk to take, but some puddles are too large to cross… There are greater risks, but whatever the stakes, they create excitement. And in the face of possible failure, success feels quite different. If you play a difficult run on the piano, the listeners will equally feel relief when you manage to land on the right note in time. The same goes for academic research and writing. If you start out with a provocative hypothesis, people will get excited about the way you mount the evidence. Although at least some grant agencies ask for risks taken in proposals, risk taking is hardly ever addressed in philosophy or writing guides. Perhaps people think it’s not a serious issue, but I believe it might be one of the crucial elements.

In philosophy, every move worth our time probably involves a risk. Arguing that mistakes or successes depend on their later contextualisation, I already looked at the “the fine line between mistake and innovation.” But how do we get onto that fine line? This, I think, involves taking a risk. Taking a risk in philosophy means saying or doing something that will likely be met with objections. That’s probably why criticising interlocutors is so widespread. But there are many ways of taking risks. Sitting in a seminar, it might already feel risky to just raise your voice and ask a question. You feel you might make a fool of yourself and lose the respect of your fellow students or instructor. But if you make the effort you might also be met with the admiration for going through with an only seemingly trivial point. I guess it’s that oscillation between the possibility of failure and success that also moves the listeners or readers. It’s important to note that risk taking has a decidedly emotional dimension. Jumping across the puddle might land you in the puddle. But even if you don’t make it all the way, you’ll have moved more than yourself.

In designing papers or research projects, risk taking is most of the time rewarded, at least with initial attention. You can make an outrageous sounding claim like “thinking is being” or “panpsychism is true”. You can present a non-canonical interpretation or focus on a historical figure like “Hume was a racist” or “Descartes was an Aristotelian”. You can edit or write on the work of a non-canonical figure or provide an uncommon translation of a technical term. This list is not exhaustive, and depending on the conventions of your audience all sorts of moves might be risky. Of course, then there is work to be done. You’ve got to make your case. But if you’re set to make a leap, people will often listen more diligently than when you merely promise to summarise the state of the art. In other words, taking a risk will be seen as original. That said, the leap has to be well prepared. It has to work from elements that are familiar to your audience. Otherwise the risk cannot be appreciated for what it is. On the other hand, mounting the evidence must be presented as feasible. Otherwise you’ll come across as merely ambitious.

Whatever you do, in taking a risk you’ll certainly antagonise some people. Some will be cheering and applauding your courage and originality. Others will shake their heads and call you weird or other endearing things. What to do? It might feel difficult to live with opposition. But if you have two opposed groups, one positive, one negative, you can be sure you’re onto something. Go for it! It’s important to trust your instincts and intuitions. You might make it across the puddle, even if half of your peers don’t believe it. If you fail, you’ve just attempted what everyone else should attempt, too. Unless it’s part of the job to stick to reinventing the wheel.

Now the fact that risks will be met with much opposition but might indicate innovation should give us pause when it comes to peer review. In view of the enormous competition, journals seem to encourage that authors comply with the demands of two reviewers. (Reviewer #2 is a haunting meme by now.)  A paper that gets one wholly negative review will often be rejected. But if it’s true that risks, while indicative of originality, will incur strong opposition, should we not think that a paper is particularly promising when met with two opposing reviews? Compliance with every possible reviewer seems to encourage risk aversion. Conversely, looking out for opposing reviews would probably change a number of things in our current practice. I guess managing such a process wouldn’t be easier. So it’s not surprising if things won’t change anytime soon. But such change, if considered desirable, is probably best incentivised bottom-up. And this would mean to begin in teaching.

The fact, then, that a claim or move provokes opposition or even refutation should not be seen as a negative trait. Rather it indicates that something is at stake. It is important, I believe, to convey this message, especially to beginners who should learn to enjoy taking risks and listening to others doing it.