Professors Who Interrupt Q&A Sessions

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When I was a PhD student in philosophy, I was attending a talk at a conference. The speaker and commentator had finished up, and the moderator, who would be running the Q&A, had just called on the first questioner. But before the questioner could ask his question, someone else in the audience just started talking, asking his own question. He didn’t even raise his hand.

The thing is, it was Peter Geach. He isn’t well known today, but back then everyone knew of him. The speaker, commentator, moderator, and questioner shut up and let Geach ask his question. And then the speaker responded, with respect. I don’t think anyone thought it was unjustified. It was Peter fucking Geach.

I’m wondering why we all agreed to that. I think there are at least three things that can make that kind of interruption socially acceptable, but I’m genuinely wondering whether I’m right about any of it. So, I’d be interested in what people have to say.

Yes, this is totally unimportant. Professional navel gazing at its worst, I freely admit.

First, Geach was old, maybe 80 or so. We tend to defer to old people, cutting them slack. That’s part of most cultures I think. Sounds good.

But second, I wonder if it had to do with his contributions to the profession. Perhaps some people in the audience were silently thinking to themselves, “This guy has earned the right to do this. Even if you disagree with most of what he thinks in philosophy, you gotta respect him for what he’s done over the last few decades”.

Third, we cut people slack when we know that they are autistic, highly eccentric, or something similar. We make allowances. When I was taking grad classes in mathematical logic in the math department, there was a high school student in attendance. As you’d expect, she was deeply weird (that’s not an insult). When she did something odd in class, no one was offended in the least. We were all happy to let her have her say. After all, who doesn’t want to help out a high school student taking a class for grad students???

Now imagine if Ernie Sosa did what Geach did. Sosa’s about 85 now. I think we’d all shut up and let him ask his question. Just like Geach. We would be totally happy to do so, even though it would be unlike Sosa to do that.

But now suppose it was Tim Williamson, who is 70 now. I think we would give him the same deference. But not because of age, right? I think it might be something like “He’s earned it, for God’s sake. Just look at what he’s done for the profession with all those amazing publications”.

Now imagine Saul Kripke doing it when he’s just 45 years old, in 1985. At that point in his career, he was often thought to be a philosophy god. I don’t think there’s anyone in philosophy today who has the reputation that Kripke had in the 1980s and 1990s. People used to say things like “You see that dry cleaning store across the street? If they hired Kripke, that’d be the best philosophy department in the world”. Funny.

If he had done the Geach thing, maybe some people would think it’s okay he did it because Kripke’s a legit genius and has earned the right to interrupt. But this time, he’s earned it not because of a long career of accomplishment, like in Williamson’s case, but because he’s a freakin’ genius. It’s like we want him to speak, because we think whatever he says will be super insightful compared to the relative idiots in the audience.

Never mind whether people would be right to think that! I’m just wondering what people would think.

The Kripke scenario is complicated by the fact that he was acknowledged to be deeply weird in ways that he couldn’t control, like being autistic. If he hadn’t had any of those psychological problems, would people have happily deferred to him? Or would they think “This guy’s a bully. He should wait his turn, like everyone else. It doesn’t matter that he’s a genius at Princeton”? I don’t know.

Interested to hear what you have to say! You can comment in any of several ways:

1: Here are the social norms actually in place.

2: Here’s what the norms should be, prudentially.

3: Here’s what the norms should be, morally.

4: Tell me more stories about Kripke.

5: What happened to that high school kid?

6: [Something else]