| Author(s) | Eric Schwitzgebel |
| Abstract | This first-person narrative reflects on the phenomenon of “seeming smart” in academic philosophy. It notes how a particular white, male graduate student was widely judged by faculty to be promising due to his style and confidence, while the author saw his actual intellectual abilities as mediocre. A pattern emerges where those spontaneously described as “seeming smart” tend to fit social categories associated with intelligence – especially white maleness. The author hypothesizes that judgments of smartness are often based on matching superficial cues like appearance, dialect, and mannerisms to unconscious biases about intelligence. This likely advantages those exhibiting privileged social identities. However, expectations can become self-fulfilling: when faculty expect students to perform well, they tend to rise to meet those expectations, regardless of innate talent. The piece concludes by calling for critical examination of what embodied traits are valorized as “smart” in philosophy and how this might perpetuate exclusion of those not fitting the mold. This content was generated by artificial intelligence using the text of the original work. |
| Website Name | The Splintered Mind: reflections in philosophy of psychology, broadly construed This content was generated by artificial intelligence using the text of the original work. |
| Date Published | March 25, 2010 |
| Keywords | philosophy climate/culture, seeming smart, graduate students, gender bias, racial bias, pygmalion effect |
| URL | http://schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com/2010/03/on-being-good-at-seeming-smart.html |
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