I know what you mean. There's a lot of philosophy going on, and the pressure to publish causes even idiots to write big books and papers. But I think you shou

I know what you mean. There's a lot of philosophy going on, and the pressure to publish causes even idiots to write big books and papers. But I think you should judge a field by its most ambitious members and ignore the shadow-world of crappy scholars, journals, and departments that prop each other up for the sake of mutual image-boosting. At good departments, philosophers are expected to be in close contact with fields that their work touches, i.e. if you work on philosophy of physics or law or cognitive science, you should be educated in the field and conversant with its practitioners. But apply that 'judge-by-the-most-ambitious' standard to medieval philosophy and you get angels on pinheads. I think the interdisciplinary people make for more interesting philosophers anyway, even when they aren't using that dual law degree, viz. http://books.google.com/books?id=ZcdIsXrmcPwC&pg=PA33&lpg=PA33&dq=ruth+chang+legal+philosophy&source=web&ots=5e8ZyvI-ew&sig=Xp4DklMbpgKXLRcEnrLe0G_qO4A&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=2&ct=result http://books.google.com/books?id=ZcdIsXrmcPwC&pg=PA33&#3...