Francis Ellingwood Abbot (1836–1903)

Reading documents like this makes me glad I left academia. I don't know the readership for the International Journal of Ethics where the negative book review appeared that prompted this scathing 'appeal', but I can't imagine that the 'public' who read about how terrible Abbot's book account for more than a few hundred people, and most of them probably are not so easily swayed by one bad book review that they would not read the book for themselves if they were at all interested in it. Thankfully I have never received such an elaborate response to any negative book reviews I've written, though I have had a few nasty messaged from disgruntled authors. No doubt there is a context to Abbot's appeal and to the various negative reviews Professor Royce published, that explains why Royce would bother reviewing Abbot's books at all; surely there are a lot of other ethics books that would be more deserving of valuable journal space if Abbot's attempts at philosophy were as bad as Royce suggested. Again, I am glad I am not in academia any longer, playing these sorts of academia-world games.… (mais)

Reading documents like this makes me glad I left academia. I don't know the readership for the International Journal of Ethics where the negative book review appeared that prompted this scathing 'appeal', but I can't imagine that the 'public' who read about how terrible Abbot's book account for more than a few hundred people, and most of them probably are not so easily swayed by one bad book review that they would not read the book for themselves if they were at all interested in it. Thankfully I have never received such an elaborate response to any negative book reviews I've written, though I have had a few nasty messaged from disgruntled authors. No doubt there is a context to Abbot's appeal and to the various negative reviews Professor Royce published, that explains why Royce would bother reviewing Abbot's books at all; surely there are a lot of other ethics books that would be more deserving of valuable journal space if Abbot's attempts at philosophy were as bad as Royce suggested. Again, I am glad I am not in academia any longer, playing these sorts of academia-world games.… (mais)