Timothy Burke and Kieran Healy have some interesting posts about specialisation in contemporary academia. Burke is bemoaning the domination of the specialistists, Healy offers some words in their defence. I may have mentioned this before, but right now I’m an interesting little experiment in how far one can go as a non-specialist. How non-specialist you ask? Well, I’m currently affiliated with programs other than my home department (linguistic & cognitive sciences and brain sciences) and even within philosophy this year I’ve worked on language, literature and logic and perception, probability and politics. So, in helpful contrarian spirit, I hope Burke and Healy are both wrong. Burke about how specialists dominate the top of the profession, and Healy about why they should.