On Refereeing a book ms.

[Rachel McKinnon solicited this post from me. She should be blamed for any insights.--ES]

Refereeing a book manuscript for a university press can be a daunting enterprise. If you don't watch out, it can be very time-consuming (some of us should be kept off the streets--you know who you are). Crucially, the norms that apply are not entirely clear. For example, if you find an invalid argument on p. 275, it might, after all, be worth repairing given all the other riches. But what if you find lots of problems (lack of citations, garden path arguments, etc), yet judge that the book will make a major contribution? Now, book-refereeing is rarely masked--referees nearly always know the identity of the author. Is there something to be gained to see the -- let's stipulate, dead-wrong -- views of, say, an influential PhD supervisor in print, rather than propogated in the works of the students?

More subtly, the interests of presses and the discipline do not coincide. Here's a concrete example: whatever you think of the substance of Nagel's Mind and Cosmos, it is undeniable that it could have benefitted from more exacting refereeing. Leaving aside his engagement with the (philosophy of) sciences, it is undeniable that  if Nagel had engaged with more recent analytic metaphysics he could have given a far better and more favorable account of the nature of the problem-space.  But, of course, if it had been seriously revised in light of serious refereeing it would have been almost certainly less readable and, perhaps, less controversial; it might also not have read anymore as Nagel's last will to the profession.

Here follow some de-feasible considerations that might inform book refereeing:

1. [A] Your main job as a referee is to help an editor -- almost never a professional philosopher -- figure out the significance of the book and anticipate how people in the field might respond to it. [Bl Your duty to the profession is to uphold scholarly standards (quality, citation practices, etc.).

2. Is the book really a glorified journal article?And, if so, has that article already been published? If the answer is 'yes' and 'yes' then a report can be fairly brief and should incline toward rejection. (But, note, that some presses will publish anyway: it's a 'hot' topic or famous philosopher, etc.) Notable exception: if the 'book' is really directed at a different (non-specialist) audience.

 

3. If a book is substantial, that is, it has interesting new arguments and positions as well as engages with a broad range of literature,  then it might well be worth a referee's time to invest in calling attention to a range of infelicities. (Of course, if there are no problems, life is easy. Then consider yourself lucky that you were "twice paid" to do the best part of your job: read a great book.) Even so, it is worth remembering that important books often frame subsequent discussion, and what they omit can (sometimes) effectively be effaced from collective notice. Even so, life is short and it is really not the referee's job to write an author's book. By the way, if you are refereeing a non-philosophy book critical attention to details can raise tricky issues because in my experience, in a lot of Humanities discipline(s), detailed criticism can sink a book (no matter how much praise you give).

4. In addition, if the book is so good that you would want to read, cite, and assign it (a non-trivial consideration for a press) and you like the program then you might think it worth your time to offer detailed comments. I have sometimes written lengthy referee reports because I was substantially 'on board' with the author's project, and wanted to be able to cite it as an authority without reservation in the future. I view such reports as my contribution to a collective enterprise (even if I do not agree with the author's position). 

5. Finally, who should referee? I am torn on this. Often the most junior scholars are the most enmeshed in the recent literature and excited about being given genuine responsibility. Yet, I lean against encouraging having them as referees for book manuscripts (unlike journal articles): (a) there time is more valuable than most; (b) they often have not outgrown their graduate school blinders and (more controversially) (c) their judgment is not fully cultivated yet about how things hang together, what might be relevant outside a specialist literature, etc.

Anyway, I am sure I have ignored non-trivial considerations, so I invite press editors and the rest of us to comment.