Why join the CPA?
"I'm a member of the APA, so I have no need of the CPA."
The APA does many good things. Here are some it does not do:
- represent Canadian philosophers to Canadian authorities. SSHRC policies may be bad for philosophers, as may provincial government higher education policies. The Canada Research Chairs programme may have features that disadvantage us. Your own university may decide it can do without a philosophy department, or merge it with religion or history. None of these powers will listen to the APA. But we have a chance of being heard by them.
- provide low-budget means for Canadian philosophers to meet. Our annual meetings at Congress are designed to let those who want to stay in expensive hotels to do so, but also to provide a low-cost option for others. When department budgets are under pressure you may not get your way paid to New York or San Diego to stay in the Sheraton, but when the CPA is meeting in your part of the country it will not cost you or your department much for you to attend, confer with colleagues and give a paper.
- provide a forum for discussion of specifically Canadian academic issues. We provide three means for this: the discussion forums of our website, official and unofficial contacts at Congress, and communication with our board, which is elected at the AGM with an eye to even representation across several categories. (There are specifically Canadian academic issues because our universities are different and funded differently. In philosophy the dfferent styles and schools mingle and influence each other more than they do generally in the states.)
"I don't go to Congress, so I have no need of membership."
Well, try it one summer: you may find it a refreshingly relaxed and serious occasion. But, besides this, we do have other activities. We argue your interests to authority, as described above. We put you in touch with one another. We help graduate students and sessionals. Some of these may not affect you individually, but you don't feel their absence because others support them.
"Whenever I have submitted a paper for the CPA meeting it has been rejected."
Yes, this will happen to us all. You do want us to have standards, don't you? Even if this sometimes means that good papers like yours don't find a place. Keep trying: we use anonymous review for individual submissions. And you can suggest a panel and then organize it. Acceptance policies are decided by the conference committee, and ultimately by the board. If you were a member you could influence this. We try to have both high-level research papers and graduate student presentations. (Some are both.) The balance between these is up to us, and therefore potentially you.
"It's a clique that I'm not part of."
Not true. We are bilingual and anti-sexist.
We campaign for equity in Canadian philosophy. The board and the executive are continually changing, and are elected on a rolling basis each summer.
"I'm a member of the society for X philosophy, so I get all my stimulation from colleagues with the same interests as me."
You won't if government or university funding is unfavourable, and that society has little input here. You also want it to survive and flourish, which it can do best if its membership drives and meetings are well publicised, which we can help with. I'll bet there are Canadian philosophers working on X who do not know that the soc for the phil of X exists.
"It's too expensive for what I get"
It could cost you more if the CPA did not exist. Our expenses are small, maintaining a tiny office and a website, but they are fixed, not proportional to membership numbers. So if our numbers sink the price goes up, and correspondingly if they increase there is a chance of reducing or holding them. And they are tied to (self-reported) income, subsidizing students and beginning philosophers, as most of us would wish.
"Dialogue is not my favourite journal, so I don't want to subsidize it"
Dialogue actually makes money for us. When joining you can opt not to get a paper copy. It is one of the few bilingual non-factional philosophy journals. It could play a different role, but this would need pressure from the members — as a member you could exert some.
Features
Pensées Canadiennes, the Canadian national undergraduate journal of philosophy.
The Equity Committee of the CPA was founded in 1990-1, and works to collect data on the situation of women, visible minorities, philosophers with disabilities, and Aboriginal philosophers in Canada, as well as to share information on best practices to promote equity within the profession. It holds a regular panel as part of the CPA annual meeting to encourage critical reflection on questions of equity. More ...
Hitting the Job Market (For job seekers.)
See this year's prize winners on the Prizes page.
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