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PhilGoetz comments on What do professional philosophers believe, and why? - Less Wrong Discussion
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Time to trot out Jaynes:
He quoted a colleague:
I just realized he was wrong, though. He's right that they don't have to do anything right, but they're only free to do what gets them tenure. It needs to be an area that allows for a lot of publishing. If you're the type of philosopher who dissolves problems, you're likely out of luck. When a problem is dissolved, there's nothing left to write about. The more your theories promote and enable an intellectual circle jerk, the better your career prospects. Not only will you have a lot to write about, you're enabling others as well, and so will have allies in asserting the value of the topic.
When John Searle and Jerry Fodor spoke at U. of Buffalo, they each gave me the impression that they were trying to be talked about. Fodor began with a reasonable position on the existence of faculties of the mind, and turned it into a caricature of itself that he didn't really seem to believe in, that seemed intended to be more outrageous than what Chomsky was saying at the time about universal grammar. Searle leered gleefully whenever he said something particularly provocative or deceptive, or dodged a question with a witty remark. Judging from what made him smile, he was interested in philosophy only as a competition.
I've had bad experiences of this kind with a bunch of famous philosophers, though the problem doesn't seem to extend to their writing. I think being famous, especially when you're in the presence of the people with whom you are famous, is really, really hard on your rationality.
As a display of virtuosity. An instrumental value (verbal dexterity) becomes an end in itself. Technique for technique's sake. Cleverness for cleverness' sake. Not necessarily competition against anyone in particular, but evaluation versus a standard and the general population distribution of those evaluations.