...say, at the top math, computer science, and formal philosophy departments in the English-speaking world.
People at top academic departments everywhere in the world speak English… (which is probably true even for the janitor when it comes to some western countries).
How well do they though? I’ve seen a few academics from around me having enough command of English to get by, but they might still miss some of the subtle points. They just can’t reason as well in English as they do in their mother tongue.
As of 1997 more than 95% of research articles in the Science Citation Index were written in English. Being able to read and write in English is a hard requirement for participation in the community of scholars in STEM disciplines and somewhere between a hard requirement and very, very useful elsewhere. I doubt there are any top level philosophers who can’t read English well enough to parse extremely complicated arguments. Whether they can write, speak or lsten as well, dunno.
People at top academic departments everywhere in the world speak English… (which is probably true even for the janitor when it comes to some western countries).
How well do they though? I’ve seen a few academics from around me having enough command of English to get by, but they might still miss some of the subtle points. They just can’t reason as well in English as they do in their mother tongue.
As of 1997 more than 95% of research articles in the Science Citation Index were written in English. Being able to read and write in English is a hard requirement for participation in the community of scholars in STEM disciplines and somewhere between a hard requirement and very, very useful elsewhere. I doubt there are any top level philosophers who can’t read English well enough to parse extremely complicated arguments. Whether they can write, speak or lsten as well, dunno.