I think talk about &quot;the impossibility of teaching well&quot; is stretching things a bit. In my own experience, I had some philosophy professors who were phenomenally great teachers and some others who were downright awful. Some of the difference might have come down to innate talent for teaching, but I&#x27;m quite sure that <i>none</i> of the difference was attributable to the amount of non-teaching duties they had. The best teachers I had were professors with <i>heavy</i> administrative and advisory duties, while the two worst had comparatively little non-teaching work to do. The main reason they were terrible teachers is because they just didn&#x27;t give a shit; they were clearly just phoning it in.