August 2014
Writing Tools
No, this is not a post about jerks who write. Rather, it is spurred by an inquiry from John Schwenkler (Florida State) about which programs philosophers use for writing. I am not very knowledgeable about the alternatives here, but Professor Schwenkler shares his recommendations:
· Lyx, which is a TeX/LaTeX editor that is easy to learn and install, and takes care of ..
It’s Five O’clock Somewhere
“Beer and Trembling” and other bars philosophy professors opened after being denied tenure. (via Mark Alfano)
Suggestions—for other bars or the drinks served at them—welcome in the comments.
Philosophers on the Israeli – Palestinian Conflict
Jason Stanley (Yale) has a piece in today’s Frankfurter Allgemeine, a German newspaper. It is entitled “An Open Letter to the Protestors on the streets of Berlin chanting ‘Jude, Jude, feiges Schwein, komm heraus und kämpf allein’ ”” which looks at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and reactions to it, as well as the ideas of democracy and pluralism, through the lens ..
New Open Access Journal
Symposion has been relaunched as an open access, multilingual, quarterly, philosophy-centric interdisciplinary journal. Its first issue in its new format has just been published.
When Is Philosophical Agreement Suspicious?
Last week, in the post about philosophy of religion, I wrote:
For a few reasons, it is not a sociologically surprising fact that most philosophy of religion in the West today is conducted by Christian theists. But it is certainly philosophically surprising (bordering on philosophically suspect) that, of all the possible options for religious belief (which include n..
Civic Engagement in Philosophy Classes
Ramona Ilea (Pacific University) shares news of an online resource for philosophy professors she has helped create called Engaged Philosophy. The site is a repository of information about incorporating projects of civic engagement into philosophy courses.
When students do civic engagement projects in our philosophy classes, they commit to making changes in their com..
In the Overlap between Logic, Fun, and Information
John Venn, an English philosopher who spent much of his career at Cambridge, died in 1923, but if he were alive today he would totally be dead, as it is his 180th birthday. Venn was named after the Venn diagram, owing to the fact that as a child he was terrible at math but good at drawing circles, and so was not held back in 5th grade. In celebration of this philoso..
What Are Some Things You’ve Said?
While we’ve been collecting your philosophical sayings here, someone else has been collecting what you might have said in the classroom or in office hours or wherever, when, perhaps, you weren’t being as careful with your words. Check out Philosophy Professor Quotes and have a laugh, perhaps at your own expense. (via Clayton Littlejohn (update: via Jon Cogburn at Ne..
Heap of Links
1. “By insisting that print is a necessary condition for scholarly quality, deans and scholars make it more difficult for university presses to stay in business, thereby making it more difficult for them to publish print books! At the same time, scholars insist on having their own work published in print while they increasingly engage the work of others online. And..
Ketland Reinstated at Oxford
Jeffrey Ketland, who had been dismissed from his position as a philosophy fellow and tutor at Oxford’s Pembroke College following accusations that he had harassed a BPhil student who committed suicide (previously), was successful in his appeal of that decision and has been reinstated, according to this article in The Sunday Times.
Ketland, 50, a philosophy lecturer ..
Philosopher’s Index vs. PhilPapers
Wayne Bivens-Tatum, the philosophy and religion librarian at Princeton University, has published a comparison of Philosopher’s Index and PhilPapers at his blog, Academic Librarian. As he notes, “choosing between the two of them might be a budgetary necessity for librarians who wanted to subscribe to PhilPapers under the new terms.”