October 2014
Philosophical Op-Ed Contest
The American Philosophical Association’s Committee on Public Philosophy is seeking nominations for the best opinion pieces or editorials published by philosophers in 2013.
We will honor up to five standout pieces that successfully blend philosophical argumentation with an op-ed writing style. Winning submissions will call public attention, either directly or indi..
Comfortable With a Kind of “Stupidity”
At some point, the conversation turned to why she had left graduate school. To my utter astonishment, she said it was because it made her feel stupid. After a couple of years of feeling stupid every day, she was ready to do something else. I had thought of her as one of the brightest people I knew and her subsequent career supports that view. What she said bothered ..
Bioethicists on Ebola
We are now experiencing the tragic consequences of failing to appreciate the need to invest more resources, expertise and support in developing countries, including those where the Ebola outbreak is happening. Such investments would have allowed for health systems in those parts of the world to be better equipped to respond to and minimize the unfolding crisis. For ..
Three Philosophers Awarded New Canada Research Chairs
The Canada Research Program has announced the recipients of the new Canada Research Chairs. Three philosophers are among the new recipients. They are:
- Ingo Brigandt, University of Alberta: Canada Research Chair in Philosophy of Biology
- Marc-Antoine Dilhac, Université de Montréal: Canada Research Chair in Public Ethics and Political Theory
- Ken Waters..
Philosophers and Cognitive Bias
Should the order in which a person considers thought experiments affect one’s responses to them? Rationally, it seems no. Yet the “order effect” is well-confirmed. What about philosophers? We are supposed to have a kind of expertise in handling thought experiments and are known (?) for thinking clearly and rationally; certainly the content of our judgments are not s..
Ali Mazrui (1933 – 2014)
Ali Alamin Mazrui, who was Albert Schweitzer Professor of the Humanities and professor of political science, African studies and philosophy, interpretation, and culture at Binghamton Univerity, and who held concurrent appointments at the University of Jos (Nigeria), Cornell University, and Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (Kenya), died this pas..
Colorado to Resume Graduate Admissions (updated)
The Department of Philosophy at the University of Colorado will resume admissions to its graduate program for the 2015-16 academic year. Admissions had been suspended last year following the site visit report of the American Philosophical Association’s Committee on the Status of Women (previously). From the university press release:
The move follows the enactment..
Professors in Poverty
A few weeks ago Salon published “Professors on Food Stamps: The Shocking True Story of Academia in 2014.” The article shares the plight of adjunct instructors, a lot of whom teach many courses at multiple institutions for minimal compensation.
“The most shocking thing is that many of us don’t even earn the federal minimum wage,” said Miranda Merklein, an adjunct ..
Philosopher’s Article Inspires Charity Challenge (M.A.D. Philosophy)
Last month, Ben Hale (Colorado) published an article in Slate, “The Most Terrifying Thing About Ebola,” that emphasized how the disease piggybacks on human impulse to physically express care and affection for the sick and dying. Inspired by this article, Karin Tamerius, M.D., created a A Day Without Touch, a fundraiser for Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Front..
Philosophy on Homelessness
The University of Oregon Department of Philosophy has “Community Philosophy Institutes” on various topics, and one of its current projects is “Homelessness and Home.” Organized by Professor Naomi Zack, who is also teaching a course on the subject, Homelessness and Home aims to “support creative, intellectual, and practical address of the problems of homelessness. Th..
Better To Not Create Lectureships?
An assistant professor who wishes to remain anonymous (“given the possibility that my department might proceed to hire a lecturer, I do not by any means want that individual to feel anything other than completely welcome in our department”) writes in with the following query:
“Say an institution is contemplating creating a new non-tenure-track lectureship positio..
On ‘Begs the Question’: A Poll
With alarming frequency I am hearing friends declare that we’ve lost “begs the question.” What used to be a distinctive phrase for the fallacy of assuming the truth of the very claim you are setting out to prove (aka petitio principii), “begs the question” is now widely used to mean “raises the question.” A Language Log post from over 4 years ago presented some data..
Cornel West Arrested in Ferguson
Cornel West (Princeton) was arrested in Ferguson, MO today while taking part in the “Ferguson October” rally, which has been attended by over 1,000 protesters. West said he attended the rally with the intent to get arrested. Details here and here.
(photo: Jim Young / Reuters, via The New York Times)
Philosophers to Help Mine Big Data for Biomedical Research
Carnegie Mellon University’s Department of Philosophy is teaming up with the University of Pittsburgh to form a new “Center for Causal Modeling and Discovery in the Biomedical Sciences.” The center is funded by an $11 million grant from the National Institutes of Health. Its aim is to “help scientists capitalize more fully on enormous and growing collections of data..
Live-Tweeting Conferences
Leigh Johnson (Christian Brothers University) has issued a CFT — a call for tweeters — for the upcoming meeting of the Society for Phenomenology and Existentialist Philosophy (SPEP) later this month. (The tweets from last year’s conference are archived here.) What are the benefits of having people live tweet a conference? Johnson’s answer includes:
- keeps you i..
Two Ways to Help Victims (Guest Post by Jennifer Lackey)
Jennifer Lackey is professor of philosophy at Northwestern University. She works mostly in epistemology, with an emphasis on social epistemology. She is the author of Learning from Words: Testimony as a Source of Knowledge (OUP), has edited collections on the epistemology of testimony and disagreement, and has written very many articles on these and other topics. In..
The Moral Psychology of Racist Brutality
Kate Manne (Cornell) writes in The Stone in The New York Times that the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, Missouri, and the events that have occurred in its wake, suggest that a traditional understanding of racism is mistaken:
One possibility is that people are treated brutally because those who mistreat them fail to grasp their common humanity — or, similarly,..
Comments and Anonymity at Daily Nous
I am grateful that people take the time and make the effort to comment on the posts here at Daily Nous. I try to post about news and issues that are important to or of interest to other philosophers, and the discussions that the posts generate is one way of gauging success at that. Some of these discussions have been informative and helpful, occasionally provocative..
Leiter to Step Down from PGR / The New Consensus
Brian Leiter (Chicago) announced that he will be stepping down as editor of the Philosophical Gourmet Report (PGR), a highly influential reputational ranking of philosophy Ph.D. programs he created in 1989 while he was a graduate student, and which has been published on the Internet since 1996. The 2014-15 edition of the PGR will be officially co-edited by Leiter an..
What Google Thinks People Think About Philosophers
Enter a word or two into Google and its guesses about what you’re looking for, based on what most other people have looked for using similar words, will appear.
So what do people think of philosophers? Hmmm….
How does Google autocomplete other philosophy-related searches? If you find one worth sharing, take a screenshot, send it to dailynouseditor@gmail…
How Much Weight Should a Candidate’s School Have?
“The next time you do a job search break your committee into two groups. Have one group evaluate the candidates without reference to the institution from which they graduated and have the other evaluate the candidates with all of the institutional information included. I can almost guarantee that the short lists will not be the same. And I believe that anyone who is..
APA Member Demographics
The American Philosophical Association (APA) has published a table that provides some basic demographic information about its membership, including gender, race/ethnicity, LGBT status, disability status, employment status, and tenure status. According to the introductory page, “All demographic data collection is voluntary, and members may provide or update their inf..
Non-Academic Hires — a Reminder
The academic philosophy job market is underway, but academia is not the only place philosophy PhDs might be seeking employment. Check out the Non-Academic Hires page here at Daily Nous to see what kind of work philosophers have landed outside of academia. If you are a philosopher who has recently found employment outside academia, please add your information to that..
Update from Leiter
In a post at his blog, Brian Leiter responds to the September Statement calling for him to relinquish control of the Philosophical Gourmet Report (PGR) by saying that “there may be a lot more to the story.” He also says that he and the Board of the PGR have made “considerable progress the last few days” toward “a plan for the future in which I step down as editor af..
Broader Effects of the PGR
The following is an excerpt from an email a well-known senior philosopher sent to his/her colleagues regarding visiting speakers:
“The events are being organized so as to maximally benefit the department. This includes promoting the reputation of the department, providing intellectual stimulation, and just having plain fun. Normally, conferences and workshops sho..
How Much Should Publishers Pay Contributors?
A professor who prefers to remain anonymous—perhaps so as to not weaken his bargaining position—asks for help from Daily Nous readers about how much he should request to be paid for allowing a publisher to use one of his articles in a textbook anthology. He writes:
Does anyone have any information about how much, if anything, an author should expect to receiv..
Outrageous Firing of 8 Seminary Faculty (updated)
Eight of the ten full-time faculty teaching at General Theological Seminary, an Episcopal Seminary in Manhattan, have been fired after detailing the highly objectionable behavior of their newly installed Dean/President Kurt Dunkle in a letter to the school’s Board of Trustees. Here are some of their complaints against Dunkle:
“On numerous occasions, he has told t..
Advertising Exploitative Positions
Derek Bowman, a recent philosophy PhD who is currently employed as a part-time lecturer, writes in with a suggestion for addressing the increasingly prevalent practice of hiring part-time or adjunct faculty to meet teaching needs. I present it here for your consideration and discussion.
In recent years, the philosophy blogosphere has done an admirable job mak..