August 2015
Philosophers On Prostitution’s Decriminalization
This past Tuesday, Amnesty International representatives from 60 countries voted on which stance the influential non-governmental organization should take regarding the legal status of prostitution, ultimately deciding to support its full decriminalization, including both the selling and buying of sex.
The position is highly controversial—particularly the decri..
Jaakko Hintikka (1929-2015)
Jaakko Hintikka, professor of philosophy at Boston University, has died. Over the course of his career, he also taught at Florida State University, Stanford, University of Helsinki, and the Academy of Finland. From his page at BU:
Dr. Hintikka is known as the main architect of game-theoretical semantics and of the interrogative approach to inquiry, and also as on..
Reviewing Open-Access Books
- How should open-access books be submitted to journals for review? These books are published in hard copy as print-on-demand paperbacks, but they..
Back To School Supplies
As the end of summer break is in sight, it is time to get ready for school to start. The following are some back-to-school ideas, for yourself or for the other academics in your life…
Replenish your supply of pens. These write very well, especially for the price, and they take refills.
If you need a suitable way to keep track of the minutes ticking by as you..
Abner Shimony (1928 – 2015)
Abner Shimony, professor emeritus of philosophy and physics at Boston University, has died. Professor Shimony was known for his work in philosophy of physics. A detailed obituary is here, and an entry in Wikipedia on him is here.
From the obituary:
After graduating Summa cum Laude in mathematics and philosophy from Yale in 1948, Abner was a student of Austrian..
Philosophical Education and Constructive Imagination
As we’ve discussed before, most of our students are not heading off to become philosophers. Increasingly, students already have jobs and are saddled with time-consuming responsibilities, and are coming from a broader range of socio-economic backgrounds. What good is a philosophical education for them? Jennifer Morton (City College of New York) takes up the question ..
Library of Congress Honors Two Philosophers
The Library of Congress has honored Jürgen Habermas and Charles Taylor as joint recipients of the John W. Kluge Prize for humanities.
According to the LoC website, the prize
is designed deliberately to reward work in the wide range of disciplines not covered by the Nobel Prizes—including history, philosophy, politics, anthropology, sociology, religion, critici..
The Job Market in the Post-APA Eastern Era
Over the past several years we have seen an increased use of video calls (e.g., Skype) as a replacement for in-person first-round interviews at the Eastern Division meeting of the APA. Though there may be some holdouts (for various reasons), the trend seems likely to continue. What have been the effects of this change, so far, on the job market? And are they saluta..
What’s Wrong? (A New Blog)
What’s Wrong? is the “not quite official” blog of the University of Colorado, Boulder’s Center for Values and Social Policy. The blog is edited by Colorado’s David Boonin, and its purpose is to provide “a forum for discussing and reporting on topics in applied normative philosophy, broadly understood to include applied ethics as well as practical subjects in social,..
SEP, IEP, NDPR, Wi-Phi Weekly Update
Below are new additions and updates to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy(IEP), Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (NDPR), and Wi-Phi Wireless Philosophy, appearing here courtesy of the folks at Philosophical Percolations. They were first posted in PhilPercs’ “Saturday Linkorama” along with philosophical and philosop..
Experience Project Fellows Announced
The Experience Project, a Templeton-funded, $4.8 million, three-year initiative at the University of Notre Dame and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, has announced its Fellows for the 2015-16 and 2015-17 projects.
The project has two parts, one on Religious Experience and one on Transformative Experience. The Religious Experience Fellowship winners a..
Ought Experiment
Welcome to Ought Experiment! For our first advice column, an ABD grad student writes:
Over the last several years, I have repeatedly noticed a trend among professional philosophers in the blogosphere: they speak frequently of a deep, passionate love of philosophy and believe that their love of the discipline justifies the choice to pursue graduate study despite ..
Philosophers On “Irrational Man”
Irrational Man is a current movie about a despondent philosophy professor who moves to a small-town college, his relationships with a student and a fellow professor, and his commission of what the film’s press materials describe as “an existential act” which allows him to “find the will to live.” It is one of the few depictions in recent mainstream films of a philos..
Philosophy May Come to Schools in Wales
Wales is poised to scrap Religious Education lessons in its schools, it has been revealed. Instead, the Welsh Government’s Minister for Education and Skills, Huw Lewis, argued it should be renamed to focus on the teaching of “religion, philosophy and ethics”.
The Independent reports that the idea is intended both to “combat extremism” in the religious educati..
Philosopher and Activist
Lisa Guenther (Vanderbilt) is profiled in The Chronicle of Higher Education (paywalled) for both her teaching of philosophy in prisons and her activism regarding “the carceral state.”
She had been researching “the politics of confinement and the ethics of torture,” and their connection to academia, when “suddenly I realized that I really can’t do this work by sim..
Journal Rankings — Useful? (guest post by Thom Brooks)
The following is a guest post* by Thom Brooks, Professor of Law and Government at Durham University’s Law School, founding editor of the Journal of Moral Philosophy and blogger at The Brooks Blog.
Journal Rankings — Useful?
by Thom Brooks
I’ve benefited enormously from much invaluable advice over the years that has fed directly into my Publishing Advice for..
SEP, IEP, NDPR, Wi-Phi Weekly Update
Here are last week’s updates and new additions to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy(IEP), Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (NDPR), and Wi-Phi Wireless Philosophy, appearing here courtesy of the folks at Philosophical Percolations. They were first posted in PhilPercs’ “Saturday Linkorama” along with philosophical a..
Thought Experiments and Philosophical Method
In an interview at 3:am Magazine, Richard Marshall presses Philip Kitcher (Columbia) on his criticism of a priori, thought-experiment-driven approaches to philosophy. Marshall says that a criticism of Kitcher’s view is that it “would end much typical philosophical investigation.” Kitcher replies:
Thought experiments work when, and only when, they call into action..
The SEP Turns 20!
Philosofriends, we are very fortunate to have the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. It is a tremendously useful resource, and apparently it is 20 years old, which seems impossible because I remember the internet being invented only five years ago. Stanford has put out a press release about the anniversary:
Launched two decades ago, years before Wikipedia exist..