May 2016

Monthly Archives:

The Unpredictable Progress of Knowledge

The whole thing is predicated on what amounts to a shotgun approach to knowledge: you let people metaphorically fire wherever they wish, and statistically speaking they’ll occasionally hit a worthy target. Crucially, there doesn’t seem to be a way, certainly not a centralized or hierarchically determinable way, to improve the efficacy of the target shooting. If we w..

Marquette Update: McAdams Sues, University Releases Report

John McAdams, the associate professor of political science at Marquette University who, in the fall of 2014, launched a political attack on philosophy graduate student Cheryl Abbate based on falsehoods, misleading claims, and a surreptitious recording of her, and who was later suspended from his position for it, is suing Marquette. The Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Se..

On Campus Visits: A Job Candidate’s Critique (guest post)

Below are critical suggestions from a graduate student, who’ll go nameless, who was on the market this past season. The suggestions are for departments, in regard to how they arrange and manage campus visits. We’ve discussed some flyout horror stories before, but there seems to be no lack of resourcefulness in how departments can make things lousy for job candidates..

Chair in Atheism and Secular Ethics Endowed at Miami

Retired businessman Louis J. Appignani has donated $2.2 million to the University of Miami for an endowed chair in “the study of atheism, humanism and secular ethics,” reports the New York Times. It is the first position of its kind in the United States. (more…)

Philosophers Win $3.6 Million for Conceptual Engineering

Herman Cappelen (primary investigator), Øystein Linnebo, and Camilla Serck-Hanssen, all at the University of Oslo, have won a $3.6 million grant for a 5-year project on Conceptual Engineering. The grant is funded by the Research Council of Norway‘s Toppforsk program, which recently announced roughly $120 million worth of grants to 46 projects. The Conceptual Engine..

Feinberg’s Copy of On Liberty Now Online

The late Joel Feinberg‘s annotated copy of John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty has been digitally scanned and made publicly available through the Princeton University Digital Library. If you view the book on a touch screen you can flip through it quite naturally with a finger, as you would a book with very cooperative pages.

Princeton philosopher Michael Smith bought t..

Two Ideas About Philosophers’ Use Of Intuitions

James Andow (Reading) has a very interesting post up at Imperfect Cognitions about how philosophers use intuitions. As he notes, and as everyone acknowledges, philosophers use intuitions. And, as everyone knows, reliance on intuitions has come under intense criticism, increasingly so during the past four decades. But how fair is the general criticism of philosophy t..

Most Cited Philosophy Books in the Social Sciences

Elliott Green, a professor in the International Development Department at the London School of Economics, looked at which works from anthropology, economics, education, geography, linguistics, management, philosophy, political science, and psychology are cited most by social scientists. At the top of the list of the 50 most cited books, he reports, is Thomas Kuhn’s ..

Online Philosophy Resources Weekly Update

Here are the past week’s updates to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP), Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (NDPR), and Wi-Phi. (more…)

To φ Or Not To φ (Daily Nous Philosophy Comics)

To φ Or Not To φ
by Tanya Kostochka

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The History of the Past 40 Years of Analytic Philosophy

A new call for papers has been circulating, soliciting work on the history of “Late Analytic Philosophy.” From the CFP:

In the last 25 to 30 years historical attention has been directed toward analytic philosophy: some analytic philosophers have begun reflecting on the philosophical tradition they belong to, while many other scholars have been working on what is ..

When To Say Yes & When To Say No in Academia

An assistant professor of philosophy writes in with an important question that I imagine a lot of academics spend time pondering: (more…)

“Students Against Pogge” Group Forms

A Facebook group has been created in the wake of allegations against Yale professor Thomas Pogge called “Students Against Pogge.”

The page states: (more…)

Mind Chunks (Daily Nous Philosophy Comics)

Mind Chunks
by Pete Mandik

(more…)

Online Philosophy Resources Weekly Update

Below are the past week’s updates to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP), the Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (NDPR), and Wi-Phi. (more…)

Academic Bragging

Those who exhibit highly admirable academic characteristics such as caution, refusal to exaggerate, humility, deference to the achievement of others, and support of their colleagues will have a much harder time rising to the top.

True? (more…)

Help Philosophy at Western Illinois

The other day we reported that the Department of Philosophy at Western Illinois University is being targeted for elimination by the university’s Board of Trustees. The Board will be voting on the matter on June 10th. Please take a moment to sign a petition supporting the department.

The petition stresses the findings of the Academic Program Elimination Review (AP..

The Salary Boost of Getting an MA in Philosophy

Here’s some mysterious data. According to Emolument, a website that trades in “crowdsourced pay data,” while people with a BA in philosophy earn, on average, £42,000 (roughly $60,000), those with an MA in philosophy earn, on average £61,000 (roughly $88,000). That’s about a 45% salary increase. (more…)

Department of Deviance

Amy Olberding (Oklahoma) has opened up the Department of Deviance. Tagline: “We would have called it Philosophy but that name was already taken.” From various posts at the site:

MISSION STATEMENT: Know more things!
STRATEGIC PLAN: Find out more things by reading more, listening to more people, and asking about stuff we don’t understand but sure would like to. ..

Formal Methods Training for Philosophy Graduate Students (guest post by Joshua Knobe)

The following is a guest post * by Joshua Knobe, professor of philosophy at Yale University.

(more…)

Philosophy at University of Wyoming Threatened

The philosophy program at the University of Wyoming has been targeted for “elimination” by its administration in the face of impending budget cuts. Word of this came in a letter to the editor of the Laramie Boomerang from Renée M. Laegreid, a professor of history at the school (and brought to my attention by Matthew Weiner). Laegreid writes:

Governor Mead announc..

Online Philosophy Resources Weekly Update

Below are the past week’s updates to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (NDPR), Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP), and Wi-Phi.

SEP

New:

William of Sherwood, by Sara L. Uckelman

Revised:

Political Legitimacy, by Fabienne Peter
Practical Reason and the Structure of Actions, by Elijah Millgram

Last summer, Daniel Haybron (St. Louis University) was awarded $5.1 million for a three year project on happiness and well-being, most of it from the John Templeton Foundation. The project launched an interdisciplinary grant competition, the winners of which were just announced. Of three hundred applicants, twenty-one teams received awards together totaling $3.3 mil..