August 2016
Who Does Public Philosophy?
The American Philosophical Association’s Committee on Public Philosophy is compiling a list of philosophers who have careers doing public philosophy, either exclusively or concurrently with careers in academic philosophy, and can use your help in identifying them.
There are a variety of ways to do public philosophy, so to be more specific, the committee is lookin..
Philosophy of War Audio Miniseries Available
A new philosophy show is in the works, and its creator has made three of its episodes—which together make up a miniseries on the philosophy of war—available to anyone teaching a course to which they would be relevant. (more…)
Ad Hoc (Daily Nous Philosophy Comics)
Ad Hoc
by Rachel Katler
Which Ideas Are Students Protected From? Which Are Faculty Fearful to Defend?
Here are some empirical claims about higher education in the United States. In comparison to 100 years ago:
- There are fewer or weaker institutional, social, and material obstacles to non-white-male people entering academia.
- Academics today regularly and with institutional approval study a greater number of topics, including topics previously thought taboo or unwo..
Caspar Hare AMA Interview Today; Others Scheduled
The moderators of the /r/philosophy board at the discussion site Reddit have released their Fall 2016 schedule of “ask me anything” interviews with philosophers. First up is Caspar Hare (MIT), today, at 1pm Eastern Standard Time. (more…)
Philosophy in Prison Program at U.Missouri Kansas-City Wins Prize from APA and PDC
The Philosophy in Prison Program of the Philosophy Department at the University of Missouri – Kansas City (UMKC) has won 2016 Prize for Excellence and Innovation in Philosophy Programs. The prize is awarded jointly by the American Philosophical Association (APA) and the Philosophy Documentation Center (PDC). The prize award is campus-wide electronic access to a bund..
Historically, Does Philosophy Flourish During Chaos?
Anthony Gottlieb, an historian of ideas, journalist, editor, and author, has a new book out called The Dream of Enlightenment in which he makes an interesting claim about the connection between culture and politics and the development of philosophy. Here’s a description of it from an article in The New Yorker by Adam Kirsch (Columbia):
Gottlieb sees that were s..
Online Philosophy Resources Weekly Update
It’s Monday: time for the round-up of the past week’s additions and changes to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP), Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (NDPR), and Wi-Phi. (more…)
Philosophers: Stop Being Self-Indulgent and Start Being Like Daniel Dennett, says Daniel Dennett
Daniel Dennett (Tufts) does seem to say that, but the real topic of this post is the good question he raises about how to figure out whether the kind of philosophy you’re doing is worth doing. We’ll get to that. But first, check out the following, from what might be the most clickbait-titled-but-just-for-academic-philosophers-article-ever-to-appear-on-a-mainstream-w..
Why Philosophy? (Guest Post By Ken Taylor)
The following is a reposting of a piece that originally appeared at Philosopher, a site run by Meena Krishnamurthy (University of Michigan). The author is Ken Taylor, the Henry Waldgrave Stuart Professor of Philosophy at Stanford University, cohost and co-creator of the nationally syndicated public radio program Philosophy Talk, and current president of the Pacific ..
Illustrations of Logicians
I’ve previously linked to some of the line art portraits by graphic designer Matt Leadbetter that the Open Logic Project commissioned. Well, now there are a bunch of them available in one place, along with links to individually downloadable portraits (under Creative Commons license). How many of the following can you correctly identify? (more…)
University of Chicago Issues Massive Trigger Warning
Joining the apparent trend of schools and professors alerting students to the prospects that they will be encountering material they may find upsetting, the University of Chicago this week issued a “trigger warning” to its entire incoming class of first-year students. In a letter to the class of 2020 (reproduced at the bottom of this post), Dean John (Jay) Ellison w..
Graded Assignments in Philosophy MOOCs
Philosophy professors generally like to assign papers to students. The format of a paper allows the student to exercise certain skills of careful exposition and argumentation in ways that quizzes and timed exams don’t. Massive open online courses (MOOCs) often do not include graded work—and certainly not graded papers. The massiveness and openness (inexpensivenes..
The Where, What, and When of Philosophy Jobs
Mark Alfano (Delft), one of today’s more data-driven moral philosophers, has taken information from PhilJobs regarding the location and types of advertised jobs and placed it on a map at Tableau Public. Here’s where the jobs are: (more…)
Dale Jacquette (1953-2016)
Dale Jacquette, Senior Professorial Chair in Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Bern (Switzerland), died this past Sunday. Prior to moving to Bern in 2008, he was professor of philosophy at Penn State University. He also held visiting appointments or was affiliated with the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh, the Julius Maximil..
Winners of the 2016 APA Public Philosophy Op-Ed Contest
The American Philosophical Association (APA) has announced the winners of its 2016 Public Philosophy Op-Ed Contest, sponsored by its Committee on Public Philosophy. The goal of the contest is “to honor five standout pieces that successfully blend philosophical argumentation with an op-ed writing style.” The winners are: (more…)
Chaospet (Daily Nous Philosophy Comics)
When Personal Statement Instructions Differ
A student who is applying for admission to PhD programs in philosophy has noticed that at some universities, what the university’s graduate school asks applicants to include in their personal statements differs from what the same university’s philosophy department asks applicants to include. (more…)
Snobbery, Outreach, and the Academic
Nancy McHugh, professor of philosophy at Wittenberg University, teaches philosophy in prisons as part of the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program. These classes are held in prison and have 15 regularly enrolled undergraduates (“outside” students) in them and 15 students who are inmates (“inside” students). McHugh recently co-authored a paper with a group that included..
Ideas for the First Day of Philosophy Class
Many universities start their fall semesters around now, so it’s a good a time—though not as good a time as last week—to ask: “what do you like to do on your first day of philosophy class?” (more…)
Return of the Intuitions
The word “intuition” has been deployed with increasing frequency in philosophy over the past 100 years. This may be owed to an increase in philosophers’ explicit reliance on intuitions, but also to the increasing critical scrutiny that philosophers’ reliance on intuitions has been facing for 3 to 4 decades now. Here’s Richard Brandt in A Theory of the Good and the R..
Online Philosophy Resources Weekly Update
Another week, another weekly update. Below find last week’s changes and additions to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP), Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (NDPR), and Wi-Phi. (more…)
A Scientist On Philosophy, The “Thankless Job” That Succeeds Through Superfluousness
egardless of whom you want to assign the task of reaching across the line , presently little crosses it. Few practicing physicists today care what philosophers do or think.
And as someone who has tried to write about topics on the intersection of both fields, I can report that this disciplinary segregation is meanwhile institutionalized: The physics journals won’..
How To Treat Your Fellow Philosophers In Public
Jason Brennan (Georgetown) thinks that facts about public ignorance haven’t been sufficiently appreciated by political philosophers and political theorists. Such facts should temper our enthusiasm for democracy and make us more sympathetic to epistocracy (rule by the knowledgeable). The self-described “bleeding heart libertarian” recently published a book, Against D..
The Value of Conferences
The case against philosophy conferences is depressingly formidable. I say “depressingly” because I love philosophy conferences. Here are some of the considerations against them: (more…)
“Ought Experiment” To Return
So the other day, Justin sends me an email: “Hey Louie, do you remember how you used to write personalized advice columns for academics over at Daily Nous?”
“Dimly.” (more…)
New Blog from the Society for the Philosophy of Sex and Love
The Society for the Philosophy of Sex and Love (SPSL) and has started a new blog, Erotes. The blog will feature interviews with SPSL scholars and also occasional updates on “what’s new in philosophy of sex and love.” It is named “Erotes” after the collective of winged gods associated with love and sex in Greek mythology. (more…)
To φ Or Not To φ (Daily Nous Philosophy Comics)
To φ Or Not To φ
by Tanya Kostochka