May 2017
Feminist Philosophy and Its Controversies (guest post by Laurie Shrage)
…I expect there will be deep and lasting tensions going forward among feminist philosophers. Most of the tensions have to do with perceptions of harm: harm to the author, the journal, communities of people who are marginalized and threatened, and to feminist philosophy. I hope feminist philosophers will explore and critically discuss questions about the harms caus..
How We Created A Philosophy Major (guest post by Matthew Brown)
The following is a guest post* by Matthew J. Brown, associate professor of philosophy and history of ideas at the University of Texas, Dallas, about how, in an era in which it seems that a different philosophy department is under threat of closure each week, he and his colleagues were actually able to create a philosophy major at their university. Excellent news! (m..
Chaospet (Daily Nous Philosophy Comics)
Chaospet
by Ryan Lake
How Philosophers See The Arts And The Rest Of The Humanities
I can only speak for myself, but being trained by a philosopher, I often feel I was exposed to an expectation of argumentative rigor that, to be perfectly frank, I can’t say I always find in the field of political theory proper. But this can result in drawbacks. Philosophers sometimes look at the rest of the humanities in the way that social scientists look at socia..
Mariana Ortega to Penn State
Mariana Ortega, currently professor of philosophy at John Carroll University, will be joining the Department of Philosophy and the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Pennsylvania State University in January, 2018.
Mini-Heap
Mini-Heap: recent items from the Heap of Links, collected in groups of 10, here for your perusal and discussion. (more…)
Questions Your Family Has About Your Graduate Student Life — And Answers
“We have a good university right here in town. Why did you have to move so far away for graduate school?”
“What do you mean you have schoolwork over the summer? Classes are out!”
“You’re a student—how could you be busy?” (more…)
New Online Philosophical Resource: The Deviant Philosopher
There’s a new online teaching resource for those interested in incorporating into their philosophy courses material from outside the Anglo-American philosophical mainstream. The Deviant Philosopher is based on the view that
we and our students benefit from thinking about diverse philosophical traditions and perspectives, and there are many non-canonical philosoph..
The Great Philosophers, Now With Smiles
Have you ever noticed how dour the great philosophers look in their portraits?
Martin O’Neill, senior lecturer in politics at the University of York, decided to put a happier spin on the history of philosophy. Here’s the result: (more…)
Kipnis and Publisher Sued
Laura Kipnis, a professor in the School of Communication at Northwestern University, and Harper Collins, the publisher of her recent book, Unwanted Advances: Sexual Paranoia Comes To Campus, are being sued by a Northwestern philosophy graduate student, “Jane Doe,” for public disclosure of private facts, false light invasion of privacy, defamation, and intentional in..
Scholarship and Care
Over the past few days, many members of the philosophical community have been expressing disappointment, sadness, and outrage over the recent controversy concerning the journal Hypatia‘s publication of “In Defense of Transracialism,” by Rebecca Tuvel (Rhodes College), and the journal’s response to criticism for publishing it. As more than one person put it, the situ..
Should Graduate Students Referee?
Should graduate students be called upon to serve as referees for journals? I was stunned a few years back to learn of the growing use of graduate students to serve as referees—stunned until I remembered the (arguably) over-publishing practice of our profession. But now the practice of enlisting grad-student referees—to my limited and aging eyes—appears to be g..
Stats Courses For Philosophers (guest post by Joshua Knobe)
The following is a guest post* by Joshua Knobe, professor of philosophy and psychology at Yale University. It first appeared at The Brains Blog, and follows up on post from a year ago by Knobe here at Daily Nous, “Formal Methods Training for Philosophy Graduate Students.”
Mini-Heap
Mini-Heap: recent items from the Heap of Links, collected in groups of 10, here for your perusal and discussion. (more…)
Online Philosophy Resources Weekly Update
Here’s the latest from some key online philosophy resources. We check the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP), Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (NDPR), Wi-Phi, and 1000-Word Philosophy for updates weekly and report them right here. (more…)
What Graduate Students In Philosophy Are And Should Be Paid For Teaching
The graduate students in the philosophy program at the University of St. Andrews are concerned about their teaching conditions, some of them tell me, but they don’t have a good grasp on how their situation compares with that of philosophy students elsewhere, particularly in the UK. (more…)
Two Philosophers Among New Canada Council Laureates
The Killam Trusts, one of the few private, philanthropic trusts for higher education in Canada, has announced its 2017 Canada Council Laureates. Among them are two philosophers, Thomas Hurka (Toronto) and Dominic McIver Lopes (University of British Columbia). (more…)
Online Philosophy Resources Weekly Update
Here’s the latest from some key online philosophy resources. We check the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP), Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (NDPR), Wi-Phi, and 1000-Word Philosophy for updates weekly and report them right here. (more…)
If Anglo-American Philosophy Is So Great, Where Is Its Las Casas? (guest post by Manuel R. Vargas)
Many of my philosophical friends are puzzled by my interest in Anglo-American philosophy… If Anglophone philosophers—especially those who have studied in the U.S.—have done anything important, anything that matters, they tell me, surely there would be evidence in the other humanities, in the architecture and ambitions of the great universities, or in the visib..
Gender Studies Won’t Have Them As A Member: The Attempted “Conceptual Penis” Hoax
…the isomorphism between the conceptual penis and what’s referred to throughout discursive feminist literature as “toxic hypermasculinity,” is one defined upon a vector of male cultural machismo braggadocio, with the conceptual penis playing the roles of subject, object, and verb of action.
That’s a line from the intentionally nonsensical “The Conceptual Penis ..
Psychologists Test Kant’s Aesthetics
The experience of beauty is a pleasure, but common sense and philosophy suggest that feeling beauty differs from sensuous pleasures such as eating or sex. Immanuel Kant claimed that experiencing beauty requires thought but that sensuous pleasure can be enjoyed without thought and cannot be beautiful. These venerable hypotheses persist in models of aesthetic processi..
Mind Chunks (Daily Nous Philosophy Comics)
Mind Chunks
by Pete Mandik
Women in Philosophy Journals: New Data
There are new findings on the presence of women in academic philosophy journals:
- Though approximately 25% of philosophy faculty in the United States are women, only 14-16% of the articles that appear in the discipline’s top journals are by women.
- Journals which do not use anonymous review seem to have a higher percentage of women authors than journals which ..
Never Trained How To Teach
I was never trained or advised how to teach. I just imitated what I liked about my own teachers… Once I said in a lecture that some philosophical problem was very hard, and nobody knew how to solve it. Such a remark would have strongly motivated me, but the look on most of the students’ faces said “So why bother us with it? Go away and solve it, then you can come ..
The Latest Philosophy Papers
A new website has been launched that lists new philosophy articles as they are published. The site, called The Philosophy Paperboy, is the creation of Andrea Raimondi, graduate student in philosophy at the University of Nottingham, with web design by Lorenzo Cataldi. It’s searchable, and currently tracks over 400 journals. (more…)
An Easy Way To Make Your Presentation Materials Accessible To People With Disabilities
Some people are visually impaired in a way that interferes with their ability to read handouts or see presentation slides (e.g., PowerPoint). Adam Cureton, assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Tennessee, is one such person, and he notes that “that lectures and talks are very difficult to follow when I cannot read the handout or see the PowerPoint s..
A Way To Increase Transparency In Academic Publishing
How can we make journal editing more transparent? That’s the question of a timely article in the recent issue of Metaphilosophy, “Why not Open the Black Box of Journal Editing in Philosophy? Make Peer Reviews of Published Papers Available,” by Caroline Schaffalitzky de Muckadell and Esben Nedenskov Petersen (both of the University of Southern Denmark).
(more…)..
Mini-Heap
Mini-Heap: recent items from the frequently updated Heap of Links, collected in groups of 10, here for your perusal and discussion.