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Sharp Declines in Philosophy, History, & Language Majors Since 2010 (guest post by Eric Schwitzgebel)

The following is a guest post * by Eric Schwitzgebel, professor of philosophy at University of California, Riverside. It first appeared at his blog, The Splintered Mind. (more…)

New Interdisciplinary Institute for Science & Technology Studies

The Ann Johnson Institute for Science, Technology & Society (AJI) has been launched at the University of South Carolina. (more…)

Descartes Did Not Invent Modern Philosophy

Christia Mercer (Columbia), writing in “The Stone” at The New York Times:

René Descartes has long been credited with the near-single-handed creation of modern philosophy. Generations of students have read, and continue to read, his famous “Meditations” as the rejection of medieval ways of thinking and the invention of the modern self. They learned that he doubted..

A Semantic-Network Approach to the History of Philosophy (guest post by Mark Alfano) (UPDATED)

What can we learn from constructing semantic networks of familiar works in the history of philosophy? A fair amount, according to Mark Alfano, a philosopher at Delft University of Technology and Australian Catholic University, as he explains in the following guest post*—such as which concepts tend to get more attention from readers than might seem appropriate give..

Philosophy Professor Receiving Death Threats (updated with transcript, letter from colleagues)

Tommy Curry, professor of philosophy at Texas A & M University, has been receiving racist hate mail and death threats in the wake of an opinion piece at a conservative website that frames remarks of his in a misleading way—and among those apparently misled, it now appears, is Texas A & M president Michael K. Young. (more…)

How Journal Capture Led to the Dominance of Analytic Philosophy in the U.S.

How is it that analytic philosophy came to be the dominant philosophical style in the 20th Century in the United States? From inside the practice, the answer seems to be, “because it is a particularly good way of doing philosophy.” But “that it seemed good to them at the time” is not much of an historical explanation. For any other historical development, we’d want ..

A Visualization of Influence in the History of Philosophy

“I don’t know a lot about philosophy,” says Grant Louis Oliveira, a data analyst and quantitative social sciences researcher with an undergraduate degree in political science. He continues:

I’d like to change that and more rigorously explore my ideas, but I find the world of philosophy a bit impenetrable, and I don’t think I’m the only one. I know most the big na..

Academia and Unselfishness

Academia is a selfish sport. From the time you begin graduate school, you are rewarded for self-absorbed fixations on your personal advancement and narrowly focused research… Opportunities are rare, time is short, and prioritizing yourself at the expense of others is encouraged, even as there is a veneer of service, public engagement, and commitment to your own s..

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 ..

Are History’s “Greatest Philosophers” All That Great? (guest post by Gregory Lewis)

“Why are the greatest philosophers skewed towards the past, when they should be skewed towards the present?”

(more…)

Teaching and the Philosophical Canon

“Perhaps all professional philosophers have wrestled with the problem of how to cover all the important things in the limited time of a single course.” But what are the important things? And who are the important figures?

In a post at the Blog of the APA, Peter Adamson (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität), who produces the podcast History of Philosophy without any Ga..

Philosophy Travel & Tourism

Guy Crain, professor of philosophy at Rose State College, writes in with the following inquiry:

I’m wondering if there is a resource with collected information about philosophy-related travel/site-seeing. For instance, is it possible to visit John Stuart Mill’s birthplace? What libraries or museums (if any) have first editions of philosophical works on display?..

The Ethics of Honoring

The recent wave of student protests in the United States have focused on a range of issues related to the status and treatment of racial minorities and other vulnerable parties on campus. One issue that has come up on several occasions are the ways in which universities have decided to honor various historical figures—for example, by naming buildings after them, o..

Live From 2003: BEARS Is Back Online

BEARS? Sounds familiar. Then I clicked and saw this —

—and it all came back to me.

Yes, kids, this is what the internet used to look like (and this was a pretty smart-looking site for the time).

Begun in 1995 and last active in 2003, the Brown Electronic Article Review Service was one of the first online journals in philosophy. Maybe the first? The ..

A Defense of the History of Philosophy

Graham Priest (CUNY, Melbourne) presents a brief defense of the history of philosophy over at the OUP blog.

One of my friends said that he regards the history of philosophy as rather like a text book of chess openings. Just as it is part of being a good chess player to know the openings, it is part of being a good philosopher to know standard views and arguments, so..