philosophers

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Philosopher App Store Redux

A week after Daily Nous began, on a slow Friday, I put up a post soliciting suggestions for the Philosopher App store. Well, it’s another slow Friday, and the site’s readership has grown quite a bit since then, so let’s have another go at it. Feel free to add your own; as I said last time, you can be playful, but please don’t be mean.

From the old store:

Nagel..

João Paulo Monteiro (1938-2016)

João Paulo Monteiro, professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of São Paulo (USP), died on April 17th, 2016. He taught at USP for roughly 30 years. He worked in epistemology and political philosophy, but his focus was primarily on David Hume (he was a charter member of the Hume Society). (more…)

The Philosophical Art Of Bringing The Dead Back To Life

When I look back at the projects I pursued during my career, a certain pattern becomes evident. In several cases I was drawn to an idea, or a theory, that had been declared dead. In each case, when I looked at the death certificate, it seemed to me that the victim deserved to be resuscitated. I devoted myself to this project of bringing the dead back to life.

Enormous Philosophy & Music Festival (Discount for DN readers!)

HowTheLightGetsIn is an interesting and big (the biggest?) summer philosophy and music festival. It is taking place from May 26th to June 5th in Hay-on-Wye, and features talks, debates, and, of course, concerts. There are sessions on questions in epistemology, politics, mind, free will, ethics, the emotions, rationality, and more.

A bunch of philosophers and theo..

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…)

The Personality of Philosophy Majors

Psychologist Anna Vedel (Aarhus University) writes: “The choice of education is perhaps the first highly important decision that young people have to make for themselves in the developed world. Each education paves the way for certain vocational paths, and the choice has a lasting impact on the young adult’s life.” It might be useful, then, to see what we can learn ..

How To Put Yourself Out There: Media Advice For Academics (Guest Post by Kevin J.S. Zollman)

The following is a guest post * by Kevin J.S. Zollman, associate professor of philosophy at Carnegie Mellon University. He has had a bit more experience than the average philosopher with popular media, and he kindly offered to present some advice to help philosophers and other academics get the attention of, and successfully communicate with, journalists. (more…)..

Philosophers Elected to American Academy of Arts & Sciences

Five philosophers are among the newly elected members of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. They are: (more…)

The Philosophers of Germany’s Anti-Islam Political Movement

“Alternative for Germany” (AfD) is a German political party, gaining in popularity, which supports “the idea of banning mosques” and has an official who has declared that “it may be necessary to shoot at migrants trying to enter the country illegally.” AfD has supported, and been supported by, a political movement known as “Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamizati..

Scharp and Kerr from Ohio State to St. Andrews

Kevin Scharp, currently professor of philosophy at The Ohio State University, has accepted a position as Reader at the University of St. Andrews, starting in September, 2016. Professor Scharp works in logic, philosophy of language, metaphysics, philosophy of science, and the history of analytic philosophy. He will be taking up a leadership role at Arché, the researc..

Ingrid Stadler (1931-2016)

Ingrid Stadler, Professor Emerita of Philosophy at Wellesley College, died this past March 18th. Professor Stadler worked mainly in aesthetics, and taught at Wellesley from 1958 until her retirement in 2000. Prior to Wellesley, she taught at Harvard. She also lectured at MIT, Boston Architectural College, Holy Cross, Wheaton, and Vassar. Professor Stadler was a nati..

Famous Philosophers In The Styles of Famous Artists

Renee Jorgensen Bolinger, a graduate student in philosophy at the University of Southern California, paints portraits of famous philosophers in her spare time. For each one, she chooses the style of an artist who thematically links up with the philosopher. For example:

See the whole collection. Some are even for sale as prints, and on shirts, mugs, pillow..

Philosophers Win NEH Grants

The National Endowment for the Humanities has announced $21 million in funding awarded to 248 humanities projects. Among them are ten (if I missed any, please let me know) which are directed by philosophers. Congratulations to the winners:

Christa Acampora; Mariann Weierich (co-project director), Hunter College
$90,594
Project Title: The Experience of War: ..

Do Philosophers’ Personal Lives Influence Their Choice Of Research Topic?

According to the philosophical training that I received, scholars select their research topics on the basis of an impartial assessment of the scholarly potential of these topics. I recognized very early in my career that this is not the case. The reasons that academics choose the topics of their research and teaching are often related to their personal lives; early ..

Demographic Data on U.S. Philosophy Faculty

Trends show a slow decrease in the extent to which U.S. full-time philosophy faculty at four-year institutions is male and white, according to data obtained from the National Center for Education Statistics by Eric Schwitzgebel (UC Riverside) and posted at The Splintered Mind:

Gender data:

1988: philosophy*: 91% male (vs. 75% for all fields).
1993: philosophy..

Bernstein and Nolan to Notre Dame

Sara J. Bernstein, currently assistant professor of philosophy at Duke University, will be tenured associate professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, starting in Fall of 2016. Professor Bernstein works in metaphysics, especially the metaphysics of causation.

Daniel Nolan, currently professor of philosophy at Australian National University, will be..

Talking Philosophy With Your Kids

Philosopher parents: how, if at all, do you talk philosophy with you own children?

I don’t give my children philosophy lessons, nor do we celebrate Socrates’ birthday. There may be a few more books of logic puzzles laying around the house than average, along with many of the children’s books listed here, but I don’t force philosophy on the kids. If the opportunit..

“Bunny-Drowning” University President Resigns

Simon Newman resigned from his position as president of Mount St. Mary’s University this afternoon, according to a message posted on the university’s website. Newman, you may recall, demoted two philosophers from their administrative posts and tried to fire both a tenured associate professor of philosophy, Thane Naberhaus, and an untenured communications professor, ..

Philosophy: Top Paid Humanities Major of 2016

Philosophy majors are predicted to have higher average starting salaries than graduates in any other humanities major, reports the National Association of Colleges and Employers in its 2016 Salary Survey:

Philosophy majors are projected to earn an average starting salary of $49,000 (See Figure 1). This is up from last year, when projected salaries for philosophy ..

Philosophers Called “Brilliant” More Than Other Profs (On Stupid Website)

The Economist analysed 1,289,407 RateMyProfessor.com reviews of 1,066 professors and lecturers in New York and has reported on some of its findings. Among them is the nugget that instructors of philosophy, compared with other disciplines, are most often described as “brilliant” by their students. According to the article, “an adoring student termed her teacher ‘a ph..

Philosophers Detained in Turkey (updated)

As reported the other day, academics in Turkey are at risk of investigation and prosecution by the Turkish government for signing a petition calling for “the state to abandon its deliberate massacre and deportation of Kurdish and other peoples.” There were several dozen philosophers among the signatories.

According to one source, two philosophers from one univers..

Internet Abuse of Philosophers (2 updates)

A few weeks ago, George Yancy (Emory) published an essay in The New York Times philosophy column, The Stone, called “Dear White America.” In it, he calls for white Americans to acknowledge their racism and their complicity with racist institutions. Yancy asks his readers to “listen with love” to what he has to say. But he knows that what he is saying is bound to pro..

The Purification of Philosophy

institutionalization of philosophy made it into a discipline that could be seriously pursued only in an academic setting. This fact represents one of the enduring failures of contemporary philosophy.

So argue Robert Frodeman and Adam Briggle (both of University of North Texas). Philosophy’s institutionalization in the modern research university was a kind of “pu..

Best Philosophy Blog Post Winners Announced

3 Quarks Daily has announced the winners of its 2015 prize for best philosophy blog post:

Top Quark, $500: Vidar Halgunset, Slow Corruption
Strange Quark, $200: Daniel Silvermint, On How We Talk About Passing
Charm Quark, $100: Lisa Herzog, (One of) Effective Altruism’s blind spot(s)

Of the top two posts, Judge John Collins (Columbia) writes: “they w..

Daily Nous Year In Review

2015 is drawing to a close. I hope you had a good year.

The year saw Daily Nous’s first birthday (in March) and a number of new features, including:

Philosophers On Series: group posts consisting of brief remarks by several philosophers on topics of current interest.
Ought Experiment: the column doling out “personal advice for your academic life,” written b..

Philosophers Form New “Justice Without Retribution Network”

There’s a new project to bring philosophy to bear on policy issues. In this case it is free will skepticism and criminal justice.

Gregg Caruso (SUNY Corning), Farah Focquaert (Ghent), Derk Pereboom (Cornell), and Elizabeth Shaw (Aberdeen) have formed the Justice Without Retribution Network.

The Justice Without Retribution Network (JWRN) will bring together res..

Against Reducing The Number of Philosophy PhDs

Here’s our situation: for many professions—actor, artist, astronaut, athlete, musician, novelist, philosopher, just to name a few—there are more people who aspire to enter them than succeed in doing so.

How bad is this? There are some problems with it, of course: mainly the disappointment of and opportunity costs borne by those who are unable to join what is ..

No Women Philosophers in the British A-Level OCR Philosophy Courses? (updated)

A reader brought to my attention a petition from 17-year-old Zishi Zhang claiming that there are currently no women included in the A-Level OCR Philosophy and Ethics syllabus, and calling to change this . (A-levels are the course and exam requirements students in the UK and elsewhere must typically meet in order to graduate from high school and attend college. “OCR”..