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In Which Areas of Philosophy Should We Expect Faster Progress?

On what we can call the answers model of philosophy, the primary aim of philosophy is to learn philosophical truths, and a primary form of philosophical progress is learning true answers to “the big questions of philosophy,” as David Chalmers (NYU) puts it. (more…)

Immoral Moral Philosophers

In a recent post at The Splintered Mind, Eric Schwitzgebel (UC Riverside) asks whether it matters “if ethicists walk the walk.” (more…)

Analytic Philosophy and the Big Questions of Life

At the start of each term, Helena de Bres (Wellesley) holds “get to know you” office hours with her students. “So what made you sign up for a philosophy class?” she asks. (more…)

Kershnar Cycle Reactivated (several updates)

Every few years, it seems, someone new will learn of the work of philosopher Stephen Kershnar (SUNY Fredonia), share their shock, amusement, or outrage about it on social media, and cause a brief spike in amazed, angry, or humorous commentary about it. Then people move on and tend to forget about it… until someone new learns of it and just has to share it. Call it..

In Defense of the Details (guest post)

Are today’s younger philosophers “focusing too much on detailed investigations of individual things and not enough on the big picture”? (more…)

Good & Bad Ways to Run a Question-&-Answer Session

Over at the Blog of the American Philosophical Association, Muhammad Ali Khalidi (CUNY) raises objections to “the finger,” that is, the convention at philosophy talks “whereby a member of the audience, instead of raising a hand to ask a question, raises a finger to indicate that they have a follow-up question to the one that’s just been asked.” (more…)

Specialization, Technicality, and the Production of Philosophy

Adrian Moore, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford and Tutorial Fellow at St Hugh’s College, Oxford, as well as co-editor of the journal Mind, makes some observations about academic philosophy today. (more…)

If You Could Ask A Dead Philosopher…

Suppose you could ask a dead philosopher one question. Who would you ask, and what would you ask them? (more…)

Philosophers as Discoverers of the Unknown (Questions for World Philosophy Day)

“I didn’t even know that was a question I could ask.” (more…)

Input Sought on New Questions for Upcoming PhilPapers Survey of Philosophers

A draft of the follow-up to the 2009 Philpapers survey of philosophical positions held by academic philosophers on various topics includes about 70 new questions. (more…)

Teaching Students How To Ask Philosophical Questions

“Question asking… is a skill all-too-often undervalued in philosophy pedagogy and philosophy pedagogy research”

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PhilPapers Planning to Conduct 2nd Survey of Philosophers in December

David Bourget (Western University) and David Chalmers (NYU), the creators of PhilPapers and related sites, are planning a sequel to their 2009 survey of the philosophical views of professional philosophers for this December. (more…)

Should contemporary philosophers read Ockham? Or: what did history ever do for us? (guest post by Martin Lenz)

“Although we like to think that the pursuit of truth is central, it’s by far not the only reason why debates arise and certain concepts are coined and stick around, while others are forgotten.” (more…)

Why I Don’t Usually Respond to Professor Leiter: An Example

In my recent post, “It’s Complicated,” I responded to a criticism of me published by Brian Leiter at his blog, Leiter Reports.

In my post, I wrote that “I usually don’t respond to Professor Leiter’s remarks about me,” though I did not say why. One reason is that to respond adequately to them here would divert Daily Nous away from its purpose. DN is supposed to be..

Convergence as Progress in Philosophy

One type of evidence that some claim is relevant to determining whether there has been progress in philosophy is whether philosophers have converged on answers to philosophical questions. (more…)

Room for Uncertainty in Online Philosophical Communities

“Uncertainty, I once thought, is what philosophers do. Now I have doubts.” (more…)

Teaching Philosophy as the Search for Complication

Most students in philosophy classrooms in the United States are taking their first and only philosophy course. Why is it their only one? (more…)

The “New Questions of Philosophy”

“What subjects are now being confronted at the frontiers of philosophical inquiry, breaking from the familiar philosophical concerns of canonical figures like Plato, Locke, and Descartes?” That was a question raised recently by the editors of “The Masthead,” a new member-based media program at The Atlantic.

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