Daily Nous

News for & about the philosophy profession

Month: September 2014

  • Should MA Students Write Theses?

    Sherri Irvin (University of Oklahoma) writes in asking what PhD admissions committees think about master’s theses. Her query is below. Please share your thoughts. Our…

  • Agnes Heller to receive Wallenberg Medal

    Agnes Heller, a Hungarian philosopher who was, for a while, the Hannah Arendt Visiting Professor of Philosophy in the Graduate Studies Program of The New…

  • What if a Metaphysician Had Written This?

    Cass Sunstein (Harvard) delves into the philosophy of history, particularly counterfactuals and causation, with his review in The New Republic of Altered Pasts: Counterfactuals in History by Richard…

  • Can We Know Whether God Exists?

    I don’t think the arguments for either theism or atheism lead to knowledge of their conclusions. But there are arguments on both sides from…

  • Heap of Links

    1. “Something as ‘mundane’ as coffee tasting generates one of the most challenging philosophical questions…” Anna Marmadoro (Oxford) on Aristotle on perception. 2. The…

  • Ebola and Humanity

    We must find a method of caring without touching, of contacting without making contact. The physiological barriers are, for the time being, necessary. But…

  • Philosopher-Celebrity Lookalikes

    This Daily Nous item is temporarily unavailable while its historical content completes a security review. The title and publication record are preserved; the original…

  • Who Is Submitting to Top Journals?

    Helen De Cruz conducted a survey about submitting articles to the “top-5” philosophy journals and now has a post up analyzing the results.

  • Student Evaluations of Teaching

    We’re confusing consumer satisfaction with product value. That’s Philip B. Stark, a professor of statistics at Berkeley, discussing a mathematical critique of student evaluations…

  • A Response to the Colorado Undergrad

    Wes Morriston, who retired this past summer after 42 years as a member of the philosophy department at the University of Colorado, has written…

  • Advice for First-Year Grad Students

    David Shorter, a professor world arts and cultures at UCLA, has published a list of “six key lessons” for people starting graduate school. Paraphrasing,…

  • Calling UK & Europe Philosophers Working On…

    Miranda Fricker, Jennifer Saul, and Holly Lawford-Smith at the University of Sheffield are interested in hearing from anyone with an interest in epistemological, metaphysical,…

  • When Is an Area of Inquiry “Political”?

    Certain subfields of philosophy, such as feminist philosophy, philosophy of race, and philosophy of disability, are sometimes accused of being improperly “political.” Lately, I have…

  • A Philosopher Talks with Psychopaths

    “One of the striking features of people on psychiatric wards is how much their conversation is about topics also discussed in philosophy journals.” One thing…

  • Heap of Links

    1. Greasy spoons and Gricean maxims. (via Gerald Dworkin) 2. The regress problem for consequentialism, robot version. 3. “In a deeper and more troubling…

  • $3 Million Chair in “Applied Critical Thinking”

    An anonymous donor contributed $3 million for the creation of Rochester Institute of Technology’s Eugene H. Fram Chair in Applied Critical Thinking, named for a tough…

  • Why Study the History of Philosophy?

    In his contribution to A Teacher’s Life: Essays for Steven M. Cahn, David Rosenthal (CUNY) raises questions about philosophy’s fit with the humanities and the…

  • Heap of Links

    1. A sculpture of Edgar Allen Poe, crafted by philosopher Stefanie Rocknak (Hartwick), will soon be unveiled at the corner of Boylston Street and Charles…

  • Intro to Philosophy…Department

    At Texas Christian University, Introduction to Philosophy is team taught—and by “team” they mean the whole department, as a brief article in the school paper describes.…

  • Philosophy of Time Gets Down to Business

    Here’s a sentence you might never have expected to read: “Drawing on his research on presentism, he has suggested a variety of ways in…