January 2015
The Philosophy of Philosophical Institutions
Robert Frodeman and Adam Briggle (both of the University of North Texas) have published an essay, “Socrates Untenured,” at Inside Higher Ed that makes a case for what they call “field philosophy” — a “context-driven, problem-focused, and interdisciplinary” approach. Their hope is that “a new philosophical practice, where philosophers work in real time with a variet..
Mapping Philosophical Arguments
The students sit in pairs at a computer terminal, and after reading Cullen’s synopsis of a particular argument, they try to map it. The room fills up with whispered suggestions, lines tested and rejected, double negatives made positive. Most of the boxes into which they enter text are red or green. The green ones contain evidence supporting the above premise; the re..
Philosophy: Now Even More Popular in Germany
Philosophy is so popular in Germany right now, reports The Chronicle of Higher Education (may be behind paywall). How popular is it? So popular that at least one philosophy book may have sold more copies in Germany than the latest album by David Hasselhoff, a fact the author of the Chronicle piece neglects to mention. Perhaps because it is not true. In any event, he..
Minorities in Philosophy: Data Visualized
Data from 860 philosophers who identified themselves on the UPDirectory (previously) as belonging to minority demographic groups has been analyzed and depicted in various graphs and diagrams by Andrew Higgins, a recent graduate of University of Illinois, specializing in metaphysics and digital humanities, and currently working at Heartland Community College.
The..
Lessons for Philosophy from Economists on English?
“Over the last 35 years, less than half of graduated Ph.D. students have gotten tenure-track academic jobs upon graduation. The result is a large pool of residual job seekers, which places even more pressure on the job market for existing students.”…
“The data are pretty straightforward,” the paper says. “While students in top-10 programs might have a reasonabl..
User’s Guide to Philosophy Without Rankings
A User’s Guide to Philosophy Without Rankings is a new site “intended for the use of prospective graduate students in philosophy, faculty (including chairs or heads) in philosophy, and deans, provosts, and other administrators, all of whom need resources for the decisions they make about philosophy programs.” It is based on the idea that “currently, there are no ran..
Philosophers and Theorists on the Charlie Hebdo Attacks (updated)
Yesterday, twelve people were shot dead at the Paris office of Charlie Hebdo, a French satirical magazine. It was reported that the gunmen shouted “We have avenged the Prophet Muhammad” and “God is Great” in Arabic (“Allahu Akbar”), and so the attack is believed to be the work of militant Islamists in response to offensive cartoons that appeared in the magazine.
..
New Motion in Ludlow Case; Faculty Respond (with updates from Kvanvig, Garthoff, and Lockwood)
A new motion was filed on January 6th by lawyers for the undergraduate student allegedly assaulted by Northwestern University professor of philosophy Peter Ludlow (previously). The student’s lawsuit against Northwestern for mishandling her complaints was dismissed this past November. This motion claims to establish that there is newly discovered evidence that should..
Inclusive Philosophy Classroom Best Practices Site
A new website, Best Practices for the Inclusive Philosophy Classroom, has launched. It is an interdepartmental project, started by Minorities and Philosophy (MAP), which aims to be “an easily accessible launching pad for teachers who want to make their philosophy classrooms more inclusive.”
The site includes anthologies and other resources for diverse syllabi, ad..
Teaching As If Our Students Were Not Future Philosophers
Since most of our undergraduate students are planning to go to graduate school in philosophy and become professional philosophers, it makes sense that the undergraduate philosophy curriculum is typically filled with courses that prepare them for that future. Their courses should introduce them to the way that contemporary professional philosophers understand their f..
Amy Allen (Dartmouth) to Penn State
Amy Allen, currently Parents Distinguished Research Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Philosophy and Women’s and Gender Studies at Dartmouth College, will become head of the Department of Philosophy at Penn State, starting July, 2015. Professor Allen works in Continental philosophy, particularly critical social theory, poststructuralism, and feminist theo..
APA Wins $600,000 Grant for Undergraduate Diversity
The American Philosophical Association (APA) has won a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
The grant will provide $600,000 over three years to support undergraduate diversity institutes in philosophy, including the expansion of the Philosophy in an Inclusive Key Summer Institute (PIKSI) program and the development of infrastructure to support it and other..
Joshua Cohen to Join Berkeley Faculty
Joshua Cohen, who had held appointments at MIT and Stanford before recently moving to Apple University, will be joining the University of California, Berkeley as a Distinguished Senior Fellow in its School of Law, Department of Philosophy, and Department of Political Science, starting July 1, 2015. According to a notice on the UC Berkeley Philosophy Department web p..
New Philosophy of Science Association Officers
Sandra D. Mitchell (Pittsburgh HPS) has been elected President of the Philosophy of Science Association (PSA). Professor Mitchell will serve a two-year term (from January 1, 2015 through December 31, 2016) as Vice-President and President-Elect of the PSA, after which she will serve a two-year term (January 1, 2017 through December 31, 2018) as President of the Assoc..
“Philosophy is for posh, white boys with trust funds”
Seven philosophers are interviewed in The Guardian in the wake of a recent report by the UK’s Equality Challenge Unit that found that “among non-Stem (science, technology, engineering and maths) subjects, philosophy is one of the most male-dominated, with men accounting for 71.2% of the profession” in the UK. They were asked “Why aren’t there more female philosopher..
Nietzsche’s New Year’s Resolution
This:
I do not want to wage war with the ugly. I do not want to accuse, I do not want even to accuse the accusers. Looking aside, let that be my sole negation!
Thanks to Maria Popova at Brain Pickings for highlighting this passage from Nietzsche’s The Gay Science. See her post here for the rest of his New Year’s resolution.
(art: detail of Mirror/Infinity Roo..
X-Phi Grad Programs Wiki
Another grad program wiki is up — this time for experimental philosophy. It was put together by Joshua Knobe and Christian Mott (both at Yale). Shawn Miller (UC Davis), who created PhilWiki and the template that has been used to make the various subject-specific wikis, writes:
Notable, perhaps, is that the total time it took Joshua and Christian to get the site..
Bob Hanna Retires from Colorado
Bob Hanna retired on December 31st from his position as professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado. Hanna had been “suspended without pay for a semester in 2013 for sexual harassment and unprofessional conduct” (previously). According to an article in the Daily Camera: “Hanna made frequent unwanted romantic advances, often in the form of emails, toward wo..
Philosophy of Police Violence and Mass Incarceration
Lisa Guenther, associate professor of philosophy at Vanderbilt University, has developed a new philosophy course, “Police Violence and Mass Incarceration,” which she will be teaching this coming term. I think it is a great way of showing students a way in which philosophy can interact with current events. I asked her about the course, and in an email she writes:
..
Laptops, Tablets, and Phones in the Classroom
I settled on my New Year’s resolution while giving a lecture to 85 masters students. It was one kid who unintentionally suggested the idea. He was sitting in the back row, silently pecking away at his laptop the entire class. At times, he smiled at his screen. But he rarely looked up at me. I had a choice. I could disrupt the class to single him out. Or I could do w..
Government Attempts to Interfere in Universities in Macedonia
Students and faculty in Macedonia have been protesting attempts by the government there to impose state-supervised exams for university graduates. Response to faculty involvement in the protests has been to propose a requirement that the government’s ministry of education approve the composition of thesis committees and be involved in thesis defenses.
Todd May (Cle..