
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 by Louie Generis.
- Daily Nous Philosophy Comics with Rachel Katler‘s Ad Hoc, Tanya Kostochka‘s To φ Or Not To φ , Ryan Lake‘s Chaospet, and Peter Mandik‘s Mind Chunks.
- Value of Philosophy Pages: a place online for articles and information about the benefits of studying philosophy.
- New comments system: allows “real-time” conversational commenting
I have a few other ideas in the works for the coming year. Stay tuned.
What were the most popular posts published in 2015 at Daily Nous? With the chance that spots 2 and 3 might switch places in the next couple of days, at the moment, this is the ranking:
- Philosophers On the Supreme Court’s Gay Marriage Ruling
- Philosophers On Rachel Dolezal
- Philosophers On Star Wars: The Force Awakens
- Northwestern and Title IX: What’s Going On
- “Raw Intellectual Talent” and Academia’s Gender and Race Gaps
- Salaries of Philosophy Majors Over Time
- Philosophers on the Syrian Refugees
- A Database of Philosophical Ideas
- Peter Railton’s Dewey Lecture
- Ruin a Date with a Philosopher in Five Words
Here are some other noteworthy posts and discussions you shouldn’t miss:
- Answers from Academic Publishers — editors from several academic presses answer readers’ questions
- Philosophers and Welders — what happens when politicians hate on philosophers (also here)
- A Closer Look at Philosophy Journal Practices — in response to concerns about unfairness, editors from several philosophy journals describe how they operate
- Philosophers and Depression — philosophers share their experiences with depression and its challenges
- Philosophers on Prostitution’s Decriminalization — philosophers weigh in on the proposal to decriminalize the selling and buying of sex
- Philosophy’s Most Beautiful Sentence or Paragraph — over 100 suggestions
- “Motivational” Posters from Philosophers — demotivational, really
Some other topics occupying philosophers this year:
- Controversy over Heidegger’s anti-semitism and attempts to cover it up (see also here and here)
- Problems with philosophers’ citation practices, here and here
- Academic freedom, culture of fear, trigger warnings, microaggressions, and chill
- Whether there are too many philosophy PhDs: the data, some questions, my view
- Various items related to sexual harassment and assault cases
- Viral philosophy: the dress and the logic problem
What do you think were the important topics and stories this year? What issues should the philosophy profession take up in the coming year?
Thanks for the opportunity, Justin! It turns out that you’re actually a halfway decent boss. And handsome. And yes, at this point I’m just trolling the folks who still think I’m you.
There are no beefs in this list. Don’t you know what’s important?
Many thanks for a year of good reading and discussion.