September 2016
APA Committee Issues Statement on Swinburne’s SCP Keynote (Updated)
The Committee on the Status of LGBTQ Philosophers in the Profession, one of the committees of the American Philosophical Association, has issued a statement in light of the controversy regarding Richard Swinburne’s keynote address at the 2016 Midwest Society of Christian Philosophers (SCP) meeting.
The statement first emphasizes that Swinburne’s talk was a keynot..
“European Philosophy” Is No Good
At least not as a helpful label:
So I have a provocative proposal of my own: intellectually speaking, the more valid distinction is not between ‘European’ and ‘non-European’ philosophy, but between philosophical cultures that respond to Greek thought (however indirectly), and those that do not. (more…)
A Surprisingly Overlooked Gap in Philosophy (guest post by Bob Fischer)
Bob Fischer is an assistant professor of philosophy at Texas State University. In a brief conversation over the summer, he shared with me an observation about a problem teaching philosophy to college students and I thought, “no, that can’t be correct.” But he was right, and he was doing something about it. In the following guest post, he explains the problem and how..
Update on the Threat to Philosophy at IPFW (guest post by Charlene Elsby)
In August we learned that the Philosophy Department at Indiana University – Purdue University, Fort Wayne (IPFW) was confronting the possibility of a “restructuring” that could result in its elimination, owing to the university’s financial problems and what appeared to be a stacking of the deck against units in the school’s College of Arts and Sciences in the proced..
Why Are These Philosophers Voting For Trump?
A list of scholars and writers, including several philosophers, have placed their names on a website beneath the statement, “Given our choices in the presidential election, we believe that Donald Trump is the candidate most likely to restore the promise of America, and we urge you to support him as we do.” (more…)
An Interview with David Chalmers
David Chalmers (NYU & ANU), apart from being a prolific academic philosopher, does a good amount of public philosophy, is half of the team that runs PhilPapers and its associated endeavors, edits the philosophy of mind series for Oxford University Press and the philosophy of mind section at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and, I’m told, takes on an impressi..
Ad Hoc (Daily Nous Philosophy Comics)
Ad Hoc
by Rachel Katler
APA Awards Philosophy of Law Prize
The American Philosophical Association (APA) has awarded the 2017 Berger Memorial Prize to Patrick Tomlin (University of Reading). The Berger Prize is awarded every other year, in odd years, to “an outstanding published article in philosophy of law” written by an APA member. (more…)
Message from the Editor regarding “A Tale of Two Conferences”
Running a news and discussion site for professional philosophers involves, among other things, making judgments about what is and what is not newsworthy.
That a story is newsworthy is not to say that a post about it will appear at Daily Nous, for there may be countervailing considerations that provide reasons not to post about it, or there might be circumstances ..
Tips for a Successful Philosophy Demo
The president of a university philosophy club writes in seeking advice on how to attract new students at the activities fair to their table. One idea they’re keen on is to have laptops out with various philosophy-related games or other interactive sites running. He mentions Moral Machines, Cleverbot, Philosophy Experiments, and Information Is Beautiful’s ‘What Is C..
Online Philosophy Resources Weekly Update
Good morning, philosofriends. Below you’ll find what’s new at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP), Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (NDPR), and Wi-Phi.
If there are links of philosophical interest you’ve come across recently, you are welcome to share them in the comments to this post (though check out the Heap ..
A Tale of Two Conferences (UPDATED)
Last weekend, the Society for Analytical Feminism (SAF) held its 2016 conference. This weekend, the Society of Christian Philosophers (SCP) held its 2016 Midwest conference. I did not attend either of these conferences, but I did hear about them. As one might expect, they had a lot in common with other conferences: a fair amount of anticipation in advance, a mix of ..
Acknowledging Commentators
It’s normal for versions of a paper to be presented as talks or conference presentations a few times before the final version is published. At some of these talks and presentations, you may have, in addition to comments from the audience, an official commentator delivering prepared remarks on your ideas. What are the norms governing acknowledging commentators in the..
The Autonomy of University Ethics Centers
Wednesday afternoon, Gordon Hull, associate professor of philosophy at University of North Carolina, Charlotte, and director of the school’s Center for Professional and Applied Ethics, put up a post on the Center’s webpage about the recent police shooting of an unarmed black man, Keith L. Scott (see the bottom of this post for that text). (more…)
New Media in Psychology and Philosophy
The focus here at Daily Nous is on the philosophy profession, but the following dispute down the street caught my attention. Here’s Susan Fiske, a psychology professor at Princeton and past president of the Association for Psychological Science (APS), in “Mob Rule or Wisdom of Crowds,” which will be appearing in the APS news periodical, Observer:
Our field has al..
Grad Students: What Would You Tell Your Fellow Students, But Can’t?
First we asked what graduate students would like to say to their professors, but felt like they couldn’t. Then we asked what professors would like to say to graduate students, but couldn’t. Less for the sake of exploring all of the available logical space (but of course partly for that) and more because it was requested and might be of some use, we shall now take up..
Filling in Wikipedia’s Coverage of Philosophy
An effort is underway to fill in some gaps in Wikipedia’s coverage of philosophy, particularly its coverage of “underrrepresented philosophers and philosophy.” As part of this year’s WikiConference North America, there will be an “editathon” during which Alex Madva (Cal Poly Pomona) will be coordinating the addition of information and entries in Wikipedia. The event..
Chaospet (Daily Nous Philosophy Comics)
Chaospet
by Ryan Lake
Timeliness in Academia: Email, Deadlines, Meetings, etc.
There are a bunch of things that people in the course of their normal work lives have to do in a timely fashion in order to stay in good standing in their jobs, but about which there is, let’s say, greater variation in academia. This observation was prompted by a query from Tom Donaldson, received in the Daily Nous inbox a, er, couple of weeks ago: (more…)
Online Philosophy Resources Weekly Update
It’s Monday already! Time for the weekly report on updates to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP), Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (NDPR), and Wi-Phi. (more…)
Improve Your Philosophy Teaching With This One Weird Trick
What if I told you there was an easy, scientifically-proven, five-minute method for improving your teaching? Just five-minutes, and your teaching ratings go up. No, I’m not talking about giving your students candy when you have them fill out the course evaluation forms. I’m talking about an actual improvement in learning outcomes, based on real science. How much wou..
Philosophy and the Racial “Epistemic Horizon”
Looking back, I brought something special to those spaces that are predominantly white at Duquesne. And I don’t think that white philosophers can offer what I offered to those Black students and students of color. There is a certain discourse, certain assumptions, a shared discourse, a shared worldview, a shared style. There is also a certain understanding of where ..
The Changing Role of Philosophers As Public Intellectuals
Via a chock-full-of-philosophy-links post at the wonderful Omnivore blog at Bookforum comes “The Philosopher As Public Intellectual” by Patrick Baert, a sociologist at Cambridge University. The essay is part of a forthcoming collection, Public Intellectuals in the Global Arena: Professors or Pundits? (more…)
Hiring Departments Ask Candidates To Anonymize Materials
At least a couple of philosophy departments that are hiring this year have instituted measures to shield the identity of applicants from those reviewing some of their application materials. (more…)
Major Ethics Blog PEA Soup Revamped
PEA Soup (with the PEA standing for Philosophy, Ethics, and Academia) has just undergone a number of changes. It has a new look. It has moved to a new address: www.peasoup.us, and it has teamed up with DePauw University’s Prindle Institute of Ethics (directed by Andrew Cullison). (more…)
APA Issues New Guide For Philosophers Seeking Non-Academic Jobs
The American Philosophical Association (APA) has published a new guide for philosophers seeking non-academic employment, entitled Beyond Academia: Professional Opportunities for Philosophers. According to a press release about the publication, (more…)
Cognitive Bias Codex
Philosophers have long been interested in how we make sense of the world and how thinking goes wrong. Since some of the most interesting work on these topics in recent decades has been done in social psychology on cognitive biases (even acknowledging this), philosophers should at least be acquainted with some of that research—as some already are. (more…)
To φ Or Not To φ (Daily Nous Philosophy Comics)
To φ Or Not To φ
by Tanya Kostochka
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