Mini-Heap


After a quasi-hiatus (quasiatus?) over winter break, the growth of the Heap of Links continues. Here’s the latest Mini-Heap—10 recent items of possible interest to those interested in philosophy, from the Heap. Feel free to discuss. 

The Heap of Links consists partly of suggestions from readers; if you find something online that you think would be of interest to the philosophical community, please send it in for consideration for the Heap.

  1. “I need not fear that the lecture will make the texts too easy; they remain full of possibility. And it is useful to remember how difficult it was for me when I read them for the first time.” — the case for lecturing more, from Adriel Trott (Wabash)
  2. Gödel’s 1939 unpublished lecture notes for a course in basic logic — now published, by the Logical Society of Belgrade
  3. Students pester women professors more (via FP)
  4. A philosophy professor is running for Congress — Randy Auxier (SIUC) seeks the Green Party’s nomination
  5. “She philosophized about vagueness—-and lived with it too” — a profile of the late Delia Graff Fara, in the New York Times
  6. Experimental aesthetics — a cookoff to test nominees for Sellars’ “incompatible food triad”
  7. “One of the reasons a lot of philosophers struggle with depression is that we spend so long sharpening our knives they cut deeper when we turn them on ourselves” — long post on mental illness, philosophy, academic employment, and the late Mark Fisher (aka k-punk), from Peter Wolfendale
  8. Aliveness — Sean Kelly (Harvard) on a gift he received from Hubert Dreyfus
  9. What to believe about credence — an interview with Richard Pettigrew (Bristol)
  10. Philosophy isn’t the only discipline with journal editors resigning over the publication of controversial papers — the author says his theory provides a solution to two of Hilbert’s problems about infinite numbers
Disputed Moral Issues - Mark Timmons - Oxford University Press
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Ivor E. Groll
1 year ago

The courageously honest and sobering blog post by Peter Wolfendale should be required reading for all aspiring academic philosophers as well as their professors. It is tragic that the careerist, hyper-specialized parody of the ‘life of the mind’ that is today’s academic rat race has no place for such an enthusiastic and eclectic intellect. Sadder still that keen but troubled minds like Fisher’s and Wolfendale’s are drawn to academic discourse for the very qualities which they were ultimately forced to resort to seeking in their blogs rather than their academic publications: 1) creative freedom of expression; 2) courageous range of ambition; and 3) humble openness of mind. The toll their disappointed and misplaced hope in the university industry took on their mental health can serve as a stern warning to aspiring academic philosophers of the perils of making one’s passion one’s profession. Is it too much to hope that one day our best may be able to hope for better?