October 2021
Levelling the Linguistic Playing Field within Academic Philosophy (guest post)
Stylistic norms for writing affect philosophers’ professional prospects in unfair ways, and what one thinks should be done about this may be tied to one’s conception of what philosophy is supposed to do. (more…)
To φ Or Not To φ
Enough Ranking (guest post)
“The project of ranking one place against another completely distorts the sorts of aspirations we should have for the field.” (more…)
The Job Market is Back, Baby! (guest post)
Charles Lassiter, associate professor of philosophy at Gonzaga University, has once again taken a look at the advertisements for academic positions in philosophy, and reports what he has found in the following guest post*. (more…)
The Philosopher’s Archive in the Digital Age: David Lewis and His Correspondence (guest post)
“There are both intellectual and practical questions here. On the intellectual side, a major question is how the medium of email affects the communication and discussion of philosophical ideas… On the practical side… how do we approach the job of preserving a philosopher’s emails after her death, assuming there is sufficient scholarly interest in her corresponde..
Online Philosophy Resources Weekly Update
The weekly report on new and revised entries at online philosophy resources and new reviews of philosophy books… (more…)
Discipline Size and Progress, in General and in Philosophy
When a field of study becomes large enough, its size “may impede the rise of new ideas,” according to Johan S.G. Chu and James A. Evans, in a new paper, “Slowed canonical progress in large fields of science,” in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (more…)
Students at Sussex Campaign to Get Philosopher Fired (updated)
An “anonymous, unaffiliated group of queer, trans, and non-binary students” at the University of Sussex is calling for the school to fire philosophy professor Kathleen Stock for her views and activism regarding trans women. (more…)
Rudolf Makkreel (1939-2021)
Rudolf Makkreel, professor emeritus of philosophy at Emory University, has died. (more…)
Ideas for a 7th Grade Philosophy Club
Emily is a seventh grade student who chimed in on an earlier post where she mentioned, “I am trying to get more people to join my philosophy club, but no one wants to. They don’t want the answers. I do though.”
Mini-Heap
The latest links… (more…)
Making the Abundance of Philosophy on Video More Usable
An effort is underway to curate the vast number of philosophy videos that can be found on YouTube, Vimeo, Instagram, and elsewhere on the web. (more…)
Brian Penrose (1956-2021)
Brian Penrose, a long-time member of the Philosophy Department at the University of the Witwatersrand, died last month. The following guest post is by his former colleagues at Wits.
Mind Chunks
Guide to Graduate Programs in Philosophy Based on Job Placement and Student Experience (guest post)
Academic Placement Data and Analysis (APDA) is a resource for prospective philosophy graduate students and others to learn about how well particular graduate programs do with getting their graduates jobs, and what it is like to be a student in those programs. (more…)
Free Software for Advanced Logic Courses
Students nowadays might struggle in more advanced logic courses not just because the material is difficult, but because they’re used to learning logic with software, which is commonly used in introductory courses, but less so in higher-level ones. (more…)
Using “Distant Reading” to Complement Close Reading
“I don’t think the computers will ever replace the people when it comes to interpreting philosophical texts. It’s rather that we humans can use computers to help keep ourselves honest and unearth patterns that would be difficult to detect if we did everything manually.” (more…)
Online Philosophy Resources Weekly Update
The weekly report on new and revised entries at online philosophy resources and new reviews of philosophy books… (more…)
Mini-Heap
New additions to the Heap… (more…)
How Does This Year’s Academic Philosophy Job Market Look?
At this point in the job market last year, there were 65 advertisments for positions in academic philosophy advertised at PhilJobs. What about this year? (more…)
An Empirical Approach to the Analytic-Continental Divide
What’s the difference between analytic philosophy and Continental philosophy? In a new paper, a pair of researchers use a computer analysis of the content of different journals to test one way the distinction is sometimes characterized. (more…)
Project on Kantian Democracy Wins $1.38 Million Grant
Reidar Maliks, professor of philosophy at the University of Oslo, has won a grant of 12,000,000 Norwegian kroner (approximately $1.38 million) to support his project, The Kantian Foundations of Democracy. (more…)