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To φ Or Not To φ (Daily Nous Philosophy Comics)

To φ Or Not To φ
by Tanya Kostochka

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Not Refereeing the Resubmitted Paper You Recommended for Revision

Here is something that happens in the world of academic philosophy publishing: (more…)

How To Teach Philosophy In Comedy Clubs (Guest Post by Michael Connell)

The following is a guest post * by Michael Connell, an Australian comedian. Connell has a thing for philosophy, especially Stoicism, which he incorporates into his act (e.g., “How you think shapes how you feel. What I’m saying is that if you don’t enjoy this show, it’s your fault.”). I asked him to talk about his work and conveying philosophical ideas to non-philosop..

Barthold Retaliation Case Settled

This past April I reported that Lauren Barthold, associate professor of philosophy at Gordon College, a Christian liberal arts college in Massachusetts, had filed a lawsuit against the college for retaliating against her for her public statements (such as a letter to the editor of a newspaper) disagreeing with college president Michael Lindsay over whether federal c..

Care to Referee More?

Some members of our profession are referee superstars, being asked multiple times a week to referee papers for journals (and often saying ‘yes’), while others are well-qualified but unnoticed, and are almost never asked to referee. The result is that some philosophers have become unfairly overburdened, journal editors have been having increased difficulty finding re..

Virtual Dissertation Groups

Once again, Joshua Smart, a PhD student at the University of Missouri and an instructor at Christopher Newport University, is organizing virtual writing groups for students working on philosophy dissertations. He writes:

While advisors and committees are important, it can be incredibly helpful to discuss one’s work with peers in a lower-stakes environment, and it..

Diversity in Philosophy: Is the Problem Lack of Pre-College Exposure?

Recall these figures from “What is the State of Blacks in Philosophy?” by Tina Fernandes Botts, Liam Kofi Bright, Myisha Cherry, Guntur Mallarangeng, and Quayshawn Spencer: though blacks in the U.S. make up over 13% of the general population, they make up just 1.32 percent of the total number of people professionally affiliated (as grad students or faculty) with U.S..

Online Philosophy Resources Weekly Update

Happy Monday, y’all. New thing here: 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 of Links first to see if it’s not already in there). Alright, then. Without further ado, below are the recent updates to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), Int..

Philosophy Teaching Games

Do you use games as a teaching tool in your philosophy course? And if so, which games, and to teach what? The questions were prompted by a friend drawing attention to “The Hobbes Game” by John Immerwahr (in the Fall 1976 issue of Teaching Philosophy). He lays out the game in the first few pages of the article, reproduced below. See the full article for a discus..

Profs: What Would You Tell Your Grad Students, But Can’t?

Comments are still coming in on yesterday’s post, “Grad Students: What Would You Tell Your Prof(s), But Can’t?” In future posts we’ll take up some of the recurring themes in those comments. In the meanwhile, a friend proposed that we hear from the other side. That could be interesting and constructive (I say, suggestively). And so: (more…)

Philosophers among the 2016 Class of Royal Society of Canada Fellows

The Royal Society of Canada has announced its newly elected fellows. “They have been elected by their peers in recognition of outstanding scholarly, scientific and artistic achievement,” according to the RSC. Among those honored are several philosophers: (more…)

The Reflectiveness That Makes Us More Opaque To Ourselves

Towards the end of an in-depth and highlyy informative interview with Marya Schechtman (UIC) about the philosophy of personal identity, interviewer Richard Marshall asks her about “difficulties for women in the academy” and whether there’s “something weird going on in philosophy departments that is avoided elsewhere.” Schechtman’s answer includes the following intri..

Philosophy Placement Data: An Update on APDA

Academic Placement Data and Analysis (APDA), a project funded by the American Philosophical Association (APA) and headed by Carolyn Dicey Jennings (UC Merced), aims “to make information on academic job placement useful to prospective graduate students in philosophy.” The project has just been updated to include new data, which Professor Jennings describes in a post ..

Grad Students: What Would You Tell Your Prof(s), But Can’t?

In the wake of last week’s post about what graduate students wish they had known going into their programs, a fellow philosophy professor suggested I ask a related question: (more…)

Mind Chunks (Daily Nous Philosophy Comics)

Mind Chunks
by Pete Mandik

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APA Awards 2017 Kavka/UCI Prize

The American Philosophical Association (APA) has announced that the winner its 2017 Kavka/UCI Prize is Johann Frick (Princeton) for his paper, “Contractualism and Social Risk” (alt. link), which appeared in the June 2015 issue of Philosophy and Public Affairs.

According to the APA, the Kavka prize is awarded every other year, in odd years, to an APA member who h..

The Ideas Faculty are Too Scared To Defend: A Follow-Up

Last week I wrote about the Great Academic Absorption and asked about the ideas it left unabsorbed, or squeezed out. At the time, I wrote: “Since this is a blog largely for academic philosophers, let’s limit answers to our area of expertise: philosophy (as broadly construed as you’d like). Which philosophical or philosophy-related ideas are students not being expose..

In Development: Philosophy Archive & Journal with Crowd-Sourced Peer Review

Imagine a website philosophers can join to post their papers for reading, reviewing (on a wiki), and upvoting/downvoting by other members, and which will periodically publish a journal comprised of a selection of these papers (ones that make it through a review process they qualify for by getting enough upvotes). That’s what Populus will be once it is up and running..

Online Philosophy Resources Weekly Update

Behold: the past week’s updates to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP), Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (NDPR), and Wi-Phi. Plus a bonus link. (more…)

What Does The Public Call What We Call “Public Philosophy”?

We are accumulating a large list of philosophers who do public philosophy in the comments to “Who Does Public Philosophy?” It is great to see that so many academics are involved in bringing philosophy to people outside their classrooms and peer groups, and especially heartening to see so many names on that list of people who haven’t been much mentioned before in the..

Interdisciplinarity and Progress in Philosophy

My current work on racial inequality and social justice—and to a lesser extent my earlier work—takes me into areas of knowledge outside of what we teach and learn in philosophy classrooms. In the last six years or so I have co-authored multiple works and grant proposals with an economist, sociologist, social psychologist, lawyer, and a historian. I have written wi..

Aesthetics for Birds Returns with New Editor

The Aesthetics for Birds blog—“aesthetics and philosophy of art for everyone”—is back in business with a new design and a new editor, Alex King (Buffalo). Nice: (more…)

Grad Students: What Do You Wish You Knew?

It’s the start of the academic year,and for some people, the start of their graduate education in philosophy. Graduate students are getting oriented in their programs, and graduate programs are orientating their students. Are they doing a good job of it? (more…)

Who Does Public Philosophy?

The American Philosophical Association’s Committee on Public Philosophy is compiling a list of philosophers who have careers doing public philosophy, either exclusively or concurrently with careers in academic philosophy, and can use your help in identifying them.

There are a variety of ways to do public philosophy, so to be more specific, the committee is lookin..

Philosophy of War Audio Miniseries Available

A new philosophy show is in the works, and its creator has made three of its episodes—which together make up a miniseries on the philosophy of war—available to anyone teaching a course to which they would be relevant. (more…)