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
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.Â
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…)
Ad Hoc (Daily Nous Philosophy Comics)
Ad Hoc
by Rachel Katler
Which Ideas Are Students Protected From? Which Are Faculty Fearful to Defend?
Here are some empirical claims about higher education in the United States. In comparison to 100 years ago:
- There are fewer or weaker institutional, social, and material obstacles to non-white-male people entering academia.
- Academics today regularly and with institutional approval study a greater number of topics, including topics previously thought taboo or unwo..
Caspar Hare AMA Interview Today; Others Scheduled
The moderators of the /r/philosophy board at the discussion site Reddit have released their Fall 2016 schedule of “ask me anything” interviews with philosophers. First up is Caspar Hare (MIT), today, at 1pm Eastern Standard Time. (more…)
Philosophy in Prison Program at U.Missouri Kansas-City Wins Prize from APA and PDC
The Philosophy in Prison Program of the Philosophy Department at the University of Missouri – Kansas City (UMKC) has won 2016 Prize for Excellence and Innovation in Philosophy Programs. The prize is awarded jointly by the American Philosophical Association (APA) and the Philosophy Documentation Center (PDC). The prize award is campus-wide electronic access to a bund..
Historically, Does Philosophy Flourish During Chaos?
Anthony Gottlieb, an historian of ideas, journalist, editor, and author, has a new book out called The Dream of Enlightenment in which he makes an interesting claim about the connection between culture and politics and the development of philosophy. Here’s a description of it from an article in The New Yorker by Adam Kirsch (Columbia):Â
Gottlieb sees that  were s..
Online Philosophy Resources Weekly Update
It’s Monday: time for the round-up of the past week’s additions and changes to  the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP), Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (NDPR), and Wi-Phi. (more…)
Philosophers: Stop Being Self-Indulgent and Start Being Like Daniel Dennett, says Daniel Dennett
Daniel Dennett (Tufts) does seem to say that, but the real topic of this post is the good question he raises about how to figure out whether the kind of philosophy you’re doing is worth doing. We’ll get to that. But first, check out the following, from what might be the most clickbait-titled-but-just-for-academic-philosophers-article-ever-to-appear-on-a-mainstream-w..
Why Philosophy? (Guest Post By Ken Taylor)
The following is a reposting of a piece that originally appeared at Philosopher, a site run by Meena Krishnamurthy (University of Michigan). The author is Ken Taylor, the Henry Waldgrave Stuart Professor of Philosophy at Stanford University, cohost and co-creator of the nationally syndicated public radio program Philosophy Talk, and current president of the Pacific ..
Illustrations of Logicians
I’ve previously linked to some of the line art portraits by graphic designer Matt Leadbetter that the Open Logic Project commissioned. Well, now there are a bunch of them available in one place, along with links to individually downloadable portraits (under Creative Commons license). How many of the following can you correctly identify? (more…)
University of Chicago Issues Massive Trigger Warning
Joining the apparent trend of schools and professors alerting students to the prospects that they will be encountering material they may find upsetting, the University of Chicago this week issued a “trigger warning” to its entire incoming class of first-year students. In a letter to the class of 2020 (reproduced at the bottom of this post), Dean John (Jay) Ellison w..
Graded Assignments in Philosophy MOOCs
Philosophy professors generally like to assign papers to students. The format of a paper  allows the student to exercise certain skills of careful exposition and argumentation in ways that quizzes and timed exams don’t. Massive open online courses (MOOCs) often do not include graded work—and certainly not graded papers. The massiveness and openness (inexpensivenes..
The Where, What, and When of Philosophy Jobs
Mark Alfano (Delft), one of today’s more data-driven moral philosophers, has taken information from PhilJobs regarding the location and types of advertised jobs and placed it on a map at Tableau Public. Here’s where the jobs are: (more…)
Dale Jacquette (1953-2016)
Dale Jacquette, Senior Professorial Chair in Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Bern (Switzerland), died this past Sunday. Prior to moving to Bern in 2008, he was professor of philosophy at Penn State University. He also held visiting appointments or was affiliated with the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh, the Julius Maximil..
Winners of the 2016 APA Public Philosophy Op-Ed Contest
The American Philosophical Association (APA) has announced the winners of its 2016 Public Philosophy Op-Ed Contest, sponsored by its Committee on Public Philosophy. The goal of the contest is “to honor five standout pieces that successfully blend philosophical argumentation with an op-ed writing style.” The winners are: (more…)