Are Journal Rejections a Hazing Ritual (Ought Experiment)
Welcome back to Ought Experiment! Today’s question is from a philosopher reeling from yet another journal rejection, and starting to wonder if publishing is an arbitrary (or even intentionally cruel) ordeal:
Dear Louie,
My favorite paper was just rejected for the 7th time. Let’s see, I’ve had desk rejections, rejections without referee comments, rejections..
Trump’s Rhetoric and Frogs in Warming Water
Princeton University Press has begun an “Election 2016: Hot Button Issues” series at its blog and its inaugural post, “Donald Trump and Mass Incarceration” is by Jason Stanley (Yale). In the post, Stanley argues that Trump’s articulation of xenophobic, Islamophobic, racist, and harshly retributivist views is problematic not only because his campaign success so far r..
Issues with Graduate Admissions
“Ph.D. programs are one of the few parts of higher education where admissions decisions are made without admissions professionals.” So begins Inside Higher Ed’s discussion of Inside Graduate Admissions: Merit, Diversity and Faculty Gatekeeping by Julie Posselt (Michigan). Posselt observed ten different U.S. departments as they narrowed down their pool of PhD program..
To φ Or Not To φ (Daily Nous Philosophy Comics)
To φ Or Not To φ
by Tanya Kostochka
New Philosophy and Dinosaur Blog
Philosophy and dinosaurs. Is it philosophy of paleontology, or just really really really ancient philosophy? Whatever it is, I love this combination. And now there is a way to get your philosophy of paleontology in compsognathus*-sized bites at Extinct — “a resource for philosophers, palaeontologists, and enthusiasts.”
Extinct is a group blog featuring contribu..
Judge Dismisses Kaufman Lawsuit Against Colorado
Last March, University of Colorado associate professor of philosophy Dan Kaufman filed a lawsuit against the university “alleging the school both discriminated and retaliated against him because he has a disability,” following his being banned from campus by the administration. Yesterday, a federal judge dismissed these claims, reports the Daily Camera. In exchange ..
Philosophy and the Internet Public
Though the internet is, in a number of ways, good for philosophy, it isn’t always good to philosophers. The needless hostility, harassment and scary threats, personal insults, bullheadedness, impatient demands, etc., widely broadcast for all to see (and discussed a bit here) can be a deterrent to participation and a nasty “reward” for engaging with the public.
Ex..
Welcome the APA’s New Blog
The American Philosophical Association (APA) has launched its new blog. Though I had urged as a possible name “APAplexy” (during a particularly turbulent time here, comments-wise), and others had chimed in with other options such as “APAcalypse,” “APAria,” “APAdosis,” etc., the blog is called “Blog of the APA” (BAPA? BOT-APA?). Lead editor Lewis Powell (Buffalo), in..
Philosophers, Physicists, Others Win €2.5m to Study the Large Hadron Collider
An interdisciplinary team consisting of academics working in philosophy, physics, history, and sociology have won a 2.5 million euro grant to fund a three year project about the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator. It first started up on 10 September 2008, and remains the lat..
SEP, IEP, NDPR, Wi-Phi Weekly Update
The winter holiday has slowed things down a little, here and elsewhere in the philosophy world. Normally, I’d post the past week’s additions to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP), Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (NDPR), and Wi-Phi Wireless Philosophy, yet only the first two have any updates: They were first ..
A Modest Proposal: Slow Philosophy (guest post by Jennifer Whiting)
The following is a guest post* by Jennifer Whiting (Pittsburgh).
A Modest Proposal: Slow Philosophy
by Jennifer Whiting
In his review of Moral Prejudices by Annette Baier, Colin McGinn claimed that Baier had proposed that universities accommodate the demands of women’s reproductive clocks by allowing women to postpone tenure decisions until the age of 50 ..
New Heights (Lows?) in Philosophy Job Application Requirements
A correspondent who prefers to remain anonymous brought to my attention the job advertisement of California State Sacramento, and sent along the following commentary:
As those on the market all know, the application process can be a hassle. In addition to all the intellectual investment and tedious editing that goes into putting together a decent portfolio, depar..
Mind Chunks (Daily Nous Philosophy Comics)
Mind Chunks
by Pete Mandik
Favorite Philosophy of the Year 2015
A reader asks:
Was wondering if you could write a post asking for people’s favorite philosophy articles/books of the year.
Sure!
People, what were your favorite philosophy articles or books published in or around 2015?
Done.
Now it’s your turn, people…
Best Philosophy Blog Post Winners Announced
3 Quarks Daily has announced the winners of its 2015 prize for best philosophy blog post:
- Top Quark, $500: Vidar Halgunset, Slow Corruption
- Strange Quark, $200: Daniel Silvermint, On How We Talk About Passing
- Charm Quark, $100: Lisa Herzog, (One of) Effective Altruism’s blind spot(s)
Of the top two posts, Judge John Collins (Columbia) writes: “they w..
Daily Nous Year In Review
2015 is drawing to a close. I hope you had a good year.
The year saw Daily Nous’s first birthday (in March) and a number of new features, including:
- Philosophers On Series: group posts consisting of brief remarks by several philosophers on topics of current interest.
- Ought Experiment: the column doling out “personal advice for your academic life,” written b..
SEP, IEP, NDPR, Wi-Phi Weekly Update
This is where I’d normally post the past week’s additions and updates to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP), Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (NDPR), and Wi-Phi Wireless Philosophy, yet, owing to winter break and Christmas, there isn’t anything to report except for some changes at the SEP. They were first pos..
NEH & APA Collaboration on Public Philosophy
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the American Philosophical Association (APA) are collaborating for two events at the APA’s upcoming Eastern Division Meeting next month in Washington, DC. The first is a plenary address by the chairman of the NEH, William “Bro” Adams, at noon on January 7th. Following that, there will be a session “Philosophy for t..
Ad Hoc (Daily Nous Philosophy Comics)
Ad Hoc
by Rachel Katler
“Reputation Traps” in Philosophy
In an essay at Aeon, Huw Price (Cambridge) writes about “reputation traps.”
His example of this is scientific research on cold fusion, or low-energy nuclear reaction (LENR), “the controversial idea that nuclear reactions similar to those in the Sun could, under certain conditions, also occur close to room temperature.” Cold fusion held out the promise of clean an..
Chaospet (Daily Nous Philosophy Comics)
Chaospet
by Ryan Lake
Philosophers On Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Spoilers)
The latest Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens, opened at the end of last week. It’s a fun movie. But is it more than just that? I asked a few philosophers who are Star Wars fans to write brief reviews of the movie for Daily Nous. Be warned, there are spoilers in these reviews.
I know what you’re thinking: “philosophers writing about Star Wars? Does it get any ner..
SEP, IEP, NDPR, Wi-Phi Weekly Update
Here are the past week’s additions and updates to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP), Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (NDPR), and Wi-Phi Wireless Philosophy, appearing here via special arrangement with Philosophical Percolations. They were first posted in PhilPercs’ “Saturday Linkorama” along with many other..
New Comments Policy And How The Comments Now Work
The comments system change is in progress, with most of the features in place. Since the system works differently than the old one in some important respects, I’ve updated the comments policy. Here’s the new version. The beginning is similar to the old one, but there are a number of additions.
Before you comment, imagine the following. You are seated in a com..
Comments Changeover This Weekend
As the new commenting system (described here) is put into place this weekend, piece by piece, the commenting on Daily Nous may be a bit buggy. This may mean some comments getting lost, some going right through on the new system without my moderation, and some being queued for moderation as on the old system. Please bear with us.
The ‘reply’ function and comment ‘..
Criticism of the Philosophical Gourmet Report
Over the past week, Daily Nous has hosted a discussion of criticisms of the Philosophical Gourmet Report (PGR), a ranking of PhD programs in philosophy. This latest round of criticism began with a post excerpting from “Appearance and Reality in the Philosophical Gourmet Report: Why the Discrepancy Matters to the Profession of Philosophy” by Brian Bruya (Eastern Mich..
Some Upcoming Changes to Daily Nous
At Daily Nous we toil to provide you, dear readers, with an exceptional philosoblogospheric experience. There have been a number of changes to the site over the course of its existence, and a complete overhaul in October of last year. I bet none of you remembers the site looking like this: (more…)
The Job Market: Shifts in the Schedule?
With the increased use of video calls in place of first-round conference interviews, as well as the inauguration of the January scheduling of the Eastern Division meeting of the American Philosophical Association, some philosophers on the market are curious about how this has been affecting the timing of the process. We discussed some aspects of this back in August,..