Data

Philosophy Enrollment Grows — a Little — in Canada

While the total number of undergraduate philosophy majors in Canada is down since 2010, a recent bump and some anecdotal evidence has University Affairs reporting that “philosophy is having a moment.” (more…)

The Leaky Pipeline into Academic Philosophy for Black Students in the U.S. (guest post)

In the following guest post *, Eric Schwitzgebel (UC Riverside) shares data he and other philosophers have collected on the percentages of philosophy students and degree holders in the U.S. who are black, in an attempt to understand the causes of the relative lack of black philosophers in the country. (more…)

Building A Better “Which Philosopher Are You Most Similar To?” Quiz

There are various silly little quizzes across the internet claiming to be able to tell you which famous philosopher you most agree with, but as far as I know, philosophy does not have something like Chris Said’s “Which Famous Economist Are You Most Similar To?” (more…)

The Race and Gender of U.S. Philosophy PhDs: Trends Since 1973 (guest post)

The following is a guest post * by Eric Schwitzgebel (UC Riverside) on trends in the race and gender of people earning Ph.D.s in philosophy in the United States over the past 47 years. (more…)

Some Good News, Some Bad News in the APA’s State of the Profession Report (guest post)

The American Philosophical Association (APA) today released a new report, “State of the Profession 1967-2017 and Beyond: Institutions and Faculty.” (more…)

Facts and Figures About U.S. Philosophy Departments

Humanities Indicators, a project of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences that gathers information about the humanities in the United States, has released a report that includes a variety of details about philosophy departments. (more…)

Philosophy Twitter, YouTube, & Podcasts Over The Past Decade (guest post by Kelly Truelove)

The following is a guest post by Kelly Truelove, who keeps an eye on social media trends for a few academic disciplines at his site, TrueSciPhi. (more…)

An Empirical Study of Bullshitters

“Bullshitters. Who Are They and What Do We Know about Their Lives?” is the title of a new study conducted by John Jerrim (UCL), Phil Parker (Australian Catholic University), and Nikki Shure (UCL and IZA – Institute of Labor Economics).

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Philosophy at Two-Year Colleges

Approximately 90% of community colleges offer courses in philosophy, and those courses are taken by roughly 255,000 to 275,000 students per term, or about 4% of the enrolled students, according to recent research by Humanities Indicators (HI). (more…)

Experimental Philosophy and the Replication Crisis

The replication crisis in psychology and other fields, in which researchers have found it difficult or impossible to replicate the results of many earlier experiments (see the Reproducibility Project) is now being addressed by those working in experimental philosophy (x-phi), a subfield of philosophy that borrows surveying and experimental methods from psychology, w..

AAUP Releases Report on Faculty Salaries

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has released its Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession, 2017-18.

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The “PC College Students vs. Free Speech” Narrative is Baloney

Overall public support for free speech is rising over time, not falling. People on the political right are less supportive of free speech than people on the left. College graduates are more supportive than non-graduates.

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Philosophy Relies on Those Double Majors (guest post by Eric Schwitzgebel)

How many undergraduates who major in philosophy also major in another subject? In the following guest post * , Eric Schwitzgebel (Riverside) looks at the numbers and what they mean. (more…)

New Earnings and Employment Data on Philosophy and other Humanities Majors

Humanities Indicators, a project of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, has issued a new report concerning earnings and employment data for those with degrees in the humanities, including philosophy.

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Coming Soon: PhilPeople

David Bourget (Western) and David Chalmers (NYU), the directors of the online philosophical database PhilPapers (and its associated sites, PhilArchive, PhilEvents, and PhilJobs), have announced a forthcoming new service called PhilPeople, a “searchable database of philosophers.” (more…)

Proportion of Philosophy Majors Who Are Women Varies Widely Across Schools

The following is a guest post * by Eric Schwitzgebel, professor of philosophy at University of California, Riverside. It first appeared at his blog, The Splintered Mind. (more…)

Sharp Declines in Philosophy, History, & Language Majors Since 2010 (guest post by Eric Schwitzgebel)

The following is a guest post * by Eric Schwitzgebel, professor of philosophy at University of California, Riverside. It first appeared at his blog, The Splintered Mind. (more…)

Philosophy PhD Program Ratings by Former Students, Placement Data, and Diversity Profiles

Academic Placement Data and Analysis (APDA), a project aimed at gathering placement and other data about graduate programs in philosophy, has created some tables presenting some of the information they’ve obtained. (more…)

Slight Increase in Philosophy PhDs Awarded, and other Humanities Data

The Humanities Indicators project of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences has released new data regarding graduate degree completion in the humanities, number of jobs advertised per discipline, and the demographics of humanities graduate students. (more…)

The Favorites, the Faked, the Overrated, the Overused, Etc.

Philosophers, please take a minute to complete a brief anonymous survey that asks you questions about things like your favorite thought experiment, which philosopher is overrated, which famous philosophical work you haven’t read, and the like. (more…)

Majority Of Republicans Say Higher Education Has “Negative Effect” On The Country

The Pew Research Center yesterday published the results of a study showing that “a majority of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (58%) now say that colleges and universities have a negative effect on the country, up from 45% last year. By contrast, most Democrats and Democratic leaners (72%) say colleges and universities have a positive effect, which i..

Trend: Fewer Philosophy Majors

The number of philosophy majors in the United States declined in the years leading up to 2015, part of a general decline in the number of humanities majors. (more…)

What Kinds of Universities Lack Philosophy Departments? Some Data (guest post by Eric Schwitzgebel)

The following is a guest post * by Eric Schwitzgebel (University of California, Riverside) that gathers data about the kinds of colleges and universities in the United States that have or lack philosophy departments and a philosophy major program. A version of this post was originally published at his blog, The Splintered Mind.

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Reconsidering Implicit Bias

At the time of this post, bibliographic philosophy database PhilPapers has 1,975,719 entries. Of these, only 74 works seem to be about “implicit bias”—subconscious bias concerning, for example, race, ethnicity, gender, disability, or sexuality. One might think, then, that the idea of implicit bias hasn’t been of much importance in philosophy. Yet, while there is n..

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 ..