Category: Data

Data

Percent of U.S. Philosophy PhD Recipients Who Are Women: A 50-Year Perspective (guest post) (updated)

November 6, 2023

Has there been a recent uptick in the percentage of women among philosophy PhD recipients?
Data, Graduate Programs

New Guide to Terminal MA Programs in Philosophy

October 10, 2023

What kind of advice can you offer students trying to figure out which terminal MA program in philosophy to apply to or attend?
Data

Areas of Specialization in Philosophy — Data from 2022-23 (guest post)

September 18, 2023

What areas of specialization (AOS) are philosophy departments hiring in?
Data, Philosophy Job Market

New Interface for Academic Philosophy Data & Analysis (guest post)

September 7, 2023

Academic Philosophy & Data Analysis (APDA), an ongoing project to collect, analyze, and distribute data about job placement, student experience, and other aspects of…
Data

New Site Collects and Standardizes Philosophy Journal Information

June 19, 2023

The Philosophy Journal Insight Project (PJIP) “aims to provide philosophy researchers with practical insights on potential venues for publication.”
Data

2023 QS Rankings in Philosophy

March 24, 2023

The 2023 “QS World University Rankings” have been published. These contain rankings by subject matter, including philosophy.
Data

Recent Data About Philosophy PhDs

October 19, 2022

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has released some data about people who received PhDs in philosophy in the United States in 2021.
Data

Measuring Consensus and Disagreement in Ethics

September 6, 2022

A pair of philosophers are studying consensus and disagreement among philosophers on ethical issues, as well as consensus and disagreement on such issues between…
Data

Blended and Independent Departments of Philosophy

September 2, 2022

Some universities and colleges have departments just for philosophy (“independent” departments), while others have departments that include philosophy and other disciplines, such as “philosophy…
Data

The Philosophy Major Continues to Recover and Diversify in the U.S. (guest post)

August 24, 2022

The number of college students graduating with degrees in philosophy continues to increase, as does the gender and racial diversity of this group.
Data

Philosophers’ Views of Exploitation: A Survey

May 16, 2022

An interdisciplinary team of researchers is looking to find out more about what philosophers think about exploitation.
Data

New Data on Women in Philosophy Journals

March 18, 2022

How much writing by women do philosophy journals publish? How does this vary by quality and type of journal? How does it vary by…
Data

Philosophy Enrollment Grows — a Little — in Canada

June 16, 2021

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…
Data

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

April 28, 2021

In the following guest post*, Eric Schwitzgebel (UC Riverside) shares data he and other philosophers have collected on the percentages of philosophy students and…
Data

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

April 2, 2021

There are various silly little quizzes across the internet claiming to be able to tell you which famous philosopher you most agree with, but…
Data

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

December 7, 2020

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…
Data

Facts and Figures About U.S. Philosophy Departments

May 18, 2020

Humanities Indicators, a project of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences that gathers information about the humanities in the United States, has released…
Data

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

January 24, 2020

The following is a guest post by Kelly Truelove, who keeps an eye on social media trends for a few academic disciplines at his…
Data

How Familiarity with Philosophy Impacts Moral Decision Making

January 22, 2020

Stephanie Brown, an undergraduate at Williams College majoring in philosophy and psychology, is completing a senior thesis on moral psychology, including “how familiarity with philosophy impacts…
Data

The Philosophy Major Sees Increase in Numbers and Diversity (guest post)

December 20, 2019

“In the midst of this general sharp decline of the humanities, philosophy’s admittedly small and partial recovery stands out.”

Heap of Links

“Submission” is a humorous clicker-style game about starting a career in academic philosophy (or not) — created by Nat Hansen
“The best investment in education is to become the most human human—a challenging, fulfilling, exciting pursuit that connects us across generations” — an interview with Christa Acampora, philosopher and dean of Arts & Sciences at UVA
“What would happen if we tried to live without the mythology of agency at all?” — It's worth pondering, since "agency is just an internal command hallucination," says Alexander Douglas
“Reading List” is a free Mac app for keeping track of papers to read — philosophy PhD student Hayden Kajercline created this productivity tool for researchers, with help from Claude
How should we react to scary predictions about AI? “First: by asking questions” — "If you believe predictions uncritically, it amounts to obeying in advance," says Carissa Véliz
“I feel unbelievably lucky that I was able to make philosophy my profession” — Karen Ng reflects on her path into philosophy, at #first-genphilosophers
The ordinary concept of knowledge “doesn’t work at all the way philosophers said it does” — a round-up of studies shows how weird the philosophers' version of the concept is
1000 or so psychiatrists were asked to diagnose standardized clinical case vignettes. “Two doctors agreed on the diagnosis only 55% of the time” — What does this tell us about psychiatry? Or about other fields in which experts disagree?
Where Aristotle taught Alexander — "this newest dig may be the most revealing yet, offering insight into the specifics of Alexander the Great’s education"
Over 4000 of the Justice Department’s lawyers have left their jobs since Trump’s second term began — The New Yorker on the moral dilemma facing some government employees: resign and avoid complicity, or stay and resist where one can?
Underappreciated philosophy published between 1970-2019 — some old posts to which you can still add works that should be better appreciated
The AI threat to independent student writing is not necessarily a threat to student learning — what's needed, says Joe Cruz, are courses "in which ideas are expressed in real time and analytical thought unfolds as a debate or an oral defense or a group discussion"—and small enough classes to make that work
Would you take a pill that allows you, with no ill health effects, to permanently forgo sleep? — Rebecca Lowe thinks you have no good reason not to, though she neglects to consider that sometimes it's the world that needs a break from you
Fifty essays in the philosophy of paleontology — by Max Dresow at the Extinct blog
“Asking whether [an AI] model ‘has a world model’ leaves much unresolved. Our findings point toward mechanistically studying its world modeling; uncovering the structures it learned [and] the world modeling capacities that recruit these” — further research on the internal representations of AIs
Sixty Years of Philosophy in America — Ernest Sosa's Dewey Lecture from the 2024 APA Eastern Division Meeting
“You’re responsible for other people’s learning of this material, so you better know it at a higher level yourself” — for 20 years, the Socrates Project at the University of Toronto has hired senior philosophy undergrads to run weekly tutorials for introductory students
“Suddenly, my problems stop being problems in the world. They become problems in my head. The problem is no longer: ‘my job is demoralizing, but I can’t leave it’… It’s: ‘I have a chemical imbalance that prevents me from enjoying life'” — Justin Garson on “the pathologizing tendency”
A political theorist and a comedian discuss the American presidency — "The Oath and the Office" is the podcast of Corey Brettschneider & John Fugelsang
An “evidence revolution” has taken place in medicine and other fields over the past 50 years — but, as Benjamin Santos Genta asks, there's still the question: "what counts as good scientific evidence?"

All Links →

Latest Comments

Socrates on AI for Philosophy: Progress through Capital-Intensive Philosophy (guest post)
There is basically no evidence that more AI enables people to do more philosophy or more meaningful things. Instead people spend more time doomscrolling and engaging in online…
Meme on Those OpenAI Math Results
And yet…
Caio Cezar Silva on AI for Philosophy: Progress through Capital-Intensive Philosophy (guest post)
I get the point. The problem I see is that technology does not grow up in a vacuum. Generally, there will be a portion of society developing them…
AGT on Those OpenAI Math Results
at no point did I suggest AI would end civilization, in fact, I didn't even argue against AI. I have made point about the political (and economic) dimension…
Meme on Those OpenAI Math Results
This all sounds reasonable. I mainly worry about the “where is it now” question because of what it portends for the “where will it be” question. And I…
Jessie Ewesmont on Those OpenAI Math Results
Those are handpicked for credulity.
Jessie Ewesmont on Those OpenAI Math Results
Thinking AI has a remotely viable chance of ending civilization is silly. It's released a few hundred math proofs, most of which have been appraised as being gibberish…
Arewethereyet? on AI for Philosophy: Progress through Capital-Intensive Philosophy (guest post)
Right, and half of *our* children and grandchildren might not either. I didn't mean to say it that way, of course. Thank you, David. I appreciate you pointing…
Vincent Carchidi on AI for Philosophy: Progress through Capital-Intensive Philosophy (guest post)
A lot of people are dunking on this. I just want to add my (sincere) two cents with respect to the AI use disclosure for this article: I…
David Wallace on Those OpenAI Math Results
This is probably getting further into a general discussion of healthcare economics than I’d like (I try to avoid discussing general politics here) so I’ll resist replying further…
David Wallace on AI for Philosophy: Progress through Capital-Intensive Philosophy (guest post)
"No, they didn’t have all of modern medicine and whatnot." That's a rather bloodless way to say "half of their children didn't live to adulthood."
Noah Gordon on Those OpenAI Math Results
C.f. the reaction of over 100 mathematicians to these results. (Note how few are raising skeptical concerns about the results, or the mathematical abilities of the AI model,…
AGT on Those OpenAI Math Results
still the latter of course but I didn't consider the first as a realistic option given that they are already rich
Zach Thornton on Those OpenAI Math Results
There's a relevant disanalogy between math and philosophy that makes it far easier to create a superintelligent AI math researcher than a superintelligent AI philosophy researcher. Solutions to…
David Wallace on AI for Philosophy: Progress through Capital-Intensive Philosophy (guest post)
Interesting; thanks.