Lives of Philosophers

Al Mele Interviewed at “What Is It Like…?”

Clifford Sosis (Coastal Carolina) continues his series of interviews at “What Is It Like To Be A Philosopher?” (previously) with Florida State University’s Al Mele. A synopsis:

In this interview, Al Mele talks about his early love of sports (especially football), games and reading, being an East Detroit greaser, getting a football scholarship, being disinterested..

Michael Martin (1932-2015)

Michael Martin, professor of philosophy emeritus at Boston University, has died. Martin worked mainly in philosophy of religion, and is known for his defenses of atheism, in such works as Atheism, Morality, and Meaning and various edited collections, including the Cambridge Companion to Atheism. He also wrote a few plays. Following an initial appointment at the Univ..

Interviewed

Clifford Sosis continues his series at What Is It Like to Be a Philosopher? (previously here, here, and here) with an interview of, uh, me. For the record let it be known that an earlier part of our conversation was omitted from the published version. I include it here:

Sosis: I’m starting an interview series.
Weinberg: Sounds good. Do you have anyone lined up?..

Are Philosophers Hypocrites?

“On no issue did ethicists show unequivocally better behavior than the two comparison groups,” the researchers reported.

An article in The Atlantic— “The Hypocrisy of Professional Ethicists“— sums up research by Eric Schwitzgebel (UCR), Joshua Greene (Harvard), Sara Bleich (Johns Hopkins), Eric Schulz (Max Planck Inst.), Michael Koenigs (Wisconsin), and other..

Mary Louise Gill Interviewed

Clifford Sosis continues his very interesting series of interviews with philosophers with Mary Louise Gill of Brown University. There’s a lot in this one, which Sosis helpfully sums up:

She talks about reading Gone with The Wind in secret at home (it was forbidden), being required to read J Edgar Hoover’s Masters of Deceit in the 6th grade, her father, John Glanv..

Wide-Ranging Interview with Michael Ruse (FSU)

At his new site, What Is It Like To Be A Philosopher, Clifford Sosis (Coastal Carolina) has posted a long and wide-ranging interview with Michael Ruse (Florida State). The interview covers a lot of his personal life and how he got into philosophy, evolution and creationism and his testimony in the McLean versus Arkansas Board of Education lawsuit, interdisciplinary ..

Michael Theunissen (1932-2015)

The philosopher Michael Theunissen died on April 18, 2015. He studied in Bonn and Freiburg and defended his much-cited habilitation thesis Der Andere: Studien zur Sozialontologie der Gegenwart (The Other: Studies in Contemporary Social Ontology) in Berlin in 1964. He was professor in Berne, then Heidelberg and Berlin, where he was colleague alongside figures such ..

Pleshette DeArmitt (2015)

Pleshette DeArmitt, chair and associate professor of philosophy at the University of Memphis, has died. Professor DeArmitt work was in contemporary continental philosophy, feminist theory, psychoanalysis, and social and political thought. Before taking up a position at Memphis, she held held visiting positions at Grinnell College and Villanova University.

The dep..

Alan Wertheimer (2015) (updated)

Alan Wertheimer, professor emeritus at the University of Vermont, has died. Professor Wertheimer worked mainly in ethics and political philosophy, both theoretical and applied, with well-known work on coercion, exploitation, and various topics in biomedical ethics. He spent most of his career at the University of Vermont, in the Department of Political Science, but ..

Watching TV (with poll)

A reader who prefers to remain anonymous writes in asking about the television-watching habits of philosophers. He notes that philosophers and other academics are often proud to abstain from television, and to not even own one of the infernal contraptions. (“How do you know someone doesn’t own a television? Don’t worry, they’ll tell you.” See also: here, here, and h..

Hobbies of Philosophers: Steff Rocknak

For this installment of “Hobbies of Philosophers”, I talked to Steff Rocknak, professor of philosophy at Hartwick College. Steff works on Hume, Quine, philosophy of art, and philosophy of mind. But she also has a successful career as a sculptor—it is certainly much more than a hobby, so in this case, the title for this series is terribly inapt given the central im..

Philosophy, Disability, and Chronic Illnesses

Several weeks back Daily Nous had a post which served as a space for philosophers to discuss their experiences of depression and mental illness. At the time, I was asked by several people to do a like post for disability and chronic illnesses. Here it is. Discussion of the personal and professional challenges confronting those with disabilities and chronic illnesse..

Brian Barry Literary Archive

There is a new site dedicated to archiving the writings of and about the late, great, political philosopher Brian Barry. The Brian Barry Literary Archive, as it is called, is still in development, but already contains some of his unpublished work (books and articles), links to obituaries, and a brief biographical note. There are plans to include on the site a comple..

John Arras (1945-2015) (updated)

John Arras, professor of biomedical ethics and philosophy at the University of Virginia, has died. Professor Arras was known for his work in bioethics. Prior to moving to Virginia, he taught at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine-Montefiore Medical Center and Barnard College. In addition to his research an teaching, Arras was known for his public service. He was..

Georg Kreisel (1923-2015)

Georg Kreisel, known for his work in philosophy of math, has died. Prior to his retirement in 1985, Kreisel held appointments at Stanford, the University of Paris, the University of Reading, and the Institute for Advanced Study. He was a student of Wittgenstein, who is reported to have said that Kreisel was the “most able philosopher he had ever met who was also a m..

“How could someone be so devastatingly exacting and kind?”

If your father is a philosopher, then you should expect to lose many arguments. You will never lose “because life isn’t fair,” or because your dad “says so.” You will always lose on strict logical grounds… If your father is a philosopher, your premises must support your conclusion. Then, maybe once or twice in a childhood filled with lost arguments, you will win. ..

Hilail Gildin (1928-2015)

Hilail Gildin, professor of philosophy at Queens College, has died. Gilden worked in political philosophy, publishing books on Mill, Spinoza, and Rousseau. He was one of the founders, with his teacher, Leo Strauss, of Interpretation: A Journal of Political Philosophy, and served as its editor-in-chief. (via Moti Mizrahi)

Philosophy and Depression

In the wake of Peter Railton’s Dewey Lecture, I have been asked to create a space on Daily Nous for philosophers to share their experiences of depression and other forms of mental illness. Discussion of the personal and professional challenges confronting those afflicted by these conditions, ways in which the behavior of others affected your experiences in this rega..

Peter Railton’s Dewey Lecture (updated)

A number of people have remarked (here and elsewhere) on the Dewey Lecture delivered by Peter Railton (Michigan) at the American Philosophical Association’s Central Division Meeting this past week. Professor Railton has been kind enough to provide me with a copy of the lecture, which he emphasizes is a draft. I have posted it here (UPDATE 2/27/15: this is a link to..

Keith Donnellan (1931-2015)

Keith Donnellan, professor emeritus in the philosophy department at UCLA, has died. Donnellan was known for his work in philosophy of language, particularly on definite descriptors. I will post links to obituaries as they appear.

Irving Singer (1926-2015) (updated)

Irving Singer, professor emeritus of philosophy at MIT, has died. He had been at MIT since 1958. The following is from an obituary posted by MIT:

Singer was an eminent philosopher whose academic career spanned 65 years — with more than half a century as a professor at MIT. Singer was the author of 21 books in the field of humanistic philosophy, focusing on topic..

Peter Menzies (1953-2015) (updated)

Peter Menzies, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, Macquarie University, has died. Before his appointment at Macquarie, he held positions at the University of Sydney and Australia National University. He had also been a visiting scholar at several institutions, including MIT, Stanford, and Cambridge.

Huw Price and Philip Pettit write (over the PHILOS-L list):

Pe..

Hobbies of Philosophers: Meg Wallace

For the second installment of our Hobbies of Philosophers series, I talked with Meg Wallace (Kentucky). Meg works on metaphysics and philosophy of language, and her philosophy is super bad-ass. But today we are talking about her other life as an equally bad-ass aerialist. I spoke with Meg about what aerialism is all about, how she got involved with it, and how she c..

Philosophy as a Way of Life

Stoicism, of course, may not appeal to or work for everyone. It is a rather demanding philosophy of life, where your moral character is pretty much stipulated to be the only truly worthy thing to cultivate in life (though health, education, and even wealth are considered to be “preferred indifferents”). Then again, it does have a lot of points of contact with other ..

Life as a Philosophy Student in North Korea

A philosophy student who defected from North Korea provides some information about life as a philosophy student there in a recent interview (part of a series of interviews with David A. Caprara, a journalist working with the Global Peace Foundation in Seoul, South Korea). The student now lives in Seoul.

The access to philosophy books in North Korea is quite limit..

Ruin a Date with a Philosopher in 5 Words

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports on a recent twitter tag: #RuinADateWithAnAcademicInFiveWords. There are a few philosophers chiming in. One of the best so far: @Ethicistforhire with “Doesn’t science make philosophy obsolete?”

I think this calls for a Ruin A Date With A Philosopher in 5 Words thread.

The Most Impressive Philosopher You’ve Met

Philosophy Bites has compiled the answers philosophers have given to the question, “Who is the most impressive philosopher you’ve ever met?” I am listening to it now. It is delightful to hear the admiration and smiles and warmth in the voices of these philosophers as they name and explain their choices. Feel free to discuss their choices, or add your own, in the com..

Philosophers from Poverty

The announcement of the UPDirectory has prompted a number of comments about a category not included among its underrepresented groups: philosophers who grew up in poverty. One theme in many of these comments is a sense of isolation and difference that comes from having that kind of background. The point of this post is just to open up a space for philosophers to dis..