Lives of Philosophers
CategoryMichael 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..
Philosophers Gift Guide
I thought Daily Nous should get in on the year end list action. But what would be a good list? Top philosophy blog posts? 3 Quarks Daily has that cornered. Best philosophy books published this year? Like I’ve had time to read enough books this year to make a list (I thought of this one but it turns out it came out last year). Fave pop songs of 2014? A bit outside DN..
Allen Phillips Griffiths (1927-2014)
Allen Phillips Griffiths, emeritus professor of philosophy at—and one of the founders of—the University of Warwick, has died. Professor Griffiths worked in a wide range of philosophical areas, including ethics and political philosophy, epistemology, and philosophy of psychology. There is a brief memorial notice here. Update (12/17/14): a longer obituary is now ..
Jonathan Trejo-Mathys (1979-2014) (updated)
Jonathan Trejo-Mathys, an assistant professor of philosophy at Boston College, has died. Trejo-Mathys worked mainly in political philosophy and critical social theory. Prior to his appointment at Boston College, he had been a Fulbright Scholar as well as a fellow at the Justitia Amplificata Centre for Advanced Studies in Frankfurt. He received his PhD in 2009 from N..
Patrick Suppes (1922-2014) (several updates)
Patrick Suppes, emeritus professor of philosophy at Stanford University, has died. Suppes was known for his work in several areas, most notably philosophy of science. Stanford University has posted a memorial notice here. His complete bibliography and the text of an intellectual autobiography he wrote in 1978 can be found here, and here is another site that collects..
Why Did You Go Into Philosophy?
It’s World Philosophy Day, but for some reason my school is not giving me the day off. What’s up with that?
Anyway, let’s do something to mark the day. The profession has had its share of bad news and controversy lately, and much of that has filled the pages of Daily Nous. Let’s take a break from that for a moment, right here, and recall what it is that’s so..
Habermas on the Return of Exiled Jewish Philosophers
In an essay at Tablet Magazine, Jürgen Habermas describes the impact of Jewish philosophers and sociologists who returned to Germany after the Holocaust. An exceerpt:
On the present occasion I cannot make a contribution to exile research, but only sift through some recollections from the unreliable perspective of a contemporary witness. After their return to the ..