Philosophy and Culture
CategoryThe Today Show Reports on an APA Meeting… in 1990
Back in 1990, the Today Show aired a segment on a meeting of the American Philosophical Association (APA), taking place in New Orleans.
Game of Thrones Quotes for Academic Contexts
Game of Thrones, a well-acted and beautifully filmed sprawling television fantasy of political ambition, royal lineage, revenge, zombies, surprising deaths, random magic, and dragons—entertaining and big but also silly and superficial—is ending tonight. People can’t stop talking about it.
The Philosophy Haiku of Kris McDaniel
Philosopher Kris McDaniel, who will be moving shortly from Syracuse University to the University of Notre Dame, writes philosophy haiku. (more…)
Philosophical Short Stories
Do you know of any particularly philosophical short stories? (more…)
Developments at the Royal Institute of Philosophy
The Royal Institute of Philosophy (RIP), a charitable organization based in London dedicated to the advancement of philosophy, has announced that it has several new officers. (more…)
Crying “Crying Wolf”
Suppose that instead of one shepherd boy, there are a few dozen. They are tired of the villagers dismissing their complaints about less threatening creatures like stray dogs and coyotes. One of them proposes a plan: they will start using the word “wolf” to refer to all menacing animals. They agree and the new usage catches on. For a while, the villagers are indeed m..
Which Philosophers Won the Shirt Poll? And Who Won the Shirts? (updated)
The 2nd Daily Nous/Hirsute History philosopher t-shirt poll is over, and we have identified the winner and runner-up. (more…)
Philosopher Shirt Poll: Another Collaboration with Hirsute History
Two years ago Daily Nous polled readers to determine which philosophers should be added to the collection of portrait shirts designed by Jeremy Kalgreen at Hirsute History. We’re doing it again and once again are asking for your input. (more…)
Joffrey Baratheon Plans to Become a Philosophy Professor
King Joffrey had a hard time ruling Westeros, but will that be anything compared to his quest to become a philosophy professor? (more…)
Derogatory Language in Philosophy Journal Risks Increased Hostility and Diminished Discussion (guest post) (Update: Response from Editors)
The following is a guest post* from Sophie Allen (Keele), Elizabeth Finneron-Burns (Warwick), Jane Clare Jones, Holly Lawford-Smith (Melbourne), Mary Leng (York), Rebecca Reilly-Cooper (Warwick), and Rebecca Simpson, concerning two articles recently published in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. (more…)
When Philosophers Are on the Money (guest post by Maks Sipowicz)
The following is a guest post* by Maks Sipowicz, a doctoral candidate in philosophy at Monash University (whom you can follow on Twitter: @m_sipowicz ). A version of the post first appeared on his blog, Philosophy After Dark (which you can follow on Facebook). (more…)
Kanye West Is Writing A Philosophy Book (Updated)
Rapper Kanye West has revealed that he is writing a philosophy book. (more…)
How Religion Informs Philosophizing
In an interview at What Is It Like To Be A Philosopher?, Christian Miller, the A. C. Reid Professor of Philosophy at Wake Forest University, discusses, among other things, the relationship between his religious and philosophical commitments. (more…)
Philosopher Clothing
This is the “Gottlob Frege: Begriffsschrift” A-line dress, designed by philosopher-artist Maureen Eckert and brought to my attention by Sara Bernstein. The pattern is also available on leggings. She also has clothing available with Frege’s square of opposition on it, such as this shirt. (more…)
The Growth of Pre-College Philosophy In Ireland
This past year, nearly 60 high schools in Ireland began offering philosophy courses or introducing philosophy modules into existing courses, and the nation’s president, Michael Higgins, launched the Young Philosopher Awards for primary and secondary school students. (more…)
New HBO Drama Stars Tim Robbins as a Philosophy Professor
Here and Now is a new television series on HBO. A family drama from the creator of the popular and critically-acclaimed show Six Feet Under, it stars Tim Robbins as philosophy professor Greg Boatwright and Holly Hunter as his wife, Audrey Bayer, a lawyer. (more…)
Another Network Comedy To Feature a Philosopher
Is philosophy hot? Following the commercial success of The Good Place, a television sitcom on NBC with a moral philosophy professor as one of its main characters (which, by the way, recently featured a discussion of Jonathan Dancy’s moral particularism, not to mention a re-enactment of part of the trolley problem), the network will be releasing A.P. Bio.
Results of Philosophers Against Factory Farming Fundraising Competition
The Philosophers Against Factory Farming fundraising competition, announced earlier this month, ended last night. One of the organizers, Carolina Flores Henrique, passed along the results. (more…)
Philosophy Goes Hollywood?
Check out the trailer to Downsizing, the upcoming movie starring Matt Damon, Kristen Wiig, and others:
Emergent Horrors (?) of Information Technology
These videos, wherever they are made, however they come to be made, and whatever their conscious intention (i.e. to accumulate ad revenue) are feeding upon a system which was consciously intended to show videos to children for profit. The unconsciously-generated, emergent outcomes of that are all over the place… (more…)
Philosopher Calls for Interdisciplinary & Empirically Informed Study of Black Manhood
In an interview at Inside Higher Ed, Texas A&M philosophy professor Tommy Curry (who was the recent target of harassment and death threats, recall) discusses some of the ideas in his recent book, The Man-Not, which calls for a distinctive kind of black male studies he says is rejected by others in the humanities.
Personality Traits and Book Genre Preferences
What do people’s tastes in books tell us about their personalities? More specifically, what can we learn about people’s personalities from their preference for philosophy books? A team of researchers from Disney Research and the Singapore Ministry of Defense (what a combination!) used self-reported personality data from Facebook and user-supplied book-genre tags fro..
Philosophers Against Factory Farming – A Fundraiser Competition
Last year, a group of graduate students at Rutgers set up a fundraising competition for philosophy departments to support the Against Malaria Foundation. It raised nearly $60,000. This year, the same group of students has set up a new fundraising competition, Philosophers Against Factory Farming. (more…)
In a Possible World Far, Far Away
By now you’ve all seen the new Star Wars trailer, so, philosofriends…
“I find your bad faith disturbing” — Sartre Vader
Philosophers Talk Football
Hey, so, uh, the Superbowl….
That’s all I got, but feel free, folks.
(images from Academic Coach Taylor)
Why Are These Philosophers Voting For Trump?
A list of scholars and writers, including several philosophers, have placed their names on a website beneath the statement, “Given our choices in the presidential election, we believe that Donald Trump is the candidate most likely to restore the promise of America, and we urge you to support him as we do.” (more…)
Philosophers On Coates’s “Between the World and Me”
This installment of the Daily Nous Philosophers On series was organized by Janice Dowell (Syracuse).
Introduction
by Janice Dowell
In the midst of growing media coverage of police brutality and racial injustice in the United States, as well as increased attention to matters of race in the philosophical mainstream, the arrival of writer and journalist Ta-N..
In Defense of Academic Writing
Cass Sunstein, writing in The Chronicle of Higher Education, defends serious academic writing against the pressures of popularization and accessibility. Articles in popular magazines and blogs “might be clear and beautifully written, but usually they don’t add much if anything to the stock of knowledge,” and “even when they are written by professors, they are often ..