philosophy
CategoryAntidismissiveness
“When I started reading Derrida, I couldn’t understand what the heck he was talking about; but someone like Kripke, it was easy. I remember chatting to someone once who said to me ‘yeah, this Derrida guy is easy, but when I read Kripke I can’t understand a word he’s saying!’” (more…)
Curation, Digitization, Path Dependence, and the Urgency of the History of Philosophy
Philosophy, and especially the history of philosophy, is not known for being in a rush. But an appreciation of the factors that go into shaping our discipline and its self-understanding might give us a sense of urgency. (more…)
Analytic Philosophy and the Big Questions of Life
At the start of each term, Helena de Bres (Wellesley) holds “get to know you” office hours with her students. “So what made you sign up for a philosophy class?” she asks. (more…)
Deontology Is Compatible with Act-Consequentialism (guest post)
“It’s standard to divide the moral landscape into deontology, consequentialism, and virtue ethics, thereby assuming that these three are mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive. I, like some others, find this deeply problematic…” (more…)
Moral Dumbfounding and Philosophical Humility (guest post)
“I need to have the humility to recognize that, in this case, I have not found that truth, and that I may not ever find it. And it has also shown me that I need to be more generous to people who are dumbfounded by cases where I happen to have clear and consistent intuitions.” (more…)
To Be a Department of Philosophy (guest post)
“There are many reasons to expand the story we tell about philosophy. But a main reason is just that the best, most interesting, and even the correct answers to philosophical questions that interest us might be found anywhere.” (more…)
On the Time McDowell Told Taylor and Putnam They Misunderstood Him (guest post)
“On Saturday, April 27 1996, in Chicago, at the Palmer House, there was an epic, bewildering Author Meets Critics session on McDowell’s (1994) Mind and World with Charles Taylor and Hilary Putnam as Critics and John Haugeland presiding…” (more…)
Escaping the “Feedback Loop” of Sexism in the History of Philosophy
“Some of the women discussed in this Issue cannot be slotted easily into a history that did not include their ideas in the first place.” (more…)
The Contingency of Philosophers’ Philosophies
In an interview, Josef Mitterer is asked about how approaches to philosophy may vary by whether they provide “an escape from contingency.” (more…)
“Departments of Cognitive Poker”? Competitiveness and Philosophy (guest post)
Is philosophy an especially competitive discipline? How? Is its competitiveness a problem? If so, what might we do about it? (more…)
Philosophers On The Russian Attack On Ukraine
On February 24th, Russia began an invasion of Ukraine, starting with missile strikes on several locations, including Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and since then has continued its attack via air and ground warfare, despite near universal international condemnation of its actions. (more…)
Philosophers, Concepts, and Cognitive Biases
“We found some evidence of differences in conceptual competence between philosophers and laypeople, and documented a difference in linguistic diet; but these differences did not translate into different susceptibility to even the most pertinent cognitive bias, or render philosophers’ judgments appreciably more accurate.” (more…)
“Negative attitudes toward philosophy and philosophers”
Yesterday morning, Laura Kennedy, a writer and freelance journalist who often writes about philosophy (and who recently earned her PhD in philosophy at Trinity College Dublin), asked on Twitter: “Philosophers – have you observed that academics in other disciplines tend to have negative attitudes toward philosophy and philosophers? If so, why do you think that might ..
Which Questions Can’t Philosophy Answer By Itself?
In an interview in The Undergraduate Philosophy Journal of Australasia, Thomas Spiteri asks Peter Godfrey-Smith (Sydney) about “how best to make epistemic progress” answering philosophical questions about minds and consciousness. (more…)
Increased Specialization & Competent Peer Review
Is increased specialization in philosophy a problem for high-quality peer review? (more…)
Stepping Outside of Philosophy: Reflections on a Transdisciplinary Career (guest post)
Universities say they want their faculty to pursue “interdisciplinary” and “transdisciplinary” work. Yet it might be difficult to figure out how to do that given the structure of academia and the nature of academic training. (more…)
Philosophy that “Tries to Get You to See Something”
At the beginning of his interviews of philosophers, Richard Marshall asks his subjects, “What made you become a philosopher?” (more…)
Comparing Three (No, Four) Top 20 Lists in Philosophy (guest post)
What, if anything, can be learned by comparing several different accounts of philosophers’ citation rankings and other indicators of disciplinary impact? (more…)
“Very often, corralling is not an option in philosophy”
That’s philosopher Frank Jackson (ANU), in a recent interview published in The Undergraduate Philosophy Journal of Australasia. (more…)
In Defense of the Details (guest post)
Are today’s younger philosophers “focusing too much on detailed investigations of individual things and not enough on the big picture”? (more…)
World Philosophy Day & the Growth of Philosophy
Today is World Philosophy Day, a day designated by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to celebrate “the enduring value of philosophy for the development of human thought, for each culture and for each individual.” (more…)
What Philosophers Believe: Results from the 2020 PhilPapers Survey
Results from the 2020 PhilPapers survey, with responses from nearly 1,800 philosophers (mainly from North America, Europe, and Australasia), to questions on a variety of philosophical subjects and problems, have now been published. (more…)
Overlooked Originators in Philosophy
Sometimes, one person comes up with an idea, but the idea later comes to commonly be attributed to someone else. When has this happened in philosophy? (more…)
Intuitive Expertise in Moral Judgments (guest post)
“People’s intuitive judgments about thought experiment cases are influenced by all kinds of irrelevant factors… the issue of intuitive expertise in moral philosophy is anything but settled.”
Analytic Philosophy’s “Triple Failure of Confidence”
“Analytic philosophy suffers from a triple failure of confidence, especially among younger philosophers.” (more…)
What Predicts Professional Philosophers’ Views? (updated)
A new study looks at correlations between professional philosophers’ philosophical views and their psychological traits, religious beliefs, political views, demographic information, and other characteristics. (more…)
Surprise! There’s Philosophy About That
If you ask a person on the street what philosophy is about, that person may respond with… (more…)
Philosophers On Space Exploration
Last week, the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) landed its rover, Perserverance, on Mars. It is the latest in a series of human efforts now spanning six decades to physically explore and travel to parts of the the universe beyond our terrestrial home. Scientific and engineering matters tend to dominate public discussion of these efforts, yet..