philosophy

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…)

“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.”

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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..

Aristotle’s Sexism & Simplifying Historical Ideas “to Fit a Modern Agenda”

“It is often not a good idea to simplify the history of ideas in order to fit a modern agenda.” (more…)

Philosophical Quality Now and Then

“I find no good reason to think that philosophers today do philosophy better than philosophers 600 or 2000 years ago.” (more…)

Things Philosophers Know About Science That You Don’t

What do philosophers know that others don’t? This post intiates an occasional series that asks philosophers to engage with the “conventional wisdom” on various topics by sharing strongly-supported or widely-held philosophical insights and ideas about them.