philosophy
CategoryLetting Different Kinds of Philosophy Be Their Own Thing
Last week, Harvey Lederman (UT Austin) delivered some remarks at Academia Sinica on what he referred to as “the path forward for Chinese philosophy.” (more…)
Immoral Moral Philosophers
In a recent post at The Splintered Mind, Eric Schwitzgebel (UC Riverside) asks whether it matters “if ethicists walk the walk.” (more…)
The Social Turn in Analytic Philosophy: Promises and Perils (guest post)
“The linguistic turn is over. We partied hard, got hungover, and now we’re trying to live as respectable adults… Today, a new revolution is brewing. Analytic philosophy is in the midst of a social turn.” (more…)
Desperate Honesty (guest post)
“I abandoned classics for philosophy in large part because that was where the refuters were. Now people can’t stop telling me I am wrong.”
Personal, Practical, Public Philosophy
“Starting around 2010, however, there was a striking change, surprising to someone trained in the 1980s. Some philosophy professors began to write a lot more personally; they tried to show how philosophical ideas had affected and might affect their own lives.” (more…)
Philosophy as Glial Cell (guest post)
Glial cell? “Commonly described as the ‘glue’ that holds the nervous system together, they’re better thought of as infrastructure, the ductwork and insulation that give heft to comparatively sparse neurons. But even this metaphor turns out to be incomplete…”
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Favorite Articles Off The Beaten Path
Many of you could probably list the names of 50+ academic philosophy journals off the top of your head. (more…)
The Practicality of Philosophy
“There is something philistine in his demand that philosophy always answer to practical needs.” (more…)
The Various Literary Forms of Philosophy (guest post)
“What are the literary forms philosophy can come in? Judging by contemporary works it seems the best way to express our ideas is in 8000-word journal articles, monographs, the occasional op-ed. But there are so many literary forms to do philosophy in.” (more…)
What’s So Bad About “Bad” Philosophy?
In some domains, “overall quality depends on how good the worst stuff is,” while in others, “overall quality depends on how good the best stuff is, and the bad stuff barely matters.” (more…)
Philosophy in “Lesser-Studied Languages”
An interview project “devoted to exploring the philosophical richness of lesser-studied languages from across the world” has published four interviews so far, with more on the way.
Better Philosophy Through Time Travel
Here’s one way of thinking about progress in philosophy. (more…)
Optimism about Philosophy
“I know a lot of people on twitter and social media complain about the current state of philosophy but I tend to be an optimist.” (more…)
Are We Not Doing Enough Drugs?
“To admit to any intention to use chemical substances, whether found in nature or synthesized in laboratories, in the aim of changing one’s apprehension of reality, is to leave the guild of the philosophers behind, with all its constricting norms and shibboleths, and to join the company, over in the deep end of the pool of life, of sundry countercultural weirdos and..
Beloved Philosophical Writings on Love
What philosophical writing about love would you have us read? (more…)
How Risk-Averse is Academic Philosophy?
“Philosophical inquiry thrives when it is conducted in a spirit that risks overreaching a bit,” yet “the current incentive structure of academic philosophy in the United States favors cautious and modest research agendas for early career philosophers.” (more…)
Are Philosophy’s Glory Days in Bioethics Over? (guest post)
How has philosophy’s role in cognate disciplines been changing? We could ask this question about philosophy and political theory, or cognitive science, or business ethics, or theoretical physics, and so on. In the following guest post, the focus is on philosophy and bioethics. (more…)
In Defense of Boring and Derivative Philosophy (guest post)
“Even if you prefer the sexiness of radicalism or the glory of revolution: you need boring, work-a-day normal conservative philosophy.” (more…)
36 Answers to “What Is the Value of Philosophy?” (updated)
Friction, a philosophy channel featuring interviews of professional philosophers, recently released a supercut of three dozen thinkers answering the question “What is the value of philosophy?” (more…)
The Questions Today’s Philosophers Are Asking (for World Philosophy Day 2022)
Happy World Philosophy Day! (more…)
Found: Five Boxes of New Hegel (updated)
Five boxes of previously unknown transcriptions of lectures by G.W.F. Hegel have been found. (more…)
Why the History of Philosophy Matters to Philosophy (guest post)
“Studying the history of philosophy can help us see ourselves from the outside and that can help us inhabit philosophy from the inside.” (more…)
Organizing for Answers
Suppose the main aim of the enterprise of academic philosophy is to generate philosophical knowledge, and that said knowledge is mainly answers to big philosophical questions. How should the discipline be organized so as to best achieve this aim? (more…)
A New Topography of Philosophy: Analytic, Continental, and Philosophy of Science
When it comes to mapping the territory of academic philosophy, “the timeworn analytic-continental divide should be replaced with a three-way split, between analytic, continental, and philosophy of science programs.” (more…)
Philosophy’s Most Beautiful Sentence or Paragraph
Antidismissiveness
“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…)