philosophy

Unsolved Problems in Philosophy

Did you know that Wikipedia has a “List of Unsolved Problems in Philosophy” page? It lists only 20 problems (philosophy’s doing better than I thought!) including: “the problem of the criterion,” “the mind-body problem,” “the hard problem of consciousness,” and “the problem of induction.” Ironically, mereology and universals are left off of the list. (Admittedly, it ..

The Purification of Philosophy

institutionalization of philosophy made it into a discipline that could be seriously pursued only in an academic setting. This fact represents one of the enduring failures of contemporary philosophy.

So argue Robert Frodeman and Adam Briggle (both of University of North Texas). Philosophy’s institutionalization in the modern research university was a kind of “pu..

The Paradox of Unanimity

Under ancient Jewish law, if a suspect on trial was unanimously found guilty by all judges, then the suspect was acquitted. This reasoning sounds counterintuitive, but the legislators of the time had noticed that unanimous agreement often indicates the presence of systemic error in the judicial process, even if the exact nature of the error is yet to be discovered. ..

Favorite Philosophy of the Year 2015

A reader asks:

Was wondering if you could write a post asking for people’s favorite philosophy articles/books of the year.

Sure!

People, what were your favorite philosophy articles or books published in or around 2015?

Done.

Now it’s your turn, people…

“Reputation Traps” in Philosophy

In an essay at Aeon, Huw Price (Cambridge) writes about “reputation traps.”

His example of this is scientific research on cold fusion, or low-energy nuclear reaction (LENR), “the controversial idea that nuclear reactions similar to those in the Sun could, under certain conditions, also occur close to room temperature.” Cold fusion held out the promise of clean an..

Do You Act As You Argue? Or Do You Argue for How You Act? (Guest Post by Rivka Weinberg)

“Everybody is somebody’s fault.”

That’s the first line of the introduction to The Risk of A Lifetime, the new book by Rivka Weinberg (Scripps), on “how, when, and why procreation may be permissible.” Those who’ve had the opportunity to talk with Professor Weinberg will recognize in the book her frank style, sardonic wit, and critical eye, which she now, in the f..

Books for the Philosophy Newbie

A Daily Nous reader asks:

What books would you recommend to someone who’s new to philosophy? What would be your Philosophy 101 book recommendations?

I would imagine that many readers will take these two questions as requiring different answers. The books one might use in a class, when there is an instructor to help guide the students through them, may be diffe..

What’s “Core” and What’s “Peripheral” in Philosophy—and Why?

It’s pretty bizarre, when you think about it, that someone who spends their time wondering whether tables are real is considered to be working on a foundational area of philosophy, but someone who wonders whether races are real is doing something we consider a niche, ‘applied’ topic. Likewise, someone who tries to figure out how words like ‘might’ work is doing some..

Progress in Philosophy

Rebecca Newberger Goldstein is becoming the most well-known defender of the idea that philosophy makes progress. Last year, in The Chronicle of Higher Education, she wrote:

Philosophy was the first academic field; the founder of the Academy was Plato. Nevertheless, philosophy’s place in academe can stir up controversy. The ancient lineage itself provokes dissensi..

The Absence of Chinese Philosophy in the U.S.

In the United States, there are about 100 doctorate-granting programs in philosophy. By my count, only seven have a permanent member of the philosophy faculty who specializes in Chinese philosophy.

That’s Eric Schwitzgebel (UC Riverside), writing in the L.A. Times.

Philosophy professors in the United States have all heard of Confucius and the Daoist Laozi. Ma..

Plot Philosophy’s Subfields

Yesterday’s post about interdisciplinary work in philosophy got me curious about how philosophers understand their work in relation to other disciplines.

One question we can ask of academics is: “what do they take themselves to be studying?” Of course, there are various ways of answering this question. One way of doing so is trying to determine where on a spectru..

A Bias Against Simplicity?

Kieran Healy (Duke) recently presented a paper entitled “Fuck Nuance” at the American Sociological Association’s annual meeting. He writes:

Nuance is not a virtue of good sociological theory. Sociologists typically use it as a term of praise, and almost without exception when nuance is mentioned it is because someone is asking for more of it. I shall argue that, ..

The One Statement To Best Restart Philosophy

If all existing philosophical work—and all records and knowledge of it—were to be destroyed in some disaster, and only one sentence could be passed on to future intelligent beings (roughly like us we’ll assume) for them to restart the philosophical enterprise, what should that statement be?

The question is based on a similar one about science, which Richard F..

Not Technically a Philosopher, But

Philosophers seem pretty territorial about their discipline. Whether that’s owed to high standards, insecurity, or something else, I don’t know. But we tend to be on guard when non-philosophers take up philosophical questions, cautious about assigning work in our classes that is by non-philosophers, and seemingly comfortable with deploying the phrase “not technicall..

Philosophical Education and Constructive Imagination

As we’ve discussed before, most of our students are not heading off to become philosophers. Increasingly, students already have jobs and are saddled with time-consuming responsibilities, and are coming from a broader range of socio-economic backgrounds. What good is a philosophical education for them? Jennifer Morton (City College of New York) takes up the question ..

Thought Experiments and Philosophical Method

In an interview at 3:am Magazine, Richard Marshall presses Philip Kitcher (Columbia) on his criticism of a priori, thought-experiment-driven approaches to philosophy. Marshall says that a criticism of Kitcher’s view is that it “would end much typical philosophical investigation.” Kitcher replies:

Thought experiments work when, and only when, they call into action..

Keeping it Real in Philosophy: an Exchange

This summer has seen a series of guest posts by Elijah Millgram (Utah) on his new book, The Great Endarkenment: Philosophy for an Age of Hyperspecialization. One theme of the book is that there has been a steep increase in specialization that in some ways threatens knowledge. In the following post*, Millgram starts an exchange with Jerome Ravetz, author of Scientif..

What Contemporary Philosophy Should the “Greats” Read? (Updated)

Suppose you could go back in time to hand a relatively recent work in philosophy to a pre-20th Century philosopher. Who would you visit, and what philosophical work would you deliver?

To put some parameters on the question:

Which philosophical work published after 1950 do you wish would have been read by which philosopher who died in 1900 or earlier?

Note: ..

The Dualism of Philosophy’s Purpose

Professional philosophers don’t present themselves as particularly wise or as people to turn to for advice about how to live. And why should we? That’s not what we were trained for when we were students and it’s not what we promise in the prospectus. I remember, as a student, asking a philosophy professor something about what I should do the following year—whether I..

Humility in Philosophy

Because the views we espouse are always open to objections and disagreement, our practice at its best nurtures in the philosopher a capacity to withstand huge shifts in her understanding of even her most deeply entrenched beliefs about how things are in the world. Good philosophy of all stripes fosters in the practitioner the virtue of epistemic humility.

The bes..

Philosophy “Changes the Subject”

Much of philosophy simply changes the subject when it brings the world under its analysis.

That is Nellie Wieland (CSU Long Beach) in her review of How To Do Things With Pornography by Nancy Bauer (Tufts). Wieland is describing Bauer’s view, and continues:

When we write about pornography we risk not writing about any phenomenon that tracks the experience of or..

Survey on the Value of Philosophy

Andrew Mills (Otterbein) is conducting a survey about what philosophers think is distinctively valuable about philosophy. I’ve reproduced his note about it, below, and I encourage you to complete the survey. As he says, the survey might help us adjust our teaching “so that we are emphasizing those skills and content that we think are most important for students to k..

Philosophers on the Supreme Court’s Gay Marriage Ruling

On Friday, June 26th, the Supreme Court of the United States announced its ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, holding that the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees the recognition and provision of same-sex marriage. It requires each of the 50 states in the US to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples seeking them, and to recognize legi..

Metaphysics as Intellectual Ergonomics (guest post by Elijah Millgram)

This is the fifth in a series of guest posts* by Elijah Millgram (Utah) based on themes from his new book, The Great Endarkenment: Philosophy for an Age of Hyperspecialization. (Here are the first, second, third, and fourth entries.) (more…)

“Dirty Tricks” for Seminars and Talks (guest post)

The following guest post was authored by Josh Parsons, and originally published here on June 19th, 2015. Parsons died on April 11th, 2017. At the time of this post’s original publication, he was an associate professor of philosophy at Oxford University. He described the post as “a slightly jokey collection of what I called ‘dirty tricks for seminars’ (including some..

Audio of Rawls Lectures Released

The audio of lectures given by John Rawls to students in his course “Philosophy 171: Modern Political Philosophy” are being made available on YouTube by the Harvard Philosophy Department. The lectures were delivered at Harvard in the spring semester of 1984. There were eleven lectures. The first three are already up—one, two, and three. What was the first day of c..

Metaphysics by Forgetting (guest post by Elijah Millgram)

This is the fourth in a series of guest posts* by Elijah Millgram (Utah) based on themes from his new book, The Great Endarkenment: Philosophy for an Age of Hyperspecialization. (Here are the first, second, and third entries.) (more…)

What Kinds of Things Count as Philosophy?

Academic philosophers in Anglophone Ph.D.-granting departments tend to have a narrow conception of what counts as valuable philosophical work. Hiring, tenure, promotion, and prestige turn mainly on one’s ability to write an essay in a particular theoretical, abstract style, normally in reaction to the work of a small group of canonical historical and 20th century fi..