The Job Insecurity of Philosophy Instructors: A Case Study
“I love being a professor. I have been a professor my whole life. I don’t know what I am going to do.” That’s Pamela Ryan, who has been a philosophy instructor at Morehead State University for 15 years. This past Friday she was called into the office of the Dean of the Caudill College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at Morehead, M. Scott McBride, and told t..
De Warren from KU Leuven to Penn State
Nicolas De Warren, currently Research Professor of Philosophy at KU Leuven and and Director of its Center for Phenomenology and Continental Philosophy/Husserl Archives, will join the Department of Philosophy at Penn State as Associate Professor in August, 2017. Professor de Warren works in phenomenology, neo-Kantianism, and the impact of World War I on European phil..
Jan Boxill’s Side of the Story
In February of 2015, Jan Boxill resigned from her teaching professorship in the Philosophy Department at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, following allegations of her involvement in a massive, 18-year long period of academic fraud in which some student athletes were steered towards phony classes that never met and assigned papers that were graded—whe..
Online Philosophy Resources Weekly Update
Below are the past week’s updates to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), and Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (NDPR). Nothing new at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP) or Wi-Phi last week, so we’ll throw in something else at the end… (more…)
Aristotle’s “On Trolling”
That trolling is a shameful thing, and that no one of sense would accept to be called ‘troll’, all are agreed; but what trolling is, and how many its species are, and whether there is an excellence of the troll, is unclear. And indeed trolling is said in many ways; for some call ‘troll’ anyone who is abusive on the internet, but this is only the disagreeable person,..
Philosopher App Store Redux
A week after Daily Nous began, on a slow Friday, I put up a post soliciting suggestions for the Philosopher App store. Well, it’s another slow Friday, and the site’s readership has grown quite a bit since then, so let’s have another go at it. Feel free to add your own; as I said last time, you can be playful, but please don’t be mean.
From the old store:
Brunero (Nebraska) Wins APA Article Prize
John Brunero, the Robert R. Chambers Distinguished Associate Professor of Philosophy and the Moral Sciences at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, has won the 2016 American Philosophical Association (APA) Article Prize. The prize, which is awarded every other year, includes $2000.
Brunero won the prize for his “Cognitivism about Practical Rationality,” which was..
Offend Responsibly
The thing I always like to stress is that although academics have the right to offend, they must do so responsibly, and they must to be able to defend the origin of the academic freedom of the right to offend and show that they exercise it in a way that’s as responsible as possible. Sometimes this means, if there is something on your syllabus that troubles a student..
Thanks to This Month’s Advertisers
Thanks to this month’s advertisers at Daily Nous!
See the right side of the page for ads for : (more…)
Sosa and Stich Win Lebowitz Prizes for Philosophical Achievement
Ernest Sosa and Stephen Stich, both professors of philosophy at Rutgers University, have been awarded the 2016 Dr. Martin R. Lebowitz and Eve Lewellis Lebowitz Prizes for Philosophical Achievement and Contribution.
The prizes—$26,500 to each winner—are awarded by the Phi Beta Kappa Society and the American Philosophical Association (APA). They go to two philo..
Is Your Department on the Chopping Block?
Inside Higher Ed today discusses a report by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) on faculty cuts at the College of St. Rose (previously). A number of faculty were let go, leading the AAUP to declare that at the College, tenure is “virtually meaningless.” Among the programs affected is philosophy:
This is not the first time a philosophy ma..
Chaospet (Daily Nous Philosophy Comics)
Chaospet
by Ryan Lake
Gender & The Philosophy Job Market
“The odds of women obtaining a permanent academic placement within two years is 65% greater than men when all else is held constant,” according to an analysis discussed by Carolyn Dicey Jennings, Patrice Cobb, and David Vinson (UC Merced) at the Blog of the APA.
Jennings and Vinson do not argue for any particular explanation of this finding, but note three possibil..
Marquette Update: McAdams Sues, University Releases Report
John McAdams, the associate professor of political science at Marquette University who, in the fall of 2014, launched a political attack on philosophy graduate student Cheryl Abbate based on falsehoods, misleading claims, and a surreptitious recording of her, and who was later suspended from his position for it, is suing Marquette. The Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Se..
Feinberg’s Copy of On Liberty Now Online
The late Joel Feinberg‘s annotated copy of John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty has been digitally scanned and made publicly available through the Princeton University Digital Library. If you view the book on a touch screen you can flip through it quite naturally with a finger, as you would a book with very cooperative pages.
Princeton philosopher Michael Smith bought t..
When To Say Yes & When To Say No in Academia
An assistant professor of philosophy writes in with an important question that I imagine a lot of academics spend time pondering: (more…)
Online Philosophy Resources Weekly Update
Below are the past week’s updates to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP), the Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (NDPR), and Wi-Phi. (more…)
João Paulo Monteiro (1938-2016)
João Paulo Monteiro, professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of São Paulo (USP), died on April 17th, 2016. He taught at USP for roughly 30 years. He worked in epistemology and political philosophy, but his focus was primarily on David Hume (he was a charter member of the Hume Society). (more…)
The Philosophical Art Of Bringing The Dead Back To Life
When I look back at the projects I pursued during my career, a certain pattern becomes evident. In several cases I was drawn to an idea, or a theory, that had been declared dead. In each case, when I looked at the death certificate, it seemed to me that the victim deserved to be resuscitated. I devoted myself to this project of bringing the dead back to life.
..
Philosophy Professor Sues College for Retaliation (updated)
Lauren Barthold, associate professor of philosophy at Gordon College, a Christian liberal arts college in Massachusetts, has filed a lawsuit against the college for retaliating against her for her public statements (such as a letter to the editor of a newspaper) disagreeing with college president Michael Lindsay over whether federal contractors, on the basis of reli..
Is Polite Philosophical Discussion Possible? (guest post by Nomy Arpaly)
The following is a guest post* by Nomy Arpaly, professor of philosophy at Brown University. In it, she discusses the effects of politeness and rudeness in philosophy. It was initially posted at PEA Soup.
Is Polite Philosophical Discussion Possible?
Nomy Arpaly
I’ll never forget the old guy who asked me, at an APA interview: “suppose I wanted to slap you, ..
Enormous Philosophy & Music Festival (Discount for DN readers!)
HowTheLightGetsIn is an interesting and big (the biggest?) summer philosophy and music festival. It is taking place from May 26th to June 5th in Hay-on-Wye, and features talks, debates, and, of course, concerts. There are sessions on questions in epistemology, politics, mind, free will, ethics, the emotions, rationality, and more.
A bunch of philosophers and theo..
Princeton Receives 16,000 Pages of Lewis Correspondence
Stephanie (“Steffi”) Lewis, the widow of David Lewis (1941-2001), has donated his papers to the Manuscripts Division of the Princeton University Library. There are a lot of them:
The David K. Lewis Papers include his extensive correspondence with other philosophers and scholars. There are approximately sixteen thousand pages of Lewis’s correspondence, both incomi..
Wolff from UCL to Oxford
Jonathan Wolff, currently dean of arts and humanities and professor of philosophy at University College London (UCL), will be taking up the Blavatnik Chair in Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University as of September 1, 2016. During the 2016-2017 academic year he will be teaching at both UCL and the Blavatnik School. Professor Wolff wo..
Shockley from Buffalo to Colorado State
Kenneth Shockley, currently associate professor of philosophy and director of the Sustainability Academy at the University at Buffalo – SUNY, has accepted a position as associate professor and Holmes Rolston III Endowed Chair in Environmental Ethics and Philosophy at Colorado State University, starting in August 2016. Professor Shockley works in environmental philos..
To φ Or Not To φ (Daily Nous Philosophy Comics)
To φ Or Not To φ
by Tanya Kostochka
Are History’s “Greatest Philosophers” All That Great? (guest post by Gregory Lewis)
“Why are the greatest philosophers skewed towards the past, when they should be skewed towards the present?”
The Personality of Philosophy Majors
Psychologist Anna Vedel (Aarhus University) writes: “The choice of education is perhaps the first highly important decision that young people have to make for themselves in the developed world. Each education paves the way for certain vocational paths, and the choice has a lasting impact on the young adult’s life.” It might be useful, then, to see what we can learn ..