Finishing That Damned R&R (Ought Experiment)
Welcome to the tenth Ought Experiment column, in which I lose my bet with Justin that people would get sick of me well before we reached the tenth column. And speaking of self-assured predictions of pending rejection, this week’s question comes from an assistant professor who always feels incredible approach-avoidance whenever s/he tries to respond to referee commen..
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..
APA’s Grad Program Guide Overhauled
The American Philosophical Association (APA) has overhauled its graduate program guide. It used to be an annual publication. Now it is a regularly updated searchable website. Mike Morris, the APA’s communications and marketing manager, writes:
The Grad Guide now offers the ability to search by multiple criteria, including areas of specialization, degrees offered,..
Mind Chunks (Daily Nous Philosophy Comics)
Mind Chunks
by Pete Mandik
Students On “Philosophers On Drug Prices”
At the end of September, Daily Nous published an installment in the “Philosophers On” series on drug prices, spurred by the sudden increase, from $13.50 to $750.00 per pill, in the price of Daraprim (pyrimethamine).
Not long after that, I was contacted by Spencer Hey, currently a faculty member at the Harvard Center for Bioethics and a research fellow in the Depa..
New Public Philosophy Prize
The Marc Sanders Foundation, which already sponsors a number of philosophy prizes, has agreed to sponsor an award for public philosophy: $4500 and publication of the winning essay in Philosophers’ Imprint. Four runners-up will receive honorable mentions. The award committee is chaired by Susan Wolf, and includes Thomas Hofweber, Barry Maguire, and Patricia O’Toole. ..
Nussbaum Wins Quinn Prize (updated)
Martha Nussbaum, Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, has won the American Philosophical Association’s Quinn Prize. The prize, named for Philip L. Quinn, is “awarded in recognition of service to philosophy and philosophers, broadly construed.” The award includes $2500 and an engraved plaque.
UPDATE ..
Best Philosophy Blog Post of the Year
3 Quarks Daily has opened up nominations for the 2015 edition of its best philosophy blog post or online-only writing contest. The judge this year is John Collins (Columbia). You can check out who won the prize in previous years at links from here.
The editors at 3QD write:
As usual, this is the way it will work: the nominating period is now open. There will ..
Philosophers Gift Guide 2015
Last year I waited until mid-December to post the gift guide and tons of philosophers missed out on pencil sharpeners because their loved ones had already bought them something else. I’m not going to make that mistake again. Today is”Cyber Monday,” a holiday that stretches back to the era before all of the marketing professionals who used the word “cyber” to describ..
SEP, IEP, NDPR, Wi-Phi Weekly Update
Below are the past week’s additions and updates to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP), Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (NDPR), and Wi-Phi Wireless Philosophy, appearing here via special arrangement with Philosophical Percolations. They were first posted in PhilPercs’ “Saturday Linkorama” along with many othe..
Philosophy as Anti-Terrorism Tool
A study from 2010 cites Philosophy for Children among “teaching approaches that help build resilience to extremism among young people.” The study, commissioned by the UK government,
presents the findings from a large-scale, in-depth research study into teaching methods—knowledge, skills, teaching practices and behaviours—that help to build resilience to extre..
Practical Questions About The Philosophy Curriculum
In a comment on a previous post, What’s “Core” and What’s “Peripheral” in Philosophy—and Why?, Brian Weatherson (Michigan) notes that there are “some practical questions that need answering from time to time.” They are:
- Which subfields of philosophy should a philosophy major be required to take courses in?
- Which subfields of philosophy should a PhD student be ..
Ad Hoc (Daily Nous Philosophy Comics)
Ad Hoc
by Rachel Katler
Philosophers On The Syrian Refugees
Since 2011, over 10 million Syrians have been displaced from their homes, and over 4 million have fled their homeland, seeking refuge from the violence and chaos of the civil war wracking their country. The war has reportedly left between 140,000 and 340,000 dead, including (by some estimates) up to 12,000 children. Prisoners, including children, have been tortured ..
Late Letters of Recommendation
A philosopher currently on the job market writes in with a query:
The philosophers who are writing my letters of recommendation are incredibly overworked. They send in recommendation letters sometimes a week after the deadline. Is this the norm? Due search committees overlook this aspect of the application?
My sense is that slightly late letters tend to not ..
Chaospet (Daily Nous Philosophy Comics)
Chaospet
by Ryan Lake
The Next Celebrity Spokesperson for Philosophy
The series of brief audio clips by John Cleese on the value of philosophy is making the rounds again, this time courtesy of a post at Open Culture. The public service announcements were commissioned by the American Philosophical Association in 2000 in celebration of the organization’s 100th anniversary.
For example, here is Cleese on what philosophers do:
..
The Ethics of Honoring
The recent wave of student protests in the United States have focused on a range of issues related to the status and treatment of racial minorities and other vulnerable parties on campus. One issue that has come up on several occasions are the ways in which universities have decided to honor various historical figures—for example, by naming buildings after them, o..
SEP, IEP, NDPR, Wi-Phi Weekly Update
Listed below are the past week’s additions and updates to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP), Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (NDPR), and Wi-Phi Wireless Philosophy, appearing here via special arrangement with Philosophical Percolations. They were first posted in PhilPercs’ “Saturday Linkorama” along with a ..
To φ Or Not To φ (Daily Nous Philosophy Comics)
To φ Or Not To φ
by Tanya Kostochka
Today Is World Philosophy Day: What Are Your Plans? (updated)
Happy World Philosophy Day, everyone! The day was created in 2002 by the UN to celebrate philosophy. It is celebrated on the third Thursday of November.
Marking World Philosophy Day, the head of the United Nations Organization for Education, Science and Culture (UNESCO) has stressed that sustainability calls for new ways of thinking about ourselves and the planet..
Stomaching Controversy (Ought Experiment)
Welcome back to Ought Experiment! This week I heap reflexive and excessive scorn on a philosopher who’s worried that their work is taking them in controversial directions, and that contemporary philosophy might not be all that welcoming a place for such work. Oh, wait.
Dear Louie,
One of the papers I’m working on has a significantly controversial (maybe e..
A Response to Brian Leiter from the Margins (guest post by Christopher Lebron)
The following is a guest post* by Christopher Lebron, assistant professor of philosophy and African American studies at Yale University.
A Response to Brian Leiter from the Margins
by Christopher Lebron
Take a look around you. It’s a new day. Campuses around the country have put the world on notice that there is no last place of refuge for marginalization. Ap..
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..
Which MA Programs in Philosophy Fund Students?
As some of you know, Geoff Pynn (Northern Illinois) has over the years provided an important service to the philosophy profession: maintaining a list of master’s programs in philosophy and the kind of funding they offer their students. The list now includes 31 U.S. MA programs:
- Brandeis
- Cal State Los Angeles
- Colorado State
- Florida State
- Georgia State
- G..
Women’s Participation At APAs Has Doubled over 40 Years
Over at the Splintered Mind, Eric Schwitzgebel (UC Riverside) reports on research he has conducted into the participation of women on the main programs of the meetings of the American Philosophical Association (APA). His findings reveal an upward trend: women’s participation in the 2014-15 meetings, at 32%, was twice that of 40 years ago. He also broke down the sess..
Mind Chunks (Daily Nous Philosophy Comics)
Mind Chunks
by Pete Mandik
The Internet: Good for Philosophy
On a recent trip I was introduced to a senior philosopher who soon turned the conversation away from the standard opening pleasantries with this: “If it were up to me, the internet—especially blogs and social media—would go out of existence. It is just a place philosophers go to do terrible philosophy and act thoughtlessly. It’s embarrassing.”
Naturally, I aske..