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..
Philosophy Job Placement Data Update
Carolyn Dicey Jennings (UC Merced) posts that the final report for the Academic Placement Data and Analysis project is complete. She’ll eventually be posting more about it, but I repost some of the information from the report below. One thing worth noting is that though 169 programs were contacted, only 87 added or updated information to the project database. If you..
Public Philosophy Op-Ed Contest Winners
The American Philosophical Association’s Committee on Public Philosophy has announced the winners of the latest round of its Public Philosophy Op-Ed Contest, for op-eds written in 2014. The winners are:
- Mariana Alessandri (University of Texas Pan American / Rio Grande Valley), “Companions in Misery”, The Stone (The New York Times)
- Adam Hosein (Colorado), “Pro..
$3.9 Million for “Moral Superstars” Search
The Beacon Project is a new three-year initiative in psychology and philosophy “to find and define the morally exceptional and better understand how to improve moral character,” according to a press release from Wake Forest University. The project is led by professor of psychology William F. Fleeson (Wake Forest) and includes philosophers Christian B. Miller (Wake F..
Philosophically Interesting Books for Young Kids
A friend is interested in soliciting philosophically-minded books for young children—ones who are reading, but are not at the chapter-book stage. Here are a few I’ve enjoyed with my kids…
- The Big Orange Splot by Daniel Manus Pinkwater — for the young individualist.
- A Hole Is To Dig by Ruth Krauss — for the young teleologist.
- Pierre: A Cautionary T..
$2.1 Million for the Meaning of Life
Jennifer Frey (South Carolina) and Candace Vogler (Chicago) have received a $2.1 million grant for their project, “Virtue, Happiness, and Meaning of Life.” The project will be jointly hosted by the Neubauer Family Collegium for Culture and Society at the University of Chicago and the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of South Carolina and is funded prim..
SEP, IEP, NDPR, Wi-Phi Weekly Update
Courtesy of the bloggers at Philosophical Percolations.Below are last 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. They were first posted in PhilPercs’ “Saturday Linkorama” along with many other goodies, so check it..
Texas Higher Ed Board v. Logic
With just a few days before the start of the school year, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board has removed from the curriculum a number of courses meant to fulfill the “Language, Philosophy, & Culture” core requirement at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV). Among the struck courses are several in philosophy, including a number of ethics cours..
North-South Academic Partnership on Poverty
Global Colleagues is a one-to-one, academic, multidisciplinary partnership program between scholars in the Global North and South working on issues related to poverty. The first cohort of partnerships began this past May, and the project manager, Robert Lepenies (European University Institute), informs me that there is a “high proportion of philosophers among the pa..
Poster Sessions at Philosophy Conferences
Poster sessions are normal parts of conferences in the sciences and social sciences, but rare in philosophy. So rare, that some philosophers don’t know what they are. So, by way of explanation, they are blocks of time at conferences during which participants display large posters they have made describing their projects and discuss them with other participants—mem..
Just One-Third of Published Psychology is Reliable
A team of 270 researchers have now published the findings from their “Reproducibility Project”—an attempt to replicate the findings in published psychology papers—in Science, and the results are dismal. Nina Strohminger (Yale) and Elizabeth Gilbert (Virginia) discuss the findings in an essay at The Conversation:
Almost all of the original published studies (9..
Political Bias in Philosophy
Philosophers may be lovers of truth, but that doesn’t mean they are exempt from the cognitive biases that bedevil humans generally. Given that philosophers often have strongly-held political opinions, it’s worth asking: To what extent are their opinions conveyed in their academic writings? If political bias is present, then how does it influence the discipline? To t..
Virtual Dissertation Writing Groups
Joshua Smart at the University of Missouri writes to let graduate students know about Virtual Dissertation Groups (previously):
Virtual Dissertation Groups
While advisors and committees are important, it can be incredibly helpful to discuss one’s work with peers in a lower-stakes environment, and it can be particularly enlightening to do so with those who take..
APA Responds to Threats to Tenure in Wisconsin
The American Philosophical Association (APA) has released a statement in response to the recently approved Wisconsin state budget legislation, which removed tenure protections from state law and weakened employment protections for tenured faculty. The statement includes the following:
Tenure is the most important safeguard of academic freedom, and academic freedo..
New Journal: Australasian Philosophical Review
The Australasian Association of Philosophy (AAP) has announced that they are starting a new journal, Australasian Philosophical Review, to be launched in March, 2017. The journal will be adopting a version of an interesting format (similar to that of Ethics, Policy, & Environment):
Each issue of the *Australasian Philosophical Review* will consist of a curatorial..
Bacciagaluppi from Aberdeen to Utrecht
Guido Bacciagaluppi is leaving the School of Divinity, History, and Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen to become Associate Professor in the Foundations of the Natural Sciences at Utrecht University. Professor Bacciagaluppi works in the philosophy of physics, particularly the philosophy of quantum theory. His new post is based in the Faculty of Science and is a..
What Kind of Jerk Are You?
Henry Shevlin, a PhD student at CUNY, has posted about the philosophy of jerks:
What makes someone a jerk? Is it merely being rude, or selfish, or is there something more subtle that underlies the behavior of the jerk? And just as important, how do you know if you’re a jerk yourself?
Following up on Eric Schwitzgebel’s prolific jerk work, Shevlin offers a situ..
Philosophers On The Ashley Madison Hack
Last Tuesday, a group calling itself “Impact Team” followed through on its threat to release data it had stolen from Ashley Madison, an internet service that facilitates encounters between people interested in having extramarital affairs. The data included information on approximately 37 million people who had signed up for the site (see news reports at Wired and Th..
SEP, IEP, NDPR, Wi-Phi Weekly Update
Below are last 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, courtesy of the bloggers at Philosophical Percolations. They were first posted in PhilPercs’ “Saturday Linkorama” along with philosophical and philosophy-r..
Renewed Call to Reinstate Salaita
Kirk Sanders of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign passes along the following:
A group of forty-one Executive Officers and campus leaders from across the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has released an open letter to Acting Chancellor Barbara J. Wilson and President Timothy Killeen. In the letter, the forty-one chairs, directors, and heads ..
Last Minute Course Prep Exchange
The fall term has begun at several schools and is about to begin at others, and for at least some professors that means putting the finishing touches on syllabi. Need readings suggested on Subject S? Need a piece which argues for Position P? Need a complement to Canonical Character C? Need a you get the idea and didn’t really require all of those Examples E? Fine. P..
William L. Rowe (1931- 2015)
William L. Rowe, professor emeritus at Purdue University, has died. Professor Rowe was known for his work in philosophy of religion and metaphysics. A memorial notice by Paul Draper is posted at The Prosblogian.
(via Adam Omelianchuk)
Richard Dawid to Stockholm
Richard Dawid, currently research fellow at Ludwig Maximilian University Munich, has accepted a position as senior lecturer at the University of Stockholm. Dawid works mainly in philosophy of science and philosophy of physics. You can read an interview with him here.
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..
Philosophy of Sex and Gender Course Suggestions
Jessica Wolfendale (West Virginia) writes in:
I am putting together a course proposal for an introductory Philosophy of Sex & Gender course, and I would appreciate any suggestions regarding how best to structure the course and what content to include, as well as advice about what did/didn’t work in similar courses.
Readers?
Trolls in the Philosophical Blogosphere (Ought Experiment)
Welcome back to Ought Experiment! We had ourselves quite the weekend, didn’t we? Well hang on to your armchairs, folks, because apparently it’s time for a Very Special Episode. After the heated conversation about professional cliques, a certain blog editor wrote in with a question about the role and consequences of anonymity in online philosophical discussion:
De..
Holy %#&! They Made a Real Brain in a Vat
An almost fully-formed human brain has been grown in a lab for the first time, claim scientists from Ohio State University… Though not conscious the miniature brain, which resembles that of a five-week-old foetus, could potentially be useful for scientists who want to study the progression of developmental diseases… The brain, which is about the size of a pencil..
Philosophers On Coates’s “Between the World and Me”
This installment of the Daily Nous Philosophers On series was organized by Janice Dowell (Syracuse).
Introduction
by Janice Dowell
In the midst of growing media coverage of police brutality and racial injustice in the United States, as well as increased attention to matters of race in the philosophical mainstream, the arrival of writer and journalist Ta-N..