A Database of Philosophical Ideas
PhilosophyIdeas is a searchable database of philosophical ideas compiled by Peter Gibson and built by Martin Berry. Users can search and sort ideas by theme, author, and text. The site has been around for years, but somehow escaped my attention until recently when I saw a tweet from Gibson: “Latest upload. Now over 17,000 philosophical ideas in the catalogue, each o..
We Are Not Human Individuals
Unbeknownst to many people, our emotions, cognition, behavior, and mental health are influenced by a large number of entities that reside in our bodies while pursuing their own interests, which need not coincide with ours. Such selfish entities include microbes, viruses, foreign human cells, and imprinted genes regulated by viruslike elements. This article provides ..
Philosophers Object to Heythrop’s Closing (updated)
The governing board of Heythrop College, a constituent college of the University of London whose mission is “to serve society through philosophy and theology,” met in late June and concluded that “the College in its current form, as a constituent college of the University of London, will come to an end in 2018, although its mission and work will not.” Now, according..
Reforming Refereeing (guest post by Aaron Garrett)
The following is a guest post* by Aaron Garrett, associate professor of philosophy at Boston University. Professor Garrett recently became editor of the History of Philosophy Quarterly and asked if we could open up a discussion about reforming various aspects of article refereeing. I encourage people to contribute to the discussion and share their experiences and co..
Putting the “Ph” in Science PhDs
My goal is to put the Ph back into a PhD. I want to restore more philosophical thinking into the doctoral degrees that students earn here.
So says Arturo Casadevall, chair of the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at Johns Hopkins University, in the Johns Hopkins Public Health Magazine. Casadevall thinks that bringing philosophical thinking, part..
More on the Benefits of Philosophy for Kids
An increasing number of American children from low-income backgrounds are coming to kindergarten lagging in both academic and non-cognitive skills critical to educational success…. Fortunately, there’s a growing — yet under-appreciated and therefore under-reported — method of teaching that’s been showing tangible progress in student academic achievement, including..
High School Summer Philosophy Program
I’ve been teaching high school students a week’s worth of philosophy each summer for the past three years, and I’ve had tremendous success doing it.
So writes Kristopher G. Phillips (Southern Utah), in a post at Philosophical Percolations on the Lyceum Program for High Schoolers, which he co-founded as a graduate student at the University of Iowa with Greg Stoute..
Richard Gale (1932-2015) (Updated)
Richard Gale, who spent much of his career at the University of Pittsburgh, has died. Gale had also held appointments at NYU, Hunter College, Vassar, and the University of Tennessee. He worked on pragmatism and philosophy of religion. Prior to entering graduate school in philosophy, Gale was a lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force, and also worked in record promotion for..
Student Plagiarism in Philosophy Classes
Do you use Turnitin or SafeAssign in your courses to help deter and catch plagiarism? It turns out such software is not very good, reports Inside Higher Ed. Here are the results of a recent test conducted by Susan E. Schorn, a writing coordinator at the University of Texas at Austin:
Out of a total of 37 sources, the software fully identified 15, partially identi..
SEP, IEP, NDPR, Wi-Phi Weekly Update
The latest edition of Philosophical Percolations‘ “Saturday Linkorama” is up. As usual, thanks to a special arrangement with the crew there, I present below a sample of what they have on offer: last week’s updates and new additions to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy(IEP), Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (NDPR),..
Philosophy Via Facebook?
Popular essays, fictions, aphorisms, dialogues, autobiographical reflections and personal letters have historically played a central role in philosophy. So also have public acts of direct confrontation with the structures of one’s society: Socrates’ trial and acceptance of the hemlock; Confucius’ inspiring personal correctness. It was really only with the generation..
Peter Manchester (1943-2015)
Peter Manchester, a philosopher at Stony Brook University (formerly SUNY Stony Brook), has died. Professor Manchester started at Stony Brook in 1980 and worked in ancient philosophy, Neoplatonism, speculative theology, hermeneutical phenomenology, and philosophy of time. His last book,Temporality and Trinity, came out just a few months ago. Newsday has more informat..
A Prospective Grad Student Says “No Thanks”
I am not sure what I expected when I applied to PhD programs. But when April rolled around, I began to ask myself what kind of future I was signing up for, and how different it would be from numerous other paths. After all, horror stories abound about the process of getting a PhD, and the terrible job market afterward. At best, I could hope to be turning 40, with a ..
APA Announces Recent Award Winners
The American Philosophical Association (APA) has announced the recent winners of four honors:
Carol Gould (CUNY Graduate Center) has won the 2015 Joseph B. Gittler Award for “an outstanding scholarly contribution in the field of the philosophy of one or more of the social sciences” for her book, Interactive Democracy: The Social Roots of Global Justice.
Using Comedy Clips in Philosophy Class
I sometimes use excerpts from comedy routines or shows in my teaching. For example, when I teach Frankfurt’s On Bullshit in my contemporary moral problems course, I regularly use this segment from the Colbert Report:
The Colbert Report
Colbert Report Episode Guide, More Colbert Report Videos, Comedy Central Full Episodes
And in my philosophy and ..
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..
Is Philosophy Too “Stupid” For Women? (updated)
Women in Philosophy: What Needs to Change?, a collection of essays edited by Katrina Hutchison (Macquarie) and Fiona Jenkins (ANU), is reviewed by David Papineau (KCL, CUNY) in The Times Literary Supplement. Papineau reviews the book with the question in mind of why there are so few women in philosophy. Things are not as overtly sexist as they were in the bad old da..
Fallacy Ref Calls It
Fallacy Ref is the creation of Glen Welch, a performing arts critic for Red Publication. It’s “a series of image macros featuring an NFL referee calling fouls on invalid argument tactics and sneaky rhetoric.” Some examples:
I can see these coming in handy. You can read more about the project here and see more of the images on Fallacy R..
Faculty Evaluations of Graduate Students
How does your department evaluate graduate students as they progress through the PhD program? One common method is an annual letter from the department to the student, based on a discussion about the student at a faculty meeting. How informative are these letters? What kinds of information do they provide? My sense is that comparative information (rankings or sortin..
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..
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The “Social Harm” of Philosophy
While once I used to think that professional philosophy was a place where it would be easy to do no social harm, I have come to recognize that not only do professional philosophers harm each other distressingly often, but also in our social role as, say, expert-ethicists (not just in medical and professional contexts), we can, in fact, generate and facilitate non-tr..
The Research about Student Evaluations of Teachers
We’ve discussed student evaluations of teachers here before, focusing on the various problems associated with them. Yet the picture may be more complicated. Elizabeth Barre, assistant director of Rice University’s Center for Teaching Excellence, recently posted about her “deep dive” into the voluminous research about student evaluations—research which is typically..
SEP, IEP, NDPR, Wi-Phi Weekly Update
The new edition of the massive amassing of philosophically relevant links known as the Philosophical Percolations‘ “Saturday Linkorama” is up. As usual, thanks to a special arrangement with the crew there, I present below a sample of what they have on offer: last week’s updates and new additions to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), the Internet Encyclop..
Philosophers Interview Edward Snowden
John Perry and Ken Taylor (both Stanford), hosts of the radio program Philosophy Talk, interviewed former NSA analyst Edward Snowden, “the world’s most famous whistleblower” back in May. They just released a series of five video excerpts from the interview.
In one segment, Snowden describes the disillusionment that he and some of his colleagues experienced upon r..
Benefits of Teaching Philosophy in Primary School (updated)
A study suggests that teaching primary/elementary school students philosophy may benefit their language and math skills, with those from particularly disadvantaged backgrounds showing the most improvement:
Teaching philosophy to primary school children can improve their English and maths skills, according to a pilot study highlighting the value of training pupils..
Microaggressions and Academic Freedom
Any characterization of the United States as “a melting pot,” for example, is classified in widely used training materials as a microaggression signaling a refusal to acknowledge the role that race plays in American society. The same goes for saying “Everyone can succeed in this society if they work hard enough” or “I believe the most qualified person should get the..
Philosophy Syllabi Study Needs Volunteers
Jennifer Saul (Sheffield) says: “Procrastinate and help women in philosophy!” She elaborates:
Have you been meaning to get around to making your undergraduate syllabus less male, but not got around to it yet? I have a study I’d like to do on gender differences in student attitudes toward philosophy, and I need to compare the attitudes of those in classes with ver..