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The Best Articles on Aesthetics

In a comment on the post about Philosopher’s Annual and articles in philosophy of race and gender, Tom Cochrane (Sheffield) writes:

Note that they haven’t selected article on aesthetics/philosophy of art since 1982 (William Freedman: The Relevance of the Truth-Standard from The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism). And the only other one I see is Stephen Davies ..

The Best Philosophy Articles on Race and Gender

The selections for the latest Philosopher’s Annual, which takes as its goal “to select the ten best articles published in philosophy each year—an attempt as simple to state as it is admittedly impossible to fulfill” have been made. At the Philosop-her blog, Meena Krishnamurthy (Manitoba) notes that the latest volume, unlike any over the past decade, includes article..

Ignorance “Justifies” Ignorance (More on Non-Western Philosophy)

It is… worth inquiring why classical Chinese philosophers are not especially influential in contemporary U.S. philosophy. One possibility is historical accident: Because the dominant culture in the United States traces back to Europe, the classical Chinese philosophers were not taught to, and thus not read by, the succeeding generations. Ignorance thus apparently ..

Hiring and “Unofficial” Information

The recent story about East Carolina’s offer to Colin McGinn has generated a variety of reactions, some of which concern what kinds of information it’s permissible for academic employers to take into account in deciding whether to make someone an offer. Of particular concern here is the status of information about a candidate’s past behavior that could be categorize..

More on McGinn’s Offer

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports on East Carolina’s offer to McGinn (previously). The article confirms the earlier report, saying “The philosophy department had chosen Colin McGinn for a one-year appointment, but administrators declined to accept the department’s choice, without saying why.”

The appointment was for the “Whichard Distinguished Professorship” ..

More on the Homogeneity of Philosophy

Continuing on the theme of the homogeneity of philosophy:

I strongly believe that it is central to a thorough education in the human sciences that we be compelled to learn in detail about traditions that precisely and obstinately do not speak to us…. I want to move myself somewhere other than where I started out. I agree that it is most urgent for the ‘white men’ w..

McGinn Offered Visiting Professorship

Colin McGinn, who left the University of Miami last year amid allegations of sexual harassment, was recently offered a one-year Distinguished Visiting Professorship in the Department of Philosophy at East Carolina University. Apparently, the faculty in the department were in favor of the offer, however, the vice-chancellor of the university has interfered with the a..

Protevi on Salaita on TV

John Protevi (LSU), who has been leading the contingent of philosophers protesting the University of Illinois for its decision to rescind an offer to Steven Salaita for his controversial tweets about the conflict in Gaza, was recently interviewed about the story on an Illinois television news program. You can see the list of other philosophers involved here.

Heap of Links

1. Do athletes need more philosophy?
2. Bertrand Russell plays himself, being interviewed, as part of a 1967 Bollywood movie. A Buddhist monk explains, and links to the clip.
3. Are people abusing Jonathan Bennett’s earlymoderntexts.com? Eric Schliesser comments.
4. What do our students want from us? For us to challenge them, and for us to care.
5. A review of a new..

Philosophy Banned in Northern Syrian City

The Islamic State (IS) Sunni extremist group has banned the study of philosophy and chemistry in schools in the northern Syrian city of al-Raqa and established an “Islamic curriculum” for students, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said Friday.

Of course, the absence of philosophy in the schools is probably the least of the problems in that region, but ..

Heap of Links

1. Nicholas Kristof, writing in The New York Times, defends the value of the humanities by explaining how he has been affected by the ideas of Isaiah Berlin, John Rawls, and Peter Singer.
2. CBS will be airing a television drama that “centers on a brilliant bioethicist who is called in at crisis moments to solve the most complicated, dynamic, and confounding medica..

The Homogeneity of Philosophy

In my own department, I tried to stimulate discussion about what could be done to increase diversity. The faculty and my fellow graduate students were, to their credit, perfectly happy to have more women and minorities in the department. In fact, many spoke openly about their desire to see a more diverse department. This desire, however, seemed to be a desire mostly..

On Moderation

Here at Daily Nous, comments are moderated. Over the past several months, I have heard some complaints and received some questions about the moderation here, so I thought I would take a moment to speak to these.

Question: Why do you moderate comments at your blog?
Answer: Because I am no fun. Anti-fun, actually.

Question: No, seriously. Why?
Answer: Because I must hav..

Confusion

“It seems that, if you just present the correct information, five things happen,” he said. “One, students think they know it. Two, they don’t pay their utmost attention. Three, they don’t recognize that what was presented differs from what they were already thinking. Four, they don’t learn a thing. And five, perhaps most troublingly, they get more confident in the i..

The Top 267

Eric Schwitzgebel (Riverside) has combed through the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy to learn the names of the 267 most-cited contemporary philosophers in it. Are you on the list? Anyone you know? There’s also a separate post up at his blog discussing the demographic aspects of the list.

UPDATE: Some further analysis and a post about “Jewish, Non-Anglophone, Quee..

‘Misunderstands’ is not an option

Here at Daily Nous we are committed to using self-selected responses to simple internet polls as a method for investigating the important issues in our profession. In that vein, Matt Smith (Leeds), asked: “Comment, commentate, commenter, commentator?” The only proper response was, of course, “what are you talking about?” Matt then explained.

Which of these terms do..

Philosophy Tag

In our last round, Charlie Kurth (Washington University in St. Louis) was tagged by Gillian Russell (Washington University in St. Louis), a tag that was geographically close but one that boldly shifted the game from the epistemology of logic to moral psychology. Now it’s time for Kurth to make his move:

Practical reflection is having a hard time of it. Wherea..

APA Seeks Chairs and Commentators for 2015 Central

If you are interested in volunteering to chair a session or respond to a paper at the 2015 Central Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association, now is the time to sign up. The program chair, Janice Dowell, writes, “We’ve got a fantastic program so far. Commenting and chairing are good ways for young folks to meet more established people in their field..

APA Prizes Announced

The American Philosophical Association has announced the winners of a few of its prizes:

2014 Essay Prize in Latin American Thought was won by Philip Mack (Marquette) for his essay, “Should a Concept of Truth be attributed to Nahuatl Thought? Preserving ‘the Colonial Difference’ between Concepts of the West and Nahua Philosophy”. It will be published in the APA’s ..

Philosophy Majors and the GRE 2011-2014

ETS has released data showing how well people perform on the GRE, sorted by intended area of graduate study. Once again, prospective philosophy graduate students do very well, earning the highest mean scores of students heading to any arts and humanities discipline in all three categories of the exam: verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning, and analytical writing…

Heap of Links

1. Hindu philosophy of religion.
2. A series of posts on Cusa and Hegel.
3. Artificial wombs are already being tested and developed, and according to some, will be widely used in a few decades. They’re a little controversial.
4. Physicist Lawrence Krauss squares off against philosophers Angie Hobbs and Mary Midgley on the relationship between philosophy and scienc..

Philosophers Propose Boycott

Related to the earlier post of links to philosophers writing about the current conflict in Gaza and associated issues, some philosophers and political theorists are supporting “a principled refusal to associate with Israeli academic institutions that have not explicitly condemned the occupation.” They lay out their reasons here. (via Katharine Jenkins)

(Note: for ..

Philosophy Can Help South Africa

So, what would a just South Africa look like, and how do we achieve it? If we’ve inherited a legacy of racial injustice, what does racial justice demand of us now? Different government policies may have radically different impacts on people’s lives. So the issue needs to be discussed as fully as possible in all sections of society. And philosophy can make an importa..

More on the Barnett story

The story about the University of Colorado beginning the steps of firing associate professor of philosophy David Barnett (previously) has been on the radio and television news here in Boulder.

Here is some further info on the story:
· Some philosophy students have come to Barnett’s defense.
· Barnett will be challenging the decision by appealing to the universi..

University of Colorado Moves to Fire David Barnett

The University of Colorado is moving to fire philosophy professor David Barnett:

Boulder campus leaders have begun the process of firing a tenured faculty member after paying a graduate student $825,000 to settle accusations the philosophy professor retaliated against her for reporting a sexual assault by a fellow graduate student… Barnett, who is not the alleged ..

Philosophy Students: A Tumblr

Zac Cogley (Northern Michigan) has created a tumblr featuring links about and pictures of people in the news who have majored in or otherwise studied philosophy. It’s called Philosophy Students. (Submissions welcome.)

Dennett on Brains and Blame

“Of course my brain made me do it! What would you want, your stomach to make you do it?”

That’s from the text of a brief interview with Daniel Dennett at WBUR’s site.