The Art of Thought Experiments
Si-Won Song, a student about to graduate from the University of Puget Sound, has created a series of digital artworks based on well-known philosophical thought experiments. Song, a philosophy major (with minors in studio art and Japanese) first got the idea from reading about Frank Jackson’s thought experiment, Mary’s Room, in Professor Justin Tiehen’s philosophy of..
Crash Course: Metaethics
Natalia Cecire, a lecturer in English and American literature at Sussex, has embarked upon an interesting project called “Crash Courses for the Desperate”:
Lately I’ve been thinking about what to do with students who suddenly need to get up to speed in a field, and don’t have time to take a course or immerse themselves in it for a year. I’m especially thinking of..
Your Strangest-Sounding Philosophical Beliefs
If philosophy can sometimes sound weird to other philosophers, it can sound really weird to non-philosophers. Imagine (you can do it) you were in a conversation with some non-philosophers and they asked, “what’s your strangest philosophical belief?”
What would your answer be?
(image: detail of “They Have Slept In The Forest Too Long” by Max Ernst)
Cartoon Introduction to Philosophy
The Cartoon Introduction to Philosophy is out! By philosopher Michael Patton (Montevallo) and illustrator Kevin Cannon, the book stars Heraclitus as the reader’s guide and companion through various philosophical topics, including logic, perception, minds, free will, god, and ethics. At over 150 pages, it has the heft and look of a big graphic novel, and it’s all ab..
Annalisa Coliva (Modena) to UC Irvine
Annalisa Coliva, currently lecturer at the University of Modena and associate director of the Cogito Research Centre in Philosophy, will be taking up a position as Full Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Irvine, starting in Spring of 2016. Coliva works in philosophy of mind, epistemology, metaphysics, and the history of analytic philosophy.
How Philosophy Changed Your Students’ Minds
Jennifer Baker (College of Charleston) asked the students in her introductory philosophy course to report (anonymously) “ideas of theirs that changed after studying some philosophy.” I think this is a great idea for learning what kinds of topics and readings make an impact on the students’ thinking, which can be of use in both planning and pitching philosophy course..
The Open Logic Text
The Open Logic Project, instigated by Richard Zach (Calgary) and including Aldo Antonelli (UC Davis), Andrew Arana (UIUC), Jeremy Avigad (Carnegie Mellon), Gillian Russell (Wash U. St. Louis, soon to be UNC), Nicole Wyatt (Calgary), and Audrey Yap (Victoria), and a student assistant, has created the Open Logic Text, an open-source, collaborative logic text and all a..
A Philosophy Department Is Born
In an era in which we are hearing more and more about threats to the humanities, including the consolidation and elimination of departments, it is nice to have some good news. Tiger Roholt of Montclair State University writes in with some:
Since the 1960s, the Philosophy program at Montclair State University has existed within a shared department, alongside Relig..
Philosophy & Literary Writings Revisited
Last week’s post, “Philosophy’s Exclusion of Literary Writings,” asked whether philosophy could be done in the form of fiction or myth or poetry. Around the same time, I learned of a book whose description from the publisher included this question: “Given that poetry is about alternative forms of knowing, and philosophy the universal address of logos, then can the t..
Wide-Ranging Interview with Michael Ruse (FSU)
At his new site, What Is It Like To Be A Philosopher, Clifford Sosis (Coastal Carolina) has posted a long and wide-ranging interview with Michael Ruse (Florida State). The interview covers a lot of his personal life and how he got into philosophy, evolution and creationism and his testimony in the McLean versus Arkansas Board of Education lawsuit, interdisciplinary ..
The Point and Practices of Conferences
Christy Wampole (Princeton) lays out a series of complaints and concerns about conferences in the humanities, including:
We have sat patiently and politely through talks read line by line in a monotone voice by a speaker who doesn’t look up once, wondering why we couldn’t have read the paper ourselves in advance with a much greater level of absorption.
We have..
Philosophers’ TV Guide
No, no one has created one yet, but it would be useful. Something close to it is the philosophy page at TV Tropes, which lists various philosophical themes that, when clicked on, will take you to a page describing the theme in more detail and giving examples of it in a variety of mediums, including television.
Speaking of TV, Alison Gopnik (Berkeley) sent over t..
Course Evals from Prisoners and Princetonians
Sukaina Hirji and Daniel Wodak, two graduate students at Princeton, are currently teaching a class of fourteen prisoners at the Albert C. Wagner Youth Correctional Facility in New Jersey. You may recall that they were two of the philosophers interviewed here previously about their experiences teaching philosophy in prison.
Their course this term is called “Philos..
Confidence & Performance in Philosophy
There’s an interesting post at Show and Tell about the speaking styles of philosophers. It begins with this:
There is a telling anecdote about G.E.M. Anscombe and A.J. Ayer. Anscombe said to Ayer, “You know, if you didn’t talk so fast, no one would think you were so clever.” Ayer rapidly replied, “And if you didn’t talk so slowly, no one would think you were so v..
Philosophy’s Exclusion of Literary Writings
Chiara Bottici (New School) was one of the opening speakers at the Night of Philosophy held at the French Embassy in New York City on April 24th, 2015. She chose a controversial figure to focus on—Machiavelli, whose “very status as a philosopher is contested”—in order to get at the question of what does and what does not count as philosophy.
Towards the end o..
Update on Changes to US Census Question
You may recall that this past December, Kathleen Wallace (Hofstra) brought to our attention that the U.S. Census Bureau was considering eliminating from its main survey the question asking for respondents’ field of undergraduate study. In light of many comments sent to the Bureau about this proposal, it has been rejected; the question will be retained. From the Fede..
Analytic & Continental in Political Philosophy & Theory
A forthcoming special issue of the European Journal of Political Theory will take up the topic of analytic and Continental approaches in political philosophy and political theory. The introduction to the issue, “Introduction: Analytic, Continental and the question of a bridge” by Clayton Chin and Lasse Thomassen (University of London) is now online (may be gated). T..
Conference Fees and Non-TT Faculty (updated)
Many philosophy conferences charge fees, with one rate for faculty and a lower rate for students. A philosopher who is an adjunct at a state university, and who at this time would prefer to remain anonymous, is trying to get conferences to recognize a third category for adjuncts, visiting lecturers, postdocs, and the like, i.e., those who would like to participate i..
Trouble in Baltimore
On April 12th, 2015, Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man, allegedly ran away from a Baltimore police officer on a bicycle who had made eye contact with him. He was caught, arrested for possession of a switchblade, and dragged into a police van. At some point between his arrest and his delivery at a trauma center 40 minutes later, Gray sustained severe injuries th..
A Detailed Account of the McGinn Affair (updated)
The Miami New Times has a long and detailed account of the events leading up to Colin McGinn’s resignation from the University of Miami. It is based on hundreds of messages reviewed by the Times, “many of which have never been publicized,” a first person account from the student McGinn allegedly harassed, and conversations with McGinn.
UPDATE (4/30/15): Universit..
Philosophers: Disappointingly Normal
Philosophers are sometimes thought of as expert thinkers, more rational and less prone to errors in reasoning than others. Whether this is true, though, is an empirical question, and it is one that several researchers have taken up over the past decade or so. Their findings regularly show that philosophers, like the ordinary folk, are susceptible to various cognitiv..
Michael Theunissen (1932-2015)
The philosopher Michael Theunissen died on April 18, 2015. He studied in Bonn and Freiburg and defended his much-cited habilitation thesis Der Andere: Studien zur Sozialontologie der Gegenwart (The Other: Studies in Contemporary Social Ontology) in Berlin in 1964. He was professor in Berne, then Heidelberg and Berlin, where he was colleague alongside figures such ..
Introducing the Daily Nous Value of Philosophy Pages
Philosophy departments face many challenges. Philosophy is perceived by some as “less practical” and so less choiceworthy a course of study. Most entering students have not taken philosophy courses and do not come to college thinking about studying philosophy. Philosophy is unfamiliar, its critical element can scare away some students, and it has a reputation among ..
Is There A Philosophical Version Of This Course?
Stanford University’s most popular class is called “Designing Your Life,” according to an article at Fast Company. Its aim is to get students to think more carefully about their life and career choices and learn ways to bring their lives in line with their thoughts.
Before Kanyi Maqubela became an investment partner at the Collaborative Fund, an early-stage ventu..
Boxill Denies Teaching 160 Independent Studies
Jan Boxill, who recently resigned from her position as member of the philosophy faculty at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill following allegations last year that she played a major role in academic fraud involving fake classes there, is now defending herself. She was interviewed recently by The Daily Tar Heel, which reports:
Records obtained by The Da..
Suspect Reasons Behind Professor’s Firing
Thomas Jay Oord is tenured full professor of theology and philosophy at Northwest Nazarene University (as well as an ordained minister in the Church of the Nazarene), and he is being fired from his position for official reasons that apparently no one seems to believe. The official reasons have included: the university’s financial problems and low enrollment in the g..
Florida Gulf Coast U. May Lose Philosophy
Florida governor Rick Scott and the Florida board of governors, is calling for universities in the state to “examine their academic offerings, seeing if they can cut smaller, costly programs or those generating graduates with low job prospects and earning potential,” a committee at Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU) has answered the call, proposing for elimination..
2015 Lebowitz Awards to Alvin Goldman & Jennifer Lackey
Phi Beta Kappa, the honor society, announces:
Alvin Goldman and Jennifer Lackey are the 2015 recipients of the Martin R. Lebowitz and Eve Lewellis Lebowitz Prizes for Philosophical Achievement for their topic titled “Social Epistemology.” The Lebowitz Prizes, offered by Phi Beta Kappa in conjunction with the American Philosophical Association, offer significan..