Daily Nous - news for & about the philosophy profession

Confluence, a New Online Philosophy Journal

Confluence: Online Journal of World Philosophies, is a new bi-annual, peer-reviewed journal of comparative philosophy and thought. From its mission statement:

It seeks to explore common spaces and differences between philosophical traditions in a global context. Without postulating cultures as monolithic, homogenous, or segregated wholes, it aspires to address ke..

Support for Cheryl Abbate (updated w/ statement from Marquette Pres.)

As reported a few days ago, Marquette University philosophy graduate student and instructor Cheryl Abbate has been the subject of defamatory and hostile politically-motivated blog posts by Marquette associate professor John McAdams. The story has predictably spread across the internet, and has now appeared on the Fox News website with a lying headline, typical slant..

Letter of Support for Abbate from Marquette Dept Chairs

The heads of several departments in Marquette University’s Klingler College of Arts and Sciences met about the Abbate case and have written a letter to their administration, below, which they invite other members of the Marquette University community to sign by posting their names in the comments. (Note: such “signings” will be the only comments allowed on this post..

Monton Resigns from Colorado

Brad Monton will resign from his position as associate professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado, effective June 1st, 2015. In exchange, the university will pay him an additional $120,000 and halt its investigation into him for possible violations of its policies regarding amorous relationships with students. Monton is currently on paid leave, and will n..

College Pressures Philosopher to Withdraw Novel

Stephen Grant, until recently a lecturer in philosophy at Richmond upon Thames College, was asked by the school to stop the publication of his novel, A Moment More Sublime. While a lecturer there, he was a union representative and involved in the labor disputes at the school, and the novel is partly based on his experiences working there. He says that the story of t..

Jill North and Ted Sider from Cornell to Rutgers

Jill North and Ted Sider, both currently at Cornell, will be taking up positions in the department of philosophy at Rutgers University. North, who works in philosophy of physics, philosophy of science, and metaphysics, will be associate professor of philosophy there. Sider, who works in metaphysics and philosophy of language, will hold the department’s new Mellon Ch..

Why Did You Go Into Philosophy?

It’s World Philosophy Day, but for some reason my school is not giving me the day off. What’s up with that?

Anyway, let’s do something to mark the day. The profession has had its share of bad news and controversy lately, and much of that has filled the pages of Daily Nous. Let’s take a break from that for a moment, right here, and recall what it is that’s so..

Video Interview Do’s & Don’ts

Many departments are turning towards the use of Skype and other forms of video-conferencing for first-round interviews, and such interviews are sometimes among the first times candidates and search committee members have used such technology. Noting this, Professor Mitzi Lee, placement director at the University of Colorado, writes in with a request to discuss some ..

Job Market Mentoring for Women Philosophers

A group of women philosophers — Amanda Greene (University of Chicago), Corinne Gartner (Wellesley College), Sarah-Jane Leslie (Princeton University), Tamar Schapiro (Stanford University), Kristin Primus (New York University), Jennifer Frey (University of South Carolina), Daniela Dover (UCLA), and Sara Bernstein (Duke University) — have created Market Boost, “a n..

$3.6m for Georgetown Ethics Chair and Ethics Lab

Georgetown University received a $3.6 million gift from alumna Kathleen “Kathy” McNamara Hugin and her husband, Robert. The gift will fund a faculty chair in ethics and the further development of Georgetown’s Ethics Lab, a project of the university’s Kennedy Institute of Ethics. Further information about the gift and the lab are here.

Philosophy Grad Student Target of Political Smear Campaign (several updates)

A philosophy graduate student and instructor at Marquette University is the target of a political attack initiated by one of her students, facilitated by a Marquette political science professor, and promulgated by certain advocacy organizations.

Cheryl Abbate, a Marquette PhD student working on a dissertation in ethics, has provided me with information about the ..

Teaching on Same-Sex Marriage

Most colleges offer lower-level philosophy courses on contemporary moral problems, one of the aims of which is to teach students how to think philosophically about assorted social and political issues. There are more of these kinds of issues than could be covered adequately in a semester, so the instructor must select which to include, and there may be some difficul..

Political Philosophy’s “Fantasy World”

ainstream political philosophy is seen as irrelevant… because of the bizarre way it has developed since Rawls (a bizarreness not recognized as such by its practitioners because of the aforementioned norms of disciplinary socialization). Social justice theory should be reconnected with its real-world roots, the correction of injustices, which means that rectificato..

More Details Emerge on Boxill’s Role in UNC Scandal

As was reported last month, a detailed investigation at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill revealed an academic fraud scandal in which philosopher Jan Boxill played a central role. Previous evidence focused on her role as an academic advisor who directed students towards fake or “paper” classes, helped students write papers, ignored academic dishonesty ..

Comment Tech

I have received the following three complaints and would like to know if the problems they’re about are widespread.

(a) You cannot reply to specific comments (such that your reply appears beneath the comment to which you are replying). To reply to a specific comment, move your mouse cursor over the comment you wish to reply to and a reply link should appear next ..

Philosopher & Statistician Win NIH Contest

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) conducted a study in 2011 that showed patterns of racial bias in its awarding of funding. In response, it created a contest for suggestions about how to detect and combat the bias. The contest concluded recently, and first prize ($10,000) for “Most Creative Idea” for “New Methods to Detect Bias in Peer Review” went to a team c..

Panel Set for Barnett’s Hearing

An article in the Daily Camera reports on the composition of the faculty panel who will meet on December 4th and 5th to hear the University of Colorado’s case for firing associate professor of philosophy David Barnett (previously). The panel includes six faculty from the University of Colorado, none of whom are from the philosophy department. From the article:

Ac..

Student’s Suit Against Northwestern Dismissed

The lawsuit against Northwestern University by the student who alleges she was sexually assaulted by Peter Ludlow was thrown out by a federal judge earlier today. The lawsuit had claimed that the university had mishandled the student’s complaints, and asked for the university to pay her medical and legal bills, her tuition, and to compensate her for emotional distre..

Update on Stubblefield Case

Anna Stubblefield, a professor of philosophy at Rutgers-Newark who had been accused of sexually assaulting a mentally disabled student in her office (previously), will be in court in December and January for a pair of evidence hearings, according to an article at NJ.com.

From the article:

Prosecutors allege Stubblefield, 44, of West Orange, repeatedly sexually..

How To Fail Philosophy Exams

Bob Hargrave was, I am told, a much-loved lecturer in philosophy at Oxford University (he died in 2012). Among his pedagogical contributions is a document he prepared called “Rodin’s Thinker, or How To Fail Philosophy Exams.” It was written for Oxford students, but much of it is applicable to philosophy exams (and some writing assignments) given anywhere.

One gre..

Habermas on the Return of Exiled Jewish Philosophers

In an essay at Tablet Magazine, Jürgen Habermas describes the impact of Jewish philosophers and sociologists who returned to Germany after the Holocaust. An exceerpt:

On the present occasion I cannot make a contribution to exile research, but only sift through some recollections from the unreliable perspective of a contemporary witness. After their return to the ..

Bernd Magnus (1937-2014) (updated)

Bernd Magnus, professor emeritus in the Depaartment of Philosophy at the University of California, Riverside, has died. Professor Magnus worked on Nietzsche and Heidegger. An article in UCR Today describes how, as a child in Germany, he was sent to a concentration camp and later escaped. According to a rabbi quoted in the article Magnus had the following to say, ref..

Journal of Philosophy in Schools

The inaugural issue of Journal of Philosophy in Schools (JPS) is now online. It is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal, based in Australia, which will appear twice a year. Its aim is “to encourage academic reflection and research into the growing field of philosophy in schools with the intention of making such information widely available through the use of an open..

More APA Prize Announcements

The American Philosophical Association (APA) has officially released the names of the winners of a few prizes:

Helen Nissenbaum (NYU) has won the 2014 Barwise Prize, awarded for “significant and sustained contributions to areas relevant to philosophy and computing.”
Christopher (Kit) Wellman (Washington University in St. Louis) has won the 2015 Berger Memorial..

Deciding which Papers to Referee

Some philosophers receive an excessive number of requests to referee papers. How should they go about deciding which papers to agree to referee?

Of course the paper should be in one’s area, but even that criteria leaves some people with more requests than they could reasonably be expected to fulfill, and so, with a decision about which requests to accept. One mig..