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..
Are Terminal MA’s Part of the Solution?
My proposal, if I had a magic wand to make it happen, would be to not to make PhD admissions out of college. Turn a lot of PhD programs that aren’t serving their graduates well into MA programs, and have PhD programs accept students from the MA programs. Then the PhD programs would be evaluating applicants who’d spent a couple of years doing graduate-level work. The..
Enormous Chart of Eastern Philosophy
The folks at Super Scholar, who were responsible for a chart of the history of Western philosophy (previously), have now produced a chart of the history of Eastern philosophy. Comments and suggestions are welcome.
Source: SuperScholar.org
David Fate Norton (1937-2014)
David Fate Norton, professor emeritus of philosophy at McGill, has died. Professor Norton worked on Hume and other 18th Century British philosophy, especially skepticism and moral theory. Among other things, he authored David Hume: Common-Sense Moralist, Sceptical Metaphysician, and co-edited the OUP edition of Hume’s Treatise and The Cambridge Companion to Hume. Th..
UNC Wins “Excellence and Innovation” Prize
The Outreach Program of Department of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has won a prize for “Excellence and Innovation in Philosophy Programs.” The prize is offered by the American Philosophical Association and the Philosophy Documentation Center. “This prize recognizes philosophy departments, research centers, institutes, societies, publ..
An Open Letter of Support (guest post)
The following guest post* is an open letter from John Greco (St. Louis University), Don Howard and Michael Rea (University of Notre Dame), Jonathan Kvanvig (Baylor University), and Mark Murphy (Georgetown University).
 An Open Letter of Support
What follows is a statement of support for people in our profession who are suffering various trials either as victim..
Nussbaum on Stalkers, the Internet, the Law, and Medication
“Like a surprisingly large proportion of Americans, I have a cyberstalker.” So begins Martha Nussbaum’s lengthy and wide-ranging review, in The Nation, of Hate Crimes in Cyberspace by Danielle Keats Citron. Nussbaum (Chicago) goes on to describe her stalker, his stalking and her reactions to it, delving into the culture of the internet (including the effects of anon..
Hilary Putnam Wins Rescher Prize
The University of Pittsburgh Department of Philosophy has awarded the 2015 Nicholas Rescher Prize for Systematic Philosophy to Hilary Putnam, Cogan University Professor Emeritus at Harvard University. The prize consists of a gold medal and $30,000. The prize ceremony will take place at the University of Pittsburgh in Fall of 2015.
The website for the prize elabor..
Harry Shearer and Gillian Anderson Voice Philosophy Series
BBC 4 Radio is releasing a series of animations on assorted philosophical topics as a spin-off of its History of Ideas program. Among those doing the voices for the animations are Gillian Anderson (The X-Files) and Harry Shearer (The Simpsons). The episodes were written by Nigel Warburton, who, among other things, interviews philosophers for Philosophy Bites. From T..
Does Philosophy Make Us Better People?
Someone posted at the Philosophy Metametablog recently the following excerpt from an interview with Nicholas Rescher (Pittsburgh) conducted by Charlie Hobbs (Texas State) and published in Kinesis which seems worth discussing, particularly in light of all of various recent issues in the profession (though note that the interview was conducted in 2004).
Hobbs:Â Is t..
Student Indemnification
Inside Higher Education has an article on universities indemnifying students who file charges of sexual assault and harassment for lawsuits from those they are accusing. The article follows up on Jennifer Lackey’s guest post here, “Two Ways To Help Victims” and focuses on the Ludlow case at Northwestern University.
The Fragmentation’s Disvalue
Over the summer, Nicholas Rescher (Pittsburgh), in his capacity as executive editor of American Philosophical Quarterly, published a brief editorial entitled “Growing Pains” (vol. 51, no.3) in which he notes the growth of the philosophy profession and laments its bad effects.
He writes:
The scholarly output of the profession has far outstripped its numerical g..
A Case of Extensive Plagiarism (guest post) (updated)
The following guest post* provides evidence that Mahmoud Khatami, a professor of philosophy at the University of Tehran who is well-known and widely-celebrated in Iran, plagiarized parts of his dissertation, which he wrote for his 1996 Ph.D. degree from Durham University. It also provides evidence that a book about Khatami’s work was plagiarized (and notes that the ..
Group Work in Philosophy Class
Here are problems with group-work that I have observed or heard about multiple times from students:
- the members of the group (unless the group is the whole class) do not include an expert on either the topic for discussion or the assigned reading on it, so mistakes can go uncorrected and misunderstanding can be increased (if plausibly, confidently, or charisma..
Barnett Sues CU-Boulder for $2m (updated)
David Barnett, whom the University of Colorado is moving to fire (previously), is suing the university for $2 million, claiming that university Chancellor Phil DiStefano and philosophy professor Alison Jaggar made defamatory statements about him. From The Daily Camera:
In his notice of claim, Barnett says the statements made by CU officials have damaged his reput..
More on Funding & Philosophy
A couple of weeks back we discussed questions related to funding and philosophy in the context of Daniel Dennett’s review of a recent book by Alfred Mele (original post; Mele’s reply). Matthew Brown, a philosopher of science (UT Dallas), thinks that one of the central questions raised there should get more attention. He wants us to “think past the specific details o..
Science, Humanities, and the Mind
Last week, Susanna Siegel and Steven Pinker (both of Harvard) participated in a debate  about the role of the humanities and the sciences in the study of the mind. The debate was videotaped and can be watched here (update: link fixed). Below is Professor Siegel’s summary of the event, the topic of which raises questions about the value of the humanities more general..
Philosophy Family Tree
The Philosophy Family Tree is a collectively edited “genealogy” of philosophers that maps the dissertation advisor – advisee relationship (the “parent” is the dissertation advisor). Â It was started about a decade ago by Josh Dever, and has grown quite a bit since then. It’s a fun and useful resource, and would be even better if you took a moment to enter in your in..
Leslie Armour (1931-2014)
Leslie Armour, professor emeritus at the University of Ottawa and research professor at Dominican University College, has died. Professor Armour worked in metaphysics, philosophy of religion, history of early modern philosophy, 19th Century philosophy, Canadian philosophy, and the philosophy of economics. He began his academic career at the University of Montana, an..
Philosopher Named “MVP”
Chris Surprenant, assistant professor of philosophy at the University of New Orleans, is one of three winners in a nationwide “Most Valuable Professor” competition put on by Questia (a branch of Cengage Learning). As part of the prize, Surprenant will get to select five of his students as recipients of $500 academic scholarships. Surprenant works on moral and politi..
Causes of Deaths of Philosophers
Maintained by Hugh Mellor but apparently last updated in 2005, the Causes of Deaths of Philosophers website humorously speculates about, well, the causes and descriptions of deaths of philosophers. To wit:
Husserl: Phenomenally bad luck
Ryle: Gave up the ghost
Dancy: No particular reason
Sellars: Not given
Benacerraf: Number was up
Wittgenstein: Became the l..
Brilliant Combination of Teaching and Outreach (updated)
Mount Holyoke philosophy professor Thomas Wartenberg and College President Lynn Pasquerella co-teach a course called “Philosophy for Children.” An article at masslive.com describes it:
As part of the course, college students are teaching second graders at the Martin Luther King Jr. Charter School of Excellence in Springfield to question their own assumptions, lis..
Reference Management Apps
Philosophers, I have been asked to ask you all about reference manager / bibliographic software, such as Endnote, Qiqqa, Mendeley, Zotero, etc. Do you use any of these? Is there one in particular you would recommend?
DesAutels is 2014 Distinguished Woman in Philosophy
The Eastern Division of the Society for Women in Philosophy (SWIP) has announced that it has named Peggy DesAutels, professor of philosophy at the University of Dayton, as its Distinguished Woman in Philosophy for 2014. DesAutels works in ethics, moral psychology, feminist philosophy, cognitive science, and biomedical ethics. According to the nomination, DesAutels “..
Ludlow Sues Undergraduate (updated)
Peter Ludlow (Northwestern) is suing the undergraduate who accused him of sexually assaulting her. The lawsuit “alleges that the student knowingly made false statements to news media and Northwestern professors after he rebuffed her sexual advances.” Ludlow had previously launched a defamation lawsuit against Northwestern University officials, fellow philosophy prof..
What Do PGR Evaluators Need to Know?
I very much doubt that I would be able to provide anything like reliable judgments of philosophical quality based on the names of individuals in faculties, without spending an enormous amount of time reading people’s work. Although I’ve been in professional philosophy for nearly ten years, and have gained at least some familiarity with a large number of philosopher..
Mathematical Logic & Foundations Chart (w/ further updates)
The above photo is a detail from a large, hand drawn chart entitled “Mathematical Logic and Foundations, 1847-1947.” It was made in 1976 by Joel Friedman (I believe this Joel Friedman, emeritus at UC Davis). A print of it has been hanging up in the University of South Carolina Department of Philosophy for as long as anyone here can remember. I do not know whether it..
Pre-PhD Program Coursework
A student writes in with a question:
I’m a student in my first semester at a terminal masters program, and as an undergraduate I mostly took courses outside of value theory. Would it help my application to a PhD program if I branched out and took a wide range of classes or should I double down and stick with the fields I enjoy?
More generally, to what extent d..