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..
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: 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 gro..
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). 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..