teaching
The “Moral Panic” of Campus Free Speech
People get awfully solemn in the United States about the civic function of our institutions of higher education. They talk about college as the nursery of democracy and the care that we must take with our young people. As educators, the future is in our hands. I believe it is worth puncturing this solemnity with some awkward questions. (more…)
Mini-Heap
Here is the latest edition of Mini-Heap: 10 recent items of interest to philosophers (and others interested in philosophy) from the Daily Nous Heap of Links. (more…)
Sandel Wins Princess of Asturias Award
Michael Sandel, the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government at Harvard University whose course on political philosophy has been viewed by tens of millions of people around the world, is the 2018 winner of the Princess of Asturias Award in the Social Sciences. (more…)
Digitization of Bentham’s Papers Completed
The University College London Bentham Project has announced that the digitization of the writings of Jeremy Bentham has been completed: “thousands upon thousands of images of Bentham’s manuscripts are now available in electronic form.” (more…)
How Philosophy Makes Progress (guest post by Agnes Callard)
Instead of gauging progress by asking what “we” philosophers agree about, one should ask whether someone who wants to do philosophy is in a better position to do so today than she would’ve been 10 or 100 or 1000 years ago? The answer is: certainly. (more…)
Mini-Heap
Here is the latest edition of Mini-Heap: 10 recent items of interest to philosophers (and others interested in philosophy) from the Daily Nous Heap of Links. (more…)
Getting Undergrads to See the Value of Philosophy: A Survey
Andrew Mills, associate professor of philosophy at Otterbein College, is interested in learning about how philosophers get the non-philosophy-majors who tend to populate their classes to see the value of philosophy. (more…)
Peer Review or Perish: The Problem of Free Riders in Philosophy (guest post by Elizabeth Hannon)
“Here’s a radical suggestion, using the only weapon/motivational device editors have: If someone fails to fulfill their duties as referee, the journal will not accept submissions from that referee.” (more…)
Mini-Heap
Here’s the latest Mini-Heap—10 recent items of interest to philosophers (and others interested in philosophy) from the Daily Nous Heap of Links. (more…)
Untangling the Strings: The Limits of Acceptable Donor Influence in Academia (guest post by Chris Surprenant)
“Our donors are supporting our projects, not the other way around.”
The following is a guest post* by Chris Surprenant, associate professor of philosophy at the University of New Orleans, on the role that those who fund academic programs may have in determining program goals, methods, materials, and staff. (more…)
Bullshit Jobs in Higher Ed
“The degree to which those involved in teaching and academic management spend more and more of their time involved in tasks which they secretly—or not so secretly—believe to be entirely pointless” is a hot topic on academic social media this week, owing to an article about it by anthropologist David Graeber (LSE) in The Chronicle of Higher Education. (more…)..
Ivanhoe from City Univ. Hong Kong to Sunkyunkwan
Philip J. Ivanhoe, currently Chair Professor of East Asian and Comparative Philosophy and Religion at City University of Hong Kong, has accepted the position of Distinguished Chair Professor in the College of Confucian Studies and Eastern Philosophy at Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul, South Korea. (more…)
Resurrecting Brains: Philosophical Questions and New Ethical Territory (guest post)
A team of scientists led by Nenad Sestan (Yale) have “restored circulation to the brains of decapitated pigs and kept the reanimated organs alive for as long as 36 hours,” reports MIT Technology Review. The method used to keep pigs’ brains alive outside the body will work on other animals, including primates, Sestan said. The following is a guest post* by Carolyn Di..
Philosophy is what best prepared him for his career in finance & government
I’m asked from time to time which undergraduate courses best prepared me for working at Goldman Sachs and in the government. People assume I’ll list courses in economics or finance, but I always answer that the key was Professor Demos’s philosophy course and the conversations about existentialism in coffee shops around campus.
Philosophers Awarded $1 Million Prizes for Work in Bioethics and History of Science
Lorraine Daston (Max Planck Institute), Ezekiel Emanuel (University of Pennsylvania), Jonathan Glover (Kings College London), Evelyn Fox Keller (MIT), Simon Schaffer (Cambridge), and Mary Warnock (Oxford) are each winners of the 2018 Dan David Prizes, an international award endowed by the Dan David Foundation.
Professors Favor Free Speech
93 percent of faculty agree with the statement that, “niversity life requires that people with diverse viewpoints and perspectives encounter each other in an environment where they feel free to speak up and challenge each other.” There is almost universal support for the exchange of ideas and open discourse. (more…)
Mini-Heap
Here’s the occasional collection of 10 recent items from the Daily Nous Heap of Links, our regularly updated list of material from around the web that philosophers may want to check out—AKA Mini-Heap. (more…)
Diversity Reading List Site Updated
The Diversity Reading List (DRL), an online collection of philosophical works by members of traditionally underrepresented groups in philosophy, has recently been updated. (more…)
Making a Case for Pre-College Philosophy
“We assume that certain kinds of questions are only for advanced students, and I think that the irony is that, in many cases, not encouraging all students to ask those questions is why some are not advanced.” (more…)
Mini-Heap
Here’s the latest edition of Mini-Heap—10 recent items from the Daily Nous Heap of Links, our regularly updated list of material from around the web that philosophers may want to check out. (more…)
The Parochialism of Mainstream History of Philosophy
Our histories of philosophy are astonishingly parochial. Across two and half millennia and a whole planet, there are basically only 9 historical figures you can write about without running the risk of marginalizing yourself as a young philosopher. (more…)
Luck and Precursive Belief (guest post by Amy Olberding)
“I was lucky. There were multiple joints in this path where things could well have gone sideways. Indeed, sideways was my more natural trajectory and temperament. But my luck, I hasten to say, was not just dumb luck. Instead, much of my luck was given to me by others.” (more…)
Resisting the “Serve Limitlessly” Narrative
Many institutions control your choices in various ways, and bend your time to their aims, by suggesting that you must serve limitlessly or else you have not adequately demonstrated your devotion to the mission. It is satisfying and empowering to ignore that narrative… (more…)
Interview with the Philosopher Running for Congress
Too many of us have been denied economic security and equal opportunity. I have spent my life trying to address these societal problems. Now I want to take the fight to Congress.
Philosophical Gourmet Report 2017-18 Released
The 2017-18 edition of the Philosophical Gourmet Report (PGR), a ranking of the reputation of Ph.D. programs in philosophy, has been published. (more…)
Mini-Heap
Here’s the latest edition of Mini-Heap—10 recent items from the Daily Nous Heap of Links, our regularly updated list of material from around the web that philosophers may want to check out. (more…)
Hinchman and Westlund from Wisconsin, Milwaukee to Florida State
Edward Hinchman and Andrea Westlund, both of whom are currently associate professors of philosophy at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, will be joining the Department of Philosophy at Florida State University (FSU) as associate professors. (more…)
University of Illinois Grad Students Strike Today
Graduate Students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are set to go on strike, starting this morning. (more…)