Defendant in Philosopher Stabbing Goes to Court
In early March, Finnish philosopher Esa Saarinen (Aalto University) was stabbed.
The attacker did not attempt to flee the crime scene after the knife had been wrestled out of his hands but remained there, in his own words, to talk about love and the contents of Saarinen’s lectures.
Not the kind of sharp questioning a philosopher typically looks forward to! The de..
Blog Admin
Posting may be light and comment approval a little slow over the next week or so, owing to travel. Philosophers, don’t do anything too crazy. Or if you do, give me a heads-up about it. Thanks.
Heap of Links
1. A defense of the lecture.
2. Harvard’s internal report on the scientific misconduct case of Marc Hauser.
3. “Socrates and the Crisis of the Universities“, a lecture by MM McCabe (video).
4. “The Philosophy” is a new shiraz-cab blend from McGuigan Wines. A bit pricier than these.
5. Schoolhouse Rock’s “I’m Just a Bill” — non-ideal theory version.
6. “I enter the ..
Google Gets Philosopher to Help It Forget
Luciano Floridi (Oxford) has been selected by Google to be a member of an advisory panel to help the company handle requests from European residents asserting their newly acquired legal “right to be forgotten” (also here).
Big Pragmatism Map
Michael P. Wolf (Washington & Jefferson College) taught pragmatism this past semester and created a map to help keep things straight. A big map. Not unworkably big, of course, but big. Behold, “A Map of American Pragmatism and Its Roots.” Wolf is now looking for feedback on the map. Feel free to leave it in the comments here or email him directly at mwolf ‘at’ washj..
Philosophical Critique of Piketty
Kevin Vallier (Bowling Green) has begun a five part series of posts assessing the normative political philosophy in Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century. He writes:
In this series, I am interested only in the following question: supposing that Piketty is right about the nature of capitalism, what are the normative implications? My answer will be that it’s fa..
Philosophers in Government
In Slovenia, Alma Maruška Sedlar, a woman described in news reports as a philosopher and teacher, has been appointed by President Borut Pahor as a deputy chief of the Commission for the Prevention of Corruption. Sedlar is not an academic, but rather a journalist and labor activist who graduated with a degree in philosophy from the University of Maribor in 2007 with ..
Dowell (Syracuse) Wins Sanders Prize in Metaethics
Janice Dowell, associate professor of philosophy at Syracuse University, has won the 2014 Marc Sanders Prize in Metaethics for her essay, “Millikan, Methaethics, and Moral Twin Earth”. The award includes $10,000 and publication of the article in Oxford Studies in Metaethics. The Marc Sanders Foundation, which awarded the prize, takes as its mission “to stimulate ren..
Hilary Putnam’s Blog
Hilary Putnam now has a blog. No, it is not named “Twog,” which seems like a missed opportunity to me. Called “Sardonic Comment,” its first post is on the measurement problem in quantum mechanics.
Heap of Links
1. Does the formal modeling of game theory teach us anything new? Here is a list of some counterintuitive findings, suggesting that the answer is Yes.
2. The University of Oregon has a new academic-freedom policy, and it isn’t just for faculty.
3. The New York Times has a short “op-doc” on lawyer Steven Wise’s efforts to get animals recognized as rights-bearers.
4. ..
Black Philosopher, White Academy
A post at Lewis Gordon’s website about Bruce Kuklick’s book on William Fontaine, an African-American philosopher who taught at the University of Pennsylvania from 1947-1967, has been making the rounds on social media lately.
William Thomas Fontaine was born on December 2, 1909, in Chester, Pennsylvania. An alumnus of the historic black institution Lincoln University..
What Can You Do With A Philosophy Major? Part 8563 or so
You can invent a silly product, market it well, and use the proceeds to fund a charity. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the newest inductee into the pantheon of famous philosophy majors: “Banana Bill” — the inventer of the banana slicer. Do not neglect to read the reviews of this esteemed product. (via Dale Miller)
How Much Do You Travel For Work?
Many philosophers travel for work, delivering talks or participating in conferences and the like. In deciding whether to attend another conference, or accept another invitation, one factor is whether one has traveled enough, or too much. But how much is that? While there will be a lot of personal factors involved in that assessment, let’s see if we can get a sense o..
Professional Philosophers in Industry
Professional Philosophers in Industry is a LinkedIn group for philosophers who have left academic philosophy. “The purpose of this group is to provide professional philosophers who work (or seek to work) outside of traditional academic settings an opportunity to network, share information and opportunities, and generally pursue their professional development. Member..
New Open Access Philosophy Journal
Ergo is a new general, open access philosophy journal that launches today. In their introduction, Franz Huber and Jonathan Weisberg describe the data and other factors that led to the creation of the new journal. They also reveal their own statistics, including acceptance rates and time-to-decisions.
Besides the introduction, there are four articles in the current ..
Must Journal Submissions Conform to Style Guidelines?
An assistant professor writes in with the following query:
Do journal editors ever reject something simply because it doesn’t fit the stated style guidelines? While it is becoming more popular for journals to state that guidelines need only be followed for accepted articles, a good amount of venerable journals still seem to require submissions to fit their guideline..
Around The Philosoblogosphere
Below are reports about some recent philosoblogospheric activity. If something philosophical and worth sharing is going on at a blog you read or run, feel free to post about it in the comments.
Aesthetics for Birds received a grant from the American Society for Aesthetics for a redesign of the site that makes it, uh, “readymade” for more aesthetical action. Lots of..
The PERFECT Project for €2 Million
Lisa Bortolotti, a philosopher at the University of Birmingham, has won a European Research Council Consolidator Grant for 2 million euros (over 5 years) for “Project PERFECT”, as in Pragmatic and Epistemic Role of Factually Erroneous Cognitions and Thoughts (via Leiter). The goal of the project is “to establish whether cognitions that are inaccurate in some importa..
Heap of Links – Long Weekend Bonus Edition
1. I’ll have the Frege Legs with Russell Sprouts, please.
2. Steven Nadler on the Jewish ban of Spinoza and the relation between wisdom and orthodoxy.
3. A multi-author forum on privacy and the framework for a “digital bill of rights.”
4. Are you more utilitarian in a foreign language?
5. Science Magazine’s special issue on the science of inequality.
6. Want to gues..
Heap of Links
1. “No one goes into the humanities for reasons political, professional, or merely personal. We do so because devoting ourselves to some particular field strikes us an especially exciting and appropriate way of leading a life, because the work required seems to us noble, challenging, and rewarding, and because we love it.” David McCabe (Colgate) on how not to defend..
SC Philosophers Ask: Is the State Legislature Silencing Gay Voices?
Julinna Oxley (Coastal Carolina) and Diane Perpich (Clemson), both philosophy professors who head up the women’s studies programs at their respective universities, have written a brief editorial in South Carolina’s main newspaper, The State, raising questions for the State Legislature about the closure of the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies at the University o..
The $4.8 Million Experience
Samuel Newlands (Notre Dame), L. A. Paul (North Carolina), and Michael Rea (Notre Dame) have won a grant of $4.8 million from the Templeton Foundation for a three-year interdisciplinary project on the nature of experience. The project explores the nature and implications of transformative experiences, the character of religious and spiritual experiences, and how wor..
McMahan Offered White’s Chair of Moral Philosophy
Oxford University has offered the prestigious White’s Chair of Moral Philosophy to Jeff McMahan (Rutgers). The chair is currently held by John Broome. Recent holders include James Griffin, Bernard Williams, and R.M. Hare. McMahan has yet to make a decision about the offer.
Ask a Long-Dead Philosopher
If you could ask a long-dead philosopher any one question, who would you you pick, and what would you ask? (For our purposes here, “long-dead” will mean “died 50 years or more ago.”) Post your question in the comments. Folks are welcome to try to answer, too, as they think the philosopher asked would do so.
Colorado Professor Allowed Back On Campus
Dan Kaufman, who had been barred since March for unspecified reasons from the University of Colorado, where he is associate professor of philosophy, is no longer “banished” from campus. Story here.
Heap of Links
1. Jeff Sebo talks about moral status while drawing very fast. And well. Hmmm, maybe he isn’t the one drawing.
2. If privacy is dead, perhaps we should be seeking some obscurity instead? (And here’s an article by the same authors in Wired.)
3. Jesse Prinz, who got his PhD at the University of Chicago, is profiled in the university’s magazine. Relatedly, here is a sh..
Philosophy Major in the News
I’ve had many opportunities to use my philosophy degree to home in on what one politician or another was saying and to find the flaw in their logic and ask them to explain it.
Tamara Keith, NPR’s White House correspondent, majored in philosophy and recently returned to her alma mater, Berkeley, to speak to graduating philosophy majors there. Story here.
Philosophy Students Do It
…for good reasons? How about more? That’s a finding of a recent survey conducted at over 100 British universities. So do we add this to the list of reasons to major in philosophy?