public philosophy
Morgan Freeman, Philosophy, and Science
Through the Wormhole is a television show on the Science Network hosted by Morgan Freeman. Its latest episode is about the direction of time and features Craig Callender* of UC San Diego in its first segment. So pretty much Morgan Freeman does his magical cosmic opening thing and then introduces and discusses time with Callender, who also goes paddle-boarding and ha..
Confidence & Performance in Philosophy
There’s an interesting post at Show and Tell about the speaking styles of philosophers. It begins with this:
There is a telling anecdote about G.E.M. Anscombe and A.J. Ayer. Anscombe said to Ayer, “You know, if you didn’t talk so fast, no one would think you were so clever.” Ayer rapidly replied, “And if you didn’t talk so slowly, no one would think you were so v..
Philosophy’s Exclusion of Literary Writings
Chiara Bottici (New School) was one of the opening speakers at the Night of Philosophy held at the French Embassy in New York City on April 24th, 2015. She chose a controversial figure to focus on—Machiavelli, whose “very status as a philosopher is contested”—in order to get at the question of what does and what does not count as philosophy.
Towards the end o..
Philosophy Tag
I know what you’ve been wondering: where has Philosophy Tag been? Actually, maybe some of you are wondering: what is Philosophy Tag?
Philosophy Tag is, unsurprisingly, a game. Here’s how it works: Philosopher 1 is tagged and becomes it. When you’re it, you have a few weeks to do the following: choose an article or chapter by another living philosopher, Philos..
A Philosophy Department’s Impressive Fight For Survival
Robert Stufflebeam, chair of the Philosophy Department at the University of New Orleans, shares some of the challenges his department faces, and some of the measures they have implemented in order to survive in hostile circumstances. He writes:
I’m the chair of the only remaining Department of Philosophy at a public university in the state of Louisiana. (LSU has ..
Honoraria in Philosophy
A philosopher writes in with a query about paying philosophers for talks and the like…
I’d like to learn more about honorarium practices for philosophy talks. How common is it to offer an honorarium? Under what circumstances (e.g. departmental colloquium, conference, public lecture, etc.)? What is a typical amount? It would be especially helpful if respondents ..
A Philosophy Scholarship Program
Furman University has developed an exciting scholarship program for students interested in studying philosophy. J. Aaron Simmons, associate professor of philosophy there, kindly took some time to write up a description of it, posted below. Do any other schools have something like this?
Preemptively Changing the Narrative through a Philosophy Scholarship Progr..
Students Object to Philosophy Prof’s Facebook Post About Gaza
Andrew Pessin, professor of philosophy at Connecticut College, is at the center of a controversy at Connecticut College regarding offensive speech for a Facebook post he wrote in August, 2014. In the post, reports Inside Higher Ed,
Pessin describes the situation in Gaza as one in which “a rabid pit bull is chained in a cage, regularly making mass efforts to escap..
Does Philosophy Matter? (guest post by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong)
The following guest post* is by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong (Duke), and appears here via a special arrangement with Oxford University Press and the OUP Blog, at which it is also posted.
Does Philosophy Matter?
by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong
Philosophers love to complain about bad reasoning. How can those other people commit such silly fallacies? Don’t they see how..
The Dress: A Philosophy Problem Gone Viral (a few updates)
Making the rounds yesterday was the dress. Take a look, and figure out which two colors it is:
Some people see the dress as white and gold, others see it as blue and black. Which do you see it as?
The phenomenon is interesting and fun, and there are explanations of it at Wired (more science-minded), Vox (more philosophical), and elsewhere. Millions of peop..
Can We Save Philosophy? (Guest Post by Robert Kirkman) (updated)
The following is a guest post* by Robert Kirkman, associate professor in the School of Public Policy at Georgia Tech and director of its Center for Ethics and Technology, in which he takes up the problem of academic philosophy’s seeming irrelevance to others both inside and outside of academia.
Can We Save Philosophy?
by Robert Kirkman
I write this from the ..
A Closer Look at Philosophy Journal Practices (two updates)
Considering how important the publication of articles in peer-reviewed journals is to a successful career in philosophy, it is expected that curiosity and questions about the practices at philosophy journals would arise. Additionally, lately it seems as if there has been an increase in concerns about unfairness in access to publication opportunities, including insuf..
Lupe Fiasco Hands Off Philosophy Sunday to WiPhi
Rapper Lupe Fiasco has been running a weekly philosophy discussion on Twitter called Philosophy Sunday (#PhilosophySunday). With a new album about to come out, he is handing off responsibility for the discussion over to the folks at Wi-Phi. Their first run at it will be tomorrow, January 18th, starting at 2pm EST. Gaurav Vazirani, a philosophy PhD student at Yale an..
“Philosophy is for posh, white boys with trust funds”
Seven philosophers are interviewed in The Guardian in the wake of a recent report by the UK’s Equality Challenge Unit that found that “among non-Stem (science, technology, engineering and maths) subjects, philosophy is one of the most male-dominated, with men accounting for 71.2% of the profession” in the UK. They were asked “Why aren’t there more female philosopher..
UK’s Research Excellence Framework (REF) & Philosophy
A few days ago, the results from the UK government’s 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF) exercise were released. I suspect that a lot of non-UK readers are largely unfamiliar with the REF, so first some basics:
The REF is used by the government to assess the quality of research in UK higher education institutions. It replaced the earlier Research Assesment E..
New Political Philosophy Prize
David Sobel (Syracuse) announces the creation of the Marc Sanders Prize in Political Philosophy:
The Marc Sanders Prize in Political Philosophy is a biennial essay competition open to scholars who, at the time of submission deadline, are within fifteen (15) years of receiving a Ph.D. or are students currently enrolled in a graduate program. Independent scholars may..
CU Boulder’s “Reckless” Treatment of Philosophy Department
Wes Morriston, University of Colorado philosophy professor emeritus, has written an opinion piece in The Daily Camera in which he excoriates the university administration’s handling of the various problematic events and revelations there over the past year or so, including what he says was “an explicit threat to dissolve the department by invoking Regent Policy 4H (..
Separating Philosophy from Religious Studies and Theology (Updated)
In research on higher education, philosophy majors, religious studies majors, and theology majors are often grouped together. This is because the questionnaires used to create the main data sets on which this research is based group these majors together. This is not merely weird, given how different these fields are, but possibly detrimental to the reputation of ph..
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 ..
Open Letter from the Northwestern Philosophy Graduate Students (Guest Post)
In June it was reported that Peter Ludlow was suing officials, a professor, and a graduate student at Northwestern University for defamation, gender discrimination and invasion of privacy. The following guest post* is an open letter to the philosophical community adopted by the Northwestern University Philosophy Graduate Students by way of a vote.
Open Letter from..
Evaluating Philosophy Graduate Programs
Wednesday’s post on the future of the Philosophical Gourmet Report has a lot of thoughtful comments on it, with some interesting ideas for and alternatives to the PGR. Thanks to those who commented. In this post, I’d like to leave behind discussion of Brian Leiter and focus on the evaluation of the programs. Below the fold are my own thoughts on the matter. Your com..
PhilPapers and Philosophy Documentation Center Collaboration
PhilPapers and the Philosophy Documentation Center will be working together to expand the amount of information available via PhilPapers and to better manage PhilPapers’ subscription services. PhilPapers has also upgraded its search system. David Bourget and David Chalmers tell us what’s going on and what to expect: (more…)
Philosophy Tag
Hey, remember Philosophy Tag? Someone got called home for dinner or something in the middle of the last game and that was that for a while, but now it is back, courtesy of Sara Bernstein (Duke). Let’s see who she has tagged…
Consider the following case, Battlefield: You are at the battlefield and see that some of your soldiers are about to be slaughtered by..
Rail Strikes, Cheat Tweets, and the Philosophy BAC
The railway strike in France has entered its sixth day, risking making students late for the philosophy portion of the baccalauréat exam.
the timing of this strike, reaching into the baccalauréat week, is also a public-relations risk. Every June, as part of a national ritual, over half a million school-leavers sit down to take the first bac exams. For half of them,..
APA Publication Awards – Updated
The American Philosophical Association has announced the winners of some recent publication prizes. Sally Haslanger has won the 2014 Joseph B. Gittler Award for her Resisting Reality: Social Construction and Social Critique.
The APA Book Prize is awarded every other year and for 2013 the winner is Global Justice and Territory by Cara Nine as the winner. Honorable ..
Philosophy as Preparation for Fatherhood?
John Kaag (UMass Lowell) holds the surgical scissors and is asked to cut the cord. Time stands still, and he reflects on the relations between philosophy and fatherhood.
The prospect of struggle in life and fatherhood is not an indication that we should opt out, but rather lean in—like Sisyphus, who is destined to push the boulder up a hill, only to have it roll dow..
Non-Philosophers Teaching Philosophy
Several years ago, during an era of relative plenty, I tried to persuade our philosophy department to credit a new history course I was teaching on the Enlightenment. Neither the reading list, bursting with texts from Bacon and Locke to Montesquieu and Diderot, nor the publication of my own book on Hume and Rousseau undid the suspicion that a professional historian..
More on Teaching Philosophy in Prison
The notion of incarceration goes back to the beginning of philosophy, with the imprisonment and execution of Socrates—and the idea, expressed by his student Plato in the Republic, that we are all imprisoned by the cave of our own reflections but don’t realize it. “ face a lot of the issues ordinary people face, but in a heightened condition. We’re all doing life in ..