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Hey Did You Know Logical Pluralism Is “Connected to Homosexuality”? (updated with a statement from the editors of Synthese)

Or that it is like a “sexy young woman that 1 day will be a not so attractive old lady?” Neither did I. But that is what Jean-Yves Beziau (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) claims in “The relativity and universality of logic,” a paper published in Synthese that is currently making the rounds on social media (and discussed here). The passage is so incredi..

Ten Projects Receive APA Grants

The American Philosophical Association (APA) has announced the winners of ten grants—eight from its Small Grant Program and 2 from its Diversity and Inclusiveness Grants Program. What follows is from the APA’s press release:

Small Grant Program

Each year, the APA Eastern Division provides $25,000 for the APA’s Small Grant Program. This year’s grant applicati..

“American Society for the Protection of Philosophers” Proposed

In a comment in the ongoing discussion regarding the reaction to George Yancy’s “Dear White America,” University of Oregon professor of philosophy Naomi Zack puts forward the idea of an “American Society for the Protection of Philosophers.” She volunteers herself for it and asks interested others to contact her:

The American Philosophical Association should expre..

To Live After, and During, the Reflection

Nakul Krishna, a graduate student at Oxford, has written a beautiful essay at The Point called “Add Your Own Egg.” Go read it, and we can talk about it here, if you’d like.

The essay originates from the feeling that something is missing from contemporary philosophical practice. It is not a piece of simple declinism that romanticizes the past. Rather, it wonders whe..

Daily Nous Year In Review

2015 is drawing to a close. I hope you had a good year.

The year saw Daily Nous’s first birthday (in March) and a number of new features, including:

Philosophers On Series: group posts consisting of brief remarks by several philosophers on topics of current interest.
Ought Experiment: the column doling out “personal advice for your academic life,” written b..

New Comments Policy And How The Comments Now Work

The comments system change is in progress, with most of the features in place. Since the system works differently than the old one in some important respects, I’ve updated the comments policy. Here’s the new version. The beginning is similar to the old one, but there are a number of additions.

Before you comment, imagine the following. You are seated in a com..

2015 Sanders Prize Winners

The Marc Sanders Foundation, which “aims to stimulate renewed appreciation for traditional philosophy by encouraging, identifying and rewarding excellent research in metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, metaethics, political philosophy, and philosophy of religion” has announced the winners of its 2015 prizes. They are:

Epistemology: Sophie Horowitz (Ric..

Philosophers On Climate Change

The 21st Conference of the Parties (“COP 21”), a major international climate negotiation involving representatives of nearly every country in the world, and organized through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, is currently taking place in Paris.

One of the central goals of this year’s conference is “to achieve a legally binding and univers..

Finishing That Damned R&R (Ought Experiment)

Welcome to the tenth Ought Experiment column, in which I lose my bet with Justin that people would get sick of me well before we reached the tenth column. And speaking of self-assured predictions of pending rejection, this week’s question comes from an assistant professor who always feels incredible approach-avoidance whenever s/he tries to respond to referee commen..

APA’s Grad Program Guide Overhauled

The American Philosophical Association (APA) has overhauled its graduate program guide. It used to be an annual publication. Now it is a regularly updated searchable website. Mike Morris, the APA’s communications and marketing manager, writes:

The Grad Guide now offers the ability to search by multiple criteria, including areas of specialization, degrees offered,..

Students On “Philosophers On Drug Prices”

At the end of September, Daily Nous published an installment in the “Philosophers On” series on drug prices, spurred by the sudden increase, from $13.50 to $750.00 per pill, in the price of Daraprim (pyrimethamine).

Not long after that, I was contacted by Spencer Hey, currently a faculty member at the Harvard Center for Bioethics and a research fellow in the Depa..

Philosophers On The Syrian Refugees

Since 2011, over 10 million Syrians have been displaced from their homes, and over 4 million have fled their homeland, seeking refuge from the violence and chaos of the civil war wracking their country. The war has reportedly left between 140,000 and 340,000 dead, including (by some estimates) up to 12,000 children. Prisoners, including children, have been tortured ..

SEP, IEP, NDPR, Wi-Phi Weekly Update

Listed below are the past week’s additions and updates to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP), Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (NDPR), and Wi-Phi Wireless Philosophy, appearing here via special arrangement with Philosophical Percolations. They were first posted in PhilPercs’ “Saturday Linkorama” along with a ..

Stomaching Controversy (Ought Experiment)

Welcome back to Ought Experiment! This week I heap reflexive and excessive scorn on a philosopher who’s worried that their work is taking them in controversial directions, and that contemporary philosophy might not be all that welcoming a place for such work. Oh, wait.

Dear Louie,

One of the papers I’m working on has a significantly controversial (maybe e..

A Response to Brian Leiter from the Margins (guest post by Christopher Lebron)

The following is a guest post * by Christopher Lebron, assistant professor of philosophy and African American studies at Yale University.

A Response to Brian Leiter from the Margins
by Christopher Lebron

Take a look around you. It’s a new day. Campuses around the country have put the world on notice that there is no last place of refuge for marginalization. Ap..

Frederick Beiser Wins Award from German Government

Frederick Charles Beiser (Syracuse) has been awarded the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, “honoring his lifelong teaching of German philosophy to American students,” according to a press release from the German government. It adds:

Professor Beiser has been critical in introducing important works of German philosophers from Kant to..

Philosophers and Welders and Politicians (updated)

Oh my.

In last night’s Republican primary debate, Florida Senator and presidential candidate Marco Rubio criticized U.S. higher education for being “outdated.” It is too expensive, he said, and too hard to access. Additionally, “it doesn’t teach 21st century skills.” Like welding.

I don’t know why we have stigmatized vocational education. Welders make more mo..

A Call for the Humanities to Unite

There is a different unifying principle for most non-STEM disciplines—among them English, history, politics and civics, languages and literatures, education, the arts, philosophy, psychology and sociology—which I call the human disciplines. All of the subjects within human disciplines are fundamentally interested in people and with subjectivity. Our disciplines ..

What Should Academics Do About Journal Prices?

All six editors and all 31 editorial board members of Lingua, one of the top journals in linguistics, last week resigned to protest Elsevier’s policies on pricing and its refusal to convert the journal to an open-access publication that would be free online. As soon as January, when the departing editors’ noncompete contracts expire, they plan to start a new open-ac..

U.S. Politics with Logical and Factual Annotation

This is a great public service and a great idea.

Stefan Schubert, a visiting philosophy professor at the London School of Economics, and Spencer Greenberg, a mathematician and entrepreneur who started Clearer Thinking, a site aimed to help people “avoid thinking traps and make improved decisions, to better achieve the goals they value most,” are producing videos ..

Philosophers on Rating People

If you were to be rated—as a person—on a scale of 1 to 10, what do you think you’d get? Questions like that might have been lurking in people’s minds since news broke a couple of weeks ago about Peeple, an app that was pitched as “Yelp for people“. Initially, the idea was that anyone, once they’ve confirmed they know you, could leave a review of you on the Peepl..

Grad Student Sues U. Miami, Colin McGinn, and Edward Erwin

The University of Miami graduate student who previously complained of sexual harassment by Colin McGinn has now filed a federal lawsuit against the university, McGinn, and McGinn’s former colleague, Edward Erwin. The Huffington Post reports:

She’s claiming the school violated its Title IX responsibilities by failing to fully investigate her sexual harassment clai..

Do the Tenured Speak Up Enough?

Tenure is, in part, designed to protect one from retaliation. It’s the tenured that can make the culture of silence (and shame) within a profession disappear…. Obviously they need help from their employers (universities and grant agencies), but it does make a difference.

What is so distressing about professional philosophy, is that too much of the hard work i..

Philosophers On Drug Prices

The price of Daraprim (pyrimethamine), a drug that treats the parasitic infection toxoplasmosis and is used in some cases to treat cancer and AIDS, was raised from $13.50 to $750.00 per pill when sole rights to its sale in the United States were acquired last month by drug company Turing Pharmaceuticals. The news brought outrage from all corners, prompting the owner..

SEP, IEP, NDPR, Wi-Phi Weekly Update

Here are last week’s additions and updates to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP), Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (NDPR), and Wi-Phi Wireless Philosophy, appearing here via special arrangement with Philosophical Percolations. They were first posted in PhilPercs’ “Saturday Linkorama” along with lots of other ..