public philosophy
Philosophers Doing “Ask Me Anythings” on Reddit
The folks at Wi-Phi are interested in doing more to bring together philosophers and the public, and one avenue they’re tentatively pursuing is having philosophers take part in “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) sessions on Reddit (you may recall the AMA that Peter Singer did a few months back).
The first one is tomorrow (Tuesday) at 11am Eastern time and will be with Chris ..
2014 Lakatos Award Given To Two Philosophers
The 2014 Lakatos Award has been won jointly by Gordon Belot (Michigan) for his book Geometric Possibility (Oxford University Press, 2011) and David Malament (UC Irvine) for his book Topics in the Foundations of General Relativity and Newtonian Gravitation Theory (Chicago, 2012). Each will receive the full award amount of £7500.
From the award website at the London ..
Philosopher Wins $50,000 Hiett Prize
Scott Samuelson, associate professor of philosophy and humanities at Kirkwood Community College in Iowa, is the 2015 recipient of the Hiett Prize in the Humanities. The Hiett Prize is awarded by the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture, whose purpose is “enrich and deepen lives through the wisdom and imagination of the humanities.” According to the Dallas Inst..
Making Journal Issues Larger
The European Journal of Philosophy has announced it is increasing the size of its issues. Joseph Schear (Oxford), the journal’s editor, writes:
For the last several years, we have been suffering from a substantial backlog, in part owing to an increase in the number of high-quality submissions. Fortunately, we have just been given a 50% increase in our page budget..
Buchanan Wins 2015-16 PBK Romanell Professorship
Allen Buchanan (Duke/KCL) is the 2015-2016 winner of the Phi Beta Kappa Romanell Professorship. The Romanell Professorship is awarded on the basis of one’s “distinguished achievement and substantial contribution to the public understanding of philosophy.” It includes a $7,500 stipend and three lectures. More details about Buchanan’s work and why he won are here.
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Are Bans on Faculty-Student Sex Unjust to Students?
The New Republic has published “Lust for Learning,” by Laura Miller. If it weren’t for the fact that this article is full of references to philosophers past and present, I would ignore it and its ridiculous subtitle: “Is erotic longing between professors and students unavoidable?” Take a moment to imagine the bizarre world in which the answer to that question is yes..
Philosopher to Receive 2014 National Humanities Medal
Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, author of the novels The Mind-Body Problem and 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction, as well as books on Gödel and Spinoza, and who wrote last year’s hit work of non-fiction, Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away, will be a recipient of one of the ten 2014 National Humanities Medals awarded at a ceremo..
Taking Jokes Too Far in the Classroom (Ought Experiment)
Welcome back to Ought Experiment! It’s a new semester, and that can only mean one thing: fresh opportunities to go home and torture ourselves about the rebelliously stupid sentences that occasionally belly flop forth from our mouths. Or, err… is that just me? Probably not, because this week’s question involves a classroom joke that may have gone too far.
Dear Lou..
Texas Higher Ed Board v. Logic
With just a few days before the start of the school year, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board has removed from the curriculum a number of courses meant to fulfill the “Language, Philosophy, & Culture” core requirement at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV). Among the struck courses are several in philosophy, including a number of ethics cours..
Philosophers On The Ashley Madison Hack
Last Tuesday, a group calling itself “Impact Team” followed through on its threat to release data it had stolen from Ashley Madison, an internet service that facilitates encounters between people interested in having extramarital affairs. The data included information on approximately 37 million people who had signed up for the site (see news reports at Wired and Th..
Renewed Call to Reinstate Salaita
Kirk Sanders of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign passes along the following:
A group of forty-one Executive Officers and campus leaders from across the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has released an open letter to Acting Chancellor Barbara J. Wilson and President Timothy Killeen. In the letter, the forty-one chairs, directors, and heads ..
Trolls in the Philosophical Blogosphere (Ought Experiment)
Welcome back to Ought Experiment! We had ourselves quite the weekend, didn’t we? Well hang on to your armchairs, folks, because apparently it’s time for a Very Special Episode. After the heated conversation about professional cliques, a certain blog editor wrote in with a question about the role and consequences of anonymity in online philosophical discussion:
De..
Philosophers On Coates’s “Between the World and Me”
This installment of the Daily Nous Philosophers On series was organized by Janice Dowell (Syracuse).
Introduction
by Janice Dowell
In the midst of growing media coverage of police brutality and racial injustice in the United States, as well as increased attention to matters of race in the philosophical mainstream, the arrival of writer and journalist Ta-N..
Philosophers On Prostitution’s Decriminalization
This past Tuesday, Amnesty International representatives from 60 countries voted on which stance the influential non-governmental organization should take regarding the legal status of prostitution, ultimately deciding to support its full decriminalization, including both the selling and buying of sex.
The position is highly controversial—particularly the decri..
Library of Congress Honors Two Philosophers
The Library of Congress has honored Jürgen Habermas and Charles Taylor as joint recipients of the John W. Kluge Prize for humanities.
According to the LoC website, the prize
is designed deliberately to reward work in the wide range of disciplines not covered by the Nobel Prizes—including history, philosophy, politics, anthropology, sociology, religion, critici..
Philosopher and Activist
Lisa Guenther (Vanderbilt) is profiled in The Chronicle of Higher Education (paywalled) for both her teaching of philosophy in prisons and her activism regarding “the carceral state.”
She had been researching “the politics of confinement and the ethics of torture,” and their connection to academia, when “suddenly I realized that I really can’t do this work by sim..
SEP, IEP, NDPR, Wi-Phi Weekly Update
Here are last week’s updates and new additions 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 courtesy of the folks at Philosophical Percolations. They were first posted in PhilPercs’ “Saturday Linkorama” along with philosophical a..
Philosophers Win NEH Grants
Earlier this week the National Endowment for the Humanities announced funding of $36.6 million for more than 200 humanities projects. How did philosophers do? By my count, there were seven projects led by persons affiliated with philosophy departments, with their funding totaling $1.1 million. (If I missed any, please let me know.) Let’s congratulate the winners.
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Reforming Refereeing (guest post by Aaron Garrett)
The following is a guest post* by Aaron Garrett, associate professor of philosophy at Boston University. Professor Garrett recently became editor of the History of Philosophy Quarterly and asked if we could open up a discussion about reforming various aspects of article refereeing. I encourage people to contribute to the discussion and share their experiences and co..
Putting the “Ph” in Science PhDs
My goal is to put the Ph back into a PhD. I want to restore more philosophical thinking into the doctoral degrees that students earn here.
So says Arturo Casadevall, chair of the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at Johns Hopkins University, in the Johns Hopkins Public Health Magazine. Casadevall thinks that bringing philosophical thinking, part..
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Philosophers Interview Edward Snowden
John Perry and Ken Taylor (both Stanford), hosts of the radio program Philosophy Talk, interviewed former NSA analyst Edward Snowden, “the world’s most famous whistleblower” back in May. They just released a series of five video excerpts from the interview.
In one segment, Snowden describes the disillusionment that he and some of his colleagues experienced upon r..
A Guide for Applying to Jobs at SLACs
You received your PhD from a major research university. Your advisors work at a major research university. Your placement director works at a major research university. But if you are on the job market, you are likely applying to some jobs that are not at major research universities. Among the various other institutions of higher learning you might be applying for j..
Al Mele Interviewed at “What Is It Like…?”
Clifford Sosis (Coastal Carolina) continues his series of interviews at “What Is It Like To Be A Philosopher?” (previously) with Florida State University’s Al Mele. A synopsis:
In this interview, Al Mele talks about his early love of sports (especially football), games and reading, being an East Detroit greaser, getting a football scholarship, being disinterested..
Philosophers on the Supreme Court’s Gay Marriage Ruling
On Friday, June 26th, the Supreme Court of the United States announced its ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, holding that the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees the recognition and provision of same-sex marriage. It requires each of the 50 states in the US to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples seeking them, and to recognize legi..
Philosophers on the Charleston Massacre
About 9 p.m., the Bible study concludes. As the group prepares to share a concluding prayer, Roof suddenly stands, pulls out a .45-caliber semi-automatic pistol and says he has come to kill black people. He shoots the Rev. Pinckney first, at near point-blank range. Simmons tries to protect the pastor, a father of two young children, but Roof shoots him multiple time..
“Dirty Tricks” for Seminars and Talks (guest post)
The following guest post was authored by Josh Parsons, and originally published here on June 19th, 2015. Parsons died on April 11th, 2017. At the time of this post’s original publication, he was an associate professor of philosophy at Oxford University. He described the post as “a slightly jokey collection of what I called ‘dirty tricks for seminars’ (including some..
Metaphysics by Forgetting (guest post by Elijah Millgram)
This is the fourth in a series of guest posts* by Elijah Millgram (Utah) based on themes from his new book, The Great Endarkenment: Philosophy for an Age of Hyperspecialization. (Here are the first, second, and third entries.) (more…)