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A Graphic Review of a Graphic Philosophy Book (guest post by Adam Ferner)

The following is a guest post * by Adam Ferner (Royal Institute of Philosophy). (more…)

2017 PROSE Awards and Philosophy

The 2017 Winners of the American Publishers Awards for Professional and Scholarly Excellence (PROSE) have been announced, and among them, in the “Best New Journal in Humanities and Social sciences” category, is Cambridge University Press for the Journal of the American Philosophical Association (see here for more information). (more…)

Philosophy Books You Want Most Philosophers To Read, 2015-2016

So many philosophy books, so little time. What books should be on your list? One way to answer that question is to narrow the options down to books in your subfield. That’s a perfectly reasonable approach. But are there books in your subfield that you think philosophers who don’t specialize in your area should read? Or have you read a philosophy book outside your ar..

Best Non-Philosophy Books for Philosophers 2015-2016

The website Five Books asks Nigel Warburton, whom many readers will know as part of the Philosophy Bites crew, to pick and discuss his favorite philosophy books of 2016. Warburton does a lot to popularize philosophy, and his choices reflect that. They are: (more…)

Pick One Book for One Person to Read

Making its way around the internet is the question, “If you could get everybody to read one book, which would it be?” That’s an interesting question, but there are a lot of unspecified variables that will drive philosophers nuts. For example:

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Most Cited Philosophy Books in the Social Sciences

Elliott Green, a professor in the International Development Department at the London School of Economics, looked at which works from anthropology, economics, education, geography, linguistics, management, philosophy, political science, and psychology are cited most by social scientists. At the top of the list of the 50 most cited books, he reports, is Thomas Kuhn’s ..

Favorite Philosophy of the Year 2015

A reader asks:

Was wondering if you could write a post asking for people’s favorite philosophy articles/books of the year.

Sure!

People, what were your favorite philosophy articles or books published in or around 2015?

Done.

Now it’s your turn, people…

Books for the Philosophy Newbie

A Daily Nous reader asks:

What books would you recommend to someone who’s new to philosophy? What would be your Philosophy 101 book recommendations?

I would imagine that many readers will take these two questions as requiring different answers. The books one might use in a class, when there is an instructor to help guide the students through them, may be diffe..

Philosophically Interesting Books for Young Kids

A friend is interested in soliciting philosophically-minded books for young children—ones who are reading, but are not at the chapter-book stage. Here are a few I’ve enjoyed with my kids…

The Big Orange Splot by Daniel Manus Pinkwater — for the young individualist.
A Hole Is To Dig by Ruth Krauss — for the young teleologist.
Pierre: A Cautionary T..

Answers from Academic Publishers

Two weeks ago I put up a post soliciting questions for academic publishers. If you submitted a question, thanks. Editors at various presses—Peter Momtchiloff, Peter Ohlin, and Lucy Randall at Oxford University Press, Stephen Latta of Broadview Press, Hilary Gaskin of Cambridge University Press, Philip Laughlin of MIT Press, Rob Tempio of Princeton University Press..

Descartes on Spring Break

Tommy Maranges, AKA Philosophy Bro (@PhiloBro) has written a book. It’s a translation of Descartes’ Meditations. A translation into which language, you ask? Modern vernacular. Or, as the kids say, “as the kids say.”

His version starts off with:

HOLY SHIT FUCK ME, it feels like my eyeballs are going to explode. I barely remember shit and I lost my phone, I blew..

Cartoon Introduction to Philosophy

The Cartoon Introduction to Philosophy is out! By philosopher Michael Patton (Montevallo) and illustrator Kevin Cannon, the book stars Heraclitus as the reader’s guide and companion through various philosophical topics, including logic, perception, minds, free will, god, and ethics. At over 150 pages, it has the heft and look of a big graphic novel, and it’s all ab..

How to Review Book Manuscripts

An assistant professor writes in with the following query:

I’ve been asked recently to review some books for major presses, which is great and I love doing it (free books!) But I have no idea how to do it and they really give no guidelines. They just say something like, “tell me what you think.” Obviously I have all sorts of thoughts, and I’d really like to know ..

Karyn Freedman Wins Non-Fiction Award

Karyn Freedman, associate professor of philosophy at the University of Guelph, has won the 2015 British Columbia National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction for her book, One Hour in Paris: A True Story of Rape and Recovery. The award includes a C$40,000 prize. The prize jury said:

Karyn L. Freedman’s One Hour In Paris is a book about rape, but, more than that, it’s ..

Joseph Heath Wins Political Writing Prize

Joseph Heath (Toronto) has been awarded the 2014 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing for his book, Enlightenment 2.0: Restoring Sanity to Our Politics, Our Economy, and Our Lives. The prize, which includes C$25,000, is awarded by the Writers’ Trust of Canada

for a book of literary nonfiction that captures a political subject of relevance to Canadian rea..

Stock a High School Library with Philosophy Books

Which philosophy books would you recommend for a high school library? That is the question currently being asked by Hallie Liberto (Connecticut), on behalf of her mom:

My mom is currently choosing books for the philosophy section of the high school library at the Overseas School of Colombo. She wants some recommendations—books that would be particularly good fo..

Book Dedication Sale

Jason Brennan and Peter Jaworski (both of Georgetown), have been working on a book entitled Markets Without Limits. You may recall an earlier post which detailed their plans to sell space in the “acknowledgements” section of their book. Not to be outdone—by their earlier selves—the duo are now selling the dedication page of their book to the highest bidder. You ..

Unger’s New Critique of Analytic Philosophy

Except when offering perfectly parochial ideas, mainstream philosophy still offers hardly anything except for just so many concretely empty ideas.

Peter Unger has a new book coming out entitled Empty Ideas: A Critique of Analytic Philosophy. You can get a sense of what he means by “concretely empty idea” from the blurb on about the book on his website. You can also ..

Acknowledgments for Sale

Have you always wanted to be acknowledged in the preface of a philosophy book, but haven’t had the time or opportunity or insightfulness to do anything worthy of being so acknowledged? Or perhaps you have been thinking, “what have books done for me, lately?” Well Jason Brennan and Peter Jaworski (both of Georgetown) have something special just for you. You can purch..

The Philosophy and Science of Creativity

Scientific American has published an excerpt from the introduction to The Philosophy of Creativity: New Essays, a new collection edited by Elliot Samuel Paul (Columbia) and Scott Barry Kaufman (NYU). In the various contributions, “philosophers draw on scientific research and scientific work is informed by philosophical perspectives.” Paul and Kaufman are two of the..

The Grasshopper to be Reunited With Its Original Illustrations

Broadview Press is publishing a new version of the strangely-little-known-yet-intensely-loved-minor-philosphical-classic The Grasshopper, by Bernard Suits. This edition, its third, retains the introduction from the second by Thomas Hurka and reunites the text with the original illustrations by Frank Newfeld. The book answers Wittgenstein’s view that there is no sati..