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SUNY Potsdam Cuts: Further Details

Last month we saw that the Philosophy program at SUNY Potsdam is once again under threat.

In the meanwhile, an unofficial philosophy site has been updated with some further information about the cuts. (more…)

The AI Threat, the Humanities, and Self-Cultivation

“The humanities are… a gateway to and instigator of a lifelong activity of free self-cultivation. The changes they provoke in us are not always for the happier, or the more remunerative, or the more civically engaged, but when things go passably well, these changes are for the deeper, the more reflective, and the more thoughtful.” (more…)

Zero Philosophers Among New ACLS Fellows

The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) has a prestigious fellowship program to recognize “excellence in humanistic scholarship”. It recently announced its new class of fellows. Not one of them is a philosophy professor. (more…)

AI, Teaching, and “Our Willingness to Give Bullshit a Pass”

There has been a fair amount of concern over the threats that ChatGPT and AI in general pose to teaching. But perhaps there’s an upside? (more…)

Recent Data About Philosophy PhDs

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has released some data about people who received PhDs in philosophy in the United States in 2021. (more…)

Philosophy Sees Decrease in PhDs Conferred In Recent Years

After a slow and steady increase from 1998 through 2011, the number of PhDs conferred in philosophy in the United States has been decreasing, according to a report from Humanities Indicators. (more…)

Philosopher Wins Fellowship for Work on Mass Incarceration

The Whiting Foundation has named Michael Burroughs, associate professor of philosophy and director of the Kegley Institute of Ethics at California State University, Bakersfield, as one of its Public Engagement Fellows. (more…)

What the Public Thinks of Philosophy and Other Humanities Fields

A new report from Humanities Indicators (a part of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences), based on a survey of over 5,000 U.S. adults, reveals and discusses various beliefs and attitudes the American public has towards the humanities, and includes information specifically about the public’s perception of and engagement with philosophy. (more…)

The Philosophy Major Is (Kind of) Back on the Rise (guest post by Eric Schwitzgebel)

New data shows a recent slight uptick in the percentage of undergraduates earning philosophy degrees. (more…)

Zena Hitz Wins 2020 Hiett Prize

Philosopher Zena Hitz, tutor at St. John’s College, is the winner of the 2020 Hiett Prize in the Humanities. (more…)

ACLS Fellowships & Philosophers

The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) has announced the winners of some of its fellowships and grants, and there are some philosophers among them. But not many. (more…)

Faculty Non-Renewals, Staff Layoffs, and Threats to Philosophy at Ohio University

Ohio University (Athens, Ohio) has told at least 140 of its staff they will be laid off and has begun issuing non-renewal notices to both non-tenure and tenure-track faculty in an attempt to “grapple with a budget crisis that started even before the current coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.” (more…)

Two Philosophers Win National Humanities Center Fellowships

The National Humanities Center has announced its 2020-2021 residential fellows, and there are two philosophers among them. (more…)

A Way Philosophy Differs from the Other Humanities, or a Caricature of the Humanities?

Professors of the humanities make judgments about value. Art historians, literary scholars, musicologists, and classicists say to our students: These works are powerful, beautiful, surprising, strange, insightful. They are more worth your time and attention than others… Yet such judgment violates the principle of equality. So humanists have to pretend we’re not do..

Oxford Receives $189 Million Gift to Support the Humanities

Oxford University announced it has received a £150 million (approximately $189 million) “transformational investment in the way Oxford teaches, researches, and shares the Humanities.” (more…)

“The problem is not that humanities jobs are disappearing”

In an interview at Inside Higher Education, Jason Brennan (Georgetown) and Phillip Magness (American Institute for Economic Research), answer a question from interviewer Scott Jaschik about their view that universities are admitting too many PhD students. (more…)

A White Paper on Publication Ethics in Philosophy

A project that “seeks to foster greater awareness among humanities scholars and editors about ethical issues in publishing, with a focus on the discipline of philosophy” (previously) last week published a white paper with its initial findings and recommendations. (more…)

Don’t Roll Your Eyes at the Guy Who Recently “Invented Philosophy”

Philosophers may be forgiven for doing a double take at this headline at The Atlantic: “The New Science of How to Argue—Constructively“. New??? Hello there? Perhaps you’ve heard of… philosophy?

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PROSE Award Winners in the Philosophy Category (Updated)

The American Association of Publishers (AAP) bestows awards on publishers for books that “demonstrate exceptional scholarship and have made make a significant contribution to a field of study.” Known as the PROSE Awards, they are given for books in various disciplinary categories, including philosophy. (more…)

Philosophy Majors Make More Money Than Majors in any other Humanities Field

Among those with bachelors degrees, the median earnings of those who majored in philosophy exceed those of majors in any other humanities field, and are the 16th highest in a study comparing salaries across 50 majors in the United States. (more…)

Has the Sharp Decline in Philosophy Majors Hit Bottom? (guest post by Eric Schwitzgebel)

The following is a guest post by Eric Schwitzgebel (University of California, Riverside), on trends in the numbers of philosophy majors, following up on previous posts on the subject), with some interesting speculation at the end about possible causes. A version of it originally appeared at his blog, The Splintered Mind.