interdisciplinary
Tag“Journal of Controversial Ideas” with Pseudonymous Authors to Launch Next Year
A new interdisciplinary journal in the works will publish pseudonymously-authored peer-reviewed articles in an attempt to protect its contributors from the negative repercussions of arguing for or discussing controversial ideas. (more…)
Challenges Facing Philosophy of Science
What are the most significant challenges facing philosophy of science today? Nick Zautra, a PhD student in the history and philosophy of science at Indiana University Bloomington, interviewed 30 philosophers of science over the past two years, asking them this question, and presented a summary of their answers at the recent 2018 Philosophy of Science Association (PS..
$5.6 Million Grant to Philosophers Studying “Knowledge Resistance”
An interdisciplinary group of researchers headed by philosophers at Stockholm University has won a SEK 50,400,000 (approximately $5.6 million) grant from Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (the Swedish Foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences) for their project, “Knowledge Resistance: Causes, Consequences and Cures.” (more…)
Philosopher Named Editor of Novel Book Series on Black Male Studies
Tommy Curry, professor of philosophy and Africana studies at Texas A&M University, has been named editor of the first-ever university press book series focused on black and racialized males. (more…)
Philosophy’s Progress, If You Don’t Care Whether It’s Called Philosophy
Over at Marginal Revolution, Tyler Cowen (GMU) asks, “has there been progress in philosophy?” His answer: “there is significant and ongoing progress in philosophy, we just don’t always name it as such.” (more…)
Philosophers Win Mellon “New Directions” Fellowships
Two philosophers are among this year’s recipients of “New Directions” Fellowships from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. (more…)
Philosopher Will Be First “Atheism, Humanism, and Secular Ethics” Chair
Anjan Chakravartty, currently professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame and director of the school’s John J. Reilly Center for Science, Technology, and Values, will be moving to the University of Miami to be the first holder of its “Atheism, Humanism, and Secular Ethics” chair. (more…)
“Put the Philosophy Back into the Doctorate of Philosophy”
Two biology professors at Johns Hopkins University are worried that typical doctoral programs in the sciences “are unlikely to nurture the big thinkers and creative problem-solvers that society needs,” and have crafted a new graduate science program that aims to “put the philosophy back into the doctorate of philosophy: that is, the ‘Ph’ back into the PhD.” (more…)..
New: Journal of Philosophy of Emotion (Updated)
The Journal of Philosophy of Emotion (JPE), a new online, open-access academic journal, has announced that it is now accepting manuscripts for publication. (more…)
Philosophical Writing’s (Lack of?) Appeal to Other Academics
“It would be great for philosophy if more philosophical papers were written in a way that was appealing to scholars from across the academy.”
So says Brian Weatherson, Marshall M. Weinberg Professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan, in a recent interview at the Blog of the APA. (more…)
New Interdisciplinary Institute for Science & Technology Studies
The Ann Johnson Institute for Science, Technology & Society (AJI) has been launched at the University of South Carolina. (more…)
The Prospects For Revolutionizing Philosophy
In a recent interview, Shalom Chalson, an undergraduate studying philosophy at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) asks Frank Jackson (ANU; currently visiting at NUS) about the prospects for change in philosophy: (more…)
Series of Public Philosophy Events in Wales
The Institute for Art and Ideas (IAI), which in the past has hosted an enormous summer philosophy and arts festival, is taking a break from that extravaganza to put on a series of smaller events, beginning in April, and has offered a discount to Daily Nous readers. (more…)
Philosophy as “The Most Minimalistic Art” and the Challenges of Interdisciplinary Work
I was attracted to philosophy because it is the most minimalistic art I can think of. To express ideas, you use only the most minimal, the most reduced resources: no body (as in theatre), no figures (as in pictorial art), no voice or sound (as in music), no story (as in literature)—just thoughts. They are ordered, ideally crystal-clear and sharp, but they are just..
From Prison in Illinois to Publication in The New Yorker with Help from a Philosophy Professor
Fifteen inmates at Statesville Correctional Center in Illinois took a course on mass incarceration with Northwestern University philosophy professor Jennifer Lackey. It was an interdisciplinary course with a range of guest lecturers, including Alex Kotlowitz, a writer and a senior lecturer in journalism at Northwestern. He gave them an assignment to write about thei..
The Philosophy Bubble
In her interview at What Is It Like To Be A Philosopher? (a part of which we discussed here), Sally Haslanger (MIT) draws attention to three problematic tendencies in philosophers. The first concerns the idea of multiple intelligences:
To be honest, I think most philosophers are pretty limited in their intelligences. They may be amazing along a certain dimension ..
Interdisciplinarity and Marginalization in Philosophy
When asked whether some of the work in experimental philosophy would be better characterized as psychology, Joshua Knobe (Yale) tells Pendaran Roberts (Warwick):
First off, it should be emphasised that analogous issues arise for just about any area of philosophy that pursues interdisciplinary research. (more…)
Interdisciplinarity and Progress in Philosophy
My current work on racial inequality and social justice—and to a lesser extent my earlier work—takes me into areas of knowledge outside of what we teach and learn in philosophy classrooms. In the last six years or so I have co-authored multiple works and grant proposals with an economist, sociologist, social psychologist, lawyer, and a historian. I have written wi..
A Scientist On Philosophy, The “Thankless Job” That Succeeds Through Superfluousness
egardless of whom you want to assign the task of reaching across the line , presently little crosses it. Few practicing physicists today care what philosophers do or think.
And as someone who has tried to write about topics on the intersection of both fields, I can report that this disciplinary segregation is meanwhile institutionalized: The physics journals won’..
Getting Ethics into Non-Philosophy Courses & other Strategies for Expanding Ethics Instruction
Questions about right and wrong action, what kinds of things are of value, and what kinds of persons we should be—i.e., ethics—arise in nearly every area of scholarly inquiry. This provides opportunities for philosophy departments to play a role at their universities outside their traditional courses. (more…)
Chair in Atheism and Secular Ethics Endowed at Miami
Retired businessman Louis J. Appignani has donated $2.2 million to the University of Miami for an endowed chair in “the study of atheism, humanism and secular ethics,” reports the New York Times. It is the first position of its kind in the United States. (more…)
Formal Methods Training for Philosophy Graduate Students (guest post by Joshua Knobe)
The following is a guest post* by Joshua Knobe, professor of philosophy at Yale University.
Happiness and Well-Being Grant Winners
Last summer, Daniel Haybron (St. Louis University) was awarded $5.1 million for a three year project on happiness and well-being, most of it from the John Templeton Foundation. The project launched an interdisciplinary grant competition, the winners of which were just announced. Of three hundred applicants, twenty-one teams received awards together totaling $3.3 mil..
There Is No One Thing Philosophers Should Be Doing
The latest in a series of articles exhorting philosophers to engage with “real world problems” appears at Inside Higher Ed this morning, focusing on philosophy at land grant universities in the United States. The authors, Christopher P. Long and Michael O’Rourke (both of Michigan State), write:
To the extent that philosophy lost its way by turning inward, perhaps..
Philosophy in the University: A Defense
“Far from being years of ‘enduring failure,’ the last 150 years have been philosophy’s best.”
So argues Scott Soames (University of Southern California) in an essay on the influence of academic philosophy in The New York Times column, The Stone. Framed as a response to “When Philosophy Lost Its Way,” by Robert Frodeman and Adam Briggle (University of North Texas), ..
Interdisciplinarity “Takes Hard Work”
Don Howard (Notre Dame) has a post up at his Science Matters blog called “On the Pseudoproblem of Interdisciplinarity.” It begins by recounting some of the familiar complaints about the obstacles to interdisciplinary work that he has heard over the years:
From the beginning of my life in the academy, back in the 1960s, I have heard again, and again, and again the..
Philosophers, Physicists, Others Win €2.5m to Study the Large Hadron Collider
An interdisciplinary team consisting of academics working in philosophy, physics, history, and sociology have won a 2.5 million euro grant to fund a three year project about the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator. It first started up on 10 September 2008, and remains the lat..
The Value of Philosophy in Interdisciplinary Research (guest post by Brian Robinson and Michael O’Rourke)
Brian Robinson and Michael O’Rourke, both at Michigan State University, lead The Toolbox Project, an initiative which provides “philosophical yet practical enhancement to cross-disciplinary, collaborative science.” It is a fascinating and innovative use of philosophy to facilitate interdisciplinary research, and has been up and running for over a decade. I asked the..