philosopher
TagCharles Taylor Wins Million Dollar Berggruen Prize
Charles Taylor, professor emeritus of philosophy at McGill University, is the winner of the inaugural Berggruen Prize. (more…)
Mary Hesse (1924-2016)
Mary Hesse, professor emeritus of philosophy at University of Cambridge, died this past Sunday. Professor Hesse worked in philosophy of science. She had been at Cambridge since 1960 in its Department of History and Philosophy of Science, becoming a fellow of Cambridge’s Wolfson College in 1965. (more…)
Shafer-Landau to Return to Wisconsin
Russ Shafer-Landau, currently professor of philosophy at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and director of its Parr Center for Ethics, will be returning in Fall 2017 to the Department of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where he had been professor for 13 years. (more…)
An Interview with David Chalmers
David Chalmers (NYU & ANU), apart from being a prolific academic philosopher, does a good amount of public philosophy, is half of the team that runs PhilPapers and its associated endeavors, edits the philosophy of mind series for Oxford University Press and the philosophy of mind section at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and, I’m told, takes on an impressi..
Philosophy and the Racial “Epistemic Horizon”
Looking back, I brought something special to those spaces that are predominantly white at Duquesne. And I don’t think that white philosophers can offer what I offered to those Black students and students of color. There is a certain discourse, certain assumptions, a shared discourse, a shared worldview, a shared style. There is also a certain understanding of where ..
MacBride from Glasgow to Manchester
Frasier MacBride, currently Chair in Logic and Rhetoric at the University of Glasgow, will be moving to the University of Manchester. MacBride works in metaphysics, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of language and the history of analytic philosophy. (more…)
Recent Philosophy Prizes
Award news from the Lauener Foundation for Analytic Philosophy and the American Philosophical Association and Marc Sanders Foundation: (more…)
Chicago State’s Sudden Layoffs Include A Tenured Philosopher
Chicago State University has been facing a financial crisis. It relies on the state of Illinois for about 30% of its budget, but, owing to the previous financial and budgeting decisions the university’s administrators had made, along with the state’s “budget stalemate that left higher education without a dime for most of last year—and then provided only partial fu..
Philosophy: Splendidly Polyphonic, Historically Limited, Problematically Magical
In the latest interview at What Is It Like To Be A Philosopher?, Clifford Sosis (Coastal Carolina) asks Kwame Anthony Appiah (NYU) how he sees the future of philosophy. Appiah answers:
I’m not much of a prophet and I feel very stuck in the present of the subject, which strikes me as splendidly more polyphonic than it was when I started out. (more…)
One of the World’s Most Successful — and Different — Philosophers
When Nussbaum was three or four years old, she told her mother, “Well, I think I know just about everything.” Her mother, Betty Craven, whose ancestors arrived on the Mayflower, responded sternly, “No, Martha. You are just one person among many.” Nussbaum was so frustrated by this response that she banged her head on the floor. (more…)
What Philosophy Makes You Worse At
Over at the group blog, A Philosopher’s Take, new contributor Mike Steiner (a philosophy PhD who went into the business world) has a post up asking what studying philosophy makes one worse at.
When, If Ever, Do Scandals Belong On A Scholar’s Wikipedia Page?
The various sexual harassment scandals and other controversies involving some well-known philosophers raise the question of how to determine whether information regarding such events is to appear in reference works about them, especially the world’s most popular reference, the constantly updated and largely crowd-sourced Wikipedia. (more…)
Open Letter Regarding Thomas Pogge (a few updates)
Over 160 academics have signed an open letter regarding the allegations of sexual harassment and professional misconduct of Thomas Pogge, Leitner Professor of Philosophy and Professor of Political Science at Yale University, including at least 16 of his colleagues at Yale. (more…)
Lodi Nauta Wins 2.5 Million Euro Spinoza Prize
L.W. (Lodi) Nauta, professor of philosophy and dean at the University of Groningen, is one of the 2016 winners of the Spinoza Prize, “the highest award in Dutch science.” It is bestowed by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). (more…)
Martha Nussbaum Wins Kyoto Prize
Martha Nussbaum (University of Chicago) is this year’s winner of the Kyoto Prize. The prize is offered by the Inamori Foundation, an organization created by Kazuo Inamori, who is better known as the founder of the large Japan-based multinational electronics firm Kyocera. (more…)
Blasphemy Charges Against Philosopher Dismissed
In April, philosophy professor Sheikha al-Jassem (Kuwait University) was charged with blasphemy after a television interview in which she discussed freedom of religion and the importance of a secular basis for law in Kuwait. She has now informed me that she was cleared of all charges. She writes: (more…)
Pogge Attempted To Halt Investigation
Thomas Pogge (Yale), who has been in the news recently regarding allegations of sexual harassment, tried to halt the investigation into his treatment of and interactions with former Yale student Fernanda Lopez Aguilar, according to a report at The Huffington Post: (more…)
The Job Insecurity of Philosophy Instructors: A Case Study
“I love being a professor. I have been a professor my whole life. I don’t know what I am going to do.” That’s Pamela Ryan, who has been a philosophy instructor at Morehead State University for 15 years. This past Friday she was called into the office of the Dean of the Caudill College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at Morehead, M. Scott McBride, and told t..
Offend Responsibly
The thing I always like to stress is that although academics have the right to offend, they must do so responsibly, and they must to be able to defend the origin of the academic freedom of the right to offend and show that they exercise it in a way that’s as responsible as possible. Sometimes this means, if there is something on your syllabus that troubles a student..
Philosophy Professor Sues College for Retaliation (updated)
Lauren Barthold, associate professor of philosophy at Gordon College, a Christian liberal arts college in Massachusetts, has filed a lawsuit against the college for retaliating against her for her public statements (such as a letter to the editor of a newspaper) disagreeing with college president Michael Lindsay over whether federal contractors, on the basis of reli..
Princeton Receives 16,000 Pages of Lewis Correspondence
Stephanie (“Steffi”) Lewis, the widow of David Lewis (1941-2001), has donated his papers to the Manuscripts Division of the Princeton University Library. There are a lot of them:
The David K. Lewis Papers include his extensive correspondence with other philosophers and scholars. There are approximately sixteen thousand pages of Lewis’s correspondence, both incomi..
Wolff from UCL to Oxford
Jonathan Wolff, currently dean of arts and humanities and professor of philosophy at University College London (UCL), will be taking up the Blavatnik Chair in Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University as of September 1, 2016. During the 2016-2017 academic year he will be teaching at both UCL and the Blavatnik School. Professor Wolff wo..
Shockley from Buffalo to Colorado State
Kenneth Shockley, currently associate professor of philosophy and director of the Sustainability Academy at the University at Buffalo – SUNY, has accepted a position as associate professor and Holmes Rolston III Endowed Chair in Environmental Ethics and Philosophy at Colorado State University, starting in August 2016. Professor Shockley works in environmental philos..
Letter Protesting Dickinson’s Treatment of Sartwell
Joel Pust (Delaware) and Eric Winsberg (South Florida) have authored an open letter in regards to philosopher Crispin Sartwell’s employment status at Dickinson College: “Academics’ Statement of Protest Regarding Dickinson College’s Treatment of Professor Crispin Sartwell.” They invite philosophers and other academics to sign. (For some context, see this post.)
Fr..
Philosopher Faces Blasphemy Charges (updated)
Philosophy professor Sheikha al-Jassem (Shaikha Binjasim) is facing charges of blasphemy and the possible loss of her faculty position at Kuwait University, owing to remarks she made in a television interview about freedom of conscience, the politicization of religion in Kuwait, and how the Kuwaiti constitution, not the Quran, is and should be the basis of law in Ku..
First Alain Locke Award for Public Philosophy Awarded to Andrew Light
Interview with Janice Dowell
Clifford Sosis (Coastal Carolina) continues his series of interviews of philosophers at What Is It Like To Be A Philosopher? with Janice Dowell of Syracuse University. In it she discusses her childhood (she worked as a janitor for a Princeton eating club), how she ended up going into philosophy (“almost entirely by accident”), her career at various institutions, her..
Justin Leiber (1938-2016)
Justin F. Leiber, retired professor of philosophy at Florida State University, died earlier this week. Prior to joining Florida State, he taught at Lehman College (CUNY) and the University of Houston. Professor Leiber worked mainly in philosophy of language, and also in philosophy of psychology and cognitive science. In addition to his philosophy work, he had a care..