Tag: philosophy

Philosophy and Culture

Philosophy: Now Even More Popular in Germany

January 12, 2015

Philosophy is so popular in Germany right now, reports The Chronicle of Higher Education (may be behind paywall). How popular is it? So popular that at least…
Graduate Programs

User’s Guide to Philosophy Without Rankings

January 8, 2015

A User’s Guide to Philosophy Without Rankings is a new site “intended for the use of prospective graduate students in philosophy, faculty (including chairs or…
Teaching

Teaching As If Our Students Were Not Future Philosophers

January 7, 2015

Since most of our undergraduate students are planning to go to graduate school in philosophy and become professional philosophers, it makes sense that the undergraduate philosophy curriculum is typically filled…
Philosopher Demographics

Lack of Political Diversity: A Problem?

December 22, 2014

In a recent paper, a group of social psychologists—Jonathan Haidt (NYU), José L. Duarte (ASU), Jarret T. Crawford (College of New Jersey), Charlotta Stern (Stockholm), Lee Jussim (Rutgers ),…
Philosophy and Culture

Woody Allen, Please, No

December 19, 2014

On a small town college campus, a philosophy professor in existential crisis gives his life new purpose when he enters into a relationship with…
Issues in the Philosophy Profession, Lives of Philosophers

Philosophers from Poverty

December 18, 2014

The announcement of the UPDirectory has prompted a number of comments about a category not included among its underrepresented groups: philosophers who grew up…
Uncategorized

More on the Barnett story

August 8, 2014

[reporting from Boulder, CO] The story about the University of Colorado beginning the steps of firing associate professor of philosophy David Barnett (previously) has…
Uncategorized

Philosophy in Figures

June 30, 2014

Ryan Reece, a post-doc in experimental particle physics at UC Santa Cruz, likes “carving out philosophical positions with diagrams.” It’s an interesting project, which…
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Philosophy Student Wins on “The Voice”

May 21, 2014

The Voice is a popular televised singing competition on NBC. The finale of its sixth season aired last night, and the winner is Josh Kaufman, who…
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The Philosophy and Science of Creativity

May 12, 2014

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…
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More on Teaching Philosophy in Prison

April 30, 2014

The notion of incarceration goes back to the beginning of philosophy, with the imprisonment and execution of Socrates—and the idea, expressed by his student…
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Five Years In Philosophy

April 21, 2014

Massimo Pigliucci, currently professor at CUNY and soon to be holder of the K.D. Irani Professorship in Philosophy there, takes the occasion of his 50th birthday…
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Teaching Philosophy in Prisons

April 15, 2014

Currently over two million people in the United States are in prison, and about nine million worldwide. There are many questions worth asking about the…

Heap of Links

“Proportional to student body size,” the number of students majoring in philosophy at Harvard is “about 10 times the national average” — why is philosophy doing so well there?
A philosophy prof’s mission statement: “reproducing the foundations of Western civilization, one lecture at a time” — one challenge, says Joseph Heath, is that "the two sets of governing principles in our society—liberalism… and capitalism—are second-best arrangements"
“Philosophy: head and heart” — Stephen Darwall's 2024 Dewey Lecture
Is there anything to the concept of “intrinsic human dignity”? — yes, says Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, and "it names a burden as much as a distinction"
“Intuition is the cognitive means by which the conceptual structure of a situation is revealed to us” — whether that situation is a stylized thought experiment or a real world experience, says Marc A. Moffett
“Professors can’t fix the problem on their own” — Victor Kumar on what university administrators need to do address AI's threat to higher education
“The wall between jus ad bellum and jus in bello, which had sustained his theory for almost half a century, was no longer sturdy” — a profile of Michael Walzer, focusing on his thoughts about just war theory and the Israeli-Palestine conflict
We may think that we lose something significant when AI beats us to a discovery — if we do, Daniel Greco says, that seems to imply we gained something significant, too
“Once upon a time there were a couple of handsome naturalistic philosophers working in and around the philosophy of fiction” — thoughts on new directions in philosophy of fiction, from several philosophers
What is the debate over whether trans women are women even about? — Katie Zhou argues that it's about which facts are granted "the cross-contextual significance and stickiness characteristic of gender"
We’re putting human brain cells into mice brains — One moral risk of this, says Mackenzie Graham, is a decrease in our ability to interpret what mice behavior tells us about their experiences and welfare
The Rawls Game — with instructions, background, advice, and downloadable character cards
“The central question would shift from ‘How do we maximize shareholder value?’ to ‘How do different forms of organization distribute power, risk and reward — and which should we strengthen?'” — Chris Marquis on the case for abolishing, or at least radically changing, business schools
Asking “How did I get here?” may help us reflect on the nature of personal identity in ways that asking “Who am I?” cannot — Marya Schechtman's 2024 Central Division Meeting Presidential Address
“Collecting is a game, but what kind of game? It is an imperfect information game of acquisition” — a theory of collecting, from Steven Hales
“A general human tendency: to overestimate how far we have come in the progress of human knowledge” — a lengthy interview with Thomas Nagel
“Many couples do not survive trauma like this” — A profile of Susan Brison—who was brutally attacked in 1990, and who wrote about it in Aftermath—and her husband, Thomas Trezise, who has now written his own book stemming from those events
“Bad AI Consciousness Takes” Bingo Card — Henry Shevlin's area of specialization is becoming a popular topic in popular discourse, and he can't stand the "cavalcade of terrible takes"
Does the principle of sufficient reason imply panpsychism? If it does, do we then ponens or tollens? — Sam Kimpton-Nye on these questions and the "demand for intelligibility"
PTSD flashbacks may be harmful, but they may also be helpfully “resupplying phenomenal experience” to those who, owing to trauma, are “grasp alienated” — Michaela McSweeney on trauma and "madness-as-strategy"

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Latest Comments

Felix on The Vanderbilt Report’s Sub-Report on Philosophy
Authorship of pseudoscience does indeed seem to count as "subversion of scholarly norms for political purposes," and anti-trans philosophers (yourself included) are very much guilty of that. On…
Felix on The Vanderbilt Report’s Sub-Report on Philosophy
The sub-report acknowledges the increasingly hostile environment that queer and trans people find themselves in (pages 10-11), but fails to make mention of the active role that anti-trans…
Meme on The Vanderbilt Report’s Sub-Report on Philosophy
This example makes it hard for me to generalize beyond your experience. Are there other examples you had in mind, perhaps from your engagements with other scholars in…
Moti Gorin on The Vanderbilt Report’s Sub-Report on Philosophy
Weinberg writes: "People who have been called deluded perverts or transphobic Nazis by each other in political discourse online are unlikely to convince themselves of their opponent’s ability…
Nick Laskowski on The Vanderbilt Report’s Sub-Report on Philosophy
I'm a metaethicist by training but I've been actively contributing to the social philosophy research community (i.e. publishing, refereeing, conferencing, mentoring, etc.) for about six or so years…
norms are not cheap explanations! on The Vanderbilt Report’s Sub-Report on Philosophy
I'll take your point on the behaviors by (social media active) *philosophers* of science, but "the philosophy of science applied to covid-related topics had none of this" suggests…
Felix on The Vanderbilt Report’s Sub-Report on Philosophy
I think pointing out that anti-trans commentary is correlated "with power in a generic national sense" is indeed relevant if one wants to claim that such commentary is…
Eric winsberg on The Vanderbilt Report’s Sub-Report on Philosophy
Omg. I was accused of being a eugenics supporter. Of agreeing with lt governor of Texas that old people should just die. People i never engaged with blocked…
Meme on The Vanderbilt Report’s Sub-Report on Philosophy
I’m not mocking anyone, and no, I don’t agree with the tacit implication that every comment on a blog post has to contribute to discussion. Sometimes it’s okay…
On the Market Too on The Vanderbilt Report’s Sub-Report on Philosophy
Correlations with power can vary across different contexts. A correlation with power in a generic national sense does not entail that the correlation holds within the academy or…
norms are not cheap explanations! on The Vanderbilt Report’s Sub-Report on Philosophy
Why? (A genuine question. I don't see why the hypothesized social mechanism would be expected to manifest in a population the way you describe, as opposed to many…
norms are not cheap explanations! on The Vanderbilt Report’s Sub-Report on Philosophy
Diogenes also contributed to the actual discussion
Moti Gorin on The Vanderbilt Report’s Sub-Report on Philosophy
"Rather, I am just saying that Fine and Rosen overlooked one source of what they characterize as a “distorted” scholarly ecosystem which they find “surprising” and “puzzling”." If…
Dr. M. An adjunct on The Vanderbilt Report’s Sub-Report on Philosophy
The report concerns specifically politicization of teaching and research, not the overall state of academic philosophy. Dunking with memes is nice and all, but perhaps we should aim…
CMP on The Vanderbilt Report’s Sub-Report on Philosophy
Thanks! My language is a clear indication of being disconnected – and being Spanish-English bilingual might be informing my word choices as well. I counted the syllabi -…