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New Philosophy Center Aims to Bridge American – Chinese Gap

The Berggruen Philosophy and Culture Center is an initiative launched to “look past contemporary political differences” between the United States and China “to their deeper intellectual roots.” A project of the Berggruen Institute, the Philosophy and Culture Center

will include a fellowship program between Chinese and American universities; an “ideas contest,” co..

SEP, IEP, NDPR, Wi-Phi Weekly Update

Here are last week’s additions and updates to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy(IEP), Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (NDPR), and Wi-Phi Wireless Philosophy, courtesy of Philosophical Percolations. They were first posted in PhilPercs’ “Saturday Linkorama,” along with lots of other philosophy-related links, by Jon..

The Unsung Hero of Your Undergraduate Philosophy Education

There are some philosophers we hear a lot about—not just those in the canon, but also the “superstars” of today. These philosophers can often be inspirations on the page, motivating students to take up philosophy as a major course of study. But just as important—probably more so—are those undergraduate professors who inspired or motivated you to take philosoph..

Philosophical Insights for Good Professorship

A good professor “will be able to put philosophical insights to practical use,” argues Robert J. Bloomfield, a professor at the School of Management at Cornell, in an extraordinarily useful paper, “How to Be a Good Professor.” The paper offers an impressive range of good advice, including a section on the value that an appreciation of philosophy has for all professo..

Are Bans on Faculty-Student Sex Unjust to Students?

The New Republic has published “Lust for Learning,” by Laura Miller. If it weren’t for the fact that this article is full of references to philosophers past and present, I would ignore it and its ridiculous subtitle: “Is erotic longing between professors and students unavoidable?” Take a moment to imagine the bizarre world in which the answer to that question is yes..

Plot Philosophy’s Subfields

Yesterday’s post about interdisciplinary work in philosophy got me curious about how philosophers understand their work in relation to other disciplines.

One question we can ask of academics is: “what do they take themselves to be studying?” Of course, there are various ways of answering this question. One way of doing so is trying to determine where on a spectru..

Although philosophy majors rank 75th on PayScale’s overall list of majors at mid-career earnings, it’s the top humanities bachelors degree in their ranking—from early career all the way to later career. “We hear again and again that employers value..

A Case for Philosophy in High Schools (updated)

Back in 1982, Frank Breslin, a New Jersey high school teacher, wrote an article arguing that philosophy should be taught in high school. Huffington Post just reprinted a version of that piece, and it’s worth taking a look at. One of it’s main ideas is that philosophy is a natural fit for teen rebelliousness:

Adolescents are a skeptical lot. Anything and everythin..

Substantive Philosophical Mistakes In Public Discourse

Public debate is rife with poor reasoning, with certain confused or erroneous claims popping up again and again to affect opinions and policies. Some of these are owed to an inability to understand statistics, some are owed to a lack of scientific understanding, and some are philosophical mistakes. Logic and critical thinking courses already take up formal errors in..

A Bias Against Simplicity?

Kieran Healy (Duke) recently presented a paper entitled “Fuck Nuance” at the American Sociological Association’s annual meeting. He writes:

Nuance is not a virtue of good sociological theory. Sociologists typically use it as a term of praise, and almost without exception when nuance is mentioned it is because someone is asking for more of it. I shall argue that, ..

The One Statement To Best Restart Philosophy

If all existing philosophical work—and all records and knowledge of it—were to be destroyed in some disaster, and only one sentence could be passed on to future intelligent beings (roughly like us we’ll assume) for them to restart the philosophical enterprise, what should that statement be?

The question is based on a similar one about science, which Richard F..

Philosophy Job Placement Data Update

Carolyn Dicey Jennings (UC Merced) posts that the final report for the Academic Placement Data and Analysis project is complete. She’ll eventually be posting more about it, but I repost some of the information from the report below. One thing worth noting is that though 169 programs were contacted, only 87 added or updated information to the project database. If you..

$3.9 Million for “Moral Superstars” Search

The Beacon Project is a new three-year initiative in psychology and philosophy “to find and define the morally exceptional and better understand how to improve moral character,” according to a press release from Wake Forest University. The project is led by professor of psychology William F. Fleeson (Wake Forest) and includes philosophers Christian B. Miller (Wake F..

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..

$2.1 Million for the Meaning of Life

Jennifer Frey (South Carolina) and Candace Vogler (Chicago) have received a $2.1 million grant for their project, “Virtue, Happiness, and Meaning of Life.” The project will be jointly hosted by the Neubauer Family Collegium for Culture and Society at the University of Chicago and the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of South Carolina and is funded prim..

Texas Higher Ed Board v. Logic

With just a few days before the start of the school year, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board has removed from the curriculum a number of courses meant to fulfill the “Language, Philosophy, & Culture” core requirement at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV). Among the struck courses are several in philosophy, including a number of ethics cours..

Poster Sessions at Philosophy Conferences

Poster sessions are normal parts of conferences in the sciences and social sciences, but rare in philosophy. So rare, that some philosophers don’t know what they are. So, by way of explanation, they are blocks of time at conferences during which participants display large posters they have made describing their projects and discuss them with other participants—mem..

Just One-Third of Published Psychology is Reliable

A team of 270 researchers have now published the findings from their “Reproducibility Project”—an attempt to replicate the findings in published psychology papers—in Science, and the results are dismal. Nina Strohminger (Yale) and Elizabeth Gilbert (Virginia) discuss the findings in an essay at The Conversation:

Almost all of the original published studies (9..

Political Bias in Philosophy

Philosophers may be lovers of truth, but that doesn’t mean they are exempt from the cognitive biases that bedevil humans generally. Given that philosophers often have strongly-held political opinions, it’s worth asking: To what extent are their opinions conveyed in their academic writings? If political bias is present, then how does it influence the discipline? To t..

Virtual Dissertation Writing Groups

Joshua Smart at the University of Missouri writes to let graduate students know about Virtual Dissertation Groups (previously):

Virtual Dissertation Groups

While advisors and committees are important, it can be incredibly helpful to discuss one’s work with peers in a lower-stakes environment, and it can be particularly enlightening to do so with those who take..

New Journal: Australasian Philosophical Review

The Australasian Association of Philosophy (AAP) has announced that they are starting a new journal, Australasian Philosophical Review, to be launched in March, 2017. The journal will be adopting a version of an interesting format (similar to that of Ethics, Policy, & Environment):

Each issue of the *Australasian Philosophical Review* will consist of a curatorial..

What Kind of Jerk Are You?

Henry Shevlin, a PhD student at CUNY, has posted about the philosophy of jerks:

What makes someone a jerk? Is it merely being rude, or selfish, or is there something more subtle that underlies the behavior of the jerk? And just as important, how do you know if you’re a jerk yourself?

Following up on Eric Schwitzgebel’s prolific jerk work, Shevlin offers a situ..

Last Minute Course Prep Exchange

The fall term has begun at several schools and is about to begin at others, and for at least some professors that means putting the finishing touches on syllabi. Need readings suggested on Subject S? Need a piece which argues for Position P? Need a complement to Canonical Character C? Need a you get the idea and didn’t really require all of those Examples E? Fine. P..

Not Technically a Philosopher, But

Philosophers seem pretty territorial about their discipline. Whether that’s owed to high standards, insecurity, or something else, I don’t know. But we tend to be on guard when non-philosophers take up philosophical questions, cautious about assigning work in our classes that is by non-philosophers, and seemingly comfortable with deploying the phrase “not technicall..

Philosophy of Sex and Gender Course Suggestions

Jessica Wolfendale (West Virginia) writes in:

I am putting together a course proposal for an introductory Philosophy of Sex & Gender course, and I would appreciate any suggestions regarding how best to structure the course and what content to include, as well as advice about what did/didn’t work in similar courses.

Readers?

Trolls in the Philosophical Blogosphere (Ought Experiment)

Welcome back to Ought Experiment! We had ourselves quite the weekend, didn’t we? Well hang on to your armchairs, folks, because apparently it’s time for a Very Special Episode. After the heated conversation about professional cliques, a certain blog editor wrote in with a question about the role and consequences of anonymity in online philosophical discussion:

De..