philosophy
TagAre History’s “Greatest Philosophers” All That Great? (guest post by Gregory Lewis)
“Why are the greatest philosophers skewed towards the past, when they should be skewed towards the present?”
The Personality of Philosophy Majors
Psychologist Anna Vedel (Aarhus University) writes: “The choice of education is perhaps the first highly important decision that young people have to make for themselves in the developed world. Each education paves the way for certain vocational paths, and the choice has a lasting impact on the young adult’s life.” It might be useful, then, to see what we can learn ..
Keeping Philosophical between Undergrad and Grad
A reader writes in:
I am planning on applying to graduate school in philosophy for 2017. However, I graduated from my undergraduate institution a few years ago and have been doing non-philosophy things since. I’m looking for opportunities to get (re)involved in philosophy, but pretty much everything I’ve found (institutes, journals, etc.) is either for current un..
How To Put Yourself Out There: Media Advice For Academics (Guest Post by Kevin J.S. Zollman)
The following is a guest post* by Kevin J.S. Zollman, associate professor of philosophy at Carnegie Mellon University. He has had a bit more experience than the average philosopher with popular media, and he kindly offered to present some advice to help philosophers and other academics get the attention of, and successfully communicate with, journalists. (more…)..
Summer Philosophy Programs for High School Students
A reader has asked me to solicit information about philosophy summer programs for high school students. If you know of any or involved in any, please do list them in the comments. If you have links to the programs’ sites, please include them. Thank you!
Prominent Philosophy Journal Broadens Scope
Mind, a longstanding leading journal of philosophy known for publishing high quality work in the analytic tradition, has a new editorial staff and has announced in an editorial its plans to broaden its scope and appeal:
The sole criterion for publication in the journal is quality. No area of philosophy, no style of philosophy, and no school of philosophy is to be..
€1.2 Million for Research on the Metaphysics of Pregnancy
Elselijn Kingma, associate professor of philosophy at the University of Southampton, has been awarded a 1.2 million Euro (approximately $1.35 million) European Research Council (ERC) Research Grant for her work on the metaphysics of pregnancy.
Kingma explains: “Every single human is the product of a pregnancy: an approximately nine-month period during which a foe..
Philosophy Degrees: How Many Are Awarded, And To Whom?
Humanities Indicators, a project of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, has released new degree-specific data on various humanities subjects, including philosophy. Here are some of the findings. All data and images below are from the Humanities Indicators site. (more…)
Right Answers And What Makes For A Good Philosopher
Just going to put this on the table:
Question: You work in the field of the philosophy of religion. Are you a religious person and do you think philosophy of religion can be done by people who aren’t?
Answer: Let me take your questions in order. I am a Christian; I was brought up in a Christian family; and I’ve never really wavered from that worldview. I defin..
What Does “Engaged” Philosophy Look Like? (Guest Post)
The following is a guest post* by Ben Baker, Louise Daoust, and Rob Willison (University of Pennsylvania) on a recent attempt at publicly engaged philosophy at the University Pennsylvania—one that others might be interested in trying out elsewhere.
The Philosophers of Germany’s Anti-Islam Political Movement
“Alternative for Germany” (AfD) is a German political party, gaining in popularity, which supports “the idea of banning mosques” and has an official who has declared that “it may be necessary to shoot at migrants trying to enter the country illegally.” AfD has supported, and been supported by, a political movement known as “Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamizati..
Philosophy Placement Data and Analysis: An Update (guest post by Carolyn Dicey Jennings)
The following is a guest post* by Carolyn Dicey Jennings (UC Merced), who has led a team of academics in producing and organizing a trove of data related to the graduation and placement records of English-language philosophy Ph.D. programs (previously). The team just published an update to its 2015 report, “Academic Placement Data and Analysis” (APDA). Among other ..
What Was The Real Target of the Latest Academic Hoax?
Recently a pair of philosophers, Philippe Huneman (CNRS / Paris I Sorbonne) and Anouk Barberousse (CNRS / University of Lille), writing under a pseudonym, submitted a nonsense article to the journal, Badiou Studies, which accepted and published it (see this account, which I put in the Heap of Links last week).
The ostensible target of the hoax is Alain Badiou and..
Improving Journal – Author Communication
A philosopher who prefers to remain anonymous recently wrote in with some complaints about a journal. Among them:
The editor and editorial staff have been for at least the last three months, and continue to be, completely unavailable via both email and the submissions manager.
In this particular case, the problem began to be resolved when I passed along the co..
A Philosopher’s “Brain Music”
Dan Lloyd, Brownell Professor of Philosophy at Trinity College, thinks that “brain dynamics resemble the dynamics of music” and that “tools from cognitive musicology may therefore be useful in characterizing the brain as a dynamical system.” (more…)
Dasgupta from Princeton to Berkeley
Shamik Dasgupta, currently associate professor of philosophy at Princeton University, will become associate professor of philosophy at UC Berkeley, starting this fall. Dasgupta works mainly in metaphysics and philosophy of science. You can learn more about his work at his website.
That Paper… Again?
A philosopher who prefers to remain anonymous writes in with a good question:
How often can one present a paper in progress before one is simply presenting “old work”?
When I get invited to give a talk or present at a workshop, I often will use the same 1 or 2 papers 3-4 times within the space of a year or so. These are usually papers I’m working on and I wa..
Online Philosophy Resources Weekly Update
Below are the past week’s updates to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP) and Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (NDPR). There were no new entries at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy nor any new videos at Wi-Phi this week, but there’s a bonus entry below. (more…)
Negotiating a Graduate Admissions Offer
A prospective graduate student in philosophy writes in asking for advice on “how to negotiate more money from the Ph.D. programs to which I’ve been admitted.” The student adds: “I haven’t found many tips on the internet that are specific to philosophy. I’d be really curious to hear what some admissions directors and other faculty have to say about what works and wha..
Should Philosophers Train Graduate Students to Teach? How? (Guest Post by David W. Concepción)
The following is a guest post* by David W. Concepción, professor of philosophy at Ball State University, which summarizes some of the findings presented in “The State of Teacher Training in Philosophy” (Teaching Philosophy 2016), a systematic look at the training in teaching graduate students in philosophy get (alternative link). In the paper, authors Concepción, Me..
New Philosophy Journal Aims to Publish “Creative Philosophical Work”
S.Ph. Essays and Explorations is a new, open-access biannual journal seeking to publish “creative philosophical work” in “the neglected middle-ground between the cultural-literary essay and the traditional academic article.” It is the project of S.Ph. Press, which
intends to provide a platform for philosophically imaginative works of nonfiction and fiction, writt..
Online Philosophy Resources Weekly Update
Below are the past week’s updates to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (NDPR), and Wi-Phi Open Access Philosophy Videos. (We hope to add the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy back into the mix, too, in future weeks. If you have suggestions for other sites you’d like to see included in this weekly update, please say so ..
Continuous Publication Model for Journals — Input Sought
I am going to be taking the helm of a journal in 2017 and the publisher wants my editorial team to consider moving to the continuous publication model pioneered by the Royal Society Journals. On this mode..
Thanks to This Month’s Advertisers
Daily Nous thanks April’s advertisers. See the ads in right side bar for:
- The Public Discourse Project at the University of Connecticut’s Humanities Institute
- George Mason University’s MA in Ethics and Public Affairs
- The George Washington University’s Masters Programs in Philosophy
- Eidyn, the Edinburgh Centre for Epistemology, Mind, and Normativity, at the..
Hilary Putnam Donates Brain To Harvard
I was going to make an April Fool’s post titled “Putnam Changes Mind About Dying” but sometimes the news gets in the way of a good joke. According to a report from The Boston Globe, the will of Hilary Putnam, who died last month, included the provision that his brain be donated to Harvard University and displayed in a large glass container on the second floor of Eme..
Why Do Undergraduate Women Stop Studying Philosophy? (guest post by Morgan Thompson)
The following is a guest post* by Morgan Thompson (Pittsburgh), who, along with Toni Adleburg (UCSD), Sam Sims (Florida State), and Eddy Nahmias (Georgia State), authored the newly published “Why Do Women Leave Philosophy: Surveying Students at the Introductory Level” (Philosophers’ Imprint). Below, Thompson covers some of the main points of the paper for the purpos..
Penn State’s Efforts at Diversifying Philosophy
Five black women earned Ph.D.s in philosophy from Penn State this year, according to an article at The Chronicle of Higher Education (currently paywalled) that looks at the efforts the philosophy department there has been making to diversify philosophy.
The Chronicle reports that:
According to the latest federal data, of the 370 American citizens and permanent..
Online Philosophy Resources Weekly Update
Below are the past week’s updates to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (NDPR), and Wi-Phi Open Access Philosophy Videos. (We hope to add the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy back into the mix, too, in future weeks. If you have suggestions for other sites you’d like to see included in this weekly update, please say so ..