philosophy
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The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Philosophers (Ought Experiment)
Welcome back to Ought Experiment! This week’s question is from a grad student looking for advice on the habits that make one a better philosopher. After googling “how to be a better philosopher”, I’m prepared to fake my way through a half-decent answer:
Dear Louie,
I’m curious about what habits philosophers have cultivated that are specifically geared at being..
Is this the Golden Age of Philosophy?
Bryan Frances thinks that there are several indicators suggesting that we’re at the start of a “golden age of philosophy.” These indicators include:
- Much greater knowledge of the individual empirical sciences plus the attempt to use them in approaching philosophical problems
- Much greater knowledge and use of formal sciences such as math, logic, formal semantic..
Philosophy Talk Wins Templeton for “Philosophical Guide to the Cosmos”
John Perry and Ken Taylor, professors of philosophy at Stanford University and hosts of the radio program Philosophy Talk, have won a grant from the John Templeton Foundation to produce an eight-episode series called “A Philosophical Guide to the Cosmos.”
The series seems motivated by recent dismissals of philosophy by well-known scientists (see, for example here..
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..
$1 Million Philosophy Prize: Nominations Open
The Berggruen Institute’s Philosophy and Culture Center (previously) is now accepting nominations for its one million dollar philosophy prize, to be awarded to “a living thinker whose ideas have deeply influenced society and our way of life.” The prize is “intended as a life time achievement award for a modern day Socrates.” Nominations are due by May 31st, 2016, a..
A Movement Against For-Profit Journals
Is there a burgeoning movement in philosophy to avoid for-profit journals?
A professor of philosophy writes:
I’ve now met over twenty-five junior and/or rising senior (e.g., assistant to early associate) faculty around the globe who are adopting a new policy towards journal refereeing. I don’t know whether there’s some sort of “movement” along these lines, but..
Tyron Goldschmidt Has Written Nothing To Deserve A Drink
…so make sure you buy him one next time you see him. Goldschmidt, a visiting assistant professor of philosophy at Wake Forest University, has just published, in Dialectica, “A Demonstration of the Causal Power of Absences.” I’ve taken the liberty of reproducing the article in whole, below, to save folks who lack institutional access to Dialectica the $38 PDF downl..
Is Philosophy Unfriendly?
The latest interview at What Is It Like To Be A Philosopher? is up, and it’s with Dan Haybron (Saint Louis University). There’s a lot of interesting stuff in it, so worth a read. One theme that stuck out was the idea that, though most philosophers are quite nice, there is something “unfriendly” about philosophy. Professor Haybron says of grad school in philosophy:
..
Philosophy and the Digital Humanities
The above image is a detail from the famous “The Garden of Earthly Delights” by Hieronymus Bosch. “Enormously sized, lavishly detailed, and compellingly grotesque,” the work is now available to explore in an “online interactive adventure.” Viewers can take a “15 step” tour of the image, or go their own route, clicking on the flags placed on the image to listen to or..
How to Talk about the Philosophy Job Market with those on the Market
A philosopher currently on the job market writes in:
I wanted to start a thread/have a place for job market candidates to talk about what is, and is not, helpful for our friends/mentors/professors/colleagues to say around this time of year. The job market is, by all accounts, abominable (and not only for those of us who don’t land jobs—there are different stre..In Defense of Academic Writing
Cass Sunstein, writing in The Chronicle of Higher Education, defends serious academic writing against the pressures of popularization and accessibility. Articles in popular magazines and blogs “might be clear and beautifully written, but usually they don’t add much if anything to the stock of knowledge,” and “even when they are written by professors, they are often ..
APA Issues Job Market Calendar Guidelines
It used to be that the timing of the job market in philosophy was anchored by the publication schedule of Jobs for Philosophers and the practice of holding first-round interviews at the Eastern Division meeting of the American Philosophical Association (APA). Now that the ads are posted continuously over the year, and video interviews, which can be scheduled anytime..
APA Statement on Bullying and Harassment (Update: Coverage from IHE)
The American Philosophical Association (APA) has released a statement on bullying and harassment:
The American Philosophical Association appreciates the work of philosophers who bring their philosophical expertise to the public by way of op-ed essays, public forums, teach-ins, and other venues. We see this increased public engagement by philosophers as important ..
Philosophy References in Pop Music
Checking out Poison Season by Destroyer this past weekend I came across the following lyric in “Sun in the Sky“:
Tender is the night
That sweeps us up in its folly
I left my keys on the kite
And my violin on the trolley
Violin and trolley? That’s no coincidence. I looked up the band and it turns out frontman Dan Bejar was a philosophy major before he drop..
Invitations, Under Review, and other CV Questions
Two questions about what should go on CVs have come in recently. The first is about conference invitations:
I’ve been invited to/accepted to several conferences. However, budget constraints preclude me from attending almost all of them. Here is my question: is it permissible to list these invitations on my CV—I’m an early PhD student—with a proviso that I cou..
SEP, IEP, NDPR, Wi-Phi Weekly Update
Below are the latest changes and additions at 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. As usual, they were first posted in PhilPercs’ “Saturday Linkorama” along with many other links worth checking out…
Philosophy Data from the Open Syllabus Project (Guest Post by Andrew Higgins)
The following is a guest post* from Andrew Higgins, who recently received his PhD in philosophy from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He spent some time combing through data at the Open Syllabus Project (previously) and in the post presents some information that should be of interest to fellow philosophers. Thanks, Dr. Higgins!
Philosophy Data from..
Deeper Diversity and the Game of Professional Philosophy
On one understanding of diversity—perhaps an understanding that was once the dominant one—making professional philosophy more diverse means making it the case that it is not exclusively the province of just a few kinds of people (with “kind” understood in terms of sex, race, culture, ethnicity, class, sexuality, physical ability, education, experiences). Th..
Enrollment Caps: How High is Too High?
A philosopher on the job market writes in with a question about course size:
A school that may offer me a tenure line position has a 65 student cap for intro courses, and I would be doing all the work (no grad program, no student graders, etc.). It is likely that I would have have to teach 2 such courses at once during either Fall or Spring, in addition to handli..
The Most Popular Philosophy Videos
Kelly Truelove compiles data about the online activities of philosophers, astronomers, physicists, and others, under the handle @TrueSciPhi. Recently, at his site, he posted about the most popular online philosophy videos.
In the “Under 20 Minutes” category, the most popular items over the past year have been offerings from 8-Bit Philosophy and The School of Life..
Applying for Jobs You Won’t Take
A graduate student in philosophy asks:
“In today’s job market climate is it immoral to apply for a job and go deep in the interview process when one knows (not just reasonably foresees) that one will not take the job if offered it? Or is this practice, common among senior philosophers to increase their salary at their current institution, just a shrewd career str..
SEP, IEP, NDPR, Wi-Phi Weekly Update
Below are the latest changes and additions at 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. As usual, they were first posted in PhilPercs’ “Saturday Linkorama” along with many other links worth checking out…
Free Resources for Philosophy Teachers
TeachPhilosophy101 is an open-source compendium of resources helpful for teaching philosophy. It’s mission is “to enhance undergraduate student learning in introductory philosophy courses by providing free, user-friendly strategies and resources to the academic community.”
The site covers everything from planning a course (including things like syllabi constructi..
Statement from Synthese Editors / Moratorium on Special Issues
Death and Progress
A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. — Max Planck
In a recent paper, “Does Science Advance One Funeral at a Time?“, Pierre Azoulay (MIT), Christian Fons-Rosen (Universitat Pompeu Fabra), and Josh..
Interview Catch-22?
In the latest installment in his APAblog advice series on applying for jobs in philosophy, Allen Wood (Indiana University Bloomington) takes up the job interview, writing about what he sees as a dilemma for applicants:
Much could be written about the current circumstances, in which many very talented and well-trained young philosophers are applying for jobs at pl..
Virtual Dissertation Groups
Working on a dissertation? The latest round of the Virtual Dissertation Groups, organized by Joshua Smart of the University of Missouri, will be up and running soon. He writes:
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 w..
SEP, IEP, NDPR, Wi-Phi Weekly Update
What’s new at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP), Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (NDPR), and Wi-Phi Wireless Philosophy? The weekly update for these sites is below, courtesy of Philosophical Percolations. As usual, they were first posted in PhilPercs’ “Saturday Linkorama” along with many other links worth c..