philosophy
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Open Syllabus Project
Colleen Cressman (MIT) draws our attention to the Open Syllabus Project. The project is a work in progress aimed at creating “the first large-scale online database of university course syllabi as a platform for the development of new research, teaching, and administrative tools.” It has a collection of over a million syllabi culled from the internet and other source..
Summer Workshops Supporting Diversity in Philosophy
Athena in Action, a networking and mentoring workshop for graduate student women in philosophy, has posted a call for applicants to its 2016 workshop. Helpfully, the workshop website has a page that lists other summer diversity initiatives for philosophy:
For graduate women interested in mathematical philosophy:
Help With Philosophy Teaching
The editors of the Blog of the American Philosophical Association have begun a new series to help members of the profession with questions, challenges, and problems, about teaching philosophy. Jennifer Morton (CUNY) writes:
The Teaching Workshop is a new, regular feature on the Blog of the APA, run by the APA’s committee on the teaching of philosophy. Every other..
King Award Recipient: “Neither thrilled nor honored”
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports (may be paywalled) this morning that Naomi Zack, professor of philosophy at the University of Oregon, is the recipient of an award from her university in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. The story made the Chronicle for Zack’s reaction, in which she expresses gratitude for the award but is “neither thrilled nor honored” to r..
Most Important Philosophy Poll Poll
Just thought Daily Nous should up its poll game…
Vote here.
SEP, IEP, NDPR, Wi-Phi Weekly Update
Here are the past 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, appearing here via special arrangement with Philosophical Percolations. As usual, they were first posted in PhilPercs’ “Saturday Linkorama” along with ..
“American Society for the Protection of Philosophers” Proposed
In a comment in the ongoing discussion regarding the reaction to George Yancy’s “Dear White America,” University of Oregon professor of philosophy Naomi Zack puts forward the idea of an “American Society for the Protection of Philosophers.” She volunteers herself for it and asks interested others to contact her:
The American Philosophical Association should expre..
NEH Summer Programs in Philosophy
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) offers summer programs for pre-college teachers and for those who teach at colleges and universities. Below are ones related to philosophy.
For pre-college teachers:
Existentialism
Deadline:March 1, 2016
Dates: June 27-July 29 (5 weeks)
Project Director(s): Thomas Wartenberg
Location: South Hadley, MA
For mo..
To Live After, and During, the Reflection
Nakul Krishna, a graduate student at Oxford, has written a beautiful essay at The Point called “Add Your Own Egg.” Go read it, and we can talk about it here, if you’d like.
The essay originates from the feeling that something is missing from contemporary philosophical practice. It is not a piece of simple declinism that romanticizes the past. Rather, it wonders whe..
Tips for Writing Letters for Applicants to Grad Programs
The recent spate of posts on letters of recommendation (students writing for profs, things best left out of the letters, and being asked to write your own letter) prompted a reader to send in another query about them—one we arguably ought to have started the week with:
Many of us teach philosophy at an institution without a graduate program. So while we write ..
New Philosophy Program for Female and Transgender Undergrads
A new initiative going by the name of “Compass Workshops” is starting up next month. Billed as “a philosophy workshop for female and transgender undergraduates,” the workshops
provide women and gender minority undergraduates a chance to meet each other, and to explore various sub-disciplines within philosophy, in a relaxed and supportive environment. The workshop..
Steup to Leave Purdue to Become Chair of Colorado (updated)
Matthias Steup, currently professor of philosophy and head of the Philosophy Department at Purdue University, will become chair of the University of Colorado Philosophy Department starting in fall of 2016. Steup works in epistemology and metaphysics. A press release about the appointment is here.
UPDATE: David Boonin, currently interim chair at Colorado, writes:
..
Unsolved Problems in Philosophy
Did you know that Wikipedia has a “List of Unsolved Problems in Philosophy” page? It lists only 20 problems (philosophy’s doing better than I thought!) including: “the problem of the criterion,” “the mind-body problem,” “the hard problem of consciousness,” and “the problem of induction.” Ironically, mereology and universals are left off of the list. (Admittedly, it ..
The Purification of Philosophy
institutionalization of philosophy made it into a discipline that could be seriously pursued only in an academic setting. This fact represents one of the enduring failures of contemporary philosophy.
So argue Robert Frodeman and Adam Briggle (both of University of North Texas). Philosophy’s institutionalization in the modern research university was a kind of “pu..
SEP, IEP, NDPR, Wi-Phi Weekly Update
Here are the past 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, appearing here via special arrangement with Philosophical Percolations. They were first posted in PhilPercs’ “Saturday Linkorama” along with many other..
Philosophy Travel & Tourism
Guy Crain, professor of philosophy at Rose State College, writes in with the following inquiry:
I’m wondering if there is a resource with collected information about philosophy-related travel/site-seeing. For instance, is it possible to visit John Stuart Mill’s birthplace? What libraries or museums (if any) have first editions of philosophical works on display?..
The Paradox of Unanimity
Under ancient Jewish law, if a suspect on trial was unanimously found guilty by all judges, then the suspect was acquitted. This reasoning sounds counterintuitive, but the legislators of the time had noticed that unanimous agreement often indicates the presence of systemic error in the judicial process, even if the exact nature of the error is yet to be discovered. ..
Trump’s Rhetoric and Frogs in Warming Water
Princeton University Press has begun an “Election 2016: Hot Button Issues” series at its blog and its inaugural post, “Donald Trump and Mass Incarceration” is by Jason Stanley (Yale). In the post, Stanley argues that Trump’s articulation of xenophobic, Islamophobic, racist, and harshly retributivist views is problematic not only because his campaign success so far r..
Issues with Graduate Admissions
“Ph.D. programs are one of the few parts of higher education where admissions decisions are made without admissions professionals.” So begins Inside Higher Ed’s discussion of Inside Graduate Admissions: Merit, Diversity and Faculty Gatekeeping by Julie Posselt (Michigan). Posselt observed ten different U.S. departments as they narrowed down their pool of PhD program..
New Philosophy and Dinosaur Blog
Philosophy and dinosaurs. Is it philosophy of paleontology, or just really really really ancient philosophy? Whatever it is, I love this combination. And now there is a way to get your philosophy of paleontology in compsognathus*-sized bites at Extinct — “a resource for philosophers, palaeontologists, and enthusiasts.”
Extinct is a group blog featuring contribu..
Welcome the APA’s New Blog
The American Philosophical Association (APA) has launched its new blog. Though I had urged as a possible name “APAplexy” (during a particularly turbulent time here, comments-wise), and others had chimed in with other options such as “APAcalypse,” “APAria,” “APAdosis,” etc., the blog is called “Blog of the APA” (BAPA? BOT-APA?). Lead editor Lewis Powell (Buffalo), in..
Philosophers, Physicists, Others Win €2.5m to Study the Large Hadron Collider
An interdisciplinary team consisting of academics working in philosophy, physics, history, and sociology have won a 2.5 million euro grant to fund a three year project about the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator. It first started up on 10 September 2008, and remains the lat..
SEP, IEP, NDPR, Wi-Phi Weekly Update
The winter holiday has slowed things down a little, here and elsewhere in the philosophy world. Normally, I’d post the past week’s additions to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP), Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (NDPR), and Wi-Phi Wireless Philosophy, yet only the first two have any updates: They were first ..
A Modest Proposal: Slow Philosophy (guest post by Jennifer Whiting)
The following is a guest post* by Jennifer Whiting (Pittsburgh).
A Modest Proposal: Slow Philosophy
by Jennifer Whiting
In his review of Moral Prejudices by Annette Baier, Colin McGinn claimed that Baier had proposed that universities accommodate the demands of women’s reproductive clocks by allowing women to postpone tenure decisions until the age of 50 ..
New Heights (Lows?) in Philosophy Job Application Requirements
A correspondent who prefers to remain anonymous brought to my attention the job advertisement of California State Sacramento, and sent along the following commentary:
As those on the market all know, the application process can be a hassle. In addition to all the intellectual investment and tedious editing that goes into putting together a decent portfolio, depar..
Favorite Philosophy of the Year 2015
A reader asks:
Was wondering if you could write a post asking for people’s favorite philosophy articles/books of the year.
Sure!
People, what were your favorite philosophy articles or books published in or around 2015?
Done.
Now it’s your turn, people…
Best Philosophy Blog Post Winners Announced
3 Quarks Daily has announced the winners of its 2015 prize for best philosophy blog post:
- Top Quark, $500: Vidar Halgunset, Slow Corruption
- Strange Quark, $200: Daniel Silvermint, On How We Talk About Passing
- Charm Quark, $100: Lisa Herzog, (One of) Effective Altruism’s blind spot(s)
Of the top two posts, Judge John Collins (Columbia) writes: “they w..
Daily Nous Year In Review
2015 is drawing to a close. I hope you had a good year.
The year saw Daily Nous’s first birthday (in March) and a number of new features, including:
- Philosophers On Series: group posts consisting of brief remarks by several philosophers on topics of current interest.
- Ought Experiment: the column doling out “personal advice for your academic life,” written b..