public philosophy
TagBuchanan Wins 2015-16 PBK Romanell Professorship
Allen Buchanan (Duke/KCL) is the 2015-2016 winner of the Phi Beta Kappa Romanell Professorship. The Romanell Professorship is awarded on the basis of one’s “distinguished achievement and substantial contribution to the public understanding of philosophy.” It includes a $7,500 stipend and three lectures. More details about Buchanan’s work and why he won are here.
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Public Philosophy Op-Ed Contest Winners
The American Philosophical Association’s Committee on Public Philosophy has announced the winners of the latest round of its Public Philosophy Op-Ed Contest, for op-eds written in 2014. The winners are:
- Mariana Alessandri (University of Texas Pan American / Rio Grande Valley), “Companions in Misery”, The Stone (The New York Times)
- Adam Hosein (Colorado), “Pro..
What Would Be in a Philosophy Museum? (updated)
How can we introduce those outside of higher education to philosophy? One little-used means is the museum.
I was not aware of any philosophy museums, but a recent news item on the Empathy Museum, ” the world’s first museum dedicated to helping visitors develop the skill of putting themselves in others’ shoes” put the idea in mind. (The Empathy Museum is the crea..
Descartes on Spring Break
Tommy Maranges, AKA Philosophy Bro (@PhiloBro) has written a book. It’s a translation of Descartes’ Meditations. A translation into which language, you ask? Modern vernacular. Or, as the kids say, “as the kids say.”
His version starts off with:
HOLY SHIT FUCK ME, it feels like my eyeballs are going to explode. I barely remember shit and I lost my phone, I blew..
In-Person Philosophy Courses for the Public
Does your institution offer in-person philosophy courses for the public? The Sydney School of Continental Philosophy (School of the Arts & Media, UNSW Australia) and The Melbourne School of Continental Philosophy (University of Melbourne) do. Courses are run during school breaks and in the evenings, are relatively inexpensive, have no prerequisites and no assessment..
Philosophy’s Impact (updated)
The applied philosophy literature is full of insights about practical problems. But in our survey of the literature we find essentially no accounts of how a philosopher is supposed to ensure that these insights have an impact. It’s a bias rooted in the discipline: one has exhausted one’s intellectual task and professional obligation when one deposits a peer-reviewed..
Logic Problem Goes Viral (updated)
Perhaps you saw this logic problem, purported to have been given to fifth graders in Singapore, flying around social media yesterday:
That’s right: a logic problem has gone viral.
It turns out that the problem was from a math olympiad test for high-school students, but perhaps the “are you smarter than a fifth grader from Singapore” framing helped propel t..
APA Calls for Nominations for Best Op-Eds by Philosophers
Did you read a particularly good op-ed in 2014 that was written by a philosopher? Are you a philosopher who wrote a particularly good op-ed that was published in 2014? Well, in that case, you should send that piece over to the American Philosophical Association (APA) for consideration for the Committee on Public Philosophy’s 2014 Op-Ed Contest. The Committee says:
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Karyn Freedman Wins Non-Fiction Award
Karyn Freedman, associate professor of philosophy at the University of Guelph, has won the 2015 British Columbia National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction for her book, One Hour in Paris: A True Story of Rape and Recovery. The award includes a C$40,000 prize. The prize jury said:
Karyn L. Freedman’s One Hour In Paris is a book about rape, but, more than that, it’s ..
Joseph Heath Wins Political Writing Prize
Joseph Heath (Toronto) has been awarded the 2014 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing for his book, Enlightenment 2.0: Restoring Sanity to Our Politics, Our Economy, and Our Lives. The prize, which includes C$25,000, is awarded by the Writers’ Trust of Canada
for a book of literary nonfiction that captures a political subject of relevance to Canadian rea..
The Philosophy Shop
The Philosophy Foundation, an educational charity in the UK, is trying to set up a community space in South-East London to bring philosophy to younger students and the broader community, to be called “The Philosophy Shop.” A lot of their work is done in school classrooms, but they would like to be able to continue their work after the school day is done, as well as..
Reputational Cost of Public Philosophy?
In his guest post the other day, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong wrote:
many top departments today view colleagues with suspicion when they choose to write accessible books instead of technical journal articles. Philosophers often risk their professional reputations when they appear on television or write for newspapers or magazines. How can they be serious about philos..
The Dress: A Philosophy Problem Gone Viral (a few updates)
Making the rounds yesterday was the dress. Take a look, and figure out which two colors it is:
Some people see the dress as white and gold, others see it as blue and black. Which do you see it as?
The phenomenon is interesting and fun, and there are explanations of it at Wired (more science-minded), Vox (more philosophical), and elsewhere. Millions of peop..
Can We Save Philosophy? (Guest Post by Robert Kirkman) (updated)
The following is a guest post* by Robert Kirkman, associate professor in the School of Public Policy at Georgia Tech and director of its Center for Ethics and Technology, in which he takes up the problem of academic philosophy’s seeming irrelevance to others both inside and outside of academia.
Can We Save Philosophy?
by Robert Kirkman
I write this from the ..
Lupe Fiasco Hands Off Philosophy Sunday to WiPhi
Rapper Lupe Fiasco has been running a weekly philosophy discussion on Twitter called Philosophy Sunday (#PhilosophySunday). With a new album about to come out, he is handing off responsibility for the discussion over to the folks at Wi-Phi. Their first run at it will be tomorrow, January 18th, starting at 2pm EST. Gaurav Vazirani, a philosophy PhD student at Yale an..
The Philosophy of Philosophical Institutions
Robert Frodeman and Adam Briggle (both of the University of North Texas) have published an essay, “Socrates Untenured,” at Inside Higher Ed that makes a case for what they call “field philosophy” — a “context-driven, problem-focused, and interdisciplinary” approach. Their hope is that “a new philosophical practice, where philosophers work in real time with a variet..
Philosophers on Torture
The Report on the C.I.A.’s Use of Torture from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence was released several days ago. As we have occasionally done in the past for other events, I would like to open a spot here at Daily Nous for comment on the report, for collecting links to commentary elsewhere from philosophers on this report, for suggestions of philosophical o..
UNC Wins “Excellence and Innovation” Prize
The Outreach Program of Department of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has won a prize for “Excellence and Innovation in Philosophy Programs.” The prize is offered by the American Philosophical Association and the Philosophy Documentation Center. “This prize recognizes philosophy departments, research centers, institutes, societies, publ..
Philosophy on Homelessness
The University of Oregon Department of Philosophy has “Community Philosophy Institutes” on various topics, and one of its current projects is “Homelessness and Home.” Organized by Professor Naomi Zack, who is also teaching a course on the subject, Homelessness and Home aims to “support creative, intellectual, and practical address of the problems of homelessness. Th..
Philosophers on the Israeli – Palestinian Conflict
Jason Stanley (Yale) has a piece in today’s Frankfurter Allgemeine, a German newspaper. It is entitled “An Open Letter to the Protestors on the streets of Berlin chanting ‘Jude, Jude, feiges Schwein, komm heraus und kämpf allein’ ”” which looks at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and reactions to it, as well as the ideas of democracy and pluralism, through the lens ..
Civic Engagement in Philosophy Classes
Ramona Ilea (Pacific University) shares news of an online resource for philosophy professors she has helped create called Engaged Philosophy. The site is a repository of information about incorporating projects of civic engagement into philosophy courses.
When students do civic engagement projects in our philosophy classes, they commit to making changes in their com..
“That Can Really Mess You Up”
That’s Neil deGrasse Tyson on majoring in philosophy. Chris Hardwick, over at Nerdist, interviews the famed astrophysicist and host of Cosmos, and one of the topics is philosophy (starting at 20:19). deGrasse Tyson thinks there is too much questioning in philosophy. Still, he has one question for philosophers: “Why are you wasting your time?” Sigh. There’s no one li..
Philosopher Meets Philanthropist
William MacAskill, Oxford philosophy graduate student and soon-to-be fellow at Emmanuel College at Cambridge University, sits down with Peter Buffett (son of Warren Buffett) to hash out their differences over philanthropy.
Design and Violence
The Museum of Modern Art is hosting a series of debates on issues at the intersection of design and violence.
Too often, and naïvely, we only celebrate the positive impact that design artifacts have on the world. However, design also has a history of violence that, unless linked overtly to political and social suppression and upheaval, often goes unexplored. Humanit..
The Ethics of Driverless Cars
Would you buy a car that would drive you off a cliff, to your death, in order to save the lives of several pedestrians your car would otherwise run over? The world of driverless cars will likely soon be upon us, and with them a number of questions like that and scenarios that make something like this seem simple. Aeon Magazine has a new article from Tom Chatfield on..
Philosophy Talk’s “Community of Thinkers”
Philosophy Talk, the philosophy radio show hosted by John Perry and Ken Taylor, is seeking help. “After 10 years of getting roughly 80% of our financial support from Stanford University, Philosophy Talk can no longer count on that level of support from the University.” They have introduced a funding program called “Community of Thinkers” that gives donors special pe..
Harman & Martin on Mitochondrial DNA Transfer in the NY Times
Elizabeth Harman (Princeton) and Adrienne Martin (Penn) have a short letter to the editor in the New York Times in response to this article about mitochondrial DNA transfers.
When Others Philosophize in Public
Today’s column by economist Gregory Mankiw in the New York Times provides an occasion to reflect on a problem for public philosophy. In the column, Mankiw contrasts a rudimentary form of utilitarianism with a thoughtless version of the precautionary principle. Even if you agree with the policy prescriptions that he concocts from this mix of ingredients, no philosoph..