research
Tag“Frustration, Mediocrity, and Drama”
A year in the academic life of the typical Nigerian philosopher is a long one defined by frustration, mediocrity (either self-imposed or externally imposed) and drama. (more…)
Philosophers Win ERC Starting Grants
The European Research Council (ERC) has announced the winners of its latest round of “starting grants,” and among them are several philosophers. (more…)
Philosophers Win Several Large Grants in the Netherlands
Several philosophers are among the winners of large grants from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO).
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Should We Get Rid of Peer Review?
“Where philosophers of science have claimed the social structure of science works well, their arguments tend to rely on things other than peer review, and that where specific benefits have been claimed for peer review, empirical research has so far failed to bear these out. Comparing this to the downsides of peer review, most prominently the massive amount of time a..
Philosopher-Created Research and Productivity Software for Philosophers
Jason Winning, who worked developing commercial database software for medical professionals before recently earning a Ph.D. in philosophy and cognitive science at the University of California, San Diego, has created a free, open source “personal productivity/database application” designed to be especially useful to philosophers. (more…)
Representation at the APA
“41 of 45 the APA’s officers, or 91.1%, are from research universities. While I understand that research plays a central role in the discipline, this strikes me as potentially a missed opportunity in several respects.” (more…)
Visualization of Gender Distribution in Philosophy Research Topics
Maximilian Noichl, whose visualizations we’ve discussed previously (here and here) has produced one depicting the gender distribution in philosophy research topics. (more…)
New: The Journal of Sociotechnical Critique
There’s a new, open-access, peer-reviewed scholarly journal focusing on philosophy of technology and related fields, with an emphasis on public engagement. (more…)
New Philosophy Research Institute in Australia
Australian Catholic University (ACU) last month launched a new philosophical research institute. (more…)
Australia’s Research Assessment Exercise: Results in Philosophy
The 2018 Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) report, a national assessment exercise that attempts to measure research quality at institutions of higher education in the country, has just been released. (more…)
Trends in Philosophy Hiring by Area of Specialization
Aero Data Lab, “a collaboration of scientists, ethicists, and policy-makers interested in improving the quality of the clinical research enterprise,” has published an analysis of trends in the academic philosophy job market over the past six years. (more…)
Who’s Down With QPPs? (Questionable Publication Practices) (guest post by Mark Alfano)
The following is a guest post* by Mark Alfano (Australian Catholic University & Delft University of Technology).
Philosopher Involved in Hoax Investigated by University
An institutional review board (IRB) at Portland State University has found that Peter Boghossian, an assistant professor of philosophy at the school, ought to have obtained IRB approval before conducting a project of submitting hoax articles to academic journals. (more…)
“When Tables Speak”: On the Existence of Trans Philosophy (guest post by Talia Mae Bettcher)
“Once we ask the question of what a woman is, things immediately become more complicated philosophically… I am actually quite willing to have a discussion with gender critical feminists about these issues. I would love a genuine conversation to determine whether bridge-building is possible. After all, non-trans and trans women alike face oppression. Sometimes the ..
Research on Public Attitudes Towards Philosophy & Philosophers
“Science communication is a profession in its own right with journals, higher degrees and careers paths,” notes philosopher Brendan Larvor (Hertfordshire). Yet there does not appear to be much of a “philosophy communication” analog. He notes, “so far as I know there is no research on public attitudes towards philosophy and philosophers.” (more…)
“Research Active Faculty” Criteria
(NOTE: I’m reposting this because there appeared to be problems with commenting on the original version.) A philosophy professor writes in with some questions about whether, and if so, how, various universities classify tenured faculty and distribute responsibilities among them: (more…)
When You Should Have Been Cited, But You Weren’t
A philosopher writes in with a query at the intersection of research ethics, publishing norms, and academic etiquette. (more…)
What Our Practice of Philosophy Talks Says about Philosophy
“The main thing is to be aware of how many of the students have only a very narrow background, and the pre-talk is a good opportunity for you to bring them up to speed on the existing literature,” .
“I don’t know any of the existing literature for this talk,” said the visitor, without a hint of embarrassment. (more…)
How To Do First-Class Work
Richard Hamming, a mathematician and scientist who worked on the Manhattan Project at the Los Alamos Laboratory, Bell Labs, and the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, gave a talk, “You and Your Research,” at a Bell Communications Research Colloquium Seminar in 1986, a few years before he died, on the difference between the great scientists who make s..
A Broad Conception of Philosophical Skills (guest post by David Wallace)
The following is a guest post* by David Wallace, professor of philosophy at the University of Southern California, on the skills an academic philosopher needs.
Funding for Undergraduate Philosophy Research
Margaret Atherton (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) writes in asking about how philosophy professors and students can best take advantage of the funding their schools offer for undergraduate research programs. (more…)
Big Philo and Distortions in the Philosophical Research Agenda
In a post at Digressions & Impressions, Eric Schliesser (Amsterdam), discusses the influence of big money on academic research, with a focus on “displacement effects.”
The contestation of ideas is costly in time and effort. This matters because time and effort are scarce resources. All other things being equal, it follows that if some ideas X are being discussed/..
Reference Management Software Revisited
Back in Fall of 2014 we discussed reference management software and apps. Bibdesk and Zotero seemed to be the most popular options at the time. A reader has written in asking us to revisit the topic, noting that when it comes to information technology, a year and a half is a long time. What new options are out there? Have people’s preferences changed? Let us know. T..
Journal Articles for Free
Do you know about Sci-Hub? Simon Oxenham at Big Think explains:
On September 5th, 2011, Alexandra Elbakyan, a researcher from Kazakhstan, created Sci-Hub, a website that bypasses journal paywalls, illegally providing access to nearly every scientific paper ever published immediately to anyone who wants it. The website works in two stages, firstly by attempting to..
“Reputation Traps” in Philosophy
In an essay at Aeon, Huw Price (Cambridge) writes about “reputation traps.”
His example of this is scientific research on cold fusion, or low-energy nuclear reaction (LENR), “the controversial idea that nuclear reactions similar to those in the Sun could, under certain conditions, also occur close to room temperature.” Cold fusion held out the promise of clean an..
Refutation Watch
Retraction Watch is profiled in today’s Chronicle of Higher Education (currently paywalled). The site keeps track of retractions in scientific research, with an emphasis on retractions owed to scientific misconduct.
Its founders, a pair of veteran science writers, were not just interested in big-ticket fraud cases; they were determined to apply scrutiny to scient..
North-South Academic Partnership on Poverty
Global Colleagues is a one-to-one, academic, multidisciplinary partnership program between scholars in the Global North and South working on issues related to poverty. The first cohort of partnerships began this past May, and the project manager, Robert Lepenies (European University Institute), informs me that there is a “high proportion of philosophers among the pa..
Keeping it Real in Philosophy: an Exchange
This summer has seen a series of guest posts by Elijah Millgram (Utah) on his new book, The Great Endarkenment: Philosophy for an Age of Hyperspecialization. One theme of the book is that there has been a steep increase in specialization that in some ways threatens knowledge. In the following post*, Millgram starts an exchange with Jerome Ravetz, author of Scientif..