sociology of philosophy
TagValue Capture in Philosophy
“Value capture is… where your values are rich and subtle or in the process of developing that way. And you get put in a setting or near a technology or an institution that presents you with a simplified, typically quantified version, and the simplified version takes over.”
The Personal Value of Conversations Across Serious Disagreement (guest post)
“I know that people are reluctant to voice objections to things I’ve said, not because I’ve given a convincing argument, but because I’m a person with a disability making claims about disability, and it just feels uncomfortable to voice hard objections… I get this… But for my work, it is poison.” (more…)
Out in FAFO County (guest post)
“How you talk does not merely express your internal state, it shapes it.” (more…)
Why Are Liberal Professors More Conservative On Campus? (guest post)
“Academics pride themselves on critical thinking and intellectual virtues. But intellectual honesty demands that we recognize when we are applying principles selectively.” (more…)
A Way Analytic Philosophy Is More Accessible than Other Humanities?
Philosopher Samantha Brennan (Guelph) is the daughter of bakers who emigrated from Northern England to Canada, and who never went to college. (more…)
The 253 Most Cited Works in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (guest post)
What are the most cited works in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP)? (more…)
Philosophy of Mind is Very Different Now (guest post)
A field of study may change over time, but since, whatever a field of study is, it’s made up of various kinds of things—researchers, norms, institutions, publications, questions, assumptions—its components may not change at the same rate, or in the same ways.
The Double-Binds of First-Generation (and other “Different”) Academics
Jennifer Morton (University of Pennsylvania) is the author of the latest contribution to #first-gen philosophers, a collection of reflections by philosophers who were among the first in their family to go to college. (more…)
Political Philosophy’s “Obsolescence” In a World of Trump, etc.
“I strongly suspect that much of political philosophy and political theory and not a little bit of ‘applied,’ policy-salient ethics of the last three to four score years, despite purporting to express eternal propositions that convey what we ought to do, went out of date this week.” (more…)
The Not-So-Silent Generation in Philosophy (guest post)
“What explains the Silent Generation’s disproportionate representation among the most influential philosophers in the mainstream Anglophone tradition?” (more…)
“The Constraints Imposed by the Discipline”
“When I finished my dissertation, a professor who had served on the admissions committee six years earlier told me that I was more interesting when I arrived. Philosophical training is something to survive, and this professor wasn’t sure I had made it.” (more…)
Doing Philosophy in English: A Survey for Native and Non-Native Speakers
“Academic English,” the dominant language of contemporary philosophy, is different from everyday English. What are the challenges faced by native and non-native speakers of everyday English as they work in this language? (more…)
The 378 Most-Cited Contemporary Authors in the SEP (guest post) (updated)
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP) is one of the most widely respected online reference works. Many philosophers and students have found it to be invaluable, and even non-philosophers have marveled at it. (more…)
Optimism about Philosophy
“I know a lot of people on twitter and social media complain about the current state of philosophy but I tend to be an optimist.” (more…)
How Risk-Averse is Academic Philosophy?
“Philosophical inquiry thrives when it is conducted in a spirit that risks overreaching a bit,” yet “the current incentive structure of academic philosophy in the United States favors cautious and modest research agendas for early career philosophers.” (more…)
Why a Philosopher’s Racist Email from 26 Years Ago is News Today
Influential Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom, well-known for his work on philosophical questions related to ethics, the future, and technology (existential risk, artificial intelligence, simulation), posted an apology for a blatantly racist email he sent to a listserv 26 years ago. (more…)
Is Any of Analytic Philosophy’s Dominance Owed to McCarthyism?
“It is clear enough that McCarthyism and its legacy were sufficient to make life hard for a particular strand of opposition to the analytic mainstream, characterized by its general adherence to empiricism and liberalism: those who were broadly Marxists.” (more…)
Citation Rates by Academic Field: Philosophy Is Near the Bottom (guest post)
Academia’s emphasis on citation rates is “mixed news” for philosophy: it can bring attention to high-quality work, but tends to make philosophy and other humanities fields look bad in comparison with other areas, says Eric Schwitzgebel (UC Riverside), in the following guest post. (more…)
To Be a Department of Philosophy (guest post)
“There are many reasons to expand the story we tell about philosophy. But a main reason is just that the best, most interesting, and even the correct answers to philosophical questions that interest us might be found anywhere.” (more…)
Escaping the “Feedback Loop” of Sexism in the History of Philosophy
“Some of the women discussed in this Issue cannot be slotted easily into a history that did not include their ideas in the first place.” (more…)
The Contingency of Philosophers’ Philosophies
In an interview, Josef Mitterer is asked about how approaches to philosophy may vary by whether they provide “an escape from contingency.” (more…)
“Departments of Cognitive Poker”? Competitiveness and Philosophy (guest post)
Is philosophy an especially competitive discipline? How? Is its competitiveness a problem? If so, what might we do about it? (more…)
“The Way Philosophy Is Personal”
Wittgenstein’s early private notebooks have just been published in English, translated by Marjorie Perloff (Stanford). Towards the end of an essay about them, Kieran Setiya (MIT) draws attention to “the way philosophy is personal.” (more…)
Comparing Three (No, Four) Top 20 Lists in Philosophy (guest post)
What, if anything, can be learned by comparing several different accounts of philosophers’ citation rankings and other indicators of disciplinary impact? (more…)
What Philosophers Believe: Results from the 2020 PhilPapers Survey
Results from the 2020 PhilPapers survey, with responses from nearly 1,800 philosophers (mainly from North America, Europe, and Australasia), to questions on a variety of philosophical subjects and problems, have now been published. (more…)
Optimism about Metaphysics (and Philosophy in General)
Is there reason to be optimistic about progress in metaphysics? Jessica Wilson (Toronto) thinks so. (more…)
Analytic Philosophy’s “Triple Failure of Confidence”
“Analytic philosophy suffers from a triple failure of confidence, especially among younger philosophers.” (more…)
The Leaky Pipeline into Academic Philosophy for Black Students in the U.S. (guest post)
In the following guest post*, Eric Schwitzgebel (UC Riverside) shares data he and other philosophers have collected on the percentages of philosophy students and degree holders in the U.S. who are black, in an attempt to understand the causes of the relative lack of black philosophers in the country. (more…)