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Philosophy Comics
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Calls for Papers / Grants / Etc.
Non-Academic Hires
Heap of Links
PhilPapers and Philosophy Documentation Center Collaboration
PhilPapers and the Philosophy Documentation Center will be working together to expand the amount of information available via PhilPapers and to better manage PhilPapers' subscription services. PhilPapers has also upgraded its search system. David Bourget and David Chalmers tell us what's going on and what to expect: (more…)
Philosophy Titles: the good, the witty, the clever
Mike Otsuka (LSE) and friends have been collecting humorous titles of philosophy works. He gave me permission to share the project with Daily Nous readers. So, below is a list of titles selected from their collection, starting with a classic. Feel free to add more in the comments. (more…)
July 22, 2014 46 5
Sherrilyn Roush (Berkeley) to King's College London
Sherri Roush, who works in philosophy of science and epistemology, and who is currently full professor at Berkeley, will be moving to the Philosophy Department at King's College London this summer to take up the inaugural Peter Sowerby Chair in Philosophy and Medicine. According to KCL Philosophy Department Head Rosa Antognazza, this is a newly endowed chair "create..
Philosophy Tag
In our previous round, Anthony Shiver (University of Georgia) tagged A.J. Cotnoir (University of St. Andrews). The game continues, as Cotnoir makes his move… What is the logic of negation? And how could disagreements over this question ever be genuine, and not — as Quine thought — amount to merely changing the subject? In his 'A Modality Called Ne..
1. Tonight, some PBS television stations will be airing a documentary on Grace Lee Boggs, a 98-year-old social activist who holds a PhD in philosophy from Bryn Mawr.
2. Some of Jeremy Bentham's writings on sex, which fit with the characteristically progressive program of early utilitarianism, have been published under the title Of Sexual Irregularities, and Other Wr..
Hey, remember Philosophy Tag? Someone got called home for dinner or something in the middle of the last game and that was that for a while, but now it is back, courtesy of Sara Bernstein (Duke). Let's see who she has tagged…
Consider the following case, Battlefield: You are at the battlefield and see that some of your soldiers are about to be slaughtered by..
The Hunt for Hume's Wine Cellar
An office block from the 1950s built atop David Hume's house is being demolished, and historians are hoping to find Hume's wine cellar underneath. "He was a famous chef and prided himself on his cooking and he had a famous wine cellar," historian Mike Turnbull says. Who knows what else will be, uh, exhumed from the site?
Unger's New Critique of Analytic Philosophy
Except when offering perfectly parochial ideas, mainstream philosophy still offers hardly anything except for just so many concretely empty ideas.
Peter Unger has a new book coming out entitled Empty Ideas: A Critique of Analytic Philosophy. You can get a sense of what he means by "concretely empty idea" from the blurb on about the book on his website. You can also ..
Social Psych in the Philosophy Classroom
Normally, self-affirmation is reserved for instances in which identity is threatened in direct ways: race, gender, age, weight, and the like. Here, Nyhan decided to apply it in an unrelated context: Could recalling a time when you felt good about yourself make you more broad-minded about highly politicized issues, like the Iraq surge or global warming? As it turns o..
Black Philosopher, White Academy
A post at Lewis Gordon's website about Bruce Kuklick's book on William Fontaine, an African-American philosopher who taught at the University of Pennsylvania from 1947-1967, has been making the rounds on social media lately.
William Thomas Fontaine was born on December 2, 1909, in Chester, Pennsylvania. An alumnus of the historic black institution Lincoln University..
Laurence Goldstein (1947-2014)
Laurence Goldstein, a professor of philosophy at the University of Kent, has died. Before joining the department at Kent, Goldstein had held appointments at the University of Hong Kong as well as the Universities of Auckland, Cape Town, Glasgow, St. Andrews, Swansea, and Washington. He specialized in philosophy of logic, philosophy of language, and Wittgenstein. The..
Report on the Yale Case from IHE
Inside Higher Ed reports on the recent social-media publicizing of allegations of sexual misconduct against "a professor of philosophy at Yale University." (previously here and here, with a discussion of some of the relevant issues here.)
Diversity at Undergraduate-Oriented Departments
In the 50-plus years of its existence, the philosophy department has offered only one tenure-track position to a woman, and zero positions to people of color.
So writes undergraduate Emily Beszhak, about the Department of Philosophy at Western Washington University, in a letter to the editor of the school paper. The occasion of the letter was a recent hire by the de..
May 14, 2014 51 0
Grading Shortcuts
For years I provided very extensive comments on students' papers. What stopped me was one of them, finally, saying "thank you." It immediately struck me that hundreds of students over many semesters hadn't cared enough to say anything to me about the comments, and in fact probably hadn't cared about them at all. I switched to a more minimal commenting approach, at l..
Louis CK Gets "Philosophical"
"Don't lie, because lying only fixes everything."
I don't know how philosophical Louis CK's really getting, but I'm enough of a fan of his to give the Washington Post's headline writer a pass on this one: "Five times Louis C.K. got really philosophical on late-night talk shows."
UPDATE: The Huffington Post has published an article on philosophical comedians, includ..
Since it is inevitable that cheesy colleagues and well-meaning friends will be regularly bringing these to all future parties and dinners, let's hope that they are good. Feel free to post your tasting notes.
Cognitive Decline and the Peak Age for Philosophy
Speaking of video games, Starcraft 2 is a "military science fiction real-time video game" that is used in at least one classroom to teach "critical thinking, problem solving, resource management, and adaptive decision making." It also has been used by researchers at Simon Fraser University to demonstrate that "measurable declines in cognitive performance begin to oc..
Five Years In Philosophy
Massimo Pigliucci, currently professor at CUNY and soon to be holder of the K.D. Irani Professorship in Philosophy there, takes the occasion of his 50th birthday to reflect on his first five years as a professor of philosophy (following 26 years as a biologist) and on the discipline as a whole, particularly the relationship between philosophy and science.
New Report on Adjunct Faculty
A new study on contingent or adjunct faculty has been released. The New York Times comments on it, and then itself comes in for some criticism for being a little late with the news: "The issue isn't that they're 'treated almost like transient workers' but that they'reactually transient workers. "
Philosophers win Guggenheim Fellowships
Philosophers Eva Feder Kittay (Stony Brook), L.A. Paul (UNC Chapel Hill), and John Palmer (University of Florida) are among the 2014 Guggenheim Fellowship winners. (via Leiter)
Are Sperm Donors Deadbeat Dads?
"I… think that donor conception is irresponsible. I sometimes compare it to 'deadbeat dads': men who abandon their wives and children and don't provide for them. I think a sperm donor is a kind of deadbeat dad who creates children and then doesn't care for them."
So says David Velleman in a brief interview in The Irish Times, in which he is also asked about the no..
Philosophers Among the 2014 ACLS Fellows
The 2014 Fellows of the American Council of Learned Societies have been announced, and the winners include five people working in philosophy: Michael Brownstein (New Jersey Institute of Technology), Alyssa DeBlasio (Dickinson College), Richard Moran (Harvard), William Newman (Indiana), and Anat Schechtman (Chicago). The fellowships include 6-12 months of salary repl..
Raiders of the Lost Death Mask
For the past few years philosopher Sean Kelly (Harvard) has been on a quest to locate the missing "death mask" of Blaise Pascal. You didn't even know it existed, let alone that it was missing, did you? The news story does not say that Kelly will be making use of the death mask in a bizarre cult ceremony in a secret temple located beneath Emerson Hall. But it doesn't..
Impoverished Graduate Students
"The poverty of graduate school is often joked about. How many professors reminisce fondly about just scraping by in grad school? How many people joke about the number of people they fit in their hotel room at the conference or how many times they had to eat ramen?" For some students from poorer families, though, the poverty of graduate school is no laughing matter…
One Month!
I started Daily Nous on March 7 — one month ago today. I would like to thank my friends and colleagues in the profession for their encouragement of this project. I am also very appreciative of those of you who have sent in news items for me to post. Please keep doing so! Occasionally I have had posts that ask for your opinions and input; I am grateful to those who ..
How Should Journals Instruct Referees?
"How, then, can philosophy become more inclusive and less boring?" Over at the Philosopher's Cocoon, Marcus Arvan suggests that one way might be to have journals give referees different instructions from what they typically do.
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.
Upcoming Faculty Moves
Berit Brogaard (University of Missouri-St. Louis; philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, philosophy of psychology) will be moving to University of Miami as full professor, starting in Fall 2014.
Douglas Lavin (Harvard; ethics, practical reasoning, action) will become a permanent lecturer in philosophy at University College London, starting Fall 2014.
Sigrún S..
Scott Paeth on The Political Views of Philosophy Majors
Bharath Vallabha on Philosophers on Prospect Magazine's Top 50 World Thinkers List
Patrick S. O'Donnell on Mini-Heap
Justin Weinberg on Mini-Heap
daniel.dennett on Mini-Heap
Matthew Smith on John Gardner (1965-2019)
Matt Weiner on Philosopher Named to New State Dept. Commission on Unalienable Rights
Jon Light on Philosophers on Prospect Magazine's Top 50 World Thinkers List
ehz on The Political Views of Philosophy Majors
ehz on Philosophers on Prospect Magazine's Top 50 World Thinkers List
Philip Kremer on How to Write a Referee Report (guest post by John Greco)
Lives of Philosophers
Derek Parfit (1942-2017) (updated)
Philosopher's Article On Transracialism Sparks Controversy (Updated with response from author)
Are History's "Greatest Philosophers" All That Great? (guest post by Gregory Lewis)
Daily Nous Features
Philosophers On the 2016 U.S. Presidential Race
Philosophy Grad Student Target of Political Smear Campaign (several updates)
Philosophers on Rachel Dolezal (updated)
Philosophers on the Supreme Court's Gay Marriage Ruling
Philosophers On Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Spoilers)
"Sometimes, people who lack philosophical training write books and essays on philosophy. These books and essays are usually very bad." — Michael Huemer (Colorado) on amateur philosophy
Bringing together philosophy of causation and philosophy of medicine — an interview with Rani Lill Anjum (NMBU) on her CauseHealth project
More on Colin McGinn's "ethical awareness" and "catastrophe avoidance" business consultancy — for example, if you are caught emailing a student about handjobs, argue that "virtually all jobs are 'hand jobs'… for all human work is manual work"
An interview with Aristotle on slavery and labor practices — (via David Gross)
"How experimental methods and findings from psycholinguistics can be adapted to analyse philosophical arguments" — a symposium at Brains on an article that seeks "to take experimental philosophy beyond the study of intuitions"
"While white supremacy places the white man at the centre of all things good, white guilt places him at the centre of all things evil" — Karthick Ram Manoharan (Calcutta) responds to Crispin Sartwell (Dickinson) on the racism of Western philosophy (via Preston Stovall)
Cosmopolitanism, statism, and avant-garde political agency — Lea Ypi (LSE) discusses her work and the role of political philosophy in current affairs with Carmen Pavel (KCL)
"There isn't a lot of room in philosophy—analytic philosophy—for somebody who wants to do something that has some kind of aesthetic value" — Barry Lam (Vassar) is interviewed at The Public Life of the Mind
"It seems worth exploring ways to boost the philanthropic sector whilst avoiding the potential downside of concentrating power in the hands of the ultra-wealthy" — Richard Yetter Chappell (Miami) has an idea: charity vouchers
Letter to a young black philosopher — observations and advice from Liam Kofi Bright (LSE)
Text-reading algorithm uses word-association analyses of scientific works to predict ideas humans missed — "In one experiment, researchers analyzed only papers published before 2009 and were able to predict one of the best modern-day thermoelectric materials four years before it was discovered in 2012" (via Gregor Flock)
Update on the philosophy teacher accused of trying to set fire to St. Patrick's Cathedral — he will be undergoing psychiatric evaluation
An art exhibit all about Chinese philosopher Laozi opened earlier this week in Cairo — with more than 30 works by 40 artists from 18 countries
The New Statesmen apologizes to Roger Scruton for not accurately representing his views — at the bottom of the linked article (via David McPherson)
In 2015, bioethicist Travis Rieder (Johns Hopkins) was involved in a motorcycle accident that crushed his left foot — he discusses his recovery, his struggle with opioid addiction, related policy matters, and the book he wrote about it, with Terry Gross on NPR's Fresh Air
Bringing together philosophy and archaeology — a profile of philosopher Alison Wylie (UBC)
Have you heard of the Lawn Chair Philosophy Foundation? — it donates philosophy library packages to Philadelphia's local homeless shelters and half-way houses and provides free philosophy courses throughout the city
Using statistics to determine when humanity's time will be up — a look at the Doomsday argument (Vox)
Using a graphic design archive to shed light on Otto Neurath's goals of unified science and informed democratic decision-making — John Capps and Evelyn Brister (RIT) curate the fascinating online exhibit, "Words Divide—Pictures Unite: Otto Neurath, Isotype, and the Unity of Science"
Where are all the women in ancient philosophy? — It's complicated, says Peter Adamson (Ludwig Maximilians Universität)
Sociologists on the belief that nature is good, cities, and conservationism — Hillary Angelo looks at four recent works
"It requires an unsettling, introspective honesty about what moves and motivates me" — Amy Olberding (Oklahoma) on one's own incivility
The true origins of famous philosophical ideas — (EC)
Colin McGinn launches consulting firm handling matters "from workplace ethics to catastrophe avoidance" — I'm assured this is not a joke. Do check out the list of advisors.
"Cute is one – perhaps very trivial, very tentative – way of exploring whether and how the paradigm of power can be exited" — Simon May (KCL) on cuteness
"The hidden nature of imagery (and qualia more generally) explains why a significant minority of humans are shocked and dismayed when they learn that other people are capable of generating visual [mental] images" — a discussion of aphantasia, with multiple links
How two ideas from Chinese philosophy are relevant to leadership in philosophy — Helen De Cruz (Oxford Brookes) on cultivating propriety and instituting proper structures
A rather stunning optical illusion — with a helpful animation
The ethics of the movie "Yesterday," in which a contemporary singer-songwriter is the only person to be aware of the Beatles ever existing — a writer consults with philosophers Elizabeth Anderson, Louise Antony, Benjamin Chan, Barry Lam, Todd Lekan, Ben Lennertz, Todd May, and Neal Tognazzini
"It's unsettling to witness the ease with which a few men writing over two millennia ago laid the groundwork for centuries of sexism. It's crushing to realize that so many of our contemporaries embrace the logic of those ancient arguments" — Christia Mercer (Columbia) in The Nation
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