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    Month: September 2014

    • The MacArthur Drought in Philosophy

      by Eric Schwitzgebel See here.  The last MacArthur “genius” fellowship awarded to someone they classified as philosopher was in 1993. On the whole, scholars outside of philosophy tend, I think, not to see much value in what most professional philosophers do.  The MacArthur drought is one reflection and measure of that. Not that prizes matter.…

    • Philosophy’s Western Bias and What Can Be Done About It

      Guest post by Christian Coseru One may be forgiven for thinking, on reading Brian Leiter's diatribe against identity politics and the danger it poses for academic philosophy, that there is a swell in 'consumer demand' for expanding the philosophy curriculum in questionable directions and for the wrong reasons. To clarify: the 'consumer' in this case is graduate students…

    • Changing Philosophical Career Paths

      By: Samir Chopra I began my academic philosophy career as a 'logician.' I wrote a dissertation on belief revision, and was advised by a brilliant logician, Rohit Parikh, someone equally comfortable in the departments of computer science, philosophy and mathematics. Belief revision (or 'theory change' if you prefer) is a topic of interest to mathematicians, logicians, and computer…

    • Quick survey on journal submissions

      I would be very grateful if NewApps readers who are philosophers could fill out the following brief, anonymous survey on journal submissions. The aim is to get a picture of what kinds of journals you submit to, especially to the journals that are regarded as the top general philosophy journals. https://surveys.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_6lM1JE4Q88BruhD Results will be posted…

    • What makes a mathematical proof beautiful?

      By Catarina Dutilh Novaes  (Cross-posted at M-Phi)   In December, I will be presenting at the Aesthetics in Mathematics conference in Norwich. The title of my talk is Beauty, explanation, and persuasion in mathematical proofs, and to be honest at this point there is not much more to it than the title… However, the idea…

    • Knowing The Time And Manner of Our Death

      By Samir Chopra The characters in Nevil Shute's On The Beach know that barring natural disasters, and other unforeseen circumstances, they will die in a few months time–in September 1963–of radiation sickness, brought on by the thirty-seven day thermonuclear war that has already wiped out life in the northern hemisphere. They know its painful and uncomfortable symptoms–diarrhea and vomiting–will…

    • Would knowledge of God’s existence interfere with our ability to make morally significant choices? Insights from the cognitive science of religion

      Although over half the world' population are theists (according to Pew survey results), God's existence isn't an obvious fact, not even to those who sincerely believe he exists. To put it differently, as Keith DeRose recently put it, even if God exists, we don't know that he does. This presents a puzzle for theists: why…

    • Normalizing Civility, Policing Critique, Enforcing Silence and Misunderstanding Collegiality

      By Leigh M. Johnson How we ought to understand the terms "civility" and "collegiality" and to what extent they can be enforced as professional norms are dominating discussions in academic journalism and the academic blogosphere right now.  (So much so, in fact, that it's practically impossible for me to select among the literally hundreds of…

    • Council of UC Faculty Associations Statement on “Civility” and Academic Freedom

      by Eric Schwitzgebel Just found this in my inbox: On Friday Sept. 5, Chancellor Dirks of UC Berkeley circulated an open statement to his campus community that sought to define the limits of appropriate debate at Berkeley. Issued as the campus approaches the 50th anniversary of the Free Speech Movement, Chancellor Dirks’ statement, with its…

    • Using Fiction in Philosophy Reading Lists

      By Samir Chopra     In my post yesterday, I had written of how discussion centering on a classic philosophical debate could be sparked by a reading of fiction. (The upper-tier core class I'm teaching, Philosophical Issues in Literature, is of course, all about that!) But fiction features in another reading list of mine–via Walter Kaufman's eclectic anthology, Religion from…