AAPT Members

On Jim Thomas's (Instructor, UMBC) listing in the 'top ten' professors at ratemyprofessor.com
The Retriever Weekly

The entertainment section of Perth, Australia's 'The West Australian' has a profile of a US band (which, admittedly, I've never heard of) who takes their inspiration from Philosophy - Josiah Royce, of all people:
Cold War Kids find inspiration in philosophy : thewest.com.au

Math Geek Calculates Chances of Finding a Girlfriend, Reports Bad News » The UberReview
157,060 to 1 apparently. At least, in 1998. 

David Chalmers announced the launch of PhilPapers: Online research in philosophy today on his blog Fragments of Consciousness. It will no doubt be an invaluable resource for those of us at small colleges and universities who lack access to most Philosophic journals (my library subscribes to precisely 5 journals). Much thanks to all those involved with the project.

Over at the Language Log, Heidi Harley posted an entry relating an analysis of the number of dissertations in an area of specialization versus the number of jobs available.  The results are fairly terrifying. I do wonder why we in Phil can't do the same kind of analysis, rather than perpetually relying on conventional wisdom and the general 'buzz' about the market every year.

Language Log » Linguists on the job market

As a part of our self-study last year, I surveyed the number of PhilMind jobs at Liberal Arts colleges that were listed in the JFP. In doing so, I was amazed to discover how little information there is available on the practice of philosophy in the academy. The APA publishes no information on dissertations, the JFP is not easily searchable by AOS / AOC, the JobSeeker database is essentially useless and the last update to the national survey of courses offered was in 1994! (Philosophy in American in 1994). The data that the APA does provide (see 'Data on the profession') are woefully out of date:  read more »

A very interesting run-down of the recent attempt to replicate Milgram's famous obedience study. Relevant to PhilScience and Ethics:
Cognitive Daily: Would we still obey? The first replication of Milgram's work in over 30 years

Our own Peter Worley's Philosophyshop (he was at the '08 conference, but I can't find him the membership list of this site), is profiled on journalism.co.uk:
Journalism.co.uk :: Philosophical Enlightenment – South East London Style
Congratulations, Peter

globeandmail.com: The meaning of life? Just ask a philosopher

globeandmail.com: Thinking, quite deeply, on their feet

TheStar.com | Entertainment | Examined Life: Philosophy's greatest hits

I don't know if it will be released in the US, but we can hope.

Examined Life takes philosophy to the streets - Film & Music

And more, as they come in:

Astra Taylor Explains the "Examined Life" - IFC.com - 2/18

Update 2/23:

The coverage finally reached the NYTimes:

Cornel West and Other Theoreticians in Astra Taylor’s ‘Examined Life’ - Thinkers in Transit, Philosophy in Motion - NYTimes.com

UPDATE 2/24: Now 'New York Movies':  read more »

I bookmarked this one ages ago, but forgot to blog it. USNews and World Report ran a series in Dec. on '50 Ways to Improve Your Life'. Diane Cole wrote a short note called "Learn Philosophy," highlighting the ethics bowl.

In January, they published a letter to the editor from Felicia Nimue Ackerman, Professor of Philosophy, Brown University:

As a philosophy professor, I am embarrassed to see an officer of my
professional organization advertising philosophy as teaching skills
that are "wonderfully transferable" to a range of careers without
giving any hard evidence for his claim ["Brush Up Your Socrates"].
Must professional philosophers hawk their product like used-car
salesmen nowadays. Whatever happened to studying philosophy for its own
sake rather than as a smart career move?

She has a point, especially about the lack of evidence. But come on. The original article contained 344 words. And not everyone teaching Philosophy has the luxury of teaching solely to students pursuing wisdom for its own sake. Many of us, who teach at colleges and universities not fully endowed, are required to defend our value in the academy in terms of our support for other more practical pursuits, such as pre-law.  read more »

By Jonathan D. Moreno, "philosopher by training", and professor of bioethics in the Department of History and Sociology of Science and the Department of Medical Ethics.
1/20/09, Talk About Teaching and Learning - Almanac, Vol. 55, No. 18

who returned to his home town to work as an attorney:
The Palestine Herald, Palestine, Texas - Coming full circle

The 'DakotaStudent' has an profile of Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religion Jack Weinstein's 'Institute for Philosophy in Public Life'
HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN? - News

Another story on the institute, this time from the GrandForksHerald: Institute for Philosophy forms at UND |  Grand Forks Herald  | Grand Forks, North Dakota

The Union of Catholic Asian News has a fascinating story on the Seventh International Whitehead Conference.  The opening paragraph claim is: "Philosophers who took part in an international congress say ideas of
the late British philosopher Alfred North Whitehead can help create
peace in a multi-religious society such as India." While I suspect that there were themes at the conference OTHER than that, it is an interesting take on a side of Whitehead that I rarely consider:
Union of Catholic Asian News » News Archive » International Philosophy Congress Probes Ideas For Peace Among Religions

OK, so it isn't quite up for Philosophy major after graduation, but how many professional hockey players do we have anyway? His characterization of philosophy (the last two paragraphs) might be suitable for marketing material.
Five Things You Don't Know About Dave Bonk - Today's Paper > Sports > Condors | Bakersfield.com - Kern County news, events, shopping & search

I require students in Critical Thinking to collect arguments on a topic of their choosing demonstrating a variety of argumentative taxa (i.e. 'deductive', 'appeal to authority', etc). I just came across this letter to the editor, which makes the following claim:

I was a chemist, not an astronomer or physicist, but I understand that
there is no science that demonstrates that the Earth rotates and/or
orbits. It is also my understanding that there have been at least four
laboratory experimental procedures, going back to 1871, which
demonstrate that the Earth is not moving or possibly moving very
slightly.

Fantastic! Here's the link: Daily Commercial

Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess dies at 96 - MSNBC Wire Services- msnbc.com

Philosopher Arne Naess has died

Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess dies at 96 - earthtimes.org

Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess dies

Arne Naess, Norwegian philosopher, dies at 96 - International Herald Tribune
 

Philosopher Developed 'Deep Ecology' Phrase - washingtonpost.com

Arne Naess | Ecology philosopher, 96 | Philadelphia Inquirer | 01/17/2009

Arne Naess - Telegraph  read more »

Five Questions: Patrick Madden - The Record News: Serving Troy and its surrounding communities (Troyrecord.com)

WTHR - Indianapolis News Weather -Marian College mourns loss of philosophy Prof. Denis Kelly

I've used Orwell's 'Politics and the English Language' to teach writing for years, even though I am by no means an grammar determinist, prescriptivist or apocalypse theorist.  I find his lambasting of modern academic prose both accurate and, for my students, revolutionary. His 6 rules for good writing are:

1. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
2. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
3. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print
4. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

I've always viewed these rules as suitably well-qualified. The 6th, after all, provides carte blanche for doing pretty much whatever one has to to get one's point across. (bonus points for counting the number of rules broken in that sentence).  But the linguists over at language log (another blog I read regularly) take him much more literally.  See (in chronological order):  read more »

We've been hearing for a while that the ID backers over at the dDiscovery institute have set their sites on Phil Mind. Well, I hate to say it, but they are here:
Evolution News & Views: Dr. Larry Moran Flunks Philosophy

Michael Egnor advances Jackson's Knowledge Argument as a refutation against materialism. That isn't so bad in itself, as it does initially pose a problem for materialism. But the only rejoinder to the argument he mentions is the claim (citing Dennet) that "The primary materialist recourse has been to deny the reality of subjective mental states."  Uh... No. At the risk of perpetuating the annoying 'lolcat' meme:

 read more »