Moved forward from
Tue, May 24, 2011.
This post has now received many more comments and is quite a bit more usefull. I found the comment on the bottom of this post particularly interesting.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Monday, May 30, 2011
'Great Courses' free: Philosophy and the Modern Age
Philosophy and the Modern Age (you tube) , this is one of the "Great Courses" from the teaching company. If I had watched this as a undergraduate I would have had better overall view of philosophy.
Starts really simple gets more interesting later on. covers a lot of topics, See below.
Starts really simple gets more interesting later on. covers a lot of topics, See below.
The videos are not organized on youtube.
Here is each video listed in order:
Fordham Epistemology and Ethics Workshops
http://peasoup.typepad.com/From Pea Soup Blog:
Starting next year, Fordham will be hosting a series of epistemology and ethics workshops at its Lincoln Center Campus in Manhattan. For the 2011-2012 academic year, speakers will include...:
Sunday, May 29, 2011
CFP: PACIFIC SOCIETY FOR WOMEN IN PHILOSOPHY
CALL FOR PAPERS AND PANELS
PACIFIC SOCIETY FOR WOMEN IN PHILOSOPHY
ANNUAL FALL MEETING
November 4-5, 2011
California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA
Host: Nellie Wieland, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of
Philosophy
This year’s theme is “Recognition.” P-SWIP welcomes explorations
of this theme from all philosophical traditions.
#More
Recognition can take the forms of legal entitlement,
compensation, associative obligations, group identity, or targeted exclusion. We invite discussion of the ways in
which recognition succeeds and fails, when we are (mis)recognized in loving
relationships or through community solidarity, or when we are (mis)recognized
and granted or denied rights, inclusion, or identities. We would like to encourage historical,
critical, moral/political, phenomenological, and other approaches to this
theme.
Although “Recognition” is our theme this year, P-SWIP
welcomes submissions on any relevant topics in feminist philosophy.
Essays should not exceed 4000 words, standard format, prepared for
anonymous review, and submitted electronically in WORD or PDF formats.
Draft or otherwise incomplete submissions will not be accepted.
Submission deadline: September 1, 2011
P-SWIP has a small number of travel
grants available for graduate students and underemployed philosophers. Please
indicate with your submission materials if you are interested in applying for
one of these grants.
Please submit essays to Emily S. Lee, Executive Secretary, Pacific
SWIP at
e...@fullerton.edu.
Notification of acceptance will be made by September 29, 2011.
Come join us and celebrate women in philosophy!
Emily S. Lee,
Assistant Professor
Department of Philosophy
California State University, Fullerton
Fullerton, CA 92834
657-278-3694
e...@fullerton.edu
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Videos: ALL Bryan Magee's Philosophy Interviews ((tags: media, free)
FINALLY! All Bryan Magee's philosophy interviews in one place (HERE)
I highly recommend these interviews. It's really interesting to watch the philosophers we read in action.
Quine, Dreyfus, Derrida, Singer, Ayer, Searle, Williams, Marcuse and others
Found on Leiter reports
Join me on Twitter or Facebook for updates. Please email suggestions, links and questions to PhilosoraptErs@gmail.comCombined BA & MA Philosophy Programs
I recently posted about Florida State University having a combined BA & MA program. Essentialy one applies for the MA program in junior year, so before normal PhD applications, and spends an extra year in that philosophy program. The real change is that you start taking graduate courses early. By taking graduate courses early, before the BA is awarded, your able to count graduate courses for both MA and BA. There are a couple of different approaches to this that I have found so far.
List of Colleges and plans:
Cycorp: Ontological Engineering
This is interesting but I really don't know what to think of it. apparently Timothy S. O’Keefe, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Georgia State University, was employed by them....
Ontological Engineering (OE), a term coined at Cycorp, is a methodology for representing knowledge about the world in a way that computers can reason about it. This introductory course will familiarize you with Cyc's powerful knowledge representation capabilities and tools and will provide ample opportunity to use those tools to represent semantic information in Cyc. Friday, May 27, 2011
Wikipedia:Get to Philosophy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The object of this game is to click on the first link in an article and repeat the process. About 93% of all articles seem to lead eventually to the article Philosophy. The rest get stuck in two-article loops. Now, isn't that fascinating?
Full article HERE
Forida State University Combined BA and MA in Philosophy
I just recently ran across this somewhat strange but very innovative Philosophy program.
"The combined bachelors/masters degree programs provide academically talented students an opportunity to complete a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in a shorter time span".
This seems like a great way for students to ease themselves into graduate student life. I know that my letters of recommendation and writing sample would have been better if I had another year in UCSC.
It seems to me what this program really does is let the GREAT candidates go off to Phd's, but offers the decent candidates the opportunity to hone their skills in an academic environment.
Some information about this philosophy program HERE
Thursday, May 26, 2011
2011 Philosophical Gourmet Report - Faculty List
The third draft of the 2011 Philosophical gourmet report faculty list is up HERE.
Other articles of interest:
Professor Richard G. Heck (Brown) - Critique of Philosophical Gourmet
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You can email Suggestions, Questions, and Links to PhilosraptErs@gmail.comFlight of Curiosity from Graduate school
The Stone at the New York times, moderated by Simon Critchley, chair of the department of philosophy of New School in New York, asks:
Must one be endowed with curiosity in order to become a philosopher?
The answer is no, especially for graduate students. What does this mean for our profession?
Stanford and Ancient Philosophy: Alan Code ((tags: Rankings)
Thanks to Leiter for this information. Apparently Stanford will now be high in ranking for ancient philosophy.
Alan Code, Board of Governors Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University at New Brunswick (and emeritus at Berkeley), has accepted a senior offer from the Department of Philosophy at Stanford University, effective July 1. Code is best-known for his work on Aristotle's metaphysics and logic. At Stanford, he will join, among others, his former student Christopher Bobonich, best-known for his groundbreaking work on Plato's Laws. Stanford is now likely to be among the top choices in North America for students interested in ancient philosophy.
Join me on Twitter or Facebook for updates. Please email suggestions, links and questions to PhilosoraptErs@gmail.comWednesday, May 25, 2011
Dramatic Increase in Philosophy Journal Submissions
This is a great discussion over at Theoria (
HERE) much of which revolves around the increase of submissions to journals. It addresses the movement of philosophy regarding publishing in the last 15 years. One of the main points is that submissions have increased way above the increase in philosophers. What was suggested by one contributor in the article is that the job market has become more competitive and it is now almost essential to have a peer reviewed journal publish your work in order to secure a job out of graduate school. "Part of what is happening, I'm sure, is something that has not been mentioned yet, namely the expectations on graduate students. Sven Ove mentioned the threshold between no publications and some publications in refereed journals. For graduate students the default assumption had been that there would be none, but now it is very difficult to get a job in the US without having a publication in a peer-reviewed journal. Consequently, there is huge pressure towards submission coming from graduate students wanting to get jobs"
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Intro to Open Access Philosophy
Open-access is a copyright issue, not (as many people think) an issue about the presense or absence of peer review or the replacement of hard-copy print publication.
Open-access publishing has three main implications: i) the author retains copyright; ii) the author grants permission to others to access and distribute that material for any non-commercial purpose, provided authorship and copyright are clearly indicated; and iii) the work is made available for free online at one or another sort of stable archiving source.
Note that (iii) does not rule out also making the same work available in hard copy. So for example, an open access journal could be simultaneously published online (with free access) as well as a hard copy print edition (perhaps with some sort of fee to cover the costs of producing and mailing the hard copy).
Also, note that open-access does not have any implications for the decision proceedure for what gets published. Some open-access venues might not have peer review (as indeed many current print journals operated by commercial publishers in our discipline do not), and some -- an excellent example as The Philosophers Imprint -- have very high peer-review standards
http://commercialfreephilosophy.org/Join me on Twitter or Facebook for updates. Please email suggestions, links and questions to PhilosoraptErs@gmail.comList: Open Access Philosophy Journals
This is the most complete list of open access journals in philosophy (and religion) I have seen so far. This is not a rating or ranking organization, it's just a list.
More info on open access movement can be found:
Open Access Philosophy
List of journals:
Philosophy Textbook Publishing and Guides
If the following is true, then learning how to write a good textbook for philosophy could be a decent career move. Some of the material I have read online suggests that only 1 out of 5 professors (in all disciplines) actually finish textbooks they have started. The textbook writing tutorial below is crammed full of information if your interested.
From: THE LONDON PHILOSOPHY STUDY GUIDE
One of the most noticeable trends in Philosophy publishing in recent years is the proliferation of books aimed directly at students. This is, of course, driven by thought that if a book gets on an 'essential purchase' list then it will make quite a lot of money for the publisher, but it does mean that publishers have started to do more to produce philosophy books that are both readable and useful, which once looked like an endangered species.
Some notes about text book writing:
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Study: Effectivness of Track or Concentration Philosophy Programs
Over the past couple of months I have been thinking about some of the problems of academic philosophy, many of which have to do with the dreary employment situation which philosophers find themselves in. One of the topics which I have been researching over the last couple of months is the effectiveness of track programs.
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Basically the my reasoning goes like this...
Problem:
There are more Phds than positions in philosophy (2/1 at least), this is the problem.
By increasing the number of teachers, as a profession we will create even more PhD oriented philosophy students, and so are back in the same problem.
So the question is, how do we create a greater demand for philosophy professors without creating more professional philosophers?
One Solution:
By using track programs such as Bio-ethics, Pre-law, Religion and others, we will be able to increase the number of needed professors for teaching and reduce the number of to-be philosophy professors.
Essentially what we need to do is export philosophy into other areas. Philosophy gives students a great number of skills which are essential to other subjects, why not look into the effectiveness of these programs.
I have recently emailed a number of universities which have track programs, particularly in pre-law hoping that they will answer some of the following question.
So far the results have been favorable.
If your university or a university you know of has a track or concentration program it would be really great if you could let me know so I can include the department in this study
Here are some of the questions I asked (are there any I should ask which are not included?):
How many students are in your department total? How many students are now in philosophy with a pre-law concentration?How many that joined were already in the philosophy department?How many came from other majors?How many have gone on to law school?
Do you feel that having a concentration or track program has increased the number of students who declare philosophy?
How did you build the core requirements which divide philosophy general from philosophy Pre-law? Did you have to recruit another teacher?
Do you think your department is now a stronger and/or more attractive because of your concentration or track program?
Did starting a track or concentration program help your department with funding in anyway?
How did you build the core requirements which divide philosophy general from philosophy Pre-law? Did you have to recruit another teacher?
Did you get in contact with law schools to see what they classes they thought were important?
How did you purpose the pre-law concentration? Is there a standard procedure in your university for creating a concentration or track program? Was there any documentation from previous departments which was used to support the creation of a pre-law track or concentration program?Are there any resources for creating track or concentration programs nationally or on the web? Are there any other department you know of which have recently established a concentration or track program?
If you have experience with other track programs aside from pre-law, how was the response to those? Did I miss any important questions?
I would love some input on this subject if you have the time.
-------------------
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You can email Suggestions, Questions, and Links to PhilosraptErs@gmail.comGoogle's "in-house Philosopher"
Thanks to Professor Eason for this pointer.
Just one of the many things you can do with your PhD in philosophy is apparently work for Google, pretty interesting stuff. Ethics and technology is a giant section of employment outside academia for philosophers be it bio-ethics, marketing, or advising. Anything which is important to our society is a great opportunity for philosophical, or at least ethical, employment. Pick one thing you are engaged with everyday and then think and expand upon the classical ethical systems and how they apply to said activity. Then all you have to do is write a book or send an email to the companies who do it!
Just one of the many things you can do with your PhD in philosophy is apparently work for Google, pretty interesting stuff. Ethics and technology is a giant section of employment outside academia for philosophers be it bio-ethics, marketing, or advising. Anything which is important to our society is a great opportunity for philosophical, or at least ethical, employment. Pick one thing you are engaged with everyday and then think and expand upon the classical ethical systems and how they apply to said activity. Then all you have to do is write a book or send an email to the companies who do it!
The technology industry needs to think long and hard about ethics, according to Googler Damon Horowitz.
Horowitz has co-founded several startups, and he’s currently a director of engineering at Google. But he also has a Ph.D. in philosophy and apparently holds the title of “in-house philosopher” at the search giant.
Full article HERE
Job Market: 2010 vs 2011
Our friends over at The Philosophy smoker posted a question about whether more or less jobs were posted this year.
So far this post has not received many responses but the two so far suggest that the job market is actually getting BETTER!
I would really appreciate anyone who is on the job market commenting on this issue.
Monday, May 23, 2011
Free Philosophy Courses
Here are a bunch of free philosophy lectures some in MP3, some video and some streaming. The courses range from ancient philosophy to Hegel, to Nietzsche, Kant, ethics and a whole lot more.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Corporate Crises: A Philosophical Challenge
This was a somewhat interesting article, it started off interesting and then went in a direction I wasn't really hoping for but it may be interesting to some. It does have some entertaining comments about a philosophy departments 'value'.
From Philosophy Now:
Alan Malachowski tries to unravel the philosophical mistakes which led to America’s recent boardroom catastrophes.
Building a Successful Philosophy Club
Question and answers HERE
My suggestion:
Ask the department for some money for "Philosophy Club" pins, shirts, patches or something. I met many people who ended up declaring philosophy as their major and joining the philosophy club, much later, because of these somewhat geeky but very proudly worn accessories.
I found having students present papers and then discuss them was a very valuable activity. Kind of a mock conference.
Keep the reading short and almost down to nothing during mid-term and finals or people wont attend. Ethical issues are great to talk about with little reading.
Join me on Twitter or Facebook for updates. Please email suggestions, links and questions to PhilosoraptErs@gmail.comFree: Philosophy Videos, Continental
Some Great Free Videos in continental philosophy from Continental-philosophy.org. This is just a sample, there are many more videos HERE
Saturday, May 21, 2011
JOB: Providence College
Providence College, Department of Philosophy, part-time (2/3 load), one
semester (fall 2011) replacement position. Ph.D. preferred. Teaching
obligations include interdisciplinary team teaching in the College's
Development of Western Civilization Program; philosophy component begins
with Descartes and goes to Hegel, possibly Nietzsche. To ensure full
consideration, applications must be received by May 31, 2011. Please submit
cover letter, CV, transcripts (copies acceptable) and at least three letters
of reference to:
http://www.providence.edu/About+PC/Employment+Opportunities/
<https://post.providence.edu/OWA/redir.aspx?C=f736cfa39e674ebd99ad02d4...
3c&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.providence.edu%2fAbout%2bPC%2fEmployment%2bOpportuni
ties%2f> . InterFolio materials may be sent to Dr. Laura Landen, Chair,
Department of Philosophy, Providence College, Providence, RI 02918.
Providence College is a Roman Catholic four-year liberal arts institution
conducted under the auspices of the Dominican Friars and seeks candidates
who can affirm and contribute to its mission. An AA/EO employer, the
College especially encourages the applications of women and persons of
color.
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You can email Suggestions, Questions, and Links to PhilosraptErs@gmail.comGiving students Extra Credit
Three reasons for not giving extra credit from ISW:
Full article HERE
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Help me keep your fellow philosophers informed!
You can email Suggestions, Questions, and Links to PhilosraptErs@gmail.comPhilosophy Language Reqirements
A language requirement in graduate programs is something which has been established since the good old days when education was not so wides spread. If one were to go to college back then, one would learn Latin and Greek as a requirement to be considered an educated person. Now for graduate students in philosophy, many programs still have a language requirement where your allowed to choose the language you wish to study. Testing is usually done by accurately translating a chapter of a philosophical text in a couple hours.
Problem: Many students, especially those involved in analytic philosophy, don't particularly need the language requirement. Almost all of their research is in english in it's origianl form. This seems then to be a waste of time.
Solution:
Harvard: Introduction to Applying to Graduate School in Philosophy
Harvard posted this guide for their philosophy students who were interested in graduate school. It's not all that detailed but it is a quick read and may have some new information for you.
Harvard's Post HERE
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Help me keep your fellow philosophers informed!
You can email Suggestions, Questions, and Links to PhilosraptErs@gmail.comFriday, May 20, 2011
CFP: Game of Thrones
If your willing to have a "___ and philosophy" for your first book publication, this could be just the thing for you. From what I have heard the books actually have a quite a good story even if it is long. I have not read it myself so cant weigh in for that part. If you are interested in the Game of Thrones books anyway this may just be a fun project.
REFLECTIONS ON THE PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE ADMISSIONS PROCESS
A graduate student reflects on what he learned during the admissions process. What he could have done better and what helped his application. I wouldn't buy all the advice here but most of it seems pretty much on the money. Published in 2008, but still very relevant.
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Full article HERE
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You can email Suggestions, Questions, and Links to PhilosraptErs@gmail.comWednesday, May 18, 2011
Statistics on Competition in Philosophy Graduate Applications
These numbers have some problems such as the small sample size, the fact that people who were not accepted most likely wouldn't post, and other obvious statistical random sampling problems. Over all it seems approximatively accurate. I suggest checking out the whole post and the rest of the blog too if your interested.
According to the (self-reported) information that philosophy applicants posted on a private forum on Live Journal, called philprospective , the competition is steep....
There were 47 applicants this year who shared profiles on philprospective. Profiles included GRE scores, GPAs, GPA within one’s major, graduate GPAs (if applicable), and schools that one was applying to. ....
For those who said something like “average verbal score” I estimated based on national averages....
Average GRE verbal score: 673
Average GRE quantitative score: 705
Average GRE writing score: 5.2
Average undergraduate GPA in philosophy classes: 3.84
Average undergraduate GPA: 3.70
Average graduate philosophy GPA: 3.94
Average number of schools applied to: 13 (high: 23, low: 1, mode: 16)
Number of applicants with M.A.s: Roughly 36%
http://philosophyapplicant.wordpress.com/2011/04/08/how-competitive-is-the-application-process/
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You can email Suggestions, Questions, and Links to PhilosraptErs@gmail.comContinental Philosophy on the Internet
This page is intended to provide resources and links for researchers and students in the various areas of continental philosophy. The list started with links culled from Peter Suber's excellent (and lamented) "Guide to Philosophy on the Internet", but has gone beyond that.
http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~janzb/continental/home.html
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http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~janzb/continental/home.html
-------------------
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You can email Suggestions, Questions, and Links to PhilosraptErs@gmail.comTop Continental Programs
These are lists of top continental programs which I have found all over the web. The full lists are included but I will also include a smaller list of which schools they all agree on and which almost all agree on.
The lists were taken from the following:
All 5 Lists agree on the following Universities:
#more
Loyola - Chicago
4 out of 5 agree on the following universities. (~Name) is who did not list the school.
Universtiy of Memphis (~Lieter)
Villanova (~Lieter)
Depaul (~Lieter)
U of Texas at Austin (~Pluralists Guide)
Duquesne (~ Lieter)
Boston University (~Pluralists Guide)
University of Oregon (~Lieter)
Georgetown (~Hartmann)
UC Riverside (~Hartmann)
University of South Florida (~ Hartmann)
University of Toronto (~Hartmann)
Vanderbilt University ( ~ Hartmann)
There were a lot of universities which 3 agreed on probably in the range of 20-30. That seemed a bit over the top.
------------------------------
From John Hartmann at the Hartman Report
Penn State:
SUNY Stony Brook:
U Memphis:
Villanova:
Emory:
Boston College
Depaul
Loyola U. of Chicago
SIU Carbondale:
Notre Dame:
U of Texas at Austin:
The New School:
Duquesne:
Boston University:
U Oregon:
From SPEP (The Society for Phenomenological and Existential Philosophy)
SUNY Stony Brook:
U Memphis:
Villanova:
Emory:
Other Notable Programs:
NorthwesternBoston College
Depaul
Loyola U. of Chicago
SIU Carbondale:
Notre Dame:
U of Texas at Austin:
The New School:
Duquesne:
Boston University:
U Oregon:
Listed here are self-descriptions of Philosophy Departments interested in, supportive of, or specializing in continental philosophy.
It is based on personal knowledge of our faculty and flyers and catalogues for graduate programs in philosophy. Since this list has been posted online, it has also been influenced by email correspondence with graduate students and faculty. If you know of a program which ought to be listed here, or struck from the list, please let me know, and please be patient with the suggested updates.
From Puralists Guide
For this year (2011) we are reporting on graduate programs in two categories:
Strongly Recommended departments have indications that graduate students will be encouraged and supported to pursue work in this area, will find a supportive community of scholars and mentors, and will be able to write a state of the art dissertation in continental philosophy.
Recommended departments have indications that graduate students will be encouraged and supported to pursue work in continental philosophy.
| Strongly Recommended Departments: | Recommended Departments: |
19TH–CENTURY CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY Group 1 (1-2) (mean of 4.5) (median, mode) New York University (4.5, 5) University of Chicago (5, 5) Group 2 (3-10) (mean of 4.0) (median, mode) Brown University (4, 4) Columbia University (4, 4) Georgetown University (4.25, 5) Indiana University, Bloomington (4, 4) Syracuse University (4, 3) University of California, Riverside (4, 4) #University of Southampton University of Warwick (4, 4.25) Group 3 (11-18) (mean of 3.5) (median, mode) Boston University (4, 3.5 & 4.5) Cambridge University (3.5, 4) Princeton University (3.5, 4) Stanford University (3.75, 4) *University of Essex University of Notre Dame (3.5, 3 & 3.5) University of Sheffield (4, 4) University of Toronto (4, 4.5) Group 4 (19-31) (mean of 3.0) (median, mode) #Emory University Johns Hopkins University (3.5, 3.5) Northwestern University (3, 3) #University at Stony Brook, State University of New York University College London (3.5, 3.75) University of California, San Diego (3, 3) University of Auckland (2.75, 3.5) University of Illinois, Chicago (3, 3) *University of Kentucky *University of New Mexico University of Pennsylvania (3.5, 4) University of Pittsburgh (3.25, 4) University of Texas, Austin (2.75, 3) 20TH–CENTURY CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY Group 1 (1-3) (rounded mean of 4.0) (median, mode) Georgetown University (4, 4.5) University of California, Riverside (4, 4) University of Chicago (4, 5) Group 2 (4-10) (rounded mean of 3.5) (median, mode) Cambridge University (3.75, 3) Columbia University (4, 4.25) #University at Stony Brook, State University of New York *University College Dublin #University of Essex University of Notre Dame (4, 4.5) University of Warwick (3.5, 4) Group 3 (11-31) (rounded mean of 3.0) (median, mode) *Boston College Boston University (3, 3) Harvard University (3, 3) *Loyola University, Chicago *New School University New York University (3, 3) Northwestern University (3, 3) Oxford University (3.5, 3) #Pennsylvania State University Stanford University (3, 3) Syracuse University (3.25, 3) University College London (3, 3) University of Auckland (3, 3) University of California, Berkeley (3, 3) University of California, Santa Cruz (3, 3.25) *University of Kentucky *University of New Mexico University of South Florida (3, 2) *University of Sussex University of Toronto (3, 3) *Vanderbilt University |