by Daniel A. Kaufman ___ When one hears the expression “white paper,” one thinks of a document of great historic significance, typically issued by a government. Winston Churchill’s famous 1922 white paper clarifying the 1917 Balfour Declaration, which set in motion a series of events that changed the face of the Middle East, immediately comes to mind. What one doesn’t […]
by Daniel A. Kaufman ___ Over at the Daily Nous, an influential philosophy-insider’s blog, editor Justin Weinberg kicks off a celebration of its five year anniversary by congratulating himself. [1] He says that he is proud that he and the Nous have played a role in “breaking up a toxic concentration of power in our profession” and ushering in a […]
by Daniel A. Kaufman My article on Philosophy’s past and future in the current issue of Philosophy Now. https://philosophynow.org/issues/130/The_Decline_and_Rebirth_of_Philosophy
by Daniel A. Kaufman ___ Over at Leiter Reports, probably the most well-read philosophy-insider’s blog, Brian Leiter has run a two-day poll, in which he asked the following question: Would you leave the APA [American Philosophical Association] and join a new dues-charging professional philosophy association that does much of what the APA does, but without the current political agendas/projects? The […]
by E. John Winner 1. John Dewey was one of America’s most important philosophers. He’ll be better remembered in the future than he is today. With philosophers on both sides of the Atlantic fascinated with the ambiguities of language and otherwise unsure of what they are expected to explain – is that science or ethics or good taste? – Dewey’s […]
By Daniel A. Kaufman ___ Do epithets have a place in philosophical disputes? Is it useful, productive, or even appropriate to call people “racist,” “misogynist,” or “transphobic,” when engaged in philosophical arguments about the ethics of affirmative action, or whether we are properly described as living in a “rape culture” or whether gender identity is such that trans-women are in […]
by Mark English I once watched a nature documentary about a group of lions in the wild. At one stage a lioness and her cubs found themselves separated from the group. After a period of time during which she almost starved and her cubs were killed, she finally managed to rejoin the group. The other lions certainly recognized her and […]
By Daniel Tippens In 2014, Elizabeth Barnes published a paper in Ethics with the title “Valuing Disability, Causing Disability.” Barnes is disabled herself and observes that there seems to be a striking difference between philosophers and disabled individuals, when it comes to their intuitions about the well-being of disabled people. Philosophers tend to hold what she calls the “bad-difference” view: […]
by Mark English Ludwig Wittgenstein was – and remains – not just a well-known thinker but an intellectual celebrity. He generated far more than his fair share of personal speculation and gossip as well as serious scholarly attention. I’m not claiming that he was an attention-seeker in a simple or crass sense. It’s undeniable, however, that his eccentric ways, his […]
by Mark English Academics and other intellectuals have always played a role in public life, and one of their most important roles has been to speak out and to engage – through newspapers and the electronic media, for example – with a wider audience. But, over the last half-century or more, I think there has been a subtle shift in […]
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