April 2008
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Philosophy Students and Standardized Tests
I am asked periodically for cites in support of the familiar claims that philosophy majors outperform others on standardized tests. Philosopher Steve McKay at Sherbrooke kindly flagged two sources, courtesy of the Department of Philosophy at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis: how aspiring philosophers perform on the GRE (the Graduate Record Exam, required by most PhD…
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Will Demographics Result in a Job Crunch in the Near Future?
A philosopher on the earlier thread about admissions posted a comment raising issues that deserve separate attention. She writes: I don’t want to start a wave of paranoia, but I think it might be worth it for the profession to start some long term planning in grad admissions. It is my understanding that in about…
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Gergen from Texas to Berkeley
It isn’t, needless to say, the undergrads who study Political Science. Here, courtesy of the Department of Philosophy at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, is a ranking by the average LSAT score of students in each major that had at least 400 students taking the LSAT (the score is in parentheses): 1. Physics/Math (157.6) 2. Philosophy/Religion…
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Any Pattern to This Year’s Graduate Admissions in Terms of Yield?
A senior philosopher writes: We are a mid-ranking graduate program. In previous years we have normally finished up making about 15 offers to get an intake of half a dozen students, going two or three deep into our wait list following an initial set of dozen offers. This year, however, our experience has been quite…
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How to Dance Your Way to a Job
Of all the advice for job-seekers we’ve discussed over the years, this is the most interesting! Congratulations to Neil, esteemed former student and collaborator!
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Ghosh from SMU to Wisconsin
Shubha Ghosh (intellectual property) at Southern Methodist University has accepted a senior offer from the law school at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where he will also be Associate Director for Initiatives for Studies in Technology Entrepreneurship (in the Business School) and hold a courtesy appointment in the Center for South Asian Studies.
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Funny–On Academic Bad Manners
A young philosopher at a top research university writes: "The thing that always astonishes me is that they [bloggers, journalists etc.] put on this air of pained affront if an academic gets short with them – ‘I don’t expect this tone from an educator’ and all that jazz. Jesus, they should have been in a…
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Philosopher/Biologist Sarkar Wipes the Floor with Another Discovery [sic] Institute Charlatan
Here. Very much worth reading, and sharing. What must these fraudulent conmen like Klinghoffer think when they look in the mirror in the morning?
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Watson to Retire at UC Riverside, and Move Full-Time to USC
Gary Watson (ethics, philosophy of action) at the University of California at Riverside will take emeritus status there and take up a full-time post in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Southern California, where, with Kadri Vihvelin, George Wilson and Gideon Yaffe, he will help give USC one of the strongest philosophy of…
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Friday Poem: “To Have Lived This Long”
To Have Lived This Long To have lived this long in admiration of children authors of the book of laughter cartographers of the map of solutions whose commentary can always be trusted To have lived this long in fealty to women without understanding them yet …
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Four Senior Hires for UC Davis: Antonelli, Copp, Landry, & Oshana
The Department of Philosophy at the University of California at Davis, which has had significant turnover lately, has now made four senior hires. Starting this fall: Aldo Antonelli (logic) from the University of California at Irvine, and Elaine Landry (philosophy of mathematics and science) from the University of Calgary; and starting in fall 2009: David…
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Once More Into the Academic Freedom/John Yoo Fray
Remarking some time ago on issues of academic freedom in relation to comments by David Bernstein, I observed that, [F]rom the McCarthy era to the present, the most successful efforts to "enforce political orthodoxy"–the ones that resulted in people being fired from jobs, or having their jobs threatened–have almost all come from the right in…
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Troubles with Ave Maria’s Move to Florida
Story here. (Thanks to Blog Emperor Caron for the pointer.)
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“The Journal of Half-Baked Ideas”
Here, courtesy of philosophers at the University of Aberdeen. I realize some of you are thinking, "The entire blogosphere is the journal of half-baked, often raw, ideas, so why create a special journal?" Well, this one is a bit different.
I respond to this report here https://jasonstanleyantifascist.substack.com/p/on-the-philosophical-muddle-that