15th Annual Northeast Florida Student Philosophy Conference CFP

University of North Florida Philosophy

Call for Papers

 UNF’s Department of Philosophy invites paper submissions from undergraduate or graduate students for the 15th Annual Northeast Florida Student Philosophy Conference:

“Philosophy and Media”

March 31^st, 2012
Jacksonville, Florida

Plenary Speakers:
Christopher Grau (Clemson)

Vance Ricks (Guilford College)

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Open Access Research

… in the news.

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Darwin’s Library

… is now available online. (HT: The Chronical of Higher Ed)

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Business and the Liberal Arts

Here is the latest in a series of stories with the same moral. An excerpt:

Universities will develop better business professionals if they do a better job of integrating components of a liberal arts education into business school curriculums, argues a new report by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

The report, Rethinking Undergraduate Business Education: Liberal Learning for the Profession, argues that business schools are too distinct from the rest of the undergraduate education, and students are either not learning how to think critically about issues or not given the chance to connect their liberal arts studies to their business education. Either way, the authors argue, students are not prepared as well as they could be for engaging in the business world.

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Lunch With Julian Assange and Slavoj Žižek — Now Available on eBay

What does the world’s most high profile high tech vigilante have to do with the world’s most incoherent philosopher? I’m not sure, but you can now bid on eBay to have lunch with both of them. Check it out here.

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In Memoriam: Todd Bates

It is with deep sadness that I pass along the following, from FPA Secretary-Treasurer, Josh Rust:

I am deeply saddened to report that the FPA has lost a friend and colleague. Todd Bates died on Tuesday morning at 12:15 am June 14th from complications of a brain aneurism he suffered on Friday May 13th. Todd was 42. He was such a bright star in our world, nothing short of brilliant. He was the husband of my colleague here at Stetson, Susan Peppers-Bates, and the father of two children, Anne Marie and Sophia Frances. He held a tenure-track faculty post in philosophy at Bethune Cookman University in Daytona Beach and regularly taught as an Adjunct Professor at Stetson. He was also the site coordinator for the 2010 FPA, held in Daytona Beach. Todd was a graduate of the University of Massachusetts and held the Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and recently authored a book on Duns Scotus.

A service will be held Saturday, June 18, at 2 p.m. at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, 216 Orange Ave., Daytona Beach, FL 32114. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that any donations made in his name be sent to Children’s House Montessori School, 509 E. Pennsylvania Ave., DeLand, FL 32724.

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Recent Articles on the Cognitive Science of Religion and the Epistemology of Religious Beliefs

I’ve noticed that very recently several articles have been published on the relationship between the cognitive science of religion and the epistemology of religious belief. Interesting Stuff.

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The Faces of Philosophy

An article about the work of Steve Pyke, “master photographer of the soul and character of individuals of diverse classes and callings,” in the New York Times.

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New Books in Philosophy

From the website:

New Books in Philosophy features peer-to-peer discussions with philosophers about their new ideas as expressed in their newly published books. The program is co-hosted by Carrie Figdor (University of Iowa) and Robert Talisse (Vanderbilt University). Between the two of us, we will be exploring new books in ethics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, metaphysics, philosophy of science, social and political philosophy, history of philosophy, philosophy of language, and many other subfields. Our goal is to bridge the academic and public spheres without shortchanging the complexity of the ideas being discussed. Expect to be challenged – we’ll avoid the jargon, but we won’t avoid the difficulty.

Our podcasts are complemented by many other philosophy-related materials on the web, including podcasts (Philosophy Bites, Philosophy Talk), resources (PhilPapers, Stanford Online Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews), and blogs (Leiter Reports).

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For the Love of Wisdom …

… philosophy majors grow in number at Berkeley.

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“The Default Major: Skating Through B-School”

From a recent piece on business majors in the New York Times:

PAUL M. MASON does not give his business students the same exams he gave 10 or 15 years ago. “Not many of them would pass,” he says.

Dr. Mason, who teaches economics at the University of North Florida, believes his students are just as intelligent as they’ve always been. But many of them don’t read their textbooks, or do much of anything else that their parents would have called studying. “We used to complain that K-12 schools didn’t hold students to high standards,” he says with a sigh. “And here we are doing the same thing ourselves.”

That might sound like a kids-these-days lament, but all evidence suggests that student disengagement is at its worst in Dr. Mason’s domain: undergraduate business education.

Continue Reading at NYTimes.com

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Discussion of GRE Verbal Scores @ Leiter Reports

I found the following discussion of GRE Verbal scores for Philosophy MA/PhD applicants to be really interesting. (I’m glad that I’m past this phase of my career!) The general topic of discussion is that which is found in the URL and post title: “Are some schools using undisclosed GRE cut-offs in admissions decisions?” The undergraduate who submitted the post argues that if schools are using such thresholds to eliminate sets of applicants, then they should be forthright about it and save applicants money and time. Insightful discussions ensue.

Check it out at Leiter Reports here.

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Will Arizonans Secede?

Following up on our earlier discussion of the morality of secession, it appears that some in Arizona are considering seceding from the state. Would there be anything morally objectionable about such a move?

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Ethics Bowl Champion

The University of Central Florida has won the Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl. Congratulations to the team, in general, and to FSPB contributor Kevin Dupree, in particular, on the victory!

This is the second consecutive year that the winner of the national competition has come from the Southeast Regional Ethics Bowl. (Last year’s winner was the University of Alabama, Birmingham.)

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“Leadership: A Matter of Character?”

For those in and around Jacksonville, a Philosophy Slam, Tuesday, March 8, 7:30pm – 10:30pm. Details here.

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The Mentoring Project

… for “pre-tenure women faculty in philosophy.” Details here. (HT: Leiter Reports)

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Philosophers’ Carnival #121

… is here. Congratulations to Joel whose post, “Killing a Vegan: Degrees of Subjectivity,” was featured in this edition.

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Jacksonville Public Philosophy Workshops

For those in and around Jacksonville, you may want to check out Jacksonville Public Philosophy Workshop. (HT: Karla Pierce)

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Women in the Profession

A follow up to Edgar’s earlier post on the topic, from Brian Leiter:

Kathryn Norlock (Trent) sends along 2009 data on the percentage of women teaching philosophy at the postsecondary level (from this source, Table 256):  women are 16.6% of the 13,000 total full-time philosophy faculty (that is, 2,158) and 26% of the 10,000 part-time instructors (that is, 2600).  All together, women comprise 20.69% of postsecondary philosophy teachers in the US as of 2009. The percentage of full-time faculty who are female is quite a bit lower than I realized, and shockingly so.

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Gender Inequality in Philosophy Ph.Ds

So here is an interesting image about the amount of recent women awarded Ph.Ds.

The question, I think, ought to be what is the cause of this large gender inequality in philosophy.  I do not have a problem with the gap in the mathematics intensive fields, but the large disparity in philosophy does seem odd.

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“What Is Love?”

For those in and around Jacksonville:

The Jacksonville University Philosophy Club Presents a Philosophy Slam:

“What Is Love?”(Dr. Carl Colavito)
7:30pm, Tuesday, February 8, 2010
at Jacksons Grill, 1522 King Street, Jacksonville, Florida 32204

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Paying for College

The New York Times has an interesting piece about the changing nature of university budgets and what this change means for students. (HT: Maureen Eckert)

For bargain-hunting families, state colleges and universities, supported by tax money, have long been a haven from the high cost of private education.

But tuition bargains are fading as the nation’s public universities undergo a profound shift, accelerated by the recession. In most states, it is now tuition payments, not state appropriations, that cover most of the budget.

Continue Reading

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New Ways: Old Thoughts

All of us have had the experience of being frustrated and clueless in our first philosophy class—if not for most of them. And, lets not forget the terror of a dropping GPA . To many, philosophy is as punished, as obscured by past personal failures, as math has been. This is a terrible crisis. It seems like just another cliche, but this is a cliche that needs to change because effectively teaching sound reasoning is probably the simplest and most effective solution to cleaning up our squalid political world–and setting the foundation for a better future.

If philosophy is the path to sound reasoning, and sound reasoning is the method to a better future, then it should also be that philosophy has been subjected to the best research in learning theory, and that the classes that teach philosophy are arranged so that even the mediocre IQ can manage to learn to think with the best thought-technology around. It should be arranged so that learning sound reasoning is an accessible, manageable and personally profitable process. This is not the case now.

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Philosophers’ Carnival #119

The latest edition of the Philosophers’ Carnival is available here. Congratulations to Edgar Aroutiounian whose post, “Agency, or Lack Thereof,” was featured.

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“Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior”

An excerpt from a piece in the Wall Street Journal by Amy Chua (Yale Law School):

Western parents try to respect their children’s individuality, encouraging them to pursue their true passions, supporting their choices, and providing positive reinforcement and a nurturing environment. By contrast, the Chinese believe that the best way to protect their children is by preparing them for the future, letting them see what they’re capable of, and arming them with skills, work habits and inner confidence that no one can ever take away.

(HT: Jon Staples)

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