Monthly Archives: June, 2017

How does language describe the world?

We effortlessly use language to describe the world. Yet the puzzle of how language achieves this has stumped philosophers for a century. Are we...

Reflections on Chairing a Philosophy Department at Mid-Career (Part 2)

This is the second of a two-post series on this subject by Ronald Robles Sundstrom. See here for last week’s post. 3) Managing part-time...

Who murdered Descartes?

Review of The Irrationalist: The Tragic Murder of René Descartes by Andrew Pessin (Open Books, 2017, $19.95/$8.99) Who knew philosophy could be deadly? But it can, apparently, according to...

2017 Public Philosophy Op-Ed Contest Winners Announced

The American Philosophical Association is pleased to announce the winners of the 2017 Public Philosophy Op-Ed Contest: Katalin Balog, “‘Son of...

What Are You Reading…On Psychoanalysis

Every so often I come across an article about the psychology of some prominent figure. Sometimes it is a politician, sometimes a celebrity, sometimes...

Lies and Beauty: Is lying somehow essential to our lives?

Weapons of mass destruction, the NSA, and Watergate: many have felt cheated by the lies of the powerful. Yet we all twist the truth...

APA Member Interview: Paul Redding

Paul Redding is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sydney in Australia. The larger part of his teaching and research career has...

Reflections on Chairing a Philosophy Department at Mid-Career (Part 1)

This is the first of two posts on the same subject by Ronald Robles Sundstrom. The second post will be published next Thursday. It...

Kenneth Walden Wins the Inaugural Danto/ASA Prize

The American Philosophical Association and the American Society for Aesthetics are pleased to announce that Professor Kenneth Walden (Dartmouth College) has been selected as...

Philosophy on TV: “The Good Place”

The Good Place is a 2016 NBC television series in which one of the two lead characters -- played by William Jackson Harper -- is an ethics professor...

APA receives second Mellon Foundation grant to support undergraduate diversity institutes

The American Philosophical Association (APA) is pleased to announce that it has been awarded a major grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, a...

Philosophy in the Contemporary World: Sounds of Silence, or Are We Responsible for What We Avoid Saying?

Recent testimony by James Comey and Jeff Sessions before the Senate Intelligence Committee offers fertile terrain for anyone interested in the nuances of verbal...

APA Newsletters, Spring 2017 Edition – Part Two

The latest edition of the APA newsletters was posted online recently. In a short series of posts, I’m providing a brief synopsis of each...

Is it moral to respect the wishes of the dead, above the living?

Imagine what a country would be like if every person could secure a vote in elections that happened after their death. If you stated...

Lost Foundations and the Art of Coping

As of now, I’ve had two friends confess that they don’t know if they exist. Interesting, to be sure. But we know that philosophers,...