I. THE ESSAY 1. In 2014, there were roughly 140 philosophy departments with graduate philosophy programs in the USA and Canada. I would conservatively guess that on average, each such program has roughly 20-25 graduate students. So that’s roughly 3000 people, at least. Therefore, assuming that enrolment in philosophy graduate programs is relatively constant, then … [continue reading]

Quarrels between professors are never entirely disconnected from larger quarrels. There was a hidden agenda behind the split between old-fashioned “humanistic” philosophy (of the Dewey-Whitehead sort) and the positivists, and a similar agenda lies behind the current split between devotees of “analytic” and of “Continental” philosophy. The heavy breathing on both sides about the immorality … [continue reading]

In the Theses on Feuerbach, Marx wrote that “philosophers have only interpreted the world in different ways; the point is to change it.” Now I completely agree with Marx that an essential aim of real philosophy is to change the world, not merely interpret it. But I also sharply disagree, in that I think that … [continue reading]

I. THE ESSAY 1. Until recently, I was a tenured full professor of philosophy at a public university somewhere in North America, and as I say in my APP site-blurb, nevertheless I still managed to escape with my life. It’s therefore somewhat ironic that my former department hasn’t yet purged me from their e-mail lists, … [continue reading]