1. Introduction Something I’ve been hearing and seeing a lot recently in journal/news media and social media, on blogs, and in everyday conversations, both in philosophical contexts and non-philosophical contexts, is the claim that “free speech is wonderful, it’s the First Amendment, it’s mom-and-apple-pie, I so totally love it–unless you offend us, and then you … [continue reading]

Is professional academic philosophy a bullshit job? Yes. This means that, as a professional academic philosopher, even though you began by loving real philosophy for its own sake, you’ve unintentionally turned your working life into the very opposite of what you hoped it would be. And that’s genuinely tragic, even if depressingly widespread. Can you … [continue reading]

Introduction Novalis is perhaps best known to contemporary philosophers for his aphorism, “Philosophy can bake no bread; but she can procure for us God, Freedom, Immortality.” But less well known is the following sentence: “Which, then, is more practical, Philosophy or Economy?” In other words, Novalis is saying that philosophy is profoundly more practical than … [continue reading]

For … non-Kantian philosophers, there are no persistent problems — save perhaps the existence of Kantians. — R. Rorty[i] What do you think of the following argument? ARGUMENT 1 (i) E.T. is a fictional philosopher. (ii) E.T. is an alien of indeterminate gender who is personally biased against women, non-white races, non-Europeans, and blind people. (iii) Therefore, E.T.’s … [continue reading]

Mainstream contemporary professional academic philosophy is seriously under attack, and not just by APP. In a recent edgy essay, “Taking Down Descartes: The Canon Wars,” I critically analyzed and historically contextualized Christia Mercer’s very interesting New York Times article from 25 September 2017, “Descartes Is Not Our Father,” and drew two main conclusions: It’s … … [continue reading]

Two New Movements in Contemporary Philosophy Two extremely interesting movements in contemporary philosophy have emerged simultaneously, but also almost entirely independently of one another, within the past five years: performance philosophy and public philosophy. I think that both performance philosophy and public philosophy are not only extremely interesting, but also extremely important. That is because … [continue reading]

Eighteen months ago, in “‘Failed Academics’: Schopenhauer, Peirce, and the (D)evolution of University Philosophy,” APP wrote about the meta-philosophically fascinating phenomenon of great philosophers who are also notable social “failures,” and in particular “failed academics.” We focused on Schopenhauer and Peirce: but we might just as easily have written about Diogenes, Socrates, Spinoza, Kierkegaard, Thoreau, … [continue reading]

The history of modern philosophy begins with Descartes, right? Wrong. In “Descartes Is Not Our Father,” a very interesting–but I also think, very wrong-headed– essay published in The New York Times on 25 September 2017, Christia Mercer writes this: René Descartes has long been credited with the near-single-handed creation of modern philosophy. Generations of students … [continue reading]

Almost everyone has heard the story about the duck and the fish. Some ducks are swimming around in a pond; one of them looks down and sees some fish swimming around directly beneath him. The duck says: “Hey guys! How’s the water down there?” Then one of the fish turns to another one and says: … [continue reading]