1. Introduction, by Z Samuel Alexander (1859-1938) was an Australian-born British philosopher, and the first Jewish fellow of a college at Cambridge or Oxford–in his case, Lincoln College, Oxford. Later he held a professorial Chair of philosophy at the “red brick,” politically socialist, or at least left-leaning, religiously tolerant University of Manchester. I don’t know … [continue reading]
Why Hasn’t Professional Philosophy Produced Any Important Ideas in the Last 40 Years?
1. By a brilliant philosophical idea I mean a philosophical idea that manifests great intellectual creativity, insight, and originality, opens up a new way of looking at a large domain of concepts, facts, phenomena, theories, and/or other information, and would have significant impact and influence if it were widely disseminated and adopted. And by an … [continue reading]
Standing United with APP, and The APP Dilemma Revisited.
APP Editors’ Note: Ron de Weijze and Andreas Keller are independent philosophers living and working in Europe. YP is a young philosopher working on her BA somewhere in North America or Europe. RTP is a recently tenured associate professor of philosophy teaching at a public university somewhere in North America. And AG is an independent … [continue reading]
Socrates Tenured.
APP Editors’ Note: The following is an excerpt from Socrates Tenured: The Institutions of 21st Century Philosophy–APP_socrates_tenured_poster_aug16 Universally venerated by contemporary philosophers, the actual philosophic practice of Socrates is rejected or ignored. Socrates could never get a position today in a philosophy (or any other) department. Socrates Tenured offers an account, and a critique, of … [continue reading]
Nudging as Smiley-Faced Coercion: The Systematic Obstruction of Enlightenment.
They just took your natural impulses and desires and they pushed them, reinforced them, so you acted quite naturally, only you acted in the ways that they wanted. The Marquis began to wonder if he had ever met this person before, and was trying to remember exactly where, when he was tapped gently on the … [continue reading]
The Continuist Hypothesis.
For the philosopher is confronted not by one complex many-dimensional picture, the unity of which, such as it is, he must come to appreciate; but by two pictures of essentially the same order of complexity, each of which purports to be a complete picture of man-in-the-world, and which, after separate scrutiny, he must fuse into … [continue reading]
How To Think About Voting in This Presidential Election.
One of the many benefits of not being a professional academic philosopher is that you can pursue real philosophy as a full-time, lifetime calling without having either a job controlled by the Professional Academic State (aka the PAS) or any professional academic social status. This means that because you have neither a PAS-controlled job that … [continue reading]
Serious Philosophy
© 2016 Susan Haack. All rights reserved.1 the spirit … is the most essential thing—the motive…—C. S.Peirce2 At dinner the night before I was to give a talk in her department, a young professor solemnly told me that there’s no place for humor in serious philosophy. Since the paper on the relation of science and … [continue reading]
The APP Dilemma For Young Philosophers.
APP Editors’ Note: YP is a young philosopher currently working on her BA somewhere in North America or Europe. YP: I recently found your website. I was intrigued. And relieved that such a community exists. I’m an aspiring philosopher (age 21) and I’m working through the XYZ program in philosophy. Since middle school I’ve been … [continue reading]
Oxbridge Philosophy.