Professor Trumpolini in academic garb at the Fall Convocation, University of The Great Wall, 16 December 2016. It was windy that day. APP Editors’ Note: Professor Trumpolini holds the John Birch Society Extremely Well-Endowed, Extremely Well-Funded, and Extremely Distinguished University Professorship in Political Metaphysics at the University of The Great Wall, Del Rio TX. He … [continue reading]
Category: Guest Essays
Crippled Morality: Disability, Thinking, and Professional Philosophy. (Updated March 2018)
I am physically disabled and I come from the country where the able-bodied typically assumed that I wasn’t capable of thinking. In truth, while being home-schooled, I was already an over-achiever. I was reading Nietzsche, French existentialists, and law textbooks at the age of fourteen, as my few friends called me “the smartest person they’ve … [continue reading]
Between Familiarity and Bewilderment: Towards A Theory of Incoherent Philosophical Bullshit. A No-Bullshit Approach to Philosophical Bullshit, part I. (Studies in Critical Metaphilosophy & Critical History of Philosophy 6)
BY OTTO PAANS. 1. Introductory Moves The output of philosophical practice is extremely varied in its topics and starting points. There are numerous theories of mind, different conceptions of knowledge and truth-value in epistemology, various metaphysical visions about the structure of reality, and varying strands of ethics, ranging from virtue ethics to Kantianism to utilitarianism … [continue reading]
An Insider’s View of the Brazilian Philosophical World, Or, How to Build a Really Totalitarian System.
APP Editors’ Note: SK is a PhD student in philosophy at a Brazilian university. Before getting underway, I want to stress that what follows is not a condemnation or denunciation of the Brazilian philosophical world, as such, nor is it a full critique–that would require an entire book!—of contemporary Brazilian professional academic philosophy. Instead, it’s … [continue reading]
APA Pacific Division Special: The Mall. By V.
APP Editors’ Note: V is a full professor of philosophy at a research university, with some 30 years of experience –and membership in the APA. I was wandering through the mall. Not because I wanted to, but once in a while, these days, one needs something that just happens to be at a store that … [continue reading]
The Unbearable Leiter of Being. By V.
APP Editors’ Note: V is a full professor of philosophy at a research university–and a star gazer. The stars. There are so very many stars. And we are so small. Yet, some would make us smaller still. To have been given a fine brain and to use it for petty and ignoble ends is bad … [continue reading]
What It’s Like to Exit Professional Philosophy: Crispin Sartwell. By Z and Crispin Sartwell.
APP Editors’ Note: What is it like to exit professional philosophy? The first item below is re-posted from Crispin Sartwell’s blog. It refers to the amazing “Out.” The second is new and exclusive to APP. And this just arrived from CS: “update. i have been removed from my campus on the grounds that posting miranda … [continue reading]
Philosophy From the Outside: A Horse-Trainer’s Metaphysics.
1. A Prefatory Note, by Z In “On University Philosophy,” Schopenhauer writes: [T]he look back at all the goings-on at universities since Kant’s departure, have more and more hardened my view that of there is there is to be philosophy at all, i.e., if the human intellect is to be allowed to turn its highest … [continue reading]
Self-Reflections in a Shallow Pond: Jason Stanley’s “The Crisis of Philosophy” Revisited.
In 2010, Jason Stanley published an article in Inside Higher Ed called “The Crisis of Philosophy.” Stanley was later interviewed in 2012 on 3AM, to much the same effect. From the contemporary vantage point of APP, imagine our interest! Six years down the road, however, on a close reading of “The Crisis of Philosophy,” the … [continue reading]
Cognitive Self-Sovereignty. A Personal Take on Heavy Duty Enlightenment.
APP Editors’ note: Abelard is a full-time lecturer in philosophy at a public university somewhere in North America. Other recent discussions of Heavy Duty Enlightenment on APP include: From Enlightenment Lite to Nihilism: How Professional Philosophy Has Totally Let Everyone Down about the Real Purpose of an Undergraduate Liberal Arts Education. Beyond Enlightenment Lite. You … [continue reading]