This is the most comprehensive book ever published on philosophical methodology. A team of thirty-eight of the world's leading philosophers present original essays on various aspects of how philosophy should be and is done. The first part is devoted to broad traditions and approaches to philosophical methodology. The entries in the second part address topics in philosophical methodology, such as intuitions, conceptual analysis, and transcendental arguments. The third part of the book is devoted to essays about the interconnections between philosophy (...) and neighbouring fields, including those of mathematics, psychology, literature and film, and neuroscience. (shrink)

This paper summarizes recent and ongoing experimental work regarding the reality, nature, effects, and causes of the underrepresentation of women in academic philosophy. We first present empirical data on several aspects of underrepresentation, and then consider various reasons why this gender imbalance is problematic. We then turn to the published and preliminary results of empirical work aimed at identifying factors that might explain it.

This paper answers a call made by Anita Allen to genuinely assess whether the field of philosophy has the capacity to sustain the work of diverse peoples. By identifying a pervasive culture of justification within professional philosophy, I gesture to the ways professional philosophy is not an attractive working environment for many diverse practitioners. As a result of the downsides of the culture of justification that pervades professional philosophy, I advocate that the discipline of professional philosophy be cast according to (...) a culture of praxis. Finally, I provide a comparative exercise using Graham Priest’s definition of philosophy and Audre Lorde’s observations of the limitations of philosophical theorizing to show how these two disparate accounts can be understood as philosophical engagement with a shift to a culture of praxis perspective. (shrink)

It is clear that philosophy has a “woman problem”. Despite the recent acceptance of this fact, it is less clear what ought to be done about it. In this paper, we argue that philosophy as a discipline is uniquely well-positioned to think through the marginalisation suffered by women and other minorities. We therefore interrogate two values that already undergird conversations about inclusion— representation and intersectionality—in order to think about the path ahead. We argue that, once we have done so, it (...) becomes clear that the slow pace of improvement over the last few decades is unacceptable and more radical steps need to be taken. First, we outline the current state of women in philosophy focusing on three areas: levels of employment, publishing, and sexual harassment. Then we turn to representation and intersectionality respectively. We conclude by arguing that many women and people of colour have been arguing for a more radically diverse philosophy for many years. What we are facing is a lack of ambition on the one hand and problem of attention on the other. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

Dans les discussions concernant la sous-représentation des femmes dans le domaine de la philosophie professionnelle, ceux et celles qui sont sceptiques quant à l’explication par la discrimination suggèrent souvent que les différences de genre dans les intérêts constituent une autre hypothèse possible. Certain.e.s croient que si les intérêts différents des femmes expliquaient la sous-représentation, les interventions suggérées par l’hypothèse de la discrimination ne seraient pas nécessaires, voire seraient risquées. Je maintiens qu’on doit considérer la façon dont les stéréotypes exerceraient une (...) influence sur les intérêts, et que ce faisant, on peut offrir une évaluation plus équilibrée des risques découlant des interventions proposées. (shrink)

I argue, in this thesis, that proper name reference is a wholly pragmatic phenomenon. The reference of a proper name is neither constitutive of, nor determined by, the semantic content of that name, but is determined, on an occasion of use, by pragmatic factors. The majority of views in the literature on proper name reference claim that reference is in some way determined by the semantics of the name, either because their reference simply constitutes their semantics (which generally requires a (...) very fine-grained individuation of names), or because names have an indexical-like semantics that returns a referent given certain specific contextual parameters. I discuss and criticize these views in detail, arguing, essentially, in both cases, that there can be no determinate criteria for reference determination—a claim required by both types of semantic view. I also consider a less common view on proper name reference: that it is determined wholly by speakers’ intentions. I argue that the most plausible version of this view—a strong neo-Gricean position whereby all utterance content is determined by the communicative intentions of the speaker—is implausible in light of psychological data. In the positive part of my thesis, I develop a pragmatic view of proper name reference that is influenced primarily by the work of Charles Travis. I argue that the reference of proper names can only be satisfactorily accounted for by claiming that reference occurs not at the level of word meaning, but at the pragmatic level, on an occasion of utterance. I claim that the contextual mechanisms that determine the reference of a name on an occasion are the same kinds of thing that determine the truth-values of utterances according to Travis. Thus, names are, effectively, occasion sensitive in the way that Travis claims predicates and sentences (amongst other expressions) are. Finally, I discuss how further research might address how my pragmatic view of reference affects traditional issues in the literature on names, and the consequences of the view for the semantics of names. (shrink)

The authors adopt a critico-sociological methodology to investigate the current state of the philosophical profession. According to them, the question concerning the status of philosophy cannot be answered from within the precinct of philosophical reason alone, since philosophy—understood primarily as a profession—is marked by a constitutive type of self-ignorance that prevents it from reflecting upon its own sociological conditions of actuality. This ignorance, which is both cause and effect of the organization and investment of philosophical desire, causes philosophers to lose (...) themselves in an ideological myth ”) according to which philosophers are unaffected by the material conditions in which they exist. This myth prevents philosophers from noticing the extent to which their activity is influenced by extra-philosophical determinants that shape, empirically, who becomes a professional philosopher and who doesn't. This article explores the relationship between philosophy's “idea” and its “imago” as a way of shedding light on some of the mechanisms that make philosophy inhospitable for so many women, people of color, and economic minorities. (shrink)

Six hundred three people completed a survey measuring perceptions of traditional areas of philosophical inquiry and their relationship to empirical science. The ten areas studied were: aesthetics, epistemology, ethics, history of philosophy, logic, metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and political philosophy. For each area, participants rated whether it is currently central to philosophy, whether its centrality depends on integration with science, and whether work in the area is sufficiently integrated with science. Centrality judgments tended to (...) be high. Participants viewed nine of the ten areas as central to philosophy, although they made this judgment more confidently for some areas. Dependence judgments were more varied, ranging from clear disagreement to clear agreement. Integration judgments were also varied but exhibited more uncertainty. Some areas whose centrality depended on integration were judged to be well integrated, but a central tendency for all other areas was ambivalence. Demographic factors had small but statistically significant effects on all three sorts of judgment. Higher age predicted higher centrality judgments and higher integration judgments. Higher socioeconomic status predicted lower dependence judgments and higher integration judgments. Men recorded higher integration judgments. (shrink)

Nic R. Jones ABSTRACT: The The lack of diversity in academic philosophy has been well documented. This paper examines the reasons for this issue, identifying two intertwining norms within philosophy which contribute to it: the assertion that the Adversary Method is the primary mode of argumentation and the excessive boundary policing surrounding what constitutes “real” ….

Umjetnica i analitička stručnjakinja za Kantovu filozofiju, Adrian Piper, s pravom je opisana kao "jedna od najvažnijih i najutjecajnijih kulturnih figura našeg vremena". Nagrađivani rad instalacije i participativne izvedbene umjetnosti, Probable Trust Registry: Rules of the Game #1-3, implicitno postavlja filozofska pitanja od interesa za kontraktualističku filozofiju i njenu kritiku, uključujući mogućnost izvršenja istinske moralno obvezujuće posvećenosti iskrenosti, autentičnosti i poštovanja samoga sebe putem umjetničke instalacije. Posebno za publiku koja se blisko identificira s njenim iskustvima, Piperina umjetnost, poput drugih važnih (...) umjetničkih djela, ima snažan katalizatorski etički potencijal. Motivirana divljenjem prema umjetnici i percipiranom konfliktnom odnosu obojenih (tj. ne-bijelih) žena i konvencionalnih diskursa moralne solidarnosti, nudim tri različita načina za razumijevanje Piperinog Probable Trust Registryja. Predlažem da se Piperino misaono izazovno umjetničko djelo, koje se implicitno oslanja na Johna Rawlsa i Charlesa Millsa, može tumačiti kao poziv njenoj publici da se slože s odabirom pravila koja, između ostalog, prihvaćaju univerzalne moralne imperative, predviđaju budući moralni integritet ili se zaklinju u moralni integritet. (shrink)

In introducing the present issue, I clarify in which sense knowledge and philosophy can discriminate and marginalize some individuals. In the first part, I focus on the traditional exclusion of women from philosophy and explore some feminist projects of re-reading the philosophical canon. In my analysis, I pay particular attention to the gender gap in philosophy and the so-called “demographic problem” in academia. In the second part, I examine the best practices for remedying these forms of injustice and promoting diversity (...) in philosophy. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

This research note is meant to introduce into philosophical discussion the preliminary results of an empirical study on the state of blacks in philosophy, which is a joint effort of the American Philosophical Association’s Committee on the Status of Black Philosophers (APA CSBP) and the Society of Young Black Philosophers (SYBP). The study is intended to settle factual issues in furtherance of contributing to dialogues surrounding at least two philosophical questions: What, if anything, is the philosophical value of demographic diversity (...) in professional philosophy? And what is philosophy? The empirical goals of the study are (1) to identify and enumerate U.S. blacks in philosophy, (2) to determine the distribution of blacks in philosophy across career stages, (3) to determine correlates to the success of blacks in philosophy at different career stages, and (4) to compare and contrast results internally and externally to explain any career stage gaps and determine any other disparities. (shrink)