Author Archives: John Basl

I’m on the Market.

Well, that was fast. It seems like only a very short time ago that I was writing a post about what I would miss about my undergrad philosophy department when I went off to grad school. Now, I’m writing a dissertation and preparing for the job market. In light of this, I’m going to use [...]
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#philq: A Tag for Philosopher’s Queries

Later this month I’ll be giving a presentation/demo on academic uses of twitter at a meeting of the American Association of Philosophy Teachers. One of my favorite uses of twitter is to crowdsource philosophical questions. Whether I need a suggestion for a reading, a citation, or someone to find an article [...]
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Dear Scientists and Science Fan Boys/Girls, Know your role.

There was recently some back and forth in the Guardian between Nick Maxwell and Jon Butterworth concerning the nature of science and the role of philosophers of science (Evelyn Brister has a nice recap and some good comments over at Knowledge and Experience). Today the bloggingheads diavalog between Fodor and Sober on Fodor’s latest book [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments

3 Paper Dissertation

I’ve been planning for awhile to write a 3-paper style dissertation. I made the case for this to my advisor (who kicks more ass than Optimum Prime) and he has been on board for a long time. As it turns out, the department actually has to have a vote to see if they should allow [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Some Papers I’m Sending Off Soon

Someone asked me about some papers I’m planning to submit for review in the near future. Answering the question is a bit hard to answer in 140 characters and this blog is just taking up space on the internet currently, so I figured I’d describe the projects here in at least a little more detail [...]
Posted in Ethics, General Philosophy, Philosophy of Science | Leave a comment

Dear Search Committee, I really do want the job. I’m sorry I published?

Ever since this piece on the hiring process in philosophy was published in Inside Higher Ed, there has been a lot of discussion about the role that pedigree should play in hiring committees decisions about job candidates (see here, here, and here). However, there has been little discussion about publications or, rather, discussions about publications [...]
Posted in Job Market | 8 Comments

Attracting Majors: The Psychology of Teaching Evaluations

A couple of weeks ago on Twitter, someone posted a link to a blog post discussing ways to attract more majors in the philosophy department. Attracting majors is really important, especially in departments without graduate students where the number of majors is a determining factor in the amount of funds you get, the potential for [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | 10 Comments

Peter Singer, Michael Vick, and Factory Farming

A few days ago on twitter, Peter Singer made the following comment Re Michael Vick: if you eat factory farmed chicken, eggs, pork or veal, you’re in no position to be outraged by the Eagles signing him. I think the spirit of this comment is largely correct, but some comments on twitter made me want to defend [...]
Posted in Ethics | 2 Comments

Reductio my ass.

I’ve recently come to hold the view that artifacts have morally relevant interests (i.e. artifacts are morally considerable). I came to hold this view because I hold that etiological functions underwrites interests, artifacts have functions in the sense mentioned, and that there is no morally relevant difference between the functions of those artifacts and other [...]
Posted in Ethics/Metaethics, General Philosophy | 6 Comments

Apparently, I’m a creationist

This past Monday (3/2/09) I attended a public talk by Dan Dennett. Overall, I thought Dennett’s talk was pretty good. It was a public lecture and it was to be expected that it would be a bit superficial. It was, and that is fine. But, at one point, Dennett made the claim that both Thomas [...]
Posted in Intelligent Design, Philosophy of Science | 9 Comments
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