Teaching Upper Division Philosophy in Canvas – What I’ve Done
I expect that most philosophers and other academics will be thrust into online teaching in the coming weeks. I’m currently teaching a course (PHIL 3170: Philosophy of Religion) in the classroom that I’ve already taught online six times. So I thought I’d put together a post on what I’ve found works. Unfortunately, only some of […]
Build Big Philosophical Theories and Study Those Who Did
Jason Brennan wrote a nice reply to my defense of the great historical philosophers against Mike Huemer’s critique of them. I think the best way to respond is to outline two different ways of thinking about how to make progress in philosophy that I think roughly parallel how Brennan and I approach our own work. […]
Great Philosophers as Architects: A Reply to Huemer
Philosopher Mike Huemer has recently blogged that most of the great philosophers make terrible arguments, and are great primarily because they turned out to be influential (this follows a previous post on history of philosophy, which I responded to as well). Mike received pushback, including a comment from Roderick Long, which I wanted to explore […]
Philosophy Makes Path-Dependent Progress
One of the most peculiar features of philosophy, much remarked upon, is that philosophy doesn’t seem to make progress. Not only that, we seem to return to the same views again and again. What explains this? Philosophers disagree (as usual!), but I’d like to offer a hypothesis with two parts. (1) Theory Space is Large. […]
In Defense of the History of Philosophy: A Reply to Huemer
Mike Huemer has just written a provocative broadside against the history of philosophy, following a broadside against analytic philosophy and another against continental philosophy. I had some sympathy with the first two posts, but much less with this one. I want to outline some reasons to value the history of philosophy and historians of philosophy. […]
CFA 2020: Assailing the Anthropocene Workshop
Each year, my department at BGSU hosts a workshop in applied ethics and public policy. Faculty take turns organizing the conferences, which are always excellent. This year, my colleage Justin Donhauster is organizing the conference, whose them is Assailing the Anthropocene: The Ethics of Disruptive Innovations for Surviving Our Climate-Changed World. The workshop will examine […]