Which Brand Do You Identify With? Brand Loyalty as Discrimination in...
Are you Analytic-coke, or Continental-pepsi? Are you Femininist-Tareyton, or non-Feminist-Tareyton? Would you rather fight than switch? 1:01 Now remove ‘coke’, ‘pepsi’, and ‘Tareyton’ from those...
View ArticleReal Philosophy from the Outside.
APP Editors’ note: M is a recent PhD in philosophy, and also the holder of an advanced degree in law, who is currently teaching in a non-TT position at a public university somewhere in Europe; Boethius...
View ArticleLearning to Love Your Captors, Or, How to Publish, then Perish before Leaving...
I would venture to guess that the vast majority of us took an interest in philosophy not as a way to have better access to a job, but as a way of life. I would also venture to guess that the vast...
View ArticlePhilosophical Rigor as Rigor Mortis, Or, How to Write a Publishable Paper...
My anarcho-philosophical attention was recently drawn to this very interesting blog post, by Marcus Arvan, “Has Contemporary Philosophy Over-Fetishized Rigor?” By “rigor” Arvan means, and I also mean,...
View ArticleThe Pseudo-Family from Hell: Against Philosophy Departments & For Philosophy...
Every happy philosophy department is the same, but each unhappy philosophy department is fucked up in its own special, weird way. Of course, I’m profanely spinning on the justly famous first line of...
View ArticleThe Strange Case of Don-the-Monster, Or, Coercive Moralism in Professional...
Part 1. Y’s Take on The Strange Case of Don-the-Monster. One of my colleagues (let’s call him Don) considers himself a religious man and has a strong background in ethics. He specializes in health care...
View ArticleFrom Enlightenment Lite to Nihilism: How Professional Philosophy Has Totally...
Recently, someone sent me a copy of this extremely recent interesting Harper’s article by William Deresiewicz, “The Neoliberal Arts: How College Sold its Soul to the Market.” It’s a scathing critique...
View ArticlePhilosoflicks 2, Installment 2: Frankenscience.
Philosoflicks 1: You Are Not a Machine! Philosoflicks 2, Installment 1: Frankenstein; Or, the Modern Prometheus, Preface & Letters I-IV. Volume 1, Chapter 1. I AM by birth a Genevese; and my family...
View ArticleOn Having the Name ‘Z’.
1. Recently, in reply to what I thought was a very friendly, polite, and even slightly amusing e-mail letter telling him about APP, a well-known Analytic philosopher of science–whose name I won’t...
View Articlesickness-unto-death@uni.edu: Professional E-Mail as an Existential and...
1. By personal problems, I mean large or small individual or first-person difficulties, that need to be dealt with, and can be controlled to some extent by that first-person. 2. But an existential...
View ArticleAdvice from MIT on Preparing a Philosophy Writing Sample.
APP Editors’ note: This memo was shared by one of our readers, who teaches in a top-ranked philosophy department somewhere in North America. See also Philosophical Rigor as Rigor Mortis, Or, How to...
View ArticleThe AOS is a ASS: How Specialization in Professional Philosophy Creates...
“If the law supposes that,” said Mr. Bumble,… “the law is a ass—a idiot.” –Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist, ch, 51. 1. Recently I read Samuel Wheeler’s very cool and insightful essay, “Specialization and...
View ArticleProduction for Use: Professional Philosophy as a Highly Efficient System for...
1. One doesn’t have to be a Kantian to realize that, other things being equal, treating people (oneself or others) merely as means, that is, treating people merely as instruments to the achievement of...
View ArticleProfessional Philosophy, Scientism, and Frankenscience.
1. By scientism, I mean the four-part philosophical ideology consisting of: (i) scientific naturalism as a metaphysical thesis, namely reductive or non-reductive physicalism, plus universal natural...
View ArticleA New Year’s Special: My APA Presidential Address, Third and Final Draft.
APP Editors’ note: V is a tenured full professor of philosophy at a public university somewhere in North America, and one of Z’s small yet steadily growing insurgency of inside-professional-philosophy...
View ArticleAPP is Not Alone, Sort-Of: “Where Academic Philosophy Went Wrong,”...
1. Where Academic Philosophy Went Wrong, by Charles Huenemann. CH’s personal blog, 19 August 2014 A potted history: I believe Peter Sloterdijk is right that the Enlightenment has been followed by...
View ArticleFor the Orlando Victims. (Please Share/Disseminate.)
PLEASE GO TO: for_the_orlando_victims_june16
View ArticleTen Brilliant But Professionally Neglected Philosophical Ideas Since 1977.
I. Introduction In a recent edgy essay, “Why Hasn’t Professional Philosophy Produced Any Important Ideas in the Last 40 Years?” I argued that although it’s almost certainly the case that philosophers...
View ArticleProfessional Philosophy in the Age of Trump.
I. Introduction: The Age of Trump By now, it’s self-evident to everyone that Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 US Presidential election to Donald Trump because: (1) Clinton’s campaign arrogantly failed to...
View ArticleMurder-By-Neglect: From Danto’s Optimism to Z’s Pessimism.
A long, long time ago, in a far-away land, I read Arthur Danto’s Transfiguration of the Commonplace, because I was thinking about philosophical aesthetics and philosophy of art on the one hand and...
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