Today is World Philosophy Day, people. This is the day when we come together all over the globe (possibly) to honour our august and noble discipline, and are encouraged to entertain new and unfamiliar ideas.
To celebrate, the Philosopher’s Eye is pleased to announce that we will be bringing you five cutting-edge opinion pieces written by highly distinguished philosophers. Each short piece will explore the theme: ‘The Future of Philosophy’, and will be posted as follows:
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- Whither Philosophy?
By Robert Stern
Professor of Philosophy, University of Sheffield
Editor of the European Journal of Philosophy
Going live: Later today
- IPAD – Information Processing and the Analysis of Democracy: A research program for interdisciplinary philosophy
By Vincent F. Hendricks
Professor of Formal Philosophy, University of Copenhagen & Columbia University
Editor of Synthese
Going live: Fri 18th November, 9am GMT
- The Future of Philosophy
By Tim Mulgan
Professor of Moral and Political Philosophy, University of St Andrews
Editor of The Philosophical Quarterly
Going live: Mon 21st November, 9am GMT
- Trends in Philosophy
By Matti Eklund
Associate Professor, Cornell
Editor of The Philosophical Review
Going live: Tue 22nd November, 9am GMT
- Information First
By Luciano Floridi
Professor of Philosophy and UNESCO Chair in Information and Computer Ethics, University of Hertfordshire & Oxford University
Editor of Philosophy & Technology
Going live: Wed 23rd November, 9am GMT
Our five philosophers and many others will meet to discuss the future of philosophy at a workshop entitled Editor’s Cut – A view of philosophical research from journal editors. The workshop is organized by the Institute of Philosophy, School of Advanced Study, University of London, on Friday the 13th of January 2012, in collaboration with Wiley-Blackwell’s journal Metaphilosophy and the UNESCO Chair in Information and Computer Ethics.
#1 by Margaret on November 17, 2011 - 2:53 pm
Is it the position of Wiley-Blackwell, The Institute of Philosophy and The Philosopher’s Eye that said eye is male?
#2 by Anonymous on November 17, 2011 - 4:33 pm
Dear Margaret (if i may),
as someone who took the train from Rome to do his PhD with Susan Haack at Warwick I share the view that philosophy is neither male nor female, just human. I am very sorry if the impression you received from this series of blogs was different. It is unfortunate that all contributors who accepted the invitation to participate are men.
Best,
Luciano Floridi
#3 by hippocampa on November 17, 2011 - 6:15 pm
Very unfortunate, indeed.
Pray, what did you consider to do about this unfortunate matter before you decided that heck yes, let’s do an all male line up?
#4 by Anonymous on November 17, 2011 - 6:33 pm
It is also unfortunately that you didn’t think to ask more women.
#5 by hippocampa on November 18, 2011 - 11:45 pm
Oh heck, why respond to all those feminist philosophers hmm? Such a touchy lot. Heck, you are just presenting an all male future of philosophy, what’s so bad about that?
Hell yeah.
#6 by Liam Cooper (Managing Editor) on November 21, 2011 - 3:42 pm
Hello,
I’d like to assure all of our readers that it is in no sense the position of The Editor’s Cut event (or Wiley Blackwell, or The Philosopher’s Eye) that the future of philosophy is somehow an all-male affair.
As Luciano responds above, several female philosophers were invited to participate, but none accepted.
We welcome any constructive comments that people might have.
Best,
Liam
#7 by wahine1 on November 21, 2011 - 3:57 pm
Dear Liam,
thank you for responding. Please realise that we don’t think you or your journal are intentionally evil or deliberately discriminating against female philosophers; we all find ourselves that we can end up with line-ups for journals, seminars, etc that are less than ideal in all sorts of ways. But we are nevertheless concerned about the pattern of these in the professions, the results of those patterns, and the reasons they exist (and continue to exist). For more, please look here:
http://feministphilosophers.wordpress.com/gendered-conference-campaign/
For constructive suggestions:
http://feministphilosophers.wordpress.com/2011/03/26/how-to-avoid-a-gendered-conference/
[ this applies to conferences, but helpful still I hope ]
#8 by Liam Cooper (Managing Editor) on November 21, 2011 - 4:57 pm
Hi Wahine1,
Thanks for pointing me in the direction of the links in question. They are really helpful. Thanks! I’ve been a fan of the feministphilosophers blog for a while and it’s partly thanks to the great articles there (and other sources like ‘beingawomaninphilosophy’) that I’ve been made aware of how profound and complex an issue this is.
Before I go any further, I have to preface everything I say with the caveat that I was not the person who arranged the conference in question so can’t comment in too much detail on the selection process, other than to reiterate that several women were invited. I will be speaking at the conference in my capacity as managing editor of Philosophy Compass, and in my capacity as a books commissioning editor.
I think the central issue in this case, as you point out, is that there is a conflict between ideals and practical concerns (nothing new about that!). These pressures are pretty concisely summed up by ‘J’ on the ‘how-to-avoid’ thread above:
“…Given that women are still underrepresented in most disciplines in academia, and the more so the higher you move up the academic ladder of merit and status, the few women there are at the higher levels are often expected to make up for the general gender imbalance in the profession. Obviously, you can’t have 50 percent women on all committees, conferences, anthologies, etc, if women only make up 20 or 30 percent of the profession…”
[Anecdotal data alert]: Actually, this fits very well with my experience of inviting women philosophers to be section editors for Philosophy Compass. We’ve always been very conscious to include women philosophers, and I think we’ve done so: http://philosophy-compass.com/editors/, but it’s my impression that women philosophers are horribly overstretched, and I’ve found it hard to get the agreement of the person who would be my first choice if she happens to be a woman. This is a slightly different ball game, of course, but still pertinent to this discussion, I think. I also realise the plural of ‘anecdote’ is not ‘data’
Thanks,
Liam
#9 by hippocampa on November 21, 2011 - 3:58 pm
Thanks Liam, but I am still curious as to what you have done to avoid having an all male line up. Considering the large amount of women in philosophy and particularly given the subject, surely a plan was carried out to try and include women?
Or weren’t you aware that they were all men, maybe?
That seems to happen a lot, so you wouldn’t be alone. Not right, of course, but not alone.