Leiter on 'The State of the Vocation'

Interesting article from Brian Leiter in The Philosophers' Magazine Online on the state of academic philosophy as a profession and vocation here. 

Public Ethics Radio

Another addition to the growing wealth of philosophy resources online - Public Ethics Radio. Details below...

The idea of Public Ethics Radio is to engage ethicists in discussion of pressing practical dilemmas Each program focuses on a particular theme - military intervention, international trade, political corruption - and takes as it starting point some more specific issue that is prominent in the public consciousness. 

The show is hosted by Christian Barry and produced by Matt Peterson. 

Public Ethics Radio is a production of the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, an Australian Research Council Special Research Centre, at the Australian National University, the University of Melbourne, and Charles Stuart University. 

The first episode features Thomas Pogge on Pharmaceutical Innovation. Upcoming episodes will feature Leif Wenar (Kings College London) on the Resource Curse, Jessica Wolfendale (University of Melbourne) on Torture Lite, and Larry Temkin (Rutgers) on Extending Human Lifespans. 

Philosophers' Carnival

The 76th Philosophers' Carnival is here.

Brooks' 5 tips for getting published

Thom Brooks has written a very helpful and readable article on publication for early-career academics which can be found here. It develops some of the ideas from his previous advice for graduates on getting published, which can be found here. 

New Philosophy Bookmarking Site: 'Sympoze'

Yet another site to add to the list:

Sympoze is a new social networking and bookmarking site for philosophers. Sympoze will help you stay current on what professional philosophers are reading and enjoying. Sympoze is currently in beta testing. If you would like to join and start submitting and/or voting up content from philosophy blogs, online papers, and philosophy journal articles, then email Andrew Cullison via [lastname] [at] [fredonia] [dot] [edu].

Social bookmarking is a way for social networks to collectively save, rate, and promote online content. At Sympoze users can submit links to philosophy content that they enjoy - from philosophy blog posts, links to unpublished papers, or links to published journal articles they enjoy or think other philosophers will enjoy. Once a user submits a link, the rest of the Sympoze community can "digg" the content. Popular scoops will automatically be promoted to the front page so everyone (including non-users) can get an up to the minute update concerning what's hot in philosophy.

The unique feature about Sympoze is that User accounts are limited to persons with graduate degrees in philosophy or who are enrolled in a philosophy graduate program. This will ensure that the content being voted up and down will reflect the opinions of professional philosophers - however, everyone will be able to view the content that philosophers vote up and down. Philosophers are encouraged to submit links to any philosophy content available online including links to their own material be it a blog post, an online paper, or a link to a philosophy journal article.

Academia.edu New Look

Academia.edu - the popular networking site for academics - has had a makeover. The main change is the addition of a function which allows one to search departments and view the members of particular universities in a 'tree' 

Paris and Bavaria by Train

I've been away for a long weekend visiting family in Bavaria, Germany. We decided to travel by train rather than fly, for various reasons, both altruistic (environmental concern) and selfish (fear of flying). We took the Eurostar to Paris, spent an afternoon walking down the Seine and an evening drinking wine overlooking Notre Dame, before boarding the sleeper to Augsburg (nr. Munich). We arrived fairly refreshed at about 8am the next morning, feeling rather smug. I'd recommend to anyone planning a trip to Western Europe from the UK to consider traveling by train - all the information needed on timetables etc. can be found here. 

Peer Review

There's an interesting post from Nigel Warburton over at Virtual Philosopher on the peer review process in academia, with an equally interesting reply from Tim Crane - I especially like the idea of getting a grant not to publish!