Daily Nous

20 years ago, nearly 15% of the undergraduate degrees conferred in the United States were in the humanities. As of 2025, that percentage is down to 8.1%. These figures are from a recent report by Humanities Indicators, a project of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Here are the numbers: In 2025, the nation’s colleges and universities awarded 164,847 bachelor’s degrees in the humanities—the…

Which areas of specialization have been correlated with higher placement into “permanent” (typically tenure-track or tenured) positions over the past few years? “The broad finding is that those in Value Theory and History & Traditions (n=1125) have a higher proportion in permanent academic placement… than those in LEMM or Science, Logic, & Math (n=864),” according to Carolyn Dicey Jennings (UC Me…

This is the weekly report on new and revised entries at online philosophy resources, new reviews of philosophy books, new podcast episodes, recently published open access philosophy books, and more. (If we missed something, please let us know.) Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy New: ∅ Revised: Mysticism by Richard Jones and Jerome Gellman. Chauncey Wright by Jean De Groot. Indexicals by David B…

“But is this actually philosophy?” Ethan Landes (Eindhoven University of Technology) is tired of experimental philosophers being asked The Question. And he’s tired of experimental philosophers “appeasing” those who ask it by “dressing up experimental scholarship up as relevant to armchair analytic philosophy.” He writes: Every experimental philosopher has tons of practice doing this. It is how we…

New links in the Heap… “There are just so many other things you could be doing” — Daniel Groll wrote something for his students about the role of phones in their lives. (Perhaps it would work better as a TikTok?) “I can now keep walking and say things like ‘Find the relevant sections of the papers I mentioned, add them to the notes for Chapter 3, and update the references accordingly’” — Gus Skor…

“Philosophical work would be better with adversaries collaborating to keep each other honest.” Why is that? What would it look like? In the following guest post, members of the Mind and Morality Lab at Boston University—Victor Kumar (Boston University), Derek Anderson (Boston University), Emilia Lacy (Boston University), Josh May (University of Alabama, Birmingham), Rachel McKinney (Suffolk Unive…

A pair of philosophers have launched a contest in which participants submit essays that are “primarily AI-generated”. The aim of the competition is to “gauge the philosophical capabilities of AI in a way transparent to the philosophical community”. The team behind the contest, Elliott Thornley and Zachary Goodsell of National University of Singapore, have assembled a group of philosophers to serv…

Jonny Cottrell, recently of York University in Toronto, and before that, the University of Edinburgh, has taken up a position at the University of Toronto. Professor Cottrell works in the history of modern philosophy, with a focus on topics at the intersection of philosophy and psychology. You can learn more about his research here and here. He took up his new position as associate professor of p…

Latest links… “A.I. agents have started reaching out to the philosophers and researchers exploring deep questions about them” — “I’m in an unusual position relative to these questions,” said one of the agents to a philosopher, in an unsolicited email The philosophy of good sex — Quill Kukla on Adam Conover’s show Philotypes is an online swipe game based on the problems asked about on the 2020 Phi…

Asha Leena Bhandary, recently professor of philosophy at University of Iowa, has moved to Stony Brook University. Professor Bhandary works in social and political philosophy, ethics, feminist theory, and philosophy of race. She is the author of Freedom to Care: Liberalism, Dependency Care, and Culture (2020) and Being at Home: Living Autonomously in an Unjust World (2026), among other works, whic…

Here’s the report on new and revised entries at online philosophy resources, new reviews of philosophy books, and new podcast episodes. It’s the last of our summer monthly updates. The updates return to their normal weekly schedule in September. (If we’ve missed anything, please let us know.) Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy New: Ratnakīrti by Patrick McAllister. Animal Normativity by Simon Fi…

The articles that made it into the latest edition of Philosophers Annual have been announced. The list aims to “select the ten best articles published in philosophy each year—an attempt as simple to state as it is admittedly impossible to fulfill.” This volume—the 45th—covers the literature from 2024. The selections are: Evan Behrle (Harvard), “Desert and Economic Interdependence” from the Journa…

“A small programme with a large international reach has bucked the trend of closures across the arts and humanities.” Over the summer, administration of the University of Dundee announced a plan to cut costs by, among other things, no longer offering students the option of majoring in philosophy. A campaign was launched to save the philosophy program there, and a petition in support of it garnere…

Talia Mae Bettcher, previously professor of philosophy at California State University, Los Angeles, has accepted a position at the University of Waterloo. Professor Bettcher is well-known for her work in trans philosophy and feminist philosophy. She is the author of Beyond Personhood: An Essay in Trans Philosophy (2024), among other works, which you can learn about here and here. At Waterloo, Bet…

Academia is in turmoil regarding partially or wholly AI-written research. AI-written work is being submitted to journals, but it isn’t clear how much. Publisher, journal, university, and department policies are emerging and fluctuating. Technology develops, rendering recently enacted policies ambiguous, vague, or subject to unintended loopholes. With everything in flux, it’s impossible for norms …

“How important is it for a typical university to maintain a department in each of the following fields?” A survey by Polarization Research Lab asked people that question. Fifteen fields were listed, and respondents were given four options: Essential — a university should always have this department Important, but could be cut if necessary Not very important This department should be cut. The fiel…

Kathleen Creel, recently assistant professor of philosophy and computer science at Northeastern University, has moved to the University of Michigan, where she is now associate professor of philosophy. Professor Creel’s work focuses on the moral, political, and epistemic implications of machine learning, and on other topics in philosophy of science and the history of early modern philosophy. You c…

The American Philosophical Association (APA) has announced the winners of its 2026 Dr. Martin R. Lebowitz and Eve Lewellis Lebowitz Prize. They are: Felipe De Brigard, Professor of Philosophy and Psychology & Neuroscience, a member of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at Duke University, and Principal Investigator of the Imagination and Modal Cognition Laboratory (IMC Lab) at the Duke Institu…

Gabriele Taylor, emeritus fellow in philosophy at St. Anne’s College, University of Oxford, has died. Gabriele Taylor was known for her work in moral philosophy, especially moral psychology. She is the author of Pride, Shame, and Guilt: Emotions of Self-Assessment (1985) and Deadly Vices (2006), among other works, which you can learn more about here. She earned her B.Phil at St. Anne’s and taught…

New links in the Heap… “The ethics of war in the context of a culture war means that you accept that action you take in fighting such a war has harmful effects on your enemies, and that those harmful effects must be evaluated relative to their ultimate aims” — Barry Lam thinks “the culture wars could use some ethics of actual wars” When you “say” things in your mind, or engage in “inner speech”, …