Wed 6 Feb 2008
what kind of philosophy gets in the news?
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Jason Stanley pontificates, on Leiter Reports, as to what it takes for the media to discuss/report on philosophy.
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Lately, a good deal of philosophical research is reaching a larger public. It seems like every month a major newspaper or magazine publishes an article on the tremendous progress philosophers have been making on the problem of consciousness. The New York Times magazine just published an article by Stephen Pinker on moral grammar that has become wildly popular, though my sense of the article is that much of its interest to the lay public in fact consists of its lucid explanations of basic material about meta-ethics. Experimental philosophy has also recently crossed the boundary into the popular press. But obviously, there is a ton of philosophy that, by its very nature, is never going to be reported on in such a medium. Indeed, much philosophy that philosophers themselves consider to be extremely interesting and innovative is of this character.


February 6th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Maybe a definition of terms within context would be helpful. How does the average “man in the street” define philosophy? How would he or she reply if asked to describe his own personal philosophy? I think the author has restricted his vision to academic philosophy which is of very little interest “homo vious”