Best Majors for GRE Scores: Still Physics and Philosophy

Although the GRE made significant revisions to the test this academic year, one fact remains: Physics and philosophy students still rocked the test. Physics majors tied for first in the math section, and philosophy students topped the verbal and writing sections.

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Philosophy Club and Fall Events

Any NKU students interested in joining the Philosophy Club should contact Rudy Garns or Yaw Frimpong-Mansoh. Members of Phi Sigma Tau are especially encouraged to participate. We will gather names of interested students over the next week and then organize a meeting to elect officers and set an agenda.

We do have a schedule of philosophy-oriented fall events for all NKU students.

Fall 2012

Film and Philosophy Series

The second Friday of each month we will screen a particularly thought provoking film and follow it with a discussion. Open to everyone. Cookies and beverages will be available.

Friday, September 14, 3:00-6:00 Digitorium (GH) Crimes and Misdemeanors (Woody Allen, 1989)

Friday, October 12, 3:00-6:00 Digitorium (GH) A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick, 1971)

Friday, November 9, 3:00-6:00 Digitorium (GH) Solaris (Andrey Tarkovskiy, 1972)

Philosophers' Cafe

The fourth Friday of each month we invite students, faculty, staff and community members to join us for an informal discussion of a pre-selected philosophical issue.

Friday, September 28, 3:00-4:00 GH 316 Topic: TBA

Friday, October 26(tentative), 3:00-4:00 GH 316 Topic: TBA

Friday, November 30, 3:00-4:00 GH 316 Topic: TBA

Please join us.

Socially Engaged Philosophy of Science

49th Annual Cincinnati Philosophy Colloquium: Socially Engaged Philosophy of Science, 11-13 October 2012. This will be a good colloquium and a great opportunity for NKU faculty and students to interact with some good philosophers on some interesting issues.

49th Annual Colloquium at UC: Socially Engaged Philosophy of Science

Bernanke to Economists: More Philosophy, Please

On Monday, Ben Bernanke wasn’t talking like a scientist. He was talking like a philosopher. “The ultimate purpose of economics, of course, is to understand and promote the enhancement of well-being,” he said. To a roomful of economists, he suggested that the measurements they were using, like gross domestic product and personal consumption expenditures, were inadequate to that understanding. “Aggregate statistics can sometimes mask important information,” he said. Translation: People are unhappy, and we don’t know exactly why. “We should see better and more direct measurements of economic well being,” he said, “the ultimate objective of our policy decision.” Translation: I know it’s hard to measure happiness. Start doing it, anyway.

Bernanke to Economists: More Philosophy, Please

Crimes and Misdemeanors

Our first film in this fall's Film and Philosophy series is Woody Allen's 1989 film Crimes and Misdemeanors. Join us Friday, Sept. 14 from 3:00-6:00 in the NKU Digitorium (Griffin Hall) for a lively discussion on questions of justice and morality.

Philosophical teaching will get students thinking for themselves again

Teachers need to stop teaching to the test and adopt a more philosophical teaching style across the curriculum....

Philosophical teaching will get students thinking for themselves again

How the Internet Could Learn to Feel

An interview with Christof Koch.

Consciousness is the central factor of our lives. The only way I know I exist is because I'm conscious. I might be mistaken about who exactly I am -- for example, how attractive I am to the opposite sex -- but there's no doubt I have feelings of pain, pleasure, anger, of being a man, of waking up. Until recently, science has neglected to incorporate the fact of consciousness into its theories. If science wants a complete understanding of everything in the universe, it has to include consciousness.

The Nature of Consciousness: How the Internet Could Learn to Feel - Steve Paulson - The Atlantic

Martha Nussbaum: the new religious intolerance

Martha Nussbaum talks about the new religious intolerance.

In her new book, The New Religious Intolerance: Overcoming the Politics of Fear in an Anxious Age (Harvard University Press, 2012), the internationally celebrated philosopher Martha Nussbaum argues that in the past decade there has been an upsurge in 'Islamophobia'. It culminated in the initial—but wrong—assumption that Muslims were responsible for the massacre of 77 people in Norway in July 2011. When the killer turned out to be an anti-Muslim zealot, Nussbaum argued that people needed to re-examine their attitudes based on fear. But in this extended interview, she also discusses the challenge that the radical fringe of Islam poses for traditional western views of tolerance.

Martha Nussbaum: the new religious intolerance - Religion and Ethics Report - ABC Radio National

Interview with philosopher Richard Brown

Shombies v. Zombies

Richard Brown is a funkybodacious philosopher of consciousness and leader of the Shombie universe. He’s asked why 1+1 has to equal 2, presented a short argument proving that there is no God, shown what’s wrong with eating meat, discussed both the delayed choice quantum eraser and pain asymbolia whils’t he flies his freak flag to Alan Turing. He denies Skynet forced him to co-write Terminator and Philosophy: I’ll Be Back Therefore I Am but has never been known to sleep. He’s another renegade philosophical musical doo bee doo from the legendary NYC bands who brought you 8-bit fusion higher-order thoughts about vegan unicorn meat with experimental breakbeats. Jammin’.

Read the interview.

Quit Your Technology Job and Get a Humanities Ph.D.

Dr. Damon Horowitz is a philosopher and entrepreneur, exploring what is possible at the intersection of technology and the humanities. He discusses the value of a humanities Ph.D. in a world that is being continuously inundated with new technology, and how to apply the degree toward a successful career.