Karyn Lai brought to my attention that the magazine Philosophy Now is conducting a questionnaire about philosophical interests. If some of us are willing to fill it out, it might contribute to a more balanced perception of the field. Please respond directly to Rick Lewis (his email is below).
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Philosophy Now magazine is celebrating its 21st anniversary this year, and we are marking the occasion by inviting professional philosophers to respond to a short questionnaire. We think your answers would interest our readers by telling them something about the current state of opinion among academics.
Yes, we realize that questions like “who is your favourite philosopher?” might encourage shallow, oversimplistic judgments but hey, we thought we’d do it anyway. It is mainly for fun.
PHILOSOPHY NOW 21st ANNIVERSARY QUESTIONNAIRE
A] Please name the five historical (ie dead) philosophers you consider the most interesting or important.
B] Please name the five living philosophers you consider the most interesting or important.
C] Please name the rising star among younger philosophers (under 40) who you consider the most worth watching.
D] What current philosophical movement, tendency or approach do you consider to be the most interesting?
E] Which two areas of philosophy (i.e. ‘Philosophy of X’) do you consider to be the most active at the present time?
F] What is the most interesting philosophy book published in the last 5 years?
G] (For data analysis purposes only) Are you: (a) an academic (b) a graduate student (c) other philosopher?
Please reply to me off-list, and I’ll post a summary of responses here afterwards. Individual responses will be treated as confidential and only summaries of responses will be published, both here and in the magazine. And do please feel free to forward this questionnaire to other professional philosophers.
Best wishes,
Rick Lewis
Editor, Philosophy Now
rick.lewis@philosophynow.org
http://philosophynow.org
