What do philosophers believe? A new study has some answers

David Bourget and David J. Chalmers have a noteworthy paper forthcoming in Philosophical Studies in which they report their findings from a study they recently conducted about the “philosophical views of contemporary professional philosophers.”

I posted on this study last week at the AMU philosophy department blog. Since I assume that we do not have the same traffic here as we do there I thought I would also put up a post here.

Among the questions that Bourget and Chalmers have tried to answer are the following: Are more philosophers theists or atheists? Are more physicalists or non-physicalists? Are the majority of philosophers deontologists, consequentialists, or virtue ethicists?

You can find a draft of the paper at PhilPapers.org. It is is titled “What Do Philosophers Believe?” The authors admit that it might be misleading to say that their work is a report on the beliefs of a representative group of all philosophers. Indeed, their paper might be more aptly called “What Do Analytic Philosophers Believe?” Bourget and Chalmers explain:

It should be acknowledged that this target group has a strong (although not exclusive) bias toward analytic or Anglocentric philosophy. As a consequence, the results of the survey are a much better guide to what analytic/Anglocentric philosophers (or at least philosophers in strong analytic/Anglocentric departments believe) believe than to what philosophers from other traditions believe. We conceived of the survey that way from the start, in part because that is where our own expertise lies. It is also not clear how much can be learned by requiring (for example) specialists in Anglocentric philosophy to answer questions drawn from Asian philosophy or vice versa. Furthermore, attempting full representation of philosophers worldwide from all traditions would require linguistic resources and contact details that were unavailable to us.

I suppose this narrow sampling is forgivable. With more funding and assistance they might have been able to do something more comprehensive. While I found the paper informative, a friend of mine, who read it at my suggestion (and who reads much more analytic philosophy than I do), told me that he found it uninformative. Oh well, you can judge for yourself.

Latin (and Greek) Immersion at Ave Maria University, Summer 2013

The below is from Dr. Bradley Ritter of The Department of Classics and Early Christian Literature at Ave Maria University:

Looking to accelerate your Latin and translate the work of memorization into ready comprehension? Learn to speak Latin as a foundation for more fluent reading ability by participating in the Summer Latin Intensive course at Ave Maria University this summer from Monday June 17th - Saturday July 6th, 2013.

The course uses a methodology tailored to teach Latin as a spoken language, reintroducing you to Classical Latin through the development of a spoken vocabulary, communicative exchange, and comprehension of simple narratives. Careful attention is given to detailed training in grammar, but the end result is a vastly improved ability to read Latin. The course runs three weeks with two excursions on Saturdays conducted entirely in Latin. 

It is ideally suited to students who have already studied the language for one to three years, but who want to improve their reading skills dramatically through practice in the active use of Latin. Participants will be given the chance to develop their speaking and comprehension skills through formal classroom work and in settings outside of class, including field trips. Students are strongly encouraged to speak Latin exclusively with one another and with the instructor for the duration of the course. Discussion of complex grammatical points will occasionally require the use of English in the classroom, but only as need dictates.

While the course is suitable for college students and even advanced high-school students in their first three years of Latin, beginners are encouraged to contact us.  

A Koine Greek course is also being offered by Dr. Christophe Rico, author of Polis, a textbook designed to teach Koine Greek as a spoken language. The Greek course is being offered Thursday June 13th - Wednesday July 3rd, 2013. 

The deadline for registration for either course is June 1.  

Visit http://classics.avemaria.edu/polis_greek_and_latin/ for more details or contact Dr. Bradley Ritter at bradley.ritter@avemaria.edu.

Enjoy a 20% Discount on All Books Published by Sapientia Press of Ave Maria University

Several weeks ago I made a post about the new relationship between Sapientia Press of Ave Maria University and The Catholic University of America Press.  Yesterday CUA Press released the following, which details a 20% discount that is now available on all Sapientia Press books for the entire month of May:

The Catholic University of America Press is pleased to announce that we are taking on the distribution functions for Sapientia Press of Ave Maria University.   Sapientia Press exists to foster the academic mission of Ave Maria University and produce scholarly books aimed at enhancing and promoting Catholic scholarship.  Please enjoy a special 20% discount on all Sapientia Press titles. To order call 1-800-537-5487 or order online. Use code: CZ138 from May 1, 2013 - May 31, 2013

Divine Action – in Berkeley

The Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley, California, recently held a book launch for Unlocking Divine Action: Contemporary Science and Thomas Aquinas (Catholic University of America Press, 2012) by Fr. Michael Dodds, OP, Professor of Philosophy and Theology at DSPT and the Graduate Theological Union (GTU), Berkeley. Bringing the teachings of Thomas Aquinas into dialogue with contemporary science, Fr. Dodds’ book finds new ways to understand God’s action in the natural world and in human life. Presenters were Dr. Robert John Russell, Founder and Director of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (CTNS) at the GTU; Dr. Ted Peters of CTNS, Professor of Systematic Theology, Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary and the GTU; Dr. Lara Buchak, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, University of California at Berkeley, and Fr. Mariusz Tabaczek, OP, GTU doctoral student from the Dominican Province of Poland. Presentations at the event are available on video (here).

All Aquinas en français

Francophones will be delighted to know that they can now access Aquinas’s complete oeuvre in French online at http://docteurangelique.free.fr/. Some of the texts also have the Latin in the left-hand column.

The site seems to have been around since 2004 but it has only recently completed the project of translating Aquinas’s opera omnia. The translation of Aquinas’s commentary on the second book of the Sentences, for example, was completed in 2011.

Many of the translations have not appeared in French before (e.g., the complete commentary on the Sentences) and others are new French translations made especially for the site (e.g., De ente et essentia).