Welcome
Welcome to the Web home of the American Philosophical Association's Committee on Public Philosophy. The committee is made up of 10 members of the APA, who serve to achieve the committee's goals. According the committee's charge, its basic purpose is "to find and create opportunities to demonstrate the personal value and social usefulness of philosophy." Click here or on the "Mission" button above to read the committee's detailed charge.
On the "Activities" page you will find information on the conferences that committee members have organized, as well as panels planned for the APA divisional meetings and other varied initiatives aimed at pursuing the committee's charge. We will use this Web site for posting further resources, opportunities, updates, and tools relevant to public philosophy. This page is still in development. If you have suggestions for inclusion in its content, contact the committee chair, Dr. Eric Thomas Weber (etweber@olemiss.edu). Come visit again from time to time for updates, such as those listed here below.
Recent News and Upcoming Events and Opportunities
2011 Public Philosophy Op-Ed Contest
The Committee on Public Philosophy has planned the 2011 Public Philosophy Op-Ed Contest. Click here for a PDF of the official announcement and submission guidelines. The committee will considere pieces published in 2011 and will announce the awards in the summer of 2012. The deadline for submissions is Friday, April 20, 2012.
In December of 2011, the Committee on Public Philosophy sponsored two panels at the American Philosophical Association's Eastern Division meeting. You can learn more about these panels on the Activities page by clicking here.
The APA Committee on Public Philosophy proudly sponsored the Public Philosophy Network, which held a conference on October 6-8, 2011 at the Washington Plaza Hotel, Washington, D.C. The conference was titled "Advancing Public Philosophy." The event was co-sponsored by the American Philosophical Association, George Mason University’s Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy, Michigan State University’s Kellogg Chair of Agricultural Ethics, and Pennsylvania State’s Rock Ethics Institute. The event caught the attention of The Chronicle of Higher Education, which wrote about the conference as well as public philosophy today in Daniel Berrett's piece, titled "Philosophers Put Their Minds to Expanding Their Role in Public Affairs," December 11, 2011. Visit: http://chronicle.com/article/Philosophers-Put-Their-Minds/130066.
In the summer of 2010, Dr. Markate Daly of the Center for Public Philosophy kindly offered the Web site domain, publicphilosophy.org, for use for the APA Committee on Public Philosophy. The Center for Public Philosophy's Web site is now available at http://centerforpublicphilosophy.org. We are most grateful to Dr. Daly and to the Center for Public Philosophy for their support and generosity in encouraging and advancing the American Philosophical Association's initiatives for public philosophy.
In April of 2010, Dr. Sharon M. Meagher and Dr. Ellen K. Feder convened a conference on public philosophy. You can learn more about this event by visiting the Public Philosophy Network Web site for the conference here. The main page for the growing Public Philosophy Network is here: http://www.publicphilosophynetwork.org/. After the conference, Dr. Meagher and Dr. Feder drafted an extensive and impressive report called Practicing Public Philosophy, which you can find by clicking here. You can link directly to a PDF version of the report here.
If you would like to learn more about the American Philosophical Association, you can visit the organization's Web site here: http://www.apaonline.org/.