Sally Haslanger of MIT has written a hair raising article on the experience of women in philosophy departments in the United States. It is interesting to note the suggestions scattered throughout as to the social and political parallels to the abstraction of analytic philosophy. By abstraction here, I of course mean the tendency to divorce philosophical speculation in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, even social and political theory (Rawls’ veil of ignorance anyone?), philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, etc., from concrete social and political horizons within which they’re articulated. This article makes me want to say bugger all to academic philosophy. What the hell is wrong with this discipline?!? Well worth the read.

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