About the site
The website philosophynews.com was launched in 1997 by a blogger named Richard Jones under the name Philosophy News Service and started mainly as a service-oriented website to help inform the philosophical community about events like conferences and publications, philosophy-related news, and information about philosophers. It also offered free philosophynews.com email addresses to anyone who wanted one (this was a big deal in the late 90s as free email accounts were not widely available). Richard also recruited writers to write articles for a section titled “What’s Happening in Philosophy” or WHiP. The section was broken out by discipline and were designed to inform readers about specific trends in those areas. The current publisher, Paul Pardi, was recruited to write on philosophy of religion for this section.
In 1999, Richard Jones became inactive and the domain name came up for sale. Paul bought the domain and re-launched the site under the same name attempting to carry on Richard’s work. Since 1999, the site has changed focus, design, and finally, in 2011, the “Service” was dropped from the name and the site became Philosophy News (for more about the history of the site, see this article).
Today, Philosophy News has broadened its vision in an attempt to reach a wider readership and bring philosophy to both professionals and non-professionals alike. While the site still counts professional philosophers as a core part of its readership, reaching intelligent readers in other disciplines and laypersons interested in philosophical topics is an important secondary focus. Currently Philosophy News is designed to:
- Inform the philosophical community about important trends, news, and events in philosophy
- Serve as a destination site for excellent, unique content like articles, interviews, reviews, our new placement reports, and philosophy-related humor.
- Reach a broad audience on philosophical topics. We are working to reach educated laypeople as well as professional academics on philosophy-related topics but in a way that does not depend on the reader having a mastery of interdisciplinary vocabulary or an academic background in philosophy.
- Provide high-quality content through podcasts and videos.
We have a bold vision for the future. As we work to grow our readership, we are investing in the following:
- Build evergreen content around placement reports for PhD and MA programs in analytic and continental philosophy that are designed to help students considering a degree in philosophy.
- Grow a large, peer-reviewed body of content by creating an editorial board and a body of referees that can review articles and make editorial decisions.
- Continue to grow a large body of blog-like content (content that does not require peer review and is lower touch than peer-reviewed content) that is accessible to a broad audience. This might include re-launching WHiP and recruiting writers who submit regular articles focusing on specific disciplines in philosophy or that write on current events.
- Continue to invest in high-quality written interviews, podcasts, and videos with high-profile authors and speakers.
About the publisher
Philosophy News is managed and published by Paul Pardi. Paul earned his MA in philosophy in the late 90s from Biola University and currently teaches as an adjunct professor of philosophy at Seattle Pacific University and Green River Community College. He also is employed full time by the Microsoft Corporation. Paul has taught upper-division philosophy courses for almost 15 years on logic, metaphysics, ancient philosophy, early modern philosophy and a general education introductory course covering epistemology, ethics, and metaphysics. Paul is passionate about philosophy and focuses most of his attention on epistemology and philosophy of religion.
If you have any ideas for articles, feedback for the site, or questions, please email Paul at paulp@philosophynews.com. Thanks for visiting and we hope this site is your first stop for philosophy on the web.
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