Philosophers' Annual
It's time for nominations for the 2004 edition of the Philosophers' Annual, which attempts to select the "ten best" articles published in a given year. The way this works is that each member of a 43-person editorial board submits up to three nominations, and then the four editors choose ten articles from this group. Results are online for 1978-2001, 2002, and 2003.
I'm on the editorial board, and I'd welcome suggestions for nominations. It would be good to cast as wide a net as possible. It's sometimes said that selections for the Annual reflect connectedness in the profession, and that the same authors are selected repeatedly. So I'm especially interested to hear about articles and authors that might otherwise be overlooked. But suggestions of all sorts (except self-nominations), in all areas, are welcome. I can't promise to read everything that's suggested, but maybe other members of the editorial board will be reading this too, and in any case it's interesting to hear about good work.
(I notice that two of the papers mentioned in a corresponding thread last year on Brian Weatherson's site made it onto the 2003 list. See also the discussion of 2004 epistemology papers at Certain Doubts.)
Dave, many of the links do not work. Perhaps that is just temporary, in which case delete this comment. I will post a link to this thread on Monday.
Posted by: Brian Leiter | February 20, 2005 at 08:59 AM
They work for me. If others have problems, let me know.
Posted by: djc | February 20, 2005 at 01:58 PM
Dave,
I humbly submit John Gardner, 'The Wrongdoing that Gets Results', Philosophical Perspectives 18 (2004), 53
Last year I tried to start an office pool to no avail, but if I can convince people to enter one this year, this is my first entry.
Posted by: Clayton | February 21, 2005 at 07:08 AM
Today the links are working for me, so ignore the earlier message.
I would suggest the editors give serious consideration to Jessica Berry, "The Pyrrhonian Revival in Montaigne and Nietzsche,"
Journal of the History of Ideas - Volume 65, Number 3, July 2004, pp. 497-514.
Posted by: Brian Leiter | February 21, 2005 at 08:49 AM
So long as we're not frowning on suggestion papers of folks we might have some connection to... I'd vote for K.C. Tan's "Justice and Personal Persuits", Journal of Philosophy, Volum CI, No. 7- July 2004, pp. 331-366. (I'd honestly thought nothing more interesting could be said about GA Cohen's views on equality, which might well be the most throughly refuted position of the last 20 years, but Tan does a terrific job of showing some of the deepest flaws in the position, and establishing some important independent points on the way.)
Posted by: Matt | February 21, 2005 at 11:28 AM
You should definitely consider Nishi Shah, "How Truth Governs Belief," The Philosophical Review -Vol. 112 No. 4, October 2003.
Posted by: Jason Newman | February 21, 2005 at 12:11 PM
All these papers have already been anthologised, but I'd say you could pick several papers from the special Lewis edition of the AJP.
I liked Mark Richard's paper on relativism in the May Phil Studies, but that could be because I'm sympathetic to the conclusion :)
Hopefully some people will have slightly more obscure suggestions than mine though...
Posted by: Brian Weatherson | February 21, 2005 at 01:50 PM
You should consider Farid Abdel-Nour, "Habermas, Human Rights, and Universalist Morality," Philosophy & Social Criticism - Volume 30, Number 1, 2004, pp. 73-96.
Posted by: Ali Rizvi | February 22, 2005 at 12:04 AM
Given the recent upsurge of interest in Just War theory, Gary Bass's paper in PPA, "Jus Post Bellum" is an excellent addition to the debate.
Posted by: Eric Rovie | February 22, 2005 at 01:35 AM
A nice combination of characteristic clarity, eloquence and rigor combined with exemplary inter-disciplinary breadth:
Galen Strawson, "Against Narrativity," Ratio --Vol. 17 Issue 4, Dec 2004.
Posted by: Rob Sica | February 22, 2005 at 07:06 AM
rob rupert, “challenges to the hypothesis of extended cognition,” journal of philosophy 101 (august, 2004): 389-428
excellent, clear-headed paper on an important topic in phil. mind.
Posted by: dan kaufman | February 23, 2005 at 01:15 AM
No doubt in my mind: Jeff McMahan. "The Ethics of Killing in War", Ethics, Volume 114, July 2004, No. 4.
Posted by: Robert | February 23, 2005 at 01:03 PM
I would nominate David Velleman's "Narrative Explanation," in the Philosophical Review (recently).
Posted by: John Fischer | February 23, 2005 at 03:26 PM
Dave,
For years I've nominated papers on phenomenology without success. Now I have found one on perception that is original, illuminating, convincing, and up to the standards of rigor or analytic phil. (It is also the best paper ever written on Merleau-Ponty.)
Sean Kelly, "Seeing Things in Merleau-Ponty" in Taylor Carman's Cambridge Companion to Merleau-Ponty, also on Kelly's website: http://www.princeton.edu/~skelly/Research/
Posted by: Hubert Dreyfus | February 24, 2005 at 02:36 AM
I'd like to nominate "Vexing Expectations" by Hajek and Nover [*Mind*, Vol. 113, April 2004, 237-249].
Posted by: Branden Fitelson | March 06, 2005 at 12:23 PM
Wasn't Dreyfus Sean Kelly's thesis advisor and mentor? That nomination seems a little non-objective...that's a problem with the Philosopher's Annual.
Posted by: anon | March 11, 2005 at 04:43 AM
If a second from someone whose never met Kelly is needed, so be it. Kelly's paper should most certainly be given serious consideration. I'll add Charles Travis' Mind paper 'The Silence of the Senses' as well.
Posted by: Clayton | March 17, 2005 at 11:34 AM
Thomas Pogge, “Can the Capability Approach be Justified?” in Martha Nussbaum and Chad Flanders eds.: Global Inequalities, special issue 30:2 (Fall 2002, appeared February 2004) of Philosophical Topics, 167-228
Posted by: anon | June 13, 2005 at 08:12 AM
Its now mid-June 2006 and I haven't seen the Annual for both the years 2004 and 2005...what's going on?
Posted by: Barry Lam | June 15, 2006 at 12:29 AM