philosophy of science in the blogosphere

I've recently noticed two new philosophy of science blogs on the internets worth following:

(1) Brains, by Gualtiero Piccinini, a recent grad of my department. As the title indicates, this leans towards cognitive science issues. This is the area of philosophy of science I know the least about, so I'm hoping keeping up with Gualtiero's blog will show me at least the tip of the iceberg.

(2) Words of Mass Dissemination, by Mickael Dickson, the current editor of the journal Philosophy of Science (which, from what I can tell, is widely agreed to be the leading North American periodical on philosophy of science). I have no idea how he'll have time to keep up with his editorial duties and make blog posts, but I certainly hope he does manage to juggle them both. (Though, it looks like posting has slowed down a bit recently.)

I apologize that it has been so long since my last real/ philosophically substantive post. Virtually all of my brain waves are currently dedicated to the job search, but I am working on a post about quantum logic (which, coincidentally, the above-mentioned Prof. Dickson has written on recently) that I hope will be up soon, once I figure out a couple more things.

A job candidate at the APA

I just returned to Pittsburgh from the American Philosophical Association meeting, where I had job interviews and gave a talk. This was my first trip to the APA, and many people had painted for me a picture of it as red in tooth and claw. There was a fair amount of anxiety in the air, but that's to be expected when 600 or so job-seekers are stuffed into a cage (I'm making up the number 600; there may have been more). But the whole affair was less psychologically traumatic than I had expected -- it was good to see old friends, all my interviews led to interesting and enlightening conversations (I never felt like I was being 'grilled,' much less attacked), and I met people I had only previously known in blogospheric form.

There was one difficulty with the conference that I did not expect: it was physically exhausting. I remember one faculty member who, a few months ago, advised job-seekers not to apply to every single job that they could, on the grounds that you don't want to have too many interviews at the APA. "Too many interviews?" -- I thought -- "How can you have too many?" Well, that person was right. I had a hard time keeping up my energy and focus for the interviews I had, and some people in my department had many more than me... I don't know how they did it.

I expect blogging to remain light here for the next couple of months, since I'm now entering the final stage of the job search process.