Introduction
The papers on this website represent our effort to showcase ten of the best philosophy articles published in the past year. When someone makes a “best of”-type claim, caveats and qualifications are never far behind. So it is in our case; we would like to describe the process by which we arrived at this final ten and the criteria we used to guide our decisions.
We did not arrive at the diversity of papers you see here through the use of a single, all-encompassing criterion. Even formulating such a criterion would be impossible; on what basis would we have compared an in-depth examination of epistemic modality to a game-theoretic account of covenants and reputation? Some incommensurability was inevitable, but the papers you see here are included, for the most part, on the basis of three principles.
First, we looked for papers that showed pleasing and comprehensive execution of argument. Papers such as Yalcin’s, Vanderschraaf’s and Fisher’s formulate their issues so that even non-experts can see clearly what is at issue and what solution is being offered. They arouse and fulfill expectations like a well-crafted drama, and follow relevant side issues to satisfactory (if provisional) conclusions. These qualities inspire further debate, first by staking out a lucid position in a controversial area, and second by noting and neatly cataloguing areas that require further development. That fruitfulness-via-clarity is a hallmark of an excellent philosophy paper.
We also selected papers that demonstrate a strikingly original topic or philosophical approach. None of us had thought much about metaphysically-loaded statements and the puzzles they raise until we read Hofweber’s contribution. Nor had it occurred to us that we might fruitfully read Nietzsche as a moral fictionalist (as Hussain does), nor that mental causation might be relevantly similar to global weather patterns (Glymour’s suggestion). Papers like these open up new horizons and push philosophy in new directions. They help keep the field fresh, while making progress in acknowledged, well-tread areas. One of our aims is to honor this kind of achievement.
Lastly, we selected papers that struck us as exemplars of their kind. Nichols and Knobe offer a piece of experimental philosophy that will surely serve as a model for future work in its attention to methodology, its treatment of empirical data, and its guarded, carefully-argued philosophical applications. Forster investigates and solves a puzzle in the philosophy of Socrates. His textual sensitivity, attention to detail, and ambitious conclusions are what we look for in a work of philosophically-motivated history. We do not mean to say that they are the final word, either in their conclusion or their method. They do, however, represent excellent ways of doing philosophy, ways deserving of our attention and respect.
In addition, these articles are drawn from a variety of sources; some of them may already be familiar to readers, while others may have escaped notice. This is not coincidental: we think it our obligation to recognize not only papers that have already had a philosophical impact but also those worthy of a wider audience than they may have received the first time around. For example, Adam Elga’s discussion of the proper epistemic response to disagreement convincingly presents a position that any future work on the topic will have to contend with; as such, it has already generated significant discussion and will almost certainly be cited in any future work in this area. On the other hand, Sally Haslanger’s paper on social critique and ideology applies relativism to the problem of critiquing social frameworks, in an original approach that should be of interest to philosophers working in both these fields (and many others). We think it an important part of our mission to bring work like this to the attention of the philosophical community, and feel privileged to do so.
A final word on the selection process is in order. This year, we treated nominations somewhat differently than in the past: after all the nominations were received, the list of nominees was returned to each of the nominating editors and further narrowed to just 31 articles, which were then sent to the editors, and narrowed to the ten you see here. As a result, we the editors read fewer articles, which gave us more time to debate their relative merits. Narrowing this pool down to just ten was no easy task, and as we mentioned above, we do not claim to have the final word. However, we are pleased to present you with our choices.
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Alexandra Plakias
Patrick Grim
Ian C. Flora
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