Meena Krishnamurthy has a blog post about the relative absence of political philosophy in the The Philosopher’s Annual since 2002. This surprised me a bit because it seems to me a field that has been very fertile over the last decade. From afar it looks as if the grip of Rawls on the field has been loosened, and there is a lot of important and urgent work on legitimacy, international (and inter-generational) justice, democratic theory, and, of course, the role of religion today. (Of course, a lot of this is pursued in critical discussion with Rawlsian ideals.) Not to mention that the period has seen Libertarian ideals articulated and renewed with remarkable philosophical ability, and ongoing formal work in social choice theory. Anyway, go read her post.
UPDATE: Ryan Muldoon points out that formal work in political theory by Peter Vanderschraaf has been recognized!
Below the fold some further reflections by me.
Now, with only a few spots each year, there is a huge lottery element, especially because only few folk get to nominate and select. Moreover, it is extremely difficult to recognize significance in addition to excellence when one is in the midst of events. But if one looks at the composition of the papers -- let's stipulate all excellent --, then one is struck first, as Krishnamurthy notes, by gender inclusive-ness (that's great) and, second, the relatively narrow list of topics that are represented. Moreover, while there are some path-breaking papers in the pile, quite a few seem to me more akin to 'life-time achievement awards.' Finally, I don't think the Annual gives a good sense of what has happened in some areas of specialization: in modern philosophy much of the excitement of the last decade has been the avelange of papers on Spinoza, Newton, and German idealism. Yet it seems that if you want to be included in the Annual one should write about Leibniz and Kant (and Nietzsche), preferably with an extremely light historical touch. (It's been twenty years a paper on Descartes has been recognized.) I know these papers; they are all fantastic, but they give an extremely one-sided perspective on history of philosophy is done philosophically.
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