I am a psychology undergraduate considering doing my M.A. in Philosophy. How competitive do you think the job market is for getting a job as a community college philosophy professor right now? Would I better off (as far as a getting a professorship) by going into a Ph.D. program? Thanks!

Where would be good school to study mereology at the graduate level? I'm not looking for any school with specifics in mind, given that I already understand the options available by wanting to find a good program in just general mereology. Thank you for your time.

I wonder why there are so few philosophers 0 - 1000 AD?

How do philosophers (or academics in general) justify their choice of profession? How is it defensible to be studying esoteric ideas with relatively few (if any) implications for the greater good, rather than devoting one's life to solving the much more practical problems that burden so much of the world's population? I realize that some philosophical ideas have had important worldwide impacts and have directly improved people's lives, but I doubt that almost any philosophers working today would say that that's what they expect to come out of their analyzing a particular view of Wittgenstein's or whatever. (I think this question ought to be asked of most professions, but it seems that philosophers would be thinking about this sort of thing much more so than would, say, investment bankers.)

When does one "become" a philosopher?

In a discussion about philosophy as a profession I referred to one of the questions on this site to claim that the division of male and female philosophers is more equal than ever and it's not at all only male philosophers. But when we started thinking about it we could only come up with female philosophers who are doing practical philosophy (e.g. Nussbaum, Noddings, Gutmann, Warnock). So the question arose - are there at least somewhat significant female philosophers in for example theoretical philosophy or history of philosophy that you could name? Are there female philosophers in all the fields of philosophy?

Do graduate students really make contributions to philosophy? Or is philosophy only advanced by an elite few?

Why is Philosophy research considered less respectable study than researches in the empirical sciences?

When did secular philosophy departments, as opposed to theology faculties, first appear in universities?

Good morning, As a foreign PhD student in Philosophy, I need some technical hints about how to choose an Anglo-American magazine to send an article in analytic philosophy. First, I’d like to know, is the Impact Factor system as important in philosophic, as in scientific research? If so, where can I find evaluations about journals? Apart from that, I can imagine there are thematic criteria to choose a magazine: of course, you won’t send a paper in logic to a magazine that only publishes papers in ethics. That’s obvious. But is there anything else I should consider? Thank you to anybody who will reply. Stefano - Italy