The American Philosophical Association (APA) is the main

professional organization A professional association (also called a professional body, professional organization, or professional society) usually seeks to further a particular profession, the interests of individuals and organisations engaged in that profession, and th ...

for

philosophers A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. Founded in 1900, its mission is to promote the exchange of ideas among philosophers, to encourage creative and scholarly activity in philosophy, to facilitate the professional work and teaching of philosophers, and to represent philosophy as a discipline. The APA's governance has included

Robert Audi Robert N. Audi (born November 1941) is an American philosopher whose major work has focused on epistemology, ethics (especially on ethical intuitionism), rationality and the theory of action. He is O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the Universi ...

Jaegwon Kim Jaegwon Kim (September 12, 1934 – November 27, 2019) was a Korean-American philosopher. At the time of his death, Kim was an emeritus professor of philosophy at Brown University. He also taught at several other leading American universities d ...

and

Ruth Barcan Marcus Ruth Barcan Marcus (; born Ruth Charlotte Barcan; 2 August 1921 – 19 February 2012) was an American academic philosopher and logician best known for her work in modal and philosophical logic. She developed the first formal systems of quant ...

Activities

The association has three divisions: Pacific, Central, and Eastern. Each division organizes a large annual conference. The biggest of these is the Eastern Division Meeting, which usually attracts around 2,000 philosophers and takes place in a different East Coast city each December. The Eastern Division Meeting is also the United States' largest recruitment event for philosophy jobs, with numerous universities sending teams to interview candidates for academic posts. The two evening receptions are traditionally referred to as 'smokers,' a carry over from the days in which smoking was common. These events serve the dual purpose of informally continuing interviews and catching up with friends from across the country. The presidency of a division of the American Philosophical Association is considered to be a professional honor. Recent presidents of the Eastern Division include

Louise Antony Louise M. Antony is an American philosopher who is professor of philosophy at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She specializes in philosophy of mind, epistemology, feminist theory, and philosophy of language. Education and career Antony ...

, Sally Haslanger,

Linda Martín Alcoff Linda Martín Alcoff is a Latin-American philosopher and professor of philosophy at Hunter College, City University of New York. Alcoff specializes in social epistemology, feminist philosophy, philosophy of race, decolonial theory and cont ...

Paul Guyer Paul Guyer () is an American philosopher and a leading scholar of Immanuel Kant and of aesthetics. Since 2012, he has been Jonathan Nelson Professor of Philosophy and Humanities at Brown University. Education and career Guyer grew up on Long Is ...

Edward S. Casey Edward S. Casey (born February 24, 1939 in Topeka, Kansas) is an American philosopher and university professor. He has published several volumes on phenomenology, philosophical psychology, and the philosophy of space and place. His work is wide ...

, Daniel Dennett,

Virginia Held Virginia Potter Held (born October 28, 1929) is an American moral, social/political and feminist philosopher whose work on the ethics of care sparked significant research into the ethical dimensions of providing care for others and critiques of ...

, John Cooper, T. M. Scanlon,

Stanley Cavell Stanley Louis Cavell (; September 1, 1926 – June 19, 2018) was an American philosopher. He was the Walter M. Cabot Professor of Aesthetics and the General Theory of Value at Harvard University. He worked in the fields of ethics, aesthetics, an ...

Alexander Nehamas Alexander Nehamas ( el, Αλέξανδρος Νεχαμάς; born 22 March 1946) is a Greek-born American philosopher. He is a professor of philosophy and comparative literature and the Edmund N. Carpenter II Class of 1943 Professor in the Humani ...

Ernest Sosa Ernest Sosa (born June 17, 1940) is an American philosopher primarily interested in epistemology. Since 2007 he has been Board of Governors Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University, but he spent most of his career at Brown University. Educa ...

Jerry Fodor Jerry Alan Fodor (; April 22, 1935 – November 29, 2017) was an American philosopher and the author of many crucial works in the fields of philosophy of mind and cognitive science. His writings in these fields laid the groundwork for the modul ...

Seyla Benhabib Seyla Benhabib ( born September 9, 1950) is a Turkish-American philosopher. Seyla Benhabib is a senior research scholar and adjunct professor of law at Columbia Law School. She is also an affiliate faculty member in the Columbia University Depar ...

, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Christine Korsgaard, and Robert Nozick. Recent presidents of the Central Division include Steven Nadler,

Margaret Atherton Margaret Atherton (born 1943) is an American philosopher and feminist historian who is currently a Distinguished Professor Emerita in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, and was a Distinguished Professor of ...

, Peter van Inwagen, Ted Cohen,

Eleonore Stump Eleonore Stump (born August 9, 1947) is the Robert J. Henle Professor of Philosophy at Saint Louis University, where she has taught since 1992. Biography Stump received a BA in classical languages from Grinnell College (1969), where she was v ...

Karl Ameriks Karl P. Ameriks (born 1947) is an American philosopher. He is the Emeritus McMahon-Hank Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. Education and career Ameriks studied at Yale University, A.B., summa cum laude (1969), Ph.D. (1973), ...

, Stephen Darwall,

Marcia Baron Marcia Baron (born 1955) is an American philosopher and the Rudy Professor of Philosophy at Indiana University Bloomington. Her main research interests include moral philosophy, moral psychology, and philosophical issues in criminal law. Baron is ...

Allan Gibbard Allan may refer to: People * Allan (name), a given name and surname, including list of people and characters with this name * Allan (footballer, born 1984) (Allan Barreto da Silva), Brazilian football striker * Allan (footballer, born 1989) (Al ...

Alvin Plantinga Alvin Carl Plantinga (born November 15, 1932) is an American analytic philosopher who works primarily in the fields of philosophy of religion, epistemology (particularly on issues involving epistemic justification), and logic. From 1963 to 198 ...

, Sally Sedgwick,

Elliott Sober Elliott R. Sober (born 6 June 1948) is Hans Reichenbach Professor and William F. Vilas Research Professor in the Department of Philosophy at University of Wisconsin–Madison. Sober is noted for his work in philosophy of biology and general phil ...

Claudia Card Claudia Falconer Card (September 30, 1940 – September 12, 2015) was the Emma Goldman (WARF) Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, with teaching affiliations in Women's Studies, Jewish Studies, Environmental Studi ...

and Lawrence Sklar. Recent presidents of the Pacific Division include

Terence Parsons Terence Dwight Parsons (1939-2022) was an American philosopher, specializing in philosophy of language and metaphysics. He was emeritus professor of philosophy at UCLA. Life and career Parsons was born in Endicott, New York and graduated from th ...

, John Martin Fischer,

Alison Wylie Alison Wylie (born 1954) is a Canadian philosopher of archaeology. She is a professor of philosophy at the University of British Columbia and holds a Canada Research Chair in Philosophy of the Social and Historical Sciences. Wylie specialize ...

Calvin Normore Calvin Normore (born June 25, 1948) is a professor of philosophy at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is an expert in medieval philosophy and the history of logic. Life and career Normore was born in Corner Brook, Newfoundland and Lab ...

, Jeffrie Murphy,

Hubert Dreyfus Hubert Lederer Dreyfus (; October 15, 1929 – April 22, 2017) was an American philosopher and professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. His main interests included phenomenology, existentialism and the philosophy of bo ...

Richard Wollheim Richard Arthur Wollheim (5 May 1923 − 4 November 2003) was a British philosopher noted for original work on mind and emotions, especially as related to the visual arts, specifically, painting. Wollheim served as the president of the British ...

, and

Paul Churchland Paul Montgomery Churchland (born October 21, 1942) is a Canadian philosopher known for his studies in neurophilosophy and the philosophy of mind. After earning a Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh under Wilfrid Sellars (1969), Churchland r ...

Prizes

The American Philosophical Association awards several prizes. A prominent example is the American Philosophical Association Book Prize (formerly known as the Matchette Foundation Book Prize, one of the oldest prizes in philosophy). It is awarded biannually to the best book published in the field over a two-year period by a "younger scholar" (defined as someone age 40 or younger at the time of publication or someone who received his or her Ph.D. 10 or fewer years before the time of publication). Awarded for the first time in 2000, the Book Prize is now awarded in odd years, alternating with the Article Prize awarded in even years. The APA Book Prize has been won by such figures as

David Kellogg Lewis David (; , "beloved one") (traditional spelling), , ''Dāwūd''; grc-koi, Δαυΐδ, Dauíd; la, Davidus, David; gez , ዳዊት, ''Dawit''; xcl, Դաւիթ, ''Dawitʿ''; cu, Давíдъ, ''Davidŭ''; possibly meaning "beloved one". w ...

, Lawrence Skla

Bas van Fraassen Bastiaan Cornelis van Fraassen (; born 1941) is a Dutch-American philosopher noted for his contributions to philosophy of science, epistemology and formal logic. He is a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at San Francisco State University an ...

, Michael Friedman, Loran Lomasky,

, John Cooper,

Ted Sider TED may refer to: Economics and finance * TED spread between U.S. Treasuries and Eurodollar Education * ''Türk Eğitim Derneği'', the Turkish Education Association ** TED Ankara College Foundation Schools, Turkey ** Transvaal Education Depart ...

, and Michael Smith. Another of the most distinguished prizes is the Royce Lectures in the philosophy of mind, awarded to a distinguished philosopher every four years. They have been delivered by Robert Stalnaker,

, Hilary Putnam, Sydney Shoemaker,

Saul Kripke Saul Aaron Kripke (; November 13, 1940 – September 15, 2022) was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition. He was a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and em ...

, and

Elizabeth Anscombe Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe (; 18 March 1919 – 5 January 2001), usually cited as G. E. M. Anscombe or Elizabeth Anscombe, was a British analytic philosopher. She wrote on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of action, ...

. Another such prize is the Rockefeller Prize. The Rockefeller Prize ($1000) is awarded every two years for the best unpublished article length work in philosophy by a non-academically affiliated philosopher. The winner's work will be published in the '' Journal of Value Inquiry'' at the behest of the winner and the journal.

Other philosophical societies

While the APA serves as the main

learned society A learned society (; also learned academy, scholarly society, or academic association) is an organization that exists to promote an academic discipline, profession, or a group of related disciplines such as the arts and science. Membership m ...

for philosophy professors in North America, many other philosophy societies have sprung up to serve as venues for philosophers to specialize.See wikipedia :category:philosophical societies Next to the APA, the second largest philosophic society is the

Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy The Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy (SPEP) is a philosophical society whose initial purpose was to promote the study of phenomenology and existentialism but has since expanded to a wide array of contemporary philosophical pursui ...

, which was created in 1962 by American philosophers who were interested in continental philosophy, some of whom were dissatisfied with the analytic approach of the APA. Since then, however, many members of SPEP have participated extensively in the APA and have also served in leadership positions, including Linda Alcoff and

References

External links

Official websiteOfficial Pacific Division website

Official Eastern Division websiteChronological list of the presidents of the divisions
* {{Authority control 1900 establishments in the United States Organizations established in 1900 American philosophy Philosophical societies in the United States