Akeel Bilgrami to Judge 2nd Annual 3QD Philosophy Prize

September 22, 2010, UPDATE: The winners have been announced.

September 10, 2010, UPDATE: See list of nine finalists here.

September 9, 2010, UPDATE: Voting round closed. See list of twenty semifinalists here.

September 3, 2010, UPDATE: Nominations are now closed. Go here to see the list of nominees and vote.

Dear Readers, Writers, Bloggers,

We are very honored and pleased to announce that Professor Akeel Bilgrami has agreed to be the final judge for our 2nd annual prize for the best blog writing in philosophy. (Details of last year's inaugural prize, judged by Professor Daniel C. Dennett, can be found here.) Akeel is the Johnsonian Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University as well as the Director of the Heyman Center for the Humanities there. He has two relatively independent sets of intellectual interests--in the Philosophy of Mind and Language, and in issues of Political Philosophy and Moral Psychology especially as they surface in politics, history, and culture. He teaches courses and seminars regularly in the department on Philosophy of Mind and Language and also in the Committee on Global Thought and Political Science on issues in Politics and Rationality as well as Religion and Politics in Global Context. For the last 17 years, I am proud to say, Akeel has also been my teacher and friend.

As usual, this is the way it will work: the nominating period is now open, and will end at 11:59 pm EDT on August 31, 2010. There will then be a round of voting by our readers which will narrow down the entries to the top twenty semi-finalists. After this, we will take these top twenty voted-for nominees, and the four main editors of 3 Quarks Daily (Abbas Raza, Robin Varghese, Morgan Meis, and Azra Raza) will select six finalists from these, plus they may also add up to three wildcard entries of their own choosing. The three winners will be chosen from these by Akeel.

The first place award, called the "Top Quark," will include a cash prize of one thousand dollars; the second place prize, the "Strange Quark," will include a cash prize of three hundred dollars; and the third place winner will get the honor of winning the "Charm Quark," along with a two hundred dollar prize.

(Welcome to those coming here for the first time. Learn more about who we are and what we do here, and do check out the full site here. Bookmark us and come back regularly, or sign up for the RSS feed.)

Details:

The winners of this philosophy prize will be announced on September 22, 2010. Here's the schedule:

August 21, 2010:

• The nominations are opened. Please nominate your favorite philosophy blog entry by placing the URL for the blog post (the permalink) in the comments section of this post. You may also add a brief comment describing the entry and saying why you think it should win. (Do NOT nominate a whole blog, just one individual blog post.)
• Blog posts longer than 4,000 words are not eligible.
• Each person can only nominate one blog post.
• Entries must be in English.
• The editors of 3QD reserve the right to reject entries that we feel are not appropriate.
• The blog entry may not be more than a year old. In other words, it must have been written after August 20, 2009.
• You may also nominate your own entry from your own or a group blog (and we encourage you to).
• Guest columnists at 3 Quarks Daily are also eligible to be nominated, and may also nominate themselves if they wish.
• Nominations are limited to the first 200 entries.
• Prize money must be claimed within a month of the announcement of winners.

August 31, 2010

• The nominating process will end at 11:59 PM (NYC time) of this date.
• The public voting will be opened soon afterwards.

September 8, 2010

• Public voting ends at 11:59 PM (NYC time).

September 22, 2010

• The winners are announced.

One Final and Important Request

If you have a blog or website, please help us spread the word about our prizes by linking to this post. Otherwise, post a link on your Facebook profile, Tweet it, or just email your friends and tell them about it! I really look forward to reading some very good material, and think this should be a lot of fun for all of us.

Best of luck and thanks for your attention!

Yours,

Abbas