As I'm sure most of you are aware, philosophers have recently been awarded a spate of multi-million dollar grants by the John Templeton Foundation (here's just the most recent example). I understand there have been serious concerns raised in the past -- about Templeton's mission, the role of money corrupting philosophical inquiry, etc. -- and I appreciate those concerns. Competition for funding has, I think, corrupted other academic disciplines -- for instance physics, where vast amounts of money were channelled to string-theorists over several decades, and away from oursiders who questioned string theory orthodoxy.
At the same time, there does seem to me to be one potentially highly beneficial aspect of Templeton grants, and that is that the grants awarded have generally had an interdisciplinary character involving significant elements of the empirical sciences. As I explained recently, I think it's healthy for philosophy to be more intertwined with the sciences, not less. In short, whatever (legitimate) concerns people may have about Templeton and/or the role of money in philosophy, it strikes me that at least this one aspect of the grants -- their incentivizing interdisciplinary/empirically-engaged philosophy -- is, at least broadly speaking, a positive thing.
What do you all think?
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