20 Replies to “Most excellent philosophy paper titles?

  1. My in-progress book on normative conventionalism is called “this is how we do it”

    My favorite actual paper title is “Bob and Ted and Carol and Alice” by Kaplan

  2. Not a paper, but Meghan Sullivan’s dissertation was entitled “A-Theory: A Theory”. Also, if some scholar of ancient philosophy wants to team up to write a paper called “Plato’s Retreat” (Google warning: slightly NSFW), lemme know.

  3. David Velleman, 1991, “Well-Being and Time”

    Charles Mills, 2003, “‘Heart’ Attack: A Critique of Jorge Garcia’s Volitional Conception of Racism”

  4. David Boonin, 2003, Robbing PETA to spay Paul

    John Burgess, 2007, Against ethics

    Not philosophy proper but philosophically relevant and such a great title:

    Kieran Healy, 2017, Fuck nuance

  5. Haskell Fain, “The Very Thought of Grue”

    J. L. Austin, “Three Ways of Spilling Ink”

  6. Stephen Rosenbaum’s defense of Epicureanism in American Philosophical Quarterly is titled “How to Be Dead and Not Care”

    This isn’t a paper, but Fred Feldman’s book on death is titled “Confrontations with the Reaper” which I always thought was brilliant.

  7. My personal favourite – also pretty much the only paper title I can remember – “The That” by Jimmy Lenman.

  8. I’ve always liked really short titles, like Harry Frankfurt’s ‘On Bullshit’. My friends point out that my own work would be well served by an even shorter title.

  9. I don’t know about best ever, but I’m proud of my “Ya Shouldn’t Wouldn’ta Couldn’ta”, a critique of the couldn’ta wouldn’ta theory of essence.

  10. This one made me want to read it: “Parasites, Pimps, and Capitalists: A Naturalistic Conception of Exploitation” By Tommie Shelby

  11. I’ve always liked paper titles with simple but layered meaning:

    Chignell, “Belief in Kant”
    Kratzer, “What ‘Must’ and ‘Can’ Must and Can Mean”
    Pettit, “Responsibility Incorporated”
    Rawls, “The Sense of Justice”

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