APA Newsletters
Spring 2000
Volume 99, Number 2

In this volume, I am delighted to present the inaugural issue of the latest newsletter, the APA Newsletter on Hispanic/Latino Issues in Philosophy. There is a great deal to learn from and to reflect upon in this first issue. Among other things, it contains a detailed and powerfully presented Report on the Status of Hispanics in Philosophy, together with a series of recommendations. Some of these are addressed to the APA as an institution, while others are offered quite generally to anyone who teaches in a philosophy department; all of them deserve to be taken seriously. Also included is a helpful selection of course syllabi.

In highlighting this new newsletter, I do not, of course, mean to imply that the others are any less important. The Newsletters as a group are impressive not only for the range of the topics and concerns addressed, but also for the numerous recurring themes. One obvious example of the latter phenomenon: several of the newsletters besides the Newsletter on Teaching Philosophy devote a substantial portion of their space to issues related to teaching. This concentration on teaching can only be expected to increase in the future; a proposal has just been approved for a new newsletter sponsored by the APA Committee on Pre-College Instruction in Philosophy.

I hope no one will object to a few autobiographical remarks. When the Newsletters started some ten years ago, I received them and read them with great interest. Not long after that I changed jobs. Since my new institution emphasized research and publication much more than did my previous one, I decided that I needed to concentrate on my area of specialization, Greek philosophy, and devote less time to matters extraneous to that; among other things, I stopped reading the Newsletters. Reading them again for the first time in many years, in my role as Acting Executive Director, I am struck by what I have been missing. For a specialist in a traditional field, the Newsletters are genuinely mind-expanding—which is why I liked them in the first place. At the same time, I now think that it was a mistake to regard the sorts of issues discussed here as being "extraneous" to my main philosophical interests. We are all aware, in a general sense, of the interconnectedness of philosophical issues; there is simply no reason to assume that topics discussed in any of the Newsletters are unconnected with topics addressed in areas traditionally regarded as constituting the mainstream of philosophy.

Beginning with the Fall 1999 issue, the Newsletters are posted in the "members only" section of the APA web site; this is part of a more general conversion of the web site, designed in part to increase incentives for membership, but also to allow for easier navigation. Eventually we plan to have all the back issues on the web, with the issues for the last three years in the "members only" section, and earlier issues available to anyone. The availability of the Newsletters on the web does not, I believe, detract in the slightest from the value of the in-print version; both versions are valuable, though perhaps for different purposes. I hope you agree, and that you will continue to subscribe to the Newsletters; at $10 per year for members, they continue to be an exceptional deal.

Richard Bett