By Nathan Schneider

"Philosophers don't have that many sources of money to turn to," says Brian Leiter, a philosopher at the University of Chicago's law school and editor of the discipline's leading gossip blog, Leiter Reports. For them, "Templeton has been a windfall." No longer are philosophers stuck playing catch-up with the latest science; now, some of them have the resources to help shape it from the outset.
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Academic philosophy represents a distinctly Templetonian opportunity. Grants of a few million dollars are a drop in the bucket for the sciences, awash as they are with tax dollars and corporate contracts; but in philosophy, where such sums are unheard of, they have the potential to transform the whole field. The only question is whether philosophy is a worthwhile prize anymore—whether the discipline can still change how we think about science, what we think it means, and how we do it. The foundation is putting its money on yes.
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"This is an opportunity to realize a dream that many scholars have concerning the prospects for truly interdisciplinary research and discovery," says Murray. It's hard to imagine why nonbelievers might have that dream any less than believers.
As it has for centuries, the contest of metaphors for the rightful place of philosophy continues. "In some of the philosophy that is sensitive to the empirical disciplines," says Samuel Newlands, "it looks like philosophy becoming handmaiden to the sciences. I've always been a little bit uncomfortable with that relationship." He wants to see, instead, a relationship that is more genuinely collaborative, one in which philosophers can contribute more substantively. "Maybe when we have funding to offer, we can at least get some kind of seat at the table," adds Newlands.