1. Is Žižek a plagiarist? Update: Newsweek gets on the story. Update 2: Žižek’s response.
2. “Philosophers ought to do their best to find a female captain, not merely a ship’s figurehead,” says Susannah Kate Devitt, reviewing the latest Australian Association of Philosophy (AAP) Conference.
3. The ethics of sex with dead people? Of course, there’s dignity. But maybe..

1. Vivian Feldblyum may have earlier wooed you with “The Deductive Logic Love Song” but now she is singing the epistemology break-up song, “Do I Have Hands?” Perhaps she is seeing someone else?
2. The new edition of Onora O’Neill’s Acting on Principle, an “incisive and thoughtful defence” of Kant’s moral theory, is reviewed by Michael Rosen in The Times Literary Sup..

1. NPR’s Tamara Keith, a philosophy major, tells her “it doesn’t hurt to ask” story.
2. Someone who sounds a bit like Carly Rae Jepsen sings “Call Me Nietzsche” (press ►)
3. Susannah Kate Devitt (Queensland University of Technology) makes use of a few different metrics to provide a ranking of philosophy journals.
4. Chris Bertram discusses Rousseau’s moral psycholog..

1. Carrie Ichikawa Jenkins makes some personal resolutions about how to treat other philosophers.
2. Students prefer administering painful electric shocks to themselves rather than just sitting and thinking.
3. On the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s website you can view 142 works of art with “philosopher” in their title and 149 with “philosophy“. (I haven’t checked wh..

1. Tonight, some PBS television stations will be airing a documentary on Grace Lee Boggs, a 98-year-old social activist who holds a PhD in philosophy from Bryn Mawr.
2. Some of Jeremy Bentham’s writings on sex, which fit with the characteristically progressive program of early utilitarianism, have been published under the title Of Sexual Irregularities, and Other Wr..

1. Charts and graphs may have their place in philosophy, but this is taking things too far.
2. An angel comes to the APA and offers to answer one question…
3. An audio illusion, via Lewis Powell, who reminds us of these words from Locke: “We are further to consider concerning perception, that the ideas we receive by sensation are often, in grown people, altered by..

1. Heather Douglas (Waterloo) and others on how to fix Canadian science policy (audio here).
2. “Good luck idiots. I hope you enjoy your new kangaroo overlords,” said Machiavelli.
3. A continental philosopher complains about the “imperialistic approach of analytic philosophy.”
4. How confronting moral dilemmas in a foreign language makes you more utilitarian, in The..

1. Is it exploitative or otherwise wrong to travel to Brazil to see the World Cup? Daniel Campos asks what an ethical fan should do.
2. For those continental philosophers who felt immune from Unger’s critique of analytic philosophy,there’s this: “Geuss describes teaching philosophy as ‘a mildly discreditable day job’ largely directed towards churning out the next ge..

1. View many of Routledge’s philosophy books for free, through the end of June.
2. Robert Talisse (Vanderbilt) on Tom Burke (South Carolina) on untangling pragmatism.
3. The Singlestate Fallacy: “the erroneous assumption that our ordinary, default mindbody program (aka ‘state of consciousness’) contains all… thinking skills of use to philosophers.”
4. “He’s the ch..

1. Don’t call your college students “kids,” says Sean A. Valles (Michigan State).
2. Jakob Hohwy (Monash), who works in philosophy, neuroscience, and psychology, and is the author of The Predictive Mind, is guest-blogging at Brains this week.
3. A thought experiment shows that the psychological arrow of time hooks up with the thermodynamic arrow of time and provides..

1. Was Nietzsche a transhumanist?
2. Help get Bar Philosophi, “a mixology/craft cocktail bar with drinks inspired by conversation-inducing writers and philosophers” off the ground. (via Erich Hatala Matthes)
3. Eric Winsberg (South Florida) on the difference between an art object and a scientific model.
4. More on the Philosophy of Phish course.
5. Ariel Rubinstein’..

1. Matthew Burstein has a blog, thought.o.matt, on “academia, media, philosophy, social institutions, teaching, and technology.” Included among the posts are his annotated syllabi for courses on queer theory, philosophy and film, and the moral dimensions of power.
2. Some updates on that class photo of Wittgenstein and Hitler (scroll down).
3. Chimps perform more ra..

1. Churchland vs. McGinn in the New Your Review of Books.
2. The philosophy of mind of the Robocop remake? I’d buy that for a dollar.
3. The ethics of whistleblowing and state secrecy — a review essay by political theoriest William Scheuerman.
4. How do you know you’re not a zombie yourself?
5. “The emotional component of our moral judgment is not strictly based on..

1. A defense of the lecture.
2. Harvard’s internal report on the scientific misconduct case of Marc Hauser.
3. “Socrates and the Crisis of the Universities“, a lecture by MM McCabe (video).
4. “The Philosophy” is a new shiraz-cab blend from McGuigan Wines. A bit pricier than these.
5. Schoolhouse Rock’s “I’m Just a Bill” — non-ideal theory version.
6. “I enter the ..

1. Does the formal modeling of game theory teach us anything new? Here is a list of some counterintuitive findings, suggesting that the answer is Yes.
2. The University of Oregon has a new academic-freedom policy, and it isn’t just for faculty.
3. The New York Times has a short “op-doc” on lawyer Steven Wise’s efforts to get animals recognized as rights-bearers.
4. ..

1. I’ll have the Frege Legs with Russell Sprouts, please.
2. Steven Nadler on the Jewish ban of Spinoza and the relation between wisdom and orthodoxy.
3. A multi-author forum on privacy and the framework for a “digital bill of rights.”
4. Are you more utilitarian in a foreign language?
5. Science Magazine’s special issue on the science of inequality.
6. Want to gues..

1. “No one goes into the humanities for reasons political, professional, or merely personal. We do so because devoting ourselves to some particular field strikes us an especially exciting and appropriate way of leading a life, because the work required seems to us noble, challenging, and rewarding, and because we love it.” David McCabe (Colgate) on how not to defend..

1. Jeff Sebo talks about moral status while drawing very fast. And well. Hmmm, maybe he isn’t the one drawing.
2. If privacy is dead, perhaps we should be seeking some obscurity instead? (And here’s an article by the same authors in Wired.)
3. Jesse Prinz, who got his PhD at the University of Chicago, is profiled in the university’s magazine. Relatedly, here is a sh..

1. A Henry David Thoreau tumblr.
2. “Jean-Paul Sartre was literally obsessed with crabs. Also, mescaline.” That and other weird facts about some famous existentialists.
3. What can you do with a philosophy degree? Conduct secret negotiations between the Colombian government and the FARC guerillas, for one. Meet Sergio Jaramillo Caro, Colombia’s high commission for p..

1. Elizabeth Anderson discusses the history and varieties of egalitarianism at libertarianism.org.
2. “On Being Annoyed” by Tom Roberts (Exeter). A friend asks: the next “On Bullshit”?
3. I’m not sure how helpful it is to ask “What if Plato was an employee benefits professional?” though I do like Dilbert on this idea.
4. A “lost” video interview of Foucault on theme..

1. Want to annoy a metaphysician? Send him or her a link to this video, which purports to answer the question, “How Many Things Are There?”
2. Rousseau, pranking, and spanking.
3. You won’t believe who is saying that there is such a thing as a free lunch.
4. “Real philosophy has always flourished outside institutional walls,” says Scott Samuelson at the Huffington P..

1. Wittgenstein and cricket.
2. The ethics of fashion.
3. A book of 33 interviews on the relation between science and religion
4. The philosophy of walking.
5. Dennett’s advice for criticizing with kindness.
6. Vox on Ziker (previously) on how professors spend their time.
7. A philosopher has written a memoir about surviving rape.
8. Venn diagram organizes the varie..