philosophy
CategoryThe Influence of Translations in Philosophy: The Case of the Tractatus
You know that famous last line of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent”? That’s not quite what he said, according to Damion Searls, whose new translation of the book comes out this month. It was more like, “We mustn’t try to say what cannot be said.” (more…)
Philosophy, Creativity, and AI
“I sincerely believe that to save the humanities, within which I include philosophy, we are going to have to reconceive what we do as at least in part a creative endeavor—literary, artistic, imaginative, playful, in short, all those things of which a human spirit is capable, and a machine never will be.” (more…)
Swallows, Moles, and other Animal-Philosopher Typologies
“There are two kinds of philosophers: swallows and moles.” (more…)
Philosophy You Liked Published in 2023
The year is coming to a close, and so it’s a good time for year-end lists, and Daily Nous is a good place for a year-end list about good philosophy.
Conservatism in Political Philosophy
“On the surface it is deeply puzzling that conservatism has disappeared from professional philosophy.” (more…)
Philosophy’s Importance in “Times Like These”
The Los Angeles Review of Books has just concluded publishing a series of articles on the importance of philosophy in “times like these”. (more…)
Externalist Explanations of Philosophy
Why did a particular philosophical view emerge or flourish at a particular time? Why did another fall into disfavor? Why are philosophers today thinking and writing about the particular questions, problems, ideas, and figures they are? (more…)
In Which Areas of Philosophy Should We Expect Faster Progress?
On what we can call the answers model of philosophy, the primary aim of philosophy is to learn philosophical truths, and a primary form of philosophical progress is learning true answers to “the big questions of philosophy,” as David Chalmers (NYU) puts it. (more…)
What Are Some of Your Sayings? (for World Philosophy Day)
Philosophy Is Not In Charge of Itself (and other points worth remembering when writing about the state of philosophy)
Are you thinking about writing about the state of philosophy today?
Philosophy, Science, and Religion
“What began to feel frustrating instead was a growing sense of the marginal place of philosophy more generally in UK culture… it is arguable that philosophy has drifted away, partly due to its own fault and partly due to the fault of the wider culture.” (more…)
Philosophy as Sustaining Faith in our Cognitive Agency
“What are the practices that sustain our faith in ourselves as the agents of our thinking?” (more…)
Philosophy as Art
“I view the philosophical essay as an art form whose medium is ideas.” (more…)
What’s the Point of Philosophy (as an academic discipline)?
I’m curious about what academic philosophers take to be the point of academic philosophy. Just a little question, that’s all. (more…)
Letting Different Kinds of Philosophy Be Their Own Thing
Last week, Harvey Lederman (UT Austin) delivered some remarks at Academia Sinica on what he referred to as “the path forward for Chinese philosophy.” (more…)
Immoral Moral Philosophers
In a recent post at The Splintered Mind, Eric Schwitzgebel (UC Riverside) asks whether it matters “if ethicists walk the walk.” (more…)
The Social Turn in Analytic Philosophy: Promises and Perils (guest post)
“The linguistic turn is over. We partied hard, got hungover, and now we’re trying to live as respectable adults… Today, a new revolution is brewing. Analytic philosophy is in the midst of a social turn.” (more…)
Desperate Honesty (guest post)
“I abandoned classics for philosophy in large part because that was where the refuters were. Now people can’t stop telling me I am wrong.”
Personal, Practical, Public Philosophy
“Starting around 2010, however, there was a striking change, surprising to someone trained in the 1980s. Some philosophy professors began to write a lot more personally; they tried to show how philosophical ideas had affected and might affect their own lives.” (more…)
Philosophy as Glial Cell (guest post)
Glial cell? “Commonly described as the ‘glue’ that holds the nervous system together, they’re better thought of as infrastructure, the ductwork and insulation that give heft to comparatively sparse neurons. But even this metaphor turns out to be incomplete…”
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Favorite Articles Off The Beaten Path
Many of you could probably list the names of 50+ academic philosophy journals off the top of your head. (more…)
The Practicality of Philosophy
“There is something philistine in his demand that philosophy always answer to practical needs.” (more…)
The Various Literary Forms of Philosophy (guest post)
“What are the literary forms philosophy can come in? Judging by contemporary works it seems the best way to express our ideas is in 8000-word journal articles, monographs, the occasional op-ed. But there are so many literary forms to do philosophy in.” (more…)
What’s So Bad About “Bad” Philosophy?
In some domains, “overall quality depends on how good the worst stuff is,” while in others, “overall quality depends on how good the best stuff is, and the bad stuff barely matters.” (more…)
Philosophy in “Lesser-Studied Languages”
An interview project “devoted to exploring the philosophical richness of lesser-studied languages from across the world” has published four interviews so far, with more on the way.
Better Philosophy Through Time Travel
Here’s one way of thinking about progress in philosophy. (more…)
Optimism about Philosophy
“I know a lot of people on twitter and social media complain about the current state of philosophy but I tend to be an optimist.” (more…)
Are We Not Doing Enough Drugs?
“To admit to any intention to use chemical substances, whether found in nature or synthesized in laboratories, in the aim of changing one’s apprehension of reality, is to leave the guild of the philosophers behind, with all its constricting norms and shibboleths, and to join the company, over in the deep end of the pool of life, of sundry countercultural weirdos and..