The Pedagogy of Thought Experiments

June 16, 2014

Philosophy professor Sharon Kaye (John Carroll University) is featured in this Inside Higher Ed article on using thought experiments in the classroom.

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Heap of Links

“Professors can’t fix the problem on their own” — Victor Kumar on what university administrators need to do address AI's threat to higher education
“The wall between jus ad bellum and jus in bello, which had sustained his theory for almost half a century, was no longer sturdy” — a profile of Michael Walzer, focusing on his thoughts about just war theory and the Israeli-Palestine conflict
We may think that we lose something significant when AI beats us to a discovery — if we do, Daniel Greco says, that seems to imply we gained something significant, too
“Once upon a time there were a couple of handsome naturalistic philosophers working in and around the philosophy of fiction” — thoughts on new directions in philosophy of fiction, from several philosophers
What is the debate over whether transwomen are women even about? — Katie Zhou argues that it's about which facts are granted "the cross-contextual significance and stickiness characteristic of gender"
We’re putting human brain cells into mice brains — One moral risk of this, says Mackenzie Graham, is a decrease in our ability to interpret what mice behavior tells us about their experiences and welfare
The Rawls Game — with instructions, background, advice, and downloadable character cards
“The central question would shift from ‘How do we maximize shareholder value?’ to ‘How do different forms of organization distribute power, risk and reward — and which should we strengthen?'” — Chris Marquis on the case for abolishing, or at least radically changing, business schools
Asking “How did I get here?” may help us reflect on the nature of personal identity in ways that asking “Who am I?” cannot — Marya Schechtman's 2024 Central Division Meeting Presidential Address
“Collecting is a game, but what kind of game? It is an imperfect information game of acquisition” — a theory of collecting, from Steven Hales
“A general human tendency: to overestimate how far we have come in the progress of human knowledge” — a lengthy interview with Thomas Nagel
“Many couples do not survive trauma like this” — A profile of Susan Brison—who was brutally attacked in 1990, and who wrote about it in Aftermath—and her husband, Thomas Trezise, who has now written his own book stemming from those events
“Bad AI Consciousness Takes” Bingo Card — Henry Shevlin's area of specialization is becoming a popular topic in popular discourse, and he can't stand the "cavalcade of terrible takes"
Does the principle of sufficient reason imply panpsychism? If it does, do we then ponens or tollens? — Sam Kimpton-Nye on these questions and the "demand for intelligibility"
PTSD flashbacks may be harmful, but they may also be helpfully “resupplying phenomenal experience” to those who, owing to trauma, are “grasp alienated” — Michaela McSweeney on trauma and "madness-as-strategy"
A look at the very first issue of Mind — Brett Mullins surveys its articles on the occasion of the journal's 150th anniversary
The most bizarre plagiarism-related story ever — featuring: a death, an investigator, a dissertation, a mysterious red book, and more
New data on earnings by major and university — though not all universities
“AI poses two different existential threats to [our] valuing practices” — Jordan MacKenzie offers an account of why negative judgments about AI taking over our creative and caring activities are justified
“Submission” is a humorous clicker-style game about starting a career in academic philosophy (or not) — created by Nat Hansen

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While managing a used bookshop a couple of decades ago, I hosted a weekly "Socrates Cafe" with free coffee (and also wine and beer (this being New Orleans),…
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Edit! "argued for *alternatives to* the no-conflicting-intuitions explanation"
Jason Aleksander on Death Just Got Out of This Truck (guest post)
To each their own. I have always admired Olberding's writing style. The tension you seem to find off putting isn't arbitrary, though. This is a philosopher who is…
Non-classical? on Where Intuitions Conflict
"Independent of anything that could be settled through further empirical work on ordinary intuitions, we need to know whether there is some way of working out a philosophical…
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My rule is: if I wouldn’t say something _like that_ to a stranger in a bar or a cab driver, I shouldn’t write it either. This is a…
Marketeer on Death Just Got Out of This Truck (guest post)
I think the point of this piece is interesting. I'll give it some thought. But I actually don't appreciate the writing. Since part of the point of sharing…
John Bengson on Where Intuitions Conflict
Glad to see attention to this issue, though I’ll note that back in 2013 ("Experimental Attacks on Intuitions and Answers”, PPR) I argued for no-conflicting-intuitions explanations of the…
P D Van Pelt on Death Just Got Out of This Truck (guest post)
There are things philosophy helps us think better about. That is the one thing philosophy does.
Apologist on Death Just Got Out of This Truck (guest post)
> (I had Albert Camus’ *The Myth of Sisyphus* in my hip pocket for a year at 17 years old – 50 years ago.) For me it was…
Darren on Putting the Pub in Public Philosophy
The Practical Philosophy Club in Toronto gets over 100 people at their Madison Avenue Pub nights each week – https://www.meetup.com/practical-philosophy-club-ontario/
dmf on Death Just Got Out of This Truck (guest post)
lot's of limits to the uses of understanding when it comes to living through….
V. Alan White on Death Just Got Out of This Truck (guest post)
I'm a longtime fan of her writing just because of essays like this.
Keith Douglas on The Future Currency of Achievement in Human Philosophy
I imagine a lot of philosophers may wish to analyze the "autonomy" involved, too.
Paul Wilson on Death Just Got Out of This Truck (guest post)
Start with Descartes. Can't go wrong with Descartes. But freshmen are not so engaged with such purported proofs of God as they are with the meaning of life…
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They explore this question: they evaluate 339 dissertations in toto to see how predictive AI in the abstract is of AI in the main text. From the paper:…