Heap of Links


1. The Good Society jounal is providing open access to its new special issue, “Democratic Theory and Mass Incarceration,” with articles by Elizabeth Anderson (Michigan), Christopher Bennett (Sheffield), and a number of political theorists and law professors.
2. Philosophy of extra-terrestrialsCarol Cleland (Colorado), Iris Fry (Technion), and Clément Vidal (Free University of Brussels) are three philosophers who will be taking part in an upcoming symposium organized by NASA and the Library of Congress on encountering alien cultures.
3. Colin Ward’s book, Anarchism: A Very Short Introduction, is now available as a free download.
4. Slate on peer-review’s problems, and a suggested solution.
5.  Should we genetically engineer humans in order to save the environment? Matthew Liao (NYU) is featured in a story about that at the BBC’s site.
6. John Searle lecture: “Consciousness as a Problem in Philosophy and Neurobiology” (video).
7. “There are plenty of situations when random chance really is your best option. And those situations might be far more prevalent in our modern lives than we generally admit.”
8. “What’s So Funny?” Mary Beard talks about theories of humor in The Chronicle.
9. Laura D’Olimpio (Notre Dame Australia), Michael Levine (Univ. Western Australia), and Mairead Phillips (Melbourne School of Continental Philosophy) discuss philosophy and film.
10. Check your Bat-Privilege.

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Anon
Anon
9 years ago

Regarding #7, I have wondered sometimes, for similar reasons, whether or not flipping a coin would be the best way to choose between top job candidates, rather than reaching for further reasons to exclude one or the other (e.g. pedigree, how charming they appear to be and so on). I think this especially relevant when those further reasons either favor the status-quo (pedigree) or introduce a lot of room for biases to manifest themselves (evaluating how socially appealing the candidate is).

Utmu
Utmu
9 years ago

Is it me, or is anarchism generally a more obscure system within academic, and even public philosophy? Men like Kropotkin and Bakunin generally aren’t covered by things like the podcasts, blogs, etc. that I frequent. The only prominent philosopher of today that does subscribe to anarchist thought would be Noam Chomsky. Is anarchism not taken seriously by academia, or is it just me?

(I’m an undergraduate who hasn’t taken philosophy courses, yet. So please go easy on me if I get a reply. :P)

AML
AML
9 years ago

Great list! FYI in number nine it should be Levine (with a second ‘e’).

justinrweinberg
justinrweinberg
Reply to  AML
9 years ago

Thanks. I fixed it.