A new Mini-Heap is here!

1. To be a good academic philosopher, you need to be more than just a good philosopher — Ian James Kidd (Nottingham) discusses this difference and the skills of each
2. “The multifariousness of the laws suggests a different conception of what physics is all about. We’re not building a machine that calculates answers… instead, we’re discovering questions” — a way physics is similar to philosophy, in The New Yorker
3. This month is the 200th anniversary of “one of the most significant statements of the principles of liberalism” — that would be “The Liberty of the Ancients Compared with that of the Moderns” by Benjamin Constant. Jacob Levy (McGill) celebrates.
4. A newly-discovered letter from Einstein in which he discusses Hume’s influence on his work — “It is very possible that without these philosophical studies I can not say that the solution would have come.” (The Telegraph)
5. “Most people do not realise that Aristotle wrote works designed for the general public” — they did not survive, but we know something of them, and they provide a model for public philosophy, argues Edith Hall (KCL)
6. In 1964 John Stewart Bell published his eponymous theorem, now regarded by many as one of the most important discoveries in physics. — 55 years later, BJPS is commemorating this by making available a selection of past papers exploring the implications of Bell’s Theorem
7. On deriving an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’ — Rick Lewis at Philosophy Now recently discovered a note Philippa Foot wrote to him about this 18 years ago

Mini-Heap posts appear when 7 or so new items accumulate in the Heap of Links, the ever-growing collection of items from around the web that may be of interest to philosophers.

The Heap of Links consists partly of suggestions from readers; if you find something online that you think would be of interest to the philosophical community, please send it in for consideration for the Heap. Thanks!

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