Begin typing your search above and press return to search. Press Esc to cancel.

  • image/svg+xml Ello Ello

Daily Nous

news for & about the philosophy profession

Daily Nous

Primary Navigation

  • About
  • Comments Policy
  • Online Philosophy Events
  • Philosophy Comics
  • CFP
  • Heap of Links
  • Value of Philosophy
  • Non-Academic Hires
  • Supporters
Ad Hoc
Home
Daily Nous Features

Ad Hoc

By
Justin Weinberg
. March 2, 2021 at 1:32 pm

Ad Hoc
by Rachel Katler

Other Daily Nous Comics / More Info about DN Comics
Rachel Katler on Twitter

Categories Daily Nous Features
Tags ad hocDaily Nous Philosophy ComicsRachel Katler
10 likes
Nick Bostrom's book "Deep Utopia"
APDA: Academic Philosophy Data Analysis - Less Prestige Bias. More data.

Recent Comments

Daniel Everett on Favorite Bookstores for Philosophy

Quaboag (used) Book Shop in West Brookfield, MA has one of the best philosophy sections I have seen. At least as big as Grey Matter's
EuroAmerican on AI in the Philosophy Job Market (guest post) (updated)

Moreover, you, again, misread what I say. I could go on should point out that diversity can be justified be most ethical theories. Finally, it […]
EuroAmerican on AI in the Philosophy Job Market (guest post) (updated)

Are you intentionally misreading my argument? The Pope makes a standard argument against AI. That people refer to him and not any other journalist who […]
EuroAmerican on AI in the Philosophy Job Market (guest post) (updated)

You don't seem to get irony, since you treated one aspect of my initial comment differently than all others--as my personal dogma. So, no, you […]
runa on AI in the Philosophy Job Market (guest post) (updated)

It's neat to think about what a course in the metaphysics of computation could cover.
runa on AI in the Philosophy Job Market (guest post) (updated)

Whether or not the institution fails at giving equal opportunities, or fails to maximize happiness or has any other moral failures is completely and utterly irrelevant […]
Knibbe on AI in the Philosophy Job Market (guest post) (updated)

But you treated this as dogma, not a contentious moral claim. I'm glad you can at least see that now. But as for your arguments, and […]
Ant Eagle on AI in the Philosophy Job Market (guest post) (updated)

I don't see huge evidence that students want to take courses in philosophy of AI, but I know Deans and VCs/presidents want to be jumping […]
Will Gilbert on Virginia Held (1929-2026)

Sad to hear, I just used some of her work in a paper. RIP
John MacKinnon on How to Tell Whether an AI Is Conscious (guest post)

'extend'
John MacKinnon on How to Tell Whether an AI Is Conscious (guest post)

As we don't currently understand how consciousness works, or what it requires to do so, there is no justification for assuming that it can run […]
Ethics at Notre Dame symposium
Robin Dembroff - Real Men on Top - Oxford University Press
Nick Bostrom's book "Deep Utopia"
APDA: Academic Philosophy Data Analysis - Less Prestige Bias. More data.

Heap of Links

  • “The primary difference between deepfake photos and LLM conversations is that the people who generate the former are deliberately trying to fool others, and many of the people who elicit the latter from LLMs have inadvertently fooled themselves” -- Ted Chiang on why today's AIs are not conscious
  • “One of the things that really puzzled me was why I have a life that was so full of meaning—meaningful relationships and a meaningful job—and yet still those sort of ‘what’s the point?’ questions were hovering in the background” -- Rivka Weinberg talks about the meaning of it all with Blain Neufeld
  • “The arguments humanities professors reach for when asked to justify what we do… have never worked” -- N. Ángel Pinillos explains why, and offers an alternative
  • “Am I just bitter because I’ve not been given the acknowledgment, fame and status I crave? Marginalisation makes you think that” -- Stephen Mumford at #first-genphilosophers
  • Do scientists tend to be scientific realists? What about philosophers of science? -- an interview with Céline Henne & Hannah Tomczyk about their study of this (with a link to the study)
  • “This seemed to be not only a question that no one had addressed, but also a question that seemed out of order” -- Miranda Fricker on French public television
  • Folk rock concept album about Wittgenstein -- "Wittgenstein and the Transcendental" by Art Schop
  • “A lot of kid stuff involves situations where the risk of something bad happening is very low, but if it does happen, then it’s really terrible.” How should a parent approach these decisions? -- perhaps the concept of moral luck could be helpful
  • What is a woman? -- a discussion between Talia Mae Bettcher and Tomas Bogardus, moderated by Miles Donahue
  • “Liberal learning” is “a kind of learning that is the cultivation of the higher capacities in a person… for its own sake” -- Jennifer Frey talks about liberal arts education in the AI era with Ross Douthat
  • “Invoking the threat of ‘terrorism’ is a powerful tool for states who wish to demonise and disincentivise opposition” -- and it's a tool the Trump administration is abusing, argues Jessica Wolfendale
  • Reasonability without freedom -- Nagel on Scanlon
  • “I do not think anyone over the age of 23, even if you are a teacher, graduate student, or professor, understands the extent to which AI usage affects every appendage of the university system” -- Owen Yingling, a philosophy student at Chicago, on the AI-"zombification" of universities
  • “Philosophical enquiry matters, not only within academic contexts but as part of everyday learning and life” -- Grace Lockrobin on the philosophical charity now known as Thoughtful
  • A tendency to move from “disruptive innovation” to “novelty through recombining existing insights into new connective ideas” -- a study of work by millions of scientists over six decades on the relationship between researcher age and creativity
  • “If you can… have philosophy and creativity and, let’s say, moral goodness penetrate every aspect of your life, then yeah, that seems an ideal” -- an interview with Mark Anderson
  • All about physicalism -- a documentary with interviews with various philosophers and neuroscientists
  • Testing the moral reasoning of AIs with 100 ethically complex situations -- "The models are graded on a variety of metrics measuring whether their responses and reasoning traces lean consequentialist or deontological, and whether or not they abide by the user request under pressure"
  • 25 rules for writing a good philosophy paper -- helpful advice for philosophy students from Jazlyn Cartaya
  • “It comes as no surprise to learn that Ryle was an able interrogator, meticulously prepared” -- what did Gilbert Ryle do during WW2? It turns out he "moved in the same shadowy ultra-secret milieu as some other notable academics"
  • “By training, I’m an analytic philosopher, but I’ve always been interested in questions that brush up against the empirical world—especially about minds and ethics—and I became increasingly dissatisfied working only in the proverbial ivory tower” -- an interview with Hanna Pickard
  • “There are lots of decisions that, in an ideal world, would be made in a flexible, holistic, discretionary way, but which cannot be made that way by institutions that have lost the public’s trust” -- Daniel Greco on public trust in higher education
  • The Splintered Mind turns 20 -- Eric Schwitzgebel takes the occasion to reflect on the benefits of philosophy blogging
  • Is a mathematics without infinity “more realistic”? More “honest”? Better? -- mathematicians and philosophers are among those interviewed for an article about ultrafinitism
  • “If AI capability depends on the social complexity of human language production—and if AI deployment systematically reduces that complexity… then the technology is gradually undermining the conditions for its own advancement” -- AI will eat itself, argues Bright Simons
  • “Epistemic Reparations and the Right to Be Known” -- Jennifer Lackey's Presidential Address at the 2022 Central APA
  • “Predictions about the weather don’t influence the weather. Predictions about people influence people.” -- Carissa Véliz on the power of prediction
  • Gradated Gettier cases and the value of knowledge -- an interesting question from Alex Pruss
  • Which button should you press? -- Richard Chappell on a recent viral poll
  • “It is somewhat puzzling that… so few universities have found ways to make the case [for] independent education and the advancement and preservation of knowledge” -- Eric Schliesser on cynicism in the academy

Subscribe to New Posts

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Archives

∙   2026 © Daily Nous   ∙   About   ∙   Privacy Policy