New additions to the Heap…

1. Map apps “have a colossal influence on our experience of the surrounding world” but “rarely come under public scrutiny” — that’s a mistake, argues Benjamin Santos Genta (UC Irvine)
2. “I have tried to uncover and unite the truth buried and scattered under the opinions of all the different philosophical sects, and I believe I have added something of my own which takes a few steps forward” — Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz is “interviewed” at 3:16AM
3. New: “a forum where scholars and the general public interested in biology, cognitive science, ecology and philosophy of science can engage in a constructive interdisciplinary dialogue” — check out “Dialectical Systems”
4. Book sales figures are tracked by BookScan, a private, exclusive service that bans academics from using its data — “The toxic combination of this data’s power in the industry and its secretive inaccessibility to those beyond the industry reveals a broader problem. If we want to understand the contemporary literary world, we need better book data. And we need this data to be free, open, and interoperable”
5. 25 interviews with philosophers and more on the way — The Dialexicon Podcast is available on Spotify, Apple, and elsewhere, and in video form on YouTube
6. “Sensations are ideas. They are the way our brains represent what’s happening at our sense organs and how we feel about it” — what can a psychologist’s attempt to “work out how a biological machine like the brain could carry out this feat of representation” tell us about human and animal consciousness?
7. “It’s amazing how much… compassion and respect for other people, concern for others, is a kind of path out of one’s own sense of loneliness” — Kieran Setiya (MIT) is interviewed about his new book, “Life is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help Us Find Our Way” on NPR

Discussion welcome.

Mini-Heap posts usually appear when 7 or so new items accumulate in the Heap of Links, a 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!