Interesting stuff elsewhere…
Discussion welcome.
- “Researchers will now try to use the [“nuclear clock”] transition to observe whether the laws of physics vary over time” — “There’s something special about the isotope thorium-229”
- A philosopher creates a “silly” online game intended to work like Magritte’s “Treachery of Images” to raise questions about representation — Nele Van de Mosselaer (Tilburg) explains why
- Want to know whether anyone has worked on some scientific problem, and what they learned? Ask “Has anyone?” — part of a project to develop AI scientists
- “The circumstances for studying philosophy in a college… are in the midst of great change” — and “the history of philosophical study in the US offers some insight into what this great change might look like,” says Joseph Keegin (Tulane)
- The philosophy of history in ancient and medieval China — how different is it from modern Western approaches? — Esther Sunkyung Klein and Aidan Ryall (ANU) discuss this on Australian public radio
- “Attacks on voting, and democratic systems generally, almost invariably center on universities, and vice versa” — Jason Stanley (Yale) on “why fascists hate universities”
- “One might say it’s just introspectively obvious that these experiences are unified… [but] it seems at least conceptually possible that the act of introspection creates unity where none was before” — Eric Schwitzgebel (UC Riverside) on the unity of consciousness
I suggest this article by Brian Leiter for the Heap of Links: Free Speech on the Internet: The Crisis of Epistemic Authority. It is a nice antidote to the attempt at rationalization of putatively “deep thinking in conspiracy theories” made recently in a Psyche article. Incidentally, some years ago I argued that we should studiously avoid the locution “conspiracy theory.” The term “theory” has nothing whatsoever to do with conspiratorial beliefs and phantasies. As I’ve argued elsewhere, the phrase “conspiracy theory” is a mind-numbing euphemism (thus concealing more than revealing a slice of social reality) that accords its adherents far too much presumptive epistemic credit insofar as there is no recognizable use of any plausible or even possible “theory” at work here. To speak of a “conspiracy theory” is to mangle grammar and meaning so as to negate and avoid, intentionally or not, clear characterization or description of the nature of what is taking place when believers, sceptics, and non-believers alike employ this term in such an indiscriminate and obfuscatory fashion. These conspiracy beliefs partake of falsehoods, lies and phantasies (distinguishable from fantasies), not theory: there are no cognitive, analogical, or metaphorical “maps” or models that are part and parcel of typical theories; there is no consideration of a “problem” to be addressed, no prior entertainment of hypotheses or use of abductive reasoning, let alone the faintest good faith effort to gather even a modicum of evidence in support of this putative “theory.”