Mini-Heap

Latest links…

Discussion welcome.

1. “Gratitude isn’t obviously a concept capable of generating… perplexities. But it has hidden depths” — Joshua Rothman discusses philosophical work on gratitude by Tony Manela (Siena)
2. “FHI had died, but it left many children” — an in-depth look at the rise and fall of the Future of Humanity Institute
3. An inverse Turing test — can you convince the computer that you’re a bot (by generating a random pattern of numbers)? (via MeFi)
4. “In Rawls’s ideas, [the Democrats] can find a big-picture vision that is rooted in the best of the liberal tradition and can show the way toward a much-needed period of reconciliation and renewal” — Daniel Chandler (LSE) wrote that in the NYT, and he was interviewed on MSNBC about it
5. Relatedly: “the day Philosophy & Public Affairs started treating Rawls like Jesus” — as Paul Kelleher (Wisconsin) puts it
6. “A few strategies people can use to minimize awkwardness and deal with it when it does, inevitably, happen” — from the philosopher who wrote the book on awkwardness, Alexandra Plakias
7. “The responsibilities of democratic citizenship… involve the responsibility to be critical of yourself” — and the cultivation of the skills of self-criticism requires relatively politics-free spaces, argues Robert Talisse (Vanderbilt)

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. Thank you.

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