Recent additions to the Heap of Links…
- A famous photo of earth, “Pale Blue Dot,” generates feelings of cosmic insignificance — do these feelings “teach us something profound” or are they “a kind of cognitive illusion”, asks Tim Bayne
- Some people think “[t]here is an objectively correct way to ‘write the book of the world’ [and that] the goal of science and philosophy is to write that book” — but there’s no one such book, says Christian List; rather, it’s a library of countless books, each titled “The World As I Found It”
- “If all people do is read this Hume quote and discuss it, this book has been a win for me” — says Suzanne Collins about her latest Hunger Games novel, Sunrise on the Reaping
- “The more that people can involve themselves in caring for the things that matter to them, the more they will also be able to see themselves as caretakers — and the better off those things… will be.” — Erich Hatala Matthes on the need for stewardship
- “To move from [folk categories and stereotypes] to some robust generalizations anchored in real science… People even in the sciences have massively underestimated how big that gap is” — an interview with philosopher Rob Wilson on eugenics, race, incest, disability, transhumanism…
- Should future AI models “be given the ability to stop chatting with an annoying or abusive user, if they find the user’s requests too distressing?” — The NYT covers research on AI welfare
- “At a time when all the truly dangerous ideas are too stupid to be written about by serious philosophers, traditionally ‘controversial’ ideas are quaint” — journalist Peter Clarke on the Journal of Controversial Ideas
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.
Previous Edition
The introduction to the latest iteration of this bibliography: Human Nature, Personhood, and Personal Identity
I initiated a regimen of directed reading about human nature and the notion of “self” (and selves) after being inspired by P.M.S. Hacker’s consecutive chapters on “the self and the body” and “the person” in Human Nature: The Categorial Framework (Blackwell, 2007), as well as several books by Raymond Tallis. I thought I’d share a list of titles I’ve thus far found quite helpful in thinking about questions of human nature and personal identity. It is a comparatively short compilation, and I cannot claim it well represents the philosophical literature on these topics, although at least several of the titles, it turns out, have been well received among professional philosophers. More than a few of the works might justly be said to approach our subject matter indirectly or by implication. And some of the titles concern “human dignity,” a concept embodying important claims and assumptions about human nature or philosophical anthropology. This compilation should prove useful to anyone leisurely or perhaps even systematically exploring fundamental questions indissolubly bound up with our attempts to make sense of or understand human nature and personal identity. I welcome suggestions for additional titles for the next iteration of this bibliography.