Mini-Heap

New links…

1. “They die every day” — if you like Terry Bisson’s “They’re Made Out of Meat” (here), you’ll like this dialogue by Erik Hoel
2. “Real teaching is about genuinely connecting with your students as people. They don’t care how much you know unless they know how much you care” — “Bronx Socrates,” a documentary about revered philosophy teacher Bob Gurland, premieres this month. Here’s the trailer
3. Academics, when someone asks you how things are going, you can send them this — Paul Musgrave summarizes the various problems facing academia right now and why “the vibes are very bad”
4. “The question… is about how to make progress in a debate where both sides are both deeply dug in and all too predictable” — Michael Cholbi on the disputes over assisted dying and the concept of freedom over death
5. “Dogwhistles are likely to become very important in an America where expression has become so restricted” — Jennifer Saul applies ideas from her book on strategic and manipulative language to recent events
6. Are photos taken or discovered? — a video essay on what they could, but don’t, call “digital photo modal realism” (via MeFi)
7. We typically hold that definitions cannot be circular, but “McDowell rejects that constraint and thus the substantive project of philosophical analysis, understood in metaphysical terms” — Kieran Setiya on McDowell’s quietism 

Mini-Heap posts usually appear when several 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