Author: Justin Weinberg

Public Philosophy and Outreach

How An Interesting Example of Public Philosophy Happened

March 11, 2019

This past Sunday’s edition of the Star-Ledger, the leading New Jersey-based newspaper, published five brief proposals to “upgrade democracy” authored by political philosophers and theorists, alongside assessments…
Data

Philosophy at Two-Year Colleges

March 11, 2019

Approximately 90% of community colleges offer courses in philosophy, and those courses are taken by roughly 255,000 to 275,000 students per term, or about…
Daily Nous Features

Online Philosophy Resources Weekly Update

March 11, 2019

Here’s the weekly report on new entries in online philosophical resources and new reviews of philosophy books.
Philosophy Job Market

Trends in Philosophy Hiring by Area of Specialization

March 11, 2019

Aero Data Lab, “a collaboration of scientists, ethicists, and policy-makers interested in improving the quality of the clinical research enterprise,” has published an analysis of…
Daily Nous Features

Mini-Heap

March 8, 2019

Yet another Mini-Heap!
Site Issues

Daily Nous Turns Five

March 7, 2019

Daily Nous began with a brief welcome message five years ago, today, around this time. Some of you may be thinking: “five years already?…
Uncategorized

Philosophers On the Philosophy Blogosphere

March 7, 2019

Five years ago Daily Nous came into existence, joining the amorphous and still growing collection of websites known as the philosophy blogosphere.
Philosophy and the Sciences

How Science Can Get the Philosophy It Needs

March 6, 2019

A recent essay in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) by an interdisciplinary group of scholars argues that philosophy has had “an…
Uncategorized

Mini-Heap

March 6, 2019

Lots of interesting stuff lately…
Public Philosophy and Outreach

The Variety and Value of Public Philosophy

March 5, 2019

Readers may recall our discussion last month of the column by Agnes Callard (Chicago) in which she questions whether public philosophy is good. In…
Uncategorized

To φ Or Not To φ

March 5, 2019
Daily Nous Features

Mini-Heap

March 5, 2019

Time passes, the Heap of Links grows, and a new Mini-Heap is born:
Daily Nous Features

Online Philosophy Resources Weekly Update

March 4, 2019

Here’s the weekly report on new entries in online philosophical resources and new reviews of philosophy books.
Academic Freedom

Epistemology and Free Speech

March 4, 2019

“When we have good reason to think that the position advocated by a potential speaker is wrong, we have an epistemic reason in favour…
Philosopher Demographics

In Philosophy Departments, More Women Faculty Means More Women Students Earning PhDs

March 4, 2019

Among U.S. philosophy departments with graduate programs, those with a higher proportion of women faculty award more PhDs to women students.
Awards Grants Honors

Bring a Distinguished Philosopher to Your Campus

March 4, 2019

The Phi Beta Kappa Society, an academic organization that recognizes academic achievement and promotes education, runs a program by which undergraduates at different institutions…
Faculty Moves

Williams from Columbia to Northeastern

March 2, 2019

Patricia Williams, currently the James L. Dohr Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, will be moving to Northeastern University, where she will have a…
Uncategorized

A Life-Saving Philosophy Professor (guest post by Arthur Ward)

March 1, 2019

“It has been very smooth from a medical perspective, deeply moving and gratifying from an emotional perspective, a wellspring of reflection in my philosophical…
Faculty Moves

Curry from Texas A&M to Edinburgh

March 1, 2019

Tommy Curry, currently professor of philosophy at Texas A&M University, has accepted a position as professor of Africana philosophy and black-male studies at the University…
Uncategorized

Developments at the Royal Institute of Philosophy

March 1, 2019

The Royal Institute of Philosophy (RIP), a charitable organization based in London dedicated to the advancement of philosophy, has announced that it has several…

Heap of Links

Is there anything to the concept of “intrinsic human dignity”? — yes, says Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, and "it names a burden as much as a distinction"
“Intuition is the cognitive means by which the conceptual structure of a situation is revealed to us” — whether that situation is a stylized thought experiment or a real world experience, says Marc A. Moffett
“Professors can’t fix the problem on their own” — Victor Kumar on what university administrators need to do address AI's threat to higher education
“The wall between jus ad bellum and jus in bello, which had sustained his theory for almost half a century, was no longer sturdy” — a profile of Michael Walzer, focusing on his thoughts about just war theory and the Israeli-Palestine conflict
We may think that we lose something significant when AI beats us to a discovery — if we do, Daniel Greco says, that seems to imply we gained something significant, too
“Once upon a time there were a couple of handsome naturalistic philosophers working in and around the philosophy of fiction” — thoughts on new directions in philosophy of fiction, from several philosophers
What is the debate over whether trans women are women even about? — Katie Zhou argues that it's about which facts are granted "the cross-contextual significance and stickiness characteristic of gender"
We’re putting human brain cells into mice brains — One moral risk of this, says Mackenzie Graham, is a decrease in our ability to interpret what mice behavior tells us about their experiences and welfare
The Rawls Game — with instructions, background, advice, and downloadable character cards
“The central question would shift from ‘How do we maximize shareholder value?’ to ‘How do different forms of organization distribute power, risk and reward — and which should we strengthen?'” — Chris Marquis on the case for abolishing, or at least radically changing, business schools
Asking “How did I get here?” may help us reflect on the nature of personal identity in ways that asking “Who am I?” cannot — Marya Schechtman's 2024 Central Division Meeting Presidential Address
“Collecting is a game, but what kind of game? It is an imperfect information game of acquisition” — a theory of collecting, from Steven Hales
“A general human tendency: to overestimate how far we have come in the progress of human knowledge” — a lengthy interview with Thomas Nagel
“Many couples do not survive trauma like this” — A profile of Susan Brison—who was brutally attacked in 1990, and who wrote about it in Aftermath—and her husband, Thomas Trezise, who has now written his own book stemming from those events
“Bad AI Consciousness Takes” Bingo Card — Henry Shevlin's area of specialization is becoming a popular topic in popular discourse, and he can't stand the "cavalcade of terrible takes"
Does the principle of sufficient reason imply panpsychism? If it does, do we then ponens or tollens? — Sam Kimpton-Nye on these questions and the "demand for intelligibility"
PTSD flashbacks may be harmful, but they may also be helpfully “resupplying phenomenal experience” to those who, owing to trauma, are “grasp alienated” — Michaela McSweeney on trauma and "madness-as-strategy"
A look at the very first issue of Mind — Brett Mullins surveys its articles on the occasion of the journal's 150th anniversary
The most bizarre plagiarism-related story ever — featuring: a death, an investigator, a dissertation, a mysterious red book, and more
New data on earnings by major and university — though not all universities

All Links →

Latest Comments

Matthew Hammerton on Coordinating the Philosophy Profession’s Response to the Use of AI in Research
Given the description of the conference, I think the title of this post needs a small correction: "Coordinating the US Philosophy Profession’s Response to the Use of AI…
Hey Nonny Mouse on Coordinating the Philosophy Profession’s Response to the Use of AI in Research
Like the situation in Palestine, this looks like the sort of issue on which individual philosophers should offer opinions rather than something on which philosophers should take an…
HotWheelReggie1991 on Coordinating the Philosophy Profession’s Response to the Use of AI in Research
I think we might have an easier time of things getting the field of academic philosophy to develop a coordinated response to the problem of free will.
Kenny Easwaran on Coordinating the Philosophy Profession’s Response to the Use of AI in Research
I am skeptical that coordination on something like this is either possible or desirable for an entity as large and diverse as the philosophical community. But I do…
Rollo Burgess on Linguistic and Conceptual Justice in AI
I saw a great lecture from some researcher one of the labs about this: it's much more interesting. The LLM isn't fundamentally working in any language; the patterns…
Patrick Lin on Linguistic and Conceptual Justice in AI
Signed! The Conversation had published several articles that speak to or are related to this important but hidden concern, e.g.: https://theconversation.com/large-language-models-often-prioritize-western-moral-values-overlooking-other-cultures-285660 https://theconversation.com/ais-fluency-in-other-languages-hides-a-western-worldview-that-can-mislead-users-a-scholar-of-indonesian-society-explains-276865 https://theconversation.com/ai-systems-are-built-on-english-but-not-the-kind-most-of-the-world-speaks-249710 https://theconversation.com/how-generative-ai-could-change-how-we-think-and-speak-267118
Patrick Lin on Coordinating the Philosophy Profession’s Response to the Use of AI in Research
Very timely. Best of luck, Barry and team!
Filippo Contesi on Linguistic and Conceptual Justice in AI
Not English-only but English is superdominant and so most LLMs default to English. China's LLMs might be different…
philatetelist on Linguistic and Conceptual Justice in AI
This is all news to me. So, is it true that most LLM's are trained on a corpus that is English-only, and then generate non-English output only at…
Matthew Duncombe on Timothy Smiley (1930-2026)
Very sorry to read about this. I only met Tim Smiley a handful of times, but his erudition, intelligence and kindness, and interest in ancient logic made a…
James Mackay on Calls for Papers / Grants / Etc.
Byung-Chul Han and Contemporary Culture. Online (hosted by European University Cyprus). 19 March 2027. Abstracts due 18 January 2027. https://byungchulhanstudies.org/call-for-papers/An online symposium putting Byung-Chul Han’s concepts – burnout,…
Student Philosopher on Where Intuitions Conflict
But the history of philosophy shows us no cases in which adept questioners left their interlocutors in aporia Mad Max – That's Bait
Vinicius Rodrigues on Where Intuitions Conflict
One of my main concerns with your answer to x-phi studies is that it makes having an intuition a difficult thing to pick out in the stream of…
philatetelist on Where Intuitions Conflict
This is a startling hypothesis, because if one and the same individual can have conflicting intuitions about cases, then a philosophically adept questioner should be able to elicit…
Patrick Lin on Death Just Got Out of This Truck (guest post)
“You can be the ripest, juiciest peach in the world, and there's still going to be somebody who hates peaches.”— Dita Von Teese, American philosopher