Author: Justin Weinberg

Daily Nous Features

Online Philosophy Resources Weekly Update

November 14, 2022

The weekly report on new and revised entries at online philosophy resources and new reviews of philosophy books…
communication

Twitter, Mastodon, etc.

November 11, 2022

If you’ve been at least somewhat on Twitter for a while, the past couple of days may have made it worth it. The confusion…
Awards Grants Honors

Cryptocurrency Chaos Affects Academic Grants (updated)

November 11, 2022

The team at FTX Future Fund, a philanthropy aimed at funding projects “to improve humanity’s long-term prospects,” including philosophers William MacAskill and Nick Beckstead,…
Uncategorized

The Artful Geometry of Logic

November 11, 2022

A research team has amassed a collection of Aristotelian diagrams created between the years of 830 and 2021 and have placed them online.
Uncategorized

World Philosophy Day is Next Thursday: What Are Your / Your Department’s Plans?

November 10, 2022

World Philosophy Day is the third Thursday of November—that’s next Thursday, the 17th.
Academic Labor

Work-Life Balance

November 10, 2022

Times Higher Ed (THE) has released results from its 2022 Work-Life Balance survey.
journals

Remarks about Graduate Student Raise Questions about Journal’s Editorial Policies

November 9, 2022

The Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain is investigating the editorial processes at one of its journals, Impact: Philosophical Perspectives on Education Policy…
Daily Nous Features

To φ Or Not To φ

November 8, 2022
Conferences

Social Media at Conferences

November 8, 2022

What are the norms for using social media to publicly discuss the conference sessions you’re attending?
News

Iranian Philosophy PhD Student Reportedly Beaten to Death by Security Forces During Protest

November 7, 2022

According to Iran International, a Persian news channel, “Iranian PhD candidate Nasrin Ghaderi, 35, who was studying philosophy in Tehran died on Saturday after being…
Daily Nous Features

Mini-Heap

November 7, 2022

Recent additions to the Heap…
Daily Nous Features

Online Philosophy Resources Weekly Update

November 7, 2022

The weekly report on new and revised entries at online philosophy resources and new reviews of philosophy books…
Uncategorized

Venues for Public Philosophy

November 4, 2022

The Public Philosophy Network (PPN) is putting together a list of venues that publish public philosophy.
Uncategorized

Interview With “Candy Mom” Philosopher

November 3, 2022

This Daily Nous item is temporarily unavailable while its historical content completes a security review. The title and publication record are preserved; the original…
Cuts and Threats to Philosophy Programs

Philosophy & Others Threatened at Birkbeck (Updated)

November 3, 2022

The Department of Philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London may be stripped of up to six faculty members [actually more than that; see update],…
Lives of Philosophers

No Limit to Goodness: Remembering Sarah Broadie (guest post)

November 3, 2022

“When you manage to pin down a philosophical issue and give it a fully precise answer, often the answer turns out to be boring.…
Uncategorized

Logic Journal Retracts Two Articles After Refutation in Online Discussion

November 2, 2022

Studia Logica: An International Journal for Symbolic Logic, recently published and then retracted two articles by Janusz Czelakowski (Opole) following a discussion at MathOverflow, a…
Daily Nous Features

Mind Chunks

November 1, 2022
Uncategorized

Mini-Heap

November 1, 2022

New links in the Heap…
Lives of Philosophers

Thomas Burrus (1984-2022)

November 1, 2022

Thomas Burrus, instructor of philosophy at the University of South Carolina Aiken, has died.

Heap of Links

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 transwomen 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
“AI poses two different existential threats to [our] valuing practices” — Jordan MacKenzie offers an account of why negative judgments about AI taking over our creative and caring activities are justified
“Submission” is a humorous clicker-style game about starting a career in academic philosophy (or not) — created by Nat Hansen
“The best investment in education is to become the most human human—a challenging, fulfilling, exciting pursuit that connects us across generations” — an interview with Christa Acampora, philosopher and dean of Arts & Sciences at UVA
“What would happen if we tried to live without the mythology of agency at all?” — It's worth pondering, since "agency is just an internal command hallucination," says Alexander Douglas

All Links →

Latest Comments

Paul Wilson on Death Just Got Out of This Truck (guest post)
Start with Descartes. Can't go wrong with Descartes. But freshmen are not so engaged with such purported proofs of God as they are with the meaning of life…
David Wallace on AI Use in STEM and Philosophy Dissertations
They explore this question: they evaluate 339 dissertations in toto to see how predictive AI in the abstract is of AI in the main text. From the paper:…
Keith Douglas on AI for Philosophy: Progress through Capital-Intensive Philosophy (guest post)
This seems parallel to the concerns many of us have about bug reports in software – people can use (currently hyped) AI to great effect to reason about…
Keith Douglas on AI for Philosophy: Progress through Capital-Intensive Philosophy (guest post)
There's a lot of work from us in cyber security about backdooring models – and that's about the ones you can download. "Open Source" doesn't apply – in…
Keith Douglas on AI for Philosophy: Progress through Capital-Intensive Philosophy (guest post)
But does that need a currently hyped AI system? Corpus searches and such at enormous scale have been around for a long time. That's one problem I see…
Keith Douglas on AI for Philosophy: Progress through Capital-Intensive Philosophy (guest post)
Basic research in chemistry was also highly funded for a few decades post WWII and petered off in the 1970s and 1980s like everything else. Chemists in industry…
Paul Wilson on Death Just Got Out of This Truck (guest post)
Amy Olberding's sensuous and thoughtful prose reminds me of Annie Dillard at her best. Ordered.
Luke on AI Use in STEM and Philosophy Dissertations
Interesting work, but I do think there may be a step between using AI in abstracts and more substantively. Surely the first indicates a greater chance of willingness…
Animal Symbolicum on New: “Why Teach Philosophy?”
Thanks! I clearly need a healthy dose of anti-cynicism serum.
Russell Marcus on New: “Why Teach Philosophy?”
Part of what motivated this WTP project (and so much of my recent work) is my conviction that a good way to save philosophy is to teach it…
Charles Bakker on A New Tool for Curbing AI Cheating (guest post)
For what it is worth, I am a TA monitoring one of these writing labs as I write this. The possibility of one of the students cheating is…
Kate on AI Use in STEM and Philosophy Dissertations
None of these seem problematic to me in themselves, for what it's worth.
Tenured Realist on AI Use in STEM and Philosophy Dissertations
Personally, I'm interesting to responding to changes to how academic work is being done and the overall norms of my professional community. As an individual, we are each…
David Wallace on AI Use in STEM and Philosophy Dissertations
Some of “tenured realist”’s examples involved computer generation of text, but not all do.
Sigh on AI for Philosophy: Progress through Capital-Intensive Philosophy (guest post)
Yeah, I also informed the journal in (both the 'I dont have to time review' form, and in a reply mail to the editor at the journal who…