1. Martha Nussbaum (Chicago) is interviewed by Russ Roberts at EconTalk.
2. Chris LeBron (Yale) is interviewed at 3am Magazine on philosophy of race and “the struggle of humanity vs. humankind.”
3. Was Sartre indifferent to the slaughter of Jews?
3a. Composer Scott Johnson’s latest work, “Mind Out of Matter,” features the words and voice of Daniel Dennett (Tufts..

1. Simon Blackburn gives us his version of a “kids, these days, let me tell you” cranky rant about selfies, which he saves only by saying we should respond to the vanity and conceit and narcissism encouraged in today’s society with mockery. Seems to me, though, that only someone completely full of himself would attempt such a sweeping characterization of contemporar..

1. A defense of majoring in philosophy, by Joseph Tinguely (South Dakota).
2. Artist Tino Seghal’s latest installation places philosophers in the Roman agora in Athens to engage people in dialogue.
3. Don’t think for yourself, says Caleb Cohoe (Metropolitan State University of Denver).
4. Aristotle, the biologist. (via Johann A. Klaassen)
5. How to get your students..

1. “I’m not sure, for example, what the philosophy REF panel would make of Berkeley’s research on tar-water, or even Bentham’s on prisons, for that matter.” That’s Jonathan Wolff on exciting scholarship and whether disciplinarity is just a blip in the history of academia.
2. The History and Philosophy of Science Department at the University of Pittsburgh has launch..

1. “Something as ‘mundane’ as coffee tasting generates one of the most challenging philosophical questions…” Anna Marmadoro (Oxford) on Aristotle on perception.
2. The mayor of Sao Paolo, Brazil, who has a PhD in philosophy, has been trying to implement progressive transportation policies in his city. He “has succeeded so far in unifying voters: They want him out…

1. Greasy spoons and Gricean maxims. (via Gerald Dworkin)
2. The regress problem for consequentialism, robot version.
3. “In a deeper and more troubling way, it is canny and subversive artifice, spiced with a moralistic claim to personal liberation. A tattoo is a personal statement but also an anthropological position that accords with the prevailing transvaluations..

1. A sculpture of Edgar Allen Poe, crafted by philosopher Stefanie Rocknak (Hartwick), will soon be unveiled at the corner of Boylston Street and Charles Street South in Boston. This story’s a triple win: philosopher, art, and, of course, aptonym. Here’s other sculptural work by Rocknak. And here’s a post about how Poe anticipated the idea of the Big Bang.
2. A sea..

1. Why study paradoxes? Roy Cook (Minnesota) answers.
2. An argument for the following: “The maxim ‘my country must fight a war to end this episode of political violence and politically-induced suffering’ is approximately equivalent to the maxim ‘the political elites of my country may fight wars at the times and places of their choosing, for the reasons of their cho..

1. Coseru on Pigliucci on Priest, i.e., what does Buddhism really have to say about contradictions?
2. A guide to Plato’s early and middle dialogues, with outlines, interpretive essays, and other supplementary material, has been created by Mark Anderson and Ginger Osborn (Belmont University), and is available for free here.
3. “Exercise. I’m sorry, you pasty, pale..

1. Human civilization is over, says Noam Chomsky.
2. But in case it’s not: a forum on parenthood and academia, at Times Higher Education.
3. Using statistics in your philosophical work? Need help? You can get free one-on-one stats consulting.
4. “Philosophy emerges in society when it loses meaning and fails to provide a unified and coherent picture of reality” — fr..

1. Has a time travel simulation resolved the grandfather paradox? Philosophers of science, let us know (via Ben Stein, Manolo Martinez).
2. A philosopher defends Zionism.
3. Meanwhile, the rabbinical ruling refusing to reverse Spinoza’s excommunication from Judaism has been made public.
4. PBS Newshour discusses philosophy and athletics with Mark Edmundson (Virginia..

1. “Sometimes a deepening of a view may go so deep as to change its character without actually changing its letter,” says Joseph Raz (King’s College, London), in a wide-ranging interview at 3am Magazine.
2. Huw Price (Cambridge) is part of “The scientific A-Team saving the world from killer viruses, rogue AI and the paperclip apocalypse.”
3. A Time Travel Dialogue b..

1. Why are they so angry? Amia Srinivasan (Oxford) makes the case for anger, arguing that it can be a huge source of strength and power, particularly for the apparently weak and powerless, on the BBC. (via Aidan McGlynn)
2. When people who have been blind their whole life are given the power of sight, what do they see? — on the puzzle William Molyneaux posed to Joh..

1. A symposium at Boston Review called “Against Empathy,” featuring Paul Bloom, Peter Singer, Nomy Arpaly, Barbara Fried, Jesse Prinz, and others.
2. “Imagine that women are proportionately represented in the journals we are discussing…. Could there be any reason for ensuring that more papers by women are published in these journals? Possibly, yes, for two reasons..

1. “Scientists that talk philosophy down are simply superficial: they have a philosophy (usually some ill-digested mixture of Popper and Kuhn) and think that this is the “true” philosophy, and do not realize that this has limitations,” says scientist.
2. The Phaedo may be missing some painful, convulsive, gasping.
3. The Critique is a site that aims to bring philoso..

1. What should we think about the ice bucket challenge?
2. Al Mele (Florida State) and Eddy Nahmias (Georgia State) talk about free will and science at Philosophy TV.
3. The challenges for an analytic feminist philosopher of religion.
4. Free for you to use: a Prezi tour through the history of Western philosophy, by Mark Alfano (University of Oregon).
5. Why a philo..

1. Do athletes need more philosophy?
2. Bertrand Russell plays himself, being interviewed, as part of a 1967 Bollywood movie. A Buddhist monk explains, and links to the clip.
3. Are people abusing Jonathan Bennett’s earlymoderntexts.com? Eric Schliesser comments.
4. What do our students want from us? For us to challenge them, and for us to care.
5. A review of a new..

1. Nicholas Kristof, writing in The New York Times, defends the value of the humanities by explaining how he has been affected by the ideas of Isaiah Berlin, John Rawls, and Peter Singer.
2. CBS will be airing a television drama that “centers on a brilliant bioethicist who is called in at crisis moments to solve the most complicated, dynamic, and confounding medica..

1. Hindu philosophy of religion.
2. A series of posts on Cusa and Hegel.
3. Artificial wombs are already being tested and developed, and according to some, will be widely used in a few decades. They’re a little controversial.
4. Physicist Lawrence Krauss squares off against philosophers Angie Hobbs and Mary Midgley on the relationship between philosophy and scienc..

1. Jason Stanley (Yale) brings political philosophy to bear on Detroit and the idea of “emergency managers” in The New York Times. Detroit’s Metro Times  calls it the “most interesting read on the situation.”
2. “Things you should know before publishing a book.”
3. Looking for a brief, clear, and motivated explanation of likelihoodist, Bayesian, and frequentist meth..

1. Advocates of the “open carry” of firearms sometimes enter stores, restaurants, and other establishments, proudly and openly carrying their guns. What is the rational thing to do in this situation? Jack Russell Weinstein (North Dakota) has an answer: GTFO. Wonkette has the story.
2. The mechanism by which the brain reinforces learning has a side-effect that causes..

1. “The fact you are unwilling to examine the philosophical foundations of what you do does not mean those foundations are not there; it just means they are unexamined.” Physicist George Ellis is interviewed at Scientific American’s site.
2. The researchers behind a study (previously) that concluded that students would rather self-administer shocks than spend time a..

1. There is a “profound disconnect between Heidegger’s anti-Semitic prejudice and his philosophy,” argues Michael Marder (University of the Basque Country, Vitoria-Gastiez). But even if there wasn’t, Plato defended slavery and we still read him. Hmmm… so I guess part of the defense of Heidegger comes down to “what, too soon?”
2. The Mod Squad this week is featurin..

1. You have just 10 minutes until your next meeting? Write. 15 minutes between classes? Write. 8 minutes before that advisee comes knocking? Write, dammit.
2. Early risers are less moral at night, compared with night owls.
3. An interview with Corey Mohler, the man behind Existentialist Comics. (via Philosophy Matters)
4. “Conspiracy theorists ruin the whole game fo..

1. The Good Society jounal is providing open access to its new special issue, “Democratic Theory and Mass Incarceration,” with articles by Elizabeth Anderson (Michigan), Christopher Bennett (Sheffield), and a number of political theorists and law professors.
2. Philosophy of extra-terrestrials? Carol Cleland (Colorado), Iris Fry (Technion), and Clément Vidal (Free U..

1. Dave Chalmers on explaining consciousness: the TED talk version.
2. Traveling abroad to avoid long wait lists for a treatment, or to find less costly doctors, or to try out an experimental therapy? Jeremy Snyder (Simon Fraser), featured in an article in the National Post on the ethics of medical tourism, suggests you check out this site for some information and c..

1. “Discrimination Is Un-Christian, too” — philosophy graduate student Kathryn Pogin (Notre Dame, Northwestern) on the Hobby Lobby decision, in the NYT.
2. The genetics of belief: “If these predispositions are…to some degree genetically rooted, they may not lend themselves to rational debate and compromise.”
3. HooPs—the Hardwood Philosophical Society—uses “‘the..