Philosophy and Culture
CategoryPhilosophers Find They Have a New Fan on Social Media: MC Hammer
“Why Science Needs Philosophy,” a multi-authored opinion piece published last year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), got a boost last Friday when rapper MC Hammer shared it with his 3.2 million followers on Twitter. (more…)
Major Videogame Developer Partners with Philosophy Department
Epic Games, the maker of Fortnite, currently one of the world’s most popular video games, and Unreal Engine, a virtual 3D design tool, has partnered with the Faculty of Philosophy at Moscow State University (MSU) in Russia. (more…)
Illusion and Agreement in the Debate over Intolerance
A good number of very smart, interesting, and creative people signed onto an open letter, published in Harper’s this week, applauding “wider calls for greater equality and inclusion across our society” while lamenting “the intolerant climate that has set in on all sides.” (more…)
New Voice in the Philosophy-Themed Music Scene
Philosophy-themed music is not the most popular genre, but it shares a lot of the same features of any type of music. (more…)
Philosophy Haiku 2019 (guest post by Eliran Haziza)
Eliran Haziza, a philosophy graduate student at the University of Toronto, wrote a haiku-detecting program and ran it on philosophy texts. (more…)
Philosopher-Rocker Turns to Music for Kids
You may know Daniel Groll, associate professor of philosophy at Carelton College, for his work in biomedical ethics. You may also know him as the singer for The Counterfactuals, an indie rock band that is 3/4 philosophers. (more…)
Philosophy and Skiing
A Flowchart of Philosophical Novels and Stories
Ben Roth, a philosopher who teaches in the Harvard College Writing Program, has put together a kind of flowchart recommending philosophical novels and stories. (more…)
Philosophical Films
C. Thi Nguyen (Utah Valley University), asked for suggestions of philosophical films on Twitter recently, and got a number of good responses. (more…)
The Today Show Reports on an APA Meeting… in 1990
Back in 1990, the Today Show aired a segment on a meeting of the American Philosophical Association (APA), taking place in New Orleans.
Game of Thrones Quotes for Academic Contexts
Game of Thrones, a well-acted and beautifully filmed sprawling television fantasy of political ambition, royal lineage, revenge, zombies, surprising deaths, random magic, and dragons—entertaining and big but also silly and superficial—is ending tonight. People can’t stop talking about it.
The Philosophy Haiku of Kris McDaniel
Philosopher Kris McDaniel, who will be moving shortly from Syracuse University to the University of Notre Dame, writes philosophy haiku. (more…)
Philosophical Short Stories
Do you know of any particularly philosophical short stories? (more…)
Developments at the Royal Institute of Philosophy
The Royal Institute of Philosophy (RIP), a charitable organization based in London dedicated to the advancement of philosophy, has announced that it has several new officers. (more…)
Joffrey Baratheon Plans to Become a Philosophy Professor
King Joffrey had a hard time ruling Westeros, but will that be anything compared to his quest to become a philosophy professor? (more…)
Crying “Crying Wolf”
Suppose that instead of one shepherd boy, there are a few dozen. They are tired of the villagers dismissing their complaints about less threatening creatures like stray dogs and coyotes. One of them proposes a plan: they will start using the word “wolf” to refer to all menacing animals. They agree and the new usage catches on. For a while, the villagers are indeed m..
Which Philosophers Won the Shirt Poll? And Who Won the Shirts? (updated)
The 2nd Daily Nous/Hirsute History philosopher t-shirt poll is over, and we have identified the winner and runner-up. (more…)
When Philosophers Are on the Money (guest post by Maks Sipowicz)
The following is a guest post* by Maks Sipowicz, a doctoral candidate in philosophy at Monash University (whom you can follow on Twitter: @m_sipowicz ). A version of the post first appeared on his blog, Philosophy After Dark (which you can follow on Facebook). (more…)
How Religion Informs Philosophizing
In an interview at What Is It Like To Be A Philosopher?, Christian Miller, the A. C. Reid Professor of Philosophy at Wake Forest University, discusses, among other things, the relationship between his religious and philosophical commitments. (more…)
Another Network Comedy To Feature a Philosopher
Is philosophy hot? Following the commercial success of The Good Place, a television sitcom on NBC with a moral philosophy professor as one of its main characters (which, by the way, recently featured a discussion of Jonathan Dancy’s moral particularism, not to mention a re-enactment of part of the trolley problem), the network will be releasing A.P. Bio.
Philosophy Goes Hollywood?
Check out the trailer to Downsizing, the upcoming movie starring Matt Damon, Kristen Wiig, and others:
Emergent Horrors (?) of Information Technology
These videos, wherever they are made, however they come to be made, and whatever their conscious intention (i.e. to accumulate ad revenue) are feeding upon a system which was consciously intended to show videos to children for profit. The unconsciously-generated, emergent outcomes of that are all over the place… (more…)
Kanye West Is Writing A Philosophy Book (Updated)
Rapper Kanye West has revealed that he is writing a philosophy book. (more…)
The Growth of Pre-College Philosophy In Ireland
This past year, nearly 60 high schools in Ireland began offering philosophy courses or introducing philosophy modules into existing courses, and the nation’s president, Michael Higgins, launched the Young Philosopher Awards for primary and secondary school students. (more…)
Philosopher Shirt Poll: Another Collaboration with Hirsute History
Two years ago Daily Nous polled readers to determine which philosophers should be added to the collection of portrait shirts designed by Jeremy Kalgreen at Hirsute History. We’re doing it again and once again are asking for your input. (more…)
Derogatory Language in Philosophy Journal Risks Increased Hostility and Diminished Discussion (guest post) (Update: Response from Editors)
The following is a guest post* from Sophie Allen (Keele), Elizabeth Finneron-Burns (Warwick), Jane Clare Jones, Holly Lawford-Smith (Melbourne), Mary Leng (York), Rebecca Reilly-Cooper (Warwick), and Rebecca Simpson, concerning two articles recently published in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. (more…)
Philosopher Calls for Interdisciplinary & Empirically Informed Study of Black Manhood
In an interview at Inside Higher Ed, Texas A&M philosophy professor Tommy Curry (who was the recent target of harassment and death threats, recall) discusses some of the ideas in his recent book, The Man-Not, which calls for a distinctive kind of black male studies he says is rejected by others in the humanities.
Personality Traits and Book Genre Preferences
What do people’s tastes in books tell us about their personalities? More specifically, what can we learn about people’s personalities from their preference for philosophy books? A team of researchers from Disney Research and the Singapore Ministry of Defense (what a combination!) used self-reported personality data from Facebook and user-supplied book-genre tags fro..