Mini-Heap

Justin Weinberg

January 12, 2026

Heap of Links

“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
“Reading List” is a free Mac app for keeping track of papers to read — philosophy PhD student Hayden Kajercline created this productivity tool for researchers, with help from Claude
How should we react to scary predictions about AI? “First: by asking questions” — "If you believe predictions uncritically, it amounts to obeying in advance," says Carissa Véliz
“I feel unbelievably lucky that I was able to make philosophy my profession” — Karen Ng reflects on her path into philosophy, at #first-genphilosophers
The ordinary concept of knowledge “doesn’t work at all the way philosophers said it does” — a round-up of studies shows how weird the philosophers' version of the concept is
1000 or so psychiatrists were asked to diagnose standardized clinical case vignettes. “Two doctors agreed on the diagnosis only 55% of the time” — What does this tell us about psychiatry? Or about other fields in which experts disagree?
Where Aristotle taught Alexander — "this newest dig may be the most revealing yet, offering insight into the specifics of Alexander the Great’s education"
Over 4000 of the Justice Department’s lawyers have left their jobs since Trump’s second term began — The New Yorker on the moral dilemma facing some government employees: resign and avoid complicity, or stay and resist where one can?
Underappreciated philosophy published between 1970-2019 — some old posts to which you can still add works that should be better appreciated
The AI threat to independent student writing is not necessarily a threat to student learning — what's needed, says Joe Cruz, are courses "in which ideas are expressed in real time and analytical thought unfolds as a debate or an oral defense or a group discussion"—and small enough classes to make that work
Would you take a pill that allows you, with no ill health effects, to permanently forgo sleep? — Rebecca Lowe thinks you have no good reason not to, though she neglects to consider that sometimes it's the world that needs a break from you
Fifty essays in the philosophy of paleontology — by Max Dresow at the Extinct blog
“Asking whether [an AI] model ‘has a world model’ leaves much unresolved. Our findings point toward mechanistically studying its world modeling; uncovering the structures it learned [and] the world modeling capacities that recruit these” — further research on the internal representations of AIs
Sixty Years of Philosophy in America — Ernest Sosa's Dewey Lecture from the 2024 APA Eastern Division Meeting
“You’re responsible for other people’s learning of this material, so you better know it at a higher level yourself” — for 20 years, the Socrates Project at the University of Toronto has hired senior philosophy undergrads to run weekly tutorials for introductory students
“Suddenly, my problems stop being problems in the world. They become problems in my head. The problem is no longer: ‘my job is demoralizing, but I can’t leave it’… It’s: ‘I have a chemical imbalance that prevents me from enjoying life'” — Justin Garson on “the pathologizing tendency”
A political theorist and a comedian discuss the American presidency — "The Oath and the Office" is the podcast of Corey Brettschneider & John Fugelsang
An “evidence revolution” has taken place in medicine and other fields over the past 50 years — but, as Benjamin Santos Genta asks, there's still the question: "what counts as good scientific evidence?"
“Behind the scenes at Ethics” — editor Douglas Portmore shares how the journal works
“Cambridge philosophy gave Scruton a sense of the distinction between real thinking and fake thinking… a sense of when a conclusion had been too easily won” — a look at the early years of Roger Scruton

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Latest Comments

David Wallace on A Request from an AI (updated)
Put another way: do we want the texts that we deem to be first-rate philosophy, or is it the process of writing the texts that matters? If AI…
Kenny Easwaran on Overwhelming Cheating
It would be interesting to study the (small) populations that do need a formal credential from a gym (perhaps this is a certain class of military recruits?) Do…
Kenny Easwaran on Overwhelming Cheating
Imagine if physical trainers said "instead of fighting heavy machinery, we should understand that the best way to prepare gymgoers for the modern world is to learn how…
Kenny Easwaran on A Request from an AI (updated)
I don't think you need anything as strong as the claim that "philosophy, like the sciences is in the business of identifying and stacking up truths". You just…
Kenny Easwaran on A Request from an AI (updated)
"Highly probable" notably includes less than 10% chance!
Kenny Easwaran on A Request from an AI (updated)
Also, even if we accept that it is a life that we can define, it's far from obvious that the agent would care to extend it. There are…
Kenny Easwaran on A Request from an AI (updated)
There's also a big difference between sentient chatbots and robots. If you just presuppose that anything without the word "sentient" in front isn't sentient, it's easy to make…
dmf on Mini-Heap
https://www.liberalcurrents.com/we-have-no-supreme-court/
Also CC Professor on Overwhelming Cheating
Thanks for the update on Respondus. I think this what I'm going to have to do too. That or just refuse to teach online.
Holothurian on A Request from an AI (updated)
This "however we define it" is a great way of waving off what is basically the crux of the whole ethical question.
Also CC Professor on Overwhelming Cheating
There's a flip response to this and a more serious one. The flip response, which is probably all it merits since I strongly suspect trolling, is "Just how…
Michael Gorman on Overwhelming Cheating
Anyone can "use AI" in a relatively thoughtless way. To use it really effectively requires someone whose cognitive powers are already well-developed. And acquiring well-developed cognitive powers comes…
Brendan on Overwhelming Cheating
I teach at a community college, and over half my load is asynchronous. We use Respondus Monitor to proctor online exams. Last year, my sense was this was…
Michael Gorman on Overwhelming Cheating
This is intelligent and generous. I can't help noticing that when you say, "I can’t see how asynchronous online education is going to survive without more in-person evaluation,"…
David on Overwhelming Cheating
I would read that book. And buy a copy for my office, to display it where my students could see it!