AI Development and Consciousness
“The system which is now beginning to design its successor is also increasingly self-aware and therefore will surely eventually be prone to thinking, independently of us, about how it might want to be designed.” (more…)
Sandel Wins 2025 Berggruen Prize
Michael Sandel, professor of government at Harvard University, is the 2025 winner of the $1 million Berggruen Prize for Philosophy and Culture.
The Counterfeiting of the Humanities
In 2023, I attended an annual conference on the humanities. In a conversation over lunch, a program manager for a state humanities council, whose job is to review grant applications for humanities projects in their state, asked me what I did. After I replied that I was a philosophy professor, she responded, “Oh, I didn’t know that philosophy was a humanities .” (mor..
Online Philosophy Resources Weekly Update
The weekly report on new and revised entries at online philosophy resources, new reviews of philosophy books, and new podcast episodes… (more…)
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Teachable and State of the Art
A philosophy professor has a question about teaching that I think will resonate with many readers. (more…)
Will There Be Midterm Elections?
According to a site that aggregates data from several betting markets, bettors think there’s a 63.9% chance that the Democratic Party will regain control of the US House of Representatives in the midterm elections scheduled for November 3rd, 2026. (more…)
New: Guides to Public Philosophy
The Public Philosophy Network has published the first volume in its series of “Guides to Public Philosophy.” (more…)
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Expanding the Range of Professional Philosophical Opportunities via Environmental Ethics
“One of the most visible and impactful ways that philosophers demonstrate their practical value,” says Matthew Kisner, professor of philosophy at the University of South Carolina, is by having ethicists “embedded in a professional setting, working alongside clinicians and health care professionals.” He is now applying this model to environmental ethics. (more…)..
If Anthropic Used Your Work, You Could be Entitled to Compensation
The settlement in the copyright lawsuit against Anthropic provides authors of books they trained their AI on with compensation. (more…)
Online Philosophy Resources Weekly Update
The weekly report on new and revised entries at online philosophy resources, new reviews of philosophy books, and new podcast episodes… (more…)
Neil Mehta’s Guide to Professional Philosophy
“It is often thought that philosophical excellence is the sole province of the genius. I by contrast believe that it can be achieved through countless small techniques that can be taught and learned.” (more…)
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Where Philosophers Write
Where do you like to write? (more…)
Memorial Event for Helen De Cruz
This past June, Helen De Cruz, professor of philosophy at Saint Louis University, died at the age of 46. (more…)
Grading Prompts to Measure Student Learning (guest post)
In this era of AI, “can we still rely on take-home writing assignments to assess student learning? And, should we allow students to use ChatGPT in order to complete such assignments? My answer to both questions is ‘yes’.” (more…)
Columbia Philosophy Major Again Faces Deportation Threat
Last April, Mohsen Mahdawi, then a philosophy major at Columbia University, was attending a US citizenship application interview in Vermont when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents wearing hoods and masks took him from the building, put him into an unmarked car, and drove off. (more…)
Editor of Ethics Floats AI-Use Guidelines
In a recent editorial, Douglas Portmore (Notre Dame), the editor-in-chief of Ethics, sets forth some “initial guidelines” about AI use for the journal. (more…)
Online Philosophy Resources Weekly Update
The weekly report on new and revised entries at online philosophy resources, new reviews of philosophy books, and new podcast episodes… (more…)
John Searle (1932-2025)
Philosopher John Searle, well-known for his work on philosophy of mind and philosophy of language, has died.
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Best Next Moves: How Philosophers Can Make Good Use of Theory-Driven GPTs (guest post)
We’ve talked previously about some of the various tasks that philosophers might have large language models help them with in their work, mainly focusing on the ethics of doing so. But what about the mechanics of doing so? (more…)
Philosopher Wins Open Access Award
Adrian Kind, a postdoctoral researcher in philosophy and psychology at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, is one of the winners of the 2025 Open Access Award. (more…)
New Film Captures the Value and Excitement of Ethics Bowl
The Bowl is a new documentary that follows a team of six girls and their teacher as they prepare for and compete in the National High School Ethics Bowl—and you may be able to arrange an interactive screening of it in your town. (more…)
Philosophers at Clemson Defend the Academic Freedom of Colleagues
Two philosophers at Clemson University, each in their own way, have responded to their employer’s punishment of faculty for their comments following the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. (more…)
The Hidden Costs of Being a Non-Native English Speaker in Philosophy (guest post)
Last year, a group of scholars launched an international survey of philosophers on the dominant language of philosophy today—“academic English”—and the challenges faced by native and non-native speakers of everyday English as they work in this language. (more…)
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