Tag: intellectual achievement

philosophy

The Intellectual Achievement of Creating Questions

August 23, 2017

A commonly recognized form of intellectual achievement is the correct answering of questions. This kind of achievement is not a matter of mere quantity—one doesn’t get…

Heap of Links

“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
“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?"

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Latest Comments

Meme on Those OpenAI Math Results
“[T]he journey matters more than the destination.” I remember when the producers of LOST said this after its finale failed to offer a satisfying resolution to the core…
Yuanshan Li on Those OpenAI Math Results
In these discussions it is important to distinguish *mathematics/philosophy itself* versus *the current academic institutions that specialize in the study of mathematics/philosophy*. By definition mathematics is infinite, so…
HotWheelReggie1991 on Those OpenAI Math Results
So is your position that epistemically speaking we're worse off if OpenAI, say, proves that all the non-trivial zeros of the Riemann zeta function have real part 1/2,…
Dmitri Gallow on Those OpenAI Math Results
I don't think we should be dismissing Terrance Tao's argument so quickly. I take it that there's partly a concern about how results like these are going to…
HotWheelReggie1991 on Those OpenAI Math Results
I should also add. The "Math's a journey, not a destination (cf. Aerosmith)" folks shouldn't try to say "Open AI took a short cut to the destination, eliminating…
HotWheelReggie1991 on Those OpenAI Math Results
Well, firstly, congratulations to OpenAI. Beyond that, my hot take is this: the math community is taking the line that "understanding is more valuable than isolated truths", and…
Chris on Your One Piece of Philosophy Grad School Advice
1st Law of graduate study: all laws of graduate study must use odd numbers.
David Wallace on Your One Piece of Philosophy Grad School Advice
"Many of the great philosophers from history never wrote some of their most famous thoughts down. However, nowadays, in academic philosophy, you need to “implement” them by writing…
Another CC Professor on Overwhelming Cheating
I think the bluebook might be the least bad option, but I do think we should notice what's being lost here and what the downsides of the bluebook…
Kenny Easwaran on Your One Piece of Philosophy Grad School Advice
More seriously – at all ages, do some thinking, do some weight lifting, figure out how to use machines to help with both when the output is all…
Kenny Easwaran on Your One Piece of Philosophy Grad School Advice
Maybe something of a synthesis here – how good an idea you have isn't as important as how good an idea you can get into someone else's head.
Kenny Easwaran on Your One Piece of Philosophy Grad School Advice
Related to this – you will probably be required to take some seminars on topics that feel unrelated to what your main research project is going to be.…
Kenny Easwaran on A History of U.S. Philosophy Via APA Presidencies (guest post)
Don't apologize! Lots of people are surely interested in learning more about the first female president of the APA (two different APAs, even!) and you have information about…
Philomania on Your One Piece of Philosophy Grad School Advice
I'll add a few qualifications: Ideas matter. Many of the great philosophers from history never wrote some of their most famous thoughts down. However, nowadays, in academic philosophy,…
Plato on Your One Piece of Philosophy Grad School Advice
Lift weights and wrestle until you're about 35, and then—and only then—begin thinking

Tag: intellectual achievement

The Intellectual Achievement of Creating Questions