Tag: philosophy

Public Philosophy and Outreach

Philosophy Snobbery and Communication

July 29, 2015

Scientists came to realise the media had an important role to play in communicating science. The media could not only inform the public of…
philosophy

What Contemporary Philosophy Should the “Greats” Read? (Updated)

July 28, 2015

Suppose you could go back in time to hand a relatively recent work in philosophy to a pre-20th Century philosopher. Who would you visit,…
philosophy

The Dualism of Philosophy’s Purpose

July 27, 2015

Professional philosophers don’t present themselves as particularly wise or as people to turn to for advice about how to live. And why should we?…
Philosophy Websites

A Database of Philosophical Ideas

July 25, 2015

PhilosophyIdeas is a searchable database of philosophical ideas compiled by Peter Gibson and built by Martin Berry. Users can search and sort ideas by theme, author, and…
Philosophy and the Sciences

We Are Not Human Individuals

July 24, 2015

Unbeknownst to many people, our emotions, cognition, behavior, and mental health are influenced by a large number of entities that reside in our bodies…
News

Philosophers Object to Heythrop’s Closing (updated)

July 24, 2015

The governing board of Heythrop College, a constituent college of the University of London whose mission is “to serve society through philosophy and theology,” met in late…
Philosophy and the Sciences

Putting the “Ph” in Science PhDs

July 22, 2015

My goal is to put the Ph back into a PhD. I want to restore more philosophical thinking into the doctoral degrees that students…
Public Philosophy and Outreach

More on the Benefits of Philosophy for Kids

July 22, 2015

An increasing number of American children from low-income backgrounds are coming to kindergarten lagging in both academic and non-cognitive skills critical to educational success…. Fortunately,…
Public Philosophy and Outreach

High School Summer Philosophy Program

July 21, 2015

I’ve been teaching high school students a week’s worth of philosophy each summer for the past three years, and I’ve had tremendous success doing…
Teaching

Student Plagiarism in Philosophy Classes

July 20, 2015

Do you use Turnitin or SafeAssign in your courses to help deter and catch plagiarism? It turns out such software is not very good,…
Public Philosophy and Outreach

Philosophy Via Facebook?

July 19, 2015

Popular essays, fictions, aphorisms, dialogues, autobiographical reflections and personal letters have historically played a central role in philosophy. So also have public acts of…
philosophy

Humility in Philosophy

July 16, 2015

Because the views we espouse are always open to objections and disagreement, our practice at its best nurtures in the philosopher a capacity to…
philosophy

Philosophy “Changes the Subject”

July 14, 2015

Much of philosophy simply changes the subject when it brings the world under its analysis. That is Nellie Wieland (CSU Long Beach) in her…
Philosophy and Culture

The “Social Harm” of Philosophy

July 13, 2015

While once I used to think that professional philosophy was a place where it would be easy to do no social harm, I have…
Public Philosophy and Outreach

Benefits of Teaching Philosophy in Primary School (updated)

July 10, 2015

A study suggests that teaching primary/elementary school students philosophy may benefit their language and math skills, with those from particularly disadvantaged backgrounds showing the…
Teaching

Philosophy Syllabi Study Needs Volunteers

July 9, 2015

Jennifer Saul (Sheffield) says: “Procrastinate and help women in philosophy!” She elaborates: Have you been meaning to get around to making your undergraduate syllabus…
Graduate Programs

Distance PhD in Philosophy?

July 8, 2015

The Philosophy Department at Staffordshire University is advertising a new distance-learning option for its PhD program: Our doctoral programme can now be run on…
Teaching

Israel Proposes Philosophy for Elementary Students

July 7, 2015

The Education Ministry of Israel has proposed to add philosophy to the country’s elementary school curriculum. The proposal would have students “be taught the…
Philosophy Job Market

A Guide for Applying to Jobs at SLACs

July 7, 2015

You received your PhD from a major research university. Your advisors work at a major research university. Your placement director works at a major…
Publishing

Getting Credit for Peer Review

July 3, 2015

It is a great service to the profession to peer review articles, and service to the profession counts at most institutions towards tenure and…

Heap of Links

Is there anything to the concept of “intrinsic human dignity”? — yes, says Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, and "it names a burden as much as a distinction"
“Intuition is the cognitive means by which the conceptual structure of a situation is revealed to us” — whether that situation is a stylized thought experiment or a real world experience, says Marc A. Moffett
“Professors can’t fix the problem on their own” — Victor Kumar on what university administrators need to do address AI's threat to higher education
“The wall between jus ad bellum and jus in bello, which had sustained his theory for almost half a century, was no longer sturdy” — a profile of Michael Walzer, focusing on his thoughts about just war theory and the Israeli-Palestine conflict
We may think that we lose something significant when AI beats us to a discovery — if we do, Daniel Greco says, that seems to imply we gained something significant, too
“Once upon a time there were a couple of handsome naturalistic philosophers working in and around the philosophy of fiction” — thoughts on new directions in philosophy of fiction, from several philosophers
What is the debate over whether trans women are women even about? — Katie Zhou argues that it's about which facts are granted "the cross-contextual significance and stickiness characteristic of gender"
We’re putting human brain cells into mice brains — One moral risk of this, says Mackenzie Graham, is a decrease in our ability to interpret what mice behavior tells us about their experiences and welfare
The Rawls Game — with instructions, background, advice, and downloadable character cards
“The central question would shift from ‘How do we maximize shareholder value?’ to ‘How do different forms of organization distribute power, risk and reward — and which should we strengthen?'” — Chris Marquis on the case for abolishing, or at least radically changing, business schools
Asking “How did I get here?” may help us reflect on the nature of personal identity in ways that asking “Who am I?” cannot — Marya Schechtman's 2024 Central Division Meeting Presidential Address
“Collecting is a game, but what kind of game? It is an imperfect information game of acquisition” — a theory of collecting, from Steven Hales
“A general human tendency: to overestimate how far we have come in the progress of human knowledge” — a lengthy interview with Thomas Nagel
“Many couples do not survive trauma like this” — A profile of Susan Brison—who was brutally attacked in 1990, and who wrote about it in Aftermath—and her husband, Thomas Trezise, who has now written his own book stemming from those events
“Bad AI Consciousness Takes” Bingo Card — Henry Shevlin's area of specialization is becoming a popular topic in popular discourse, and he can't stand the "cavalcade of terrible takes"
Does the principle of sufficient reason imply panpsychism? If it does, do we then ponens or tollens? — Sam Kimpton-Nye on these questions and the "demand for intelligibility"
PTSD flashbacks may be harmful, but they may also be helpfully “resupplying phenomenal experience” to those who, owing to trauma, are “grasp alienated” — Michaela McSweeney on trauma and "madness-as-strategy"
A look at the very first issue of Mind — Brett Mullins surveys its articles on the occasion of the journal's 150th anniversary
The most bizarre plagiarism-related story ever — featuring: a death, an investigator, a dissertation, a mysterious red book, and more
New data on earnings by major and university — though not all universities

All Links →

Latest Comments

Matthew Hammerton on Coordinating the Philosophy Profession’s Response to the Use of AI in Research
Given the description of the conference, I think the title of this post needs a small correction: "Coordinating the US Philosophy Profession’s Response to the Use of AI…
Hey Nonny Mouse on Coordinating the Philosophy Profession’s Response to the Use of AI in Research
Like the situation in Palestine, this looks like the sort of issue on which individual philosophers should offer opinions rather than something on which philosophers should take an…
HotWheelReggie1991 on Coordinating the Philosophy Profession’s Response to the Use of AI in Research
I think we might have an easier time of things getting the field of academic philosophy to develop a coordinated response to the problem of free will.
Kenny Easwaran on Coordinating the Philosophy Profession’s Response to the Use of AI in Research
I am skeptical that coordination on something like this is either possible or desirable for an entity as large and diverse as the philosophical community. But I do…
Rollo Burgess on Linguistic and Conceptual Justice in AI
I saw a great lecture from some researcher one of the labs about this: it's much more interesting. The LLM isn't fundamentally working in any language; the patterns…
Patrick Lin on Linguistic and Conceptual Justice in AI
Signed! The Conversation had published several articles that speak to or are related to this important but hidden concern, e.g.: https://theconversation.com/large-language-models-often-prioritize-western-moral-values-overlooking-other-cultures-285660 https://theconversation.com/ais-fluency-in-other-languages-hides-a-western-worldview-that-can-mislead-users-a-scholar-of-indonesian-society-explains-276865 https://theconversation.com/ai-systems-are-built-on-english-but-not-the-kind-most-of-the-world-speaks-249710 https://theconversation.com/how-generative-ai-could-change-how-we-think-and-speak-267118
Patrick Lin on Coordinating the Philosophy Profession’s Response to the Use of AI in Research
Very timely. Best of luck, Barry and team!
Filippo Contesi on Linguistic and Conceptual Justice in AI
Not English-only but English is superdominant and so most LLMs default to English. China's LLMs might be different…
philatetelist on Linguistic and Conceptual Justice in AI
This is all news to me. So, is it true that most LLM's are trained on a corpus that is English-only, and then generate non-English output only at…
Matthew Duncombe on Timothy Smiley (1930-2026)
Very sorry to read about this. I only met Tim Smiley a handful of times, but his erudition, intelligence and kindness, and interest in ancient logic made a…
James Mackay on Calls for Papers / Grants / Etc.
Byung-Chul Han and Contemporary Culture. Online (hosted by European University Cyprus). 19 March 2027. Abstracts due 18 January 2027. https://byungchulhanstudies.org/call-for-papers/An online symposium putting Byung-Chul Han’s concepts – burnout,…
Student Philosopher on Where Intuitions Conflict
But the history of philosophy shows us no cases in which adept questioners left their interlocutors in aporia Mad Max – That's Bait
Vinicius Rodrigues on Where Intuitions Conflict
One of my main concerns with your answer to x-phi studies is that it makes having an intuition a difficult thing to pick out in the stream of…
philatetelist on Where Intuitions Conflict
This is a startling hypothesis, because if one and the same individual can have conflicting intuitions about cases, then a philosophically adept questioner should be able to elicit…
Patrick Lin on Death Just Got Out of This Truck (guest post)
“You can be the ripest, juiciest peach in the world, and there's still going to be somebody who hates peaches.”— Dita Von Teese, American philosopher