Tag: science
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A Scientist On Philosophy, The “Thankless Job” That Succeeds Through Superfluousness
[R]egardless of whom you want to assign the task of reaching across the line [between physics and philosophy], presently little crosses it. Few practicing…
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The Biggest Problems Facing Science — How Different is Philosophy?
A few reporters at Vox conducted an unscientific survey of scientists to unpack the sense they’ve been getting that “science is in big trouble.” The result…
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Philosophy in the University: A Defense
“Far from being years of ‘enduring failure,’ the last 150 years have been philosophy’s best.” So argues Scott Soames (University of Southern California) in…
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Needed: A Philosophy Cheat Sheet for Scientists
What is the name of the phenomenon by which someone who is an acknowledged expert in one area is led to be overconfident about…
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Interdisciplinarity “Takes Hard Work”
Don Howard (Notre Dame) has a post up at his Science Matters blog called “On the Pseudoproblem of Interdisciplinarity.” It begins by recounting some of…
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The Purification of Philosophy
[The] institutionalization of philosophy made it into a discipline that could be seriously pursued only in an academic setting. This fact represents one of the…
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“Reputation Traps” in Philosophy
In an essay at Aeon, Huw Price (Cambridge) writes about “reputation traps.” His example of this is scientific research on cold fusion, or low-energy nuclear reaction…
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The Value of Philosophy in Interdisciplinary Research (guest post by Brian Robinson and Michael O’Rourke)
Brian Robinson and Michael O’Rourke, both at Michigan State University, lead The Toolbox Project, an initiative which provides “philosophical yet practical enhancement to cross-disciplinary, collaborative science.”…
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Four Philosophers of Biology Win $2.1m
Alan Love (Minnesota), C. Kenneth Waters (Calgary), Marcel Weber (Geneva), and William Wimsatt (Minnesota, Chicago) have won a $2.1 million grant from the Templeton…
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Putting the “Ph” in Science PhDs
My goal is to put the Ph back into a PhD. I want to restore more philosophical thinking into the doctoral degrees that students…
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How Philosophers Can Help Cosmologists
Cosmology’s hot streak has stalled. Cosmologists have looked deep into time, almost all the way back to the Big Bang itself, but they don’t…
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An Exchange on Disgust
Many of you will remember Nina Strohminger‘s amusing review of Colin McGinn’s book, The Meaning of Disgust. The review, written with the kind of frankness McGinn’s…
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Morgan Freeman, Philosophy, and Science
Through the Wormhole is a television show on the Science Network hosted by Morgan Freeman. Its latest episode is about the direction of time…
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Dennett Withdraws from Templeton-Sponsored Event
Daniel Dennett (Tufts) has withdrawn from the popular World Science Festival upon learning of its funding from the John Templeton Foundation. Dennett, whose opposition to…
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Defending Philosophy Against the Physicists
In 2012, physicists Lawrence Krauss claimed that “…science progresses and philosophy doesn’t”, and Neil deGrasse Tyson infamously echoes such opinions… Lots of high profile physicists…
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Philosophy, Real People, and the Real World
What are the boundaries of philosophy? Why are they there and what is their nature? How do such boundaries structure the way philosophers approach…
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The Prime Directive & Microbes
In the world of Star Trek, a rule called the “prime directive” prohibits our heroes from interfering in the development of alien cultures. I don’t…
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Philosophers Among 2014 AAAS Fellows
The American Association for Advancement of Science (AAAS) has announced its elected fellows for 2014. Among the 401 new fellows are two philosophers: Joseph…
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More on Funding & Philosophy
A couple of weeks back we discussed questions related to funding and philosophy in the context of Daniel Dennett’s review of a recent book…
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Science, Humanities, and the Mind
Last week, Susanna Siegel and Steven Pinker (both of Harvard) participated in a debate about the role of the humanities and the sciences in the…