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The prudent wing of the ruling class speaks
In this case, Robert Rubin, Secretary of Treasury under Clinton, with reference to Trump’s threat to free and fair midterm elections: If the Trump administration launches an effort to manipulate the outcome of the midterms, the economic impact could be felt immediately, and it could last long after Mr. Trump’s presidency ends…. Any effort to…
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On the pseudo-Nobel Prize in economics in 2026
A development economist comments. Not everything he says is right, but some of it is! As we have noted before, the prize was created by the Bank of Sweden to enhance the status of neoliberal economic theory with an eye ultimately to changing social democratic policies in Sweden. (Thanks to Benjamin Mitchell-Yellin for the pointer.)
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In Memoriam: Timothy Smiley (1930-2026)
Professor Smiley, who spent his academic career at Cambridge (where he became Knightbridge Professor of Philosophy), was well-known for his work in logic. The Clare College, Cambridge memorial notice is here. Comments are open for remembrances from those who knew Professor Smiley or for those who would like to comment on the significance of his…
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On Trump’s efforts to revoke Rep. Omar’s citizenship
This seems right (and reminds me of this earlier post): There is an obvious progression here. This regime has already tried to deport green card holders like Mahmoud Khalil for their political speech. It’s turned hundreds of thousands of Haitians — the group Trump demonized as pet-eating savages — into illegal immigrants overnight by ending…
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University of Chicago will hire a Law & Philosophy Fellow for 2027-28
Details forthcoming; deadline won’t be until later in January.
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Another journal self-destructs after the publisher (Elsevier) fails to renew an editor
This time it’s the leading game theory journal, Games and Economics Behavior. From the statement of the Game Theory Society, dissociating itself from the journal: The Game Theory Society will withdraw its support for and end its association with Games and Economic Behavior (GEB), effective November 15, 2026…. Our decision follows Elsevier’s decision not to…
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Hubert Dreyfus’s attack on AI: relevant again
Reader Dave Trevor kindly calls my attention to this useful account of the early critique of AI by Hubert Dreyfus and its aftermath. Dreyfus came to this via his study of Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty, and the points remain relevant. An excerpt: The paper argued that the attempt to analyse intelligent behaviour in digital computer language…
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Which serious Anglophone departments offer opportunities to study the post-Kantian Continental traditions in philosophy? 2026 edition
The landscape has changed in the last few years for Anglophone students who want to get a solid philosophy education and still be able to study the post-Kantian Continental traditions in philosophy. Columbia University, long a top choice for Anglophone students, is no longer one: Frederick Neuhouser (Hegel, German Idealism) has retired, and Robert Gooding-Williams…
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Open access philosophy books, a thread: Part V
MOVING to front from late August The last thread garnered 22 submissions, so I thought with fall approaching, it would make sense to open a new thread. The rules, as before: In light of the growing number of these volumes, I am going to run a thread periodically in which I invite authors or readers…
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The Texas war on free speech and academic freedom
A useful account. So many of these state actions are obviously unconstitutional that the federal courts will have to act sooner or later (as they did in the case of Florida).
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AI is already taking over white collar jobs
A former editor of a scientific journal recounts his experience. Has this happened anywhere in philosophy already?
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Undergraduate demand for philosophy at Harvard
A nice profile of the Department’s successful undergraduate program; an excerpt: Since the 2005-2006 academic year, the number of Arts and Humanities concentrators of all kinds at Harvard has decreased by 12.6 percent overall, according to data from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), and some of the biggest concentrations have shrunk by more…
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“Danielle Allen is wrong about Trump”
An understatement. One wonders what planet she is on!
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How Trump will try to steal the midterm elections on or right after election day
We’ve noted some alarming scenarios that take place long after election day by which the criminal-in-chief might try to steal the election. My worry is that he will move much sooner: with fake allegations of fraud and “foreign meddling” (the only meddling is domestic, of course, and emanting from the White House), Trump will send…
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World University Rankings: peeking a bit behind the curtain
Clarivate, which does the reputational surveys for the USNews.com global university rankings, reveals something that neither the QS (“Quirky Silliness”) or THE rankings reveal: the geographic distribution of evaluators: here. There are only about 3,400 respondents, of whom 665 are in the United States and 618 in China: so that’s one-third of the respondents from…
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Reichenbach on epistemology as a branch of sociology
A propos an earlier reference to Reichenbach, philosopher of science Brad Wray shared this interesting quote from Chapter 1 of Experience and Prediction (1938; 2006 for the University of Notre Dame edition from which the reference comes): Every theory of knowledge must start from knowledge as a given sociological fact. The system of knowledge as…
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A useful summary of the damage wrought by the U.S. super-legislature (i.e., the “Supreme Court”)…
…from Cornell law professor Michael Dorf: Some of these decisions are much worse than others, but the overall picture is ugly. The only solution will be to appoint additional “judges” to the super-legislature who will make different political choices.
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Tempting fate, while avoiding catastrophe
Philosopher Duncan Pritchard discusses.
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In Memoriam: Rex Martin (1935-2026)
Professor Martin, who spent most of his academic career at the University of Kansas (where he was emeritus), was well-known for his work on philosophy of history and political and legal philosophy. There is an obituary here. Comments are open for remembrances from those who knew Professor Martin or for those who would like to…
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A recent interview with Thomas Nagel about “consciousness” and related topics.
Here. (Thanks to Guy Elgat for the pointer.)
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AI in chemistry
Readers may find this account interesting, especially the observation that the output of “Large World Models” are essentially “alien intelligence,” not intelligible to humans. Meanwhile, this article discusses Anthropolic “hype” about discoveries in biology (and another possible instance of AI stealing from its users).
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Exam fellows at All Souls College, Oxford: the exam questions
Last year’s exam questions are circulating on Twitter. Fun questions, many quite interesting.
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Pausing AI development is feasible…
…says a new academic study from an AI governance project organized by Berkeley philosopher Wesley Holliday and statistician Will Fithian, working with an interdisciplinary team that also includes philosopher Thomas Icard (Stanford) and political theorist Gregory Conti (Princeton), among others. Let us hope they’re right!
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The huge demand for “philosophy and AI” faculty (UPDATED)
On Twitter, philosopher Brandon Warmke noted that just in the last 48 hours, six jobs were posted seeking philosophers with AI-related interests. As I wrote on Twitter, this seems to me “a foolish waste of philosophy lines, no doubt partly a result of administrators hopping on the bandwagon and pressuring departments to find warm bodies.”…
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Time to bring back the GRE?
A senior philosopher at a top 20 PhD program writes: I was talking to a few grad directors recently, and all report some growing concerns about ongoing effects of no-GRE requirements for Philosophy PhD programs. Any program could require them, but unless a notable-enough number requires them, otherwise promising students might skip applying to the…
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Open AI’s math proofs
Reader Blake Myers calls to my attention this story about the mathematical proofs released by OpenAI. Dr. Myers kindly compiled what seemed to him the most interesting or important results here. The total collection of papers is here. Readers knowledgeable about math are welcome to comment on these, how they will affect mathematics, etc.
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Berlin and Hart, now Fuller and Kelsen
I was teaching Kelsen last year (a big chunk of the 2nd edition of the Pure Theory), and while doing background research I came across this remarkable story (that called to mind Isaiah Berlin’s infamous “recommendation” of H.L.A. Hart). Roscoe Pound at Harvard Law School had, correctly, identified Hans Kelsen as the preeminent figure in…
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Can you use your writing sample for philosophy jobs as your job talk?
For a long time (in the 1990s and into the early 2000s) that was standard practice, but more and more I hear from job seekers who have been told that their writing sample can’t be their job talk. What do readers think? If you do not post with a full name, please indicate whether you…
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Rome redux
As I noted, I was in Rome last week for a day-long workshop (which was great), but also had an opportunity to be a tourist. My wife and I have been to Rome at least four times over the last 30+ years, so we long ago exhausted the “obvious” attractions. Here’s three we saw last…
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Another piece on AI notices that it will destroy capitalism itself
Here; the key bit: The closer you look, the more you see doom loops everywhere. Journalists, for example, used to publish work under the assumption that online platforms would drive readership to them. But now, tools like ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini simply summarize their articles without sending readers to their sites, sparking a crisis that…
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Reichenbach on ethics
A propos this, philosopher Johannes Steizinger calls my attention to this remark of Hans Reichenbach’s in The Rise of Scientific Philosophy (p. 297): Whoever wants to study ethics, therefore, should not go to the philosopher; he should live in the community of a group where life is made vivid by competing volitions, be it the…
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On some of the oddities of being a philosophical scholar working on Marx
Marx did have a doctoral degree in philosophy (he wrote a dissertation on Democritus and Epicurus), and was for a period of time under the influence of Hegel (the decisive account of his break with Hegel is this one). But by the late 1840s, his approach to theory and intellectual work was wholly different. What…
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Another interesting story about a first-generation student’s journey into professional philosophy…
…from Vanderbilt’s Karen Ng.
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Philosopher Ann Cudd’s war on Portland State University
The saga continues.
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Faculty strikes at Edinburgh, Dundee, and Nottingham in the UK…
…as the financial catastrophe in UK higher education continues. (Thanks to Courtney Cox for the pointer.)
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Do as I say, not as I do
Via Moti Gorin: “At Dartmouth, Dr. Schnell’s A.I. use in public writing came up in an investigation in August by the news site Semafor about A.I.-created writing appearing in the opinion pages of major publications. That investigation said an Aug. 9 commentary by Dr. Schnell [the Dartmouth Provost] in The Washington Post was written by…
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The idiosyncratic MacArthur Foundation finally picks a philosopher for the Fellowship windfall after many years of ignoring philosophy
Felipe de Brigard (philosophy of mind and cognitive science) at Duke University was the lone philosopher among this year’s winners. As we noted long ago, these are definitely not “genius” awards, but it’s still nice to see a meritorious award to a philosopher!
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Dear John, I hope you’re sitting down. I knew John Hagelin when I was in high school fifty years ago.…
> These are obviously two different things, but my sense is that part of the…paradigm shift that resulted in infinitely…
In memory of the inventor of this ingenious argument and its faithful reporter, both recently lost: “Is the ontological argument…
I did not know Timothy Smiley well, and his pioneering joint book on Plural Logics is sitting on my shelves…
Smiley cowrote the single best introduction to his field (formally and otherwise) I think will ever be written. I’m grateful…
Worldly Indeterminacy, by Chien-hsing Ho, at Oxford University Press. Available at: https://academic.oup.com/book/63418. Description The book provides a framework to support…
Modern logic is a branch of philosophy and ALSO a branch of mathematics, but the profession of logic seems to…