December 2021
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Colorado Summer School in Philosophy, 2022
Philosopher David Boonin (Colorado) writes: I’ve now finalized the topic for this summer: “Parts and Wholes," understood broadly to include issues involving individuals and groups, like intergenerational ethics and statistical profiling, as well as more straightforwardly part/whole subjects like issues in mereology and set theory, and am ready to start accepting applications. The link to…
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Wittgenstein’s Tractatus at 100
Philosophers A.W. Moore (Oxford), Marie McGinn (emerita, York), Jose Zalabardo (UCL), and others comment at IAITV.
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Richard Marshall interviews Rene Descartes…
…at 3:16 AM.
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Harvard and the SAT
Another amusing, over-the-top rant from Freddie deBoer; an excerpt: College admissions exist to serve the schools. Period. End of story. They always have, they always will. College admissions departments functioned as one big anti-Semitic conspiracy for decades because that was in the best interest of the institution. Guys who the schools know will never graduate…
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America is doomed, Part 413: the U.S. military may also fall prey to polarization
Three retired generals sound the alarm in the Washington Post: As we approach the first anniversary of the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, we — all of us former senior military officials — are increasingly concerned about the aftermath of the 2024 presidential election and the potential for lethal chaos inside our military, which would…
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Do students read the syllabus?
Here's a way to find out!
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2021 JHP Book Prize to Prof. Karen Ng (Vanderbilt)
Philosopher Jean-Luc Solère (Boston College), the book review editor of JHP, asked me to share that the Journal of the History of Philosophy 2021 Book Prize goes to Karen Ng (Vanderbilt) for her Hegel’s Concept of Life: Self-Consciousness, Freedom, Logic (Oxford University Press, 2020). Congratulations to Professor Ng!
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Univ of Illinois-Chicago has gone crazy: the latest on the Kilborn case
Last Friday, the university informed Professor Kilborn's lawyer that Professor Kilborn would be suspended from teaching this Spring at UIC's John Marshall Law School (although still paid, and still required to perform administrative duties) so that he can participate in rather time-intensive "re-education" programs: Download 21; 12.16 from Alsterda Professor Kilborn will be subjected to…
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Fricker from CUNY to NYU
Miranda Fricker (ethics, epistemology, feminist philosophy), currently at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, has accepted a senior offer from the Department of Philosophy at New York University, to start next fall. This is a significant move, especially for prospective students interested in Professor Fricker's work who will need to submit…
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Great moments in obscure rock ‘n’ roll: Zior, “Rolling Thunder,” 1971
British hard rock/blues band,whose best song we featured earlier this year, but the concluding number of their debut album isn't bad either:
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So much for “artificial intelligence”
Philosopher Jeffrey Ketland (Warsaw) writes: I made an account and had quick chat with the AI bot, GPT-3. Here’s the output [below the fold] for the da Vinci engine, which is the smartest. Since it’s called da Vinci I asked a simple pendulum problem, which it got wrong. It got all the answers wrong. Not…
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So much for “artificial intelligence”
Philosopher Jeffrey Ketland (Warsaw) writes: I made an account and had quick chat with the AI bot, GPT-3. Here’s the output [below the fold] for the da Vinci engine, which is the smartest. Since it’s called da Vinci I asked a simple pendulum problem, which it got wrong. It got all the answers wrong. Not…
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“Democracy or Ameri-cracy?”
This is a Chinese propaganda video, which is mostly correct about the U.S., even though its purpose, of course, is really to offer an apology for the authoritarianism of the CCP (which the CCP wants, in classic Stevensonian "persuasive definition" fashion, to dub "democracy"):
I only just learned of Barry’s passing, and I’m enormously saddened at the news. I wrote my PhD on his…