Philosophy in the News
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Interview with philosopher Alex Byrne…
…in CHE. What happened to his wife, the evolutionary biologist Carol Hooven, is really awful, and should perhaps remind the zealots that there are human costs to their sanctimonious crusades. Byrne does not come off, per the article’s title, as a “smug dickhead” (unlike the pathetic Twitter pest Jonathan Weisberg who called him that!).
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Open access philosophy books, a thread: Part IV (moving to front from May 28)
The last thread had fewer entries than earlier ones, but several months have past, perhaps readers can supply some new links. The instructions, 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 to share links to philosophical works…
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Philosophy book sales, a snapshot
I recently got some information from Oxford University Press about book sales. Readers who wonder, “How much do philosophy books sell?” may find this interesting. I should note that Nietzsche books typically do well (by academic standards), since he has a multi-disciplinary audience of interested readers. I should note that many academic philosophy books (including…
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Journal of Medical Ethics retracts article with fake AI-generated references
JME retraction notice is here: https://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2026/07/07/jme-2025-111085ret. And here is the Bioethics article that exposed the fraud: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bioe.70099. Johann Go, who flagged this for me, observes that, “The author submitted using a French Yahoo email address, and claimed to be affiliated with the French anti-doping agency (though apparently no evidence could be found on their website…
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Alex Byrne comes to the defense of the traditional radical feminist theory of patriarchy…
…which does seem far more plausible than the candidate successor. (Regarding the Nietzsche quote which makes an amusing appearance near the end of Byrne’s essay: Nietzsche is obviously thinking of, among others, Kant, who finally confesses that the purpose of the critique of pure reason is to make room for faith.)
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Four philosophers elected to the British Academy
They are: Beatrice Longuenesse (emerita, NYU); Richard Pettigrew (Bristol, moving to Oxford); Nicholas Shea (Institute of Phil, Univeristy of London); and James Warren (Cambridge).
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Philosopher Paul Boghossian provides a “precis,” and reply to critics, of the “Boghossian Report”…
…at The Philosopher’s Magazine. (A relevant earlier post on this blog here.) I call particular attention to these remarks near the end of Professor Boghossian’s essay: According to the standard diagnosis, the humanities have been captured by the ideological left leading to an unacceptable viewpoint homogeneity that needs to be remedied by appointments, to be…
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Philosophy debate tournament for high school students and undergraduates
Details here. Applications close July 29.
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Warwick “mentoring” scheme for “early career researchers” from the Global South, with a focus this year on scholars from India
An interesting initiative from moral, political and legal philosophers at the University of Warwick: “The Centre for Ethics, Law and Public Affairs (CELPA) at the University of Warwick is pleased to announce the CELPA Mentoring Scheme. The Scheme aims to support academics from groups underrepresented in moral, legal, and political philosophy, particularly researchers without established…
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More on the difficult choices facing faculty at Exeter
A propos this, philosopher John Dupre writes with an update: The redundancy project is continuing at Exeter, with at least a heartening level of resistance from staff and the staff union. There is some hope that they will succeed: a lot about the process seems entirely unjustified and of debatable legality. Please everyone consider signing…
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More on philosophers working for AI companies…
…in the NYT. It’s pretty thin on facts, and pretty thick on stereotypes about philosophers and philosophy students. And some of its “facts” aren’t even accurate: Nietzsche did not survive on the generosity of friends and family, as the article says, he worked for 11 years as a classics professor and then received a disability…
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New APA Job Market Mentoring Program accepting applications
Philosopher Amy Berg, Chair of the relevant APA Committee, kindly calls to my attention this new program (more details here), which should be helpful to philosophy job seekers this coming year. Kudos to Professor Berg and the APA for this initiative.
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An open letter calling for disclosures of conflicts of interest in publications by philosophers
I was pleased to be asked to sign this well-done letter by philosophers of science Craig Callender (UC San Diego) and Cailin O’Connor (UC Irvine), which is now public and taking signatures from any interested philosophers. From the letter: In recent years, philosophical writing on areas such as climate change, technology, misinformation, and artificial intelligence…
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On friendship (and Chomsky and Epstein)
Philosopher Peter Ludlow comments.
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A video of the 2026 Schock Prize symposium with the laureate lecture by Bas van Fraassen…
….as well as remarks by the four commentators: Hans Halvorson, James Ladyman, Michela Massimi, and Kyle Stanford.
I first met Tom around 2002. I was a graduate student in Philosophy at UVA and dating someone who was…