Philosophy in the News
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“The Basics of Philosophy,” a new film from Paul Schrader…
…who wrote the screenplays for Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, among other movies. Philosopher Cheyney Ryan kindly shared this description of the plot (spoilers!): The film centers on John Jorrisen, played by Jack Huston, a respected philosophy professor at a liberal-arts college. He teaches philosophy as though it can clarify the basic moral questions of…
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“AI Philosophy Competition”
I’m pretty ambivalent about this, so have been sitting on it for a few days. The details are here, and readers might as well decide for themselves whether it’s worth their time. The competition has a panel of good judges, albeit with a skew to fairly technical areas of philosophy, where one might expect LLMs…
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“Public Scholars” project at Wake Forest University…
…which aims to train natural scientists, social scientists, and philosophers to communicate with the public (with support from the Templeton Foundation and led by philosopher Christian Miller).
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From the working class to academic philosophy
A quite interesting essay by philosopher Duncan Pritchard (UC Irvine); some excerpts: I grew up in what was once the industrial heartlands of England, in the Midlands city of Wolverhampton. The industry is now long gone, and in its wake there’s a lot of economic hardship. Growing up I didn’t know anyone from where we…
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Princeton’s Daniel Garber elected to the American Philosophical Society
A bit belated (this was announced last May).
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Philosopher’s Annual: from the literature of 2025
Via Patrick Grim (who remains as “executive editor ” of PA, but has turned over editor duties for this volume to Daniel Singer): The Philosopher’s Annual volume 45 from the literature of 2025 Evan Behrle, “Desert and Economic Interdependence,” from the Journal of Philosophy Sam Berstler, “The Structure of Open Secrets,” from the Philosophical Review…
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Some skepticism about AI enthusiasm among philosophers
MOVING TO FRONT FROM AUG. 24–A LIVELY AND INTERESTING DISCUSSION IN THE COMMENT THREAD (ADDITIONAL CONTRIBUTIONS WELCOME) Philosopher Dan Kaufman writes: Over the last year, philosophy social media has discussed a number of academic philosophers who are actively embracing AI in their research. Perusing these posts — and the comments that follow — reveals a…
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Anonymous person falsely accuses junior scholar of using generative AI in writing an article in the online, open access journal “Political Philosophy”
The journal responds, appropriately, here. Folks should be a lot more cautious before throwing these accusations around!
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Searle on P.F. Strawson
Galen Strawson kindly shared this address John Searle gave at a memorial for Peter Strawson, which includes, among other things, a charming description of tutorials with Strawson: Early on, Searle writes that while studying at Oxford in 1954-55, I attended lectures and seminars not only by Peter, but by J L Austin,Paul Grice, Isaiah Berlin,…
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Nathan Cofnas probably is in violation of Ghent’s “Code of Ethics”…
…as this piece argues (with some pretty choice quotes from Dr. Cofnas), but the Ghent “Code of Ethics” is obviously incompatible with academic freedom, so my conclusion is that researchers at the University of Ghent do not have academic freedom with respect to the topics the Code touches. (This Twitter thread about Dr. Cofnas’s work…
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What is it like to be a philosopher? Briana Toole edition
Courtesy of Clifford Sosis, as always. A really interesting trajectory into philosophy, I encourage folks to read this one. (What she says about UT Austin, although after my time, does ring true. I hope it’s better now.)
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Habermas’s destruction of the Frankfurt School, an ongoing saga
I’ve remarked on this for years (and more systematically), and although Habermas has a lot of groupies and loyalists, occasionally others do remark on this as well. This rather uneven piece by the philosopher Lorna Finlayson is the latest example. (You have to skip the first part of the essay to get to the interesting…
“Though not outright proof on its face” is where the heuristics from the conversation would inform next steps. Plagiarism of…