Philosophy in the News
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Open access philosophy books, a thread: Part IV (moving to front from May 20)
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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Russian Aristotle scholar Svetlana Mesiats put under house arrest (UPDATED)
From Oxford historian Georgy Kantor on Twitter: The best Russian expert (and genuinely important scholar) on Neo-Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy, Svetlana Mesiats, has been put under house arrest in the investigation of ‘fraudulent translations of Aristotle’. https://iphras.ru/messiats.htm He explains: About 10 people been called for interrogation, there are searches in the Institute of Philosophy building.…
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“Virtual Dissertation Groups”
Philosopher Joshua Smart writes: Virtual Dissertation Groups (VDG) will be running again this June – August. The VDG sign-up form is open for this summer’s groups through Saturday, June 6th. What it is: Virtual Dissertation Groups is a free service for those currently working on their doctoral dissertations in philosophy departments (or philosophy of science or…
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Nottingham faculty protesting proposed bloodbath
A philosopher at the University of Nottingham calls my attention to this: He summarizes the situation as follows: – the removal of just over 600 FTE posts, if necessary through compulsory redundancy in January 2027 (that’s around 50% of academics in arts). – local union (UoNUCU) has declared a Marking and Assessment Boycott (MAB) starting on the…
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Habermas and the Israeli mass killings in Gaza
As is well-known, Habermas and others issued a statement of “solidarity” with Israel about a month after the October 7 atrocities by Hamas. This was, no doubt, borne of his long efforts to resist any attempts to whitewash the Nazi atrocities, which brought the state of Israel into being. And a month after the October…
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No more Marx or Spinoza in the secondary school philosophy curriculum in Italy…
…but students will read Gentile, the philosopher of fascism.
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Philosopher Ann Cudd’s rampage at Portland State continues
52 positions (including 4 in philosophy) are on the chopping block. As this informative post explains, the mischief originates with the Orwellian “University Innovation Alliance”: The UIA’s theory of institutional change rests on a set of identifiable assumptions: that transformation requires centralized administrative authority; that academic programs should be evaluated primarily through data analytics and…
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Cambridge’s violation of the academic freedom rights of Nathan Cofnas (and its own free speech policies)
Dr. Cofnas reviews the gory details. It’s particularly shocking that Cambridge Philosophy hired a not very competent lawyer to review the academic merits of his research rather than scholars in his field: that would be a fatal due process violation in the U.S. under AAUP standards. (Earlier coverage here and here.)
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Plato and Nietzsche
Philosopher Mark Anderson discusses (and outs himself as a Platonist). His story of his path into philosophy at the start is interesting.
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“Mind is Matter”
The film, featuring Ned Block, David Papineau and others.
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What is analytic philosophy?
I came across this chart on FB, and it’s not a bad description of analytic philosophy when it existed (except, of course, the image next to Kripke is not Kripke!):
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A philosopher takes on the “pedagogy experts”
Paul Schofield (Bates) makes the case against them at CHE. (Thanks to Brian Skyrms for the pointer.) UPDATE: Philosopher Benjamin Mitchell-Yellin writes: As both a tenured philosophy professor and director of a teaching and learning center, I read Paul Schofield’s recent CHE piece, “Why Pedagogy ‘Experts’ Are Wrong,” with great interest when I saw it…
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“Ryle’s War”
We now know about J.L. Austin’s important work as a D-Day intelligence officer during WWII, but what about his fellow ordinary language philosopher, Gilbert Ryle, the Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy at Oxford beginning in 1944. Philosopher Jack Copeland writes: What did Ryle do in the Second World War? Little was known—he was discreet about his life.…
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Another casualty of the Texas war on academic freedom
Philosopher Christy Mag Uidhir, whose earlier objections to the new intrusive policies we noted, writes: I have notified the University of Houston that I will be resigning my position as Professor of Philosophy effective June 1st, 2026. Not sure what I’ll be doing next, but I do know that whatever it is, I won’t be…
David J. Gunkel «Person, Thing, Robot: A Moral and Legal Ontology for the 21st Century and Beyond» (MIT, 2023) Link:…