Philosophy in the News
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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…
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How to write a philosophy paper: 25 rules for undergraduates
These guides proliferate, of course, but this one is very detailed (maybe too detailed for the average undergraduate) and instructive for a student who wants to put in the time. (The author is Jazlyn Cartaya, a PhD student at Princeton.)
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Neuro-psychologist seeking advice on studying logic
Longtime reader Kyle Noll, an Associate Professor at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, writes about his interest in online opportunities for learning more about logic: For background, I majored in philosophy and completed a couple of undergraduate courses in FOL and ZF set theory (by your old colleagues at UT in the…
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Kant’s women
An interesting, albeit lengthy, account of Kant’s social and romantic interests. (The essay starts, not aptly, with a famous line of Nietzsche’s from Beyond Good and Evil: “Gradually it has become clear to me what every great philosophy so far has been – namely, the personal confession of its author and a kind of involuntary…
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Spacetime does not exist
Philosopher Sam Baron (Melbourne) discusses. As always, I’m interested to hear what the philosophers of physics make of a bold claim like this.
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8 philosophers elected to the American Academy of (each other’s friends in the) Arts & Sciences
They are: Julia Driver (UT Austin), Melissa Lane (Politics, Princeton), Jane Maienschein (Arizona State), Paolo Mancosu (Berkeley), James Weatherall (UC Irvine), David Wong (Duke), Gideon Yaffe (Law, Yale), and Lea Ypi (LSE).
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Why prefer “beautiful” theories?
Scientific anti-realists have long raised the question. Philosopher Jane Forsey poses it here.
I respond to this report here https://jasonstanleyantifascist.substack.com/p/on-the-philosophical-muddle-that