Philosophy

• Most Topular Stories

• Does philosophical method rest on a mistake?

  Experimental Philosophy

  Moti Mizrahi

  14 May 2012 | 10:54 am

  [cross-posted on Think: Just Do It!] I am wondering what readers think about the following analogy: perceptual judgments : perceptual illusions :: intuitive judgments : intuition pumps Perceptual judgments elicited by perceptual illusions are unlikely to be correct. Intuitive judgments are elicited by intuition pumps. Therefore, intuitive judgments elicited by intuition pumps are unlikely to be correct. The way I picture this analogy is the following (these are just two examples): Checkerboard illusion: Square A seems darker than square B. Trolley Problem: Pushing the fat man off the bridge…

• Nussbaum Wins Major Prize from Spain

  Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

  Brian Leiter

  16 May 2012 | 8:48 am

  Details here.

• Who is harmed by death?

  Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

  Brian Leiter

  16 May 2012 | 7:25 am

  There's an interesting discussion here prompted by recent work of Shelly Kagan (Yale) (which is also linked).

• On the Epistemic Status of Deathbed Regrets

  The Splintered Mind

  Eric Schwitzgebel

  15 May 2012 | 7:52 pm

  It's graduation time, so that means it's time to hear about what people do and do not regret on their death beds. Intended lesson: Pursue your dreams! Don't worry about money! I can find no systematic research about what people on their deathbeds do in fact say that they regret. A PsycInfo database search of "death*" and "regret*" turns up this article as the closest thing. Evidently, what elderly East Germans most regret is having been victimized by war. There's also this inspiring pablum, widely discussed in the popular press. Let's grant, however, that the commencement truisms have a prima…

• The Moral Roots of Liberals and Conservatives

  Global Patriot

  Global Patriot

  12 May 2012 | 9:38 am

  Considering the plethora of important issues facing planet earth, the need to engage in conversation that cross both political and ideological lines has never been greater.  In recent years, conversations in America between Liberals and Conservatives have devolved to the point where there’s rarely an exchange of meaning information, but rather an exchange of heated rhetoric that bares little resemblance to the truth.Click here to view the embedded video.In this TED Talk from 2008, Jonathan Haidt speaks to the differences in the liberal and conservative moral compasses, but more…

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  Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

• Proclus

  Christoph Helmig and Carlos Steel

  14 May 2012 | 10:56 pm

  [Revised entry by Christoph Helmig and Carlos Steel on May 14, 2012. Changes to: Bibliography, Internet resources] Proclus of Athens (*412 - 485 C.E.) was the most authoritative philosopher of late antiquity and played a crucial role in the transmission of Platonic philosophy from antiquity to the Middle Ages. For almost fifty years, he was head or 'successor' (diadochos, sc. of Plato) of the Platonic 'Academy' in Athens. Being an exceptionally productive...

• Japanese Confucian Philosophy

  John Tucker

  12 May 2012 | 5:43 pm

  [Revised entry by John Tucker on May 12, 2012. Changes to: Bibliography] "Confucianism" is a term used largely by westerners to refer to an often diverse set of philosophical movements that have been variously known in Japanese history as Jugaku (the learning of the scholars), Jukyo (the teachings of the scholars), seigaku (the learning of the sages), senno gaku (the learning of the early kings),...

• The Value of Knowledge

  Duncan Pritchard and John Turri

  11 May 2012 | 10:39 pm

  [Revised entry by Duncan Pritchard and John Turri on May 11, 2012. Changes to: Bibliography] Value of knowledge has always been a central topic within epistemology. An important question to address, which can be traced right back to Plato's Meno, is: what is it about knowledge (if anything) that makes it more valuable than mere true belief? Interest in this topic has re-emerged in recent years, in response to a rediscovery of the Meno problem regarding the value of...

• Recursive Functions

  Piergiorgio Odifreddi and S. Barry Cooper

  11 May 2012 | 7:39 pm

  [Revised entry by Piergiorgio Odifreddi and S. Barry Cooper on May 11, 2012. Changes to: Main text, Bibliography] The recursive functions, which form a class of computable functions, take their name from the process of "recurrence" or "recursion". In its most general numerical form the process of recursion consists in defining the value of a function by using other values of the same function. In this entry, we provide an account of the class of recursive functions, with particular emphasis...

• Schema

  John Corcoran

  10 May 2012 | 10:13 pm

  [Revised entry by John Corcoran on May 10, 2012. Changes to: Bibliography] A schema (plural: schemata, or schemas), also known as a scheme (plural: schemes), is a linguistic template or pattern together with a rule for using it to specify a potentially infinite multitude of phrases, sentences, or arguments, which are called instances of the schema. Schemas are used in logic to specify rules of inference, in mathematics to...

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  Talking Philosophy

• The Story of Philosophy

  James Garvey

  15 May 2012 | 9:17 am

  Diogenes by Jules Bastien-Lepage It would, of course, be vulgar to mention the fact that the book Jeremy Stangroom and I recently wrote, The Story of Philosophy: A History of Western Thought, has just landed on the shelves.   So I’ll keep that to myself, and also refrain from mentioning that there’s a review by a fundamentally decent human being here. But what I do want to consider is a question that arose quite often while writing it:  how much bearing should the lives of philosophers have on our interpretations of them?  In recounting the history of philosophy, you bump into a…

• Sins of the Past

  Mike LaBossiere

  14 May 2012 | 4:42 am

    Governor Mitt Romney of MA (Photo credit: Wikipedia)   The Washington Post recently published a story about an incident that took place during Mitt Romney’s years as a high school student. According to the story, Mitt Romney took offense at the long hair of fellow student John Lauber. Lauber was apparently often teased for being a nonconformist and was apparently suspected of being a homosexual. After commenting on Lauber’s hair, Romney took action a few days later. He and some friends tackled Lauber and pinned him down. Romney then cut Lauber’s hair. Apparently…

• Secularism, priorities, Islam, and Waleed Aly

  Russell Blackford

  13 May 2012 | 7:17 am

  What follows here after some introductory paragraphs repeats almost verbatim a post that I published over on my personal blog back in 2007. Now, my thinking has moved on a little bit since then, and you will see a slightly different formulation and emphasis in Freedom of Religion and the Secular State: I am less enthusiastic, for example, about the word “religionist” than I once was, and I would no longer be so quick to dismiss the word “Islamophobia” as merely stupid (I discuss the issue of “Islamophobia” in the book). But what I have to say in the 2007…

• For Better or Worse Reasoning

  Mike LaBossiere

  12 May 2012 | 2:17 pm

  My tenth Kindle book is out, For Better or Worse Reasoning: A Philosophical Look at Arguments Against Same-Sex Marriage. It is the usual 99 cents in the US and the equivalent in dead parrot jokes in the UK. It is also available on all the Amazons(aside from the river and the women), but I am too lazy to copy-paste them all in. As a special bonus for readers of this blog, you can get it for free from May 14 to May 18, 2012 (US dates). This concise work is aimed at presenting a logical assessment of the stock arguments against same-sex marriage. While my position is in favor of legalizing…

• Amending Marriage

  Mike LaBossiere

  9 May 2012 | 4:18 pm

    Same Sex Marriage (Photo credit: Wikipedia)   While some States in the United States have passed laws allowing same-sex marriage, other states have passed laws to ban it. Some states have even taken an extra step by amending the state constitutions to define marriage as being between one man and one woman. On May 8th, 2012 North Carolina voters went to the polls to decide whether or not their state constitution would be amended to “defend” marriage. While this matter is interesting from a legal perspective, my main interest is from a philosophical perspective, mainly…

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  AskPhilosophers.org | "All"

• Question about Ethics - Charles Taliaferro responds

  16 May 2012 | 10:56 am

  Is it ethical to force people to do the right thing? Response from: Charles Taliaferro This question is particularly troubling when it comes to Good Samaratan Laws, laws that would penalize persons who do not aid those in trouble. Some have argued that aiding others should be a matter of freely exercised virtues like courage (or exercising the good of compassion) rather than coercion. But in many cases, especially in life and death situations, we do in fact think it proper to force people to do the right thing. We expect persons to drive carefully, to not murder other people, to not steal…

• Question about Knowledge - Stephen Maitzen responds

  13 May 2012 | 8:03 pm

  The thing about physical science is that it seems likes it doesn't tell you anything that couldn't be simulated by a virtual reality device of some sort. Am I wrong? Can science test that hypothesis in a reasonable way? It seems like the only real and accessible metaphysical qualities are things like color. Color is real whether we are looking at a virtual reality simulation or something else. "Has science allowed us to go deeper than that to an actual world behind manifestations such as color? Response from: Stephen Maitzen I think there are limits to how far the skeptical worry you describe…

• Question about Consciousness - Gabriel Segal responds

  13 May 2012 | 4:53 am

  Is it considered possible to be consciously aware of an object or thought without experiencing feelings, or is "feelings" just another word for conscious awareness?. If this question can't be dismissed, which philosophers have explored it? Response from: Gabriel Segal In cases of blindsight subjects show behavioural sensitivity to visaul informatioon about an object that they seem not to be aware of - e.g. they can point it it, but if you ask them whether they can see it, they say 'no'. I am not sure if that is relevant to the question. Talk in terms of unconscious thoughts and feelings is…

• Question about Language - Stephen Maitzen responds

  10 May 2012 | 8:06 pm

  Is "understanding" a proposition necessary, but not sufficient, for "believing" that same proposition? Further, where could one find arguments (discussion) for and/or against either position? Response from: Stephen Maitzen I confess I'm puzzled by Prof. Heck's reply. He defends the following three assumptions:1. If you understand a proposition, then you also understand its negation.2. It is necessary, if you are to believe a proposition, to understand it.3. It's perfectly possible to believe a proposition and not understand its negation.I interpret those assumptions as follows:1*.

• Question about Language - Richard Heck responds

  10 May 2012 | 8:06 pm

  Is "understanding" a proposition necessary, but not sufficient, for "believing" that same proposition? Further, where could one find arguments (discussion) for and/or against either position? Response from: Richard Heck Let's assume the following: If you understand a proposition, then you also understand its negation.It is necessary, if you are to believe a proposition, to understand it.It's perfectly possible to believe a proposition and not understand its negation.It follows from these that understanding a proposition is not sufficient for believing it. So there's an argument.One might…

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  Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

• Nussbaum Wins Major Prize from Spain

  Brian Leiter

  16 May 2012 | 8:48 am

  Details here.

• Who is harmed by death?

  Brian Leiter

  16 May 2012 | 7:25 am

  There's an interesting discussion here prompted by recent work of Shelly Kagan (Yale) (which is also linked).

• The Collapse of the Neoliberal System of Higher Education, Part 123

  Brian Leiter

  16 May 2012 | 6:30 am

  It doesn't happen all at once, but it's happening. Will a civilized system take its place?

• More entries for the Black Book of Capitalism

  Brian Leiter

  16 May 2012 | 6:15 am

  From a recent New York Times piece: A recent study found that a 10 percent increase in the unemployment rate (say from 8 to 8.8 percent) would increase the suicide rate for males by 1.47 percent. This is not a...

• When does a job candidate need to finish the PhD for hiring purposes?

  Brian Leiter

  15 May 2012 | 6:15 pm

  MOVING TO FRONT FROM MAY 9--I HOPE MORE READERS MIGHT COMMENT ON THESE QUESTIONS Philosopher Peter Vallentyne (Missouri) writes: How important do hiring departments treat the following: (1) solid evidence that the dissertation completed by December, (2) solid evidence that...

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  Ethics Etc

• CF: Intuition and Evidence – Naturalistic or Anti-Naturalistic

  S. Matthew Liao

  15 May 2012 | 1:18 am

  June 12 -14, 2012 Location: MSH Lorraine, Campus of the University of Lorraine, Nancy, France 91, av. de la Libération, 3rd floor. This conference is about intuitions and their epistemic role as evidence. Is there any epistemological explanation justifying the appeal to intuition in philosophy? How can different models of intuitions explain their possible roles? [...]

• CF: Challenges to Religious and Moral Belief: Disagreement and Evolution

  S. Matthew Liao

  15 May 2012 | 1:03 am

  September 6-8, 2012 Purdue University The conference will focus on three main challenges to religious and moral beliefs: • Widespread interpersonal disagreement among intellectual peers on religious and on moral topics provides reason to doubt these beliefs; • Belief-source disagreement on moral issues between commonsense moral intuitions and religious belief sources raises doubts about both [...]

• CFA: Rethinking Inequality

  S. Matthew Liao

  15 May 2012 | 12:54 am

  Rethinking Inequality: Philosophical Reflections on Recent Empirical Research University of Ottawa, November 16-17, 2012 Rising economic inequality in advanced industrialized states is a phenomenon much discussed by the media in recent years, and much studied by sociologists, social epidemiologists, and scholars of public health. Political theorists and philosophers too have been concerned with abstract notions [...]

• CFP: The Nature of the Enkratic Requirement of Rationality

  S. Matthew Liao

  5 May 2012 | 5:43 pm

  Special Issue on The Nature of the Enkratic Requirement of Rationality Organon F – International Journal of Analytic Philosophy Guest Editor: Julian Fink (University of Vienna) Submission deadline: October 1st 2012 Confirmed contributors: John Broome (Oxford) John Brunero (Missouri-St Louis) Herlinde Pauer-Studer (Vienna) Christian Piller (York) Andrew Reisner (McGill) Jonathan Way (Southampton) Ralph Wedgwood (USC) [...]

• CF: The Future of Contractualism

  S. Matthew Liao

  5 May 2012 | 5:32 pm

  Moral and Political Issues in Contractualist Theory May, 11 and 12, 2012 University of Rennes 1 Philosophy Department (campus de Beaulieu, bât. 32B – amphi 12 et salle 13). Keynote speakers Ann Cudd (University of Kansas, USA) (Analysing Oppression, OUP, 2006) Tim Mulgan (University of St Andrews, GB) (Future People, OUP, 2006) Nicholas Southwood (Australian [...]

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  European Journal of Philosophy

• Privacy Rights, Moral and Legal Foundations, by Adam D. Moore. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2010, 237 pp. ISBN 978-0-271-03685-4 hb £57.95; ISBN 978-0271-036861 pb £16.95

  David Archard

  9 May 2012 | 9:28 pm

• The Form of Practical Knowledge, by Stephen Engstrom. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009, 260 pp. ISBN 978-0-674-03287-3 hb $49.95

  Carla Bagnoli

  9 May 2012 | 9:28 pm

• Aristotelianism and Modernity: Terence Irwin on the Development of Ethics

  John Skorupski

  9 May 2012 | 9:28 pm

• On a Supposed Solution to the Reinhold/Sidgwick Problem in Kant's Metaphysics of Morals

  Courtney D. Fugate

  8 May 2012 | 6:56 am

  AbstractThe purpose of this paper is to challenge the suggestion that Kant offers a solution to the Reinhold/Sidgwick Problem in his Metaphysics of Morals. The problem, briefly, is about how Kant can hold moral evil to be imputable when he also seems to hold that freedom is found only in moral actions. After providing a new formulation of this problem under the title ‘Objection R/S’ and describing the popular strategy for addressing it through reference to this text, the paper recounts some of the history relevant to interpreting the passage in question. The paper then argues that this…

• The Epistemological Bases of the Slow Switching Argument

  Mahmoud Morvarid

  8 May 2012 | 6:56 am

  AbstractOne of the main arguments intended to show that content externalism undermines the privileged access thesis is the ‘slow switching argument’, originally proposed by Boghossian (). In this argument, it is supposed that a subject is unknowingly switched back and forth between Earth and Twin Earth: then it is claimed that, given externalism, when the subject is on Earth thinking that water is wet, he cannot know the content of his thought a priori, for he cannot, by mere reflection, rule out the relevant alternative hypothesis that he is on Twin Earth thinking that twater is wet. One…

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  Journal of Philosophical Logic (Online First™)

• Is Conditioning Really Incompatible with Holism?

  9 May 2012 | 12:52 am

  Abstract  Jonathan Weisberg claims that certain probability assessments constructed by Jeffrey conditioning resist subsequent revision by a certain type of after-the-fact defeater of the reasons supporting those assessments, and that such conditioning is thus “inherently anti-holistic.” His analysis founders, however, in applying Jeffrey conditioning to a partition for which an essential rigidity condition clearly fails. Applied to an appropriate partition, Jeffrey conditioning is amenable to revision by the sort of after-the-fact defeaters considered by Weisberg in precisely…

• Testimony as Evidence: More Problems for Linear Pooling

  4 May 2012 | 12:31 pm

  Abstract  This paper considers a special case of belief updating—when an agent learns testimonial data, or in other words, the beliefs of others on some issue. The interest in this case is twofold: (1) the linear averaging method for updating on testimony is somewhat popular in epistemology circles, and it is important to assess its normative acceptability, and (2) this facilitates a more general investigation of what it means/requires for an updating method to have a suitable Bayesian representation (taken here as the normative standard). The paper initially defends linear…

• Relational Complexes

  27 Apr 2012 | 1:03 am

  Abstract  A theory of relations is presented that provides a detailed account of the logical structure of relational complexes. The theory draws a sharp distinction between relational complexes and relational states. A salient difference is that relational complexes belong to exactly one relation, whereas relational states may be shared by different relations. Relational complexes are conceived as structured perspectives on states ‘out there’ in reality. It is argued that only relational complexes have occurrences of objects, and that different complexes of the same relation may…

• The Syllogistic with Unity

  23 Apr 2012 | 7:45 am

  Abstract  We extend the language of the classical syllogisms with the sentence-forms “At most 1 p is a q” and “More than 1 p is a q”. We show that the resulting logic does not admit a finite set of syllogism-like rules whose associated derivation relation is sound and complete, even when reductio ad absurdum is allowed. Content Type Journal ArticlePages 1-17DOI 10.1007/s10992-012-9229-3Authors Ian Pratt-Hartmann, School of Computer Science, Manchester University, Manchester, M13 9PL UK Journal Journal of Philosophical LogicOnline ISSN 1573-0433Print ISSN 0022-3611

• A Defense of Temperate Epistemic Transparency

  2 Apr 2012 | 10:57 am

  Abstract  Epistemic transparency tells us that, if an agent S knows a given proposition p, then S knows that she knows that p. This idea is usually encoded in the so-called KK principle of epistemic logic. The paper develops an argument in favor of a moderate version of KK, which I dub quasi-transparency, as a normative rather than a descriptive principle. In the second Section I put forward the suggestion that epistemic transparency is not a demand of ideal rationality, but of ideal epistemic responsibility, and hence that ideally responsible agents verify transparency principles…

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  Linguistics and Philosophy (Online First™)

• On Travis cases

  8 May 2012 | 1:06 am

  Abstract  Charles Travis has been forcefully arguing that meaning does not determine truth-conditions for more than two decades now. To this end, he has devised ingenious examples whereby different utterances of the same prima facie non-ambiguous and non-indexical expression type have different truth-conditions depending on the occasion on which they are delivered. However, Travis does not argue that meaning varies with circumstances; only that truth-conditions do. He assumes that meaning is a stable feature of both words and sentences. After surveying some of the explanations that…

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  Philosophical Studies (Online First™)

• The importance of what they care about

  12 May 2012 | 1:17 am

  Abstract  Many forms of contemporary morality treat the individual as the fundamental unit of moral importance. Perhaps the most striking example of this moral vision of the individual is the contemporary global human rights regime, which treats the individual as, for all intents and purposes, sacrosanct. This essay attempts to explore one feature of this contemporary understanding of the moral status of the individual, namely the moral significance of a subject’s actual affective states, and in particular her cares and commitments. I argue that in virtue of the moral significance…

• Physicalism and phenomenal concepts

  12 May 2012 | 1:17 am

  Abstract  Frank Jackson’s famous Knowledge Argument moves from the premise that complete physical knowledge is not complete knowledge about experiences to the falsity of physicalism. In recent years, a consensus has emerged that the credibility of this and other well-known anti-physicalist arguments can be undermined by allowing that we possess a special category of concepts of experiences, phenomenal concepts, which are conceptually independent from physical/functional concepts. It is held by a large number of philosophers that since the conceptual independence of phenomenal…

• Trust and the doxastic family

  12 May 2012 | 1:17 am

  Abstract  This article examines Keith Lehrer’s distinction between belief and acceptance and how it differs from other accounts of belief and of the family of doxastic attitudes. I sketch a different taxonomy of doxastic attitudes. Lehrer’s notion of acceptance is mostly epistemic and at the service of his account of the “loop of reason”, whereas for other writers acceptance is mostly a pragmatic attitude. I argue, however, that his account of acceptance underdetermines the role that the attitude of trust plays in his analysis of reason. Content Type Journal ArticlePages…

• Exemplarization: a solution to the problem of consciousness?

  12 May 2012 | 1:17 am

  Abstract  In recent publications, Keith Lehrer developed the intriguing idea of a special mental process—exemplarization—and applied it in a sophisticated manner to different phenomena such as intentionality, representation of the self, the knowledge of ineffable content (of art works) and the problem of phenomenal consciousness. In this paper I am primarily concerned with the latter issue. The target of this paper is to analyze whether exemplarization, besides explaining epistemic phenomena such as immediate and ineffable knowledge of experiences, can also solve the ontological…

• Desires, descriptivism, and reference failure

  12 May 2012 | 1:17 am

  Abstract  I argue that mental descriptivism cannot be reasonably thought superior to rival theories on the grounds that it can (while they cannot) provide an elegant account of reference failure. Descriptivism about the particular-directed intentionality of our mental states fails when applied to desires. Consider, for an example, the desire that Satan not tempt me. On the descriptivist account, it looks like my desire would be fulfilled in conditions in which there exists exactly one thing satisfying some description only Satan satisfies (call it the Satanic Description). However,…

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  Synthese (Online First™)

• The procedural epistemic value of deliberation

  9 May 2012 | 12:53 am

  Abstract  Collective deliberation is fuelled by disagreements and its epistemic value depends, inter alia, on how the participants respond to each other in disagreements. I use this accountability thesis to argue that deliberation may be valued not just instrumentally but also for its procedural features. The instrumental epistemic value of deliberation depends on whether it leads to more or less accurate beliefs among the participants. The procedural epistemic value of deliberation hinges on the relationships of mutual accountability that characterize appropriately conducted…

• The frame problem, the relevance problem, and a package solution to both

  9 May 2012 | 12:53 am

  Abstract  As many philosophers agree, the frame problem is concerned with how an agent may efficiently filter out irrelevant information in the process of problem-solving. Hence, how to solve this problem hinges on how to properly handle semantic relevance in cognitive modeling, which is an area of cognitive science that deals with simulating human’s cognitive processes in a computerized model. By “semantic relevance”, we mean certain inferential relations among acquired beliefs which may facilitate information retrieval and practical reasoning under certain epistemic…

• The dynamics of relevance: adaptive belief revision

  8 May 2012 | 1:02 am

  Abstract  This paper presents eight (previously unpublished) adaptive logics for belief revision, each of which define a belief revision operation in the sense of the AGM framework. All these revision operations are shown to satisfy the six basic AGM postulates for belief revision, and Parikh’s axiom of Relevance. Using one of these logics as an example, we show how their proof theory gives a more dynamic flavor to belief revision than existing approaches. It is argued that this turns belief revision (that obeys Relevance) into a more natural undertaking, where analytic steps are…

• Do computer simulations support the Argument from Disagreement?

  4 May 2012 | 12:34 pm

  Abstract  According to the Argument from Disagreement (AD) widespread and persistent disagreement on ethical issues indicates that our moral opinions are not influenced by moral facts, either because there are no such facts or because there are such facts but they fail to influence our moral opinions. In an innovative paper, Gustafsson and Peterson (Synthese, published online 16 October, 2010) study the argument by means of computer simulation of opinion dynamics, relying on the well-known model of Hegselmann and Krause (J Artif Soc Soc Simul 5(3):1–33, 2002; J Artif Soc Soc Simul…

• Proper bootstrapping

  4 May 2012 | 12:34 pm

  Abstract  According to a much discussed argument, reliabilism is defective for making knowledge too easy to come by. In a recent paper, Weisberg aims to show that this argument relies on a type of reasoning that is rejectable on independent grounds. We argue that the blanket rejection that Weisberg recommends of this type of reasoning is both unwarranted and unwelcome. Drawing on an older discussion in the philosophy of science, we show that placing some relatively modest restrictions on the said type of reasoning suffices to block the anti-reliabilist argument. Content Type Journal…

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  Experimental Philosophy

• Experimental Philosophers Hired this Year

  Joshua Knobe

  15 May 2012 | 10:35 am

  The field of experimental philosophy tends to be dominated by graduate students, with many of the most important discoveries in any given year coming from people who are still very early in their careers. So I thought it might be a good idea to put up a quick post just to congratulate some of these experimentally oriented students on their job market successes.   Here are a few graduate students and post-docs who published papers in experimental philosophy and then got jobs this year. (Each person's name is followed by the area in which that person has done experimental work.) Mark…

• Does philosophical method rest on a mistake?

  Moti Mizrahi

  14 May 2012 | 10:54 am

  [cross-posted on Think: Just Do It!] I am wondering what readers think about the following analogy: perceptual judgments : perceptual illusions :: intuitive judgments : intuition pumps Perceptual judgments elicited by perceptual illusions are unlikely to be correct. Intuitive judgments are elicited by intuition pumps. Therefore, intuitive judgments elicited by intuition pumps are unlikely to be correct. The way I picture this analogy is the following (these are just two examples): Checkerboard illusion: Square A seems darker than square B. Trolley Problem: Pushing the fat man off the bridge…

• A Profession-Wide Invitation

  Marcus Arvan

  9 May 2012 | 10:21 am

  I hereby extend a profession-wide invitation to contribute to a new blog I have created that aims to be "by and for" early-career philosophers (including experimental philosophers!): The Philosophers' Cocoon. This blog aims to be a safe and supportive "grass roots" forum for early-career professional philosophers -- graduate students, post-docs, and entry-level faculty members -- to discuss their work, ideas, and personal-professional issues.  Philosophers who are not in the "early" stages of their careers are also invited to…

• Reversing the Knobe Effect with Alternate Saliencing

  Mark Alfano

  7 May 2012 | 7:28 pm

  Brian Robinson, Paul Stey, and I have been working on a theory of the Knobe effect that draws on my collaboration with Beebe and Robinson.   The basic idea is to use non-moral psychological processes to explain the effect.  We presented some preliminary results at the Experiments in Ethical Dilemmas conference in London last week.  Here's a write-up of that presentation. (The second link takes you to my [rather] new blog.]

• Joshua Alexander's Experimental Philosophy

  Eddy Nahmias

  7 May 2012 | 7:58 am

  ... is out now and it offers both the first (high-level) introductory textbook on the new field and a nice critical discussion of what people in and out of the field should be thinking about in the future. See here and here.

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  Feminist Philosophers

• “Got Women” poster now available

  profbigk

  16 May 2012 | 10:28 am

    From Peggy DesAutels, chair of the APA Committee on the Status of Women: The APA Committee on the Status of Women is please to open an online store! Our first product is a poster. When you purchase, be sure to select a large size so that you can read the names of those featured in the collage. If you are missing from the collage (and have a PhD in philosophy), please send a high-quality head-shot to apa.csw.mail@gmail.com to be included in future posters and products.There will be more products to follow (mugs, t-shirts, etc.).

• Men are athletes, women are accessories

  magicalersatz

  16 May 2012 | 8:14 am

  Hey there, sexy ladies! Do you know what a champion Olympic athlete needs in the run-up to the 2012 London Games? Why a hot beach-babe, of course. That’s right, let’s kick it Baywatch-style! Wait, what’s that? You’re a champion Olympic athlete too? Doesn’t matter. Just grab yourself some beefcake arm and smile for the camera. That, at least, seems to be the message of this special Olympics-themed cover of Vogue. Vogue rarely features men on its covers, but they’ve made an exception for swimmer Ryan Lochte. Lochte and his abs are joined by fellow-Olympians…

• What’s wrong with dying?

  annejjacobson

  15 May 2012 | 11:24 am

  Shelly Kagan has a new book out on the topic and an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education. I don’t think it is behind any wall or requirement, and it is interesting to read. And quite puzzling. Kagan favors the deprivation view: Maybe nonexistence is bad for me, not in an intrinsic way, like pain, and not in an instrumental way, like unemployment leading to poverty, which in turn leads to pain and suffering, but in a comparative way—what economists call opportunity costs. Death is bad for me in the comparative sense, because when I’m dead I lack life—more particularly,…

• How not to cope with one’s own bias in grading

  annejjacobson

  15 May 2012 | 8:49 am

  For a lot of people, knowledge that one is biased about a group of people, or even an individual, is little help in grading fairly. Quantifying one’s standards is also of limited help. Most of us can just tell when a paper exhibits genuine understanding or insight, but rules for detecting it are very likely to be elusive. The human mind often operates with intuition and insight best, and, as people working with those who lack insight in an area of life find, using rules and reason can be very limited. So what to do? Removing names from papers is not always possible or, with small…

• Summing it up nicely

  annejjacobson

  14 May 2012 | 3:34 am

  Interesting comment about the book industry, and a book recommendation that looks worth following up: From “Maureen Corrigan, book critic for NPR’s Fresh Air, [who] is a critic-in-residence and lecturer at Georgetown University”: There continues to be a lot of talk about gender bias in the book industry. The core argument goes that, while both male and female authors write novels about relationships and the domestic sphere, when a woman does so her books are relegated to “chic lit,” and when a man (like Jonathan Franzen) does, he’s lauded for serious…

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  The Prosblogion

• Bleg: Top objections to Irenaean Soul-making theodicy?

  Trent Dougherty

  13 May 2012 | 8:12 pm

  I am defending a soul-making theodicy for animals in the book, and I am going to briefly summarize some objections and reply to them. Google Scholar turns up not a whole lot on the surface, and I might as well respond to people's actual concerns, so, if you please, let me know what objections/articles/chapters you find most worthy of being responded to. Thanks.

• Paul Draper's burden of proof for the theist

  Helen De Cruz

  11 May 2012 | 1:09 pm

  [x-posted on Newapps] A few days ago, I had the privilege of attending a lecture by Paul Draper, probably one of the most prominent atheist philosophers of religion today. His lecture had a wealth of ideas (including a proposed solution to Hume's problem!), but I'd like to focus on one tiny piece of the lecture, viz. his argument that the burden of proof is on the theist, and not on the atheist. Here goes the argument, which Paul was kind enough to discuss with me, prior to posting it. I apologize if there are any remnant misrepresentations. Let's assume that there are a number of…

• Rethinking PSR

  Joshua Rasmussen

  10 May 2012 | 10:13 am

  Let 'PSR' stand for the principle that whatever is, but need not be, has an explanation for its being. More exactly: (PSR) Whatever obtains, but doesn't obtain of necessity, has an explanation for its obtaining. Equivalently: Every contingent state of affairs has an explanation. One might think that PSR has both a priori and empirical support. Regarding the a priori, when we consider an arbitrary state of affairs that obtains but doesn't have to obtain, we feel motivated to wonder why it obtains; and that wonder seems to reveal an inclination in us to think there ought to be an explanation.

• Purdue Conference on the Epistemology of Moral and Religious Belief

  Michael Bergmann

  10 May 2012 | 6:31 am

  On September 6-8, 2012, Purdue University will host an interdisciplinary conference entitled "Challenges to Religious and Moral Belief: Disagreement and Evolution". The conference will focus on three main challenges to religious and moral beliefs: Widespread interpersonal disagreement among intellectual peers on religious and on moral topics provides reason to doubt these beliefs; Belief-source disagreement on moral issues between commonsense moral intuitions and religious belief sources raises doubts about both methods of belief formation; Evolutionary accounts of the origins of our…

• Fictions, Imaginations, and the Prima Facie Case Against Divine Benevolence

  Kenny Pearce

  5 May 2012 | 2:31 pm

  In chapter 6 of his Philosophical Theology (1969), James F. Ross undertakes the very ambitious task of showing that the evil in the world does not provide even a prima facie case against divine moral perfection. Ross takes the phrase 'a prima facie case' in the legal sense: to provide a prima facie case is essentially to bring charges that need answering. So, for instance, someone who says that the evils in the world are justified by some greater good which would be impossible without them is conceding that there is a prima facie case and attempting to answer it. Ross believes that there is…

• 

  In Socrates' Wake

• Teaching Philosophy, 35.2

  Michael Cholbi

  11 May 2012 | 3:19 pm

  The newest issue of Teaching Philosophy is out. There's a lot of great stuff, including articles on narrative pedagogy, metacognition, and student relativism, as well as the usual selection of book reviews. Abstracts below the fold: Kevin J. Harrelson Narrative Pedagogy for Introduction to Philosophy This essay offers a rationale for the employment of narrative pedagogies in introductory philosophy courses, as well as examples of narrative techniques, assignments, and course design that have been successfully employed in the investigation of philosophical topics. My hope is…

• Relativism and Psychological Egoism

  Jennifer M Morton

  4 May 2012 | 7:47 am

  I've started revamping my Intro to Philosophy syllabus and have decided to tackle the inevitable discussion of relativism and psychological egoism early on by anticipating these objections with some readings. I thought about using chapters from Snare's The Nature of Moral Thinking but a friend who used Snare in her class said that students found it difficult. I've tentatively settled on Rachels "The Challenge of Cultural Relativism," which appears in many anthologies, and perhaps also his "Humans are not Always Selfish". Someone recommended that I look at chapters from Shafer-Landau Whatever…

• "Stop telling students to study for exams"

  Michael Cholbi

  3 May 2012 | 9:58 pm

  A provocative claim from David Jaffee: we should stop thinking that encouraging students to study for exams is "responsible academic practice." Exams have become, in his estimation, a creature of the pernicious student attitude he calls "instrumentalism": This is the view that you go to college to get a degree to get a job to make money to be happy. Similarly, you take this course to meet this requirement, and you do coursework and read the material to pass the course to graduate to get the degree. Everything is a means to an end. Nothing is an end in itself. There is no higher purpose. …

• The Seven Ages of Teaching

  Michael Cholbi

  3 May 2012 | 3:51 pm

  You all remember the speech from As You Like It — "all the world's a stage ...And one man in his time plays many parts/His acts being seven ages"? Paula Marantz Cohen has identified the corresponding Seven Ages of Teaching (below the fold). Which age are you? (I fear I have an age-identity disorder, finding elements of myself in the second, third, fourth, and fifth ages) The first age. Writhing and puking are good metaphors for what infant teachers appear to do. Their successes are often serendipitous, their mistakes unsightly, if not egregious. They have not yet developed a…

• The Quotable Teacher, installment 18

  Michael Cholbi

  30 Apr 2012 | 7:56 am

  Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence. (Robert Frost)

• 

  Philosophy by the Way

• The art of photography

  13 May 2012 | 6:36 pm

  Pinhole cameraIn my last blog I told that I take pictures with a pinhole camera. I think that most readers of my blogs don’t know what such a camera is. It is the simplest camera you can imagine. It’s not more than a box with a very small hole in it (the pinhole), which can be opened or closed with a shutter, and with a film or sensor in it (but most pinhole cameras still use film). There are more complicated types, but most pinhole cameras are like this. You can buy it or you make it yourself. In mine you cannot change the diaphragm (size of the pinhole). I open and close the shutter by…

• The art of travelling

  6 May 2012 | 6:18 pm

  Fumay sur Meuse - photo taken with pinhole cameraMontaigne loved travelling, albeit only because it gave him the opportunity to ride his horse. Usually he travelled for practical purposes. For his work (he has been a judge); for political missions in order of the king; for visiting friends; because he had something to do in Paris; and who knows for what other reasons. In 1580 Montaigne decided to make a long journey without a special purpose but only for the pleasure of travelling. The travel would last more than one year and five months and it would bring him to Northern France, then to…

• The art of letter writing

  22 Apr 2012 | 6:20 pm

  After Stefan Zweig had fled the Nazis, he established himself in Petrópolis in Brazil. Once he complained against his friend Jules Romain that weeks passed by that he didn’t receive any mail. Gradually Zweig had received less and less mail, which was, so Romain, a way the world told him that he wasn’t important any longer.In those days letter writing was an important way of communicating and the letters you received said something about your personal network and your importance. You could talk with someone if you met him or her in person. Or maybe you could call him or her, but most…

• Running with my mind? No: watch TV!

  15 Apr 2012 | 5:52 pm

  Regular readers of my blogs will not have failed to notice that I have just published a book entitled Running with my mind (in Dutch). I took the title of the book from one of my blogs that I wrote about a year ago. There I discussed a study by Yue and Cole that showed that you can train your muscles with your mind: Simply think that you train them and they’ll become stronger. What a handy way of improving and maintaining my physical condition, I thought then, especially when the rain is pouring down or when I don’t have much time to go outdoors. I was so impressed by what you can do with…

• A new book: Thank you very much my dear readers !

  8 Apr 2012 | 5:43 pm

  Once the window-cleaner, who came to fill his bucket from the tap in my kitchen, asked me: “What are you doing?”, wanting to know what kind of job I had or something like that. Since I don’t have a steady job, I said: “I have written a book”. It was true, for I had just finished my PhD thesis and it had been published by a big publishing house. “Why then do you live here?”, the window-cleaner asked. I didn’t understand, so he explained what he meant. It became clear to me that he thought that when you publish a book, it brings you a lot of money, so you can buy a big expensive…

• 

  Knowledge and Experience

• The Oxford Comma

  16 May 2012 | 10:42 am

  Although we long ago received the grammarian's permission to eliminate the last comma in a list, I've been in favor of continuing with the Oxford comma because there are those situations where it adds clarification. A student passed on this graphic which demonstrates why. (As an internet meme I was unable to find the attribution.)

• A Century of Washington Grove

  15 May 2012 | 12:09 pm

  The neighborhood park which has been the focus of some restoration efforts over the last few years is described in the following piece. It's written by "A Friend of Washington Grove," not by me:1912---1932---2012Celebrating Washington Grove's Double AnniversaryOne hundred years ago, Rochester's City Council approved legislation authorizing purchase of the “Cobb’s Hill Woods” as the next component of its rapidly developing parks system. Most of the money raised to purchase the land from the Beckwith Farm came from private individuals who saw the inherent benefit of preserving this…

• FEMMSS 4: Day 1

  10 May 2012 | 10:40 am

  At FEMMSS 4, at Penn State.First plenary session "Where Theory and Practice Meet: Pragmatist Feminism as a Means of Knowing and Doing Scientific Practice."The speakers each approach the problem of objectivity in science and what a problem-solving feminist response would be. The problem is that empiricist approaches to scientific practice have (with reasonable success) identified ways to improve objectivity by eliminating unwanted bias from scientific research and policy applications.Shari Clough: Feminist empiricism identifies social, institutional procedures for scientific inquiry which are…

• Women's Colleges and Women at (Essentially) Men's Colleges

  1 May 2012 | 10:36 am

  I'm celebrating the choice that one of my friends has just made to attend Mt. Holyoke in the fall. You'll have a great experience, Phoebe!At the same time, I'm thinking about the two women in my 30-seat philosophy of science class. Last time I taught the course, there were 3 women in it. And the time before that, only one. The women students at my institution are exceptional. One of the things they learn is that they can't fade into the background, and there is a way in which this serves them well. But this is not a world that is built for them.From The Washington Post, "Why All Colleges…

• Education as Consumption

  17 Apr 2012 | 11:40 am

  The business model of higher education which conceives of education as being a consumer good like any other has been criticized on many grounds: it trivializes education overall, it reduces emphasis on humanities and sciences, it drives up grades and drives down rigor, and it inflates tuition costs.Blind to these criticisms--and to subtlety--my university just introduced a course registration system which asks students to put the courses that they would like to take into their "enrollment shopping cart."

• 

  The Brooks Blog

• Journal of Moral Philosophy - online first!

  14 May 2012 | 7:19 am

  The Journal of Moral Philosophy is now publishing papers online prior to appearance in our journal in print. Papers may be found here. Please visit the JMP homepage - at http://www.brill.nl/jmp - for more information about our journal.Our next issue will feature a special editorial on editing academic journals where I will be bringing together lessons learned over the years from serving as managing editor of the International Journal of Philosophical Studies, founding editor of the Review Journal of Political Philosophy, editor and founder of the Journal of Moral Philosophy, and co-chair of…

• Where are you on global pay?

  14 May 2012 | 5:30 am

  Terrific interactive chart and commentary from the BBC here.

• Fairness and Responsibility in an Unequal Society conference

  9 May 2012 | 3:52 am

  The Senate Room, Senate House, University of London Thursday 28th June 2012, 9.30am – 5.30pmIn the wake of the financial crisis there has been a renewed interested in issues of fairness and responsibility. But what do these notions really mean? And how should they be applied to the social issues of our time? At same time there is concern at the increase in social and economic inequality, both nationally and globally. Which types of inequality ought be of primary concern, and what can be done about them? How does the recent emphasis on fairness and responsibility fit with the aim of reducing…

• Thom Brooks on "Between Statism and Cosmopolitanism: Hegel and the Possibility of Global Justice"

  8 May 2012 | 4:13 am

  . . . is a chapter in the forthcoming Hegel and Global Justice (Springer, 2012) edited by Andrew Buchwalter. The paper's abstract:"Some commentators on Hegel’s political philosophy have doubted the possibility of a Hegelian theory of global justice. The argument is that Hegel’s theory of international relations is classically realist in an extreme sense: not only is the state the locus of the highest sphere of political right, the only judge between states internationally is ‘history’ rather than any global institution. Thus, Hegel appears to quite radically reject cosmopolitanism and…

• Effective criminal justice for all

  3 May 2012 | 3:41 am

  . . . is my new essay found here at the Labour Party-affiliated Progress website. The essay is part of their "alternative Queen's speech" series.

• 

  Jon Cogburn's Blog

• From Graduate School to Welfare

  Jon Cogburn

  14 May 2012 | 8:24 am

  Thoroughly depressing story at the Chronicle HERE. Some stats: via www.newappsblog.com Click on the newappsblog link for the full story.

• How Paul's Boutique became illegal

  Jon Cogburn

  8 May 2012 | 11:17 am

  Nice Slate story HERE on how excessive copyright enforcement killed a whole genre of art. via www.newappsblog.com Click on newappsblog link for full story and cool video.

• I am not sleeping until I get to Brooklyn and beyond

  Jon Cogburn

  5 May 2012 | 5:13 pm

  via www.newappsblog.com Follow the newappsblog link for some nice discussion about MCA.

• Annals of stupidity #3,526

  Jon Cogburn

  1 May 2012 | 6:17 pm

  The photo at right shows the arm of a man who tattooed Leviticus 18:22, which is the only clear place in the Bible where homosexuality is unambiguously condemned (along, and with equal force, with touching the pig skin, seeing a naked woman menstruating, wearing more than one kind of cloth at at time, etc. etc. etc.) via www.newappsblog.com Click newappsblog link above for full post.

• Spiros will be merciless, but that's O.K.

  Jon Cogburn

  26 Apr 2012 | 10:05 am

  Open Court is advertising Dungeons and Dragons and Philosophy now (edited by Mark Silcox and myself), and the ad copy is very good. We're  hoping we can have some sort of presentation at next year's Gen Con, which would be the second most nerdiest (and hence, second most awesome) thing I've ever done. Anyhow, the ad copy and table of contents is below. We manged to assemble a really first rate group of people who engage in philosophy, game design, and media theory (some of the authors do all three) and as a result I think this is one of the best of this kind of book.  …

• 

  In Search of Enlightenment

• Teaching Political Theory Survey

  9 May 2012 | 10:01 am

  I just came across this interesting paper which surveys who (e.g. age, gender, rank) teaches political theory in the US, which thinkers they typically teach, and how they teach and assess their theory courses. Well worth the read to help one get a sense of the current state of the discipline. I found the table below especially interesting. I listed just the top 20 (+1 Dewey ;)) thinkers that received the most votes on the questions "should be taught more" and "should be taught less" (click table to view large image): It appears there is a strong sentiment among those surveyed that Rawls…

• Aging and the Maintenance Gap

  6 May 2012 | 8:34 am

  The latest issue of Biogerontology has this interesting article on the evolution of aging. The abstract: One of the prevailing theories of aging, the disposable soma theory, views aging as the result of the accumulation of damage through imperfect maintenance. Aging, then, is explained from an evolutionary perspective by asserting that this lack of maintenance exists because the required resources are better invested in reproduction. However, the amount of maintenance necessary to prevent aging, ‘maintenance requirement’ has so far been largely neglected and has certainly not been…

• National Post Piece on Play and Risk

  5 May 2012 | 12:12 pm

  Today's National Post has this interesting article on the growing movement towards tolerating, indeed encouraging, some degree of risk (for the developmental tradeoff of more active and adaptive children) in the design playgrounds for children. Cheers, Colin

• Where the Action Is: On the Site of the "Playful" Life (Part 8: A Return to Play)

  3 May 2012 | 8:06 am

  For the past 3 years or so my interest and passion for the topic of play (as well as the activity itself) has been growing. Recall the series of blog posts on play- part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7- I have been meaning to add to the series for a while now, but have been bogged down some other commitments that are now winding down. So I plan to return to the topic of play in a serious way over the coming months. This morning I came across this talk, which helped fuel the fire in my heart for the importance of play. In that talk the artist below is featured, singing about…

• Analytical Thinking Undermines Dogma

  27 Apr 2012 | 10:36 pm

  The latest issue of Science has the scoop here. The abstract: Scientific interest in the cognitive underpinnings of religious belief has grown in recent years. However, to date, little experimental research has focused on the cognitive processes that may promote religious disbelief. The present studies apply a dual-process model of cognitive processing to this problem, testing the hypothesis that analytic processing promotes religious disbelief. Individual differences in the tendency to analytically override initially flawed intuitions in reasoning were associated with increased religious…

• 

  In Living Color

• #1,000

  15 May 2012 | 10:24 pm

  Erick Swenson, Untitled 2000, The Modern, Fort Worth This seems to be my 1000th post* here at In Living Color - 1000 in just about exactly 5 years of blogging.  I was thinking I would write a fascinating retrospective but ... zzzzzz. Honestly, it would be boring.  Please. Instead, let's have some footnotes.  I've been working on my TPM column, which is going to be about the artist Erick

• Religion for Atheists

  15 May 2012 | 9:50 am

  When Alain De Botton gets done building his temple for atheists, I'd like to be appointed the music director.  Let's definitely have a lot of Bjork.  Why?   Because her music creates the sort of experience religious people get to have, and De Botton thinks the godless should have as well.  Or perhaps more like it -- a successor experience. Something grand, emotional, and full of wonder, but

• What a Philosopher Looks Like

  10 May 2012 | 9:40 am

  I'm really enjoying these pictures.  They show that philosophers don't all look the same and don't spend all their time with their heads buried in books.  That's great, but hey--there is a look. Philosophers look a bit more natural, disheveled, and unconventional than most people.  The men are less clean-cut, the women are less coiffed and artificial.  There are more men than women, and white

• Breaking -- Obama Defends Gay Marriage!

  9 May 2012 | 3:00 pm

  Joe Biden deserves credit for forcing his hand!

• Maurice Sendak Talks to Stephen Colbert

  8 May 2012 | 9:03 am

  The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c Grim Colberty Tales with Maurice Sendak Pt. 1 www.colbertnation.com Colbert Report Full EpisodesPolitical Humor & Satire BlogVideo Archive The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c Grim Colberty Tales with Maurice Sendak Pt. 2 www.colbertnation.com Colbert Report Full EpisodesPolitical Humor & Satire BlogVideo Archive

• 

  Stephen Law

• Me on Think Atheist Radio

  15 May 2012 | 2:32 am

  I am on Think Atheist Radio. Podcast available here.  On bullshit, evil, God, etc....

• Daily Mail and the art of ad hominem

  14 May 2012 | 4:59 am

  Here is an article in Daily Mail that nicely illustrates that newspaper's tendency to make ad hominem attacks. The suggestion seems to be that a rich person who is leftwing is a hypocrite. It is a standard Daily Mail smear, of course, to attack lefties for being hypocrites and champagne socialists. However, isn't someone who fights for policies that are not in their own self-interest actually demonstrating real integrity, rather than hypocrisy?And what's wrong with a rich person "disliking the rich"?I imagine we'll see an awful lot of this sort of ad hominem attack directed at Hollande, who…

• Gay marriage: three key factors behind voting for bans

  12 May 2012 | 3:44 am

  Interesting Guardian article here with research into why people vote against same sex marraige. It's not just about religion... Gay marriage: three key factors behind voting for bansWith high levels of religious adherence, North Carolina voters followed a predictable pattern. But that's not the whole story North Carolina voters passed a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and civil unions Tuesday night. The reaction in the Twitterverse can be described as anger and hurt. Many probably thought to themselves that such a decision by the voters was "backward".I have discussed how voter…

• Craig: reason leads to atheism or agnosticism

  11 May 2012 | 11:47 am

  "The person who follows the pursuit of reason unflinchingly toward its end will be atheistic or, at best, agnostic." William Lane Craig.Yes, Craig really did say that. The source is here. A very interesting article. Thanks to this forum.But does Craig really mean what he appears to mean? You should make your own mind up about that. These other quotes from Reasonable Faith re. the role of reason may be relevant:"Should a conflict arise between the witness of the Holy Spirit to the fundamental truth of the Christian faith and beliefs based on argument and evidence, then it is the former which…

• Big Questions comment

  7 May 2012 | 5:31 am

  I was on BBC1 Big Questions yesterday. Go here. The whole hour was devoted to religion and children. I argued early on that children should be encouraged to think and question and all schools should be forced to meet minimum standards on that. I got a big round of applause on that from pretty much everyone - religious and non-religious (about 15 mins).Later in the programme, a young man to my right called Nick explained how, on the last day at his Catholic school (he was Head Boy), "came out" as an atheist in his speech. The Monsigneur patted him on the shoulder and said he was "brave".

• 

  Alexander Pruss's Blog

• Propriety and open-mindedness

  16 May 2012 | 7:52 am

  A scoring rule s(i,r) measures the closeness between one's credence assignment r to a proposition and the truth value, i=0 for false and i=1 for true. I shall assume scoring rules to be continuous. Smaller scores are better. A scoring rule is proper provided that by your own lights it does not tell you to expect a better (i.e., smaller) score if you just change your credence from r. Given a credence of r in the proposition in question, your expected score from adopting a credence of r' is rs(1,r')+(1−r)s(1,r'). So a proper scoring rule says that this function of r' achieves a minimum at…

• Agreement and tensed propositions

  15 May 2012 | 7:47 am

  Suppose I assert a proposition p, and you assert p. Then we agree, don't we?But suppose that propositions are tensed in the way presentists typically think, so that they change in truth value. Then it could happen that I assert p, you assert p, and yet we disagree. For instance, suppose we are watching a gymnast practice. I say: "He's only now got the hang of it!" A minute later you say: "He's only now got the hang of it!" We plainly disagree. Yet on the tensed proposition view, we asserted the same proposition. On an untensed proposition view, we asserted different propositions, say <He's…

• "Thank goodness it's over!"

  13 May 2012 | 1:17 pm

  Some people think that the sentiment expressed by "Thank goodness it's over!" makes no sense apart from an A-theory of time on which there is an absolute present. But the parallel sentiment expressed by "Thank goodness this isn't happening to me!" surely had better make sense apart from some theory on which there is some "absolute I".

• Hausdorff Paradox and conditional probabilities

  11 May 2012 | 8:04 am

  The Hausdorff Paradox shows that given the Axiom of Choice, there is no finitely additive probability measure defined for all subsets of the surface of a ball that is invariant under rotations—that assigns the same measure to a subset of the surface of the sphere and to a rotation about any axis through the center of that subset. Because of results like that, the standard Lebesgue measure on the surface of a ball is only defined for some subsets, i.e., the measurable ones.Now, in classical probability, we can only define conditional probability when we condition on an event A with non-zero…

• Morality without virtue

  10 May 2012 | 7:52 am

  Habits induces correlations between choices in similar epistemic circumstances. A person who has behaved courageously in the face of physical danger on ten past occasions is more likely to be a physically courageous person, and therefore is more likely to behave courageously now when again facing physical danger, even when we control for the considerations on the basis of which we are deciding, unlike a fair coin which is not more likely to land hands just because on the ten past occasions it has done so. Our choices, moreover, modify our habits thereby even further increasing these…

• 

  The Splintered Mind

• On the Epistemic Status of Deathbed Regrets

  Eric Schwitzgebel

  15 May 2012 | 7:52 pm

  It's graduation time, so that means it's time to hear about what people do and do not regret on their death beds. Intended lesson: Pursue your dreams! Don't worry about money! I can find no systematic research about what people on their deathbeds do in fact say that they regret. A PsycInfo database search of "death*" and "regret*" turns up this article as the closest thing. Evidently, what elderly East Germans most regret is having been victimized by war. There's also this inspiring pablum, widely discussed in the popular press. Let's grant, however, that the commencement truisms have a prima…

• Second Annual "Experiment Month" Initiative

  Eric Schwitzgebel

  15 May 2012 | 2:50 pm

  Deadline for submissions June 15th. The initiative is intended to help philosophers who are interested in running an experiment by pairing them with experts who can help with experimental design, participant recruitment, and statistical analysis. Here are some of last year's results. More info here.

• Twilight of the (Scientific) Gods?

  Eric Schwitzgebel

  11 May 2012 | 6:50 pm

  (by guest blogger Carrie Figdor) Is it a mere coincidence that the Metropolitan Opera is offering its latest Ring-cycle blitz at about the same time as my stint as an invited guest blogger for Eric? The skeptic in me warns against hasty judgment, yet I think there's an interesting relationship between the two series. Isomorphisms come cheap, but the best things in life are free, so even a cheap isomorphism is worth more than the best things in life. Before I go on, I'll introduce myself: I'm a philosopher of mind and metaphysician at the University of Iowa, in the state where Herbert Hoover…

• Grounds for Dream Skepticism

  Eric Schwitzgebel

  7 May 2012 | 10:35 am

  In his famous anti-skeptical work, On Certainty, Wittgenstein wants "grounds for doubt". He wants positive reason to accept a radically skeptical hypothesis. Trudeau obliges. The key panels: Life going well? Implausibly well? Wake up and smell the latrine, baby! The same reasoning might apply if things are implausibly hellish. Such reasoning should apply especially to Wittgenstein himself. I mean, what's the prior probability of that being your life -- impoverished scion of a suicidal Austrian family of immense wealth, arguably the greatest philosopher of your day though unemployed and hardly…

• Martian Rabbit Superorganisms, Yeah!

  Eric Schwitzgebel

  4 May 2012 | 7:34 pm

  Most philosophers of mind (but not all) believe that rabbits have conscious experiences -- that rabbits are not, as it were, mere machines all dark inside but rather that there's "something it's like" to be a rabbit, that they can have sensory experiences, that they can experience pain, that they have (in contemporary jargon) "phenomenology". After all, rabbits are not so different from us, biologically.  Rabbits might lack language and higher forms of abstract and self-reflective cognition, but few philosophers think that such differences between us and them are sufficient to render…

• 

  In the Space of Reasons

• Delusional atmosphere, the everyday uncanny and the limits of secondary sense

  10 May 2012 | 6:05 am

  My paper:Thornton, T. (2012) ‘Delusional atmosphere, the everyday uncanny and the limits of secondary sense’ Emotion Review 4: 192-6has just been published in a special issue of Emotion Reviewon emotions in psychopathology. It is one of the outcomes of Matthew Ratcliffe’s project on this topic at Durham combining philosophical and empirical. The issue has a range of articles including papers by Shaun Gallagher, Peter Hobson, Lisa Bortolloti and Matt Broome and the late Peter Goldie who dies suddenly last year.My own paper expresses my combined fascination with and scepticism about…

• Theatrical props, sets and realism

  20 Apr 2012 | 11:31 am

  Lois and I went to Stratford last weekend to see Twelfth Night at the the RST and then Richard III at the Swan. The former was staged on a set which is, I understand, fundamentally the same for the three ship wreck plays of the current run. For Twelfth Night it was a detailed as a shabby hotel lobby on a tropical island with an old fashioned lift back left, a reception back right, rotating door and, front left a pool of water from which – to my surprise – two actors made a submerged entrance. As is typical of the RSC, the production made the best possible use of the set and the production…

• Clinical judgement, tacit knowledge and recognition in psychiatric diagnosis

  20 Apr 2012 | 10:40 am

  This is a substantial reworking of a previous draft chapter for the Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and PsychiatryAbstractThis chapter contrasts the recent emphasis on operationalism as the route to reliability in psychiatry with arguments for an ineliminable role for tacit knowledge. Although Michael Polanyi is widely credited with the most forceful arguments for the presence of a tacit dimension, I argue that two clues he offers as to its nature – that we know more than we can tell and that knowledge is an active comprehension of things known – are better interpreted through regress…

• Potential PhD studentship in health including philosophy of psychiatry

  11 Apr 2012 | 9:57 am

  It seems likely that the School of Health here at UCLan will advertise one or two PhD studentships, I guess, though I do not yet know, under similar arrangements as before. I will post the details if and when this is confirmed but anyone interested in the philosophy of psychiatry should contact me.

• Mohammed Rashed on Religious Experience and Psychiatry

  9 Apr 2012 | 10:55 am

  As the first part of a University of Glasgow AHRC funded project on transcultural psychiatry, I have been reading Mohammed Rashed's paper in PPP on Religious experience and psychiatry. What struck me most about the paper is how little he does to engage with and persuade those with an opposing – let me say simple minded realist – view. He begins with the DSM conjunction:According to the DSM-IV (American Psychiatric Association [APA], 1994) the presence of psychotic symptoms (Criterion A) and social/occupational dysfunction (Criterion B) are sufficient to warrant one of the different…

• 

  FmI - Masonic Traveler

• Social Media Code of Conduct for Massachusetts Freemasons

  BeeHive

  11 May 2012 | 5:30 pm

  The Grand Lodge of Massachusetts has just enacted new rules concerning the use of Social Media by Massachusetts Freemasons.Social Media Code of Conduct for Massachusetts FreemasonsA Mason should conduct his Social Media activities in a way that reflects his membership in the Craft. He should act in a way that presents a positive image of his membership in Freemasonry to the world.As a Mason, he must be aware that his postings are a permanent record; therefore, his conduct may influence the world with a positive or a negative opinion about him personally and also about any organizations to…

• In the Margins

  Greg

  8 May 2012 | 8:22 am

  The Salon is an off topic collection of conversation starters to be taken with a snifter of brandy, a fine cigar, and a grain of salt.Found this snippet on the blog Brain Pickings and immediately it capture my attention.It would seem the monks who saved Christendom by their meticulous hand copying of the Gospels were also human and had their own complaints which they doodled into the margins of the texts they copied.  Not surprising, the things they wrote weren’t so different than the ones you and I might post today on social media.A few of my Marginalia favorites from Brain…

• The Old Past Master Battles Mainstream Madness

  BeeHive

  6 May 2012 | 10:01 pm

  The Old Past Master loved to get to Lodge early. There was something about opening that Lodge room door and gazing on that altar when all was quiet. And then sitting down in a seat on the sidelines and just thinking and mediating about all that had gone on over the many years in that room. It sent shivers down his spine.All the Masters gave him the keys to the Lodge. They welcomed someone dependable who could open everything up in case they were running late. This evening Master Reynolds was early coming in right on the heels of the Old Past Master. Worshipful went right to the office and…

• Want to be a member?

  Greg

  4 May 2012 | 3:24 pm

  Found this on Vigilant Citizen.Want to be a member? Want to be a member?  Want to be a member of the Order of the Ohhhm-Bo-bahcha-cha- Ohhhm-Bo-bahcha-cha?If all initiations ended like this one, I bet most fraternities would be teeming with members.It reminds me of the pranks in the Demoulin catalog of Fraternal Supplies from the 30′s.  I wonder if it was the inspiration for the short film.I’m not entirely clear why some would think this short was to indoctrinate children into secret societies, but, I suppose you can make what ever connections to you want from it.Want to be a…

• When it Reigns…

  Greg

  3 May 2012 | 11:41 am

  The following are two missives sent to me that illustrate a certain sense of disenfranchisement felt by some.  Are they systemic undercurrents or simply the aches and pains of a few who have found themselves on the outside of a here-to-fore inclusive order of craftsmen?I’ll leave it to you to decide.The first came in an email which, the sender says, was sent to “practically every member listed in the Grand Lodge [of New York in the New York State] Directory.”  To how many this was sent out  was not said, but the note to me says it was sent to “voting members or…

• 

  Cognitive Philosophy

• Is There a Difference Between Memory and Imagination?

  Greg

  20 Apr 2012 | 5:08 pm

  If you remember something wrong, is the label “memory” still accurate? Does the label of memory necessitate a 1:1 correspondence with the past? If not 1:1, how much correspondence with the past is necessary for us to still be comfortable using the label of memory? More importantly, if we can talk about a memory being in error, or even completely fabricated (i.e. – “false memories”), then at what point can we then say there is a meaningful difference between memory and imagination? I’ve written about memory a handful of times on this blog. In one post I criticized the notion of…

• Genetic Modification and Human Ontology

  Greg

  28 Jan 2012 | 10:00 am

  Imagine a world where human beings weren’t susceptible to diseases, where we were all strong and smart, where we couldn’t feel pain and could be put in a state of ecstasy due to things which today produce only mild excitement. Imagine a world where human beings could fly of their own volition, where we have gills and could breathe under water, where we could see the entire electromagnetic spectrum, smell as richly as a dog, and hear as richly as a bat. These advances are far off, if possible at all (and whether we’d even want them is a different question), but the debate around…

• Philosophers’ Carnival – January 9, 2012

  Greg

  9 Jan 2012 | 11:06 am

  Welcome to the January 9th edition of the Philosophers’ Carnival! A showcase of the best philosophy blog posts from around the internet from the last three weeks. Thanks to everyone that submitted*, and enjoy the show! Philosophy of Mind In Art and the Limits of Neuroscience, Alva Noe questions whether neuroscience is really the proper evaluative tool for studying art, and discusses what the role of the brain is in accounting for consciousness. Guest contributor to Cognitive Philosophy, Polo Camacho, discusses the fallibility of our perception in I’ll Believe It When I See It.

• I’ll Believe It When I See It

  Polo

  3 Jan 2012 | 3:58 pm

  The lawyer leans over the witness stand, piercing holes of disbelief into the witness. He matter-of-factly paces towards her. She is one of the few witnesses at the crime scene. Her palms are sweaty and she’s fidgety from all the coffee from earlier. “Tell us what you saw on the night of Thursday, August 11th, 2011!” Questions flood her mind: How can I be asked to report on experiences I may or may not have had? I was present, but does being present guarantee an accurate experiential report? Maybe my opinion is tainted by others’ opinions? HELP! It is here that she is asked to…

• Call for submissions: Philosophers’ Carnival

  Greg

  14 Dec 2011 | 2:42 pm

  On January 9th, Cognitive Philosophy will be hosting the Philosophers’ Carnival, a roaming showcase of the best philosophical blog posts from the previous three weeks. The Carnival is put together through submissions, but you do not have to be the author of a blog post to submit one.  More info about the Carnival and submission guidelines can be found here: http://philosophycarnival.blogspot.com/ For this coming carnival, the following topics will be given priority: philosophy of mind philosophy of language philosophy of action ethics metaethics epistemology philosophy of science…

• 

  Conquer Your Being

• How to Become Thick-Skinned

  Faizan Qurashi

  12 May 2012 | 7:16 pm

  It’s a term that isn’t heavily used but is properly worded for it’s particular being. To be thick-skinned is more of “to not be something else.” Let me explain. Being thick-skinned in a logical sense would mean, not being thin-skinned. And that’s exactly what is it. To be thick-skinned is to not let your surroundings dictate who you are or what you do, metaphorically speaking of course. It’s a testament to being able to stay a constant when the entire world is trying to change you. Countless times a day, you get irritated, disappointed, emotional, and…

• A Fighting Spirit Goes A Long Way

  Faizan Qurashi

  23 Apr 2012 | 10:49 pm

  There are winners and losers in life, and then there are fighters. I’d make a bet with the person that’s reading this right now, that they’ve encountered some sort of a difficult obstacle in their life. After all, life isn’t perfect, and if yours is, then Im sure you know someone’s whose isn’t, so you can perhaps spread this wisdom to them. But again to get back to the point. Obstacles are put in our way perhaps because then the path would be too easy. Therefore once we complete the difficult task/obstacle, we come out stronger. It’s similar to a…

• Why Your Confidence is Your Biggest Asset/Liability in Life

  Faizan Qurashi

  24 Mar 2012 | 6:44 pm

  There is a saying about this world. It is the following: “The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts while the stupid ones are full of confidence.” At first glance, it seems inconceivable and  a bit implausible but give it more thought, and you’ll come around to realize the shocking truth in this statement. Most of our efforts in life are focused on harnessing our talents, skills and etc. Rarely do we pay attention to how we should develop our confidence, because most people would assume confidence comes along with superior talent,…

• Un-productivity May be Due to Our Programmed Love For Entertainment

  Faizan Qurashi

  22 Nov 2011 | 11:03 pm

  Lately, I’ve had trouble being productive. As I’m sure, I’m not the only one, but it got me to think. Why is it so hard to be productive? Rather, why do we enjoy being entertained so much? Sounds a bit odd the way I phrased it, but I hope you can buy what I’m trying to sell. It seems to me that we are “programmed” to enjoy being entertained. And just to clarify, by entertainment I mean movies, music, sports, video games, gossip, rumors, jokes etc. The entertainment industry is by far and away the most valued and paid industry in the entire world. From…

• Why You Truly Are Who You Associate Yourself With

  Faizan Qurashi

  14 Nov 2011 | 1:09 am

  There is a common belief among society that we are who we chose to be. Now, while that statement is true in one sense, it’s also misleading in another sense. The option to be who you want to be is completely is true and up to you as well, however it should noted that it’s very well predicated on those around you. Case in point, if you change your ideas, beliefs, goals, the way you dress, talk, walk etc. All those are choices YOU have made, however it’s most likely the case that those choices were based off of the opinion of those close to you. Now, I would like you exclude…

• 

  Philosorapt[E]rs

• Graduate School Exit Strategies

  10 May 2012 | 10:39 am

  When should one leave grad school, and in particular, a PhD program? Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/gradhacker/exit-strategies#ixzz1uTvbnmSJ  Inside Higher Ed  Permalink | Leave a comment  »

• Philosophy Graduate Schools Friendly to Continental Philosophy

  6 May 2012 | 12:59 am

  HERE is the best list I have found. Please contribute to this list if you have experience with a particular department."This list is not the result of a systematic survey. It is based on personal knowledge of our faculty and flyers and catalogues for graduate programs in philosophy. Since this list has been posted online, it has also been influenced by email correspondence with graduate students and faculty. If you know of a program which ought to be listed here, or struck from the list, please let me know, and please be patient with the suggested updates " Permalink | Leave a…

• How to Write Good Applications for Jobs and Grants

  2 May 2012 | 12:52 am

  Interesting but I'm unsure of the accuracy of the Advice Permalink | Leave a comment  »

• Philosophy and The Matrix

  28 Apr 2012 | 11:53 pm

  Quite good. Permalink | Leave a comment  »

• ETS - Students Can Now Chose Their Best Score

  24 Apr 2012 | 11:50 pm

  AWESOME!  " The Educational Testing Service is announcing today that applicants to graduate school will no longer have to submit all their scores on the Graduate Record Examinations, but will have the option to select the best scores to share." Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/04/24/ets-will-allow-gre-takers-select-which-scores-report#ixzz1t1ZqkVT0  Inside Higher Ed   Permalink | Leave a comment  »

• 

  Philosorapt[E]rs

• Graduate School Exit Strategies

  William Parkhurst

  10 May 2012 | 10:39 am

  When should one leave grad school, and in particular, a PhD program? Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/gradhacker/exit-strategies#ixzz1uTvbnmSJ  Inside Higher Ed Join me on Twitter or Facebook for updates. Please email suggestions, links and questions to PhilosoraptErs@gmail.com

• Philosophy Graduate Schools Friendly to Continental Philosophy

  William Parkhurst

  6 May 2012 | 12:59 am

  HERE is the best list I have found. Please contribute to this list if you have experience with a particular department."This list is not the result of a systematic survey. It is based on personal knowledge of our faculty and flyers and catalogues for graduate programs in philosophy. Since this list has been posted online, it has also been influenced by email correspondence with graduate students and faculty. If you know of a program which ought to be listed here, or struck from the list, please let me know, and please be patient with the suggested updates "Join me on Twitter or…

• How to Write Good Applications for Jobs and Grants

  William Parkhurst

  2 May 2012 | 12:52 am

  Interesting but I'm unsure of the accuracy of the AdviceJoin me on Twitter or Facebook for updates. Please email suggestions, links and questions to PhilosoraptErs@gmail.com

• Philosophy and The Matrix

  William Parkhurst

  28 Apr 2012 | 11:53 pm

  Quite good.Join me on Twitter or Facebook for updates. Please email suggestions, links and questions to PhilosoraptErs@gmail.com

• ETS - Students Can Now Chose Their Best Score

  William Parkhurst

  24 Apr 2012 | 11:50 pm

  AWESOME!  " The Educational Testing Service is announcing today that applicants to graduate school will no longer have to submit all their scores on the Graduate Record Examinations, but will have the option to select the best scores to share." Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/04/24/ets-will-allow-gre-takers-select-which-scores-report#ixzz1t1ZqkVT0  Inside Higher Ed  Join me on Twitter or Facebook for updates. Please email suggestions, links and questions to PhilosoraptErs@gmail.com

• 

  Global Patriot

• The Moral Roots of Liberals and Conservatives

  Global Patriot

  12 May 2012 | 9:38 am

  Considering the plethora of important issues facing planet earth, the need to engage in conversation that cross both political and ideological lines has never been greater.  In recent years, conversations in America between Liberals and Conservatives have devolved to the point where there’s rarely an exchange of meaning information, but rather an exchange of heated rhetoric that bares little resemblance to the truth.Click here to view the embedded video.In this TED Talk from 2008, Jonathan Haidt speaks to the differences in the liberal and conservative moral compasses, but more…

• The Challenge of Finding New Oil Reserves

  Global Patriot

  6 May 2012 | 10:29 am

  If you’ve spent any time researching the long history of global oil production you’re familiar with the phrase, “the easy oil is all gone”, which means that reserves close to the surface have all been exhausted, and oil companies now need to drill deeper and deeper to find deposits.  This infograph from Energy & Capital provides a clear picture of where we’ve been, and where the world is now heading as we seek new sources of oil to satisfy the thirst of an expanding global population.From the old days when West Texas crude oil made America the #1 producer in…

• Earth Day 2012 – Planet Under Pressure

  Global Patriot

  22 Apr 2012 | 11:32 am

  I’ve always thought that Earth Day should be a day of celebrating, of giving thanks to a planet that sustains all life and brings such immense beauty, joy and diversity.  But that’s not always an easy thing to do when facing corporate indifference and government inaction.  Sometimes it seems that for every step of progress, there comes an equal and opposite force that’s intent on pushing us all backward, but scientists from all corners continue to fight the good fight – the fight for truth.Science to the Rescue“The global scientific community must deliver to…

• Visualizing American Wind Power Potential

  Global Patriot

  9 Apr 2012 | 8:20 pm

  Significant progress has been made in recent years, yet the potential for capitalizing on wind power is largely untapped.  The main issue continues to rest wtih politicians (often known as petroleum prostitutes) who are firmly entrenched in the pockets of the fossil fuel industry, and we certainly don’t want to leave out the climate deniers (who also believe in the tooth fairy), but another key factor in the equation involves our inability to visualize the enormous resource that wind represents. Click on image to see current map in motion!Creative & graphical data analysis to the…

• Global Patriot Day 2012 Honors Bill Toone

  Global Patriot

  20 Mar 2012 | 7:49 am

  Global Patriots are everywhere, on every continent and in every country and city, which is why finding one in my own backyard is such a treat.  Bill Toone works his magic at ECOLIFE Foundation these days, located in North San Diego County, but he’s been dedicated to protecting endangered birds, insects, plants, and mammals for over 30 years – someone worth celebrating on Global Patriot Day 2012!ECOLIFE believes that there is still space and resources for all the people and wildlife that hold this fragile web of life in place.  We believe conservative use of our resources will…

• 

  The-Philosophy

• Solipsism (Definition)

  thephilo

  15 May 2012 | 6:56 pm

  The solipsism is a philosophical theory which asserts that i am the sole existent, the sole true reality. To be a solipsist, I must hold that I alone exist independently, and that what ordinarily call the outside worlds exists only as an object or content of my consciousness. Classical refutations of Solipsism This doctrine, if not impossible to hold, is philosophically interesting in that many thinkers have thought it necessary to attempt refutations, or even to admit that, however bizarre, it is strictly irrefutable. Once we concede (following Descartes, Locke and many others) that the…

• Descartes: Philosophy Summary

  thephilo

  15 May 2012 | 9:14 am

  The Philosophy of Rene Descartes, a french rationalist Rene Descartes is the most famous french philosopher. Indeed, Descartes got nice charts of works to his credit … among the best known: - Rules for directions of the mind (1628) - Discourse on Method, Preface to the Dioptric, the Meteors, and Geometry (1637) - Meditations on First Philosophy (1641) - Principles of Philosophy (1644) - The Passions of the Soul (1649) Descartes founded the modern rationalism, he pressed it to the forces of reason and evidence in order to achieve the real safely, the purpose of knowledge is to…

• Social Contract: Definition

  thephilo

  15 May 2012 | 2:53 am

  The social contract theories – Quick Overview The social contract is, in philosophy, an agreement between individuals, or between individuals and a governing power, in which some liberties are freely surrendered in return for advantages of having a well-organized society, or good government. This concept can be traced back atr least as Plato’s older contemporary, the sophist Lycophron, and it is, after a fashion, discussed in both Gorgias and the Republic. It has been offered both as an explanation of the origin of the state, or a human society, or of particular social…

• Why did the chicken cross the road ? Philosophical Game

  thephilo

  15 May 2012 | 12:47 am

  Why did the chicken cross the road? We give our version of the famous game “Why did the chicken cross the road” on the basis of some philosophers. If any are missing, please let us know in your comments: Plato: To get to the essence of good Marx: It was historically inevitable Machiavelli: To instill fear in other chickens Nietzsche: On the assertion of its will to power Sartre: The chicken was ordered to cross the road De Beauvoir: One is not born chicken, one becomes Samuel Beckett: Because he was tired of waiting Aristotle: To stop being in power, but in act Camus: To challenge…

• Innate Ideas: Definition

  thephilo

  14 May 2012 | 10:36 pm

  Innate ideas are ideas or knowledge prior and independant of sense experience. For Plato, knowledge of the Forms derives from innate ideas which are accessible to memory. In Descartes, all principles of science and knowledge are founded on clear and distinct ideas, or incorrigible truths, which are innate in the mind and which may be captured by the method of reason. Innate ideas came to be the focus of attack by empiricist philosophers who sought to argue that the mind is at first a tabula rasa only subsequently informed by sense experience. The classic objection to innate ideas occurs in…

• 

  Philosophy News

• An Analysis of Sam Harris’ Free Will

  16 May 2012 | 1:34 am

  Sam Harris says the concept of free will is incoherent. Humans are not free and no sense can be given to the idea that we might be. There are good arguments in philosophical and scientific literature that call into question the ability of humans to make truly free choices. Those arguments generally are rigorous attempts to show that certain necessary conditions for free will can’t obtain or particular sufficient conditions don’t obtain. That is, they unpack a clear definition of what it might mean to be free and then attempt to show that nothing could or actually does fulfill the…

• LOVE146: Philosophy in Action

  29 Apr 2012 | 1:35 am

  When we hear the word “slavery”, most people think of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade that occurred from the 16th to the 19th century. They think that slavery is no longer a problem that plagues modern society. This is not true. There is a modern day slave trade and an estimated 27-30 million people are enslaved worldwide. At the heart of today’s slave trade are the many forms of enslavement such as debt bondage, forced labor, forced child labor, child soldiers, sex slaves, and child sex slaves. According to UNICEF, “As many as two million children are subjected to prostitution in the…

• Week of April 23, 2012: Week in Review

  28 Apr 2012 | 1:05 am

  On the uselessness of philosophy. Lawrence Krauss, a theoretical physicist, apparently agrees with Steven Hawking, that philosophy is past its prime and is being supplanted by the hard sciences. In an interview for The Atlantic, he claims that physics progresses and philosophy does not. Physics unpacks truth about the universe and philosophy is only interesting to other philosophers. “Philosophy is a field that, unfortunately, reminds me of that old Woody Allen joke, ‘those that can't do, teach, and those that can't teach, teach gym.’” Philosophy, according to Krauss,…

• Week of April 16, 2012: Week in Review

  21 Apr 2012 | 3:16 am

  Like questions? Got answers? You should spend a day at the park. John Horgan, writer for the Scientific American,  doesn’t like Sam Harris’ view on free will very much. It’s doubtful whether he likes Sam all that much either.  Blogger Alan Litchfield for The Malcontent’s Gambit recently interviewed Dr. Peter Boghossian for his premier podcast. The title of the piece is “Faith: A Barrier to Rational Thought”. In this interview, Alan surveys the growing body of content surrounding Peter’s recent talks, interviews, and articles asking how he responds to many of the…

• Argument Proves That Philosophy Doesn’t Exist

  10 Apr 2012 | 2:30 am

  Copenhagen – Two philosophers based in Denmark have apparently come up with a proof that shows that philosophy doesn’t exist and their discovery is rocking the philosophical community. For centuries, philosophy has been at the core of just about every discipline and has provided a foundation for most of Western thought. From Plato to Kripke, philosophers have been tackling the universe’s toughest problems. But in 2012 Dr. Soren Filosht and another thinker who wants to be known only as “Dagmar” have developed a complex argument that ostensibly shows that philosophy is merely the…

• 

  Understanding the Tao te Ching: A Guide to Taoist Peace and Understanding

• Chapter 52: Understanding Attachment

  Joel Stottlemire

  23 Apr 2012 | 6:07 am

  When creation began, Dao became the world's mother. When one knows one's mother he will m turn know that he is her son. When he recognizes his sonship, he will in turn keep to his mother and to the end of life will be free from danger. He who closes his mouth and shuts his sense gates will be free from trouble to the end of life. He who opens his mouth and meddles with affairs cannot be free from trouble even to the end of life. To recognize one's insignificance is called enlightenment. To keep one's sympathy is called strength. He who uses Dao's light returns to Dao's enlightenment and does…

• Chapter 51: What is teh

  Joel Stottlemire

  20 Mar 2012 | 7:35 pm

  Tao gives life to all creatures; de [teh] feeds them; materiality shapes them; energy completes them. Therefore among all things there is none that does not honor Dao and esteem de [teh]. Honor for Dao and esteem for de [teh] is never compelled, it is always spontaneous. Therefore Dao gives life to them, but de [teh] nurses them, raises them, nurtures, completes, matures, rears, protects them. Tao gives life to them but makes no claim of ownership; de [teh] forms them but makes no claim upon them, raises them but does not rule them. This is profound vitality (de [teh]). Interpretation: The…

• Chapter 50: Beyond Life and Death

  Joel Stottlemire

  15 Mar 2012 | 6:28 am

  Life is a going forth; death is a returning home. Of ten, three are seeking life, three are seeking death, and three are dying. What is the reason? Because they live in life's experience. (Only one is immortal.) I hear it said that the sage when he travels is never attacked by rhinoceros or tiger, and when coming among soldiers does not fear their weapons. The rhinoceros would find no place to horn him, nor the tiger a place for his claws, nor could soldiers wound him. What is the reason? Because he is invulnerable. Interpretation: In and earlier chapter, the author discusses Immortality.

• Chapter 49: Love to All

  Joel Stottlemire

  10 Mar 2012 | 3:12 am

  The wise man has no fixed heart; in the hearts of the people he finds his own. The good he treats with goodness; the not-good he also treats with goodness, for de [teh] is goodness. The faithful ones he treats with good faith; the unfaithful he also treats with good faith, for de [teh] is good faith. The wise man lives in the world but he lives cautiously, dealing with the world cautiously. He universalizes his heart; the people give him their eyes and ears, but he treats them as his children. Interpretation: This chapter repeats the earlier message about listening.  Now it observes that…

• Chapter 48: The Limits of Learning

  Joel Stottlemire

  8 Mar 2012 | 7:16 am

  He who attends daily to learning increases in learning. He who practices Dao daily diminishes. Again and again he humbles himself. Thus he attains to non-doing (wu wei). He practices non-doing and yet there is nothing left undone. To command the empire one must not employ craft. If one uses craft he is not fit to command the empire. Interpretation: There is a common saying, "The wise are not learned and the learned are not wise.  This stanza may be seen as comparison between learning for the sake of control and learning to be content.  We are can easily imagine a scatterbrained…

• 

  The Free Will Debate

• Agents Causation: The Souls Have It

  R.D. Coste

  9 May 2012 | 6:49 am

  Let us take our seats and open our books to Thomas Reid’s Essays on the Active powers of Man. In our deliberate and voluntary actions we are efficient causes. Ok then, Mr. Reid.  What in fact do you mean by this?   Are you trying to tell me that I am the cause of my own thoughts and actions even though everything I know and have learned about physics and the human mind has me leaning towards an opposite train of thought – namely that of a physical, determined universe? Yes, he most certainly is. Thomas Reid (1710-1796) was a Scottish philosopher who was also a contemporary of…

• The Hard Incompatibilism of Derk Pereboom

  R.D. Coste

  7 May 2012 | 5:22 am

  Now this is one I like.  Perhaps because it is slightly different from the rest of the footholds others have defended yet it is also within a familiar country. Let me introduce you to Hard Incompatibilism. Derk Pereboom is a professor at Cornell University, and his take on the problem of the free will takes a slightly different approach.  Most philosophers and free will theorizers (nice word huh?) take one of three approaches which I’ve outlined here, here, and here.  Professor Pereboom has taken a long, hard look at each and proposed an alternative position. For the Hard…

• The Elder Strawson & Emotion

  R.D. Coste

  3 May 2012 | 6:31 am

  As I sit here in traffic I am watching the clock on my dashboard with agitation.  I’m going to be late.  Very late.  I have a meeting in ten minutes.  By my estimate I still have 15 minutes of driving time ahead of me if only the guy in front of me would move. But he won’t. To make matters worse he just flipped me off.  With a smile no less!   If he were standing here in front of me… But wait a second… I’m a determinist.  I know that what will happen will happen no matter how much I might wish it were otherwise.  He is no more in control of the situation…

• Campbell’s Causal Agent

  R.D. Coste

  1 May 2012 | 5:17 am

  It sure feels like I have the ability to choose one course of action over another.  I just ran a red light even though I knew that I shouldn’t have.  Nobody made me run it.  I wasn’t genetically compelled to run it.  I just saw the light change from yellow to red and I stepped on the gas pedal.  I did.  I chose to.  I could have chosen not to and not put myself in the present dilemma of deciding the best course of action to take in order to lose the police officer currently in my rear view mirror.  He appears a whole hell of a lot closer than he is. This, my friends,…

• Sartre’s Reflection of the Self

  R.D. Coste

  29 Apr 2012 | 6:00 am

  Do I really want to spend $100 on that bottle of wine?  It does seem to me to be a little extravagant.  Who has $100 to throw away like that?  And then there’s that charity event that I agreed to host tomorrow night.  I really don’t want to go.  Perhaps I’ll call the organizers and let them know that I’m not feeling well? Too many choices.  It’s overwhelming.  I don’t really need to buy that bottle I wine.  I just want to.  As for the charity commitment… who has to know that the real reason I don’t want to go is because I’m afraid…