Philosophy
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Church & State II: Discrimination20 February 2012, 8:48 pm
In the United States, the American’s with Disabilities Act makes it illegal to discriminate against people based on their disabilities. Unless, apparently, the institution doing the discrimination is a church. A disabled woman who was teaching at a religious school …...
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Religious freedom and religious privilege19 February 2012, 11:16 am
I enjoyed reading Mike LaBossiere’s post entitled “Church & State: Immaculate Contraception”, but I can’t resist the impulse to add a post of my own – perhaps because I lack free will in the matter, but mainly because I devote …...
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Church & State: Immaculate Contraception17 February 2012, 7:36 pm
Back in 1914 Margaret Sanger included information about birth control in the June issue of her magazine, The Woman Rebel. She was arrested under the Comstock Law and her ally, the anarchist Emma Goldman, was soon after arrested for the same crime. …...
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Mediums & Muses13 February 2012, 11:05 pm
As I do every spring, I am teaching my Aesthetics class. As might be expected, one of the subjects I address is the nature of artistic creativity and the creation of the arts. Putting things rather simply (perhaps too simply) one …...
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Soon-to-Haves10 February 2012, 7:10 pm
I am working on a book on rhetoric and, as might be imagined, this year’s American political season has been a goldmine. Recently Mitch Daniels said “We do not accept that ours will ever be a nation of …...
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Is Education a Public Good?8 February 2012, 8:29 pm
While higher education is generally regarded as a good (mainly because folks with college degrees make more than folks who lack such degrees), there has been considerable debate in the United States as to whether or not higher education is …...
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Towers of Ivory, Towers of Gold6 February 2012, 7:19 pm
Academics in general and philosophers in particular are often accused of dwelling in ivory towers that lift them out of the “real world” (which is, presumably, everything outside of academics). Being a philosophy professor, I do have some sympathy to …...
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The Atheist’s Guide to Reality: An Interview with Alex Rosenberg6 February 2012, 7:50 am
Reality, notes philosopher Alex Rosenberg, is “completely different from what most people think… stranger than even many atheists recognize.” And having spent some 40 years trying to work out “exactly how advances in biology, neuroscience and evolutionary anthropology, fit together …...
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Corruption, Gravity & Litter3 February 2012, 7:08 pm
The Daily Show recently featured an interesting interview with Yale Law School professor Jonathan Macey. One part of the interview that I found especially interesting was Macey’s “defense” of capital firms like Bain in terms of what seemed to be the necessity …...
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Language Games: An Appeal On Behalf of Dave31 January 2012, 10:23 am
“I’m going out with my pal Rick for a beer tonight, he’s got himself into a spot of bother with the police again. Fighting.” said Dave. I think for a minute: “Rick, I don’t think I know him do I?”. …...
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Philip Schofield on Jeremy Bentham's Utilitarianism11 February 2012, 12:36 pm
Jeremy Bentham, legal reformer and philosopher, was an early Utilitarian. In this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast Nigel Warburton interviews Bentham scholar and head of the Bentham Project, Philip Schofield about Bentham's contribution to moral philosophy. Philosophy Bites is made in association with the Institute of Philosophy....
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Nicola Lacey on Criminal Responsibilityhttp27 January 2012, 3:05 pm
What is criminal responsibility? Is it a timeless concept, or does it have a historical aspect? Nicola Lacey addresses these questions in conversation with Nigel Warburton in this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast. Philosophy Bites is made in association with the Institute of Philosophy....
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Alain de Botton on Atheism 2.016 January 2012, 7:36 am
Some atheists despise religion and ridicule it as absurd. In this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast Alain de Botton, author of Religion for Atheists, takes a more pragmatic line, arguing that atheists can learn a great deal from religion. Philosophy Bites is made in association with the Institute of Philosophy....
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Kit Fine on What is Metaphysics?http1 January 2012, 10:17 pm
Metaphysics is the philosophical study of reality. But what does that mean in pratice, and what are the limits of what it can reveal? Kit Fine addresses the question 'What is Metaphysics?' in discussion with Nigel Warburton in this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast. Philosophy Bites is made in association with the Institute of Philosophy....
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Brian Leiter on the Analytic/Continental Distinction18 December 2011, 1:29 pm
Is there a useful distinction to be made between analytic and continental philosophy? Brian Leiter thinks not. Listen to him in conversation with Nigel Warburton in this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast. Philosophy Bites is made in association with the Institute of Philosophy....
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Melissa Lane on Plato and Sustainability3 December 2011, 3:43 pm
What can Plato teach us about sustainability? According to Princeton's Melissa Lane, author of Eco-Republic, quite a lot. Melissa discusses this topic with Nigel Warburton in this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast. Philosophy Bites is made in association with the Institute of Philosophy....
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Tim Crane on Animal Minds20 November 2011, 10:25 pm
What sort of minds do other animals have? Tim Crane discusses this intriguing question with Nigel Warburton in this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast. Philosophy Bites is made in association with the Institute of Philosophy....
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Sean Kelly on Homer and Philosophy5 November 2011, 4:07 pm
Homer is a great poet, but is he relevant to philosopy? Harvard University's Sean Kelly believes that he is and that we can glean important insights from studying Homer's work, insights about what it is to be human that might otherwise be overlooked. Philosophy Bites is made in association with the Institute of Philosophy....
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Paul Boghossian on Moral Relativism23 October 2011, 5:41 pm
Are moral judgements simply relative to culture? Are moral relativists in the grip of a fundamental confusion, or is that just the view of a philosophical subculture? Paul Boghossian suggests that moral relativism is an untenable position in this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast. Philosophy Bites is made in association with the Institute of Philosophy. ...
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Jonathan Glover on Systems of Belief9 October 2011, 7:41 am
Beliefs are important. Wars are fought over conflicting belief systems. Philosophers ask 'What is it reasonable to believe?' Can philosophers, then, give us any insights into what is going on when belief systems clash? Jonathan Glover discusses this issue with Nigel Warburton in this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast. Philosophy Bites is made in association with the Institute of Philosophy...
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Updates15 February 2012, 4:17 pm
I’ve added new versions of three new papers to my website. They are: The Role of Naturalness in David Lewis’s Theory of Meaning. Induction and Supposition. The Temporal Generality Problem. (This supersedes A reductio for reliabilism.) There are also a couple of summer courses I’ve been asked to announce. Problems of the Self at CEU. [...]...
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Lewis on causation and biff11 January 2012, 6:47 pm
I’ve been reading Lewis’s late papers on causation, and I can’t figure out how to make consistent some of the things he says in ‘Void and Object’ and some of the things he says in ‘Causation as Influence’. Here is one of the objections to applying the Canberra plan to causation that he offers in [...]...
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Three Bits of News9 January 2012, 5:52 pm
The Annual Bellingham Summer Philosophy Conference (aka the greatest conference on the annual calendar) has been announced for 2012. The deadline for submissions to this year’s Formal Epistemology Workshop (which will be in Munich in early summer) is in a few days. I’ve been using, and loving, John MacFarlane’s excellent program Pandoc. It is a [...]...
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Oxford Studies in Metaphysics Prize19 December 2011, 4:55 pm
Sponsored by the Ammonius Foundation and administered by the editorial board of Oxford Studies in Metaphysics, the 2012 Younger Scholar Prize annual essay competition is open to scholars who are within ten years of receiving a Ph.D. or students who are currently enrolled in a graduate program. (Independent scholars should enquire of the editor to [...]...
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Where are the philosophical baby boomers?8 December 2011, 11:23 pm
Eric Schwitzgebel has a fascinating post about how little influence baby boomers have had in philosophy. He uses a nice objective measure; looking at which philosophers are most cited in the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. He finds that of the 25 most cited philosophers, 15 were born between 1931 and 1945, and just 2 were [...]...
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Games and Knowledge11 November 2011, 8:54 pm
I’ve been interested recently in defending a particular norm relating knowledge and decision problems. To set out the norm, it will be useful to have some terminology. A decision problem is a triple (S, A, U) consisting of a set of states, a set of actions, and a utility function that maps state-action pairs to [...]...
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Lecture Notes31 August 2011, 8:34 pm
I’ve created a lecture notes page on my webpage. On that page, I’ve posted the notes I’ll be using for my decision theory class this fall. Philosophy 424 – Logic of Decision Notes These notes are something of a merger of the game theory notes I used over the summer, with the decision theory notes [...]...
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Wolverine!15 August 2011, 4:42 am
Starting January 1, Ishani Maitra and I will be starting new positions in the University of Michigan philosophy department. I’m going to be the inaugural Marshall M. Weinberg Professor of Philosophy, which is an incredible honour. I’m really looking forward to being part of (another) great philosophy program. I’ve been incredibly impressed with the way [...]...
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Lecture Notes on Game Theory15 July 2011, 8:46 pm
Over the summer I did a short seminar series on game theory at Arché. I thought it would be worthwhile to post my notes from that seminar. The notes need some revising, particularly to take account of the points made in the previous post, but I hope that even in this form they’ll be of [...]...
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Game Theory as Epistemology15 July 2011, 8:12 pm
I taught a series of classes on game theory over the last few weeks at Arché. And one of the things that has always puzzled me about game theory is that it seems so hard to reduce orthodox views in game theory to orthodox views in decision theory. The puzzle is easy enough to state. [...]...
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Stereotypes about Philosophy18 February 2012, 4:30 pm
Please consider taking this 15 minute survey!...
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Online Consciousness Conference 201218 February 2012, 2:33 pm
Readers of the blog may be interested in a number of papers from this year's Online Consciousness Conference. In addition to this year's keynote on the The Biological Cost of Consciousness by Bernard Baars, also check Peter Carruthers, Logan Fletcher,......
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CFA: The Scope and Limits of Experimental Ethics16 February 2012, 2:49 pm
We are organizing a workshop on "The Scope and Limits of Experimental Ethics" in Konstanz, Germany, September 20-22, 2012. We welcome contributions from all disciplines as long as the problem under investigation is of philosophical relevance. Besides our focus on......
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Fellowships in Neuroscience and Society14 February 2012, 3:11 pm
The Penn Center for Neuroscience & Society will host 12 neuroscience postdocs and graduate students for seminars, discussions and a short-term project in neuroethics. I thought this may be of interest to some of the readers of this blog. Here's......
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The Manipulation Argument and the Deep Self9 February 2012, 11:58 pm
Compatibilist philosophers often suggest that you act freely whenever your actions stem in the right sort of way from your own psychological states. (For example, they may say that you act freely to the extent that you act on your......
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CFA: Moral Psychology and Poverty Alleviation1 February 2012, 4:30 pm
Matthew Lindauer, Gilad Tanay, Thomas Pogge, Joshua Knobe and I are organizing a conference on the topic of what motivates people to act on their moral duties to aid the global poor. Our hope is that the conference will focus......
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Factive Verbs and Protagonist Projection31 January 2012, 12:58 am
Throughout most of the 20th century, the medical community knew that large amounts of stress causes stomach ulcers—or at least they though they did. In the 80s Dr. Barry Marshall, convinced that the medical community had it all wrong, infected......
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Society for Philosophy of Agency22 January 2012, 12:44 pm
The new website for the recently formed Society for Philosophy of Agency is now up here. The Society is now accepting applications for membership. Membership is free and open to graduate students, professional philosophers, and researchers working on issues about......
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Doctoral or PostDoc position of interest19 January 2012, 2:33 pm
Dr. Niki Pfeifer (Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, LMU Munich) offers under the usual equal opportunity conditions one doctoral researcher position OR one early postdoctorial researcher position (i.e., if the PhD is obtained after January 1, 2011) to work in......
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CFP: Computational Models of Mindreading9 January 2012, 3:35 pm
Hi everyone, I wanted to distribute another CFP on behalf of some friends for a special issue that looks to be of interest to lots of folks in this group! Enjoy, Fiery ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Journal of COGNITIVE SYSTEMS RESEARCH Call......