For the past few years, Leiter has put up a post so people can announce new tenure-track hires in the comments thread. It’s kind of interesting to see who hires who. Here’s the permanent link. I imagine that most people who read this also read Leiter, but just in case you haven’t seen it yet - ...
This starts off as what purports to be a discussion of the misuse of the expression “begging the question”… Half way through the article, it stops being serious and gets pretty funny. But it’s worth noting that before the article goes humorous, the author gives an example of a valid modus tollens as begging the question. ...
Colleges are going to have to start screening their networks to try and curb illegal file sharing and downloading. I don’t know much about the logistics of Information Technology Departments on a college campus, but this seems like it’s one more headache for our already overburdened IT departments. IT people are busy enough, and now ...
A lot of materialists will admit that there are some kinds of entities that are a little more difficult to make sense of within a materialist ontology. For example - propositions. Here’s an argument for immaterialism that I encountered that seems to be aimed at materialists who would accept the existence of propositions. I’ve encountered this ...
A former student pointed this blog out. It’s great…especially for those of us who like to encourage students to be mindful of use-mention confusion. (hat-tip: Justin - check his blog out here. It’s called “Broadly Construed”) ...
Great! I had a perfectly good example involving amoral judgements that almost ALL of my students could relate to - downloading music without paying for it. When we get to ethics in my intro classes, I like to briefly discuss the following version of non-cognitivism. NG1 - All moral judgements are merely expressions of a ...
Don’t forget the deadline for submissions for the Young Philosophers Podcast Lecture series is just 3 DAYS AWAY!Check the website for details - www.youngphilosophers.org ...
One possible skeptical scenario is Russell’s 5 minute hypothesis. This is from The Analysis of Mind… In investigating memory-beliefs, there are certain points which must be borne in mind. In the first place, everything constituting a memory-belief is happening now, not in that past time to which the belief is said to refer. It is not ...
My semester is going to be awesome! We started a faculty paper workshop last semester. We met every other week at the White Inn. I got great feedback on two works in progress. It was awesome, and we’re doing it again this semester. I’m up this Friday. I’m commenting on papers at the Central and the Pacific ...
Every now and then there’s a study that is alleged to confirm the hypothesis that we are irrational. This should be of interest to philosophers who work in decision theory or epistemology. Here’s another one that as discussed in the LA Times. However, I don’t see how this shows that people are generally irrational. Here’s a ...