Andrew Cullison

It should come as no surprise to you guys that I love the Android OS. It should also come as no surprise that I think the Android OS has enormous potential benefits/applications for academics.

I am now proud to introduce Android for Academics. The purpose of the site is two-fold. First, I’m working with an excellent programmer, Jon Nalewajek, and with his help you’re going to see some very useful apps for academics coming to Android devices. We’ve even released our first app for academics - Grade Ticker.

Second, it will be a place to post about Android news/tips/tricks that we think will be useful for academics with Android powered devices.

Check out the site here.

Filed under: android, educational technology, google phone by Andrew Cullison
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I was reading some of the literature on qualia recently, and I was struck by the use of the term qualia freak. Qualia Freak is a label for someone who endorses the view that phenomenal experiences cannot be individuated by what they represent. Qualia freaks believe that experiences must be individuated by some intrinsic feature of that experience.

That’s a pretty funny label, but it’s also pretty clearly an attempt to poke fun at or tease proponents of such a view. So I’m trying to come up with labels for theories in philosophy that are abusive.  Perhaps the term abusive is a bit harsh, but you get the idea. Perhaps we should call these labels teasing labels. Basically, I’m looking for labels that seem like they are introduced with a partial intention to tease proponents of the view.

Here are some that I can come up with.

Dogmatist
Someone who endorses a Chisholmian-esque epistemic principle like “If it appears to S that P (and S has no defeaters), then S is justified in believing P”

Ostrich Nominalism
A version of nominalism about properties that doesn’t address questions that many think motivate postulating the existence of abstract universals (e.g. questions about what grounds similarity relations)

Magical Realism
This is a realist view about possible worlds that denies that possible worlds are ersatz linguistic entities and denies that they are concrete worlds like our own.

Qualia Freaks
People who think that phenomenal experiences are individuated by some intrinsic feature of the experience.

Non-serious Presentism
Non-serious presentists defend against the cross-temporal relations objection to presentism by holding that you can stand in relations to things that don’t exist.

I have some thoughts about what unifies this phenomenon in contemporary philosophy, but before I go into details - I’m curious about how wide spread this is.

It’s time for a bleg: Can you add to this list? Can you come up with more popular, well-known labels for philosophical theories that seem to be introduced with a (perhaps very small) intent to mock or tease.

Filed under: epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy by Andrew Cullison
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I’m writing this blog post by talking into my phone. That’s because android phones recently updated with new firmware. The keyboard on the new firmware includes a speech to text option, and it is awesome.

There are so many ways that this speech to text function would make an academics life easier.

For example i already have students submit papers using google documents. Once android phones have the option of editing and adding comments to google documents, I’ll be able to write comments on students papers by reading the paper on my phone and adding comments by talking.

That’s just one example, but I hope it’s clear that speech to text will dramatically change the ways in which smartphones can increase academic productivity.

Filed under: android, educational technology by Andrew Cullison
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My paper, “Two Solutions to the Problem of Divine Hiddenness,” just came out in American Philosophical Quarterly today. I just received my copy of the issue in the mail. Here’s a link to the issue on their website. If you don’t have access to APQ, here’s a link to the penultimate draft.

Filed under: philosophy of religion by Andrew Cullison
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I’m giving a talk at Northwestern today called “Descriptivism Meets Gettier” as part of their Epistemology Brown Bag Lecture Series.

I’ll post a draft of the paper later (I’ll likely want to make changes after the talk), but here’s the basic idea.

I think Descriptivism (about semantic content) is committed to certain speakers having knowledge in cases where intuitively they do not because they are in a Gettier case (even in conjunction with most plausible post-Gettier attempts to analyze knowledge)

Descriptivism also has the reverse problem. I argue that there are possible cases where speakers obviously know a certain proposition, but Descriptivists are committed to saying they lack knowledge because speakers are Gettiered with respect to the relevant descriptive proposition.

(Posted from my Android phone)

Filed under: epistemology, philosophy of language by Andrew Cullison
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Here’s the Quick Tip

1. Tell your students to make sure they can edit the file in Google Docs before sharing (especially if they’re uploading .wps and .doc files).
2. Remind them to leave the “Convert to Google Docs format” option checked when uploading.
3. Remind them to leave the “To Edit” option checked when sharing.

Here’s the explanation why (more…)

Filed under: educational technology, teaching by Andrew Cullison
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Dear Afraid-To-Major-In-Philosophy,

I saw today that someone searched “afraid to major in philosophy” and found my site. I can only assume it was you. I hope you found my Why Major in Philosophy Page, but I thought I’d post the link here just in case.

Sincerely,

Andy

p.s. Go for it

Filed under: teaching by Andrew Cullison
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A while back I outlined 10 reasons to have students submit papers using Google Docs. Now that I’ve used Google Docs for two terms, I have some tips and suggestions to make using Google Docs easier on you and, generally, more awesome. (more…)

Filed under: educational technology, teaching by Andrew Cullison
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I’m now a contributor at AndroidGuys.

Android Guys has been one of my favorite places to get Android related news since the first Android phone launched, and so I’m pretty excited to be able to help these guys out.

You can check out my first post here..

It’s a video review/demo of Scan2pdf Mobile. Here’s the video.

Filed under: android, educational technology, google phone, open source, research tools, teaching by Andrew Cullison
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Lewis Powell made this, and you all owe him your respect, admiration, gratitude, and praise. We are all indebted to him for this awesome-ness.

Filed under: fun by Andrew Cullison
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