recent posts
- Foucault, Hyppolite and Marx (part 4): Hyppolite’s Sins, Reconsidered
- Foucault, Hyppolite and Marx (part 3): Althusser attacks Hyppolite
- Foucault, Hyppolite and Marx (part 2): Hegel under Erasure
- Protecting Data: Regulation, Contract, or Privacy
- Foucault, Hyppolite and Marx (part 1): Have you had your Stalin today?
about
Month: October 2014
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By: Samir Chopra In writing about Brittany Maynard, the twenty-nine year old cancer patient who has scheduled herself for a physician-assisted suicide on November 1, Ross Douthat asks: Why, in a society where individualism seems to be carrying the day, is the right that Maynard intends to exercise still confined to just a handful of states? Why…
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It is well-attested that people are heavily biased when it comes to evaluating arguments and evidence. They tend to evaluate evidence and arguments that are in line with their beliefs more favorably, and tend to dismiss it when it isn't in line with their beliefs. For instance, Taber and Lodge (2006) found that people consistently…
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By: Samir Chopra A couple of decades ago, I strolled through Washington Square Park on a warm summer night, idly observing the usual hustle and bustle of students, tourists, drunks, buskers, hustlers, stand-up comedians, and sadly, folks selling oregano instead of good-to-honest weed. As I did so, I noticed a young man, holding up flyers…
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by Carolyn Dicey Jennings I note here the existence of the October Statement, which 111 philosophers have signed to demonstrate their resistance to all ranking systems. (I have not signed this statement. As I say here, I favor a user-created ranking system.) In addition, Brian Leiter released a list of those who will serve on…
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By Carolyn Dicey Jennings –out of 643 signatures* from philosophers at 290 departments, 33% are women (roughly 2 times the percentage of women who are full-time faculty in philosophy according to one source, and almost 1.5 times the "percentage of women on tenured/tenure-track appointments at Top-51 Doctoral Programs in Gourmet Report" according to another source). –for all of the…
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By: Samir Chopra In Sons and Lovers (1913), D. H. Lawrence directs many glances at the Derbyshire landscape, often through his characters' distinctive visions. Here is one, this time through Paul Morel: He was brooding now, staring out over the country from under sullen brows. The little, interesting diversity of shapes had vanished from the scene; all that remained was a…
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By Catarina Dutilh Novaes (Cross-posted at M-Phi) As most kids (I suspect), my daughters sometimes play ‘upside down world’, especially when I ask them something to which they should say ‘yes’, but instead they say ‘no’ and immediately regret it: ‘Upside down world!’ The upside down world game basically functions as a truth-value flipping operator: if…
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… here, have been approved. Some ended up in spam, some I lost track of in the flood of comments on other posts. Sorry about that! If you have submitted one and it's still not showing, please email me. I'm delighted that the discussion has been so fruitful! — Eric Schwitzgebel
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by Eric Schwitzgebel Enclose the sun inside a layered nest of thin spherical computers. Have the inmost sphere harvest the sun’s radiation to drive computational processes, emitting waste heat out its backside. Use this waste heat as the energy input for the computational processes of a second, larger and cooler sphere that encloses the first.…
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By: Samir Chopra Matt Osterman's Ghost from the Machine (2010)–originally titled and known internationally as Phasma Ex Machina–is touted by its marketing material as a 'supernatural thriller'. A low-budget indie, it uses a cast made up of genuine amateurs who sometimes look distinctly uncomfortable and self-conscious on camera, and wears its modest production values on its sleeve. The story sounds…
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