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Philosophy in the News

Tripping Over the Number 4

What a trip! We all use numbers every day of our lives, and most of us fail to appreciate how mysterious they are. What exactly is a number? You can’t trip over the number 4, it has no physical properties, so in what sense can it be said to exist? If it’s just a symbolic representation, then why are numbers and other mathematical objects so effective in the real world – in solving scientific problems, in helping cicadas to evade predators, and so on? [audio] @ Philosopher’s Zone

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What Is Harming?

“What is Harming?” Molly Gardner (UF). In /Principles and Persons: The Legacy of Derek Parfit,/ Oxford University Press. (Typescript downloadable @ PhilPapers)

A complete theory of harming should tell tells us what it is I interfere with when I harm you, and also ought to tells us how the harm to you is related to my action. I detail an account accoding to which harming is causally interferring in a certain way with someone’s well-being. A complete theory of harming can help us to answer questions about whether we can harm people with speech, whether we can harm the dead, and how it is possible to harm future generations.

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Against Persuasion

Everyone loves their own wisdom. What is hard is to love the wisdom one does not have. Philosopher Agnes Callard uses the example of Socrates to discuss the challenging interplay of wisdom and persuasion. @ Boston Review

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Getting What You Want

Getting what you want. Lyndal Grant (UF) & Milo Phillips-Brown. Philosophical Studies 177 (7):1791-1810 (2020). @ Philosophical Studies

It is commonly accepted that if an agent wants p, they have a desire that is satisfied when p obtains. We argue that this principle is false. For example, Millie wants to drink milk but does not have a desire that is satisfied when she drinks spoiled milk. Our desires are ways-specific and this is grounded in the fact that desires are dispositional.

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On Ibn Rushd (aka Averroes)

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has a new entry on /Ibn Rushd/. Ibn Rushd — whose name was commonly Latinized as ‘Averroes’ in earlier times — was an Andalusian philosopher (1126–1198) is one of the great figures of philosophy within the Muslim contexts, and a foundational source for post-classical European thought. Ibn Rushd’s held that philosophy is capable of demonstrative certainty in many domains, that Aristotlean thought would be a central guide in this, and that philosophy should play a central role within religious inquiry. @ Stanford Ency of Philosophy

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On Self-Defense

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has a new entry on the ethics of /self-defense/. Killing and harming others are paradigmatic wrongs. And yet, with the exception of strict pacifists, there is broad consensus in morality and law that defensive harm is sometimes permissible in cases of self-defense. However, it is surprisingly difficult to explain the grounds and limits of this permission. @ Stanford Ency of Philosophy

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Eating Animals for Goodness Sake

Philosopher Christoper Bobier argues in a recent journal article that “the very virtues thought to motivate “virtuous modest veganism”—compassion, temperance, and justice—motivate the virtuous person to consume some animals.” (“What Would the Virtuous Person Eat? The Case for Virtuous Omnivorism”, /Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics/ 34, 2021) [Also see popular coverage of this at Big Think. @ Springer

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Habits Are Us!!

Our habits illuminate who we really are in so many ways. Philosophers have looked at habits as ways of contemplating who we are, what it means to have faith, and why our daily routines reveal something about the world at large. In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle uses the terms hexis and ethos – both translated today as ‘habit’ – to study stable qualities in people and things, especially regarding their morals and intellect. @ Big Think

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Finding the Human in the Humean

Scottish philosopher David Hume was an amiable 18th century gentleman – cultured, generous, well liked by all who knew him. And yet he’s become something of a “thinker’s thinker”, hugely admired by academic philosophers, but never quite managing to fire the public imagination or attain the mythic status of a Socrates or a Nietzsche. Philosopher Julian Baggini believes it’s time to embrace Hume as a philosopher who can teach us how to live. [audio] @ Philosopher’s Zone

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On Inhumanity

Our capacity to do terrible things to each other seems boundless. But we’d find it a lot more difficult without recourse to a common conceptual trick: dehumanisation. Stripping others of their humanity is an essential step in the process of treating them like monsters — but how exactly do we do it? What stops us from doing it routinely? And if the category of “human” is a social construct — able to be granted or removed at will — what does that mean for the notion of human rights? [audio] @ Philosopher’s Zone

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Dan Dennett, Brain Whisperer

Profile piece and interview with philosophy Dan Dennett. “Learning depends on being able to extract information from your past and apply it in the future. All of life is a matter of exploiting the past to anticipate the present or the future.” [text & video] @ Tufts Now

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Protagoras and the Measure of All Things

The /Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy/ has a new entry on /Protagoras/. Protagoras (490–420 BCE ca) was one of the most important sophists and exerted considerable influence in fifth-century intellectual debates… Some of his views raised important philosophical problems, which were taken up by Plato, Aristotle, and many other philosophers. @ Stanford Ency of Philosophy

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Monumental Ethics

Philosopher Travis Timmerman (recently seen on ABC News and cited in the Washington Post) discusses recent calls for changes in sites and parks named after a broad range of historical figures. @ Seton Hall University

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Reframing Covid-19 Beyond the Medical

When we think about COVID-19 as a medical issue first and foremost, what are we missing? This week we explore the ways in which legal, economic, cultural and ethical perspectives on COVID-19 could be just as important as the medical – and could be even more helpful in getting us to the point where we’re less vulnerable to pandemics in general. [audio] @ Philosopher’s Zone

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