Philosophy in the News
- Fairchild on Metaphysics and More
An interview with philosophy PhD candidate, Maegan Fairchild.
- Know Thyself (but Don’t Stop There!)
A philosopher and a theoretical psychologist discuss how through shared experience we come to know others and ourselves (or not).
- Do Robots Dream of Conscious Thought?
A convincing artificially intelligent dog might sniff, bark, and roll around—but before we build a successful K-9, we might need to re-evaluate intention and volition as properties of the human mind. And to fathom those we probably need to better understand our dreams. We present two thinkers coming at the consciousness question in their own unique way. (audio)
- Do Letters Show You How They Sound?
A remarkable study recently documented evidence of iconicity in human writing systems. Iconicity is when the signal — words or signs — shows you what it stands for. Turning conventional wisdom on its head, the study suggests that the letters of your alphabet "look like" how they sound. Can this really be happening?
- Night of the Living Philosophy!
It walks again by night!!! A Night of Philosophy and Ideas is an annual all-night 12-hour marathon of philosophical debate, performances, screenings, readings and music. Video of this year's event — which was held in Broooklyn (1/17-1/28) — are available online.
- Brain Scanning & Criminal Justice
An interview with Adina Roskies.
- Extra Credit Catastrophe
Philosopher David Morrow wanted his students to grapple with the global challenge of mitigating climate change in a way that had some teeth to it. So, they played a game. He called it "Extra Credit Catastrophe"...
- Blame and Forgiveness
We have a lot of conflicting feelings about blame. When someone does something bad, we feel a strong urge to blame them, and when it all goes down as intended, the person deserves the blame, and they learn that what they did was wrong, we intuitively feel that justice has been done. On the other hand, we also have the sense that blaming can be a corrosive or self-destructive activity–a feeling that is manifested in common expressions like ‘let's not play the blame game.' So what's the deal? Philosopher Miranda Fricker explains. (audio)
- Data Ethics for Healthcare’s Wayward Obsession
Data ethics for healthcare is obsessed with managing risk. It should pay much more attention to the social value of research
- Data Ethics Makes My Brain Hurt
The issues and questions are that big.
- The Moral Value of Wilderness
Imagine being one of the last few people alive. Would that make it ok to destroy the natural world? This thought experiment reveals the true value of nature, beyond the benefits to humans.
- Daring to Study Spinoza
An interview with Rachel Kadish whose most recent novel, The Weight of Ink, is about a female philosopher in the 17th century for whom studying the likes of Spinoza, Hobbes and Descartes is fraught with genuine peril.
- The Value of Thought Experiments
In moral philosophy the humble thought experiment does some heavy lifting in sorting ethical problems—though not always with certainty, as the maddening trolley problem so poignantly illustrates. And there's yet another order of complexity in the world of science. For scientists there is only the one method: push, poke, test, and observe. It's called Empiricism and it seems to work. However, some philosophers hold firmly to the idea that you can be in your armchair and think your way from there. (audio)
- Profile of Delia Graff Fara
A profile piece honoring the life of philosopher Delia Graff Fara.
- Fine-tuning
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has a new entry on "fine-tuning" — a term used to characterize sensitive dependences of facts or properties on the values of certain parameters. Technological devices are paradigmatic examples of fine-tuning. But philosophical debates about “fine-tuning” are typically about the universe's fine-tuning for life: the fact that the universe is able to support life depends delicately on various of its fundamental characteristics. Various reactions to the universe's fine-tuning for life have been proposed: that it is a lucky coincidence which we have to accept as a primitive given; that it will be avoided by future best theories of fundamental physics; that the universe was created by some divine designer who established life-friendly conditions; and that fine-tuning for life indicates the existence of multiple other universes with conditions very different from those in our own universe.
- $75 Million Donation for Philosophy
A prominent Wall Street investor, Bill Miller, is donating $75 million to the philosophy program at Johns Hopkins University. Miller attributes much of his business success to the analytical training and habits of the mind that he developed as a graduate student in the program. The gift is the largest by far to a philosophy department anywhere in the world.
- Is Maximizing Well-being Really a Thing?
Philosopher Steven M. Cahn takes issue with this idea in philosophy.
- Philosophy of Cosmology
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has a new entry on the philosophy of cosmology. As recently as 1960, cosmology was widely regarded as a branch of philosophy. It has transitioned to an extremely active area of mainstream physics and astronomy, particularly due to the application to the early universe of atomic and nuclear physics, on the one hand, and to a flood of data coming in from telescopes operating across the entire electromagnetic spectrum on the other. However, there are two main issues that make the philosophy of cosmology unlike that of any other science.
- Defying Gravity
If anti-gravity existed, the book that explained it would be impossible to put down. Philosopher Valia Allori on the philosophy, history and dark side gravity.
- Philosophy, One TV Episode at a Time
Ethics Matters is a new television philosophy series that addresses philosophical issues including freedom of expression, ethical consumption, rights, animals, and the environment.