Amia Srinivasan’s specialty, it seems to me, is making sense of moral ambivalence: detecting, dissecting, and sometimes defending its reasonability, even in the face of unavoidable and urgent decisions. [“Knot” by Anni Albers] In a new piece at the London Review of Books, she turns her attention to the tangle of issues surrounding student protests, free speech, and academic freedom. It begins with the matter of signing open letters: An open letter​ is an unloved thing. Written by committee and in haste, it is a monument to compromise: a minimal statement to which all signatories can agr ..read more

Neil Van Leeuwen, currently associate professor of philosophy at Georgia State University, will be moving to Florida State University, where he will be professor of philosophy. Professor Van Leeuwen works mainly in philosophy of mind and psychology, particularly on belief, self-deception, imagination, and pretending. He is the author of Religion as Make-Believe: A Theory of Belief, Imagination, and Group Identity (2023). You can learn more about his work here. He takes up his new position at Florida State in August 2024. (via Randolph Clarke) The post Van Leeuwen from Georgia State to Florida ..read more

New links… Discussion welcome. “One of the most consequential letters of 20th-century mathematics” was from mathematician André Weil to his sister, Simone — it concerned the idea of a “Rosetta Stone” for mathematics “My focus is on the reliability of scientific knowledge” — Michela Massimi (Edinburgh) gives the 2024 Lakatos Award Lecture, “What is Perspectival Realism?” “Our perpetual overwork is a labor issue. Fewer and fewer faculty members are holding up the tremendous edifice of service work that keeps academia up” — Helen de Cruz (SLU) on academia’s “collective labor issu ..read more

Andrew Y. Lee, assistant professor at the University of Toronto, is the winner of the 2024 Sanders Prize in Metaphysics. – Professor Lee was awarded the prize for  “A Puzzle About Sums“. Here’s the abstract of the paper: A famous mathematical theorem says that the sum of an infinite series of numbers can depend on the order in which those numbers occur. Suppose we interpret the numbers in such a series as representing instances of some physical quantity, such as the weights of a collection of items. The mathematics seems to lead to the result that the weight of a collection of items can ..read more

“It is important to insist that, contrary to the Chicago Principles, deliberation and protest are fundamental forms of free expression.” That’s Anton Ford, associate professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago, writing at The Chronicle of Higher Education, about the protests, campus speech, and the Chicago Principles. [photo of sculpture by Do Ho Suh] He writes: The University of Chicago, where I teach philosophy, presents itself as a champion of the freedom of expression. By now, more than 90 universities have adopted its framework for thinking about campus politics and speech ..read more

Nandi Theunissen, currently associate professor of philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh, will be moving to Rice University, where she will be associate professor of philosophy. Professor Theunissen works in moral philosophy, particularly on questions of value, well-being, and Kant’s moral philosophy. She is the author of, among other things, The Value of Humanity (2020). You can learn more about her research and writing here and here. She takes up her new position at Rice in the fall of 2024.   The post Theunissen from Pittsburgh to Rice first appeared on Daily Nous ..read more

Anna B. Stilz, professor in the Department of Politics and the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University, will be moving to the University of California, Berkeley, where she will professor in the Department of Political Science, with a courtesy appointment in the Department of Philosophy. Professor Stilz works on questions of political membership, authority and political obligation, nationalism and self-determination, rights to land and territory, and collective agency. She is the author of, among other things, Liberal Loyalty: Freedom, Obligation, and the State (20 ..read more

Gabriella LaRose is interviewed by Céline Leboeuf. Why Philosophy? Gabriella LaRose interviewed by Celine Leboeuf What is philosophy to you? When I first started studying philosophy, I was met at every turn with some of the most confident folks I had ever encountered. Classes were brimming with students who passionately (and loudly!) argued with tenured professors. Early on, I tried to emulate this because I thought that philosophy was constituted by the same demonstrations of raw intelligence I saw at every turn. I mean, everyone I knew who was successful in philosophy exhibited the same unm ..read more

– Mind Chunks by Pete Mandik Other Daily Nous Philosophy Comics / More Info About DN Comics Pete Mandik on Twitter (X) / Pete Mandik on Bluesky  The post Mind Chunks first appeared on Daily Nous ..read more

We have students read books and articles, write essays, answer test questions, and make presentations. These all mainly involve words. Is it worth thinking about how to teach philosophy in ways that don’t involve words? [image via Handling Ideas] Martin Lenz (Groningen) thinks so. In a post at his blog, Handling Ideas, he says, the mere attempt to transform written thoughts into images or to combine these two media can afford a more holistic understanding of various issues… Every now and then I have been trying to encourage students to make use of drawings, tables, graphs ..read more