Daily Nous

Tom Rockmore, professor emeritus of philosophy at Peking University and distinguished professor emeritus at Duquesne University, has died. (The following memorial notice was written by Gabriel Gottlieb.) Tom Rockmore, professor emeritus at Peking University, passed away on August 6th. He was known for his work on German Idealism, where he emphasized its constructivist methods in epistemology. Tom’s dissertation, Man as Activity in Fichte and Marx, defended in 1973 at Vanderbilt University, was

“State, provincial, and national policymakers in Canada, the UK, and US have pursued controversial proposals regulating access to gender affirming care, public bathrooms, and competitive sports… Many trans and nonbinary philosophers find themselves forced to make difficult decisions about where to apply for graduate school or jobs, without reliable information about conditions on the ground.” Obtaining information about that is one of the aims of the “Academic Philosophy

Over a decade ago, Jennifer Whiting (Pittsburgh) asked us to seriously consider an idea of Annette Baier‘s regarding tenure and promotion decisions. Recent technological developments speak in favor of revisiting it. Initially, Baier’s proposal was meant to address how pregnancy and childcare may interfere with or delay the research productivity of women, and hence unfairly affect tenure decisions. Baier put the proposal this way: “One possibility, perhaps the best solution, wo

Recent additions to the Heap of Links… A free online pamphlet with 25 pieces of valuable advice for your college students — “The College Success Rulebook” by Nathan Nobis “When I asked [the students] how they were managing to keep up with the brisk pace of the reading assignments, one of them candidly said, ‘Well, it really helps that you’re so into it.’” — Matt Dinan on the importance of the teacher’s passion “I don’t mean to suggest that Wilson is wr

“Reading philosophy is valuable, but students can struggle to keep track of the reasoning. That’s why displaying the map of a philosophical argument can make the subject so much more accessible—especially to students new to the discipline.” Many philosophy instructors find argument-mapping an effective way of teaching reasoning. If you’re interested in learning more about it, and trying out some software that you and students can use to map arguments, read the following g

Over the past day or so, you may have noticed that Daily Nous was down quite a bit, and sluggish when you could access it. It turn out there were over 127 million requests (web communications) initiated with Daily Nous over the past 24 hours or so. That is 135 times the normal amount. According to my IT guy, the best explanation for this is that there was a DDOS attack on Daily Nous. Why? Why now? I have no idea.   It took a little while to diagnose and address the issue. In the course of doing

David Charles, professor emeritus of philosophy at Yale University, has died. Professor Charles was well-known for his work in ancient philosophy, and especially on Aristotle. He is the author of The Undivided Self (2021), Aristotle on Meaning and Essence (2000), Aristotle’s Philosophy of Action (1984), among other works, which you can learn more about here. Professor Charles joined the faculty at Yale in 2014. Before that, he was at the University of Oxford. After retiring from Yale he was a v

Philosophy & Public Affairs recently—and knowingly—published an article written mostly by Claude, Anthropic’s LLM. The article’s thesis was supplied by Simon Goldstein, associate professor of philosophy at the University of Hong Kong, who, he says, “worked with Claude the way a heavy-handed supervisor writes with a PhD student in some fields.” Professor Goldstein edited some of Claude’s writing, focused the topic, developed some of the article’

The University of Michigan’s College of Literature, Science and the Arts is trying out something new this coming term: a dual grading system in which professors give students ordinary letter grades based on the quality of their work, but what shows up on the student’s transcript is either a “pass” or “no credit”. The initiative applies just to first-semester students. The idea, it seems, is to bring about the benefits of both graded and ungraded systems, with

Earlier this summer, the administration of the University of Dundee announced a plan to cut costs by, among other things, no longer offering students the option of majoring in philosophy. See this previous post. A petition was launched in protest of the plan. Oisín Keohane, lecturer in philosophy at Dundee, says that over 5,300 have signed the petition, and that the effort has a new centralized website. He writes: There is now a website for the campaign to save Philosophy at Dundee: savedundee

The start of the school year is creeping up on us but it is still summer. If you can, find some time to relax in the sun, perhaps by a pool or ocean, enjoy a tropical drink, and enjoy the following guest post. It’s by Nick Laskowski (University of Maryland), who provides us with a seasonal example of the time-honored tradition of philosophers overthinking song lyrics. Yes I Like Piña Coladas: On Haecceities and the Normativity of Love by Nick Laskowski When I received Justin’s invi

Cain Samuel Todd, senior lecturer in philosophy at Lancaster University, has died. Dr. Todd was known for his work in aesthetics and the philosophy of mind, with a keen interest in issues surrounding values and our access to them. He is the author of The Philosophy of Wine: A Case of Truth, Beauty and Intoxication (2010) and papers including “Imaginability, morality, and fictional truth: Dissolving the puzzle of ‘imaginative resistance” (2009), “Attending Emotionally to Fiction” (2012), “

Do you take time to teach your lower level students basic student skills? How do you do it? Detail of Sculpture by Tatsuya Tanaka Increasingly, I’ve had students who don’t seem to know how to take notes during class. Or know that they should take notes. This is one of several abilities college professors tend to assume their students will have been habituated into by the time they get to us, but perhaps such assumptions are based on outdated views of pre-college pedagogy and an under

Hi folks. I recently had to take steps to block a commenter, and it struck me that it might be a good idea to point out a few things about commenting here at Daily Nous. Sculptures by Fan Yanting First, if you’ve never done so, or if it has been a while, please take a moment to read the comments policy. Thanks. What follows are some points I’d like to emphasize, some (but not all) of which are in the policy. Names: 1. Pick a name to comment with and use it consistently (preferably yo

Some philosophy professors, on top of all the work they do for the universities at which they’re employed, write public philosophy, and sometimes such writing is on the Substack platform, with some or all of what they write available only to paid subscribers. Is there anything wrong with this? Walter Veit (Reading) thinks there is something wrong with it, and makes his case here. Richard Chappell (Miami) responds here, arguing that we shouldn’t criticize philosophers for paywalling t

Charlie Kurth, currently Professor of Philosophy at Clemson University, will be moving to the University of Georgia. Professor Kurth is known for his work in ethics, philosophy of psychology, and philosophy of mind. He is the author of The Anxious Mind: An Investigation into the Varieties & Virtues of Anxiety (MIT, 2018) and Emotion (Routledge, 2022) as well as many other works. For more information on his publications, see here. He will be taking up his new position at UGA as Professor of

Anthony Kenny, professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of Oxford, well-known for his work on the philosophy of mind and history of philosophy, has died. Professor Kenny wrote widely on the philosophy of mind, history of philosophy, and philosophy of religion. He is especially recognized for his work on Wittgenstein, Thomas Aquinas, and Descartes, including his critique of Cartesian dualism. Professor Kenny is the author of numerous articles and books. Some of his more well-known boo

Texas A&M is being sued by a group of professors and the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas over a policy that led to, among other things, a professor being banned from teaching Plato’s Symposium, the cancellation of an “Ethics and Public Policy” course, and the closure of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program. The policy, instituted by the university’s Board of Regents in the fall of 2025, prohibits courses from “advocating race or gender ideology, or t

New links… To say that something is indescribable is to describe it. What should we think about this “paradox of ineffability”? — best to dissolve it, argues Peter van Elswyk “Moving through time also means moving through space” — this makes time travel “a very bad idea”, explains Douglas Giles (via the Browser) Two new sermons by St Augustine discovered — about the Old Testament story of the Witch of Endor and its implications “The highbrow has its defender

In 2022, Stephen Kershnar, distinguished teaching professor of philosophy at SUNY Fredonia, was told by his university president, Stephen H. Kolison, Jr.,  that he was no longer allowed to be on campus or have any contact with anyone on campus except a few administrators and university police. Why? It seems to have been the initially knee-jerk reaction of a university president, apparently unconcerned with academic freedom and freedom of speech, to a viral social media post from a conservative a