Daily Nous

Economist Alex Tabarrok (GMU) recently wrote of “ideas behind their time”. He explains: We are all familiar with ideas said to be ahead of their time, Babbage’s analytical engine and da Vinci’s helicopter are classic examples. We are also familiar with ideas “of their time,” ideas that were “in the air” and thus were often simultaneously discovered such as the telephone, calculus, evolution, and color photography. What is less commented on is the third possibility, ideas that could

Philosopher David Boonin (University of Colorado Boulder) is inviting other Jewish philosophers to contribute to a collection of writings he’s putting together. [The seder dinner scene from “Crimes and Misdemeanors” (1989)]The idea is to ask philosophers who are Jewish, regardless of whether they consider themselves practicing or observant Jews, to reflect on the ways their Jewish background may have influenced their lives as philosophers. Professor Boonin writes: Many years ago, I w

The University at Buffalo Department of Philosophy is launching what will be the first PhD program in applied ontology. . [Acid Dyes for Felt Pile, Base Colors, Société Anonyme des Matières Colorantes et Produits Chimiques de Saint-Denis]It will be a fully online, asynchronous program, and it will enroll students starting this fall. A press release from the University contextualizes applied ontology in terms of its importance for the development and use of artificial intelligence: How artificial

The latest links… A tendency to move from “disruptive innovation” to “novelty through recombining existing insights into new connective ideas” — a study of work by millions of scientists over six decades on the relationship between researcher age and creativity “If you can… have philosophy and creativity and, let’s say, moral goodness penetrate every aspect of your life, then yeah, that seems an ideal” — an interview with Mark Anderson All about physicalism — a document

Administrators at the University of Hertfordshire are eliminating not just philosophy (as reported last week) from the school, but also undergraduate programs in English Language and Linguistics, English Literature, Creative Writing, and History. The reason given for these cuts is that the programmes are ‘no longer financially viable’. We have been given no other information about the courses, redundancies, or our futures at the University, even though we have requested it. These decisions have

Why should a department hire some fresh PhD when it could instead hire Derek Parfit, Daniel Dennett, Judy Thomson, Hilary Putnam, Ruth Barcan Marcus, or David Lewis? You might say: “How could a department hire these people? They’re dead!” True. But it is only a matter of time before AI-based “replicas” of them exist. Imagine a sophisticated, well-trained language model paired with some video or holographic technology, and you get the idea. Instead of hiring a person

A federal court judge ruled today that Texas State University must reinstate philosopher Idris Robinson, whom the university fired from his assistant professorship over a talk he gave about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Robinson had sued the university in March. A press release from Texas State Employees Union CWA Local 6186 states: U.S. District Court Judge Alan Albright granted a preliminary injunction ordering Texas State University to reinstate Dr. Robinson with pay and university affil

The number of students earning an undergraduate degree in philosophy in the United States declined for the third year in a row. According to new data from Humanities Indicators, a project of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, US universities and colleges issued 5,763 bachelor’s degrees in philosophy in 2024, compared with 5,998 in 2023, 6380 in 2022, and 6,757 in 2021. [graph from Humanities Indicators. Original interactive version here.]Though the changes have been small from ye

Alex Guerrero, professor of philosophy at Rutgers University, received an unusual email the other day. It was from the American Advanced Educational Association (AAEA), and it concerned an “opportunity to collaborate… in Ph.D. recruitment.” They write: Here is how our process typically works: We pre-screen prospective students based on your specified criteria. We send you the candidate’s CV for your consideration. If you’re interested, we’ll arrange an in

This is the weekly report on new and revised entries at online philosophy resources, new reviews of philosophy books, new podcast episodes, recently published open access philosophy books, and more. (If we missed anything, please let us know.) SEP New:   ∅ Revised: Géraud de Cordemoy by Fred Ablondi. 18th Century German Aesthetics by Paul Guyer. Normative Economics and Economic Justice by Marc Fleurbaey. Idealism by Paul Guyer and Rolf-Peter Horstmann. IEP ∅ 1000-Word Philosophy ∅ BJPS Short

If you open up a philosophy article or chapter on your computer, the software you’re using, now updated with various AI features, may present you with something like the following message: “This looks like a long article. Would you like me to summarize it for you?” You may be unlikely to use this feature. You’re skilled at reading philosophy and you understand the value of reading through it yourself. But what about other people? What about your students? What can we tell

In a couple of years, students at the University of Hertfordshire will be unable to take a philosophy course there. The administration has announced a decision to eliminate the whole of the undergraduate philosophy program, according to several sources. The decision cuts not just the philosophy degree program, but, eventually, all philosophy classes. A “teach-out agreement” will be worked out for existing philosophy students, and students who recently signed up to study philosophy in

Robert F. Ladenson, professor emeritus of philosophy at Illinois Institute of Technology and founder of the Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl, has died. (The following obituary is via Wayne Yuen.) Robert Ladenson (1943-2026) Robert F. Ladenson, the founder of the Ethics Bowl, philosopher and legal scholar, passed away on May 3, 2026 in Los Angeles.  He dedicated his career to exploring the intersection of law, ethics, and education, and leaves behind a legacy that transformed competitive debate

Emily Rolfe Grosholz, professor emerita of philosophy, English, and African American studies at Penn State, has died. Professor Grosholz‘s philosophical work ranged across topics in philosophy of math, philosophy of science, logic, and the history of modern philosophy. She is the author of Starry Reckoning: Reference and Analysis in Mathematics and Cosmology (2016), Representation and Productive Ambiguity in Mathematics and the Sciences (2007), Cartesian Method and the Problem of Reductio

A new website describes and tracks the interconnections between 222 “theories” of consciousness across various disciplines. “The Map of Consciousness” was developed by Ricardo Forcano, the chief technology and operations officer at Creditas, an investment group, along with Claude Cowork, an AI “agent”. The site lists the various theories, arguments, and ideas, and clicking on any one of them brings up a page that describes the theory, identifies its advocates,

Christy Mag Uidhir will be giving up his position as professor of philosophy at the University of Houston. Readers may recall that the administration at the University of Houston had adopted the “indoctrination narrative”, a pretext for violating the academic freedom of professors to teach what and how they judge they ought to. Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, Daniel P. O’Connor, asked all faculty in the college to complete a form declaring that they’re not in

Some philosophy professors, realizing that many of their students are unfamiliar with writing philosophy papers, provide them with “how-to” guides to the task. [Originally posted on January 15, 2019. Reposted by reader request.] I thought it might be useful to collect examples of these. If you know of any already online, please mention them in the comments and include links. If you have a PDF of one that isn’t online that you’d like to share, you can email it to me and

This is the weekly report on new and revised entries at online philosophy resources, new reviews of philosophy books, new podcast episodes, recently published open access philosophy books, and more. (If we missed anything, please let us know.) SEP New: Types and Tokens by David Liebesman. Revised: Friedrich Albert Lange by Nadeem J. Z. Hussain, Lydia Patton, and Elisabeth Widmer. Russell’s Moral Philosophy by Charles Pigden. Virtue Ethics by Rosalind Hursthouse and Glen Pettigrove. Africana

Interesting stuff elsewhere… “There are lots of decisions that, in an ideal world, would be made in a flexible, holistic, discretionary way, but which cannot be made that way by institutions that have lost the public’s trust” — Daniel Greco on public trust in higher education The Splintered Mind turns 20 — Eric Schwitzgebel takes the occasion to reflect on the benefits of philosophy blogging Is a mathematics without infinity “more realistic”? More “honest”? Better? — ma

“I wonder if these people have ever seen a student’s face when they finally understand something for the first time.” Jane Sloan Peters, a professor of religious studies and historical theologian at the University of Mount Saint Vincent, was talking with her students about changes she has made to her teaching so as to safeguard student learning from artificial intelligence when “a wave of sadness washed over me, and I actually got choked up in front of the class.” “Before