Items of the academy / learning
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A first adventure with ChatGPT
It has taken me this long to interact with Chat GPT. I can’t explain why. It hasn’t seemed that interesting to me, in terms of any philosophical questions about consciousness or intelligence. I know many people have found some questions to raise that they and others find interesting; I just haven’t felt the need to Continue reading
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Twilight of the idols of good writing
For a long time I have thought of my job as mostly a teacher of writing. I teach philosophy too, but most of what I teach in that domain is soon forgotten. What my students will keep with them (or so I tell myself) are enhanced abilities to read, think, and write. These skills, I Continue reading
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Should you return to college in the fall?
I doubt this post will reach many among its intended audience, but in case it helps anyone, I’ll try to offer some advice. First, to set the stage. In this pandemic, nobody really knows what they are doing. Scientists have the best available insights, but they will be the first to admit that our situation Continue reading
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The impact of Boris Hessen
Reading: Gerardo Ienna and Giulia Rispoli, “Boris Hessen at the Crossroads of Science and Ideology from International Circulation to the Soviet Context”, Society and Politics, 2019, 13:37-63. [These are just some preliminary notes on a very complex story I am only beginning to understand. I was introduced to the topic through discussion of a Facebook Continue reading
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Is there such a thing as the history of philosophy?
(Reading Christia Mercer. “The Contextualist Revolution in Early Modern Philosophy.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 57, no. 3 (2019): 529-548.) Christia Mercer has revisited the methodological battles that have waged among scholars of the history of philosophy. She uses as her starting point a 2015 exchange between Michael Della Rocca and Dan Garber. Garber Continue reading
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A New Liberal Arts
The traditional liberal arts (logic, rhetoric, dialectic, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music) arose for two reasons: to preserve knowledge and to render young men fit for positions of influence. Knowledge had pretty much been wiped out in western Europe with the fall of Rome, and winning it back again was hard work. The resulting strategy Continue reading
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Enlightenment now
(Reading Steven Pinker, Enlightenment Now) I am totally down with this book. Its main thesis is that the core values of the Enlightenment – Reason, Science, and Humanism – have resulted in human life being better in every measurable way. And if anyone wishes to deny this, they will have a big job in front Continue reading
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Philosophy and its history
Philosophy and its History: aims and methods in the study of early modern philosophy, edited by Mogens Laerke, Justin E. H. Smith, and Eric Schliesser (Oxford UP, 2013). For the longest time, philosophers were interested in their own history only to the extent that nuggets from the past might help us with this or that Continue reading
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On productive criticisms
I have been in a couple of discussions recently in which someone opined that certain sorts of objections or criticisms are not “productive”. The basic idea is that a criticism should not be wholly negative; it should point out a possible correction, or a new way forward, or something constructive. It should not merely have Continue reading
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Putting history into history of philosophy
If we wish, however, to arrive at an interpretation of a text, an understanding of why its contents are as they are and not otherwise, we are still left with the further task of recovering what the author may have meant by arguing in the precise way he argued. We need, that is, to be Continue reading
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The Cold War’s shaping of American philosophy
John McCumber, Time in the Ditch: American philosophy and the McCarthy era (Northwestern UP 2001) George Reisch, How the Cold War Transformed Philosophy of Science (Cambridge UP 2005) Whether inclined toward socialism in the 1930s or defending itself against anticommunism in the 1940s and 1950s, logical empiricism was neither apolitical in its values and ambitions Continue reading
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Philosophy: it helps you get reddit points
The blog Useful Concepts posted a set of interesting observations about why philosophy doesn’t have more of a cultural presence, particularly on the web. The author posted on reddit, and then summed up the more cogent replies. What he came up with is: (1) philosophy isn’t taught in schools; (2) when it is taught, it’s Continue reading
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Dansplaining
(Some reflections on Dennett’s From Bacteria to Bach and Back.) Daniel Dennett loves to explain. In route to explain one thing, he’ll explain three intermediate things, taking time out to explore four or five tangential things. We might call this mania “dansplaining.” Indeed, this is his vision of what philosophy can and should do: utilize Continue reading
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On teaching mediocre books
It’s been a few years now since I realized an obvious truth. The great majority of my students, and even the majority of the philosophy majors I teach, are not going to graduate school in philosophy. This is as it should be. There are already far too many PhDs than there are teaching jobs, and Continue reading
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I’m not worried about the humanities
Humanists complain loudly about the direction taken by modern universities, and with good reason. An education in the humanities generally requires spending a lot of time reading and thinking on one’s own, and engaging in wandering and complicated conversations with like-minded souls, usually without any new technologies, policy decisions, or scientific discoveries coming along as Continue reading
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Justin E. H. Smith, The Philosopher
Reflections on Justin E. H. Smith, The Philosopher: A history in six types (Princeton UP, 2016). This is a timely, marvelous book that raises fruitful questions and criticisms especially about the ways philosophy is conceived by its modern-day, academic practitioners. Clearly, throughout human history, there have been all sorts of people who have wondered and Continue reading
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Peter Adamson, and the gap problem
It’s wonderful to have Peter Adamson’s perspective on this perpetual problem in teaching the history of philosophy: whom do I cover, and whom do I leave out? Adamson, of course, is bravely executing “The History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps” podcast. He knows it’s impossible, but he’s doing what he can do give some basic Continue reading
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