“Syracuse University paused admission to 20 majors in the College of Arts and Sciences without faculty input” dailyorange.com/2025/09/coll...

Getting to the stage in my career where when I see a well-argued paper in a good journal on free will, my inevitable reaction is some version of “Nice enough, but wild that no referee noted that this is just the view of X in 1963, Y in 1988, Z in 2002.” #philsky

Under the moonlight, you see a sight that almost stops your heart

Bad sign that I’m ready to go to bed at 2pm. Letters of rec take a lot out of me, apparently.

Someday I won't be surprised about this fact: when I'm offline for two days because of a conference, I inevitably have to spend most of day three just replying to emails I neglected while conferencing.

We must imagine Sisyphus... baking apple crumble

Collegiate kid just observed that one of the lead actors of Life with the Walter Boys "looks old enough to be a grad student who's running out of funding."

This is a good heuristic for when you should and shouldn’t take academics seriously when they try to intervene in debates outside their specialty. Do they have respect for the problem?

If I ever become a dean (and let's hope this never comes to pass), I'm going to insist on issuing Decanal Bulls, just to annoy everyone. Also, thusly will I speed my retirement from any and all future administrative positions.

Papal bulls sound way more impressive than papal memos.

Shout-out to fellow academics with unhealthy work-life balance. May your labor day be super productive with no one else at the office.

Scholarship is spending all day working through material to find exactly what you were looking for, making a note of it, and the deciding that you probably won't use that thought anyway.

Doing some research on the 19th C, and sheesh, that century was pretty much peak facial hair stylings.

Bring back marcona almonds.

Where is my Katabasis already?

This is a thing that exists

Dreamt I had a pet anteater.

This ain’t my area but interesting article. #philsky newrepublic.com/article/1992...

AI is like a super efficient but delusional colleague.

Every time the temperature gets above 71 F, our dog (a husky mix) just turns off and becomes a very thick rug on the coldest spot in the house.

From substack

San Diego friends: Nicholas Kristof talk @ UCSD on Sept 15. Free tickets here: www.eventbrite.com/e/burke-lect...

Fire all those traders on Wall St. for rigging those market results!!

Interesting ep in decay of cultural significance: None of my undergrads this summer knew who the Lone Ranger was. “Aragorn?” one asked.

I love this thread so much.

I…worked on that book for five years…and…they just…they TikTok bro’d it out

Millions of tons of plastic in the ocean aren't floating in plain sight—they're invisible. These particles are everywhere: in rain, rivers, and even the air. They may already be infiltrating entire ecosystems, including the human brain. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/202...

SD peeps: get thee to Izola if you haven’t. Terrific bakery. I’m a big Wayfarer fan, but Izola is definitely worth the visit, too. (Plus, they open earlier than Wayfarer.)

Nero is insisting that it is the libs' smoke that caused the fire.

Not the point of this fascinating article, but it remains darkly ironic to me that the Humanities have fallen backwards into being the safe financial bet of degrees

“Academic Philosophy Data and Analysis (philosophydata.org), a long running project that collects and analyzes data on graduate experience and employment outcomes for philosophy PhDs, is seeking to expand its leadership…from 1 to 3 directors” Please share! #philsky apda.ghost.io/call-for-dir...

Shout-out to the referee who said no to my paper but gave reasonable and useful feedback. I appreciate you, anonymous hero.

NORMALIZE THE MICHELADA

So F1 isn’t about the Francis papacy?

Thrilled to report the good news that Wake Forest’s ECI is funding our “Intellectual Character Initiative” at LMU. Three years of focus on curiosity, open-mindedness, humility, courage, and perseverance in pursuit of knowledge and understanding. news.wfu.edu/2025/07/11/w... #philsky

I'm curious about what things moved opinions the most. Was it the loss of services, the images on TV, neighbors and family being disappeared, or some other thing?

Genius new idea: Two new federal organizations. One that monitors the weather and helps alert people in advance when there is dangerous weather incoming. Second org could have the mission of providing coordinated, national disaster relief. If we fund these properly, Rs could get a big win!

Yesterday, the money I've spent at Amazon has finally paid off for one of my communities, given that the average purchasing power of Mexican-Americans went up by a discernible amount.

An example of this sort of strategy in action is @birchlse.bsky.social et al.'s account of the different dimensions of consciousness, which can help devise different consciousness profiles for different species. 16/17

Starting to think I might not reply to those emails in my inbox from four years ago.

That bird is made up of all the most popular Starter jackets from the 90s.

My point is what it was when I started. If we shift to expecting to be recorded in every interaction — which even the presence of these tools moves us towards — that is bad for interpersonal communication, mutual cooperation, and human connection.

Pouring one out for Alastair the Mac. They don’t make Gs like that anymore. #philsky

I’m starting to think the concern for viewpoint diversity wasn’t totally above board.

I give this same advice to every student who enters our department. Get out and talk to philosophers at other places so you can learn to speak the profession's language, not just your local dialect.

Apparently it is book release day for this edited volume I did with Lori and Francisco Gallegos on philosophical issues concerned with Latina/o/x/es. www.routledge.com/The-Latinx-P...

Someone should do a study on the relationship between the duration of a conference and the level of snippiness of the participants.