New ink! By @shewolftattoo.bsky.social

“And can we really describe … what moral disagreements are like without … using the real concepts which are causing the real trouble? Political concepts, for instance.” Once again, Iris Murdoch was doing it before it was cool: here, dissing Ideal Theory-style analytic ethics that abstracts away …

"Science vs. art is a stupid distinction though. This is what Aristophanes should have said: Zeus divided not us but our attention, so that we should never be able to deal with the whole situation."

Dam been writing a book about this and she just TikToked it in 90 seconds.

Student at my Iris Murdoch seminar this week (re: IM's biography): "She gets around town. No judgment."

you don’t understand bro, if we didn’t lie, no one would buy our product 😩

I was chatting with a student yesterday, ranting about a future where the primary class distinction is between people addicted to AI slop and people who can read books and reason critically. Access to such things will be an elite status symbol, as in earlier periods of mass illiteracy. But first …

“What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence ... The question is, what can you make people believe that you have done. Never mind ..." -- Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in AI (probably)

Much dragon. Very lair. Rawr. #sphynxcat

Why yes I would recommend this book! And I did! @quillkukla.bsky.social’s latest just hit my mailbox.

Thunderheart was much better than Dances With Wolves. Just saying. Watch it instead. #grahamgreene

Trump academic job market 🤝 technically not dead

Those who can, do. Those who can't, fail to recognize that AI also can't. www.wsj.com/tech/ai/ai-a...

I don’t know who needs to hear this but, Shaka when the walls fell

me the second the clock hits midnight and turns to sept 1st

Superb news today: my panel submission with Katherine Cheng and Robin Roberts has been accepted for the Western Canadian Philosophical Association 2025 (wcpa2025.weebly.com). Our panel title is: "Wâhkôhtowin / Gina ’Waadluxan Gud Ad Kwaagid" More details in the thread below!

Two new drafts of forthcoming papers are now live on my Papers page: 1. 'Hermeneutic Decentering' 2. 'Polyamory is Not Cheating' www.carriejenkins.net/papers

I’m excited to share that my paper ‘Hermeneutic Decentering’ is forthcoming in Philosophical Quarterly! It discusses (what I call) ‘hermeneutic dismissiveness’ as a kind of epistemic injustice, then develops a generalized version of Iris Murdoch’s notion of unselfing. This involves decentering …

• Polyamory Is Not Cheating Carrie Jenkins • There’s No Duty to Obey the Law Jason Brennan • More Lives Better Than Good Lives Jesper Ryberg • We Should Not Reproduce David Benatar • Taxes Aren’t Just Theft, They’re Much Worse Adam Moore ...

Want to read some non-fiction in time for Valentine's Day AND support one of our Canadian friends? Philosopher Carrie Jenkins' What Love Is and what it could be "offers a bold new theory on the nature of romantic love" and is available through our eBook affiliate: bookshop.org/a/214/978046...

The challenge is to choose 20 books that greatly influenced you. One book per day, for 20 days. No explanations. No reviews. Just covers. Day 12

During harvest, it was believed the protective ‘corn spirit’ lingered in the last stalks of grain. These were plaited into a ‘corn dolly’ to house the spirit through winter, then ploughed into the first furrow at #Imbolc, ensuring fertility for the coming year. #FolkloreSunday

This is going to be one of those times where in about 50 years everyone will be like "Oh that's just how people were back then, they didn't know how bad it was" and the historians will be like "Uhm no actually they knew, they just did it anyway."

Wut

Being funded by academia to pointedly criticize academia does make me feel like this. In a good way. (Cartoon by Mr Fish, clowncrack.com) img.artlogic.net/w_750,h_500,...

The Mousetrap at Granville Island Stage last night. I saw it years ago in its long-running incarnation at St Martin’s Theatre in London (continuous from 1952 until Covid forced it closed), but I had forgotten lots of it. 10/10 would forget #whodunnit and go again! #agathachristie #GOAT #vancouver

I’m going to the theatre tonight to see The Mousetrap (Agatha Christie is the GOAT and I will not be taking questions at this time) but first a self-toast in the mirror because (a) strawberry cocktail, (b) joy is still possible despite everything, (c) etc.

Most of the internet used to be like this. This is actually the default, it took companies enclosing the internet and adding weird, soul-killing incentives to make people behave the way they do now. In a way, there is truly nothing special about Wikipedia except that it survived longer.

If anyone’s looking for a suitable birthday/Christmas/just-because gift for me … 🤣😅

I'm psyched to announce SSHRC funding for The Undisciplined Project 2025-2030!! My co-conspirators are Austen Osworth from @ubccrwr.bsky.social and Robin Roberts AKA weky.ca, plus a dream-come-true network of scholars from across UBC. The website is just ... [1/2] www.theundisciplinedproject.net

Wut

Featuring the letter from @ethicaldating.bsky.social www.ellecanada.com/life-and-lov...

I am happy to share that my project, "The Indigenous Stories of Philosophy," has been awarded a SSHRC Insight Development Grant. With this support, I will hire a Graduate Student for the project in the coming year. 1/2

Hey welcome to Bluesky, @jichikawa.bsky.social! #philsky

How to pronounce Vancouver’s Musqueam names vancouversun.com/news/vancouv...

This pupper buried her ball at Spanish Banks today so thoroughly that I nearly gave up searching and left it for the next diggity dog to find.

'Venetian Passageway.' Like many of his contemporaries, John Singer Sargent was captivated by Venice and visited the city frequently between 1898 and 1913. There's a fluid spontaneity in this work, evident in the moving water of the canal.

My brave coworkers at MIT put together a statement re: Alex Byrne's confirmation that he co-authored the HHS report recommending against gender-affirming care for trans youth (www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...) Please read the letter and sign at: dearprofessorbyrne.wordpress.com

I’m sorry, but I just cannot take a military force seriously when it names its bombs things like ‘Massive Ordnance Penetrator’. It just sounds like something named by an extremely insecure man.

Happy National Indigenous Peoples Day! Here's a snap from Grandview Park earlier today, where Robin and other Haida singers/drummers were getting people dancing. They will also be appearing later today at Carnegie Community Centre around 4pm.

I’m 99% joking. But I do think there’s a certain percentage of students who just want to be credentialed, not to learn per se (and that’s because the current situation motivates that desire). Given that (irremediably screwy) setup, they might be better served in the “smoking” section of a course.

Ok these kids are officially cooler than you. (Full disclosure: one of them is a friend’s kid. But I’m still right!) www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

I am devastated to learn of my dear friend and fellow philosopher Helen De Cruz’s passing. With Helen's blessing, her husband Johan and I agreed to circulate a GoFundMe on their children’s behalf. Please feel free to share and circulate widely. www.gofundme.com/f/support-he...

“Once you realise that you are an expression of the whole of nature, you come to realise that, although you will die, you are also eternal in a non-trivial sense, since the one substance of which you are an expression will endure.” - Helen De Cruz ❤️ aeon.co/essays/how-t... #philsky

Use case for generative AI: it writes all the course content and communications for students who want to use generative AI to write their essays. Students who want non-AI content write non-AI essays. Like smoking and non-smoking sections of the plane. 😅🤣😭

From Georgie Gardiner: We will gather online to celebrate Helen De Cruz's philosophical artworks. Please join us. All welcome. Tues, June 24th, 11am Central US Time (5pm BST) Please help spread the word! Share this post or website. georgigardiner.com/helen%22

I'm super excited to teach this grad seminar in the Fall on Iris Murdoch's fiction and non-fiction. www.carriejenkins.net/phil-518