Some papers I taught this semester in my upper division undergrad course on life's meaning from philosophers who post here:

Newer thing philpapers.org/rec/LASMRN

New thing philpapers.org/rec/LASHTG

Who comes to mind when you think about epistemologists who earned in their degree in the last decade who don't do applied, formal, or zetetic epistemology? Don't be shy if this describes you or your students!

Time to shine

A few months ago @nglaskowski.bsky.social posted about philosopher Mary Evelyn Clarke. It seems not much is known about her. So, I did some digging—this PDF is what I’ve found so far (sadly, not much). If you know more, or spot any errors, I’d love to hear from you! www.louisdoulas.info/MEC.pdf

Finally attended my first International Social Ontology Society conference. Grand time. All my favorite talks were from grad students. Love to see it.

Ever wonder what the principle of utility is or how it can or can't relate to run-of-the-mill non-moral facts? Ever wonder what moral laws are for? You can read all about what Nathan Howard and I think about these and other questions in our new paper draft.  philpapers.org/rec/HOWTMM-4

Included on page 1 of my new syllabi

Please stop "correcting" my use of 'iff' to 'if' copy-editor challenge.

Last call for submissions to FARM! FARM (Formal Approached to Rationality and Meaning) is a new conference for work on meaning and rationality. The first installment will happen this Fall at the University of Maryland. sites.google.com/view/farm202...

Updated my website in preparation for a big 'ol review. www.nglaskowski.com

I really enjoyed this review/defense of analytic philosophy! I especially liked Setiya's point that what can superficially look like a reliance on intuitions is in fact the practice of making one's assumptions clear - which strikes me as profoundly fitting with democratic values. #philsky

Circumventing problems raised by AI for assessing students is easy, IMO (in class assignments). But how are you addressing problems that AI raises for getting students to think for themselves by reading texts and thinking about them at home? How do you get them to not _only_ rely on AI summaries?

Come work with Kenneth and I! The required specialisation is actually super broad: if you want to do interesting and fun work on the nature of corporations please apply. Bonus points if you can do empirical work: we’ll stand by in awe and clap every time you use a number philjobs.org/job/show/291...

Dad day swag

New paper forthcoming. I wrote an ancestor of this paper a couple years ago while being brought up to speed on AI, as a fellow at the Center for AI Safety. It brings together some thoughts from different areas of philosophy, which I think is neat. Maybe you will, too? philpapers.org/rec/LASHAH-2

Update: DOGE cuts resulted in only 1 winner in my NEH category and it wasn't my team. DOGE also made the NEH so "efficient" that they didn't notify us - I had to email my own uni admin to learn that our project wasn't funded, two months after the NEH was supposed to email everyone.

Are there other papers with titles that you can't read without singing the relevant song being referenced in your head? philpapers.org/rec/BRUYOK

Inquiry moves fast! Here's 50 free e-prints. www.tandfonline.com/eprint/YDGVX...

Inaugural Moral Metaphysics at Maryland workshop ("MMaM") program set. Check it out. harjitbhogal.com/MMaM

4.5 yo pointing at the yellow egg: “Daddy look! We dyed it the color of your teeth!!” 💀

New paper in which I tease out some metaethical implications from my recent decision to start eating fish after 20 years of abstaining from meat (5 as a vegetarian, 15 as vegan). philpapers.org/rec/LASSAO-3

I'm looking for examples of recent (~20 years) books in moral philosophy that aspire to a kind of comprehensiveness, by self-consciously doing each of a bit of metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics. Anything come to mind?

@louisdoulas.bsky.social 's replies in this thread are a nice reminder that historians of philosophy are the best among us

"Ralph Barton Perry (1876–1957) received his BA from Princeton in 1896 and his PhD from Harvard in 1899, where he studied with William James." Three years? Was this common?

Bad week gets worse

I'm trying to find some academic bio about Mary Evelyn Clarke, author of _A Study in the Logic of Value_ (1929). Where did she earn her PhD? Advisor? There weren't that many women doing metaethics back then (not that things are much better now...), so I'd like to know a bit more about her.

I am the happiest birthday boy

Looking for work on the following scenario: You’re wronged by a friend , but choose to remain their friend. However, a mutual friend feels the wrong to you was too great to tolerate, and stops being the wrongdoer’s friend. Any thing on the mutual friend’s reaction out there?

Serious question: If Goodin can run a philosophy journal that receives ~350 papers a year, accepts ~7%, and where “99% of decisions were made within three months (92% within two months)” (!!!!), why don’t others?

Pushed the stroller on campus fri afternoon past half a dozen fraternities playing beer pong on their front lawns just to feel something (like I’m Seth Rogan in Neighbors)

The Musk-Trump assault on the state has real world consequences. Here's a brief anecdote about some: After my philosophy of mind class today, several of my brilliant students double majoring in philosophy & neuroscience told me their post-graduation plans had been trashed by the NIH funding halts.

Why does the Trump admin not care if the US stops being at the forefront of scientific research? Or do they think the research is somehow going to be done outside universities? What’s the best account of what’s going on? I’m genuinely curious.

One of the most important lessons that my students learn at CMU is this: you are a smart person, but there are a lot of smart people. And even people who aren't as smart as you can teach you important things. This is one of lessons that "geniuses who dropped out of college" often miss

How do people even publish papers these days? I have a submission that took 9 months for a first-round decision, and is now taking more than 3 months for second-round. And another submission that is now taking more than 6 months for a first-round decision. What do people on the job market do???

Asked and answered 😔 dailynous.com/2025/01/28/t...

Do any of Trump’s EOs affect the NEH?

Has anyone tried using AI models to proofread work? It seems like a good idea - assuming you read its suggestions critically! I see that duckduckgo allow you to use models without your inputs or outputs being stored (=no copyright worries), but the maximum input size is still rather small.

Do I know anyone who works in a combined Philosophy and Religion department who has hired recently (last ~5-8 years?), who might be willing to share their interview questions? I'm running mock interviews for our PhD students. It would be a big help!

The deadline for PhD applications at UMD is tomorrow! Come work with us. We have standing research groups in cogsci, ethics, language, and logic, and we've done well placing students in excellent postdocs in recent years.

Odd blip. Had about 200 unique visitors on PhilPapers, on December 19th. Almost all were from China. Context: this would be an abnormally (!) high number for me. In general, I think it's odd to get any visitors, but so many and from one country?

If I were forced to rank my mutuals like they were applying to grad school

An irregularly updated thread about depts to study for a metaethics PhD with accomplished metaethicists outside the US - depts that aren't sufficiently well represented by any well-known rankings (1/n)

2024 PGR metaethics ranking is out. There's too much to say about it in a series of bsky posts. But I do want to stress one thing here and below: It reflects an odd perspective on metaethics in the UK and Europe (1/n)

New year, same deal

Chairing rules to live by: (1) follow up questions or other reactions REQUIRED on penalty of shame. (2) ~5 mins left and more than 1 audience member on the queue? Everyone still on the queue is invited to ask their q aloud and speaker chooses qs to answer until time is up.

4yo picked out a toy for being Good about a thing but I didn’t notice the toy came with BOTH slime AND glitter 💀

4yo plans to marry their 1.5 month old sibling when they’re “big” and will not take no for an answer

Helping to organize the inaugural 2025 Moral Metaphysics at Maryland (MMaM) workshop. Check out the CfA for an opportunity to share your work alongside a young crop of excellent metaethicists! philevents.org/event/show/1...