Desert kit fox

Course readers are back in style

A remarkable interview with a remarkable person And by one too. Nathan Ballantyne spends months on these things, getting the questions right and teasing things out of his subjects that no one else has ever managed to do. Read this one, and then read them all. www.the-workbench.ca/interviews/p...

"In philosophy especially, I figure the reader is nearly always gasping for breath, in danger of being swept out to sea, so the writer should do everything in their power to help..." Penelope Maddy is interviewed by Nathan Ballantyne - @nathanballantyne.bsky.social - at The Workbench

I interviewed philosopher Penelope Maddy about her writing craft. We talked about her past experience in Hollywood screenwriting, her advice to students, baseball, and more. Check it out! www.the-workbench.ca/interviews/p...

Here’s the best poem ever written about John Rawls.

Not quite

Academics, who like to laugh about the students’ clichéd preamble “For thousands of years, people have wondered about…,” also like to begin “No one has yet provided a thorough study of…”

Everybody chill out and take an epistemology pill

We are all our own classic New Yorker cover cartoon... (psst, those younger can google Saul Steinberg, 9th avenue, New Yorker)

Theateritis: “the tendency of military commanders to look only at the needs of their own theater of operation, and not at the requirements of fighting the war as a whole.”

An excellent essay about misconduct in Alzheimer’s research. “Hubris and lassitude about misconduct — shared by other funders and regulators, journals and universities — has to change. Alzheimer’s research must start self-policing effectively.” www.nytimes.com/2025/01/24/o...

Moore’s proof strikes almost everyone as circular. Yet, Moore appears curiously indifferent to this worry—what gives? My paper, “Moore’s Fourth Condition,” forthcoming in the Journal of the History of Philosophy, draws on unpublished archival evidence to provide some answers. tinyurl.com/2c48txr9

“Philosophy is the conflict between the obvious and the obvious.” – Renford Bambrough (1926–99)

“Never trust anyone”

What is a question in philosophy where, the more you read and think, the deeper it seems?

“In philosophy if you aren't moving at a snail's pace you aren't moving at all.” Iris Murdoch.

Philosophy, according to Irwin Edman (1896–1954), a professor at Columbia University, is “a peculiarly serious and comprehensive kind of poetry.”

Richard Cartwright, a well-regarded philosopher who spent most of his career at MIT, got into graduate school with this recommendation letter as a part of his application.

An audacious grad school application cover letter from James Ross, who taught at UPenn until his death in 2010. “The application asks what my future plens and ambitions may be. In a word they are this: to become the finest and most influential professor of philosophy in the country.”

Why do people interpret numbers to favor their political preferences? Do numeracy skills affect this bias? @clintmckenna.bsky.social and @daviddunning6.bsky.social examine psychological mechanisms underlying biased interpretation of scientific data. #PsychSky psycnet.apa.org/record/2025-...

A list of what I am planning to cover in the podcasts on early modern French and Dutch philosophy (17th-18th centuries). The first episode of this series will go up on Feb 2 after we finish off the Counterreformation with Galileo. www.historyofphilosophy.net/what-to-expe... #philsky #earlymodern

Arizona lawn art

Epistemologists talking about hands!

“I can smell burnt toast” 🇨🇦 youtu.be/pUOG2g4hj8s?...

Sometimes a book’s blurb contains a line that’s so good you immediately know you have to buy it, despite the fact you’ve never encountered the author. “vibrant portraits of some of the most intensely irritating intellectuals ever known” press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

Nothing new under the sun

I think there is a myriad of ways philosophers and behavioral scientists can benefit from crosstalk. A wealth of opportunities are simply being missed. First, take philosophical contributions to science. A 🧵1/n @nathanballantyne.bsky.social‬

Thank you, Gabriele. Do your own research, starting here: doi.org/10.1080/0269...

Social Epistemologists: I was trying to populate a starter pack for us manually but got lazy and thought it would be much more fun to turn this into a game! Post a link to your favourite paper you wrote on the topic below with a post-length abstract and I’ll add you to it! #PhilSky #SocEpis

In 1988, Roderick Chisholm received an honorary doctorate from his own university. The text here was written by Jim Van Cleve, one of Chisholm’s colleagues.

On countering pseudoscience, diplomatically.

Bring back old-fashioned recommendation letters.

In 1963, Herbert Feigl was co-editing a collection of important articles in analytic philosophy and noted, confidentially, his low opinion about Wilfrid Sellars’ work. He also mentioned that Carnap, Nagel, and Hempel “complain about the tantalizing obscurity” of Sellars’ prose.

Roderick Chisholm (1916–99) was once a high school student.

Rawls, Nozick, and Cavell are buried within steps of each other.

I wrote a commentary for a symposium on Jeremy Fantl’s book *The Limitations of the Open Mind*. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Rawls, Nozick, and Cavell are buried within steps of each other.

In an article written during the Prohibition era, a philosopher compared skepticism to a drunkard’s bottle.

Schopenhauer on Hegel: “the author wrote the words, and it was left to the reader to find a meaning for them.” #philosophy #writing #nonsense

Albert Einstein didn’t like anonymous peer review.