Not even an all-powerful evil demon could harm Descartes in his capacity as a knower. Epistemically built different.

No one tell the Provost who recently approved my promotion.

Guys. It's time for some ordinary language philosophy.

My main sabbatical project next year is going to create and sustain a perpetual pot of fixins for Frito Pie.

In the early aughts, I was partial to Sparks mixed with a little bit of lime twisted gin, but then I discovered Citywide Specials at a tiny bar above an Ethiopian restaurant.

I always assumed Carnap was a short king, but if his FBI file is correct, it turns out he was 6 foot tall.

imagine thinking you were the primo noodle man, and then Victor Wembanyama comes along

For the last couple of weeks, I've been waking up every morning and saying this part of Marc Andreessen's LLM prompt to myself in the mirror and it's incredible what it's done to my mood and productivity. Great affirmations for starting the day, esp. for philosophers.

Sibley knows birds, but he doesn't know his Nagel.

What if we just let Canvas die?

Shout-out to my university for telling my 180 students to personally email me about the Canvas outage.

On the other hand if Cascadian independence happened overnight and I just didn't realize it....

Absolutely livid to wake up and see this in my Washington inbox this morning.

blogged it defector.com/you-should-n...

Uncle Owen should have let Luke go to Tosche station to get power convertors.

There's surely at least one monster out there that is the real monster rather than the real monster being humanity all along.

The acronyms for many of these philosophy of science organizations sound like the noises people make to cats.

If academics didn't have to publish or teach, I think they would choose to spend most of their time arguing about the moderation policies of faculty listservs and the implications for academic freedom and the chilling effects on the free exchange of ideas on said listservs.

Hobbes clearly recognized the need for a rule that says dogs can't play basketball.

Bummer that the philosophy internet didn't really exist in 1994 like it does now. I would have spent weeks reading multiple 600+ comment threads about all this. linguafranca.mirror.theinfo.org/Archive/whos...

Every minute I spend teaching Russell's analysis of descriptions is a minute I'm not strategizing about how to leverage AI-powered solutions to flip classrooms and empower students to enter the modern workforce with the agile skills our local business partners and their stakeholders value.

Born to be dean, cursed to be rank-and-file faculty.

The characteristic argumentative rigor of analytic philosophy.

It's sort of wild to me that Continental Philosophy has never produced anything as perspicuous as Bertrand Russell's famously clear Gray's Elegy argument in "On Denoting."

Given the peer review crisis, I wouldn't be surprised if it takes another 2,000 years for this to get published.

Retvrn to when naturalism meant telling plausible-sounding stories about how people might learn language by having their surfaces irritated.

I'm not sure I totally understand Leibniz's plan for crossing a river in view of an enemy army aside from the recommendation to make a cannon-proof boat. www.leibniz-translations.com/river

If I knew what I know now in graduate school I wouldn't have audited Kant's first Critique like three times and would've replaced at least one of those with a class about making Canvas modules because my job has way less first Critique and way more making Canvas modules than I could've ever guessed.

Long time favorite. theonion.com/im-like-a-ch...

Shortsighted. Eliminate Classics and future creators won't learn about Socrates, one of the West's first influencers--even if he quite famously didn't create content himself--and also someone who, through the invention of the Socratic method, has a lot to say about prompt engineering.

March Madness and Looping Effects: How Bracketology Made the Modern NCAA Fan

Mary Hesse came up with the plot to TNG's Darmok a full decade before it aired.

Feyerabend on Austin's "philosophy" (scare quotes his), with a quip seemingly about the extent of Austin's scientific knowledge ("barely advanced beyond the multiplication table"), in the context of a discussion of Galileo, conceptual change, and experience. archive.org/details/natu...

"Quanta and Reality" with some 1961 BBC lectures introduced by Stephen Toulmin, and featuring Mary Hesse on models and N.R. Hanson commenting. archive.org/details/quan...

I found this chart aspirational; I too hope to live to 120 even if it means my influence wanes a bit.

I guess some Pacific Northwest breweries are brewing Lager now.

"Neglected Alternative" sounds more like the title of an album compilation of lesser-known early 90s PNW bands rather than the metaphysical thesis that space and time are both forms of intuition and properties of things-in-themselves.

Lorraine Daston on historians and philosophers of science at Harvard and Cambridge (the university) in the 1970s. ojs.fhce.edu.uy/index.php/co...

Socrates's h-index was 0.

Find the person in your department who is the commissioner of a yearly fantasy league and you will have someone who is ready for an internal leadership role. And if they are commissioner of a dynasty league, they are ready to be your university's next president.

A classic of world philosophy, the Zhuangzi revolutionized ethics and ontology forever with its Dao. Now, in our latest issue, Rose Novick brings this masterpiece to a new generation of English readers with her magisterial translation & commentary. strangematters.coop/rose-novick-...

It's that part of the term in Modern Philosophy.

We're excited to announce the Spring 2026 PSA office hours! Come learn, ask questions, and connect with leading voices in philosophy of science! Details in the 🧵 Registration at this link: www.philsci.org/psa_...

Is Mina Kimes the first Kantian to win an Emmy?

The book cover is out! This project consumed much of my brain for several years, and I learned a ton working on it.

As a pedestrian, there's nothing more delightful than crossing a street diagonally at an all-way walk.

Latest achievements in whiteboard work.

I decided to listen to Korn yesterday because I have these 1990s yellowing harman kardon computer speakers in my office and was feeling nostalgic and then a colleague knocked on my door to chat and I forgot to minimize the Spotify window and now I'm worried my colleague doesn't respect me any more.

If saying things like: "Hello. I'm your naturally intelligent companion this term. I can solve PhD-level problems. Is there a question about class I can help with?" will encourage my university to put as many resources into teaching students how to use office hours as they are into AI, I'll do it.

I think we should rebrand Professors as "Natural Intelligence Companions" in the hopes of getting universities to throw a bunch of resources behind getting students to come to class and office hours to use our services.