so it begins

'I am less inclined to call on the Government for a solution to the British Library’s ongoing issues since, despite repeated calls for action, the UK Government has largely ignored the similar crisis within UK Higher Education.' 1/3

One of the books in my office is 290 years old. It’s still in excellent condition and easy to read. I wonder how easy it’ll be to read electronic texts 290 years from now. I expect it’ll be rather trickier.

Currently at

On close reading www.bostonreview.net/articles/the...

Spent a good part of my morning talking to a young animation artist who had questions about visual attention, cognition and art. Left the poor guy overwhelmed with further questions, and he told me this: "If I ever knew that Philosphy could be *this* relevant to my work, I wouldn't have ignored it"

The English word ‘blue’ is a horse of a different colour. While ‘blue’ is related to the words in its Germanic sister languages, such as German ‘blau’ and Swedish ‘blå’, it took a different route. Its Germanic ancestor was loaned to French, where it became ‘bleu’, and then borrowed into English:

This 5,500-Year-Old Kish Tablet is the Oldest Written Document www.zmescience.com/science/news...

Mildly interesting curio: in Sherrington's 1906 work, The Integrative Action of the Nervous System, the bibliography appears to be ordered chronologically.

Good to see the problems facing our colleagues @britishlibrary.bsky.social being raised here by @hetanshah.bsky.social (of @britishacademy.bsky.social). If this had happened in France it would be considered a national problem to be urgently addressed! www.cityam.com/the-british-...

I’ve written a piece on the curious lack of media and political interest in the issues faced by our national @britishlibrary.bsky.social. This is strange given we live in a world where ideas, knowledge and research are a long-term source of innovation and insight www.cityam.com/the-british-...

On Effective Altruism newrepublic.com/article/2024...

✨✨ The Penguin Book of Existentialist Philosophy edited by me is published today in the UK! (Australia and North America publication is next February.) ✨✨

Zadie Smith on striking British Library workers www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Harold Brodkey as the Cassandra of an ascendent American fascism thepointmag.com/politics/not...

Currently doing some marking. A reminder to everyone involved in archives and collections: digitisation is not preservation. If I digitise a box of records and put the files on a USB stick I haven't preserved a thing. It's all about what you do with the files post-digitisation. #archives #digipres

’Twas ever thus… #academia

Mark your calendars! On Thursday, Oct 30 at 5:00 pm EDT, join us in celebrating 20 years of Henry Frankfurt's groundbreaking book, On Bullshit. Come in person or via livestream to hear our panelists discuss why bullshit is so dangerous—perhaps now more than ever. RSVP for free here! buff.ly/Z6qv9nD

“analytic philosophy emerges, not as the house philosophy of neoliberalism, nor as the favored intellectual exercise of a certain obnoxious personality type, but rather as a contingent, historically constructed sequence of texts, together with a way of reading them”

Officially published today! Link in Alt Text. (Fifth book with my name on (including new editions) published in the last two years, but who’s counting?)

A History of Philosophy in 81 Video Lectures: A Free Course That Explores Philosophy from Ancient Greece to Modern Times

"...the “problem of perception” needs to be reconceptualized as arising not from a challenge to our ordinary understanding of vision, but from a patent conflict within this understanding." That is the central thought of Mike Martin's defense of disjunctivism

WTF is this? It is streaky bacon purchased at a UK supermarket being pan fried

Elaine Scarry on the ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry www.bostonreview.net/articles/pla...

Timothy Williamson's Tetralogue to get a film adaptation dailynous.com/2025/10/14/p...

Were you paid to write this? Or are you posting pro bro pro bono?

Just encountered a hilarious term of contempt for those who cook at home rather than order out: "Grocery Bro" Proud Grocery Bro here

Accurate. #academia #academy #philsky #philosophysky #philosophy #science

On John Gotti, Paul Castellano, and Jack Kerouac www.theguardian.com/books/2025/o...

David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

Next Friday, talk, discussion and reception at the Francis Crick Institute with philosopher, Hasock Chang talking about the tricky role of measurement in science. Free and open to all Part of School of Advanced Study and Crick Institute Being Human Lectures www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/measuremen...

BBC4 is repeating Bryan Magee’s 1987 series, The Great Philosophers, and I introduce it next Monday 13th at 22.30. I remember being very impressed when it went out that my wonderful PhD supervisor, Myles Burnyeat, was in the very first episode!

Understanding whether consciousness depends on computational roles, biological realizers, or both, is crucial for assessing the prospects of consciousness in AI and less complex animals. end/

On Goethe's philosophical influences literaryreview.co.uk/darkness-lig...

Did social media precipitate a political crisis? www.persuasion.community/p/its-the-in...

Just learned that the new lecture recording facility at UCL has been dubbed Panopto The administration are not Foucault readers apparently

Partially inspired by philosophy (especially Bergson’s) inspired a lot of philosophy, but I am going out on a limb and claim that he’s no philosopher. So a procedural objection to this particular FU

New arrival First purchased as an undergraduate, borrowed and not returned by Alex Byrne in graduate school (he denies it but I kept a list of books I lent) and now I somehow have Ted Honderich’s copy

Is Gertrude Stein have a moment of rediscovery? www.bookforum.com/print/3202/i... www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

“Decency is a paltry weapon in an evil world, but Pynchon’s refusal to discount it is the strongest consolation his books offer.” —Andrew Katzenstein

Same

On Rachel Ruysch engelsbergideas.com/portraits/ra...

Anyone interested in the history of Free Jazz needs this LP in their collection. The two Free Form cuts “Intuition” & “Digression” were Recorded May 1949, released 1972. #vinyl

"One was Realism in Mathematics by Penelope Maddy. In the margins, McCarthy summarizes the author’s points and comments on them, frequently disagreeing. “Gibberish,” he noted at one point." www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture...

The Searle Chair John Searle died a couple weeks ago. Since people are sharing stories, I'll share one of my own. As a philosopher of science studying developmental psychology, my dissertation committee initially consisted of Elisabeth Lloyd, Martin Jones, and Alison Gopnik. The topic led me 1/11

🧵(1) The Porphyrian Tree is a logic diagram used to explain Aristotle's "Categories," as outlined in Porphyry's commentary the "Isagoge.” The tree progressively subdivides “Being” into genera and species, ultimately reaching “Man,” with the names of individual people at the roots.

Why I gave the world wide web away for free | Tim Berners-Lee

Currently listening: Turkish Mambo by Lennie Tristano m.youtube.com/watch?v=G6dQ... musicaficionado.blog/2016/10/24/t...

On the post-literate society jmarriott.substack.com/p/the-dawn-o...

On the waning of mid-20th century culture www.honest-broker.com/p/is-mid-20t...