Grad students when they realise there's a noun no one has yet put "epistemic" in front of.

Jonathan Lear's Aristotle: the Desire to Understand was pivotal in some of my first encounters with Aristotle. I found Aristotle and Logical Theory later, but it became a key inspiration for how to think about core parts of the corpus...1/2

Good airplane readings

I just read a piece by @nescio13.bsky.social on why we can do without not doing without aesthetics, while retaining the possibility of fiction. Bentham's auto-icon is a good example of this.

"And, as my regular readers will have noticed, it reinforces my already strong tendency to use somewhat archaic vocabulary: mercantilism, Bonapartism, despotism, Machiavellian corruption, usurpation, and so on."

if the war on Tylenol goes like the war on drugs, this could involve war crimes and a lot of corruption.

On Politics as Cosplaying open.substack.com/pub/digressi...

Just got an email from a scam academic journal asking if I wanted to "explore new advances in White Psychodrama" and it's just got me like: buddy, I can watch the news myself.

‘the newly ruled know better, and so experience their own servility in this new context as a species of indignity and a source of shame. By itself this reaction is not so dangerous to the new ruler(s), but they also wish to maintain the fiction that their rule is rooted in democratic popularity.‘

This is presidency-ending stuff. 🎁 link. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/15/u...

the H1-B thing seems unlikely to withstand a court challenge, but it's still deeply funny that it's basically a nuclear warhead aimed at businesses and executives who've been grandiosely and publicly kissing his fucking ass for nine months

I am rather proud to have a paper/chapter in this volume. I think I first blogged about her before OpenAI and Anthropic were even founded.

@drnickcowen.bsky.social Maybe we can get this as a cover for our book?

My view is that much of even the very best philosophy of physics has been heterodox theories at one point or another. It's actually a super interesting issue. (In a paper, I have argued for modest toleration of heterodoxy in economics, but how far it should stretch is a tough question.)

Gewoon eventjes per motie breken met 50jr Nederlands contraterrorismebeleid, een paar brokkenpiloten doen het gewoon: www.volkskrant.nl/politiek/kam...

Machiavelli and Reasonable Indignation open.substack.com/pub/digressi...

On Schelling's Cosmopolitan Socrates open.substack.com/pub/digressi...

Getting comedians fired seems like an odd way to promote free speech.

Unexpected publicity for this essay www.realclearhistory.com

On Schelling and the Utility of The Large Lecture Hall open.substack.com/pub/digressi...

On Schelling and the Utility of The Large Lecture Hall open.substack.com/pub/digressi...

On the giving of political gifts and despotism in Montesquieu open.substack.com/pub/digressi...

Maybe tiktok should be for 18+ only

The Dewey-Lippmann debate and all that, pt. 4: on Machiavellian liberalism open.substack.com/pub/digressi...

The Dewey-Lippmann debate and all that, pt. 4: on Machiavellian liberalism open.substack.com/pub/digressi...

Wait did we all know about this like that includes all the academic books you could find when the Atlantic article on this came out?! arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...

I have no idea if this is out yet, but I am excited to see it previewed on Books.google in Coliva & Doulas (2025) www.google.com/books/editio...

On Hegel and the afterlife of a certain argument by Samuel Clarke open.substack.com/pub/digressi...

The Dewey-Lippmann debate and all that, pt. 3: Dewey and the Experts open.substack.com/pub/digressi...

The Dewey-Lippmann debate and all that, pt. 3: Dewey and the Experts open.substack.com/pub/digressi...

Hannah Arendt, Adam Smith's Machiavellian True Glory and political life. open.substack.com/pub/digressi...

A privilege to co-author with the brilliant @alessandrabasso.bsky.social whose mastery of economics of inequality and its philosophy is unparalleled. Our general point: indicators always have more than one ideal to serve, so will have to prioritise and hence sacrifice #philsci #econsky #measurement

Hannah Arendt, Adam Smith's Machiavellian True Glory and political life. open.substack.com/pub/digressi...

I assume a foreign embassy will start buying tickets before long.

What's the best way to catch European football (championsleague: prem league; la liga) on US streaming and/or cable? #asking4afriend

I don't want to single out any particular paper, but it seems some journals are publishing pieces that really should just be blogs. And as you know I rate blogs rather highly.

“Dewey’s argument for free expression has an instrumental character. To simplify his position, the real point of freedom of expression is the development of means of generating a capable public.”

On Dewey and the Pre-History of Toleration; open.substack.com/pub/digressi...

Today I used the Aristotelian distinction between efficient and material cause to clarify something in conversation and I genuinely think it helped.

After the Klein interview, I noticed that he just didn’t seem to understand intra-Christian conflict at all. V pleased to find, after a little digging, that others had seen the point earlier

PS This is also why virtue-signaling is the authentic conservative position.

The Dewey-Lippmann debate and all that, pt. 2; open.substack.com/pub/digressi...

Hypocrisy is vice's deference to virtue. (paraphrasing Rochefoucauld)

I wonder if Spooner's views on jury-nullification are also due for a revival?

The Dewey-Lippmann debate and all that, pt. 2; open.substack.com/pub/digressi...

I think they would love it if I had someone zoom in for a discussion on the last day of the book. It’s funny when students say “you know the people who write the things we read”, and I have to say “we mostly read stuff by my friends”

It would be nice if my moderate skepticism would have its 15 vibe seconds

Liberalism and Animal Rights, pt 1. open.substack.com/pub/digressi... Responding to @birchlse.bsky.social [HT @lastpositivist.bsky.social]