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The End of Analytic Philosophy
One of the nice things about having a blog and job security is that I can just make things up. So here's my sense of the recent historical trajectory of what can broadly be called analytic philosophy,...
View ArticleFurther Reflections on Analytic Philosophy
My last blog post garnered some interesting discussion which I thought I would collate here. The impetus for this is that the long-suffering Preston Stovall kindly emailed with a detailed response. We...
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Pessimism of the Intellect, Optimism of the Will
I started writing this as a kind of meditation in a notebook, but then I thought maybe it would be interesting to others so I decided to share on my blog. It's my reflections on Gramsci's famous...
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Personal Tribute to Charles Mills
Like many in the philosophical world today I am in dismay at the loss of Charles Mills. I feel compelled to honour him with a public tribute, as he meant more to me than almost anyone else in the...
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Science for Subjectivists
I read this fascinating paper by Greg Gandenberger. It's an argument to the effect that one can give a good Bayesian rationale for, in some circumstances, paying attention to stopping rules. These are...
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The Anglo-American Analytic Philosophy Left
Survey results from here: https://survey2020.philpeople.org/survey/results/allAs far as I can tell analytic philosophy for the most part remains a fairly a-political field. At the least, this is what...
View ArticleCitational Justice
Some musings prompted by this rather negative take on citational justice literature. In fact (partly for reasons I explain below, and in line with the linked piece) I myself am pretty hostile to the...
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Thoughts on Nael's Tiger
The TigerThe tigerHe destroyed his cageYesYESThe tiger is outWhen he was six years old a little poet called Nael wrote the above poem. It's fair to say that it became something of a smash hit on the...
View ArticleThe Frailty of Merit
Guest post by Rose NovickSince a wariness of meritocracy is an ongoing concern here at The Sooty Empiric I was excited to hear that my friend Rose had written a short essay on the problem of merit in...
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Our Time Comprehended in Thought
Hegel famously said that philosophy is its own time comprehended in thought. Now in the context of his particular system this actually has quite a specific meaning, concerning the relationship between...
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Why I Am Not A Liberal
Those of us in the contemporary academy who are not liberals ought given an account of why not. This asymmetric burden falls on us because the presumption is so strongly that one does fit within the...
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There Will Be No Message Discipline
This is one of those posts I write because I so often find myself making the point that I should like to be able to just have it all written out and available to point to. It concerns a genre of...
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The Case for Reparsanctions
A Satire upon the Recent "Resolution" of Conflict by Tena ThauIt is often argued that reparations should be provided to the victims of past injustices. Reparations can take many forms, but they are...
View ArticleCarnap's Contributions
There was recently on twitter a good natured thread discussing philosophers of science's contributions to the sciences they study. How often does a card carrying academic philosopher make a direct or...
View ArticlePhilosophy, Twitter and Hierarchy
This month's post is a guest post by Mason Westfall. Prompted by a recent essay by Martin Janello there was recently some discussion on twitter about twitter amongst philosophers. Responding to the...
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The Role of Mathematics and Intellectual History in (my) Philosophy
Philosophers tend to think other philosophers are doing bad work and resent their success. I find this tendency most pronounced among mid-to-late stage grad students -- people who are good enough to...
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Nothing That Is Not There
Some brief reflections as we approach the new year. I am just returning from a trip to see my partner's family, wherein I spent much time with my little nephew, Kai. There was something entirely...
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The New Alexandria
Here's a little story I tell myself, of very dubious relationship to actual history but through which I understand myself and my own time in philosophy. It's related to the habit (no doubt grounded in...
View ArticleAI, invertebrates, and the risk of living absurdly
My friend and comrade Jonathan Birch has gifted me with a guest post. I think of it as a kind of belated spiritual sequel to my own musings on the existential status of our profession here. It's a...
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Progressive Liberalism's Dialectic
The last thing Condorcet wrote was a long book, entitled Outlines of an historical view of the progress of the human mind. It was published in 1795 and was for a while the most influential thing...
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