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In Memoriam: Dagfinn Føllesdal (1932-2026)
Professor Føllesdal, who was emeritus at both Stanford University (where he spent most of his career) and the University of Oslo (in his native Norway), was best-known for his work in philosophy of language, logic, and on phenomenology, especially Husserl. Comments are open for remembrances from those who knew Professor Føllesdal or from those who…
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So in the first two months of 2026, Donald Trump…
…has kidnapped the sovereign of one country and murdered the sovereign of another country. It doesn’t matter that these sovereigns were bad people. Our sovereign is a bad person too, but there are good reasons to think there should be prohibitions on some countries kidnapping and murdering the sovereigns of other countries based on their…
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A searchable index of philosophy book reviews
This is an amazing resource, from philosopher Matt Zwolinski. As he explains: “It currently covers nearly 80,000 reviews across 170+ journals, going back to the 1890s. It includes book symposia and a small but growing selection of reviews in non-academic sources (e.g. Times Literary Supplement, New York Review of Books, London Review of Books, The…
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In Memoriam: David C. Hoy (1944-2026)
Professor Hoy, who was emeritus at the University of California at Santa Cruz, was a leading expert on 20th-century Continental philosophy, including hermeneutics, critical theory, and post-structuralism. He started his career teaching at Princeton University in the 1970s. Comments are open for remembrances from those who knew Professor Hoy or for those who would like…
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Ohio State’s “Civics” Center now paying students to take its classes and attend its events
Remarkable. (See the earlier discussion of these proliferating centers, whose political litmus test hiring procedures are lawsuits waiting to happen.) (Thanks to Marc Lange for the pointer.)
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Whenever the NYT interviews “ordinary” voters, one is reminded that Achen & Bartels are right (link fixed)
Consider these reactions to Trump’s recent “State of the Union” address. Ms. Metz, the nursing student from Arizona, and Mr. Ciampi, the retiree from Arizona, are particularly remarkable. They know nothing, so can be told anything. Or as Ezra Pound used to say (before he went crazy), “You cannot talk to the ignorant about lies,…
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“Pink slime” fake news websites: a case study of the right-wing propaganda machine
The ideologists of the right never rest, and one of their tools is to dress up propaganda and lies as “news.” This expose is very illuminating.
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Being “rational” under conditions of uncertainty
Philosopher Adam Elga discusses at Preposterous Universe with Sean Carroll.
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Larry Summers, who consulted Jeffrey Epstein, about how to get a professional mentee to have sex with him…
…resigns from Harvard. The NYT doesn’t clearly state the headline fact. Of course not, sine Summers is (was?) a member of the supposedly prudent wing of the ruling class.
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Disgraceful administrative misconduct at Virginia State University
They unlawfully fired tenured faculty, treated them like garbage, and couldn’t even follow their own procedures. The only people who should be fired are the administrators responsible for this travesty. One hopes a court will step in and implement some adult supervision at VSU, as well as award compensation to the mistreated faculty. (Thanks to…
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Philosophy of AI explained…
…at the “Explaining AI” podcast, relying on a paper by two philosophers (which is now forthcoming in Philosophical Studies).
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Habermas on the “Axial age”
I was intrigued by this review by Andrew Buchwalter of volume 3 of Habermas’s huge history of philosophy. In particular, I was struck by Professor Buchwalter’s description of Habermas’s discussion of the so-called “Axial Age”: Occurring in the period between 800 and 200 BCE, the Axial Age reflected the ascendance of the major world religions,…
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In Memoriam: Elizabeth Spelman (1945-2025)
Professor Spelman, who was emerita at Smith College, where she taught for many years, died at the end of 2025. She was an early, and influential, figure in feminist philosophy, where she wrote widely. There is an obituary here. Comments are open for remembrances from those who knew Professor Spelman or for those who wish…
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AI generates Trump’s “state of the union” address
Not bad, and probably more coherent than what he will say this evening. I do not plan on listening. UPDATE: Philosopher Peter Klein asked ChatGBT5.2 to write the Democratic response. It follows: Democratic Response to the 2026 State of the Union Delivered by Governor Abigail Spanberger Good evening. I speak to you not only as…
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In Memoriam: Hide Ishiguro (1931-2026)
(MOVING TO FRONT FROM LATE FRIDAY AFTERNOON, 2/20/26) Professor Ishiguro, who was emerita at Kyoto University in her native Japan, also taught for many years at University College London and Columbia University, before returning to Japan. She was best-known for her work on Leibniz, and also wrote on Wittgenstein. Comments are open for remembrances from…
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Profiles in real courage: Sophie Scholl (and the “White Rose” student movement)
These young people paid with their lives for opposing the monster Hitler and the Nazis. She and her brother are really quite remarkable.
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Colin McGinn on philosophers throughout history
He’s a mysterian about philosophy itself it appears. ADDENDUM: Perhaps not!
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Hey “guys,” get a load of this!
Sent out by a senior philosopher at a major department in the UK to TAs: What I don’t understand is why this senior professor didn’t just tell the student that “guys” in colloquial spech is not gender specific.
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Texas war on academic freedom: University of Texas edition
Regents approve new policy “requiring its universities to ensure students can graduate without studying ‘unnecessary controversial subjects’….The rule also requires faculty to disclose in their syllabi the topics they plan to cover and adhere to the plan, and says that when courses include controversial issues, instructors must ensure a ‘broad and balanced approach’ to the discussion.”…
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Johnathan Bi interviews Rachana Kamtekar…
…about Plato and living well.
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In Memoriam: Malcolm Budd (1941-2026)
Professor Budd, who was the emeritus Grote Professor at University College London, was best-known for his work in aesthetics, but had wide-ranging philosophical interests, ranging from philosophy of mind to Nietzsche and Wittgenstein. There is a bit more about his work and career at the British Academy page. I never met Professor Budd, but was…
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This is what the rule of law looks like
Federal judge in West Virginia blasts ICE tactics: Antiseptic judicial rhetoric cannot do justice to what is happening. Across the interior of the United States, agents of the federal government—masked, anonymous, armed with military weapons, operating from unmarked vehicles, acting without warrants of any kind—are seizing persons for civil immigration violations and imprisoning them without…
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Today in Trump’s violations of international law and human rights
What they’re doing to Cuba and its people probably qualifies.
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“From a Realist Point of View” publishes officially on March 10
Here. I know the price is extravagant (it’s a big book, over 460 pages–three totally new chapters, plus revisions to all the others, some fairly substantial), but the e-book is at least half the price, and a more reasonably priced paperback will appear in two to three years. Also, if your university subscribes to Oxford…
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Deputy AG in New Jersey acknowledges the federal government violated more than 50 court orders!
She claims the violations were inadvertent. She’ll probably be fired for acknowledging the truth. Until a federal court starts putting some Trump administration officials in jail for contempt, this lawlessness will continue.
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Korsgaard’s 2022 Dewey Lecture now available…
…at the APA website.
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State Rep. James Talarico, candidate for Senate in Texas, on the Colbert show
CBS didn’t air it, over fear of persecution by the FCC, which has all of a sudden discovered the “fairness” doctrine again. But the show is on YouTube: Talarico is way too religious for my taste, but this schtick may work in Texas. And generally, he articulates the Bernie Sanders line about what ails the…
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Frithjof Bergmann and “New Work”
When I was applying to PhD programs as an undergraduate at Princeton, with an interest in German philosophy, especially Nietzsche, my very kind senior thesis advisor T.M. Scanlon told me that the late Walter Kaufmann’s favorite student was Frithjof Bergmann at Michigan. Raymond Geuss, from whom I was taking a course on “Marx, Nietzsche, Freud,”…
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Most cited Anglophone philosophical books on Marx since WWII (according to Google Scholar) (CORRECTED)
I focus on English-language books mainly by philosophers, or that are obviously philosophically-minded. Totals are rounded to the nearest 100, and only books with at least 500 citations are listed. I could not find on Google Scholar Allen Wood’s Karl Marx in the Routledge “Arguments of the Philosophers” series, which would surely have made the…
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How LLMs write
This is a very apt diagnosis by philosopher Luciano Floridi; an excerpt: Hedging — compulsive softening to avoid commitment. “It’s worth noting,” “arguably,” “in many ways,” “to some extent,” “it could be said that,” “it’s important to remember,” “there’s a sense in which”…. Throat-clearing — long preambles before getting to the point. “Before we dive…
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The Mellon Foundation’s campaign to destroy the humanities?
From Tyler Harper in The Atlantic: Today, no single entity, including the federal government, has a more profound influence on the fiscal health and cultural output of the humanities than the Mellon Foundation. The National Endowment for the Humanities’ grant budget was $78 million in 2024 (its overall budget was less than half of what…
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Inside Trump’s concentration camps
This is worth reading.
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The imbecile’s war on vaccines…
…is causing vaccine manufacturers to cut back. God forbid there’s a bird flu pandemic with RFK Jr. running HHS. Since Senator Cassidy’s reward for voting for this imbecile was to have Trump back a candidate to run against him in the primaries, perhaps the Senator might try to do the right thing now and get…
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Trump nominates white supremacist and anti-semite for an Assistant Secretary of State position
Yes, this really happened. Fortunately, this may be too much for even some Republican Senators.
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Jonathan Lear’s final interview
Here. He does an especially nice job explaining the connection between psychoanalysis and his interest in Greek philosophy. But the whole thing is worth reading.
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Block on Pollan’s popular book on consciousness
“[A] wonderful phenomenological travelog, but…less reliable as a guide to the science of consciousness.”
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For those attending the Chicago APA, some restaurant recommendations
Easily walkable from the Hilton Palmer House: The Gage Longer walks (15-20 minutes) or short Uber rides: Umai (takes reservations for larger groups) Sunda (River North) Purple Pig Longer Uber ride (25 minutes or so) (but this is the best restaurant in Chicago in this price range): Han 202 Chicago readers, feel free to add…
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Most cited Anglophone *articles* in philosophy of mind since WWII (according to Google Scholar) (CORRECTED)
Following up on this list of books, here is a revised list of Anglophone articles in philosophy of mind (with thanks to commenters, below). Comments are still open, so please feel free to add others with at least 2,500 citations (and please include a link to the Google Scholar page with the citation data).
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AI developer warns the AI jobs apocalypse is closer than we realize
Here; an excerpt: [O]n February 5th, two major AI labs released new models on the same day: GPT-5.3 Codex from OpenAI, and Opus 4.6 from Anthropic (the makers of Claude, one of the main competitors to ChatGPT). And something clicked. Not like a light switch… more like the moment you realize the water has been…
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Professor David Hoy guided me through my education at Santa Cruz from my very first quarter, where I took 20th-century…
I was fortunate enough to be David Hoy’s student in two lecture courses and one seminar at UCSC in the…
I don’t know a finer human being. It was a privilege to work with and learn from him, both personally…
I met David in 1981 when I was a grad student at Princeton. Although no longer on the faculty he…
David was my first department chair, and very generously and shrewdly mentored me in the ways of the profession. I…
david was department chair for my years at UC santa cruz from 1995 to 1998. later, in 2002, we organized…
Dear Freye and David’s friends, We don’t know each other. I was an old friend of David’s, since we were…