philosophy
Philosophical Readings Related to the Eclipse
A total solar eclipse will be taking place on April 8th.
What, if anything, does this have to do with philosophy?
Laura Papish, a philosopher at George Washington University, is hoping Daily Nous readers may have some positive answers to that question.
She writes:
I’m wondering if you might consider soliciting from folks suggested readings to link up with the upcoming solar eclipse. My students will be viewing it, some within totality zones, and we will have a discussion later that day about their experiences. I’m interested in any readings that might supplement or enhance their viewing experience, and I was thinking that other instructors might be similarly interested in some crowd-sourced reading suggestions.
I would think that there is work in the history and philosophy of science on eclipses, yet perhaps there are philosophical or philosophy-related writings on the emotions, the environment, epistemology, ethics, meaning, metaphor, perception, time, and other topics that have some relevance to eclipses. Maybe there’s some philosophically-suggestive fiction related to eclipses?
Your suggestions welcome.
The post Philosophical Readings Related to the Eclipse first appeared on Daily Nous.
Driven Mad by a Marxist Daughter
What defines Musk and Ackman’s psychosis is no longer their relation to their symbolic fathers, but their relation to that of their daughters’....
Chess, nostalgia and AI: Two recent essays for Griffith Review
Paywalled, I’m afraid, but consider subscribing!
The defence: Chess vs artificial intelligence
Nostalgia on demand: Streaming memories in the experience machine
The eighth day of creation: how the new cultural technologies take us into the posthuman
In Fully Automated Luxury Communism (2018), the British writer Aaron Bastani puts a leftist spin on the Promethean view of technological development. While noting the revolutionary potential of recent genetic innovations, he insists that the latter are no different in kind from the selective breeding practices of the past: they are simply another great leap forward in humankind’s mastery over unruly nature. Referring to the movie Elysium (2013), which depicts a world where biotechnologies are only available to the very rich, Bastani’s only political concern is whether the new genetic technologies will be privately or socially owned. All other questions are beside the point, at least as far as he is concerned. As he puts it, with alarming insouciance: ‘Before editing the human genome at scale such efforts should be subject to vigorous public debate. But how much difference is there between improving nutrition for health outcomes and optimising our biological programming? Not much’. [More here.]
Big Tech goes ballistic
A month or so out from Christopher Nolan’s much-anticipated biopic Oppenheimer, the Artificial Intelligence (AI) community is having its own Oppenheimer moment. Like the director of the Manhattan Project and Los Alamos Laboratory, who famously came to regret his part in the development of the atomic bomb, the Big Tech Titans are falling over each other to declare themselves ‘the destroyer of worlds’. Open letters and statements, high-profile resignations, and appearances before the US Senate are just a few manifestations of this collective show of soul-searching. The tech bros have unleashed their creations on the world, and now they are demanding to be put on the leash. [More here.]
A review of Rai Gaita’s Justice and Hope
As philosopher and broadcaster Scott Stephens suggests in his introduction to Justice and Hope, Raimond Gaita’s principal contribution to the practice of moral philosophy is to have opened it up to readers and audiences that wouldn’t usually encounter it.
Most notably in his memoir Romulus, My Father (1998), but also in A Common Humanity (2000) and The Philosopher’s Dog (2002), he has found a language in which to address the question of what we owe to one another that is free from the bloodless, esoteric jargon of academic philosophy. [More here.]
Here Be Media
A talk to the Economic Society of Australia: Monsters in the Machine, Technology, Growth & Human Flourishing
An Author Talk with Goldfields Libraries
An appearance on the Breaking the Spell podcast
Animal Sovereignties and the Wolves of Isle Royale
The biggest challenge posed by the question of wild animal sovereignties is to the operation of human sovereignty, which itself is figured through animality and in some cases through animals....
New Podcast: Doing Philosophy (plus: Confidence in Philosophy)
“You shouldn’t be super confident in philosophy.”
That’s Crispin Wright (NYU/Stirling) in the fourth episode of a new podcast, Doing Philosophy, created by Tom Kaspers, who recently obtained his PhD in philosophy from the University of St. Andrews.
The podcast is trying out (what seems to me) a novel format: an early-career philosopher discusses the topic of one of their own articles with a relatively senior philosopher, in a conversation helped along with questions and moderation from the show’s host.
Kaspers is both the host and early-career philosopher in the first four episodes, which try out the format. He discusses a few of his articles with Wright, Huw Price (Cambridge), and Sanford Goldberg (Northwestern). He hopes to be just the host in future episodes.
So if you’re an early career philosopher who’d like to be on a podcast featuring a philosophical conversation on the topic of an article of yours, and you have in mind a relatively senior philosopher you think would be interested in taking part in that conversation, get in touch with Kaspers at tomvkaspers@gmail.com.
In the episode quoted at the start of this post, Wright continues:
I’m always distrustful of philosophers who think there are definite mistakes in some views, beyond the pale. How could you think that just sociologically, when you’re confronted with examples of very skillful, respectful philosophers holding views which you can’t see off, but that strike you as dotty.
One of the most traditional benefits of philosophy, according to Socrates, is coming to realize how little you know. And I would qualify the expression of that: coming to realize that in philosophy you can be confident that you have the right opinion about very little. Or the best opinion about very little. There’s always an antagonism and a trained skilled philosopher can always construct a case which you find uncongenial. Williamson on vagueness, Lewis on modality, Graham Priest on contradiction. All of these views are, as I’ve put it before, dotty, in my opinion, but nevertheless you have to be impressed by the way in which they defend it. That’s good philosophy. I think it’s valuable to know that that can happen and is likely to happen about any particular philosophical issue. That’s a kind of wisdom and it’s in keeping with Socrates’s thought that the views you’re attracted to are matched by views you find unattractive but that are as well or better defended. That’s a truth of sorts.
I don’t think we’re describing [in philosophy]… There’s no reality that is already philosophically determinate which we’re starting to articulate. I guess this is pragmatism. I think we’re feeling our way into the shape of a view, a set of proposals, with which we’re comfortable, and which resolve certain anxieties and singularities. But again, it will be a value judgment. But it may be that there is no account with which everyone feels totally happy. That there are always tensions and little incoherencies. They are not to be ironed out. It’s just the kind of predicament we have when we try to theorize about concepts which were involved for non-theoretical purposes. And if that’s the case, well that’s well to know. And now you can have a view you prefer to others but which it would be silly to say, ‘This is the right account.’
Doing Philosophy is available on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, and elsewhere.
See also the Big List of Philosophy Podcasts.
The post New Podcast: Doing Philosophy (plus: Confidence in Philosophy) first appeared on Daily Nous.
Journalists and Philosophy
“Why is that philosophy is glaringly absent in Indian newspaper journalism that otherwise seamlessly synthesises ideas from numerous disciplines while discussing a topic?”
That question is raised by Varun S. Bhatta, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Bhopa, in a piece at The Wire. The question isn’t confined to journalism in India. He notes: “The non-engagement with philosophy is a characteristic of journalism across the world.”
Though newspapers publish opinion pieces by philosophers, what Bhatta is interested in is the question of why journalists themselves do not bring philosophy into their reporting, as they do with research and ideas from other disciplines. He asks: “Are there any pragmatic constraints of the profession that filter out philosophical ideas? What presumptions of journalists about philosophy are at play here?”
To find out, he asks journalists and news editors. They cite that journalists are largely unfamiliar with philosophy and so don’t think to bring it to bear on the subjects on which they’re reporting. Jargon and perceived abstractness and difficulty are other reasons journalists may be “antagonistic” towards philosophy.
He notes that philosophers may not be thought of as experts, as philosophy is “presumed to study everyday activities and phenomena.”
So philosophy is at once perceived as, on the one hand, specialized, daunting, and irrelevant, and on the other, quotidian and not worth mentioning.
Further, journalism “has gradually come to use social science methods and ideas to make sense of news.” He writes:
Given that humanities is on the periphery of journalism’s coverage radar, philosophy events will hardly be considered newsworthy. More importantly, having evolved to use social sciences techniques, journalism would not be interested in queries for which philosophy can provide answers.
The reasons for this, he notes, may have to do with the education and training journalists get. Philosophy isn’t explicitly covered in most journalism curricula, and few people who study philosophy take up careers in journalism. As one American journalist said in a comment on a different post here: “Candidly, I think most people in my profession don’t understand philosophy”
Bhatta concludes that “For philosophy to eventually be used in mainstream journalism practice, journalists need to become familiar with it.” Suggestions on how to make that happen, and general discussion on the topic of philosophy in journalism, are welcome.
UPDATE: Professor Bhatta shares that one of the journalists he spoke with, Vasudevan Mukunth, has posted their entire exchange on his website, here.
Related: “How Should Philosophers Talk to Journalists?”
The post Journalists and Philosophy first appeared on Daily Nous.