- An upcoming video game is about Arthur Schopenhauer as a student “seeking prohibited knowledge” — developed by Toby Svoboda, “The Life of Arthur” will be released next week
- “Analytic philosophy, even at its most technical, is one way of tackling those fundamental tasks [of securing grounding and direction in life], and as such serves the same emotional needs that non-philosophers reveal to us during our classes, at parties and in hair salons, planes and Ubers” — Helena de Bres (Wellesley) wraps up her series on analytic philosophy and the meaning of life
- “We laugh at ‘something mechanical encrusted on the living’” — Emily Herring (Ghent) on Bergson’s philosophy of laughter
- “There seems to be nothing that in principle cannot be taught in a college classroom provided its relevance to the course” — Carlo DaVia (Fordham) has produced a guide to help professors untangle and address different potential moral problems related to teaching and classroom speech
- “The puzzle of addiction: why do people keep using drugs, given that costs outweigh benefits?… Costs and benefits can only be weighed relative to a set of values [so] whose values determine when drug use becomes addiction?” — Hanna Pickard (JHU) is interviewed about how to understand addiction
- “Just 20% of PhD-granting institutions in the United States supplied 80% of tenure-track faculty members to institutions across the country between 2011 and 2020,” according to a new study — and “depending on the field, only 5–23% of faculty members worked at an institution more prestigious than the one at which they earned their PhD”
- “I am an American Philosopher” is a series of interviews (15, so far) with philosophers published by the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy — here’s one with Eric Mullis (Queens University of Charlotte), who brings together dance and philosophy
Discussion welcome.
Mini-Heap posts usually appear when 7 or so new items accumulate in the Heap of Links, a collection of items from around the web that may be of interest to philosophers. The Heap of Links consists partly of suggestions from readers; if you find something online that you think would be of interest to the philosophical community, please send it in for consideration for the Heap.
- “I’ve always thought I was better at helping other people think through their ideas than I was at generating new or ground-breaking things of my own. I used to be ashamed of that, but now that I’ve got students of my own, it’s one of my favourite skills to use” — Audrey Yap (Victoria) is interviewed at What Is It Like To Be A Philosopher?
- “Too often, well-intentioned calls to ‘diversify the profession’ of academia seem to be motivated by brute desires for demographic representation…. That intelligence comes in many forms suggests a better rationale” — Devin Sanchez Curry (West Virginia) on appreciating “Grandma’s metaphysics”
- Princeton has so big an endowment that it could, from now on, let in every student for free and still have at least $1.9 billion left over each year — So why don’t they? The author raises this question, but doesn’t really try to answer it, and so doesn’t seem to realize what’s to be learned from it (via The Browser)
- “The Mystery of Consciousness,” a live public philosophy discussion, took place this past summer in Liverpool — featuring Philip Goff, Laura Gow, Anil Seth, Jack Symes, Rowan Williams, and a string quartet
- “Gareth paced up and down and told me he was worrying about me a lot. I had to realise, he said, that I was extremely stupid and would need to work very hard to get any kind of degree. I wasn’t in the least offended” — Lincoln Allison (Warwick) remembers Gareth Evans, who “made intellectual activity exhilarating”
- When (and why) are some things best left to the imagination? — Jennifer Church (Vassar) considers the question
- “Young Plato,” a documentary about a headteacher in Belfast who brings philosophy into the teaching at his elementary school, will be screened in the United States — it’s “a very engaging film” according to The Guardian