Digesting the literature 5 May 2009 Many years ago, ians, really, I naively asked my lecturer who I thought knew everything in the field, how he kept up with the literature. He shrugged and said he couldn’t, and neither could anyone else. I thought he was just being self deprecating. Experience taught me better shortly. But there are tools that help, and now, in this all-electric age, they are online. A Philosopher’s Digest has just been started, which will give brief summaries of important papers, so those of us who do not follow every paper in every field can sound more intelligent and erudite. Damned nice of them, really. Hat tip to Leiter. While I’m at it, go read how sausages journals are made, by the editor of Nature. Philosophy
Epistemology Plantinga’s EAAN 31 Jan 201231 Jan 2012 A post now up at the Philosopher’s Carnival discusses Alvin Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (EAAN), and comment how it is like (not exactly the same) as a global skepticism argument being self-defeating. Plantinga’s argument goes like this: P1. If evolution is true, then we have modified monkey brains. P2…. Read More
Epistemology Religion and truth revisited 7 Jul 2009 Chris Schoen, he of the u n d e r v e r s e, has a piece up on Coyne’s challenge to the religious as to why Scientology’s absurd etiology of Xenu and souls in volcanoes is any less stupid than the etiologies of the Catholic, Jewish and Islamic… Read More
Biology My presentation on Mercier and Sperber’s Argumentative Theory 11 Jul 201222 Jun 2018 During my recent trip to Berkeley, I was asked to give a discussion starter about Mercier and Sperber’s recent Behavioral and Brain Sciences article on the function reasoning has been given by evolution. They broadly argue that reasoning is not an internal process and evolved with its “main function” as convincing others of what… Read More
*ians = eons? It seems like making philosophy more accessible is a theme in the field at the moment – I’m glad many are making strides in this direction. =)
Many years ago, ians, really, I naively asked my lecturer who I thought knew everything in the field, how he kept up with the literature. He shrugged and said he couldn’t, and neither could anyone else. This is one of the major reasons why I never finish anything. There are always five more papers or books that I have to read before I close my research/reading on a subject and those five lead to ten more and those ten to twenty… At some point editors just stop asking when my paper will be finished. I’m incredibly well read but have the world’s worst publication record. I wonder why?