David Shoemaker is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Tulane University in New Orleans and on the faculty of the Murphy Institute Center for Ethics and Public Affairs. He is the editor of Oxford Studies in Agency and Responsibility and founder and co-editor of the Pea Soup blog. I recently interviewed him via e-mail about his new book, Responsibility from the Margins (Oxford Continue Reading …
Atributability, Accountability, and Mike Tyson’s Deep Self: An Interview with David Shoemaker, Part II
David Shoemaker is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Tulane University in New Orleans and on the faculty of the Murphy Institute Center for Ethics and Public Affairs. He is the editor of Oxford Studies in Agency and Responsibility and founder and co-editor of the Pea Soup blog. I recently interviewed him via e-mail about his new book, Responsibility from the Margins (Oxford Continue Reading …
Moral Sentiments and Moral Responsibility: An Interview with David Shoemaker (Part 1)
David Shoemaker is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Tulane University in New Orleans and on the faculty of the Murphy Institute Center for Ethics and Public Affairs. He is the editor of Oxford Studies in Agency and Responsibility and founder and co-editor of the Pea Soup blog. I recently interviewed him via e-mail about his new book, Responsibility from the Margins (Oxford Continue Reading …
And now for something completely serious
Humor seems to be the Flavor of the Month here at PEL. We've had a couple of excellent posts about comedy recently (here and here), and another one is coming very soon. But in the midst of this, we shouldn't entirely lose sight of the inherent seriousness of philosophy; with that goal, I want to call attention in this post to a neglected classic, one of the foundational texts Continue Reading …
Philosophical Crumbs 03/17/2015: Heidegger, Chuang Tzu, Sex and Promises
This is intended to be the first token of a new type of post at PEL: a roundup of recent philosophical activity on the Internet that may be interest to our readers. The introductions and comments provided here come from much-too-cursory readings of the things they link to; objections, preferably in the form of new blog posts, are invited. The title come from Kierkegaard's Continue Reading …
This Philosophical Melancholy
"The world of the happy is a different world than the world of the unhappy." Ludwig Wittgenstein "Boring" is one of the kinder things that can be said about conventions of the American Philosophical Association. That these meetings are arduous ordeals for newly minted PhDs seeking academic jobs goes without saying; but I've heard even comfortably tenured professors describe Continue Reading …
How To Survive a Philosopher Attack
The Philosiologist has some useful information that readers of this blog may want to share with their friends and loved ones. She describes the phenomenon: I don’t know how many times we’ve been at a philosophy party when I wander back to my philosopher after making the rounds of conversation with other non-philosophers, I discover that he is in heated and angry-sounding Continue Reading …
The Montaigne Project
In 2011, Dan Conley started, and completed, My Montaigne Project: a series of 107 essays, one a day for 107 days, each inspired by one of Montaigne's 107 Essais. The project almost, but not quite, landed him a book deal; this week he brought it back to the web with a newly designed website. He's writing some new essays; intends to focus, among other things, on Montaigne's Continue Reading …
Not trying to hide anything
In this review of Philosophy Between the Lines: The Lost History of Esoteric Writing, Francis Fukuyama claims that "It should be clear that the Straussian project has no particular implications for contemporary American foreign policy, other than to underline its present moral dilemma." Continue Reading …
Meta(evolutionary)psychology
One of the consistently best sites on the Internet for thoughtful reviews of worthwhile books is Metapsychology Online Reviews, edited by Christian Perring. A standout in the current issue is George Tudorie's review of Michael Tomasello's A Natural History of Human Thinking. Tomasello is co-director of the Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and the author of Continue Reading …
Metzinger on Spirituality and Intellectual Integrity
This video of a talk by Thomas Metzinger called "Spiritualität und intellektuelle Redlichkeit” (in German, with English captions) has attracted some attention on the Internet; Metzinger has translated his title into English (“Spirituality and Intellectual Honesty”) written an essay (available in PDF form here) summarizing the main ideas of the talk. (In this post I'll be Continue Reading …