The Splintered Mind

To believe some proposition P, according to me , is be disposed to act and react, inwardly and outwardly, in the patterns that we are apt to...

I'm a weirdo. It's been a lifelong thing. The popular girls in middle school called me weird for relentlessly riffing on Hitchhi...

Wesley Buckwalter has a new podcast Journal Entries , in which philosophers spend 30-50 minutes walking listeners through the main ideas of ...

[Originally published in the L.A. Times , April 9, 2017; revised version published as Chapter 25 of A Theory of Jerks and Other Philosophica...

I. The Puzzle: Why Aren't Academic Philosophers Wise? Etymologically, philosophy is the study of wisdom. In the popular imagination, ...

In october, Fiery Cushman and I announced a contest : Participants were to write a philosophical argument that attempts to convince research...

Yesterday was a good day to be a snail. Spring rains are rousing them from hibernation, and on my morning stroll I saw hundreds cruising th...

Sometimes I love a cloudburst. You're walking downtown. Suddenly the rain starts and you're under some random awning, shoulder t...

Released Monday at Eclectic Spacewalk Topics include: * juvenile delinquency * group consciousness and the "Chinese room" * ...

This post originally appeared as " The Jerks of Academe " in the Chronicle of Higher Education , Jan 31, 2020. The awesome art wa...

I've just finished reading Simona Ginsburg's and Eva Jablonka's tome on consciousness in non-human animals, The Evolution of t...

Part I: Should You Apply, and Where? Part II: Grades, Classes, and Institution of Origin Part III: Letters of Recommendation Part IV: ...

Part I: Should You Apply, and Where? Part II: Grades, Classes, and Institution of Origin Part III: Letters of Recommendation Part IV: ...

I'm inclined to think that university ethics classes typically have little effect on students' real-world moral behavior. I base t...