I love flowcharts. And I love the philosophy of mind. So naturally, when I realized that I could combine these loves, I did. In this post, I share a flowchart-like tree for classifying views about the metaphysics of mind. I also share some conversations that are improving the chart, invite further conversation, and point out resources that can answer your questions about the metaphysics of mind. Continue reading Metaphysics of Mind: A Flowchart Taxonomy
Category: Academia
My Daily/Weekly Routine: 4 Rules Of Thumb
A handful of people have asked me about my daily and weekly work routine. Some people just want to know what philosophers do all day. Others — e.g., my fellow grad students — are looking for ways to impose structure on their work week. In this post, I will share four rules of thumb that have helped me be more productive and less stressed.
5 Thoughts About “Liberal Hypocrites”
Liberals prize inclusivity and tolerance. But liberals also criticize certain things — e.g., certain things that conservatives do. So liberals aren’t inclusive after all! Liberal hypocrites! Boo liberals! …or so the story goes.
Also Chaz I thought you liberals were supposed to be "tolerant", & "inclusive".
You r just the typical phony Hollywood hypocrite. https://t.co/hLWri23Lx7— Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) March 11, 2017
Should liberals be inclusive and tolerant of everything? Are they hypocritical if they’re not? No. Of course not. For an explanation and context, here are five thoughts about liberals, hypocrisy, and tolerance. (Spoiler: I make multiple concessions to conservatives.)
How Arguments Work: The Basics
If you understand how arguments succeed and fail, then you can do some important stuff. You can construct a convincing argument, evaluate an argument, fix a broken argument, and — maybe most importantly — avoid being duped by a bullshit argument. So if any of that sounds interesting to you, then you’ll want to understand the basics of how arguments work. I’ll review those basics in the rest of this post. Continue reading How Arguments Work: The Basics
Evaluate An Argument With Just ONE Flowchart
I love philosophy and science. I also love flowcharts because they can compress many pages of instruction into a simple chart. And three researchers from George Mason University and the University of Queensland have combined these three loves in a paper about climate change denialism. In their paper, they create a flowchart that shows how to find over a dozen fallacies in over 40 denialist claims! In this post, I’ll explain this argument-checking flowchart. First, we will identify a common denialist claim and then evaluate the argument for it. Continue reading Evaluate An Argument With Just ONE Flowchart
Writing Bloopers
Early in graduate school, I attended a writing workshop that began with a Writing Bloopers activity: in small groups, outline a really bad paper on a topic with which we’re all familiar. Unsurprisingly, the activity was fun. But the activity was also instructive. I learned how some of my writing habits can annoy my readers. And more importantly, I realized just how easy it is to write badly.
1. Modified Writing Bloopers Activity
I sometimes wonder if the Writing Bloopers activity would work with high school or college students. When I pitch the idea to other teachers, they are sometimes skeptical. The skeptics worry that the students do not sufficiently understand what makes writing good or bad. After all, students sometimes turn in papers that contain comically bad writing.
I take the skeptic’s point. However, I wonder if the activity could be modified to work for less experienced writers. For example, perhaps I could present examples of bad writing and let students explain how they are bad. I find that this works well for teaching students about arguments. So it perhaps it would work for teaching students about writing as well. If you’ve done a Writing Bloopers activity, then feel free to share your experience in the comments.
2. A List of Writing Bloopers
Here’s a (growing) list of writing bloopers that could be used for the activity. Feel free to add writing bloopers in the comments.
Introduction Bloopers
“From the beginning of time, philosophers have argued about abortion.”
“Since the beginning of time, there has been American history.”
“Since the dawn of time, man has wondered whether computers can think.”
“Since the dawn of time the sun has risen in the East. (Well, that first dawn? The sun may have risen all over at once, but after that things settled down.)”
“Throughout history, man has wrestled with the concepts of cyclic versus linear time.”
“Since the invention of the Nintendo game controller in the 1980’s, scientists have been increasingly worried that computers will take over the world…”
“Throughout the ages, women have been the cause of trouble for men. I, personally, have seen this.”
Continue reading Writing Bloopers
Free, online conference on the philosophy and science of mind!
The Minds Online conference starts today, has three week-long, and ends on September 29th. So mark your calendars and set aside some time to read and comment.
You will find that each Minds Online session has a keynote and a few contributed papers — each contributed paper with its own invited commenters. Papers are posted for advanced reading the Saturday before their session. And public commenting for each session runs from Monday (8am, EST) to Friday.
To be notified when papers go up, subscribe by email (in the menu) or to the Minds Online post RSS feed to receive be notified when papers go up. You can also subscribe to the Minds Online comment RSS feed to stay apprised of comments.
Conference hashtag: #MindsOnline2017. The full program is below: Continue reading Free, online conference on the philosophy and science of mind!