Good morning, readers!

Here is the list of some upcoming colloquia and a conference:

  • Catherine Wilson (The Graduate Center, CUNY) will be presenting “Epicureanism and Early Modern Philosophy” as part of the Harvard Workshop in Early Modern Philosophy on 1 May 2009
  • John Campbell (UC Berkeley) will deliver the 2009 Whitehead Lectures on 7 & 8 May 2009. The first talk will be “Causation in the Mind 1:  Interventions on the Mind” and will be held in Emerson 105; the second will be “Causation in the Mind 2:  Control Variables,” and will be held in Emerson 210

Upcoming Lectures

April 21st, 2009

Good morning, readers!

There are two lectures coming up here at Harvard that you may be interested in attending:

“You are not your brain”

April 13th, 2009

Good morning, readers!  Happy Monday to you!

Via Garrett Eastman’s Library News & Notes, a fascinating interview by Gordy Slack of Salon.com with philosopher Alva Noë, on why Noë thinks that certain reductionist accounts of the brain are problematic.

Good morning, readers!

An op-ed piece by David Brooks appeared in the New York Times two days ago: “The End of Philosophy.”  After reading it, I must sadly say that this article is an excellent example of how to not write about philosophy and philosophical topics.  The title alone is misleading, as many critics have noted, and the rest of the piece goes downhill from there.

Via Bookforum.com: there is a response to Brooks in the Washington Monthly. There are also some very pointed criticisms on the Leiter Reports as well, from Leiter and others, that are worth reading.

On an administrative note: I will be out of the office tomorrow morning, and won’t be posting.  See you Monday!

Good morning, readers!

Here are the March 2009 Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews:

Moral & Political Philosophy

Metaphysics

Epistemology

Aesthetics

Philosophers & History of Philosophy

Philosophy of Science

Philosophy of Literature

Asian Philosophy

Philosophy of Religion

Good morning, readers!

Here’s an article on Artificial Intelligence and philosophy of mind from New Atlantis — “Why Minds Are Not Like Computers,” by Ari Shulman — that you might enjoy.

I’m posting this article because the abuse and misuse of the mind-as-computer metaphor have bothered me for some time.  I would argue that the mind is not a computer, nor is it like a computer, except, perhaps, in a few equivocal senses.  Here, I am following the criticisms of, e.g., Joseph Rychlak and John Searle.  At best, the metaphor of the mind as computer is inapt and imprecise; at worst, it drives research in philosophy of mind and psychology down dead-ended paths.  Yet, I continue to see philosophers and others use this metaphor as if it is fact, forgetting that it is, at best, a literary device to convey an imperfect description of the human mind.

Shulman has some fascinating things to say about the workings of the mind, Artificial Intelligence, and related topics, along with some interesting insights into Searle’s Chinese Room Argument.

I’m curious to know what you think of Shulman’s piece.  Feel free to leave your comments in the comment box.

A hat-tip to Bookforum.com for this link.

Good morning, readers!

Here are the February 2009 reviews from Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews:

Philosophy of Law

  • Peter Goodrich, Florian Hoffmann, Michel Rosenfeld, Cornelia Vismann (eds.), Derrida and Legal Philosophy, Reviewed by Douglas Litowitz, Magnetar Capital LLC

Moral & Political Philosophy

Philosophers and History of Philosophy

Critical Theory

Philosophy of Language

Aesthetics

Perception

Personal Identity

Philosophy of Religion

Logic

  • Douglas Walton, Chris Reed, Fabrizio Macagno, Argumentation Schemes, Reviewed by Leo Groarke, Wilfrid Laurier University

TED Talks on How the Mind Works

February 9th, 2009

Good morning, readers!

Those interested in epistemology, neuroscience, psychology, and related fields might find this group of TED Talks to be of interest.

Speakers include Philip Zombardo, Steven Pinker, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Dan Gilbert, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and many more.

Enjoy!

Good morning, readers!

Here are the January 2009 Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.  Though collection development is on hold for the time being at Robbins, are any of these worth considering for purchase at a later date?

Aesthetics

Philosophers

Metaphysics

Epistemology

History of Philosophy

Moral & Political Philosophy

Philosophy of Law

Philosophy of Religion

Philosophy of Science

Good morning, readers!

I received this announcement yesterday — those interested in cognitive science, philosophy of mind, epistemology and consciousness may find it of interest:

Neuphi February 2009 Extravaganza Announcement

Here is the blurb from the e-mail:

This February we have three great talks coming up: Christof Koch will revisit his stance on consciousness and attention, tying it in with Tononi’s theory, Steve Grossberg will tackle the Mind-Body Problem, and Ted Gibson will discuss his work on language comprehension…. See http://www.neuphi.com. For updates, contact organizers@neuphi.com.