News
Welcome to our archive of news stories which might be of interest to philosophers. The stories are drawn from the
electronic pages of the world's media. On this page, you'll find
links to those stories that have been featured on TPM Online in the current year.
At the bottom of the page,
you'll find links to separate archives of stories from previous
years.
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Inevitably links go out of date. We suggest, therefore, that
you make hard-copies of the stories that particularly interest
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Credit
Our news service is provided by the people at ButterfliesandWheels.com.
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Latest News
Olivia Judson on Recent Evolutionary Change
Start with the evolution of beak size in finches in the Galápagos archipelago.
Date filed: 24-07-2008
Michael Shermer on a Habit of Human Cognition
We have evolved brains that pay attention to anecdotes because false positives are usually harmless.
Date filed: 24-07-2008
Tom Clark Reviews Austin Dacey on Secularism
How can secular liberals best defend an open society against the authoritarian and absolutist opposition?
Date filed: 15-07-2008
TPM-sponsored Podcast of Interviews [itunes]
Interviews with Susan Greenfield, Ray Tallis and Alan Sokal.
Date filed: 14-07-2008
TPM-sponsored Podcast of Interviews [mp3]
Interviews with Susan Greenfield, Ray Tallis and Alan Sokal.
Date filed: 14-07-2008
Hitchens on How to be a Public Intellectual
An intellectual is someone who does not attempt to soar on the thermals of public opinion
Date filed: 13-07-2008
New Legal Threat to School Science in US
Barbara Forrest says Louisiana's 'Science Education Act' is designed to slip ID in through the back door.
Date filed: 13-07-2008
Denmark Happiest, Zimbabwe Least Happy
Survey finds personal freedom even more important to happiness than prosperity.
Date filed: 04-07-2008
Bernard-Henri Lévy on Darfur and the Left
The decision for genocide is never announced on CBS News or in AFP.
Date filed: 29-06-2008
What Darwin and Wallace Thought
150 years ago next week, a notion, more radical even than Marx's, was set loose on the world.
Date filed: 23-06-2008
Sally Baker Reviews Julian Baggini
Complaint is a positive, constructive force that has lain at the root of all social change, and can do so again.
Date filed: 23-06-2008
Theodore Dalrymple Reviews Julian Baggini
Dalrymple is not sure that the intellectually sophisticated and critical are the most balanced complainants.
Date filed: 23-06-2008
Margaret Talbot on Irene Pepperberg and Alex
In the past decade, dozens of studies have buttressed Pepperberg’s claims about avian intelligence.
Date filed: 16-06-2008
Nussbaum on Rawls's 'Political Liberalism'
We can argue for political principles using ethical notions that are separable from controversial religious doctrines.
Date filed: 12-06-2008
The Reality Tests
The world is real, but we don't perceive it as it exists fundamentally.
Date filed: 09-06-2008
Roger Scruton on Cities for Living
Léon Krier presents the first principle of architecture as a deduction from Kant’s Categorical Imperative.
Date filed: 08-06-2008
K. Anthony Appiah Reviews Susan Neiman
If you're a philosopher, the easiest way to introduce yourself is not by elaborating a doctrine, but by telling a story.
Date filed: 07-06-2008
Connecting Philosophy, Sondheim and Seurat
Actor Daniel Evans is also a philosophy student.
Date filed: 05-06-2008
World Science Festival in New York City
Daniel Dennett, Marvin Minsky and others discuss free will at one panel of many.
Date filed: 05-06-2008
Kenan Malik Reviews Raymond Tallis
Tallis can digress entertainingly on anything from Heidegger to hiccups, from Beckett to the basilar membrane.
Date filed: 03-06-2008
Jane O'Grady Reviews Raymond Tallis
Tallis uses meditations on the head and its functions as his entrée into what we are.
Date filed: 03-06-2008
Good and Bad Ad Hominem Arguments
An ad hominem is valid when the claims made about a person’s character or actions are relevant to the conclusions being drawn.
Date filed: 03-06-2008
Mark Pagel on Kenan Malik and Marek Cohn
Our ability to co-operate with unrelated others enables us to move beyond the politics of race.
Date filed: 03-06-2008
Jeff Sharlet Reads Martha Nussbaum
The overlapping consensus model fails when it rests too easily on assumptions about just what good faith is.
Date filed: 27-05-2008
Austin Dacey Rejects the Gag Order on Ethics
By shying away from fundamental moral debate, secular liberalism has abandoned the field to religious voices.
Date filed: 25-05-2008
Julian Baggini on Ways to Decide Ethical Issues
Democratic politics in a pluralist age requires, not that people set aside their fundamental commitments, but that they discuss their differences in a common language.
Date filed: 23-05-2008
'God Lab' to Search for Evidence for ID
'The same ID creationists whose work has already been critiqued and discredited,' says philosopher Barbara Forrest
Date filed: 18-05-2008
Petition to Save PhD Program at U of Florida
Philosophy programs should not be seen as expendable.
Date filed: 16-05-2008
A Philosophical Approach to Illness
Havi Carel: 'I am a philosopher and I use philosophy to make sense of my illness.'
Date filed: 16-05-2008
Foreign Policy's List of Top 100 Intellectuals
Appiah, Chomsky, Dennett, Finkielkraut, Habermas, Ignatieff, Nussbaum, Savater, Sen, Singer, Taylor, Walzer, Zizek.
Date filed: 16-05-2008
Wittgenstein and Market Forces
University of Melbourne Business School hires philosopher-in-residence.
Date filed: 16-05-2008
Can U Read Kant?
To Mark Bauerlein, the present is a good time to be young only if you don't mind a tendency toward empty-headedness.
Date filed: 14-05-2008
Should Philosophy Talk to Non-philosophers?
Jonathan Barnes, Myles Fredric Burnyeat, Raymond Geuss, Barry Stroud discuss.
Date filed: 13-05-2008
Review of Why Truth Matters
Reviewer much cleverer than authors.
Date filed: 13-05-2008
Real Humans Are Lazy, Busy, Impulsive, Biased
That's why they can be nudged in socially desirable directions.
Date filed: 12-05-2008
Steven Pinker on the Stupidity of Dignity
Leon Kass has a problem not just with longevity and health but with the modern conception of freedom.
Date filed: 12-05-2008
Alan Wolfe on J S Mill
He was both a journalist and an MP, neither of which activities would have counted for tenure.
Date filed: 12-05-2008
Raymond Geuss Remembers Rorty at Princeton
Over the years, I did my best to set Dick right about Gadamer.
Date filed: 12-05-2008
Extract from Neil Gross's Richard Rorty
Rorty concluded that there is no position outside historically situated language games from which to distinguish mind from world.
Date filed: 10-05-2008
Socrates in the classroom changes the distribution of power
The students develop their thinking skills in a cooperative and investigative atmosphere.
Date filed: 10-05-2008
Scott McLemee on Neil Gross on Rorty
What tools does a sociologist bring to a book about Rorty that an intellectual historian wouldn’t?
Date filed: 10-05-2008
Slavoj Žižek Interview
Whenever I see myself, like there on the screen, I’m tempted to adopt the position of an observer and ask myself, if I were to have a daughter, I would never allow that guy to take me to a movie theater.
Date filed: 05-05-2008
Nussbaum on Philosophy and Shakespeare
Philosophers often try to write about Shakespeare. Most of the time they are ill-equipped to do so.
Date filed: 05-05-2008
Does science make belief in God obsolete?
Templeton foundation asks; Pinker, Hoodbhoy, Midgley, Hitchens, others answer.
Date filed: 30-04-2008
UCL Statement on Nicholas Kollerstrom
Fellowships are awarded to researchers with whom UCL wants to associate; UCL doesn't want to associate with Kollerstrom.
Date filed: 29-04-2008
UCL Withdraws Fellowship from Holocaust Denier
'Let us hope the schoolchildren visitors are properly taught about the elegant swimming-pool at Auschwitz...'
Date filed: 29-04-2008
Simon Blackburn on Eight Myths
What is usually known as culture is a set of symbols enabling people on the inside to recognise and dislike those on the outside.
Date filed: 28-04-2008
A.D. Woozley 1912-2008
The well-known legal and political philosopher Anthony D. Woozley co-taught the first law and philosophy class at Oxford in 1951.
Date filed: 25-04-2008
Michael Walzer on Tibet
While the Tibetans are pragmatists, at this moment the Chinese are rigid ideologues.
Date filed: 23-04-2008
Daniel Dennett Debates Robert Winston
The more we use science to explore nature, the more we find things we do not understand and cannot explain.
Date filed: 23-04-2008
Mary Warnock on The Politics of Religion
Society is not a religious organisation like a church. Laws must as far as possible be made in the interests, far wider than matters of faith, of all members of society, whether or not they hold any religious views.
Date filed: 23-04-2008
Philosophy on 'Start the Week'
Raymond Tallis; Daniel Dennett; Carole Seymour-Jones on Sartre and Beauvoir.
Date filed: 22-04-2008
Bill Moyers Talks to Martha Nussbaum
If we use the language of fair play and equality, we can understand why we don't want certain kinds of manifestations of Christianity in public life.
Date filed: 22-04-2008
Raymond Tallis on Neuroscience and Literary Criticism
In approaches that purport to be neuroscience-based, the consciousness of the writer is reduced to neurophysiology.
Date filed: 11-04-2008
Habermas Backs Archbishop Over Sharia
Argues that Europe must adopt an inclusive discussion on religion in public life through a dialogue in which all parties cooperate as equals.
Date filed: 10-04-2008
Avishai Margalit on Sectarianism
The idea of the sacred describes what is indivisible and hence not subject to compromise.
Date filed: 09-04-2008
Philosophy More Popular in US Universities
'A lot of students are in it because they find it intellectually rewarding.'
Date filed: 08-04-2008
Grayling and Monk Debate Education
The appetite for finding out, and thinking about what is learned, grows by feeding.
Date filed: 08-04-2008
Grayling on 'Explaining Religion'
The concept of religiosity is going to need all the historical and anthropological clarification it can get before a computational model of its dynamics becomes possible.
Date filed: 06-04-2008
Grayling on Murphy-O'Connor
'Judaeo-Christian' ethics were taken over from Stoicism and Cicero.
Date filed: 03-04-2008
NCSE on California Creationism Case
The University has a legitimate interest in evaluating the adequacy of high school courses to prepare students for study.
Date filed: 02-04-2008
Carlin Romano Reviews Susan Jacoby
The Age of American Unreason feeds the notion of American anti-intellectualism as a no-brainer truth.
Date filed: 31-03-2008
Martha Nussbaum on America's Puritanical Streak
All of us, with the exception of the independently wealthy and the unemployed, take money for the use of our body.
Date filed: 28-03-2008
Project to Inquire into Religion
Experiments to look at the mental mechanisms needed to represent an omniscient deity.
Date filed: 28-03-2008
What Would Mill Advise on Wilders's 'Fitna'?
The problem with the Wilders film is that we do not know whether the situation of the corn dealer applies.
Date filed: 25-03-2008
Michael Walzer on the Value of Voting Twice
Mill proposed giving a double vote to university graduates; a very bad idea.University graduates are as likely as anyone else to be hasty, prejudiced, and self-regarding.
Date filed: 25-03-2008
John Gray on Atheism
'It is not necessary to believe in any narrative of progress to think liberal societies are worth resolutely defending.'
Date filed: 16-03-2008
Flew Impressed by Evidence for Resurrection
'I am very much impressed with Bishop Wright's approach. It is absolutely wonderful, absolutely radical, and very powerful.'
Date filed: 11-03-2008
Antony Flew at Westminster Chapel
Flew will join Bishop of Durham in 'giving evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.'
Date filed: 11-03-2008
Brain Enhancement - Useful or a Cheat?
What if your boss tells you to take speed?
Date filed: 10-03-2008
Grayling on Smolin on Physics
It is the fact that string theory makes no testable predictions that gives Smolin his greatest concern.
Date filed: 10-03-2008
Jane O'Grady Reviews Revolution in Mind
It is widely accepted that the notion of the unconscious was not originally Freud's, but (philosophically) hatched by Schopenhauer and Nietzsche from its germ in Hume and Locke.
Date filed: 07-03-2008
'Philosophy Bites' Interviews Anthony Appiah
How is it possible to combine ethical universalism with acknowledgement of difference?
Date filed: 05-03-2008
Meera Nanda: Rush Hour of the Gods
What motivates educated, well-to-do urban sophisticates to continue to believe in miracles and supernatural beings?
Date filed: 04-03-2008
BHL on the Re-branding of Anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism, to pass under the radar, must draw from anti-Zionism, Holocaust denial, and victim competition.
Date filed: 29-02-2008
Alan Sokal on Taking Evidence Seriously
The implications of taking seriously an evidence-based worldview are far more radical than most people realise.
Date filed: 29-02-2008
Ideas are all the Rage
The success of idea books has signified to cultural commissars a thirst for good ideas clearly expressed.
Date filed: 29-02-2008
John Patrick Diggins Reviews Charles Taylor
Taylor seeks to prove that God is still very much present in the world, if only we look at the right places.
Date filed: 28-02-2008
Seyla Benhabib on Turkey's Hijab Legislation
Unfortunate that reform of Article 301 (on 'insulting Turkishness') was dropped.
Date filed: 27-02-2008
Biologists Join Philosophers in Moral Thinking
Marc Hauser, David Sloan Wilson, Samuel Bowles look at trolleyology, altruism, and moral behavior.
Date filed: 27-02-2008
Multi-secularism: The New Agenda
Multi-secularism seems to be the best strategy: adapting secular values to the societies in which they arise.
Date filed: 26-02-2008
Julian Baggini on Žižek on Violence
Whatever the received wisdom is, Žižek postulates the opposite. And repeat.
Date filed: 23-02-2008
Conservatives are not Attracted to Academe
'The personal priorities of those on the left are more compatible with pursuing a Ph.D.'
Date filed: 23-02-2008
Scientific Study of Religious Belief Launched
Oxford researchers have received a Ł1.9 million grant for study of the cognitive science of religion.
Date filed: 21-02-2008
Carlin Romano on Socrates
Isocrates practiced the philosophical study of ethics without the dogmatism of Plato's Socrates.
Date filed: 18-02-2008
The Internet Links Philosophy With its Roots
Mark O'Connell recommends philosophy blogs: Talking Philosophy, Virtual Philosopher, Stephen Law.
Date filed: 18-02-2008
Nigel Warburton Interviews James Garvey
Climate change presents us with a host of moral problems. Getting those in plain sight is part of the point of the book.
Date filed: 18-02-2008
What Would Socrates Make of Podcasting?
Nigel Warburton talks about the making of Ethics Bites.
Date filed: 16-02-2008
Ethics Bites Interviews Peter Singer
Ethics Bites spoke to Peter Singer about how humans treat animals.
Date filed: 16-02-2008
David Edmonds and Nigel Warburton: Ethics Bites
Each week they talk to a philosopher about issues like death, censorship and historical blame.
Date filed: 16-02-2008
Roger Scruton on Secular Law
The Roman vision of sovereignty as exercised through secular law survived into modern times.
Date filed: 16-02-2008
Colin McGinn on Point of Inquiry
McGinn explores skepticism and concerns about radical fallibilism and post-modern critiques of knowledge.
Date filed: 02-02-2008
Two Forms of the Straw Man Argument [pdf]
The straw man works if the audience is inattentive.
Date filed: 29-01-2008
How Not to Get Duped
Two general types of fallacies that are generally ubiquitous in political debates and other discourse.
Date filed: 29-01-2008
Philosophy Said to Make Religion More Credible
There is a tension between advocating something religion-neutral and a curriculum where one religion is privileged.
Date filed: 21-01-2008
David Papineau Reads John Searle
He remains suspicious of the pretensions of philosophical argument to overturn everyday opinion.
Date filed: 20-01-2008
Two Philosophers Feud Over a Book Review
The view from Cornell, The Philosophical Review’s home, is that the fuss is overblown.
Date filed: 19-01-2008
What Kind of Philosophy Gets in the News?
'Hot New Account of Autonomy Founders on Noumenal Mysteries'? Not so much.
Date filed: 17-01-2008
Nigel Warburton on 'The Grasshopper'
A brilliant and witty book, superbly written and with serious and original contributions to make.
Date filed: 16-01-2008
Carlin Romano on John Gray
His opinion is not entirely favourable.
Date filed: 16-01-2008
Is Slavoj Žižek Serious?
Which produces the greatest terror, action or inaction?
Date filed: 11-01-2008
Philosopher Goes Into a Pub and Says
'Everybody loves my baby, but my baby don't love nobody but me.' From this, it logically follows that 'I am my baby.'
Date filed: 11-01-2008
Rebecca Goldstein on Falsifiability
Scientists don’t, and shouldn’t, jettison a theory as soon as a disconfirming datum comes in.
Date filed: 07-01-2008
BHL on Grieving for Benazir
We should have seen many heads of state, to make the funeral a global demonstration for democracy and peace.
Date filed: 06-01-2008
A C Grayling on the Importance of Autonomy
Are individuals capable of overcoming limitations to achieve by will and endeavour what they identify as good?
Date filed: 04-01-2008
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