by Edward Kazarian and Leigh M. Johnson A little over two years ago, more than 600 philosophers petitioned the American Philosophical Association to “produce a code of conduct and a statement of professional ethics for the academic discipline of Philosophy.” The immediate motivation for the petition was several high-profile cases of sexual misconduct by philosophers, which…
Read More[NOTE: This is the first in a series of reviews of Black Mirror. These posts DO include spoilers. Stop reading now if you don’t want to know!] All of the episodes of Charlie Brooker‘s brilliant sci-fi series Black Mirror take place in a near-distant future, but in the first installment of the third season (“Nosedive”) that future is far…
Read MoreThere’s an old anecdote about boiling frogs that is often employed by philosophers to explain the sorites paradox. If you drop a frog into a pot of boiling water, the story goes, it will immediately sense the heat and the danger, jump out of the pot, and be spared its life. But if you put…
Read MoreWomen’s voices, ideas, engagements, and critiques are constantly being erased and/or appropriated– in academia, on the internet, at workplaces of every ilk– sometimes through slick and malicious moves, but much more often as a consequence of careless inattention. Also, water is wet. I was just recently “disappeared” in an essay by my friend Joshua Miller…
Read MoreIt’s funny how quickly pop songs start to sound “old.” In order to figure out what I was listening to this time last summer, I’ll admit that I had to consult iTunes and a couple of music blogs to see what the top tracks were for June 2015. In almost every case, my first thought…
Read MoreOk, at this point– I’m writing this on June 37– I’m already six days behind on the 30 Day Song Challenge. I was just about to give up and call it quits, but then I remembered that I’ve been doing this for a long time and, even if this year’s iteration ends up being the…
Read MoreI don’t usually listen to music when I’m trying to sleep, mostly because I find it difficult to not actively listen. At the same time, I absolutely cannot abide total silence. When I’m in my office, I always have earbuds in. When I’m at home or in my car, there is always something playing. And so, against…
Read MoreI don’t actually “hate” a lot of bands, mostly because I don’t really listen to bands that I don’t like long enough to log the emotional time it takes to generate real hatred. For today’s 30 Day Song Challenge selection, I was going to pick a song by Creed… but then I figured everyone with any kind of musical taste at all…
Read MoreAs I’ve grown older, I’ve become far less confident in my ability to correctly predict what other people think. That seems counterintuitive to me, since one would expect that more years of experience– more interpersonal “data points”– would make it easier to recognize patterns and improve one’s predictive capabilities. Not so in my experience. Rather,…
Read MoreOh man, seriously, I love ABBA soooooo much. I once said that if I were ever to get a tattoo, I would have “Super Trouper” tattooed on my shoulder. For the record, no tats here. My skin remains as clean as the driven snow. I kind of wish I did feel guilty about my ridiculously unrestrained ABBA fandom, but…
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