American philosopher whose Chinese Room thought experiment rebuts the idea that computers can think as humans do
All posts by David
Alasdair MacIntyre (1929-2025)
Alasdair MacIntyre, professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame and Duke University, well-known for his work in moral and political philosophy, has died.
https://dailynous.com/2025/05/22/alasdair-macintyre-1929-2025
CFP for chapters in a book (Transhumanism)
CALL FOR PAPERS
TRANSHUMANISM AND JUSTICE, ed. Dominic Garcia, PhD
ABOUT THE BOOK
Although we read about justice, rights, property, politics and its relation to transhumanism/posthumanism, the need to consider the philosophy of punishment and the prison in transhumanistic/posthumanist times has not yet been fully explored.
This book seeks to shed some light on the validity of having a retributive justice system at a time when the world is moving towards a new understanding of the human or, rather, the posthuman. The aim will be to fill the gaps in a system of retributive justice that is perhaps unsuitable for a changing mentality; a mentality moving away from the idea of punishment as a form of vengeance against those who created the victim. This book will strongly argue against the mentality of reprisal, namely a kind of mentality that derives satisfaction from either knowing that the offender is now suffering as a result of his/her unlawful deeds or from egregiously witnessing (and even, perhaps, relishing) the offender’s suffering as a form of spectacle.
This book will advocate (and perhaps provoke the reader to formulate) an understanding on the reality of this topic, to fill one more gap, between the notion of transhumanism/posthumanism and the realities of the traditional prison.
SUBJECTS
Suitable topics include (but are not limited to) the following:
– philosophy of justice
– ethics
– politics within the precincts of transhumanism/posthumanism
SUBMISSIONS AND DEADLINES
Submit your full paper by 10th of March 2025 to Dr. Dominic Garcia at dga@risemalta.org.mt. For any questions about the book and its publication, please contact the editor or the publisher (publishing@trivent-publishing.eu).
PUBLICATION
The volume will be published in the Transhumanism and Philosophy book series, ed. Prof. David Edward Rose.
Another chance to publish
STANCE
an international undergraduate philosophy journal
CALL FOR PAPERS
Stance seeks original philosophical papers authored by current undergraduates.
Submission Guidelines:
Stance welcomes papers concerning any philosophical topic. Current undergraduates may submit a paper between 1500 and 3500 words in length (footnotes may extend the word limit 500 words at most). Stance asks that each undergraduate only submit one paper for the journal per year. Papers should avoid unnecessary technicality and strive to be accessible to the widest possible audience without sacrificing clarity or rigor. They are evaluated on the following criteria: depth of inquiry, quality of research/academic rigor, creativity, lucidity, struggle, significance, and, most importantly, originality.
Submission Procedures:
This year, Stance is utilizing a new system to better manage paper submissions and correspondence with authors. As such, we have updated our submission procedures. Please refer to the instructions below when submitting your paper:
1. Go to https://openjournals.bsu.edu/stance
2. If you have not previously set up an account with the OJS system, click on “Register” in the upper right hand corner. Otherwise proceed to step 4.
3. Follow the steps to register an account
a. Input the information you would like associated with your account
b. Verify your account through the email link
c. Return to https://openjournals.bsu.edu/stance to complete the submission process
4. Click on “Make a Submission” in the upper right-hand corner
5. Click on “Make a New Submission” in the box above “Submission Preparation Checklist”
6. Verify that your submission meets the submission requirements listed. If it does, check all corresponding boxes.
7. Click “Save and Continue”
8. Select “Article Text” from the dropdown menu under “Article Component”
9. Upload your submission as a Word document
10. Review the file information and click continue
11. Click complete to finish the upload
12. Click Save and continue
13. For meta-data, enter the title in the following format: “FirstInitialLastname_Submission” (ex. RSmith_Submission)
14. For the abstract, enter your first and last name, the title of your submission, the name of your institution and an email address you can be easily reached at.
15. Click “Save and Continue”
16. Click “Finish Submission”
17. Click “Ok”
Please be sure to double check your paper before submitting. Once you finalize your submission, you will not be able to go back and edit it. Please keep the following in mind:
• Manuscripts should be in Microsoft Word (.doc) format and should not be submitted in .pdf format.
• Manuscripts should be double-spaced (including quotations, excerpts, and footnotes). The right margin should not be justified.
• Papers, including footnotes, should have no identifying markers. Footnotes should follow Chicago Manual of Style. A style sheet with examples is available on our website under “More about Stance – Information for Authors.” • Please use American spellings and punctuation, except when directly quoting a source that has followed British style.
For further concerns, please visit Stance on the web at http://stancephilosophy.com/ or contact us at ballstatestance@gmail.com. You can also follow us on Instagram and Twitter @stance_journal and on facebook at bsustance.
Deadline: December 17, 2021
Quick reading on free will
Welcome back from the break and hope you are well. If you are interested, The Guardian has an overview article on free will this morning. Not great, a little simple but a good revision/overview. Enjoy over Lucky Charms or croissants, but definitely with coffee.
Holiday listening
Who was Michel Foucault? Why is he still influential? A half-hour introduction to the French philosopher and historian of ideas from Thinking Allowed. https://bbc.in/3h4syp7 | @BBCSounds
Thinking about what to do with your degree?
EVENT ANNOUNCEMENT
“I’ve studied philosophy. What now?!” is an event on non-academic career paths for philosophers.
Date: 11.07.2020, 4pm BST / 11am ET
Website: http://letsphi.com/ (Reserve your spot now!)
A virtual event by philosophers for philosophers! 10 speakers will share their non-academic journeys. We challenge the stereotype that philosophy is purely academic or just teaches you transferable ‘soft’ skills. We will have industry experts from legal, government, tech, finance and entrepreneurship. The gathering will strongly focus on interactions between participants with chats in smaller groups to exchange experiences.
Why logic is important to learn…
To test your critical thinking, please show the logical error of Mark Francois below and then email him some help. He obviously needs it.
Interesting talk
This event is happening in Sociology but may well be of interest to some of you, especially where a project theme may coincide:
Please find below details of forthcoming Sociology events:
Utopia Now? New thinking, new practices: David Bell, Lisa Garforth and Adam Stock
Wednesday 21 November, 4-6pm, Armstrong Building 2.49
Public event – open to all
Please join us for a talk about contemporary utopian thought.
David Bell, Lisa Garforth and Adam Stock will be talking about their recent books which reflect respectively on utopian politics, affect and performative practices; green utopian visions and post-war environmental discourse; and dystopian fiction and political thought. The three speakers share a background in utopian studies and the conversation will also explore issues in contemporary utopian theory, practice and politics.
David Bell is author of Rethinking Utopia: Place, Power, Affect (Routledge, 2017) and a member of the Out of
the Woods collective
Lisa Garforth, Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Newcastle University is author of Green Utopias: Environmental Hope Before and After Nature (Polity, 2018)
Adam Stock, Lecturer in English Literature at York St. John, is author of Modern Dystopian Fiction and Political Thought (Routledge, 2018)
An Imagining Pasts and Futures cluster event
Help needed
When I was doing the student inductions, I thought about looking for an app to help with referencing. I was lazy and went with the first one I found, MYLibrary (android) which allows you to scan barcodes of books and it then adds all the details required for your bibliography. This is useful and allows you to add comments on the texts. I am sure there are better ones out there.
For my own note taking I use Google Keep, and I write using their Docs so that I open Keep directly from within the word processor with a couple of bibliography add-ons. This means I can take pictures of quotations for later with my phone, add in thoughts when I am on the bus and so on. I know others use Evernote for the same reasons.
But I want to open this further. I am leaning Spanish by both private lessons and using the Duolingo app to reinforce vocabulary. I would really like to know if others have any specific apps they use which they find useful. Those directly to the learning of philosophy do, of course, interest me most.
I’d really appreciate if you would tell me which apps you use and which you find more useful, or what you would like to be able to do with your phones/tablets. Please just add in below. This is so we can build and share a list of useful tools to improve the learning environment. Bear in mind these apps are supposed to facilitate thinking (like a word processor does) rather than replace it.
You can either put in a comment below or just email me directly.
David