Broadly philosophical links

Neuroskeptic on whether 'cognition and perception [are] ultimately inseparable'.

Susan Dominus writes about four guys in Bogota. They are two sets of identical twins: A¹ & A², and B¹ & B². A² and B² were switched at birth. A² is taken home by the B-parents and raised as B¹'s fraternal twin; B² is taken home by the A-mother and raised as A¹'s fraternal twin. The mix-up isn't discovered until the guys are well into adulthood. The story is scientifically fascinating. It's also very moving. The story has been reprinted by the SMH.

Christopher Donohue continues his series on Joseph Agassi.

Harald Sack looks back at Thomas Kuhn.

At the BBC, Melvyn Bragg interviews Melissa Lane, Janet Radcliffe Richards, and Brad Hooker on utilitarianism.

Videos and podcasts from the conference 'New Insights and Directions in Religious Epistemology', which ex-apologist liked.

Carlos Fraenkel recommends five books of philosophy for a divided world. Noël Carrol recommends five books on the philosophy of art. Jerry Coyne recommends five books on 'the incompatibility of religion and science'. Beth Shapiro recommends five books on evolution and such.

James K. A. Smith reviews Peter Harrison's The Territories of Science and Religion.

Charlie Huenemann on 'early modern revolution':

Spinoza’s advice – to see the universe as determined to follow its own laws, and to console ourselves by turning our minds to what is eternal and divine – was not just pretty words; it was offered as a palliative for existential anxiety and despair. When we ignore their complicated circumstances, we risk mistaking these philosophers for university professors, with nothing more at stake than records of publication.

Partially Examined Life on the philosophy of history, part 1 and part 2 (on Vico).

Mark Jay Mirsky reviews Thought Flights: Stories, Glosses, Literary Fragments of Robert Musil, translated and with an introduction by Genese Grill.

From last October, Arcade's forum on the essay (with contributions on Montaigne, Swift, Borges, and a piece by Thomas Harrison on 'the essayistic novel', which is about Musil).

Philosophy link-o-rama

Here are the podcasts from an Oxford conference on 'Religious Epistemology, Contextualism, and Pragmatic Encroachment'.

From Philosophy TV, Gregg Caruso and Neil Levy on consciousness and moral responsibility; and Al Mele and Eddy Nahmias on free will and science.

Over the past few months, Siris has developed an epic series of posts on the Platonic corpus (including writings that used to be in that corpus but which are now doubted to have been written by Plato). Here's a list of what had been covered by August 1. Since then, there have been posts on the Symposium and the Republic. Also, there have been four thorough posts on Plato's letters as well as posts on Alcibiades Minor, Clitophon, Hippias Major, Xenophon's Symposium, and Plato's Epigrammata.

At Partially Examined Life, the hosts 'walk a live audience through Plato’s dialogue [Symposium] about love, sex, self-improvement....'. They also have a recent item about 'Maimonindes on God'.

Elisa Freschi has a series of posts about a conference on Buddhist philosophy (inc. one on Buddhism and philosophy of mind).

Cambridge have posted podcasts for several symposia, including the following: Ian Rumfitt and Gary Kemp on truth and meaning, Hallvard Lillehammer and Roger Crisp on moral testimony, Gideon Rosen and Marcia Baron on culpability, duress, and excuses, Amber Carpenter and Stephen Makin on the ethical significance of persistence, and Tamar Szabó Gendler and Jennifer Nagel on self-regulation.

Cambridge have also posted Alan Millar's Inaugural Address and Michael Bratman's Routledge Lecture.

From Elucidations, Jeff Buechner's podcast on Kripke and functionalism.


David Auerbach has a series of posts on Georg Simmel's Philosophy of Money.

Barry Stocker has a series of posts in the field of 'philosophy and literature', including several on Vico. See also his posts at NewApps.

At In Our Time (BBC), Melvyn Bragg discusses the philosophy of solitude with Melissa Lane, Simon Blackburn, and John Haldane.

From The Encyclopaedia of Educational Philosophy and Theory, 'Schopenhauer and Nietzsche on Moral Growth'.

From Philosophy Bites, Amia Srinivasan on Nietzschean genealogy and Roger Scruton on the sacred.

Some Roger Scruton quotations.

From the bio of Polish philosopher Henryk Elzenberg (who taught the poet Zbigniew Herbert):

Besides being motivated by his own philosophical inquiries, he took part in classes run by H. Bergson, F. Rauh, E. Durkheim, L. Levy-Bruhl and V. Delbos .... Elzenberg spent the years 1913-1917 on intensive studies on the philosophy of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. ... In the autumn of 1916 ... his work Foundations of Leibniz's Metaphysics was presented .... It was followed by his third book (habilitation) entitled Marcus Aurelius. On History and Psychology of Ethics (1922).

John Gray on Kenan Malik's history of ethics and John Gray on Michael Oakeshott.

Ádám Tamás Tuboly's review of Greg Frost-Arnold’s Carnap, Tarski and Quine at Harvard.

Timothy Yu on 'Wittgenstein, Pedagogy, and Literary Criticism'.

Wittgenstein links from the British Wittgenstein Society.

The IEP entry for Victor Kraft; the SEP entry for Ludwig Fleck; and the University of Iowa's bio for Gustav Bergmann.

Historian George Mosse on Bergmann: 

Gustav Bergmann in philosophy was the most visible refugee on campus, a distinguished logical positivist, yet a difficult person, opionated and combative. ... Hardly any of his colleagues managed to get along with him. We clashed straight away about the Western Civilization course and much else besides. (George L. Mosse, Confronting History: a Memoir, p. 144)

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