End Times archive

Amie Lynn Thomasson is a funky philosopher of fictionalism, phenomenology and ordinary things. She is always thinking about Moore's arguments , about common sense, tables, when May was born, whether science and ordinary objects are rivals, the limits of metaphysics, what fictions are, why Sherlock Holmes is as real as a number, about links in phenomenology crossing the so-called Analytic-Continental divide, and what benefits this approach brings. All in all, boss. Published on: Jun 28, 2013 @ 05:34

Jonathan Bain is an ice cool philosopher of physics. He broods on how intuitions are challenged by new theories, about Newtonian gravity, about whether physicists are running blind and the implications for philosophers, of whether we should be realists or anti-realists, about the nature of space and time, about the nature of Lee Smolin's doubts about physics, about what the electron teaches us, about particles and fields, about structural realism and whether there can be different empty universes, about why Albert won the Krauss vs Albert spat and what to make of the multiverse. That's one hell of a motherload! Keep it 100 yawl! Published on: Jun 24, 2013 @ 05:30

Steven Nadler is the off da heezie fo sheezie OG in the history of philosophy rage. He's always thinking and writing about Leibniz, Arnauld, Malebranche but goes large with Spinoza and his heresy, his view on the immortality of the mind, the harshness of his cherem, his book forged in hell, his deep secularism, Descartes and the priest and the painter, Occasionalism, why Descartes is like Daffy Duck, and the radicalism and iconoclasm of his brood of historical thinkers. All in all, this is fa sho fa-sheezy. Forceful! Published on: Jun 17, 2013 @ 05:30

David Bakhurst goes all Virginia Plain about Russian political thinkers, Soviet philosophy, Illyenkov, Mikhailov, Vygotsky and his demons, Deborin's Hegelian Marxists, the Mechanists, the formation of reason, John McDowell, second nature and naturalism, Jonathan Dancy and particularism, as well as the status of philosophy of education and whether Michael Oakeshott can be redeemed. It's for your pleasure... Published on: Jun 14, 2013 @ 05:30

Kimberley Brownlee is the philosophical jig-jiving jaw-jaw of civil disobedience. She is always thinking about conscience and conviction, Rawls's narrow views, Raz's wider ones, her reversals of the standard liberal picture, her rejection of moral conviction as passion, of the good reasons for a defence of civil disobedience, about the difference between conscientious objection and civil disobedience, of the role of the state and its offices, of punishment, of the missing voice of offenders and of the ethics and law regarding social deprivation. All in all, she's kickin' ass from the right end of our troubling times. Snazzy! Published on: Jun 10, 2013 @ 05:30

Daniel Dennett is the mild mannered super wizard of philosophical brainstorms. Everyone knows about him by now and his books are read all over whenever people want to get straight ideas on Darwin, minds and consciousness, religion and how to philosophise. This makes him a rare case of a contemporary philosopher who is now a baddass public intellectual. His new book is 'Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking' and is making waves. There are interviews and articles and events galore about this new book so instead of talking about it 3ammagazine talked about a whole bunch of other stuff instead but unfortunately not Freedom Evolves, nor his ideas about the singularity because he's written about that here, nor any of his other sassy books either. You're velcro. Published on: Jun 3, 2013 @ 05:30

Jennifer Lackey is the rootin' tootin' jive falutin' philosopher of testimony and social epistemology. She broods on summative and non-summative approaches to social epistemology, on how much this breaks with traditional epistemology, on collective responsibility, on the epistemology of testimony and the difference between a Reidian and Humean approach, on learning from words, on whether memory is a generative epistemic source, on whether infants produce a counter-example to reductionism in the epistemology of testimology, on whether speakers or listeners have to be reliable and on disagreement between peers. All in all, this is a burning jive along the wild epistemic highway. Wham Bam Thank U Ma'am! Published on: May 31, 2013 @ 05:30

Rebecca Kukla is chillin' rad philosopher always thinking about the pragmatic topography of the space of reasons. She thinks philosophers have thought too much about statements broadcasting information and should look elsewhere like Plato, Rousseau and Nietzsche did.She's suspicous of semantic theory, thinks McDowell wrong to think we are accountable to objects, thinks squirrels illustrate something important, finds certain ubiquitous risk communication both unhelpful and damaging to moral agency, is a relentless naturalist who thinks we should teach everyone to be scientifically and statistically literate, doesn't mind being called a naturalised Kantian and has a great deal of sensible stuff to say about the scandal of gender inequality in academic philosophy. All in all, this is slick fuggly jive. Published on: May 27, 2013 @ 05:30

Sibyl A Schwarzenbach plumbs the depths of the philosophy of civic friendship. She’s always brooding on Rawls and was one of the first to contest readings that made him out to be an abstract individualist and thinks an Hegelian reading necessary. She knows that the growing inequality in the US and the world point to flawed thinking and systems. She asks fundamental questions about Locke and feminism, civic friendship, the way metaphysics underdetermines a thinker’s practical position in ethics and politics, about Aristotle, paradigms of labour and activity, Marx’s understanding of social labour and the emotions, about how relations between nations might better be conceived, about women’s roles, why Kantian dignity is not enough and about sexism in academic philosophy. Rockin’! Published on: May 24, 2013 @ 05:30

Gordon Finlayson is the uebercool continental philosopher with Marxist-influenced radical, progressive, non-aligned politics lined up with modern European philosophy and critical theory. He is bold and deep. He finds Agamben on Aristotle rubbish, wonders how far the moral domain extends, throws light on what is bad about the abuse of things, believes Habermas to be very important as a political theorist, discusses the dispute between Habermas and Rawls,discusses the relevance of Kant, Hegel and Habermas on contemporary political and ethical thought, chews over the Frankfurt School, Adorno and Habermas's objections to his critical theory, wonders about austere negativism, negative theology,the muteness of art works, the sinister crisis of Universities, the unreliability of Roger Scuton on anything left wing and how despite the overall bleakness of our contemporary world there are signs of hope. All in all, this is rad. Blowin'. Published on: May 17, 2013 @ 05:17

Edouard Machery is a killer cool philosopher working on the cutting edge of interfaces between analytic philosophy, psychology, xphi and cognitive science. He's a continental doing analytic philosophy who thinks philosophy without science is blind. He's always investigating social phenomena like racism and the 'integration challenge', alongside the nature of concepts and whether they are the same as perceptual representation. This month he'll be going head to head with the chillin' blue-haired philosopher Jesse Prinz in Latvia on this very issue. He thinks concepts aren't a natural kind and kind of thinks that studying them is like studying a science of Tuesdays. He's also brooding on what the folk think and whether experts have judgements that can be trusted, suggesting that philosophy needs to be humble. Everything he does goes to the heart of how we think about ourselves and all in all is one hell of a badass groove. Shakin'. Published on: May 10, 2013 @ 05:30

Thom Brooks kicks philosophy onto the Global streets looking for justice. He's at home with law, philosophy and public policy. He's got hard things to say about the UK Citizenship test, finds the issue of global justice a core issue for us all, and Hegel's Philosophy of Right a key text. He broods deeply on theories of punishment and thinks he's continuing the tradition of the British Idealists. He thinks hard about natural law internalism and theories of just war. He judges John Rawls a deep groove, Martha Nussbaum his fave living philosopher both for her capabilities approach and large vision and considers Indian philosophy part of the increasingly global philosophical scene. Like, Holy Funkadelic! Published on: May 3, 2013 @ 05:27