Imperfect Cognitions

This post is by Anna Mameli, who attends secondary school and volunteers for The Philosophy Garden as part of her Duke of Edinburgh silver award. Anna reports on a paper recently published in a special issue of Revue Internationale de Philosophie on philosophy in the public sphere. Conceptual plumbing, an installation at the Philosophy Museum What are employers looking for? What do you need to successfully pass an interview? What helps you to win debates? Good epistemic skills. Epistemic skills allow you to gain, develop and use knowledge so that you can achieve your goals. This can be applied anywhere, from expressing your view in passionate debates in comment sections and discussing political issues with friends to deciding whether or not you should trust a source (e.g., when looking for medical advice) and convincingly presenting your point at work. These skills can be used for anything in your life! Learning good epistemic habits is essential for surviving in our society. So, ho...

On the occasion of  #PhiloFortnight2025 , a period of two weeks in the UK dedicated to promoting philosophy, a webinar took place to address multiple ways in which philosophy can be brought to the general public. Poster of the event Panelists included: Paul Knights has a background in philosophy where he researched the relationship between philosophy and nature. Currently, he organises guides walks in the Pennine landscape, has interests in photography and environmental education, and participates in community projects. You can learn more about Paul's activities at the Landscape Story website . Bonny Astor has a background in psychology and a long-standing interest in philosophy as a means to connect deeply with people from different backgrounds and with different views. Currently, she leads the initiatives of Thought Experiments in Pubs and you can find more information about the events at the All Together One website . Helen Beebee is professor of philosophy of science at the ...

Today's post is by Joshua Habgood-Coote  and Nadja El Kassar on their recent paper,  Receptive Publics ( Ergo , forthcoming). Joshua Habgood-Coote is a research fellow at the school of philosophy, religion, and history of science at the university of Leeds. Natalie Ashton is a research associate at VU Amsterdam, Nadja El Kassar is Professor of Philosophy at University of Lucerne. Joshua Habgood-Coote It is common to hear the following kind of complaint: You can’t say anything these days! You never know who might get offended, or whether you’re going to get cancelled for saying something totally innocuous. Back in my day we just said it like it was, we were all a lot more thick-skinned, and we just came out and said uncomfortable truths. This complaint makes a historical comparison: things used to be better because you could say what you thought. Both better psychologically—we weren’t spending our whole time in a defensive crouch—and epistemically—we could get to the truth, ...

For today's post I interviewed Fabienne Peter , Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick, specializing in political philosophy, moral philosophy, and social epistemology. She talks about her research interests, a new exciting project she is participating in, and the role of philosophers in public life. LB: How did you become interested in the norms that govern political debate? FP: I’ve been doing research on the question of what makes political decisions legitimate for some time now. This research has led me to see that an inclusive and fair political debate is an important condition for legitimate political decision-making. Inclusive and fair political debate of political issues matters in a number of ways. It helps to gather relevant considerations that bear on the decision-making, for example in relation to the implications of possible political decisions for different people. It also helps to weigh the importance of those considerations. Political debate...

Here is an interview with  Andreas Elpidorou  (University of Louisville) whose book  Propelled! How Boredom, Frustration, and Anticipation Can Lead Us to the Good Life  will be out with Oxford University Press in early 2020. The book focuses on the role of negative emotions and states of discontent in our lives and argues for the counterintuitive claim that boredom, frustration, and anticipation are good for us. LB: To start, how did you become interested in boredom? Are you one of those people who have a propensity to experience boredom frequently? AE: Boredom has been on my mind for years. Although I don’t score high on measures of boredom proneness, I am no stranger to boredom. I experienced its full force almost two decades ago (it’s hard to believe that it’s been so long!) during a phase in my life that seemed to be – while it was unfolding – endless: my mandatory military service. What I remember most vividly from the time that I spent in various ca...

This post is by Ji-Young Lee. This year’s Minorities and Philosophy (MAP) @ Bristol conference theme was ‘Public Philosophy’. We hosted a number of talks exploring the conceptual and practical issues related to the idea of philosophy as a ‘public’ endeavour. Four current Philosophy PhD students are responsible for organizing the event: Chengxiao Dang, Chia-Hung Huang, Ji-Young Lee, and Denise Vargiu. We would also like to acknowledge Minorities and Philosophy, The Marc Sanders Foundation, and the University of Bristol Philosophy Department for kindly supporting this event. We commenced our morning session with a talk from Jane Gatley, on justifying philosophy in secondary schools. She discussed how justifying teaching philosophy through the positive benefits associated with the P4C movement risked ‘conflating claims about philosophy with claims about the distinctive P4C pedagogy’. The benefits attached to P4C might have more to do with dialogue and child-centered learning, rat...