1. Quite some time ago, I read a twitter thread (which, of course, I can’t find anymore). The thread is by a (self-identified) older woman. She was on a plane and a teenage girl was sitting behind her, flying alone. Next to the girl was an older man, who tried to talk to the girl…
How much courage does one need
I am writing these words on a flight back from Minnesota. In 2018, a Chinese female student at the University of Minnesota was sexually assaulted by one of the richest men in China. I had been following this case on and off, along with a dozen other sexual assault cases that were tied to college…
The genetics of what?
A while back, I wrote a blog post about a GWAS (Genome-Wide Association Study) on the genetics of educational attainment. I mentioned how it was interesting that it was a GWAS on “educational attainment” rather than “intelligence” because, while the two seem closely connected in many people’s eyes, the latter appears more like the sort of…
I think I thought I saw you try
The Philosophers’ Cocoon has been running a “What it’s like to be a philosopher around the world” series, which I thought was a great idea in shedding light on the sociological status of non-western philosophy, a great complement to the recently proclaimed interest of many departments to diversify their philosophical curriculum (as witnessed through job…
Positive psychology, or it’s all your own fault
…is a chapter title of America the Anxious, a book I recently finished on audiobook. Of all the journalism I’ve come across, this book ranks amongst the most insightful. As usual, I will present a selected summary of the book before offering some of my own perspectives. The book The book documents the “happiness industry”,…
Is philosophy a talent field?
I haven’t been posting much, partly because I’ve been busy with job applications. Today will be a short one. As I was writing a research proposal, I went back and reread this 2015 study Expectations of brilliance underlie gender distributions across academic disciplines, by Leslie, Cimpian, Meyer, and Freeland. The study investigates the phenomenon where different…
Men and the “Philosophical Society”
Men are more likely to make misogynistic arguments; so are philosophers. Could this be the explanation of gender disparity within philosophy? Today, Daily Nous published a guest post by Christina Easton titled Women and the “Philosophical Personality”, with the provocative hypothesis: Research suggests that there is a cognitive task on which philosophers tend to perform…
An operationalist lesson for passing judgments
A while back, I wrote a blog post on how I don’t believe in the narrative around “talent”. This post continues that line of thought and discusses judgments of potential or effort that are so common in academia. As I explained in that post, I was not especially good at critical thinking up until upper-years…
Some reflections on doing “service” things and getting them done
The Wonder Philosophy workshop, which aims at helping students from disadvantaged backgrounds (mostly first-gen, but also financial hardship and women of colour) who are interested in applying to philosophy graduate schools to navigate the process, has just concluded this past weekend. (I wrote a post about it back when it was still in the planning…
Ready to Learn
I absolutely believe that teachers can and should learn from students. I’ve heard that sentiment expressed often throughout my teaching career and honestly, I never paused to think about it. It seemed uncontroversial, if not obvious, to me. But after some lively pushback and discussion among friends, I think it’s well worth an attempt to…