Cinzia Arruzza, currently associate professor of philosophy at The New School, will be moving to Boston University‘s Department of Philosophy, where she will be the Maria Stata Professor in Classical Greek Studies. Professor Arruzza works in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, and social and political philosophy. Her books include A Wolf in the City: Tyranny and the Tyrant in Plato’s Republic (Oxford University Press) and Feminism for the 99 percent: a Manifesto (Verso) (co-authored with Tithi Bhattacharya and Nancy Fraser), among others. You can learn more about her writi ..read more

Aman Sakhardande is interviewed by Céline Leboeuf. Why Philosophy? Aman Sakhardande interviewed by Celine Leboeuf What is philosophy to you? Before philosophy, I often found myself in this situation: I would be told that some X is right and that if I did not understand X, nothing more could be said to explain it to me. There was some inexplicable reason that X was right which I just did not apprehend. The suggestion always seemed to be that you needed to be a special kind of person to understand X. For me, philosophy has given the lie to this esotericism. It has told me that if some ..read more

Further deciphering of the carbonized Herculaneum papyri, which recently produced information about Plato’s burial place (publicized last week), also detailed the philosopher’s final hours, according to Graziano Ranocchia (Pisa), who is leading one of the teams working on using technology to “read” the burnt, un-unrollable scrolls. [Thracian woman playing the “aulos”, which is sometimes referred to as a “flute”] The Guardian reports: In a groundbreaking discovery, the ancient scroll was found to contain a previously unknown narrative detailing how the Greek philosopher spent his last evening ..read more

“We call for the reversal of student suspensions and for departments to refuse to comply with university investigations or sanctions of students and employees participating in non-violent political action.” [Philosophy Hall, Columbia University] Current graduate students in the Department of Philosophy at Columbia University, as well as alumni of its graduate program, some of whom are professors elsewhere, have released a statement about the protests that have been taking place at the university this month. Students at Columbia have been protesting Israel’s response to Hamas’s October 7th at ..read more

“We believe that the ability to protest nonviolently is essential to our democracy and a basic human right that must be respected and protected.” [from a protest at UCLA, via The Los Angeles Times] Faculty across the University of California system have signed onto the statement, “Support Students’ Right to Nonviolently Protest at the University of California.” The statement continues to be open to signatures from UC faculty. It says: Nonviolent student protests at the University of California change the world. Entire academic departments owe their existence to nonviolent student protes ..read more

“I was trapped in the feeling that philosophy was all important and that anything and everything—including my well being—can be sacrificed for it. This is the core of my addiction to philosophy. I couldn’t stop doing philosophy.” Those are the words of Bharath Vallabha, a former assistant professor of philosophy at Bryn Mawr. In a post at his blog, The Radiant Path, Dr. Vallabha talks about what he calls his “addiction” to philosophy, and how it affected his life. Here’s an excerpt: My philosophy education helped me grow and open my horizons. Sure, academic philosophy has problems ..read more

The weekly report on new and revised entries at online philosophy resources and new reviews of philosophy books… (If you notice something missing from the weekly update, let us know.) SEP New: Diodorus Cronus by Matthew Duncombe. Revised: Augustine of Hippo by Christian Tornau. al-Kindi by Peter Adamson. Introspection by Eric Schwitzgebel. Alexander of Aphrodisias by Dorothea Frede and Marije Martijn. IEP         ∅ NDPR         ∅ 1000-Word Philosophy       ∅ Project Vox   ..read more

Donatella Di Cesare, a professor of philosophy at Sapienza University (Rome), has been charged with “criminal defamation” for describing a politician’s views as “neo-Hitlerite.” – According to Times Higher Education: The charges against Professor Di Cesare stem from April 2023, when the agriculture minister Francesco Lollobrigida, the brother-in-law of [Prime Minister Giorgia] Meloni and a staunch political ally, said in a public speech on migration, “We cannot surrender to the idea of ethnic replacement.” The phrase “ethnic replacement” is strongly associated with the “great replac ..read more

The American Philosophical Association (APA) has announced the creation of new prizes for philosophical work on artificial intelligence. Specifically, the prizes are for philosophical or philosophically-informed interdisciplinary work on the AI2050 Hard Problems. AI2050 is a project from Schmidt Sciences, a science and technology-oriented philanthrophy, focused on how to realize the potential of AI. They put it this way: It’s 2050. AI has turned out to be hugely beneficial to society. What happened? What are the most important problems we solved and the opportunities and possibilities we real ..read more

This post is for discussion of the ongoing campus protests against Israel’s response to the October 7th, 2023 attack on it by Hamas, and in support of the Palestinians. More than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel in its attack on Gaza, with two-thirds of the dead being women and children, according to the local health ministry, reports the Associated Press. [original photo by Jay Janner/USA Today Network, via Reuters] A round-up of recent news about protests at various college campuses can be found here. Of particular interest are questions about how universities should (or shou ..read more