Brian Weatherson

@bweatherson.bsky.social

2.7K followers 210 following 1.7K posts

Philosopher at University of Michigan. https://brian.weatherson.org/

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Brian Weatherson is the Marshall Weinberg Professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan. He specializes in epistemology and philosophy of language.

Source: Wikipedia

Philosophy 47%

Psychology 20%

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Brian Weatherson @bweatherson.bsky.social · Aug 8

This is a thread of things I've recently published, starting with my book from last year, with Open Book Publishers, defending the claim that knowledge is interest-relative.

I'll continue this thread when new stuff comes out.

www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.116...

Knowledge: A Human Interest Story

In this book the author argues for a groundbreaking perspective that knowledge is inherently interest-relative. This means that what one knows is influenced not just by belief, evidence, and truth, bu...

www.openbookpublishers.com

Reposted by Brian Weatherson

kwisatz haderade (hootie hoo edition) @booksandbows.bsky.social · 5h

if you wanna cry go search up the videos of people from smaller latin american countries crying that they saw their flags on the super bowl, it’s so fucking awesome what he was able to do last night.

Reposted by Brian Weatherson

Justin Weinberg @dailynous.com · 7h

Laurence Thomas, professor emeritus of philosophy at Syracuse has died. (Obituary by David Benatar.)

Laurence Thomas (1949-2025) - Daily Nous

Laurence Thomas, professor emeritus of philosophy at Syracuse University, died this past December. The following obituary is by David Benatar (University of Cape Town). Laurence Mordekhai Thomas (1949...

dailynous.com

Karlin Lillington @klillington.bsky.social · 11h

And here is my story: ‘Absolute hell’: Irishman with valid US work permit held by Ice since September

www.irishtimes.com/world/us/202...

‘Absolute hell’: Irishman with valid US work permit held by Ice since September

Seamus Culleton has been in a detention facility in Texas for nearly five months despite having no criminal record

www.irishtimes.com

Reposted by Aaron Sojourner, Scott A. Imberman, Henry Farrell , and 1 more Aaron Sojourner, Scott A. Imberman, Henry Farrell, Brian Weatherson

Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 20h

Reminder when you watch the Intuit Super Bowl ads, they have Super Bowl ad money because they are a successful rent seekers who have worked for decades to kill free, quality, public tax preparation services donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-death-...

The Death of Direct File

Tech for good not welcome in the Trump administration

donmoynihan.substack.com

Brian Weatherson @bweatherson.bsky.social · 1d

I think it's even more Nordic-coded. Everyone I've met from Norway and Finland was like "Of course it's important to be able toski long distances and then shoot. That's why we're not speaking Russian here."

Reposted by David M. Schultz, Brian Weatherson, Ann Bartow , and 1 more David M. Schultz, Brian Weatherson, Ann Bartow, Manisha Sinha

Jacob Bogage @jacobbogage.bsky.social · 1d

👀 What if I told you there was a hidden art gallery scattered across the country?

What if I told you some of its treasures had vanished?

What if I told you that I found them?

A project three years in the making (🎁 gift link):

The disappearing art gallery in your post office

The U.S. Postal Service is home to thousands of historic works of art in post offices nationwide. Hundreds have been lost, sold or destroyed.

wapo.st

Reposted by Brian Weatherson

Jakob Hohwy @hohwy.bsky.social · 2d

"The Self-Evidencing Agent" - my new book - is out now with @mitpress.bsky.social

Can be purchased, or just download the whole thing for free, via the 'Open Access' option.

I'm grateful to @anilseth.bsky.social and Karl Friston for the generous endorsements.

mitpress.mit.edu/978026255389...

The Self-Evidencing Agent

What is it to be a human individual, an agent? According to Jakob Hohwy, it is to “self-evidence,” to actively seek out sensory evidence for one&...

mitpress.mit.edu

Brian Weatherson @bweatherson.bsky.social · 3d

I thought that most of those had a steady source of income, either from fixed costs for users or from ads, and the microtransactions were a nice bonus. But I could be wrong - maybe there are some that live on selling swords or power-ups.

Brian Weatherson @bweatherson.bsky.social · 3d

I think the analogy to music would be bundling across local newspapers. Roughly no one pays for a subscription to local papers outside where they live. But would people pay for a bundle that includes local coverage of every town in the country? Maybe.

Brian Weatherson @bweatherson.bsky.social · 3d

I’ve never seen anyone make microtransactions work as a primary revenue stream over any time.

The music case is instructive. As soon as it became possible, people ditched iTunes for streaming. For a few years we replaced albums with songs, then replaced both with whole catalogs.

Brian Weatherson @bweatherson.bsky.social · 4d

The whole era either side of the Atlantic would have been a golden age. Marat was literally a poster, de Miranda would never have shut up, Dessalines would have been memorably blocked by the mods on every site except the one he owned, etc.

Brian Weatherson @bweatherson.bsky.social · 4d

There is some philosophy of science stuff about this. The part I know the best is fairly abstract modelling like this paper, but I think there is also some more historical work on what kinds of diversity are needed for a scientific community to work well.

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

The Epistemic Benefit of Transient Diversity - Erkenntnis

There is growing interest in understanding and eliciting division of labor within groups of scientists. This paper illustrates the need for this division of labor through a historical example, and a f...

link.springer.com

Reposted by Brian Weatherson

Schnitza Fars @schnitzafars.bsky.social · 4d

my students and I are trying to figure out the meaning of "slash," as in "I'm an actor slash writer", contrast "and" "or" and "and-or"

we've worked that, in a context in which A & B are holding their office hours together:
I'm going to A { and / *or / slash / *and-or } B's office hours

🐦🐦🐦

Reposted by Brian Weatherson

mikes barnes @mikesbarnes.bsky.social · 5d

been waiting for the day @jamellebouie.net would come for stalnaker

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/04/o...

Opinion | Common Ground Is for Suckers

www.nytimes.com

Reposted by Lisa W. Fazio, Melanie C. Green, Andrew Jacobs , and 3 more Lisa W. Fazio, Melanie C. Green, Andrew Jacobs, Brian Weatherson, Catherine J. Frieman, Nicole Guenther Discenza

Michael Harriot @michaelharriot.bsky.social · 5d

I've told this story on ContrabandCamp but it's worth sharing for BHM because it's one of the greatest stories ever.

A thread.

Reposted by Brian Weatherson

Catherine Herfeld @cherfeld.bsky.social · 5d

In their great podcast, I try to answer a set of challenging questions asked by Jennifer Jhun and François Allison about my book Conversations on Rational Choice and about how I would classify my work in the disciplinary landscape, among other things: hetpodcast.libsyn.com/episode-nine...

Smith and Marx Walk into a Bar: A History of Economics Podcast: Episode Ninety Six

Jennifer and François are joined by our first return guest, Catherine Herfeld, Professor of Philosophy and History of Economics at the Institute of Philosophy at Leibniz University Hannover, Germany. ...

hetpodcast.libsyn.com

Brian Weatherson @bweatherson.bsky.social · 6d

Right, but I thought the earlier post about sophistry was suggesting the other direction, and that seemed pretty implausible to me.

Brian Weatherson @bweatherson.bsky.social · 6d

I'm not sure there's anything wrong here, but if there is, I suspect the causal arrow goes the other way: Anthropic pays her (in part) because she already believes these things.

A lot of pro-industry science over the years comes from people being paid to do what they wanted to do anyway.

Brian Weatherson @bweatherson.bsky.social · 6d

In Australia, you'd only see someone described on a chryon as an "OK Senator" if it was a satirical show, and the Senator was completely useless.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 6d

Markwayne Mullin: "I agree with what Lindsey is saying on defunding these sanctuary cities. We should pull our TSA agents out of their airports and not allow their airpot to be classified as international or even a regional hub. We should pull all of our aid."

Reposted by David Rothschild, James Goodwin, Michael Jones‐Correa , and 5 more David Rothschild, James Goodwin, Michael Jones‐Correa, Brian Weatherson, Federico Finchelstein, Sam Kamin, Richard M. Carpiano, Timothy D. McBride

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 6d

Reposted by Brian Weatherson

Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 6d

This was the single lowest month of homicides in New York City on record...ever.

Brian Weatherson @bweatherson.bsky.social · 7d

Excellent taste in books!

Reposted by Brian Weatherson

Richard Pettigrew @wiglet1981.bsky.social · 8d

knowledge norm of assertion in the wild

Martin Freeman says ‘Oh. Now, I think a great many things, Lady Eileen, …’

Martin Freeman: ‘but until thinking becomes knowing, then I prefer not to say them out loud.’

Brian Weatherson @bweatherson.bsky.social · 10d

One of our grad students, Mica Rapstine, has written about how properly valuing something requires being angry when it is mistreated.

Not quite the thing you’re looking for I suspect, because not about utility, but might be adjacent to it.

philpapers.org/rec/RAPPRA

Mica Rapstine, Political Rage and the Value of Valuing - PhilPapers

This paper focuses on the question of political anger's non-instrumental justification. I argue that the case for anger is strong where anger expresses a valuable form of valuing the good. It ...

philpapers.org

Reposted by Brian Weatherson

Martin Paul Eve @eve.gd · 11d

This is how to convert from a for-profit Big Deal to an equitable, but professionalised, diamond OA system!

@theblochian.bsky.social and I dreamed of this scale when we launched @openlibhums.org Now, she has done it. Consortial funding, at scale.

Now over to the library community to support it.

Open Journals Collective @ojcollective.bsky.social · 11d

We've officially launched! With our new #DiamondOpenAccess investment campaign to help libraries build a sustainable, community‑led future for scholarly publishing & support journals flipping away from costly subscription models. Read the Press release here drive.google.com/file/d/10Hgf...

Reposted by Martin Paul Eve, Paolo Crosetto, Brian Weatherson , and 1 more Martin Paul Eve, Paolo Crosetto, Brian Weatherson, Tracy Creagh

Open Journals Collective @ojcollective.bsky.social · 11d

Reposted by Will Jennings, Tim Bale, Chris Hanretty , and 3 more Will Jennings, Tim Bale, Chris Hanretty, Patricia Owens, Brian Weatherson, Pepper D. Culpepper

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 12d

Minneapolis is a place that means a lot to me, so I wrote a short Substack about the city, its people, and what we all owe them.

benansell.substack.com/p/my-minneap...

My Minneapolis

An ode to a city that knows who it is

benansell.substack.com

Brian Weatherson @bweatherson.bsky.social · 12d

Yes it holds within years. I somehow broke the link but here’s the link that works. Figure 2 shows the relationship within ESC publication year.

brian.weatherson.org/quarto/blog/...

Short Titles! – Brian Weatherson

brian.weatherson.org

Reposted by Brian Weatherson

Ivan Moscati @ivan-moscati.bsky.social · 12d

Glad to share a new paper with Ivan Boldyrev and Bob Sugden, written for the 75th anniversary of the famous 1952 Paris conference on risk.

We reconstruct the rich discussions at the meeting and address the “sleeping beauty puzzle” linked to ideas presented there by Allais and Arrow.

bit.ly/4rkZqNn

Brian Weatherson @bweatherson.bsky.social · 12d

Lots of Dems want to find their version of early 90s Paul Keating, who did all these things perfectly, and won the longest of long shot elections.

Then they have to hope their candidate doesn’t turn into mid 90s Paul Keating who stepped on every rake he could see.

Robinson Meyer @robinsonmeyer.bsky.social · 12d

Gallego’s whole thing of moderating on policy, radicalizing on tactics/partisanship, and attacking when events allow is pretty clearly trying to find a way through the “popularism/populism/future of Dems” stuff.

Sahil Kapur @sahilkapur.bsky.social · 12d

Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., rolls out his demand for supporting a DHS appropriations bill: fire Stephen Miller

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