Jordan Davis
@madsadgladfly.bsky.social
Lover of all things philosophy, but pragmatism, conceptual engineering, metaethics most of all
Reposted by Jordan Davis
The average American has three friends
May 4, 2025 at 4:02 PM
The average American has three friends
Reposted by Jordan Davis
Animal behavior expert and Biology PhD here, happy to report that elephants are actually classified as “betas” due to the amount that they look out for other members of the herd. They are one of the wokest species out there.
elephants are cool so someone should start a false flag right-wing movement that elephants are "cuck animals" or "loser herbivores" or something so the Republican Party has to pick another animal to be its mascot, like the hyena or the rattlesnake or the slime mold
April 30, 2025 at 4:09 AM
Animal behavior expert and Biology PhD here, happy to report that elephants are actually classified as “betas” due to the amount that they look out for other members of the herd. They are one of the wokest species out there.
Reposted by Jordan Davis
Okay, when I had Covid in 2023, I had bad brain fog. I could not follow arguments or keep up with a train of thought, and . . . even though I KNEW this, I found myself getting angry, at, like, podcasts. Like “they’re so pretentious and don’t even make sense.” 🥴😳
That gave me a lot of insight.
That gave me a lot of insight.
Somebody pointed out that people who respond in the comments section to factual arguments with anger usually aren't trying to be obtuse, but legit may not have the reading comprehension to understand what is being talked about and end up responding with anger.
April 25, 2025 at 2:37 AM
Okay, when I had Covid in 2023, I had bad brain fog. I could not follow arguments or keep up with a train of thought, and . . . even though I KNEW this, I found myself getting angry, at, like, podcasts. Like “they’re so pretentious and don’t even make sense.” 🥴😳
That gave me a lot of insight.
That gave me a lot of insight.
Reposted by Jordan Davis
"I am, then, using this parallel with plumbing to say that the patterns underlying our thought are much more powerful, more intricate and more dangerous than we usually notice, that they need constant attention, and that no one of them is a safe universal guide" (Midgley, Philosophical Plumbing)
April 22, 2025 at 2:44 PM
"I am, then, using this parallel with plumbing to say that the patterns underlying our thought are much more powerful, more intricate and more dangerous than we usually notice, that they need constant attention, and that no one of them is a safe universal guide" (Midgley, Philosophical Plumbing)
Reposted by Jordan Davis
"The point of statistical inference is not to produce the right answers with high frequency, but rather to *always* produce the inference best supported by the data at hand when combined with existing background knowledge and assumptions." —Aubrey Clayton, Bernoulli's Fallacy
March 13, 2025 at 3:31 AM
"The point of statistical inference is not to produce the right answers with high frequency, but rather to *always* produce the inference best supported by the data at hand when combined with existing background knowledge and assumptions." —Aubrey Clayton, Bernoulli's Fallacy
Reposted by Jordan Davis
ask why
stop, my dear colleagues, imaginging that the humanities are a bad ROI (they aren’t; they’re actually quite excellent; also this isn’t the argument if you want to preserve the university at all—coming for one form of knowledge is a gateway to them all)
ask who benefits & to what end
stop, my dear colleagues, imaginging that the humanities are a bad ROI (they aren’t; they’re actually quite excellent; also this isn’t the argument if you want to preserve the university at all—coming for one form of knowledge is a gateway to them all)
ask who benefits & to what end
it seems one of the stated purposes of capping overhead on NIH grants at 15% by those who champion the cap is to starve PhD programs in the humanities
www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
February 16, 2025 at 4:01 PM
ask why
stop, my dear colleagues, imaginging that the humanities are a bad ROI (they aren’t; they’re actually quite excellent; also this isn’t the argument if you want to preserve the university at all—coming for one form of knowledge is a gateway to them all)
ask who benefits & to what end
stop, my dear colleagues, imaginging that the humanities are a bad ROI (they aren’t; they’re actually quite excellent; also this isn’t the argument if you want to preserve the university at all—coming for one form of knowledge is a gateway to them all)
ask who benefits & to what end
Reposted by Jordan Davis
Community self defense, tenant organizing, mutual aid, mask blocs, cop watching, start/join a jail support project, organize/participate in political education, + more is needed. Look out for one another. Just don't get wrapped up in the liberal outrage & despair machine.
Not sure where to start?👇
Not sure where to start?👇
January 29, 2025 at 3:33 AM
Community self defense, tenant organizing, mutual aid, mask blocs, cop watching, start/join a jail support project, organize/participate in political education, + more is needed. Look out for one another. Just don't get wrapped up in the liberal outrage & despair machine.
Not sure where to start?👇
Not sure where to start?👇
Reposted by Jordan Davis
*New Paper*
The Unity of the Ideal Virtues | Pacific Philosophical Quarterly (abstract below)
philpapers.org/rec/SISTUO
The Unity of the Ideal Virtues | Pacific Philosophical Quarterly (abstract below)
philpapers.org/rec/SISTUO
Robert Weston Siscoe, The Unity of the Ideal Virtues - PhilPapers
Even though the virtues may be interconnected, it seems obviously possible to have one of the virtues without having them all. Some have defended the unity thesis against this concern by ...
philpapers.org
January 22, 2025 at 8:36 PM
*New Paper*
The Unity of the Ideal Virtues | Pacific Philosophical Quarterly (abstract below)
philpapers.org/rec/SISTUO
The Unity of the Ideal Virtues | Pacific Philosophical Quarterly (abstract below)
philpapers.org/rec/SISTUO
Reposted by Jordan Davis
I had thought that this was already out, but OUP inform me that it is now. academic.oup.com/mind/article...
Reason in Nature: New Essays on Themes from John McDowell, edited by Boyle Matthew and Mylonaki Evgenia
The various themes explored in this superb collection of essays are organised around one thinker, John McDowell, and one central idea:
academic.oup.com
January 22, 2025 at 7:04 AM
I had thought that this was already out, but OUP inform me that it is now. academic.oup.com/mind/article...
Reposted by Jordan Davis
One of the things that science does is "unification." It shows how two things we thought were different are really the same.
What's your favorite example of a surprising unification, where you learned that two things you thought were different really are the same?
What's your favorite example of a surprising unification, where you learned that two things you thought were different really are the same?
January 20, 2025 at 10:15 PM
One of the things that science does is "unification." It shows how two things we thought were different are really the same.
What's your favorite example of a surprising unification, where you learned that two things you thought were different really are the same?
What's your favorite example of a surprising unification, where you learned that two things you thought were different really are the same?
Reposted by Jordan Davis
Iris Murdoch’s view of love as a practice, which several contemporary scholars such as Lesley Jamieson, Katrien Schaubroeck and Lotte Spreeuwenberg, might be useful here?
philpapers.org/rec/SPRLAA
philpapers.org/rec/SPRLAA
Lotte Spreeuwenberg, ‘Love’ as a Practice: Looking at Real People - PhilPapers
This ameliorative project of love investigates how we can improve how we use the concept ‘love’, formulating better and worse forms of loving. It compares two contemporary analytic philosophers who ha...
philpapers.org
January 19, 2025 at 5:39 PM
Iris Murdoch’s view of love as a practice, which several contemporary scholars such as Lesley Jamieson, Katrien Schaubroeck and Lotte Spreeuwenberg, might be useful here?
philpapers.org/rec/SPRLAA
philpapers.org/rec/SPRLAA
Reposted by Jordan Davis
My piece yesterday in Aeon: a 3000-word "love song for philosophy", arguing that the our species' capacity to wonder philosophically, even when we make no progress toward answers, is the most intrinsically awesome thing about planet Earth. Philosophy needs no other excuse.
aeon.co/essays/if-yo...
aeon.co/essays/if-yo...
If you ask ‘Why?’, you’re a philosopher, and you’re awesome | Aeon Essays
Diving into the ring of darkness beyond things easily answerable, asking ‘Why?’ questions is what make humans awesome
aeon.co
January 18, 2025 at 5:17 PM
My piece yesterday in Aeon: a 3000-word "love song for philosophy", arguing that the our species' capacity to wonder philosophically, even when we make no progress toward answers, is the most intrinsically awesome thing about planet Earth. Philosophy needs no other excuse.
aeon.co/essays/if-yo...
aeon.co/essays/if-yo...
Reposted by Jordan Davis
Serious request. I would like quotes from famous (ideally!) philosophers, expressing what they take to be the value - or lack thereof - of the study of the history of philosophy. I want to assemble a generous set of diverse expressions of opinion on this subject. I've got some already. Give me more.
January 14, 2025 at 2:09 AM
Serious request. I would like quotes from famous (ideally!) philosophers, expressing what they take to be the value - or lack thereof - of the study of the history of philosophy. I want to assemble a generous set of diverse expressions of opinion on this subject. I've got some already. Give me more.
Reposted by Jordan Davis
At the beginning of section 5 of this paper, there’s a fairly extensive list of different things philosophers have called love
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Finite love
It seems like a problem to say that love can be merited – its value is located in its transcendence of comparative judgments. However, we commonly make judgments about who is and is not worth lovin...
www.tandfonline.com
January 18, 2025 at 3:05 AM
At the beginning of section 5 of this paper, there’s a fairly extensive list of different things philosophers have called love
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Reposted by Jordan Davis
Reposted by Jordan Davis
Abramson & Leite, "Love as a Reactive Emotion" (reactive to ppl's relationship-enabling virtues). I think it's at least partly right, not sure about wholly right www.jstor.org/stable/23012...
LOVE AS A REACTIVE EMOTION on JSTOR
Kate Abramson, Adam Leite, LOVE AS A REACTIVE EMOTION, The Philosophical Quarterly (1950-), Vol. 61, No. 245 (October 2011), pp. 673-699
www.jstor.org
January 18, 2025 at 2:23 AM
Abramson & Leite, "Love as a Reactive Emotion" (reactive to ppl's relationship-enabling virtues). I think it's at least partly right, not sure about wholly right www.jstor.org/stable/23012...
Reposted by Jordan Davis
Eleonore Stump has a paper/talk I enjoyed where she discusses Thomas Aquinas’ account where love involves desire for the beloved’s good and union (difficult to define) with the beloved.
www.jstor.org/stable/27645...
www.jstor.org/stable/27645...
Love, by All Accounts on JSTOR
Eleonore Stump, Love, by All Accounts, Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, Vol. 80, No. 2 (Nov., 2006), pp. 25-43
www.jstor.org
January 18, 2025 at 8:01 PM
Eleonore Stump has a paper/talk I enjoyed where she discusses Thomas Aquinas’ account where love involves desire for the beloved’s good and union (difficult to define) with the beloved.
www.jstor.org/stable/27645...
www.jstor.org/stable/27645...
Reposted by Jordan Davis
5 Women in Philosophy of Mind You Should Know | Most of the philosophers on this list are members of the APA, including Pacific Division past president Patricia Churchland. www.thecollector.com/women-philos...
5 Women in Philosophy of Mind You Should Know
Who and what is the mind? Let’s take a look at some of the women who are tackling this perennial question.
www.thecollector.com
January 10, 2025 at 5:02 PM
5 Women in Philosophy of Mind You Should Know | Most of the philosophers on this list are members of the APA, including Pacific Division past president Patricia Churchland. www.thecollector.com/women-philos...
Reposted by Jordan Davis
I co-edited this anthology on Kant's conception of hope and its influence on late 18th and 19th century philosophy: www.bloomsbury.com/us/hope-and-...
Hope and the Kantian Legacy
Hope is understood to be a significant part of human experience, including for motivating behaviour, promoting happiness, and justifying a conception of the sel…
www.bloomsbury.com
January 15, 2025 at 4:30 AM
I co-edited this anthology on Kant's conception of hope and its influence on late 18th and 19th century philosophy: www.bloomsbury.com/us/hope-and-...
Reposted by Jordan Davis
Reposted by Jordan Davis
Sade meets King Crimson or math rock with incredible groove and soul.
Nilüfer Yanya - Mutations (My Method Actor, 2024)
youtu.be/gLg7irPERfg?...
#cancionesvrupu25
Nilüfer Yanya - Mutations (My Method Actor, 2024)
youtu.be/gLg7irPERfg?...
#cancionesvrupu25
January 12, 2025 at 10:08 PM
Sade meets King Crimson or math rock with incredible groove and soul.
Nilüfer Yanya - Mutations (My Method Actor, 2024)
youtu.be/gLg7irPERfg?...
#cancionesvrupu25
Nilüfer Yanya - Mutations (My Method Actor, 2024)
youtu.be/gLg7irPERfg?...
#cancionesvrupu25
Reposted by Jordan Davis
I love the sickos mode historians of philosophy get into where they're so history-pilled they come out saying the least initially-plausible thing about a figure they could think of. Nietzsche was a moral realist. Hume wasn't a skeptic. Descartes programmed LLMs. Very here for it
January 11, 2025 at 3:57 PM
I love the sickos mode historians of philosophy get into where they're so history-pilled they come out saying the least initially-plausible thing about a figure they could think of. Nietzsche was a moral realist. Hume wasn't a skeptic. Descartes programmed LLMs. Very here for it
Reposted by Jordan Davis
Reposted by Jordan Davis
