Mindscape 315 | Branden Fitelson on the Logic and Use of Probability. Finally we decide whether all ravens are black. #MindscapePodcast

www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2025...

Today’s pet peeve: when people reason from “the answer to question Q isn’t binary” to “it’s a continuum”. This is the academic’s “literally”.

It's a psychological impossibility to memorize the ZIP code of one's department.

Just landed on the correct theory of the weird American usage of “this Friday”/“next Friday”. It means “Friday of this/next week”. Previous theory was: “this Friday” = the first from now; “next Friday” = “the one after this Friday”.

My book on Knowledge is out today (World Philosophy Day) with Open Book Publishers.

It's freely downloadable in PDF and Epub form, and cheap to order in hardback or paperback. #philsky

Can I just say Bluesky has already won by allowing opening newspaper articles directly in the relevant apps instead of in some stupid local browser that keeps logging you out ?

Dentist causal modeling: I only floss my upper palate because there is no space in the lower to floss comfortably. Yet in my life I’ve had a dozen cavities and two root canals on top and zero on bottom. What’s the correct distribution over the available causal models ?

philjobs.org/job/show/28002

UMD center for AI (AIM) is running a search for 30 interdisciplinary positions in AI (the search is spread over a few years). Philosophy is included (e.g., as the host department for the upcoming BA in AI). Here is our tailored ad with a link to AIM's official ad.

Logic pedagogy q: suppose that, instead of introducing sentential logic via a language with atomic formulas, we used predicates and constants (but no variables or ∀,∃). Would this: (a) help students in the transition to quantificational logic or (b) obscure important generalizations?

Whoever introduced the double square bracket notation started a multi-generational battle between semanticists and typesetters. After being asked to convert to Word, I suffered through the equation environment to render them. Just got the copy editor's version they are all '[['.

On the magic of structured procrastination: I made a to do list for the week this morning with 7 items on it. After completing 1, I started adding new items to the original list. Final day tally: original items 1/7; new items 4/4.

Had a great time talking to Carrie Figdor about my book for the New Books in Philosophy podcast. I can't re-listen to it because it'll wreck my mind to think about all the things I could have explained better. But it was enjoyable and, I hope, informative:
newbooksnetwork.com/the-modal-fu...

The second critical notice was uploaded  a couple of weeks ago by Dilip Ninan and is going to come out in Analysis.

www.dilipninan.org/papers/Caria...

Both notices are long and contain a lot of food for thought and I hope to get some time to respond to both of them

I’ve been so busy I’ve dropped the ball on amplifying some discussion of my book. So two posts today about two extended critical notices. First in chronological order: Patrick Todd forthcoming in Philosophical Quarterly.

philpapers.org/archive/TODC...

Alternative semantics disjunction in the wild. (Well a decision theory textbook…)