N. G. Laskowski
@nglaskowski.bsky.social
Assistant Professor of Philosophy at University of Maryland, College Park, working mostly in Moral & Social Philosophy.
Who comes to mind when you think about epistemologists who earned in their degree in the last decade who don't do applied, formal, or zetetic epistemology?
Don't be shy if this describes you or your students!
Don't be shy if this describes you or your students!
September 7, 2025 at 4:07 PM
Who comes to mind when you think about epistemologists who earned in their degree in the last decade who don't do applied, formal, or zetetic epistemology?
Don't be shy if this describes you or your students!
Don't be shy if this describes you or your students!
Reposted by N. G. Laskowski
A few months ago @nglaskowski.bsky.social posted about philosopher Mary Evelyn Clarke. It seems not much is known about her. So, I did some digging—this PDF is what I’ve found so far (sadly, not much). If you know more, or spot any errors, I’d love to hear from you! www.louisdoulas.info/MEC.pdf
August 14, 2025 at 2:54 PM
A few months ago @nglaskowski.bsky.social posted about philosopher Mary Evelyn Clarke. It seems not much is known about her. So, I did some digging—this PDF is what I’ve found so far (sadly, not much). If you know more, or spot any errors, I’d love to hear from you! www.louisdoulas.info/MEC.pdf
Finally attended my first International Social Ontology Society conference. Grand time. All my favorite talks were from grad students. Love to see it.
August 9, 2025 at 9:29 AM
Finally attended my first International Social Ontology Society conference. Grand time. All my favorite talks were from grad students. Love to see it.
Ever wonder what the principle of utility is or how it can or can't relate to run-of-the-mill non-moral facts? Ever wonder what moral laws are for? You can read all about what Nathan Howard and I think about these and other questions in our new paper draft.
philpapers.org/rec/HOWTMM-4
philpapers.org/rec/HOWTMM-4
Nathan Howard & N. G. Laskowski, The Moral Mosaic - PhilPapers
A central metaphysical debate about laws concerns whether they govern or merely summarize. This debate has recently been extended to moral laws, with fresh criticism directed at the Humean position by...
philpapers.org
July 23, 2025 at 7:00 PM
Ever wonder what the principle of utility is or how it can or can't relate to run-of-the-mill non-moral facts? Ever wonder what moral laws are for? You can read all about what Nathan Howard and I think about these and other questions in our new paper draft.
philpapers.org/rec/HOWTMM-4
philpapers.org/rec/HOWTMM-4
Included on page 1 of my new syllabi
July 15, 2025 at 1:37 PM
Included on page 1 of my new syllabi
Please stop "correcting" my use of 'iff' to 'if' copy-editor challenge.
July 9, 2025 at 1:32 PM
Please stop "correcting" my use of 'iff' to 'if' copy-editor challenge.
Reposted by N. G. Laskowski
Last call for submissions to FARM! FARM (Formal Approached to Rationality and Meaning) is a new conference for work on meaning and rationality. The first installment will happen this Fall at the University of Maryland.
sites.google.com/view/farm202...
sites.google.com/view/farm202...
FARM 2025
FARM is a new conference that aims at bringing together researchers working on meaning (including, but not limited to, semantics of natural language) and researchers working on reasoning and rational ...
sites.google.com
June 29, 2025 at 1:53 PM
Last call for submissions to FARM! FARM (Formal Approached to Rationality and Meaning) is a new conference for work on meaning and rationality. The first installment will happen this Fall at the University of Maryland.
sites.google.com/view/farm202...
sites.google.com/view/farm202...
Reposted by N. G. Laskowski
I really enjoyed this review/defense of analytic philosophy! I especially liked Setiya's point that what can superficially look like a reliance on intuitions is in fact the practice of making one's assumptions clear - which strikes me as profoundly fitting with democratic values. #philsky
The Politics of Apoliticism | Los Angeles Review of Books
Kieran Setiya reviews Christoph Schuringa’s “A Social History of Analytic Philosophy.”
lareviewofbooks.org
June 18, 2025 at 9:44 AM
I really enjoyed this review/defense of analytic philosophy! I especially liked Setiya's point that what can superficially look like a reliance on intuitions is in fact the practice of making one's assumptions clear - which strikes me as profoundly fitting with democratic values. #philsky
Circumventing problems raised by AI for assessing students is easy, IMO (in class assignments).
But how are you addressing problems that AI raises for getting students to think for themselves by reading texts and thinking about them at home? How do you get them to not _only_ rely on AI summaries?
But how are you addressing problems that AI raises for getting students to think for themselves by reading texts and thinking about them at home? How do you get them to not _only_ rely on AI summaries?
June 17, 2025 at 7:48 PM
Circumventing problems raised by AI for assessing students is easy, IMO (in class assignments).
But how are you addressing problems that AI raises for getting students to think for themselves by reading texts and thinking about them at home? How do you get them to not _only_ rely on AI summaries?
But how are you addressing problems that AI raises for getting students to think for themselves by reading texts and thinking about them at home? How do you get them to not _only_ rely on AI summaries?
Reposted by N. G. Laskowski
Come work with Kenneth and I! The required specialisation is actually super broad: if you want to do interesting and fun work on the nature of corporations please apply. Bonus points if you can do empirical work: we’ll stand by in awe and clap every time you use a number philjobs.org/job/show/291...
Postdoctoral Fellow, Trinity College Dublin
- PhilJobs:JFP
Postdoctoral Fellow, Trinity College Dublin
An international database of jobs for philosophers
philjobs.org
June 17, 2025 at 10:07 AM
Come work with Kenneth and I! The required specialisation is actually super broad: if you want to do interesting and fun work on the nature of corporations please apply. Bonus points if you can do empirical work: we’ll stand by in awe and clap every time you use a number philjobs.org/job/show/291...
New paper forthcoming.
I wrote an ancestor of this paper a couple years ago while being brought up to speed on AI, as a fellow at the Center for AI Safety. It brings together some thoughts from different areas of philosophy, which I think is neat. Maybe you will, too?
philpapers.org/rec/LASHAH-2
I wrote an ancestor of this paper a couple years ago while being brought up to speed on AI, as a fellow at the Center for AI Safety. It brings together some thoughts from different areas of philosophy, which I think is neat. Maybe you will, too?
philpapers.org/rec/LASHAH-2
N. G. Laskowski, Honest AI - PhilPapers
How would OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, Anthropic’s Claude, and other “Conversational” artificially intelligent systems interact with humans if they safely benefited humanity? “Truthfully” is one...
philpapers.org
June 10, 2025 at 11:20 AM
New paper forthcoming.
I wrote an ancestor of this paper a couple years ago while being brought up to speed on AI, as a fellow at the Center for AI Safety. It brings together some thoughts from different areas of philosophy, which I think is neat. Maybe you will, too?
philpapers.org/rec/LASHAH-2
I wrote an ancestor of this paper a couple years ago while being brought up to speed on AI, as a fellow at the Center for AI Safety. It brings together some thoughts from different areas of philosophy, which I think is neat. Maybe you will, too?
philpapers.org/rec/LASHAH-2
Update: DOGE cuts resulted in only 1 winner in my NEH category and it wasn't my team. DOGE also made the NEH so "efficient" that they didn't notify us - I had to email my own uni admin to learn that our project wasn't funded, two months after the NEH was supposed to email everyone.
Do any of Trump’s EOs affect the NEH?
May 27, 2025 at 2:05 PM
Update: DOGE cuts resulted in only 1 winner in my NEH category and it wasn't my team. DOGE also made the NEH so "efficient" that they didn't notify us - I had to email my own uni admin to learn that our project wasn't funded, two months after the NEH was supposed to email everyone.
Are there other papers with titles that you can't read without singing the relevant song being referenced in your head?
philpapers.org/rec/BRUYOK
philpapers.org/rec/BRUYOK
Teresa Bruno-Niño & Preston J. Werner, You Oughta Know: A Defence of Obligations to Learn - PhilPapers
Most of us spend a significant portion of our lives learning, practising, and performing a wide range of skills. Many of us also have a great amount of control over which ...
philpapers.org
May 12, 2025 at 7:18 PM
Are there other papers with titles that you can't read without singing the relevant song being referenced in your head?
philpapers.org/rec/BRUYOK
philpapers.org/rec/BRUYOK
May 6, 2025 at 7:15 PM
Inaugural Moral Metaphysics at Maryland workshop ("MMaM") program set. Check it out.
harjitbhogal.com/MMaM
harjitbhogal.com/MMaM
MMaM
harjitbhogal.com
May 6, 2025 at 1:11 PM
Inaugural Moral Metaphysics at Maryland workshop ("MMaM") program set. Check it out.
harjitbhogal.com/MMaM
harjitbhogal.com/MMaM
4.5 yo pointing at the yellow egg: “Daddy look! We dyed it the color of your teeth!!” 💀
April 19, 2025 at 3:42 PM
4.5 yo pointing at the yellow egg: “Daddy look! We dyed it the color of your teeth!!” 💀
New paper in which I tease out some metaethical implications from my recent decision to start eating fish after 20 years of abstaining from meat (5 as a vegetarian, 15 as vegan).
philpapers.org/rec/LASSAO-3
philpapers.org/rec/LASSAO-3
N. G. Laskowski, Scepticism About Ought Simpliciter Scepticism - PhilPapers
Normative pluralists claim that there cannot be facts about what agents ought or “ought simpliciter” to do when an agent’s reasons from different normative systems (e.g. morality, prudence, aesthetics...
philpapers.org
April 17, 2025 at 2:12 PM
New paper in which I tease out some metaethical implications from my recent decision to start eating fish after 20 years of abstaining from meat (5 as a vegetarian, 15 as vegan).
philpapers.org/rec/LASSAO-3
philpapers.org/rec/LASSAO-3
I'm looking for examples of recent (~20 years) books in moral philosophy that aspire to a kind of comprehensiveness, by self-consciously doing each of a bit of metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics. Anything come to mind?
March 25, 2025 at 6:16 PM
I'm looking for examples of recent (~20 years) books in moral philosophy that aspire to a kind of comprehensiveness, by self-consciously doing each of a bit of metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics. Anything come to mind?
@louisdoulas.bsky.social 's replies in this thread are a nice reminder that historians of philosophy are the best among us
I'm trying to find some academic bio about Mary Evelyn Clarke, author of _A Study in the Logic of Value_ (1929). Where did she earn her PhD? Advisor? There weren't that many women doing metaethics back then (not that things are much better now...), so I'd like to know a bit more about her.
March 24, 2025 at 2:13 PM
@louisdoulas.bsky.social 's replies in this thread are a nice reminder that historians of philosophy are the best among us
"Ralph Barton Perry (1876–1957) received his BA from Princeton in 1896 and his PhD from Harvard in 1899, where he studied with William James."
Three years? Was this common?
Three years? Was this common?
March 21, 2025 at 5:36 PM
"Ralph Barton Perry (1876–1957) received his BA from Princeton in 1896 and his PhD from Harvard in 1899, where he studied with William James."
Three years? Was this common?
Three years? Was this common?
Bad week gets worse
March 21, 2025 at 3:20 PM
Bad week gets worse
I'm trying to find some academic bio about Mary Evelyn Clarke, author of _A Study in the Logic of Value_ (1929). Where did she earn her PhD? Advisor? There weren't that many women doing metaethics back then (not that things are much better now...), so I'd like to know a bit more about her.
March 20, 2025 at 1:41 PM
I'm trying to find some academic bio about Mary Evelyn Clarke, author of _A Study in the Logic of Value_ (1929). Where did she earn her PhD? Advisor? There weren't that many women doing metaethics back then (not that things are much better now...), so I'd like to know a bit more about her.