A wonderful interview of Paul Gooch by Nathan Ballantyne. Gooch says: "the teacher must be open to interrogation as well as the student. I want the conversation to be interrogative in both directions, between teacher and student." What do you do to help foster that?

“Proper education arouses intellectual curiosity” - Daily Nous

Nathan Ballantyne (ASU) continues his wonderful series of thoughtful, in-depth interviews of philosophers, The Workbench, with a conversation with Paul Gooch (Toronto). . The conversation is wide-rang...

dailynous.com

Here’s a new conversation at The Workbench, a series of interviews with philosophers about the craft of academic writing. Paul Gooch was one of my undergrad teachers and, years later, I’m still learning from him. www.the-workbench.ca/interviews/p...

Paul Gooch’s Workbench: Scratching Itches, Giving Over, & Getting There - The Workbench

Canada is an experiment that has worked out well for some but certainly not for all. Paul Gooch is a philosopher committed to trying to improve that experiment.

the-workbench.ca

Short on time but burning to know why Moore seems oblivious to the question-begging nature of his 'proof' of an external world? Well, look no further. Complete with a high-res image of archival material I went through way too much trouble to get. newworkinphilosophy.substack.com/p/louis-doul...

Louis Doulas (McGill University), “Moore’s Fourth Condition”

Journal of the History of Philosophy (2026)

newworkinphilosophy.substack.com

It is with great professional satisfaction that I accept a tenure-track faculty position in philosophy at Providence College, starting August 2026! I’ve been imagining this moment for over a decade. 🥺 1/5 #philsky #philosophy

I wrote a short essay about a disagreement I recently had with a friend. thefulcrum.us/civic-engage...

Setting Down the Microphone While Your Opponent Speaks

It’s often hard to know what people disagree about when they disagree about Charlie Kirk.I live and work in Arizona, but before the assassination, I knew of Kirk only vaguely. After the shooting, a co...

thefulcrum.us

Desert kit fox

Course readers are back in style

A remarkable interview with a remarkable person And by one too. Nathan Ballantyne spends months on these things, getting the questions right and teasing things out of his subjects that no one else has ever managed to do. Read this one, and then read them all. www.the-workbench.ca/interviews/p...

Penelope Maddy’s Workbench - The Workbench

A writer’s world is often invisible from the outside unless they let you in. Sometimes when a sentence, paragraph, or essay strikes you as forceful or elegant, you might try to reverse engineer the au...

the-workbench.ca

"In philosophy especially, I figure the reader is nearly always gasping for breath, in danger of being swept out to sea, so the writer should do everything in their power to help..." Penelope Maddy is interviewed by Nathan Ballantyne - @nathanballantyne.bsky.social - at The Workbench

“Pity the Poor Reader” - Daily Nous

"Pity the poor reader" is one of philosopher Penelope Maddy's writing maxims. Maddy is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Irvine, and is interviewed about her writing by...

dailynous.com

I interviewed philosopher Penelope Maddy about her writing craft. We talked about her past experience in Hollywood screenwriting, her advice to students, baseball, and more. Check it out! www.the-workbench.ca/interviews/p...

Penelope Maddy’s Workbench - The Workbench

A writer’s world is often invisible from the outside unless they let you in. Sometimes when a sentence, paragraph, or essay strikes you as forceful or elegant, you might try to reverse engineer the au...

the-workbench.ca

Here’s the best poem ever written about John Rawls.

Not quite

Academics, who like to laugh about the students’ clichéd preamble “For thousands of years, people have wondered about…,” also like to begin “No one has yet provided a thorough study of…”

Everybody chill out and take an epistemology pill

We are all our own classic New Yorker cover cartoon... (psst, those younger can google Saul Steinberg, 9th avenue, New Yorker)

Nathan Ballantyne@nathanballantyne.bsky.social · 2y ago

Theateritis: “the tendency of military commanders to look only at the needs of their own theater of operation, and not at the requirements of fighting the war as a whole.”

Theateritis: “the tendency of military commanders to look only at the needs of their own theater of operation, and not at the requirements of fighting the war as a whole.”

An excellent essay about misconduct in Alzheimer’s research. “Hubris and lassitude about misconduct — shared by other funders and regulators, journals and universities — has to change. Alzheimer’s research must start self-policing effectively.” www.nytimes.com/2025/01/24/o...

Opinion | The Long Shadow of Fraud in Alzheimer’s Research (Gift Article)

Fraud in research needs to end.

nytimes.com

Moore’s proof strikes almost everyone as circular. Yet, Moore appears curiously indifferent to this worry—what gives? My paper, “Moore’s Fourth Condition,” forthcoming in the Journal of the History of Philosophy, draws on unpublished archival evidence to provide some answers. tinyurl.com/2c48txr9

“Philosophy is the conflict between the obvious and the obvious.” – Renford Bambrough (1926–99)

“Never trust anyone”

What is a question in philosophy where, the more you read and think, the deeper it seems?

“In philosophy if you aren't moving at a snail's pace you aren't moving at all.” Iris Murdoch.

Philosophy, according to Irwin Edman (1896–1954), a professor at Columbia University, is “a peculiarly serious and comprehensive kind of poetry.”

Richard Cartwright, a well-regarded philosopher who spent most of his career at MIT, got into graduate school with this recommendation letter as a part of his application.

An audacious grad school application cover letter from James Ross, who taught at UPenn until his death in 2010. “The application asks what my future plens and ambitions may be. In a word they are this: to become the finest and most influential professor of philosophy in the country.”

Why do people interpret numbers to favor their political preferences? Do numeracy skills affect this bias? @clintmckenna.bsky.social and @daviddunning6.bsky.social examine psychological mechanisms underlying biased interpretation of scientific data. #PsychSky psycnet.apa.org/record/2025-...

A list of what I am planning to cover in the podcasts on early modern French and Dutch philosophy (17th-18th centuries). The first episode of this series will go up on Feb 2 after we finish off the Counterreformation with Galileo. www.historyofphilosophy.net/what-to-expe... #philsky #earlymodern

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