Curious, Thorough, and Open

I should spend more time in Critical Thinking class on cultivating an intellectually honest mindset, specifically the virtues of curiosity and thoroughness, not just open-mindedness. (chapter 2 - Mindset - of Reason Better by David Manley)

Counting Cancels

Based on the testimony of a relevant expert (FIRE's Greg Lukianoff) who documented a noticeable uptick in campus-related incidents related to free speech starting roughly 5 years ago, arguments that "cancel culture doesn't exist" are probably less plausible than I thought.

Bayes As Odds

 An intuitive way to understand Bayesian updating is via odds instead of probabilities or percentages. (chapter 8 - Updating - of Reason Better by David Manley)

Polarized By Ambiguity

Group polarization may be less puzzling than I often treat it, since it's usually a natural result of topics in which we mostly only have ambiguous evidence.

Map Ain't Territory Reminder

Scientific models like causal DAGs are probably much cruder instruments for understanding real-life complex phenomena than I have been hoping recently.

Scaffolding

One way to address my worry that philosophy classes inadvertently teach students that reasoning skills are useless is to better scaffold courses, beginning with puzzles that are clearly solvable using reasoning.

Paucity of Evidence for Causal Closure

The widely-held assumption of causal closure of the physical world may not have much evidence supporting it.

Natural Law's Broader Project

One way of understanding natural law is that its project is less about defining ‘law’ than about considering the legal system’s role within social, practical reasoning.

Indexicals & the Origins of Language

 A crucial step between one-dimensional communication that animals and computers can do and the "speech triangle" of human language may be utilizing indexicals, literally pointing to focus joint attention.

Contingent Racial Capitalism

 One way Marxists and critical race scholars may talk past each other is in conflating whether capitalism and racism are necessarily linked and whether they are merely actually, historically linked.

How Hard Is Morality?

Being moral is not hard in the same way calculus or rock climbing is. It's maybe hard in the way dieting is, or, more apt, inconvenient in the way walking 10 miles instead of driving is.

Focus on Disconfirmation

The confirmation/disconfirmation bias asymmetry is such that our criticisms of opposing arguments are more epistemically valuable than our own arguments for our positions.

Teleology & Counterfactuals

There may be a connection between teleological explanations and counterfactual explanations, at least in biology & psychology.

How Is My Curriculum Philosophy?

 I haven't done nearly enough to diversify my curricula ("How Is This Paper Philosophy?").

Biology & Reductionism

The claim that biology reduces to chemistry (like chemistry reduces to physics) is more disputed than I thought.

Utilitarianism & Progressive Values

Bentham advocated for decriminalizing gay sex. I'm not sure whether to give more credence to utilitarianism for being ahead of the curve on feminism and gay rights, or whether Mill's ties to Bentham provide a social, nonrational explanation.

Meritocracy & the "Great Man" Myth

A commitment to meritocracy stems from the "great man" myth that science only progresses from genius to genius.

Keep It Simple: Blame Epistemic Vices

Epistemic vices may be more relevant to the spread of misinformation than politicization and polarization.

Wisdom from Error

Philosophers aren't wise. People who've learned from a bunch of mistakes are.

Excellence & Equality

Excellence and equality--virtue and deontology--are hard to square.