Has Christian philosophy been having it too easy? Over the last 50 years, Christian philosophy has ballooned into by far the largest interest area in the philosophy of religion. The Society...
https://blog.oup.com/2024/05/has-christian-philosophy-been-having-it-too-easy/
Philosophers don’t often write about the heart The Heart and Its Attitudes illuminates interpersonal phenomena that are as local and commonplace as heartfelt connections and their rupture...
https://blog.oup.com/2024/04/philosophers-dont-often-write-about-the-heart/
Awkward? We’d better own it We live in a golden age of awkwardness. Or so we’re told, by everyone from The Washington Post to Modern Dog Magazine. But we always have. A 1929 Life Magazi...
Beyond God and atheism One of the most remarkable findings of recent science is that the fundamental constants of nature appear to be fine-tuned for the existence of life. Some think the fi...
Flow of time: reality or illusion? Real time of space-time is one of the dimensions on which we comprehend and describe reality. Time neither flows, nor flies, or drags on; it doesn’t run...
https://blog.oup.com/2023/11/flow-of-time-reality-or-illusion/
The art of philosophy The “philosophy of art” in Anglo-American analytical philosophy has had barely any influence on the main epistemological, ethical, and metaphysical concerns of tha...
Should animals have the right to vote? Suppose it were suggested that animals’ interests would be even better protected if we recognized a right of political participation to animals. One...
https://blog.oup.com/2023/10/should-animals-have-the-right-to-vote/
Why does government policy ignore scientific evidence? Experts and the public must act together Together, expert communities and the public need to manage the interfaces between the product...
Virtues and vices in a non-ideal world Humans are prone to bias, irrationality, and various forms of prejudice. From an evolutionary perspective, this is no accident. OUPblog - Academic i...
https://blog.oup.com/2023/09/virtues-and-vices-in-a-non-ideal-world/
Pandemic? What pandemic? Three months after the official US government “end” of three years of monitoring the COVID-19 pandemic that took over 1.1 million American lives, we are back to...
Communicative luck reduction: machine-like or social (or both)? While we occasionally have the sense that we are rolling dice with words and hoping for good luck, meaning and communication ...
https://blog.oup.com/2023/08/communicative-luck-reduction-machine-like-or-social-or-both/
Is a 15-week limit on abortion an acceptable compromise? A recent opinion piece claims that the overturning of Roe v. Wade has resulted in "a partial healing of the nation's civic culture."...
https://blog.oup.com/2023/06/is-a-15-week-limit-on-abortion-an-acceptable-compromise/
Real patterns and the structure of language There’s been a lot of hype recently about the emergence of technologies like ChatGPT and the effects they will have on science and society. Lin...
https://blog.oup.com/2023/06/real-patterns-and-the-structure-of-language/
Elon Musk, Mars, and bioethics: is sending astronauts into space ethical? A future human mission to Mars will be very dangerous, both as a result of factors already known but intensified, a...
https://blog.oup.com/2023/06/elon-musk-mars-and-bioethics-is-sending-astronauts-into-space-ethical/
Digital dilemmas: feminism, ethics, and the cultural implications of AI In episode 82 of The Oxford Comment, we discussed the ethics and cultural implications of artificial intelligence (A...
Beaumarchais and Electronic Enlightenment The addition to Electronic Enlightenment of nearly 500 letters from the Beaumarchais correspondence is a significant event in eighteenth-c...
https://blog.oup.com/2023/04/beaumarchais-and-electronic-enlightenment/
What is subject marketing? An interview with Hana Purslow, philosophy marketing manager In this interview, our Marketing Manager for philosophy, Hana Purslow, outlines OUP’s approach to s...
Xenophon’s kinder Socrates The idea that Xenophon’s Socratic dialogues entirely lacked the philosophical bite or intellectual depth of Plato’s had become a commonplace in a philosophi...
Charity and solidarity! What responsibilities do nonprofits have towards Ukraine? In a speech to the UN General Assembly in the fall of 2022, President Biden called on the UN to stand in ...
The predictably grievous harms of Effective Altruism Over the past decade the philanthropic ideology of Effective Altruism has grown massively both in attracting funds and in influencing yo...
https://blog.oup.com/2022/12/the-predictably-grievous-harms-of-effective-altruism/
How to identify a scientific fact When do we have a scientific fact? Scientists, policymakers, and laypersons could all use an answer to this question. But despite its obvious importance, h...
https://blog.oup.com/2022/11/how-to-identify-a-scientific-fact/
Pursuing deliberative democracy through scientific testimony Science skepticism is a central threat to deliberative democracy. Generally speaking, scientific investigations based on collabo...
https://blog.oup.com/2022/11/pursuing-deliberative-democracy-through-scientific-testimony/
Big, wonderful, difficult questions (and answers) about life in Proust For the 100th anniversary of Marcel Proust's death, Joshua Landy explores the existential questions posed by "In Sear...
The return of Humpty Dumpty: who is the ultimate arbiter of meaning? In philosophy of language, as well as in many court opinions (e.g., Liversidge v. Anderson, 1942), Humpty Dumpty is held...
https://blog.oup.com/2022/11/the-return-of-humpty-dumpty-who-is-the-ultimate-arbiter-of-meaning/
Delegitimising “reverse racism” “Affirmative action? That’s just reverse racism!” We’ve all heard claims like this; the term “reverse racism” used to attack some progressive...