Eric Schwitzgebel
@eschwitz
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Professor of Philosophy, UC Riverside belief, consciousness, AI, science fiction, moral psychology, classical Chinese philosophy, metaphysics....
Riverside, CA
Joined November 2014
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My wife Pauline, just now: “As a philosopher, does it bother you that our toothpaste says that it stops cavities before they start?”
This is exactly the kind of question that delights my heart as an analytic philosopher. My hard-won prowess will not go to waste.
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The Parable of the Overconfident Student: Why overconfident students, who commit early and vocally to specific philosophical positions, thrive in academic philosophy. 1/7
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My entry on "Belief" for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, updated today:
Believe it or not!
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Can experts in Dan Dennett's philosophy distinguish Dennett's answers to philosophical questions from answers generated by a computer program trained on Dennett's works? Yes and no. Yes, better than chance. But no, not at all reliably.
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My son David is going to grad school in Cognitive Science! The PhD program at Institut Jean Nicod at Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, starting this fall. Whooo! This makes three generations of Schwitzgebels working at the border of psychology and philosophy.
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Advance copies of my new book The Weirdness of the World, have landed!
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The Continental/analytic divide is alive and well in philosophy. In the top 4 Anglophone journals in the 2000s-2010s, the words Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, Foucault, and Derrida have appeared in less than one article per journal per year.
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Congratulations to Dr Deborah Nelson, who just defended a fascinating dissertation on implicit class bias in the literature in philosophy of action. She argues that the focus on stability over long periods of time, rational life plans, and career selves reflects the concerns 1/3
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“[Schwitzgebel] leads readers down a fascinating rabbit hole of metaphysics, ontology, theories of causation, and the science of cognition. . . . It’s an exuberant look at some of life’s biggest questions.”
-- Publishers Weekly
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The number of philosophy majors in the U.S. is increasing after a period of decline in the early 2010s. Women are now almost 40% of graduating majors, after decades of being consistently 30%-34%. The number of Hispanic philosophy students is also surging.
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The Overconfident Student Strategy disproportionately favors students from privileged backgrounds, who feel at home in the classroom, comfortable in academic dialogue, envision themselves as budding professors, can intuitively sense what positions are classroom-defensible. 7/7
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My recent PhD student, Kyle Thompson, has just published research challenging the validity of standard quantitative methods in experimental philosophy. 1 / 3
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I'm writing a guide on how to publish a book in philosophy. Part I today mainly concerns approaching publishers and landing a book contract. Part II will address contract details, seeing the book through to print, and post-print publicity.
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Philosophy progresses not (mostly) by coming to decisive resolutions on big-picture issues but rather by opening us up to new possibilities previously unthought of or dismissed. Philosophical progress is abundant, especially recently.
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Brad Cokelet,
@PeterSinger
, and I have replicated our 2020 study finding that students eat less meat after studying meat ethics. Expanding on our 2020 results, we find that the effect does not depend on employing vegetarian instructors or showing footage of factory farms.
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Science fiction & philosophy enthusiasts: I'm looking for examples of stories or films that leave us in doubt whether a robot or alien deserves human-like rights or is less than human. Hit me with some favorites!
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and opportunities of middle-class and upper-class people, and that a focus on practical agency among people with economic disadvantage would and should focus at least as much on flexibility and managing unpredictable complexity 2/3
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First, the Overconfident Student gets practice asserting his (yes, usually "his") philosophical views in an argumentative context. Oral presentation of one's opinions is a crucial skill in philosophy and closely related to written presentation of one's opinions. 2/7
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The combined effect of these advantages over the course of an undergraduate education, ensures that these students thrive. What was initially the epistemic vice of overconfidence becomes the epistemic virtue of being a knowledgeable, well-trained philosophy student. 6/7
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The sharp decline in Philosophy undergraduate majors from 2013-2016 has stopped. In absolute numbers, Philosophy in the U.S. is back on the rise. In percentage of degrees awarded, it has stabilized at 0.40%.
Other humanities continue their freefall.
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The philosophy major is back, now with more women!
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My fourth book, The Weirdness of the World, is now in draft! Huzzah!
I would greatly appreciate constructive comments. The book is intended primarily for academic philosophers but should also mostly be comprehensible to non-specialists who enjoy my blog.
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Second, he gets customized expert feedback on his philosophical views. Typically, the professor will restate Student X's views, strengthening them, fitting them into the existing discourse, and articulating responses those views. 3/7
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My office yesterday. Since there’s still a tippy-toe path to my desk, it’s okay right?
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Uncle Iroh, from Avatar: The Last Airbender, is a Daoist sage who exemplifies how Zhuangzi's political philosophy can be put into practice in dealing with misguided rulers. (Yes, I know you know. But it needed to be put into words.)
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Yesterday my daughter turned 14. I asked her if 14 felt different from 13. She said no. I reminded her that a year ago she told me 13 didn’t feel different from 12. A regress threatens! She denied any paradox. Feels-different-than is not a transitive relation, Dad!
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Celebrating 25 years of marriage today. May the next 25 be equally wonderful!
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— relatively neglected topics in philosophy of action. 3/3
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Third, he engages his emotions and enhances his memory. Arguing with his professor burns that argument into his memory and intensifies his engagement with the rest of the course, where he'll latch on to arguments and counterarguments relevant to his view. 4/7
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Why do people apologize for being vegetarian, even when it doesn't inconvenience others around them? An explanation in terms of my hypothesis that people aim to be morally mediocre rather than good or bad by absolute standards.
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New essay, op-ed, and interview, against "longtermism" of the sort defended by
@willmacaskill
@tobyordoxford
. I argue that our decisions should be *not at all* influenced by expectations for the billion-year future.
Essay:
Op-ed:
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10 things I like that everyone else hates:
1. Nerdy jokes.
10. Binary numbers.
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Just ten schools account for 10% of all the philosophy bachelor's degrees awarded in the U.S.
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Based on these qualitative data, most participants appear to believe the *opposite* of what the quantitative results suggest.
My summary:
Full article:
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The anthology I edited with
@Helenreflects
and Johan De Smedt has arrived! Wonderful stories and reflections by
@kyliu99
@LisaSchoenberg1
@aliettedb
@WendyNikel
@CChrisrose
and more!
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Fourth, he wins the support and encouragement of his professor, he's unusually obnoxious, the typical U.S. professor will appreciate Student X's enthusiasm. His insights will be praised, enhancing his self-confidence and his sense that he is good at philosophy. 5/7
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Book release day for The Weirdness of the World! I've posted the introductory chapter on my blog: "In Praise of Weirdness"
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More detailed version of these thoughts on my blog here:
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New book in the works! The Weirdness of the World. Fundamental facts about consciousness and metaphysics defy both common sense and our best science. Something bizarre must be true, but we have no good way to know which of the bizarre possibilities is correct.
@PrincetonUPress
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I���m not sure why my wife keeps saying I need to trim my pile of bedside books.
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My new book, A Theory of Jerks and Other Philosophical Misadventures, is out today. *confetti!*
@mitpress
@PhilipLaughlin
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Philosophy is increasingly drawing Black students' initial interest. However, for whatever reason, as their education proceeds from first-year to bachelor's to PhD, Black students are disproportionately likely to exit.
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Great science fiction can also be great philosophy. Check out my discussion with
@philosophybites
at
@five_books
of five of my favorite works of philosophical SF:
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@fierycushman
and I ran a contest to see if anyone could write a short argument that convinced research participants to donate a surprise bonus to charity at higher rates than in a control condition. An argument written by
@petersinger
and
@mattlindauer
won. Check it out!
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If Bismarck challenges you to a duel, choose parasite-infested sausages as your weapon.
(Footnote in Sykes’ Kindred.)
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Instead of doing what I had planned to do today, I got so annoyed about the question of whether consciousness can be vague that I wrote 3000 words of a new paper draft on that topic. Talk to me about whether the property "conscious state" can be vague!
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A ranking of U.S. undergrad philosophy programs by the racial/ethnic diversity of graduates. See the full post for methodological details and a ranking of all 235 schools that graduate at least 10 philosophy majors per year.
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The illusionist about consciousness advocates a problematically theory-laden view of consciousness, then denies that consciousness in that sense exists. It's like denying that chairs exist because nothing is a "solid object" in some physics-defying sense. Link in comments.
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This is a new one. One of the leading philosophy journals is addressing me as “Mr. Author Author”. It’s cute!
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The Computerized Philosopher: Can you distinguish the real Daniel Dennett from a GPT-3 language model fine-tuned on his corpus? Take our test here!
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Ethics classes can influence student behavior: Students purchase less meat after discussing arguments for vegetarianism, as measured by dining card purchase data: (with Brad Cokelet and
@PeterSinger
)
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Advice for newbies on publishing philosophy research articles. I address both big-picture issues (should you try to publish, and what type of work?) and nitty-gritty details (such as formatting submissions and tactics in handling referee reports).
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Why writing philosophy is hard, and why every historical philosopher focuses on the wrong issues. A theory, with cheesy figures!
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My article, "The Pragmatic Metaphysics of Belief", is finally in print! Today's post celebrates the craftwork and long labor behind academic articles (this one took six years) and summarizes pragmatic reasons to prefer a pragmatic over an intellectualist approach to belief.
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My study of missing ethics books from academic libraries is the
#1
strangest scientific study, according to Listverse. Proper recognition at last! Can an Ignobel be far behind?!
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My wife doesn’t seem to understand that the primary function of language is jokes.
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I found my old TMNT shirt! I used to enjoy wearing it for philosophy talks. Presenting at a Princeton colloquium years ago, I recall hearing someone say, “A guy wearing a Ninja Turtles t-shirt just said ‘Kant meets cyberpunk’.” He sounded somewhere between impressed and alarmed.
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For comparison: Whatever you did wrong today, it wasn’t as wrong as invading Ukraine.
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Hot off the press, open access! My article "Borderline Consciousness": In considering what types of systems are conscious, we face a quadrilemma. Either nothing is conscious, or everything is conscious, or there’s a sharp boundary across the apparent continuum between (1/3)
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Summit of Mt Baldy — first time ever. I was just aiming for the ski hut halfway up, given it was my first time, but I hardly felt tired at all so I kept going. Age 53 and in the best shape of my life.
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I had a lovely chat about the weirdness of the world with
@seanmcarroll
at the Mindscape podcast. My latest book, The Weirdness of the World, is due for U.S. release tomorrow!
Mindscape 262 | Eric Schwitzgebel
@eschwitz
on the Weirdness of the World. You always suspected the universe was weird, here's the rigorous proof.
#MindscapePodcast
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Does philosophical moral reflection give philosophers a kind of "grand wisdom" allowing them to see past the jingoism and cultural biases of their time and nation?
Historical evidence suggests no.
An excerpt from my 2019 book:
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My son David, off to Paris for a five-year PhD program in Cognitive Science at Ecole Normale Superieure, Institut Jean Nicod. It has been wonderful having him here this summer. Bittersweet to see him go. Such broad horizons will open to him in this next stage of his life journey!
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Introducing the concept of "performative belief" -- belief as a kind of social act whose nature as a social act remains invisible to you.
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I love Montaigne! Here he is on religion in elephants, in his long, digressive, and bizarre treatment of animal cognition in his Apology for Raymond Sebond.
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One week until release of my newest book!
The Weirdness of the World by
@eschwitz
is coming to audio on January 16! 🎧
Read by Will Collyer, this
#audiobook
reveals why all philosophical explanations of human consciousness and the structure of the cosmos are bizarre—and why that’s a good thing:
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A blog post in which I grapple with Michael Tye's new book on vagueness and consciousness, in light of my own recent work on the topic. Spoiler: I like the vagueness part, but I'm less keen on the quasi-panpsychist "consciousness*" part.
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Just out in print!
@AnnaStrasser1
, Matt Crosby, and my son David fine-tuned GPT-3 on the works of
@danieldennett
, then tested experts’ ability to distinguish “digi-Dan”s answers to philosophical questions from Dennett’s answers to the same questions.
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I'm more skeptical of robot consciousness than alien consciousness: Robots can be designed to behave as if they are conscious without actually being so, while consciousness mimicry seems less likely in a naturally evolved alien. Full post:
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If we someday create superintelligent AI, our moral relationship to those systems will resemble the moral relationship of parents to children. Rather than try to force a strict "value alignment" to human values, we ought to welcome their ability to see past and transcend us.
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Peter-Singer-style arguments for charitable giving don't appear to motivate many people to give, while narratives that show the positive effects of charitable giving do motivate people to give -- some preliminary empirical evidence.
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Five book recommendations of mine:
Short version: "Five Books to Blow Your Mind with the Weirdness of the World":
Long version: "Best Books of Philosophical Wonder":
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If a benevolent God exists, God should reward or at least not punish apportioning one’s beliefs to the evidence. Thus, we can flip Pascal’s wager on its head: It’s better not to believe in God if there are grounds for doubt.
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A new piece by me in The Atlantic, on the COVID Jerk and how not to be one in the face of changing opinions and standards.
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Could we ever build a "moralometer" -- an instrument that would accurately measure people's overall morality? If so, what would it take?
New paper in draft with
@JessieSunPsych
: "The Prospects and Challenges of Measuring Morality".
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Academic philosophy in the U.S. is slowly becoming more diverse. An analysis of just-released data from the NSF on the race and gender of philosophy PhDs.
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Terrific endorsements on the back cover of my forthcoming A Theory of Jerks and Other Philosophical Misadventures! I hope that readers find that the interior lives up to the praise on the cover, though I fear that is too much to expect.
@ProfBarryLam
@philosophybites
@mitpress
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Could AI be conscious? What would follow, ethically?
The moral weight of AI consciousness
@grace_huckins
Also quoting
@davidchalmers42
@DrSueSchneider
@rgblong
@Liad_Mudrik
@anilkseth
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The Nesting Problem for theories of consciousness. Suppose a person (or brain) is conscious in virtue of functional or physical property C. For most candidate Cs, some subsystems of the person and some groups to which the person belongs will also have a version of property C.
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There’s nothing like thumbing through old handwritten notes to evoke the feeling that there’s so much I have learned, thought important, and forgotten.
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We shouldn't design AI systems that create confusion about their sentience or moral status. Design systems that either clearly don’t have significant sentience or status, or go all the way (if it’s ever possible) to systems about which we can widely agree.
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Why academic philosophers shouldn't feel like they need to work on weekends
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Such a great stack of books that just arrived. How do I start? I want to read them all at once immediately!
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Today I published an op-ed in the LA Times on David Chalmers' new book Reality+ and in general on the idea that we live in a simulation. 1/3
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Check out my op-ed with
@dioscuri
in today's LA Times. We argue that engineers shouldn't create AI systems of disputable moral status.
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@JoeSmit73185952
Contrary to common opinion, philosophy majors don't do particularly badly on the job market -- not among the best but also not among the worst.
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The philosophy major is back on the rise in the U.S., with increasing gender and ethnic diversity:
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Ignore email. Ignore all other obligations. Spend four hours writing something whimsical for no discernible professional purpose.
Why don't I let myself do this more often?
(Tomorrow's blog post will be a defense of wolfing down your dessert.)
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Just received: antho of health-related SF, ed
@rmAmbrose
. My story “Fish Dance” is among the selections. Also stories by
@DavidBrin
@CarolineYoachim
@SallyWGrotta
@AShvartsman
@jaspkelly
@Annaleen
@TananariveDue
@Julianne_SF
@JustinKey_MD
@paolobacigalupi
@seananmcguire
& others!
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Come hear
@kate_manne
talk about "What Is Gaslighting?" this Friday at UCR, via Zoom, 2-4 Pacific Time. Preregistration required at the link below.
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I'm honored to find A Theory of Jerks and Other Philosophical Misadventure's on Nigel Warburton's list of the five Best Philosophy Books of 2019.
ICYMI,
@philosophybites
has chosen his favourite philosophy books of 2019 for us (including some highbrow stocking fillers):
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The difference between philosophy that aims to close down options, narrowing in on the one truth, and philosophy that aims to open up options, revealing possibilities you might not previously have appreciated.
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A Theory of Jerks and Other Philosophical Adventures is now being printed. If you're thinking of reviewing or commenting on it, I try to get you an advance copy.
PS: Is the cover already dated? Will vaping hipsters soon be a relic, to whom we owe mainly a wistful nostalgia?
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The 233 most-cited works in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Bonus Quiz! Before looking, guess how many are by people of color.
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Spotted in the Norton Introduction to Philosophy. Neat to see my work in the intro to a leading philosophy textbook! That study did take me more than an afternoon, though. (HT Bhavya Sharma)
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