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There is an interesting article on the Consent defense written by George E. Panichas, chair of the philosophy department at Lafayette. As an Antioch alum, and witness to the famous sexual offense policy news coverage back in ‘93, I have some interests in the topic. But more importantly for this forum, so will students:
Scott case will hinge on complexity of consent

I found this article while looking at a commentary on the philosophic influences on major world figures. This, frankly, is much more interesting:
Can a Machine Issue Islamic Fatwas?

Jonathan Wolff has an article in the Guardian on academic humor - including retelling the legendary stories of Sidney Morgenbesser’s ‘yeah yeah’ comment at Columbia. See:
Philosopher goes into a pub and says to the barman …

I have just completed running a three-day faculty workshop on the Reacting to the Past pedagogy here at McDaniel. I’ve been using the Athens game in my Critical Thinking course for a couple of years. It is an unbelievably effective technique to increase engagement.
There is a twist, however: my end-of-term evaluations from this past class were the worst I’ve ever received. I have my theories as to why - but I think it raises the question if those forms are, by any stretch of the imagination, externally valid. It seems to me that when you have students active arguing about passages of the Republic, or coming to understand that their previous beliefs about Darwin were totally inaccurate and incoherent, we’ve done something.
The students, however, report that they haven’t learned much, and would have preferred a standard lecture course. Students seem to think that if you can’t put it on a flashcard, it isn’t really knowledge. At what point do the demands of students, channeled through the teaching evaluation forms and the tenure process undermine real education?

Insidehighered.com had an article covering Marvin Croy and Harriet Barber’s presentation at the Eastern APA on Friday called “Upgrading to Philosophy 2.0“. I’m thrilled to see that this kind of thinking is getting coverage. We’ll see if anything comes of it, but at least someone is trying to get the theory out there.

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