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As public philosophers go, Alain de Botton is one of the good ones. I tend to find his work insightful and interesting, even while it is accessible by a popular audience. More importantly, he appears to be doing a very good job of working that 'gadfly' role, routinely reminding people that consumer culture does not provide happiness. This interview sites the mixed reviews of his latest work The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work (Hamish Hamilton, £18.99), but I quite look forward to reading it. After all, the theses of consumerism and the self-fulfillment through work are two of the most important yet least scrutinzed values in our culture.

Philosopher king: Alain de Botton finds glamour and drama in the world of work - Features, Books - The Independent

UPDATED 4/3:

There are a number of reviews coming in, here's one from AU:

Philosopher at work  read more »

Alva appears to have something of a popular hit on his hands. This review comes from the Seattle Times. I'll post more reviews as they appear:

Books | "Out of Our Heads" asks what makes us conscious | Seattle Times Newspaper

Back in the 1700's, after Jacques Vaucanson's automatic duck, Wolfgang von Kempelin supposedly created a 'mechanical turk' that was purported to be able to out-play any chess player. It was, according to most historians, a scam.

I love these examples, and use them to great affect in my introductory lecture in Minds and Machines, just after we've read de la Mettre's 'Man a machine'.  Anyway, the Baltimore sun has a review on a stage adaptation of the story:

Theatre Project's 'Mechanical' needs streamlining -- baltimoresun.com

Santa Clara Senior Noelle Lopez got a brief mention on SFGate.com in the weekly round-up. This is interesting for us, because she is attending Oxford in the fall to study 'Philosophy and ethics'! 

Broncos' Lopez has the smarts to run elsewhere

Here's a couple of flash movies to demonstrate the Heat/Molecular motion case. They should be fairly self-explanatory.

Heat-Molecular Motion 1 static link

Heat-Molecular Motion 2 static link

Another bit of coverage for the Philosophy Shop!
BBC NEWS | UK | Wales | Philosophy discussions in schools

Fascinating story over at Scientific American a collaborative paper by Neuroscientists and Magicians recently published in Nature Reviews Neuroscience. 
What Can Magicians Teach Us about the Brain?: Scientific American

There is an entertaining story about Paradise, CA, and local crowd of intellectual retirees.  There is even a Descartes Society of Paradise, whose motto is:

Great thinkers flock to Paradise - Paradise Post

The meeting began with the group tradition of collectively chanting their motto: "We sorta think, therefore we sorta still are, damn it."

Hilarous.

This one has Humphrey (from Lewis "Counterparts and Double Lifes").  I've moved the modal claims INTO the worlds, but haven't set the ability to change the relationship BETWEEN worlds yet. That's next.

Demo Humphrey static link.

The World's Fair : Marjorie Grene, In Memoriam: The Passing of an Intellectual Giant

UPDATE 3/23

Marjorie Grene dies at 98; historian of philosophy known as independent thinker - Los Angeles Times

Philosophy historian Grene dead at 98 - MarketWatch

The StOlaf site has a short video describing a fascinating project currently in use by Professor Charles Taliaferro in his upper level seminar on Phil Religion Class: his students collaborate on dictionary entries for his forthcoming Dictionary of the Philosophy of Religion, to be published by Scarecrow Press.

The video doesn't give us that many specifics about the project or the book, in favor of lofty claims about how good it is to do actual work in an upper level seminar, but it is good--at the very least--to see that 'Philosophy of Religion' here appears to have a broader catch than the standard 'Philosophy of Abrahamic Monotheism.'

Video News: Students wax philosophical on dictionary project

MSNBC has a story covering the continuing protests against cutting the Phil department at MTSU.

MTSU Students Hold Second Protest - News- msnbc.com

The student newspaper has an editorial on the issue as well:

Philosophy: To cut or not to cut? The best tools? - Opinions

An interesting story here from Romania (apparently roughly-translated into English) on a largely unknown Heideggerian working throughout the Soviet occupation and repression in Romania.  

Financiarul » Blog Archive » Alexandru Dragomir, famous Romanian unknown philosopher is translated in Paris

This story contained an interview with KRS-One, which contained his take on the daily challenge of all of us who actually care about teaching philosophy - how to take the enthusiasm for philosophical thinking and make it academically rigorous:

SN&R > Music > A dose of honesty, amen > 03.19.09

“A true philosopher is never going to sit around and be quiet like a lot of these philosophers today. They want to know what René Descartes said … or try to analyze Francis Bacon or they want to look at Aristotle and try to figure out Socrates and Plato. I’m not interested in all that. In fact, those guys are kind of boring to me,” says KRS. “I’m more interested in truth. A real philosopher is a seeker of truth, a lover of knowledge. I see [truth] just walking outside of my door every day, looking at the state of the world. Yeah, man, I’m always going to urge thought.

• 2845 ways to spin the Risk | Understanding Uncertainty

  Interesting flash tool that could be useful in Critical Thinking courses. Thanks to Anne Nester for finding it.

  tags: Electronic, Resources

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

The Indiana Daily Student has a story on a 2006 Phil major who is going to star in a new show on 'TheWB.com'.  Another for the file of 'what you can do with a Philosophy degree'!

idsnews.com | Indiana Daily Student |

While the department at Middle Tennessee State is under direct threat of closure, the department at the University of Tennessee is under threat of merging with the Religious Studies department. I come from a joint department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, and will testify: it is a bad idea. It harms both disciplines.

For Philosophy, joinging the departments creates confusion, perpetuating that myth that Philosophy programs are merely engaged in intellectual history, and therefore merely complementary to 'real' disciplines; or, worse yet, pre-theology programs.  Religious Studies is similarly sterotyped as engaged primarily in cultivating the process of self-discovery, rather than understanding religion as a human phenomenon. If realignment of the faculty is absolutely required, put Religious Studies with Anthro and leave Phil as a standalone department.

Anyway, here's the link:
The Daily Beacon

I haven't yet seen any links for administrators to contact with concern, protest etc. I'll post them when they appear.

Colin Allen at IU has won a huge grant from the NEH to further his work on the Indiana Philosophy Ontology!
Here's the press release:
NEH awards $400,000 for IU digital philosophy project: IU News Room: Indiana University

Here are the basic Modal logic demos I use in Minds and Machines, Minds and Language and Metaphysics:

Click on a world to reveal the sentences in question, and turn them 'true' or false. Click 'Check modal claims' to reveal the truth or falsity of the modal claims.

Demo 1 - 1 possible world. Static Link

Demo 2: A full set of worlds. Static Link.

Demo 3: Restricted set. Static Link

(move the purple square to change the set of interest).

   read more »

Tonight, as I was cutting up the pizza for dinner, my 4-year old Declan came up and asked me if he could have a piece of pepperoni. I said "wait for your dinner."

He said "but I need to make sure that it is spicy".
"It is the same pepperoni as always," said I,
"Yes, but how do I know that this is as spicy as the last?" he questioned.
"It comes from the same company," I explained.
"But I can't be sure that it is the same spiciness".
"Yes, but we can suspect that it has the same spiciness with a high degree of probability," I retorted, in a last, desperate attempt.

"But I cannot be sure. The only way to be sure is to taste a piece, and I need to be sure."

I gave him the damn piece of pepperoni.

All of this - as you may suspect - has just gone to teach me why so many people find Philosophers annoying.