Mario Schärli

Thrilled to be joining the @dfg.de funded project "Reasonable Ideas" @humboldtuni.bsky.social, led by @rosefeldt.bsky.social, as a Postdoctoral Researcher! Over the next three years, we'll explore how much positive metaphysics survives #Kant ’s Transcendental Dialectic in the #CritiqueofPureReason.

Finally, we know what upset Quine‘s taste for desert landscapes so much back in 1948: overpriced frozen fruit.

It’s been a couple of days and I still feel sorry for Inter. Up against a far superior side which thoroughly deserved to win—but a sad ending to an otherwise impressive CL campaign.

Want people to understand your academic work better? Answer these questions in your writing:

What are the motivations of this project? (Why do it?)

Who are you arguing against?

What alternatives are you rejecting and why?

What follows if you’re right?

These are also good questions for Q&A.

Erst Merz, nun Spahn…ein schleichender Prozess.

UBC philosophy professor's research cited in U.S. Supreme Court decision - UBC News A 22-year-old philosophy paper by a UBC professor just helped the U.S. Supreme Court decide a major gun case.

UBC philosophy professor’s research cited in U.S. Supreme Court decision

A 22-year-old philosophy paper by a UBC professor just helped the U.S. Supreme Court decide a major gun case.

#philsky

news.ubc.ca/2025/04/us-s...

Yet this is obviously the most likely outcome.

How a University Fights an Authoritarian Regime Viktor Orbán came for me. Donald Trump is coming for you. Here’s what to do.

Michael Ignatieff on university self-defense:

So shocking to see much of what I admire about a country dissolve.

Many warned that civilisation is a thin veneer kept together by the good will of a small number of people, holding down a seething mass of forces. I accepted this as a theoretical point but didn’t expect to see it in practice.

Couldn‘t find my AirPods this morning & shocked how frantically I was looking for them. I’m at a point where leaving the house w/o them feels nearly impossible.

No, University Endowments Can’t Replace Federal Science Funding How Endowments Actually Work

OK found some useful information here, in case others care interested: donmoynihan.substack.com/p/no-univers...

Even Ivys are pausing hiring, curbing PhD admissions etc. because of government cuts. This seems over the top. Why can they not spend a larger portion of their endowments to make up for it? Genuinely curious!

When did we start calling every government appointee a ”something-or-other Czar“? Seems like the title excludes that there are so many of them.

Folks we are actually starting early modern philosophy on the podcast tomorrow!

I will kick off the coverage of the 17-18th centuries by asking, along with Kant, Foucault, Jonathan Israel and others: what the heck is Enlightenment, anyway?

#philsky #enlightenment #earlymodern #hopwag

Just. Wow.

Sagan was a prophet.

Just sayin'

Incredible how thoroughly Democrats got played here. Spent four years following through on a Trump executive order, pissed away any shot at building a real youth coalition for 2024 by alienating literally every teenager in America, lost the election, and now Trump gets to "save" TikTok. Clown shit.

I think they‘re looking for the next Socrates… #philsky

… and in the case of Quine, you even get a lesson in philosophical style as a free bonus!

Why am I not surprised?

Looking forward to giving a talk at the #APAEastern25 tomorrow morning!

I will remember my first NYE in Berlin. First, I had no running water. Then, the guy at the Späti sold me water bottles that he filled himself without telling me. Not to mention the sheer insanity of fireworks in this city. Never seen anything like it.

Opinion | What Happened in 2024? The Year in 10 Charts. Steven Rattner recaps a historic year in charts.

Musk ”benefited enormously from aligning with Mr. Trump, whose victory set off a near doubling in the Tesla stock price and contributed to a 67 percent increase in the value of SpaceX since June … an extraordinary increase of more than $200 billion in net worth“ www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Lucky day. Merry Christmas!

Kantian Political Thought Annual Rousseau Lecture and Conference 2024 Schedule European Consortium for Political Research

Had a great time at the Rousseau Lecture & Conference on Marcus Willaschek’s work

ecpr.eu/Events/Event...

In Capital vol. 3, Marx writes that he wants to examine capitalism in its "idealen Durchschnitt." This is usually translated as "ideal average," but I believe a more accurate translation would be "ideal cross-section." I think this is a geological metaphor rather than a mathematical one. 1/5

A gif of what I call 'citation ratios', running from 1970 to 2016. It starts out looking like a playground slide: it goes up rapidly, then comes down in a curve. But eventually the way down becomes shallower, and the way up becomes slower.

I've been looking at what the distribution of 'ages' of cited papers is in philosophy journals. That is, how old are papers when they are typically cited? Two assumptions that I had about this were false, and this gif (which I'll explain below) shows that they are. (1/14)

Arrived in London, this grayscale masterpiece, & looking forward to this workshop on Jess Leech‘s recent book: www.tickettailor.com/events/kings...

Sometimes the combination of arrogance and ignorance is breathtaking. Yes, US health care has high admin costs; that's because it relies so much on private insurers. Govt-run health insurance has much lower overhead