N. G. Laskowski

I used 5.2 to make a little website (www.publishingforthecycle.com) that basically contains a bunch of links. I had to help hand code nearly every step of the way. It was shockingly unreliable. i’m no anti-hyper but my expectations were tempered for sure.

I made a thing that I hope will help admins continue to look upon my dept favorably. I kind of expected the philosophical community to be intense about it, but it has been treated so far with the right level of (not so) seriousness. Have a look! Lmk if I missed anyone.

publishingforthecycle.com

Nathan Robert Howard & N. G. Laskowski, Honesty and Bad Faith - PhilPapers An appealing account of dishonesty subsumes it under the paradigm of lying. However, the account faces clear trouble from a wide range of cases, including cases of bullshit and brazen dishonesty. ...

New thing.

Being honest needn't involve telling the truth, avoiding deception, and the like; it instead involves vindicating the trust to which others are entitled under the (often unspoken) agreements that govern our relationships.

Or so we argue.

philpapers.org/rec/HOWHAB

It was a good discussion. We spent a lot of time making sense of something being sad or grief-worthy but not bad (btw, Ben Bramble gets a lot of mileage out of this idea in his new book-length defense of his brand of utilitarianism).

Self-fashioning eased their AI related dread, too!

@harveylederman.bsky.social @lindsaybrainard.bsky.social @whateverjerryfodorjokekarlanismakingtodayican'tfindhishandle

Harvey Lederman, ChatGPT and the Meaning of Life - PhilPapers This essay originally appeared as a guest post on Shtetl-Optimized (see link).

philpapers.org/rec/LEDCAT

Brett Karlan, Human achievement and artificial intelligence - PhilPapers In domains as disparate as playing Go and predicting the structure of proteins, artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have begun to perform at levels beyond which any humans can achieve. Does this...

philpapers.org/rec/KARHAA-2

Lindsay Brainard, Artificial Intelligence and the Threat of Creative Obsolescence - PhilPapers I argue that there is an underappreciated threat posed by the emergence of generative artificial intelligence (AI). I call this the threat of creative obsolescence. The threat is that, given the ...

philpapers.org/rec/BRAAIA-16

Some papers I taught this semester in my upper division undergrad course on life's meaning from philosophers who post here:

Congrats!

Your gender discourse paper is really good, btw.

N. G. Laskowski, Metaethical Reductive Naturalism for Humans - PhilPapers Metaethical reductive naturalism is said to be objectionable because (i) it cannot explain the role(s) of moral laws or principles, (ii) it cannot capture morality’s importance, and (iii) it cannot ac...

Newer thing

philpapers.org/rec/LASMRN

N. G. Laskowski, HOT TO GO! Or, Nonconcordance and the Metaphysics of Sexual Arousal and Orientation - PhilPapers Sometimes we want to have sex with someone but our bodies don’t respond accordingly. Sometimes our bodies respond accordingly but we don’t have the corresponding desire. Sex researchers call this phen...

New thing

philpapers.org/rec/LASHTG

Who comes to mind when you think about epistemologists who earned in their degree in the last decade who don't do applied, formal, or zetetic epistemology?

Don't be shy if this describes you or your students!

Hopefully @emollick.bsky.social reads your posts!

Time to shine

But we love looking jacked!

Smith College Philosophy Department (1951). Clarke is second from the left in the front row; Morris Lazerowitz and Alice Ambrose appear in the back row (leftwards). Source: Smith College Archives via Five College Compass (object ID 1373134), accessed August 2025.

A few months ago @nglaskowski.bsky.social posted about philosopher Mary Evelyn Clarke. It seems not much is known about her. So, I did some digging—this PDF is what I’ve found so far (sadly, not much). If you know more, or spot any errors, I’d love to hear from you! www.louisdoulas.info/MEC.pdf

Finally attended my first International Social Ontology Society conference. Grand time. All my favorite talks were from grad students. Love to see it.

Check the metadata

Nicholas Laskowski, Epistemic modesty in ethics - PhilPapers Many prominent ethicists, including Shelly Kagan, John Rawls, and Thomas Scanlon, accept a kind of epistemic modesty thesis concerning our capacity to carry out the project of ethical theorizing. But ...

Seems like this topic is well suited to them

philpapers.org/rec/LASEMI

Nathan Howard & N. G. Laskowski, The Moral Mosaic - PhilPapers A central metaphysical debate about laws concerns whether they govern or merely summarize. This debate has recently been extended to moral laws, with fresh criticism directed at the Humean position by...

Ever wonder what the principle of utility is or how it can or can't relate to run-of-the-mill non-moral facts? Ever wonder what moral laws are for? You can read all about what Nathan Howard and I think about these and other questions in our new paper draft. 

philpapers.org/rec/HOWTMM-4

Included on page 1 of my new syllabi

Please stop "correcting" my use of 'iff' to 'if' copy-editor challenge.

FARM 2025 FARM is a new conference that aims at bringing together researchers working on meaning (including, but not limited to, semantics of natural language) and researchers working on reasoning and rational ...

Last call for submissions to FARM! FARM (Formal Approached to Rationality and Meaning) is a new conference for work on meaning and rationality. The first installment will happen this Fall at the University of Maryland.

sites.google.com/view/farm202...

Home N. G. Laskowski Assistant Professor in the Philosophy Department at the University of Maryland, College Park Curriculum Vitae | Philosophical Lineage | EmailGoogle Scholar | PhilPeople.org

Updated my website in preparation for a big 'ol review.

www.nglaskowski.com

D 4

Maybe? I think it would be reasonable for those cited in the context of the general discussion to feel "called out".

Like you, I think it's good to hold academics to higher standards of intellectual honesty. But I also think it's good to hold academics to higher standards of civility.

Oh sure but isn't it pretty tough to be justified in thinking that an academic isn't honestly grappling with ideas due to ideological convenience? And isn't the bar on such justification pretty high given the severity of the accusation?

"low-decoupling academics who refuse to acknowledge basic evaluative facts"

"If they’d just stop and think clearly for a minute"

Yeesh!

The Politics of Apoliticism | Los Angeles Review of Books Kieran Setiya reviews Christoph Schuringa’s “A Social History of Analytic Philosophy.”

I really enjoyed this review/defense of analytic philosophy! I especially liked Setiya's point that what can superficially look like a reliance on intuitions is in fact the practice of making one's assumptions clear - which strikes me as profoundly fitting with democratic values. #philsky