Richard Pettigrew

Every so often you run into one of those policies that makes you speculate about the sequence of events that led someone to decide that the policy was necessary.

Conference 2026 Three days of the latest in social epistemology. In the heart of Vienna.

Excited to be part of this snazzy line-up! (and to go to Vienna in July - haven’t visited before) www.knowledgeconference.at

What a great line-up!

Honestly this little anecdote is for me just emblematic of something I really believe: the British public are genuinely much nicer and more decent than either our political or media class are themselves, or would have you believe.

Bayesians assemble

Look at these cool philosophy of physics postdocs we're advertising here at LSE!

philjobs.org/job/show/30977 and philjobs.org/job/show/30981

European Journal for Philosophy of Science The European Journal of Philosophy of Science publishes groundbreaking works that can deepen understanding of the concepts and methods of the sciences, as ...

Meet the new editors-in-chief of *EJPS*:

Catherine Herfeld & Samuel C. Fletcher

Here you can find more information about the associate editors and the editorial board of our journal:

link.springer.com/journal/1319...

#philsci

This is Beau. He is a textbook example of a golden retriever. They really will try to be friends with anyone. 13/10 for both (IG: beaugoesoutside)

Minsky has the term ‘suitcase words’? Hacking has ‘elevator words’ in social construction of what?, but I think they’re a bit different?

Ergo, or as I like to call it, the millennial's Phil Imprint

This essay identifies a normative function of the concept of intentional action. Specifically, I argue that the concept of intentional action functions to focus our evaluative concern on some doings rather than others. It acts as a proxy for evaluative priority. Two arguments are offered for this thesis. First, we need a concept that functions to focus evaluative concern, and the concept of intentional action exhibits features we'd expect from a concept with this prioritizing function. Second, the thesis is explanatorily powerful: it explains in a unified manner a number of puzzling features of intentional action, including the Knobe effect, the threshold of sufficient control governing intentional action, disagreement over whether knowledge is required for intentional action, cultural variation in ascription of intentionality, and the radical pluralism of ways that intentional action manifests. This second argument also shows what can be gained by attending to the functions of our concepts of agency.

New article:

Mikayla Kelley, "The Normative Function of Intentional Action", Philosophers' Imprint 26: 5. doi: doi.org/10.3998/phim...

Abstract in alt text. #philsky

⚛️ Do molecules have structure?

Yesterday, @vanessaseifert.bsky.social and Alexander Franklin delivered the BSPS Popper Prize lecture and talked about their award winning research.

📹 Lecture recording: www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1Sa...

#PhilSci @aliboyle.bsky.social
@thebsps.bsky.social

Rebecca Ferguson (Mission Impossible actress) @rebeccaferguson.com This is actress Rebecca Ferguson, the real one and not a scam. Accept my private message request. why on earth would you message me if you were real I need you to watch my movies. the scam is just messaging individual people to watch rebecca ferguson movies? I have been a fan of yours ever since I read a post about how you sneezed so hard the yellow acorn flew off your penis shaft. In Dune 2 I played the powerful mother of a thin desert boy.

"Bluesky doesn't have the juice."
"Real media access is still only on Twitter."
"No one important uses or will ever use this site."

Skill issue. If you post good, the right people will figure out how to get in touch with you.

How much has it snowed in Boston, you ask? Well, enough that our neighbors made a whale out of snow.

Conference banner. Contains the list of speakers: J Adam Carter, Mikkel Gerken, Allan Hazlett, Anne Meylan, Miriam McCormick, me, Lena Mudry and Chris Ranalli. Also some art but that's not essential.

Chris Ranalli and I are organising a workshop on the "Politics of Scepticism" at VU Amsterdam, 23-24th June. Registration is free but you need to contact me (r.j.mckenna@liverpool.ac.uk) or Chris Ranalli (c.b.ranalli2@vu.nl) if you want to attend.

Intuitive theories of truth Cognitive science has recently begun exploring how people conceptualize and reason about truth. We offer the field a framework that can guide inquiry …

New paper: Intuitive theories of truth

We connect philosophical theories of truth with cognitive science. We suggest new avenues for research around questions of how people judge statements as truth apt, what makes them true, and whether to assert something as true.

Check it out!

Chapter 1 of Moby Dick, page 1 The phrase ‘Call me Ishmael’, the first sentence of the book, is highlighted in blue, with careful highlighting on the very big C at the start. Above this, written in ballpoint pen ‘His name’

Love the glimpse into the beautiful mind that notated this used copy of Moby Dick I got

Black and white photo of a young girl standing in a garden holding the world’s fluffiest cat and looking extremely pleased with the situation

I will never not post this picture of my mum as a child holding the family cat when I come across it in my camera roll

This thread took a turn I could never have expected

Mandelson’s downfall is one of fastest ever seen in British public life Epstein links have taken political operator from a vaunted position in British diplomacy to arrest in under six months

Terrifying in its rapidity - it's taken just 27 years, 2 months and 3 days since scandal first broke.

when i worked in a bar and someone ordered branded lemonade and we didn’t have it, i would secretly just give them generic

(out of sprite)

It was a real honour to give this lecture last week on Lifelong Learning and the Many Aims of Higher Education. I’ve posted the text here.

(estimating a nested model) "I am large, I contain multitudes"

the sprawling, influential marketing apparatus behind pushing certain types of lettuce over others is my romaine empire.

It was a real honour to give this lecture last week on Lifelong Learning and the Many Aims of Higher Education. I’ve posted the text here.

Why do I have to pretend that I'm going to print something in order to save it as a PDF. Why do I have to engage in a little ruse.

This footnote should be read after sec. 3 and presupposes what I have said there. It provides a few references to statements by leading utilitarians of the summary conception. In general it appears that when they discussed the logical features of rules the summary conception prevailed and that it was typical of the way they talked about moral rules. I cite a rather lengthy group of passages from Austin as a full illustration. John Austin in his Lectures on Jurisprudence meets the objection that deciding

in accordance with the utilitarian principle case by case is impractical by saying that this is a misinterpretation of utilitarianism. According to the utilitarian view " ... our conduct would conform to rules inferred from the tendencies of actions, but would not be determined by a direct resort to the principle of general utility. Utility would be the test of our conduct, ultimately, but not immediately: the immediate test of the rules to which our conduct would con-form, but not the immediate test of specific or individual actions. Our rules would be fashioned on utility; our conduct, on our rules" (vol. I, p. 116). As to how one decides on the tendency of an action he says: "If we would try the tendency of a specific or individual act, we must not contemplate the act as if it were single and insulated, but most look at the class of acts to which it be-longs. We must suppose that acts of the class were generally done or omitted, and consider the probable effect upon the general happiness or good. We must guess the consequences which would follow, if the class of acts were general; and also the consequences which would follow, if they were generally omitted. We must then compare the consequences on the positive and negative sides, and determine on which of the two the balance of advantage lies. ... If we truly try the tendency of a specific or individual act, we try the tendency of the class to which that act belongs. The particular conclusion which we draw, with regard to the single act, implies a general conclusion embracing all similar acts.... To the rules thus inferred, and lodged in the memory, our conduct would conform immediately if it were truly adjusted to utility" (ibid., p. 117). One might think that Austin meets the objection by stating the practice conception of rules; and perhaps he did intend to. But it is not clear that he has stated this conception. Is the generality he refers to of the statistical sort? This is suggested by the notion of tendenc…

cases "of comparatively rare occurrence" he holds that specific considerations may outweigh the general. "Looking at the reasons from which we had inferred the rule, it were absurd to think it inflexible. We should therefore dismiss the rule; resort directly to the principle upon which our rules were fashioned; and calculate specific consequences to the best of our knowledge and ability" (ibid., pp. 120-121). Austin's view is interesting because it shows how one may come close to the practice conception and then slide away from it. In 4 System of Logic, bk. VI, ch. xii, par. 2, Mill distinguishes clearly between the position of judge and legislator and in doing so suggests the distinction between the two concepts of rules. However, he distinguishes the two positions to illustrate the difference between cases where one is to apply a rule already established and cases where one must formulate a rule to govern subsequent conduct. It's the latter case that interests him and he takes the "maxim of policy" of a legislator as typical of rules. In par. 3 the summary conception is very clearly stated. For example, he says of rules of conduct that they should be taken provisionally, as they are made for the most numerous cases. He says that they "point out" the manner in which it is least perilous to act; they serve as an "admonition" that a certain mode of conduct has been found suited to the most common occurrences. In Utilitarianism, ch. ii, par. 24, the summary conception appears in Mill's answer to the same objection Austin considered. Here he speaks of rules as "corollaries" from the principle of utility; these "secondary" rules are compared to "landmarks" and " direction-posts." They are based on long experience and so make it unnecessary to apply the utilitarian principle to each case. In par. 25 Mill refers to the task of the utilitarian principle in adjudicating between competing moral rules. He talks here as if one then applies the utilitarian principle directly to…

outstanding two-and-a-half page footnote halfway through Rawls’ Two Concepts of Rules that begins ‘this footnote is not even in the right place’

Photo of Princeton’s Nassau Hall after a night of heavy snowfall, taken just after sunrise

Daybreak snowscape

Response to reviewers