Rory D. Kent

One of my employers has me supervising undergrad research projects on Aquinas on war, the Science of Logic, and Being & Time all at once

helen de cruz was fully who she was. her genuineness & humaneness was abundant in everything she did, including in dying, something we will all do, but few of us as honestly. in that she exemplified what you would hope a philosopher could be. i’m glad to have known her a little.

Helen de Cruz (1978-2025), RIP Please consider donating to this fundraising effort (here) to support Helen de Cruz’s family.

@helendecruz.net (1978-2025), RIP open.substack.com/pub/digressi...

This is sad news. I didn't know her well but from the times our paths crossed she seemed like a supremely kind and decent person

It is with profound sadness that we learned about the passing of our beloved friend, colleague, and mentor, Mario Biagioli.
Mario was a pre-eminent scholar in many fields of inquiry: history of science, science studies, media studies, and the interdisciplinary study of intellectual properties. 1/2

So sad to hear news of Mario Biagioli's death. When I had just started my PhD, I tentatively reached out to Prof Biagioli to ask a few questions about Feyerabend's pedagogy. He didn't know me, but was so generous as to reply in vivid detail. Anyone interested in HPS must read Galileo, Courtier!

just in case anyone somehow still hasn't gotten around to it
labour.org.uk/membership-r...

no class or dignity in genocide

We're bringing a legal challenge to the EHRC’s ‘Interim Update’ A number of trans and intersex individuals have today begun a legal challenge to the EHRC’s ‘Interim Update’ following the For Women, Scotland decision

Along with a man and a woman who are trans, and someone who is intersex, we are suing the EHRC and the Equalities Minister in respect of the disgraceful and unlawful EHRC guidance.

In line with our transparency principles we are publishing the full 32 page legal letter. goodlaw.social/2ihj

NYU student speaker at graduation addresses Palestine; school is withholding his diploma for his speech

www.nyu.edu/about/news-p...

Fresh off a Supreme Court 'victory' for 'real women' that apparently yielded few electoral dividends (who could have predicted?), Starmer seizes on another strategic blinder by sacking two women from his cabinet. You are witnessing a master at work.

No need for "research" when you have good old common sense on your side!

Exclusive: NSF stops awarding new grants and funding existing ones US science funder also plans to screen grant applications for compliance with ‘agency priorities’.

Critics of Wokeism Found Celebrating after This Huge Win for Truth and Reason: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

extract from Independent newspaper article reading "Doctors condemn Supreme Court ruling on trans women as 'scientifically illiterate'" "The resident doctors' wing of the BMA argued that a binary divide between sex and gender 'has no basis in science or medicine while being actively harmful to transgender and gender-diverse people'"

(Not that notional agreement with an expert group by itself proves the correctness of a view, but) it is unsurprising that anti-trans ideologues purport to speak in the name of a univocal Science, all the while finding themselves at odds expert institutions www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...

What an honour!

Today at @stsucl.bsky.social History of Science Reading Group we discussed @gianamar97.bsky.social Gianamar Giovannetti-Singh and @feyerabender.bsky.social Rory Kent, “Crises and the history of science: a materialist rehabilitation,” BJHS Themes (2024) doi.org/10.1017/bjt.... i

When Marxists say "the masses" they don't usually mean this as synonymous with the working class anyway. I'm not really sure what the imperative is to define WC such that it always makes up a majority? That migjt limit structural understanding of dynamics of production across diff national contexts

What's wrong with some suitably elaborated version of the standard Marxist conception of the class as a relation to a mode of production (which can encompass a majority or a minority of a national population depending on how many people stand in that relation to the MoP)?

Yes we know each other!

Phd examining🧵 cont. In Feb together with @thehangedman.com we examined Rory's fantastically erudite and classy reinterpretation of Feyerabend. F himself couldn't possibly imagine being read that way but should be so grateful. A section on Brecht's theatre in a #philsci dissertation? Tick.

My PhD thesis is now openly available to read online :) www.repository.cam.ac.uk/items/4aedae...

I need to get my hands on a copy, what a great contents page!!

As it turns out, he contributed to a 1960 volume titled "Scientism and values" that seems to have quite a bit of philosophy of the social sciences in it. In case anyone knows anything about the context for this volume, please let me know - information on the Internet is scarce.

It's so obvious to good sense that describing biological systems like organs as having "jobs" is bad science, bad education, and bad ideology, but it's still happens up and down the country in almost every primary and secondary school

bro what did you do

A Palestine flag and a placard reading "D*kes for Trans Inclusion", both held up by demonstrators on a street in central London.

"Palestine and trans rights, one struggle, one fight!"

Trans flag flying at Parliament Square amid demonstrators.

"Over the counter and for free, HRT, HRT!"

"Gender affirming care, life saving care!"

"All kids deserve to live!"

reddit being my natural environment of course

Against Nature A pithy work of philosophical anthropology that explores why humans find moral orders in natural orders.Why have human beings, in many different cultures a

On specifically about “biological,” but Lorraine Daston’s book Against Nature historicizes the uses of “nature”: direct.mit.edu/books/book/4...

should have qualified with contemporary