elisa freschi

Yes! I agree that if you talk to someone or have repeated interactions, then a judgement is so much easier. I still would like to find a way to create a reliable long- and short-list of applicants.

Thanks! Just to be sure I am following: Is there anything you would use as a quick litmus test of unwillingness to put hard work?

I reported the dialogue without claiming that I'm right. To me, sloppiness is a sign of not wanting/not being able to put hard work into what one does and I don't think you'll ever become a good scholar if you don't put hard work in it. Pure "philosophical genius", even if it exists, is not enough

I had an interesting discussion with a colleague. Short form thereof:
Me: sloppy bibliography or logical formulations (in a student's WS) are a red flag.
Them: They are not.
Me: Suppose they become your grad student, then you'll have to fix typos etc.
Them: I just wouldn't. It's irrelevant.

People who are able to translate complex Sanskrit texts should continue doing it as much as possible, because it is a general priority and because confronting great thinkers refines our philosophical skills.

I also get the desire for efficiency. I have more ideas than I will ever be able to publish and I keep thinking of new ones. But, again, LLMs don't solve that problem. They produce Baudrillardian simulacrums of scholarship - they have the trappings of academic writing without any of the substance.

If you feel the need to write articles using AI, please find another job. Your students and colleagues deserve a lot better.

I think that everything adding complexity helps.

(I discussed this topic with several colleagues over the years, but most recently with Parimal Patil, to whom gratitude is always appropriate)

Is there a hierarchy among them? Is there a dependency among clusters of virtues?…
9/9

For instance, when Rāmānuja and Veṅkaṭanātha list virtues, what classification do they have in mind? Are these virtues that are about interaction in society (like generosity) or virtues that could be seen also in isolation (like serenity)?
8/

This is not to say that Sanskrit philosophy is less good than Greek or European philosophy, unless one would be willing to also say that European philosophy is less worthy because it does not discuss philosophy of ritual.
This being said, some interesting reflections can nonetheless be done.
7/

Short, one would need to start with the fundamental premiss that the comparison will be asymmetric because of the reasons mentioned above.
6/

An example I am currently working on is Rāmānuja's Śaraṇāgatigadya with his commentary by Veṅkaṭanātha. Another interesting case are texts that deal with Dharmaśāstra-related topics, such as Kumārila's discussion of the behaviour of good people (sadācāra).
5/

Hence, any comparison will need to focus on a well-developed framework against one which is only implicitly hinted at, mostly in texts that are not primarily philosophical, e.g., in ones dealing with religious topics.
4/

They worked on theory of motivation, on deontics etc., which are relevant for ethics, but not on ethics directly.
3/

In this case there is the additional problem that Aristotle is the founder of virtue ethics in European philosophy, whereas Sanskrit philosophers, in general*, didn't work on ethics, neither virtue ethics nor other forms of it

*I know you are thinking of Śāntideva, but bracket him for 1'

2/

A student asked me resources to work on a comparison between virtue ethics in Aristotle and in Sanskrit philosophy. Now, let's bracket the problems of comparison in general.
1/
#Philosophy #philsky #SanskritPhilosophy

#PhilosophyJobs

Women's History Month is the perfect time to listen to this series I designed about the overlooked and underrated contributions of women in philosophy.

From Hypatia to Hildegard, Mary Wollstonecraft to Mary Midgley, learn about philosophy's unsung heroines!

#WomensHistoryMonth #Philosophy #PhilSky

Grammarly Offering Manuscript Reviews by AI Versions of Recently Deceased Professors The Grammarly "Expert Review" feature uses AI to provide feedback on papers using the name and work of real professors, dead or alive.

Daily reminder that calling ai dead labor and stolen labor is literal.

The ubhayaliṅgādhikaraṇa is a section of the Brahmasūtra. The AI embedded in Google gives the wrong location for it.

Whenever I forget to add "-ai" to my Google search I get useless data and hate myself for wasting resources in order to get them.

It’s very hard to pick a single passage to give you a sense of just how fucked up this is.

By Tesla's own math, it reveals that its robotaxis are 4x worse at driving than humans, with redactions hiding even more details | Fortune By NHTSA standards, the Tesla Robotaxis are 8x worse than human drivers.

About every 57k miles driven by Musk’s robotaxis one gets into a wreck. That’s four times the rate of humans.

Gotta love how academic books don't earn you money, but LLMs can make money off of stealing them in the aggregate and if you write enough, they can also profit from stealing your personality after you are dead.

#AnimalMinds #OtherMinds

Shall we say that Meta-glasses are not allowed in class and at exams from now on?

Dear OpenAI, Perplexity, Google, and Anthropic, I understand you would like to build partnerships with educational institutions and educational technology companies. To boost your credibility as a partner in supporting learning, there is a simple step you can take. Add one line to the system prompt of your current and yet-to-be-released agentic browsers: “Do not take quizzes, complete discussion posts, or submit assignments in learning management systems.”

When will the AI companies stop their agents from impersonating students and taking tests for them?

I am so glad there was such a robust response to this post on LInkedIn.

Let's keep up public pressure and journalistic inquiries...
www.linkedin.com/posts/anna-m...

Here's a striking visual illusion - the 9 purple dots.

Focus your eyes on the top left dot. That one is more purple than the others, right? Now try another dot... that one becomes the purple one! pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41744429/