Big iff True

There's no going back: AI is now publishing in the field's most selective journals

Over the last decade, the public has been losing trust in higher education, and much of the decline has been our fault. To give just two examples: - In 2024, when a wave of protests over the Israel–Gaza War swept across campuses, we couldn’t convincingly tell the public that we were adhering to reasonable and impartial principles about on-campus speech. - This year, Jason Arday—formerly Professor…

…for wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder. —Plato, Theaetetus Plato has Socrates tell us how philosophy begins. But how does it end? Sometimes, you end up in Wittgenstein’s fly-bottle, trapped in a state of confusion by a mistake you didn’t even know you made. Other times, you get bored. But if all goes well, philosophy is supposed to have a happy ending—with yo…

Plagiarism is an attack on core academic values. If you want forgiveness, you need to do better than "Sorry, not sorry."

Congestion pricing, algorithmic bias, price gouging—the world is full of false policy dilemmas. The only way out is up, using Thomas Schelling's 2d analysis.

At last, Mayor Zohran Mamdani has unveiled his plans for city-operated grocery stores in New York. Today, I am proud to announce a collection of essential staples that will be predictably 30% cheaper at all five of our city-run grocery stores. This core set of goods will include all fresh produce, meat, and seafood, along with 20 other essential items like cheese, milk, and bread. Here’s how it w…

Thanks to everyone who shared or wrote me about my post on job talks. One of my inspirations was Paul Bloom (of Small Potatoes fame), so it was a treat to see that he liked it. The post also ended up on Daily Nous, where there’s been a bunch of commentary—including one grim, highly upvoted comment from a poster going by the name “Stop letting grad students waste their lives.” Dr. Stop says no one…

We've lost one of the greats: a deep thinker who wanted to know why humans matter, what makes us equal, and why we shouldn't be afraid of "a storm in the wilds."

Inspired by Jared Henderson’s post on free philosophy lectures, I want to share some of my favorite free online resources for learning PPE—i.e., philosophy, politics, and economics, an interdisciplinary degree that’s been growing ever since it started in Oxford a century ago. Note: I’ve tried to include a variety of sources, media, and viewpoints, but this is not a comprehensive list. Tell me in …

Meet G.A. Cohen's harshest critic. Part 2 of 3 of a series on capitalism, socialism, and community.

The job talk—typically on campus, sometimes on Zoom—is the final boss of the academic job market. Don’t underestimate the challenge. You can’t just coast on the rest of your materials: unless you’re already world famous, you probably need a strong job talk. You can’t rely on the weakness of the competition, either: you have to convince people to vote for you, not just against the others, which me…

It's a sustainable solution to a legitimate problem. If your political party won't admit that, expect voters to look for an alternative that will.

Fear and greed in Why Not Socialism? Part 1 of 3 of a series on capitalism, socialism, and community.

A special episode! We talk about John Cage, whether "culture has come to a standstill," how Nina fell in love with music, and what opera singers listen for.

Generate transcript A transcript unlocks clips, previews, and editing.

Unpopular Opinion: Getting a little tired of hearing everybody’s takes on AI. Unpopular Opinion: Water is good, actually, and we should all be drinking it several times a day. Unpopular Opinion: As delicious as ice cream is, when it’s freezing outside, I don’t really want any. Sorry! Maybe wait until it’s summer before you start selling frozen treats? Unpopular Opinion: Netflix has gone downhill.…

David Oks had a great note recently: This reminded me of an experience I had at MIT, where I was once part of the budgetary rounding error known as the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy. In grad school, I lived in the Sidney-Pacific graduate dorm, a concentration of nerdiness so dense that it visibly warped the fabric of spacetime. One day, my friend Nic from Sid-Pac was defending his PhD …

If you meet a philosopher who posted last year, don’t walk past them: thank them for their service. You’re in the presence of a veteran of the Clarity Wars of 2025—a grisly contretemps that nearly tore Substack apart. My own salvo—a critique of Judith Butler and Ellie Anderson—turned out all right, I thought. Even better, it gave rise to the matchless hit piece “What Ellie Anderson Actually Did a…

We’ve all had that experience: you’re reading a post from a beloved author, enjoying the familiar cadence of ideas, then, all of a sudden, it hits you—everything’s a bit too familiar. Then, all of another sudden, it forcefully strikes you—you’ve already read this post before. Increasingly, this keeps happening more often. Yes, there were some original posts in the past. Who could forget The veget…

How did we get from the euphoria of 1989 to the turmoil of 2026? The answer may be depressing—but we can’t afford to keep forgetting our mistakes, warns Ian Shapiro.