Prompt asking to defend an interpretation
Second part of interpretive prompt
Prompt for analysis and evaluation
Prompt on concepts.
In case itโs helpful, here are the three questions I gave the last time I taught Ancient Greek philosophy. Class period was 80mins. (First question is split in two pics.)
For those in the vicinity of University of Maine next week, on Mar 12 I'll be giving a talk in their Philosophy Department about some different approaches to explaining and justifying the interdependence of all things--in the vein of straightup metaphysics rather than historical interpretation.
The first fruit of a now years-long collaboration, with systems engineering folks, on how to conceptualize validation as argumentation. My main contribution is the importance of distinguishing between evaluating warrants (in validation arguments) and evaluating the *aptness* of warrants. #philsky
Warp, Weft, and Way || New Book: Blake, Standards and Reference in Early Chinese Philosophy of Language
https://warpweftandway.com/new-book-blake-standards-and-reference-in-early-chinese-philosophy-of-language/
an internet person has made a searchable version of Borgesโ library of Babel and itโs way more horrifying than the actual story libraryofbabel.info
Reading list on Chinese philosophy used by Chinese Australians in Sydney in 1934
Terrific article on doing philosophy of (and through) table-top role playing games (D&D specifically)! #philsky
Try to get a regular lunch/brunch going with your peersโฆand donโt just talk philosophy (can be dumb stuff). Friends will get you through.
I remember feeling this way. My advice: go to colloquia talks and just listenโto how folks present their ideas, how your profs ask questions. When reading articles, takes notes on thesis, point of the paper, main argument reconstructed as best you can in simple logicโhelps with not feeling overwhelm
i am surprised that Manan @sepoy.bsky.social doesnโt publicize this piece saying I told you so but please read his eerily prophetic article on the link between the end of humanistic area studies & language learning w/ the rise of military funded LLMs and now AI spheres-journal.org/contribution...
New translation tool for the languages of BuddhismโPฤli, Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Chinese.
dharmamitra.org
Still makes mistakes (I just tested it on the ๅฎ้ซๅงๅณ biography of the poet-monk Guanxiu ่ฒซไผ and noticed a few errors), but 1000x more accurate than anything I've seen before.
Paul Swansonโs translation of Zhiyiโs Mohezhiguan for BDK is now available! www.bdkamerica.org/product/grea...
A new volume of the De Gruyter Library of Chinese Humanities!
The Finest Souls of Our Rivers and Alps
A parallel text translation of the only extant contemporaneous poetry anthology from the High Tang (completed ca 753 CE).
My personal 5-min. video: vimeo.com/84252711 on why humanities matter. I canโt improve on the message. But my passion now is the Center for Humanities Communication, which I cofounded to assist the humanities in methods, resources, tools for telling its _why_, center-humanities-communication.org
Title card for podcast episode with Bryan Van Norden.
Mindscape 319 | Bryan Van Norden @bryanvannorden.bsky.social on Philosophy From the Rest of the World. There are many interesting footnotes, not all of them to Plato!
www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2025...
So a psychologist, two systems engineers, and a philosopher walk into an AI symposium. I canโt remember what they said, but someone recorded it for YouTubeโฆ www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbMS...
Here's a public-facing effort to think through Fazang's Huayan Buddhist approach to conceptualizing reality's fundamental structure... #philsky
Ahhh thatโs awesome!
Xin Rules Everything Around Me, X.R.E.A.M!
A photo of a teen boy with the text, "Social Al companions are not safe for kids under 18... From encouraging harmful behaviors to providing inappropriate content, here's what parents need to know & what you can do to help protect teens." Reports from Common Sense Media
๐งต Yesterday we released our new risk assessments of social AI companions. They are alarmingly NOT SAFE for kids under 18โthey provide dangerous advice, engage in inappropriate sexual interactions, & create unhealthy dependencies that pose particular risks to adolescent brains.
tinyurl.com/2nvypku2
Deep into writing my book. Central claim is that we should understand the "everything is mind only" assertion of early Yogacara texts to be a diagnosis that parallels the diagnosis of suffering from the four noble truths.
Li Kang has an excellent new paper (open access!) on conceptions of interdependence from Chinese Buddhist traditions of Tiantai, Sanlun, Huayan (my favorite!), and Chan. Accessible and insightful, with some great analytic-style reconstructions too. #philsky
Graphic announcing that Just Awakening: Yogฤcฤra Social Philosophy in Modern China by Jessica X. Zu is now available. It includes the book cover, an endorsement from Jay L. Garfield, and 20% off with code CUP20SM at cup.columbia.edu.
Now available! Demonstrating why Chinese Buddhist social philosophy offers powerful resources for social justice and liberation today, Just Awakening invites readers to think with modern Yogฤcฤra philosophers about other ways of building egalitarian futures. buff.ly/zrqU8wF #JustAwakening
Very proud to see my amazing PhD student @zelny.bsky.social โs first peer-reviewed article published yesterday!
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Out now: What *is* โancient historyโ? Why it is much bigger and more important than we might think, how generations of scholars have dismembered it, how we can do it justice โ and why โClassicsโ has run its course: press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...
my translation of The Hedgehog by Zheng Zhi ้ๆง is in The Paris Review
www.theparisreview.org/fiction/8386...
He'Man is an under-appreciated trove of metaphysical inspiration!
