New Journal
Dario Taraborelli has asked me to attract your attention to a new journal, The Review of Philosophy of Psychology. The RPP accepts proposals for special issues as well as submitted articles, and the editors seem to welcome articles in experimental philosophy (Dario is the editor in chief).Keep this journal in mind!Edouard

Fiction and Philosophy: Does Fiction Do it Better?
John Gardner, On Writers and Writing, p. 225: . . . at their best, both fiction and philosophy do the same thing, only fiction does it better — though slower. Philosophy by essence is abstract, a sequence of general argument controlled in its profluence by either logic (in old-fashioned systematic philosophy) or emotional coherence (in the intuitive philosophies of say, Nietzsche and Kierkegaard). We read the argument and it seems to flow along okay, make sense, but what we ask is, "Is this true of my mailman?" . . . Fiction comes

The Experience of Reading
What kinds of imagistic or sensory experiences do you normally have when reading prose? Here are three possibilities, not exclusive:(a.) Inner speech. You "hear" (or more accurately auditorially imagine) a voice -- maybe your own voice, or the voice of the author, or the voice of a character, or some other voice, saying the words you are reading.(b.) Visual imagery. You experience visual images of the events described or hinted at in the text, or maybe images in other modalities (auditory images besides those of the words you are reading, maybe tactile images, olfactory images, motoric images).(c.) Sensory experience of the text. You visually experience the tex

La question de la semaine : foi et crédulité
Jean-Michel Abrassart, co-rédacteur du blog Scepticisme scientifique, lance une série hebdomadaire de questions à ces lecteurs. La première question concerne la foi et la crédulité : « Est-ce qu’il est possible (philosophiquement parlant) de fondamentalement différencier le concept de foi du concept de crédulité, ou bien est-ce qu’il s’agit en réalité exactement de la même chose mais qui est valorisé dans un contexte (la religion) et dévalorisé dans un autre (la science) ? »

Obama Quotes Kant (UPDATE: Or did he?)
From his welcome remarks at the White House dinner for the Indian prime minister: As we all know, in India some of life's most treasured moments are often celebrated under the cover of a beautiful tent. It's a little like...