Epistemology

This Day in Philosophy — 25 August: Hume and Nietzsche, on the same date

David Hume died in Edinburgh on 25 August 1776; Friedrich Nietzsche died in Weimar on 25 August 1900. A hundred and twenty-four years separate them, yet both shook reason's claim to ground itself, and both did it from the same place.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Frontiers of Knowledge Award goes to the philosopher of science Nancy Cartwright

The BBVA Foundation's award in the Humanities has gone to Cartwright, who has spent fifty years working on causality, evidence and objectivity. The citation praises her for building a bridge between philosophy and the actual practice of science.

The autumn philosophy calendar: three dates in November

A congress on Timothy Williamson in Shanghai, the Kyoto Prize ceremony, and World Philosophy Day on 19 November. The international philosophy calendar for the autumn is set.

Bernard Williams and the price of systematising morality

The sharpest critic of moral philosophy in the last quarter of the twentieth century put the same objection to utilitarianism and to Kantianism alike: both estrange a person from his own life. The notions of 'moral luck' and 'one thought too many' were born there.

The 2026 Rolf Schock Prize in Logic and Philosophy goes to Bas van Fraassen

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has honoured the Princeton philosopher known for 'constructive empiricism' in the philosophy of science. The prize is 600,000 Swedish kronor.

A survey of working conditions in philosophy departments

Announced on Daily Nous, the survey aims to give academics comparable data, because reliable information about conditions in different countries and universities is hard to come by when applying for graduate study or a post.

Miranda Fricker gives the Uehiro Lectures at Oxford: 'Moral Pressures'

The philosopher who named epistemic injustice used the 2026 Uehiro Lectures to examine how moral demands shape people. She also gave this year's Dewey Lectures at Columbia.

Miranda Fricker

Timothy Williamson is at Yale this year; Fudan is holding a congress on his work

Oxford's emeritus Wykeham Professor of Logic is a visiting professor at Yale in 2026. A congress titled 'Williamson Encountering Chinese Philosophy' takes place in Shanghai in November.

Timothy Williamson

A philosophy of risk from Duncan Pritchard: 'not probability but fragility'

'Tempting Fate', published by Princeton University Press, proposes a theory that explains risk through fragility rather than probability. Pritchard's example is Alex Honnold's ropeless ascent of El Capitan.

Duncan Pritchard