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Epistemologists do strike me prone to being overly stressed

Here is the relevant part of the paper, pp. 258-9:

Why is it that the overwhelming majority of propositional knowledge denials are used to
communicate that the target agent does not believe the proposition in question? (A referee
observes that most epistemologists would probably find this fact “bizarre”.) That is, given
that speakers could accurately describe such agents as not believing or thinking that p,
why do speakers tend to describe such agents as not knowing that p instead? We think
the explanation involves speakers simultaneously aiming to “maximize presupposition”
(Heim 1991) on one hand, and aiming to avoid generating a false implicature on the
other hand.41 Consider the following two facts: (i) saying “S does not know that p” presupposes that p, so speakers can use such a sentence to add the proposition p to the conversational common ground; while (ii) a speaker who says “S does not believe/think that p”
does not presuppose p, and tends to implicate that S believes/thinks not-p, as in (3).
(25) BUCKLEY: Well, this was – these were comments that came aboard Air Force
One as the president was traveling up here. Ari Fleischer asked by reporters about it.
Ari Fleischer saying that for the first time, that the president is saying that what Lott

said was wrong. It’s the first time that the administration is quoting the president as
saying that what Trent Lott said was wrong. But they’ve also said that Lott has apologized, and the president does not think that Lott should resign.42
The use of the final sentence in (25) implicates that the president thinks that Lott
should not resign. (This is an example of the phenomenon of “neg-raising”– see
Horn (2001) for extensive discussion.)
Suppose one wants to communicate that p is the case and that S doesn’t have the
belief that p. Saying “S doesn’t believe/think that p, but p” is not an effective way of
doing that, because using such a sentence would typically implicate that S believes
that not-p. In contrast, saying “S doesn’t know that p” is an efficient way of communicating that p, and it leaves open whether S doesn’t know that p because S doesn’t believe
that p or because S believes that p, but lacks sufficient evidence to count as knowing that
p. But it’s typically not hard to tell, in contexts like (22), which of those two more specific
propositions the speaker intends to communicate by saying “S doesn’t know that p”. This
combination of presupposition and implicature explains why speakers can use “S doesn’t
know that p” to communicate that S doesn’t believe that p, but p

It’s partly because if you say “s doesn’t believe that p” that typically communicates s believes that not-p via neg-raising

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Yes, definitely! We discuss why saying “S doesn’t know that p” basically communicates that s doesn’t *believe* that p + p. One of the reviewers for that paper (a philosopher, I assume) found the idea “bizarre”. We also explain why people use that instead of just saying “s doesn’t believe that p”

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Nat Hansen @nathansen.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

This fits with what we found in our corpus study of [know]; basically no occurrences in COCA where people say someone doesn't know something because they lack sufficient justification (or some other feature), only occurrences where the person isn't aware of something.

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What are we arguing about? I wasn’t in Bluesky today, I was working on a cookie clicker-style game about submitting papers to journals 🍪 🍪

Aidan McGlynn @aidanmcglynn.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Reposted by Nat Hansen

The clues were all there

The front cover of Wittgenstein's 'Philosophical Grammar', with a small portrait and the title in a light greeny-blue. The title here has been altered to read 'Philosophical Grammarly'

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joannad-c.bsky.social @joannad-c.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Hiring! 🧠❤️🤔If you’re a philosopher working in ethics/ x-phi/ empirically informed moral philosophy / moral psychology / applied ethics, consider applying for a 2.5 year research postdoc with me in my lab at Oxford. Deadline noon 16th Oct. Details 👉 philjobs.org/job/show/32101 Hit me up with q’s!

static.klipy.com

Shameless Fiona Gallagher

ALT: Shameless Fiona Gallagher

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Nat Hansen @nathansen.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

These have been getting a lot of traffic, thanks @xphilosopher.bsky.social! I added a button for people to share their chat transcripts—and one showed a capacity I didn't know they had: the user started writing in Spanish and the SQ just adapted! So I think you can try other languages with these...

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Zoe Drayson @zoedrayson.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Attention philosophers of language who also work in theoretical linguistics: the Philosophy department and the Linguistics department at UC Davis are jointly hiring a TT Assistant Professor. Apply! recruit.ucdavis.edu/JPF07874

recruit.ucdavis.edu

Department of Philosophy/Linguistics - Philosophy of Language/Computational Linguistics

University of California, Davis is hiring. Apply now!

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Nat Hansen @nathansen.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Thanks so much Josh! When were running the experiments for that paper (back in the early 2020s) we wished we could do something like this, but we didn't know how to make it work. So it's pretty fun to have these up and running now. More are in development! Which other versions should I try to make?

Experimental Philosophy @xphilosopher.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Reposted by Nat Hansen

Philosopher @nathansen.bsky.social has created a website that uses AI to take people through a Socratic dialogue about a philosophical thought experiment I gave it a try. In my opinion, it really does help users think through these questions www.ux-phi.com/experiments

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Nat Hansen @nathansen.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

A new simulation is up at ux-phi: Hegel's last lectures on aesthetics: www.ux-phi.com/sim/hegel-ae... There's a new "scrollytelling"-style intro with a cameo by Schopenhauer—I found a scan of the course catalog/*Vorlesungsverzeichnis* for the 1828/9 term! nathansen.substack.com/p/berlin-182...

Berlin 1829: Hegel’s Last Lectures on Aesthetics

From Doric columns to the end of art

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Paul L. Franco @loadofbunk.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

The book launch today was great and I'm excited to check out Sander's book, especially the later chapters on the culture wars!

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Nat Hansen @nathansen.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Back in 2022, Jumbly Grindrod, @jdporter.bsky.social, and I started writing a paper on distributional semantics and holism. How long ago that is in A.I. terms? The cutting edge model that we were talking about in our early drafts was GPT-3. nathansen.substack.com/p/lmao-in-fa...

Distributional Semantics, Holism, and the Instability of Meaning

LMAO. In fact, LMAFO.

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A philosophy-themed swipe game

Love it, glad it’s functioning as intended! Here’s the write up of what I had in mind: substack.com/@nathansen/n... “…if you only swipe positions you really believe, you won’t last very long.”

substack.com

Philotypes

Objects of Oppression: The Dark Side of Things We Think With

Epiphenomenal, the sad Kantian, takes the lead!

Epiphenomenal has taken the lead at 46 semesters, with the label: "Sad Kantianism"

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Nat Hansen @nathansen.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

I didn’t even know it was possible to get to 46 semesters!! 👏

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Thanks to @dailynous.com putting my little philosophy swipe game Philotypes in the heap of links, Ia lot more people have been playing it, and someone ("Knowledge Cartel") has finally unseated me as top of the leaderboard www.ux-phi.com/philotypes/

The Library of Leading Philotypes leaderboard: #1 is Knowledge Cartel, a time-travelling, lever-pulling relationist

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David Papineau @davidpapineau.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

We are hiring—a permanent lectureship in Ethics/Political Philosophy—deadline 15 Nov www.kcl.ac.uk/jobs/144566-...

kcl.ac.uk

Lecturer in Ethics and/or Political Philosophy | King's College London

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Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 30/08/2026

“From the inside, ‘sort-of following along’ really feels like you're doing something productive.” arbustoemchamas.substack.com/p/i-naively-...

arbustoemchamas.substack.com

I naively tried vibe-coding a memory tool for agents and stared into the abyss of unsolved problems in philosophy

or, cheap code does not translate into systems design prowess

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Nat Hansen @nathansen.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Awesome, I look forward to reading about that! Yeah bring your best chat game to Zur Rose…

Nat Hansen @nathansen.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

I love it!! There’s a ton of structure built into these things, some general plot arcs they try to carry along, but you can fight against them and do pretty much anything—see if you can get invited to Caroline Schlegel’s salon! I’d love to chat with you about these and your period LLMs sometime!

philotypes — Library of Leading Philotypes

There are 37 named philosophical views, from The Pythagorean, to The New Mysterian, and The Anglican Tory, that you can unlock by swiping the right combination of views. If you register, you can save your score and join the Library of Leading Philotypes leaderboard: www.ux-phi.com/philotypes/l...

ux-phi.com

The longest philosophical careers in philotypes — ranked by semesters survived.

If you survive 10 rounds, you'll get promoted to lecturer, 20 senior lecturer, etc. At each stage certain new cards become available, as well as career-appropriate interruptions. Each time your career ends, you'll receive a philosophical aura that is based on your particular responses, e.g.:

YOUR PHILOSOPHICAL AURA: qualia-loving, contradiction-tolerant deontologist

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Each swipe shifts the balance of the humors, and if any humor gets drained (drops to zero) or captured (maxes out), then your academic career is over. Occasionally various interruptions arrive in the form of cards that present dilemmas of academic life.

An interruption card: AT DINNER: At the faculty party someone proposes a game of "Humiliation" -- you score points by naming a famous book you've never read. The swipe response option reads: "You've never read Kant's Critique of Pure Reason"

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The basic idea is to respond to prompts about philosophical ideas, from contextualism in epistemology, to the meaning of life, to free will, to whether science should be value free, while keeping your four academic humors balanced as best you can.

A philotypes card with four humor readings at the top; in the 17th semester, at the lecturer level; the card reads: MEANING OF LIFE: The first year undergraduate comes to office hours and asks for the meaning of life. And the swipe response option reads "Well, it depends..."

Philotypes card that reads: OTHER MINDS: AI, and "The LLM says 'you're right to push back', and the swipe response option says "It thinks my ideas are good!"

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Richard Jean So @richardjeanso.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

This summer I've been messing around with various game mechanics and I made a philosophy-themed swipe game: www.ux-phi.com/philotypes It's based around a simple forced choice, swipe left or right mechanic, and works best played on your phone.

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Reposted by Nat Hansen

Hey I'm teaching a course "AI, Creativity & Slop" to first-year students this fall which includes readings in lit/philosophy, history + cog sci/comp sci. Does anyone have recs - essays they love in any of these areas - to help me finalize the syllabus? Would really appreciate any suggestions, thx!

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Experimental Philosophy @xphilosopher.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Starter pack for experimental philosophy

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Nat Hansen @nathansen.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

I made a short, farcical simulation based on Oskar Morgenstern and Albert Einstein driving Kurt Gödel to his citizenship test in 1947. You play Einstein: www.ux-phi.com/invite/GDELG... I wrote about its design here: nathansen.substack.com/p/godels-cit...

Nat Hansen @nathansen.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

I wrote about the design and justification for this game-based simulation here: nathansen.substack.com/p/playing-wh...

Playing whist with David Hume, Adam Smith, and Adam Ferguson

A rubber of whist in Edinburgh, 1776

Nat Hansen @nathansen.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

So I thought playing a game and chatting would be an ideal setting for a Hume-focused simulation. But when I started looking around, it turned out that it was the game Whist, not backgammon, that Hume enjoyed playing the most.

Nat Hansen @nathansen.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

I got the idea for this game-based simulation from Hume’s famous remark about backgammon from the Treatise of Human Nature (Book I, Part IV, Section 7). When Hume’s own skeptical arguments get him down, what keeps him going is dining, play, and conversation with friends.