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Matthew J Brown

@thehangedman.com
3.1K followers 619 following 334 posts

Boydston Chair of American Philosophy, Director, Center for Dewey Studies at SIU Carbondale. @deweycenter.siu.edu Editor: @hoposjournal.bsky.social Dewey, Pragmatism, HPS, HOPOS, values in science, TTRPGs, comics. Website: thehangedman.com

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Matthew J Brown @thehangedman.com · 01/10/2026
Does anyone know why the @apaphilosophy.bsky.social Carus Lectures have been "suspended indefinitely"? #philsky
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The HOPOS Journal @hoposjournal.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
The first research article in v16n2 is “The Evolutionary Mechanism and the Communal Duty in Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics and Yan Fu’s Song-Confucian Metaphysical Translation” by Kuan-yen Liu of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen.
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PhilSci-Archive @philsci-archive.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
New on the Archive: Callender, Craig (2026) When Knowledge Institutions Pollute: Cultivated Meat, Science Communication, and Public Policy. [Preprint] philsci-archive.pitt.edu/31167
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The HOPOS Journal @hoposjournal.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
The first item in our Fall issue is a note from HOPOS Editor Matthew J. Brown, looking back on the first 16 years of the HOPOS Journal. He talks about the founding of the journal, some of the early articles, and how far we’ve come. Brown also discusses some exciting upcoming changes to the journal.
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Jan Potters @janpotters.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
What can we learn from the history of philosophy of experimentation, you ask? Well, tell me your philosophy of experiment, and I'll show you what you take to be the goal of philosophy of science! Very nice paper by Massimiliano, building on our earlier work in @hoposjournal.bsky.social
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The HOPOS Journal @hoposjournal.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
It's been a busy year for the journal. In June the 16th HOPOS conference was held at Ohio State. In January 2027 #HOPOS will move to Cambridge University Press. And in Spring 2026 HOPOS published a new issue! Check it out here: www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/hopos/20...
Bright yellow poster with the themes of the papers in the issue. You can read about these by following the link in the post.
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Matthew J Brown @thehangedman.com · 10/08/2026
Does your assistant dept chair at least get a course reduction?
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Anna Alexandrova @annaalexandrova.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Losing Exeter philosophers of science would be devastating to our field and to the international standing of U.K. universities. Please help us publicise this letter and put pressure to the Exeter execs. Their work as teachers and researchers is irreplaceable #philsci #HigherEd
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Matthew J Brown @thehangedman.com · 07/08/2026
There is, FWIW, an argument out there that Appiah's particular reliance on it is irresponsible, which I read before I looked at the appendices. So I may not have been a charitable reader. www.chronicle.com/article/kwam...
chronicle.com
Opinion | Dear Critics of Literary Studies: Do the Reading
The philosopher’s report on the state of literary studies is a shambles.
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Matthew J Brown @thehangedman.com · 07/08/2026
If I'm reading this correctly, the Boghossian Report appears at least partly based on AI slop "data analysis." And they're accusing OTHER people of creating an epistemological crisis? www.higheredstatementofprinciples.com/state-of-sch...
higheredstatementofprinciples.com
Literary Studies
Kwame Anthony Appiah1 Academic literary scholarship in the United States covers a vast range of languages and genres. A large number of scholars write and teach about literature written in English around the world, many focusing especially on British and North American writing. But you can also study: literature in many other European languages, from […]
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Matthew J Brown @thehangedman.com · 05/08/2026
Final chapter of *How the Laws of Physics Lie*. I think it is a pretty neglected view.
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Matthew J Brown @thehangedman.com · 04/08/2026
Reminds me a little bit of Nancy Cartwright's 1980s argument that the measurement problem is a mathematical artifact. (Not in details, just in spirit.)
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Center for Dewey Studies @deweycenter.siu.edu · 17/07/2026
New publication from the Dewey Center: Philosophy PhD candidate and former Center graduate assistant Andrii Leonov and Director Matthew Brown @thehangedman.com have published a new paper in EJPAP: "Reintroducing Dewey’s Re-Introduction to Experience and Nature" journals.openedition.org/ejpap/6587
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Matthew J Brown @thehangedman.com · 08/07/2026
#philsky
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Matthew J Brown @thehangedman.com · 08/07/2026
Today is the final day for applications!
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Matthew J Brown @thehangedman.com · 29/06/2026
Deadline for applications is July 8. Let me know if you have any questions.
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The HOPOS Journal @hoposjournal.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
The 2026 #HOPOS conference is underway! Hosted by The Ohio State University. A full roster of talks begins today with sessions on logical empiricism, Aristotle, the life sciences, sociology, and neo-Kantianism. Download the full program here: hopos2026.dryfta.com/81-program
hopos2026.dryfta.com
Program Booklet
81 program
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Samantha Brennan @samanthabrennan.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
Nancy Cartwright, professor of philosophy at Durham University and the University of California, San Diego, has been selected as the recipient of the 2026 Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Humanities. dailynous.com/2026/06/15/c...
dailynous.com
Cartwright Wins Frontiers of Knowledge Award - Daily Nous
Nancy Cartwright, professor of philosophy at Durham University and the University of California, San Diego, has been selected as the recipient of the 2026 Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in th...
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Center for Dewey Studies @deweycenter.siu.edu · 12/06/2026
We're hiring! Come join the Dewey Center as a Program Assistant. This is a full-time staff/admin position that assists Director Matthew J Brown @thehangedman.com
schooljobs.com
Program Assistant
Salary is competitive and commensurate with qualifications and experience, while also considering internal equity.The primary responsibility of this position is to advance the research, teaching, publ...
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Matthew J Brown @thehangedman.com · 06/06/2026
☺️
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D. Hicks @danhicks.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
Derrida's been dead twenty years, but that's not going to stop Paul Boghossian from being mad at him
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The HOPOS Journal @hoposjournal.bsky.social · 24/04/2026
Routledge Handbook of the History of Philosophy of Science After Kant (2026). Edited by Flavia Padovani, Adam Tamas Tuboly. The 50 essays in this Handbook cover perspectives, theories, movements, and traditions in the field. Link: www.routledge.com/The-Routledg...
routledge.com
The Routledge Handbook of the History of Philosophy of Science After Kant
The History of Philosophy of Science (HOPOS) is a relatively new yet rapidly growing field. Emerging from diverse approaches within the history and philosophy of science, it encompasses a wide range…
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Matthew J Brown @thehangedman.com · 06/06/2026
As I understand it, a few years after we wrapped up data collection on the undergraduate population, the engineering school at that university eliminated their ethics course requirement. (Had nothing to do with our study, they just decided they needed more technical courses.)
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Matthew J Brown @thehangedman.com · 06/06/2026
#philsci #philsky
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Matthew J Brown @thehangedman.com · 06/06/2026
One of the final publications from the NSF-funded engineering ethics & education project I headed (2013-2023) is finally out. This may not be our most important result, but it might be my favorite: "‘It’s up to the managers’: Strategies engineering students use to avoid discussing ethics" in JRI.
doi.org
‘It’s up to the managers’: Strategies engineering students use to avoid discussing ethics
Studies show that engineering students are open to discussion of ethics; however, their overall understanding of it tends to be narrow and their engagement decreases over the course of their educat...
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The HOPOS Journal @hoposjournal.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
For more information, details, and FAQ on HOPOS's move to Cambridge, follow this link: hopos.org/move-to-camb...
hopos.org
Move to Cambridge University Press | HOPOS – The International Society for History of Philosophy of Science
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The HOPOS Journal @hoposjournal.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
We are delighted to announce that HOPOS will become a publication of Cambridge University Press @universitypress.cambridge.org as of 2027. All publications starting with vol. 17 will be open access. It is an honor to join the Cambridge family of journals. #HOPOS #HPS #philsky #philosophy #histsci
Blue and red and white announcement that HOPOS will join Cambridge University Press. Follow link in post for more details.
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Jan Potters @janpotters.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
Preprint of a forthcoming paper in HOPOS @hoposjournal.bsky.social on Thomas Kuhn's (unpublished) work on the history of quantum physics
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PhilSci-Archive @philsci-archive.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
New on the Archive: Potters, Jan (2027) Sharpening Philosophical Concepts: Thomas Kuhn and the History of Quantum Physics. [Preprint] philsci-archive.pitt.edu/29809
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Center for Dewey Studies @deweycenter.siu.edu · 29/05/2026
Today at 12:30pm Central Daylight Time (UTC-5), Jia Chen will give a lunchtime talk on "Rhythm, Nature, and Art in Dewey" at the Center for Dewey Studies. Join us on the live stream via YouTube. #philsky
youtube.com
Jia Chen, Rhythm, Nature, and Art in Dewey (Lunchtime Talk)
Jia Chen (Fudan University),“Rhythm, Nature, and Art in Dewey” The notion of rhythm constitutes a pivotal position in Dewey’s later aesthetic writings. It can be read from several points of view: mat...
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Matthew J Brown @thehangedman.com · 13/05/2026
#philsky
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Matthew J Brown @thehangedman.com · 27/04/2026
China is classed by the World Bank as an upper-middle income country, not a high income country. data360.worldbank.org/en/economies...
data360.worldbank.org
Economies | World Bank Data360
Dive into global economic development data at Data360. Uncover trends, analysis, and strategic insights for informed policy measures in a rapidly evolving world.
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Matthew J Brown @thehangedman.com · 24/04/2026
This thing I wrote about Paul Churchland and AI got picked up by the Blog of the APA. #philsky #philsci blog.apaonline.org/2026/04/21/w...
blog.apaonline.org
Why We Should Be Reading Paul Churchland Right Now: Neurophilosophy and AI | Blog of the APA
The more I get into philosophical and philosophy-adjacent discussions of current-generation “artificial intelligence” (large language models and the like), the more dismayed I am not to see any discus...
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Nathan Goldwag @goldwagnathan.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
They think you're stupid.
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Center for Dewey Studies @deweycenter.siu.edu · 20/04/2026
Join us April 29 for the International Dewey Colloquium (Online) – Ning Sun (Fudan), "Thin World and Thick Experience: The Divergence and Possible Convergence of Classical Pragmatism and New Pragmatism." 12:00pm Noon UTC. Register on Zoom for this event: zoom.us/meeting/regi...
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Center for Dewey Studies @deweycenter.siu.edu · 22/04/2026
Happy Earth Day from the Center for Dewey Studies! “When we say that experience is one point of approach to an account of the world in which we live, we mean then by experience something at least as wide and deep and full as all history on this earth, a history which...
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The HOPOS Journal @hoposjournal.bsky.social · 27/03/2026
Peter West reviews Andreas Vrahimis's book Bergsonism and the History of Analytic Philosophy in #HOPOS. Link: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
Readable text available at link in post
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Matthew J Brown @thehangedman.com · 25/03/2026
Nevermind, I was wrong. It is possible but not easy to find in EM. There's a complicated way to search for the final status of all the papers submitted in a specific time frame.
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Matthew J Brown @thehangedman.com · 24/03/2026
#2 doesn't seem compatible with the data that journal management systems provide, at least not Editorial Manager.
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Matthew J Brown @thehangedman.com · 24/03/2026
How do you calculate that journal's acceptance rate? a. accepted ÷ all submissions [new + revised] b. accepted ÷ new submissions c. accepted ÷ [accepted + rejected] d. 1st-round [accept + conditional] ÷ new submissions e. Something else? (please explain) f. Question makes no sense. (2/2)
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Matthew J Brown @thehangedman.com · 24/03/2026
Suppose you know the following statistics for a journal in a given year: new submissions, revised submissions, accept decisions, reject decisions, revise decisions. You also know how many papers get a first-round accept and first-round revise-minor/conditional accept. (1/2)
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Mark Rubin @markrubin.bsky.social · 07/03/2026
"Pulling new signal out of old noise." Fascinating discussion of the importance of theory and theory change in science, and not just parapsychology... 🧵
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Matthew J Brown @thehangedman.com · 07/03/2026
I love this classic paper.
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Center for Dewey Studies @deweycenter.siu.edu · 06/03/2026
Applications are open for the SIU Center for Dewey Studies Visiting Fellows Program. Fellows are in residence for one or two semesters, enjoy the scholarly resources and intellectual community of the Center, and receive... (1/2)
deweycenter.siu.edu
Visiting Fellows Program | Center for Dewey Studies | SIU
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Mark Rubin @markrubin.bsky.social · 02/03/2026
"Knowledge is not merely for describing the world. Nor is knowledge merely for getting around in the world. Knowledge is also for creating more knowledge." By @consume.red & @philosofir.bsky.social doi.org/10.1007/s104...
Bill Wimsatt and Mark Wilson are each the author of a body of work whose fruitfulness is rivaled only by its forbiddingness. Despite deep sympathies between their approaches and conclusions, their work has not yet been read together. This paper makes the case for doing so. We identify a shared question at the heart of their work: how is it that limited beings such as ourselves come to possess genuine knowledge of a complex world? We then show that Wimsatt and Wilson arrive at similar answers to this question. Over a range of topics (investigative strategies, the uses of models, and theoretical and conceptual structure), both scholars emphasize the functional messiness of science. This is complemented by a pragmatist-leaning philosophical methodology that recognizes that one of the core uses of knowledge is to scaffold the acquisition of more knowledge. The core of the paper traces the mutually supportive interplay between their philosophical doctrines and methods. We end with two brief discussions: one a defense of their winding, playful writing styles, the other a brief consideration of the relationship between their work and Arthur Fine’s natural ontological attitude.
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British Journal for the Philosophy of Science @thebjps.bsky.social · 02/03/2026
Drumroll, please! The Editors are delighted to announce the BJPS Referee of the Year for 2025... www.thebsps.org/auxhyp/refer... #philsci #philsky
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Andy Famiglietti @afamiglietti.org · 02/03/2026
Oh Hai! You're probably pretty bored, nothing much going on. A perfect time to catch up on podcasts! In this episode of "Stuff is Contingent with Andy and Matt" me and @thehangedman.com talk about AI and Higher Ed. Available below or at any podcast service. stuffiscontingent.org/@afamigliett...
stuffiscontingent.org
Episode 3: What is Contingent in This Class? AI and Higher Education (Part 1)
We’re back after too long! But good news, this is a two-parter! You’ll hear from us again NEXT WEEK. This one is a conversation about AI and Higher Education. Yeah, AI again. More about why that is soon. We talk about the following pieces in this episode: Marc Watkins, “Can We Justify College?” Carlo Rotella, “I’m a Professor. AI Has Changed My Classroom, but Not for the Worse.” Patrick Lin, “Why We’re Not Using AI in This Course, Despite Its Obvious Benefits” We also mention one old blog post of mine: “Either the Precarity That Fuels the Banking Model of Education Goes, or We All Do”
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Matthew J Brown @thehangedman.com · 27/02/2026
Why I think, in the current A.I. moment, we should be reading Paul Churchland. #philsky #philsci thehangedman.com/philosophy/p...
thehangedman.com
Why We Should Be Reading Paul Churchland Right Now
The more I get into philosophical and philosophy-adjacent discussions of current-generation "artificial intelligence" (large language models and the like), the more dismayed I am not to see any discus...
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Center for Dewey Studies @deweycenter.siu.edu · 23/02/2026
Please join us on Thursday at 1:30pm for Arto Charpentier, “Metaphysics as Method: A Methodological Reading of Dewey’s Metaphysical Theory.” Learn more at deweycenter.siu.edu/center-events/
A photograph of Arto Charpentier with text summarizing his upcoming talk reading:

"Metaphysics as Method: A Methodological Reading of Dewey’s Metaphysical Theory?

Whether Dewey can—and should—offer a metaphysics has long been a matter of intense interpretive dispute. Focusing on the programmatic formulations of his 1915 essay, “The Subject-Matter of Metaphysical Inquiry,” I defend two interrelated claims. First, by advancing the project of a science-based metaphysics in this early essay, Dewey shows how metaphysics can be pursued in a pragmatist way: not as an absolutist or foundationalist enterprise, but as a hypothetical, fallibilist, and experimental form of inquiry. Second, I argue that the primary value of Dewey’s metaphysical theory lies less in offering a definitive account of the “generic traits” of reality than in the methodological guidance it provides for conducting inquiry—guidance that should be tested and assessed in light of the concrete consequences of its use. My overall aim, then, is to elucidate the possibility of Dewey’s metaphysical theorizing and demonstrate its usefulness within his broader reconstructive project.

Arto Charpentier is a postdoctoral fellow in philosophy at Jean Moulin University Lyon 3 (France). He earned his PhD from the École normale supérieure (Paris) in 2023 with a dissertation on John Dewey’s cultural naturalism and its instrumental function for social inquiry. His research lies at the intersection of pragmatism, social philosophy, and philosophy of science. He co-edited Repenser la nature. Dewey, Canguilhem, Plessner (Rethinking Nature: Dewey, Canguilhem, Plessner) (Rue d’Ulm, 2023) with Marco Dal Pozzolo and Matteo Pagan.
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Daniel S. Brooks @dsbrooks.bsky.social · 23/02/2026
In case you're interested in the history of the philosophical engagement (or lack thereof) with biological organization, HOPOS has provided me with a link to download my forthcoming paper (limit of 50) at the following link: www.journals.uchicago.edu/eprint/RGWQP... #hpbio #philbio #philsci
journals.uchicago.edu
University of Chicago Press Journals: Cookie absent
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