Jonathan Birch
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birchlse.bsky.social
Jonathan Birch
@birchlse.bsky.social
6K followers 310 following 730 posts

Professor, LSE. Philosophy of science, animal consciousness, animal ethics. Director of The Jeremy Coller Centre for Animal Sentience.

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Jonathan Birch is a British philosopher and professor of philosophy at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His work addresses the philosophy of biology and behavioural sciences, especially questions concerning sentience, bioethics, animal welfare, and the evolution of social behaviour and social norms. .. more

Neuroscience 26%
Psychology 15%
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birchlse.bsky.social
Jonathan Birch @birchlse.bsky.social · Mar 25
An emotional day - I can announce I'll be the first director of The Jeremy Coller Centre for Animal Sentience at the LSE, supported by a £4m grant from the Jeremy Coller Foundation. Our mission: to develop better policies, laws and ways of caring for animals. (1/2)
www.lse.ac.uk/News/Latest-...
LSE announces new centre to study animal sentience
The Jeremy Coller Centre for Animal Sentience at LSE will develop new approaches to studying the feelings of other animals scientifically.
www.lse.ac.uk

birchlse.bsky.social
Jonathan Birch @birchlse.bsky.social · 13h
Tagore on the last day of the 19th century, prophesying the 20th (translated from Bengali).
Excerpt from a poem by Tagore.

Reposted by Jonathan Birch, Stuart White

lastpositivist.bsky.social
lastpositivist.bsky.social @lastpositivist.bsky.social · 14h
One of the reasons I expect Reform to go worse in the UK than Trumpism is going in the US is that I think the UK has weaker civic society institutions. Our churches and universities are less rich, powerful, or inclined to resist, our media more compliant and uniform, our unions just as desiccated.
lukemcgee.bsky.social Luke McGee @lukemcgee.bsky.social · 15h
This is the most alarming story I’ve read today. Giving up the fight before it’s started

Reposted by Steven Heydemann, Richard S.J. Tol, Stephan Lewandowsky , and 19 more

lukemcgee.bsky.social
Luke McGee @lukemcgee.bsky.social · 15h
This is the most alarming story I’ve read today. Giving up the fight before it’s started

birchlse.bsky.social
Jonathan Birch @birchlse.bsky.social · 1d
It amazes me how Americans do Thanksgiving and then go straight back to work. If we had a late November holiday in Britain everyone would say "merry Xmas, see you in January".

birchlse.bsky.social
Jonathan Birch @birchlse.bsky.social · 1d
Because if you're bankrolled by billionaires the usual rules don't apply. It's lost over £100m but that doesn't matter.

Reposted by Jonathan Birch

triphilosophy.bsky.social
The Royal Institute of Philosophy @triphilosophy.bsky.social · 1d
📢 Final call for entries to our 2025 Philosophy Essay Prize!

⏰ Make sure you submit your essay in good time - the deadline is Sunday 30 November at 23:59 GMT.

Best of luck to everyone submitting. ✨

#philosophy #essay #competition

birchlse.bsky.social
Jonathan Birch @birchlse.bsky.social · 1d
I avoid it because I can't handle the tilting.

birchlse.bsky.social
Jonathan Birch @birchlse.bsky.social · 1d
Finally the cutting-edge infrastructure we need to move around the AI workers of tomorrow. www.theguardian.com/business/202...
Soon-to-be-axed 7am Manchester-London train will still run – but without passengers
Exclusive: Rail regulator pulls Avanti service from timetable from mid-December but it is needed for staff travel
www.theguardian.com

Reposted by Fabián Muniesa, Jonathan Birch

lrb.co.uk
London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 2d
‘Generally speaking, he preferred dogs to human beings, even though they, too, were emanations of the pitiless Will.’

Terry Eagleton on Schopenhauer’s philosophy.

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Terry Eagleton · Pregnant with Monsters: Schopenhauer makes a stir
Schopenhauer has long held the title of gloomiest philosopher in history. He sees human existence not as grand tragedy...
www.lrb.co.uk

birchlse.bsky.social
Jonathan Birch @birchlse.bsky.social · 2d
On the question of which broadcaster is better - Channel 4 News.

Reposted by Steven French, Richard Pettigrew

birchlse.bsky.social
Jonathan Birch @birchlse.bsky.social · 2d
When it became clear that net migration was on a downward trend, the UK far right and its media pivoted to asylum seekers being the alleged problem population. Labour and the BBC did not have to follow that cynical pivot, but they did anyway.
sundersays.bsky.social Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 3d
Today's 70% fall in net migration to 205,000 was not one of the six stories in BBC ten o'clock news.

Ta massive assymetry in whether rises in immigration and falls in immigration are considered newsworthy by broadcasters

Down by 140k isn't thought to be.

Up by 140k undoubtedly would be.

Reposted by Jonathan Birch, Urška Demšar

neurosock.bsky.social
neurosock @neurosock.bsky.social · 2d
The hippocampus is not a library, it is a simulation engine.

HPC is known for storing maps of the environment but not so known for generating planned trajectories.

This paper proposes that recurrence in CA3 is crucial for planning.

A🧵with my toy model and notes:

#neuroskyence #compneuro #NeuroAI

Reposted by Jonathan Portes, Ben H. Ansell, Will Jennings , and 7 more

sundersays.bsky.social
Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 3d
Today's 70% fall in net migration to 205,000 was not one of the six stories in BBC ten o'clock news.

Ta massive assymetry in whether rises in immigration and falls in immigration are considered newsworthy by broadcasters

Down by 140k isn't thought to be.

Up by 140k undoubtedly would be.

Reposted by Jonathan Birch

davidbatherwoods.bsky.social
David Bather Woods @davidbatherwoods.bsky.social · 3d
My article on Schopenhauer‘s alleged misanthropy is now available in early view - and it’s open access!
How Not to Hate Humanity: Schopenhauer's Response to Misanthropy
Abstract. Schopenhauer has a longstanding reputation for misanthropy. The reputation is warranted, but it is also potentially misleading. Privately, Schope
academic.oup.com

birchlse.bsky.social
Jonathan Birch @birchlse.bsky.social · 3d
Conspicuously bad for headlines, I would say. A similar approach worked for Osborne, but Labour was never going to face a comparably pliant media, and the incredible thing is that they seemingly didn't expect this.

birchlse.bsky.social
Jonathan Birch @birchlse.bsky.social · 3d
I was annoyed by all the "growth, growth, growth" rhetoric in 2024, but if Labour really did have a serious plan for growth, that would have been much better than indecision, paralysis, and arbitrary fiscal rules throttling any investment in growth, i.e. no consistent plan for any particular goal.

birchlse.bsky.social
Jonathan Birch @birchlse.bsky.social · 3d
To be fair, Reeves has become adept at gaming her own rules: the all-important goal of a forecasted balanced budget in 5yrs is achieved by tax rises deferred to 2028-31 that may well never happen. All of govt subordinated to the great project of chasing arbitrary stats with imagined future actions.

Reposted by Jonathan Birch

sanjasreckovic.bsky.social
Sanja Sreckovic @sanjasreckovic.bsky.social · 4d
✨️Call for abstracts✨️
Excited to be organizing together with @leonarddung.bsky.social, @birchlse.bsky.social and Albert Newen the RUB-LSE joint workshop
"Animal Minds: New Theories and New Observations"
Bochum 9-10 Feb 2026

Join us! 🦧🐦🐙🐀🐬🦀🐜
Abstracts due 1 Dec 2025
philevents.org/event/show/1...
Ruhr-University Bochum & London School of Economics joint workshop “Animal Minds: New Theories and New Observations”
The following speakers are confirmed: Colin Allen, Kristin Andrews, Jonathan Birch, Tomer Czaczkes, Rebecca Dreier, Leonard Dung, Albert Newen, Simone Pika, Sanja Sreckovic, and Daria Zakharova.
philevents.org

Reposted by Alison Phipps, Jonathan Birch

josephinewy.bsky.social
Josephine Whitaker-Yilmaz @josephinewy.bsky.social · 4d
Great to hear Rachel Reeves acknowledge that "there are many reasons why people choose to have children then find themselves in difficult times. The death of a partner. Separation. Ill health. A lost job. I don’t believe that children should bear the brunt of that."

So why should migrant children?

birchlse.bsky.social
Jonathan Birch @birchlse.bsky.social · 5d
Rachel Reeves has done technocracy so badly it will be used as a case study in how not to manage uncertainty. Yes, forecast long-term consequences of choices. But don't set crude "iron rules" that make govt spending absurdly sensitive to small fluctuations in those long-term forecasts.

Reposted by Jonathan Birch

davidbatherwoods.bsky.social
David Bather Woods @davidbatherwoods.bsky.social · 5d
Lovely review of my new book @engelsbergideas.bsky.social
Schopenhauer's philosophy of hope
A new biography shows how Schopenhauer’s philosophy of universal suffering might offer surprising grounds for hope.
engelsbergideas.com