Fintan Mallory
@fintanmallory.com
Philosopher at Durham University fintanmallory.com
I love the idea of someone who believed their language carved nature at its joints but then gave it up because of the Löwenheim-Skolem theorem.
November 28, 2025 at 11:46 PM
I love the idea of someone who believed their language carved nature at its joints but then gave it up because of the Löwenheim-Skolem theorem.
At the very least, an adequate theory should do these three things I just came up with which I'm kind of sure my paper talks about.
November 28, 2025 at 5:19 PM
At the very least, an adequate theory should do these three things I just came up with which I'm kind of sure my paper talks about.
A student informed me today that ISO is not an acronym since the organisation is called the International Organization for Standardization (IOS). They just needed an international standard that wouldn’t privilege any language and I think that’s beautiful.
November 27, 2025 at 11:13 AM
A student informed me today that ISO is not an acronym since the organisation is called the International Organization for Standardization (IOS). They just needed an international standard that wouldn’t privilege any language and I think that’s beautiful.
Coming up on my favourite international event of the year
Somewhere in Norway right now, they are searching for the absolutely worst imaginable Christmas tree to "gift" to the city of London and as part of one of the most beautiful, long-running pranks in diplomatic history.
November 27, 2025 at 10:08 AM
Coming up on my favourite international event of the year
Real bear in a honeypot feelings when you discover someone’s teaching materials for a technical course from 2005 by adding and removing bits from a url
November 26, 2025 at 10:31 PM
Real bear in a honeypot feelings when you discover someone’s teaching materials for a technical course from 2005 by adding and removing bits from a url
After four weeks of using Zorro in all of my examples and many of my slides, my students have informed me that not a single one of them knows who Zorro is.
November 26, 2025 at 12:14 PM
After four weeks of using Zorro in all of my examples and many of my slides, my students have informed me that not a single one of them knows who Zorro is.
Reposted by Fintan Mallory
CONTINGENT PHILOSOPHERS! (Contractually, not metaphysically). I’ve been a big fan of @contingent-mag.bsky.social for a while. This year they’re letting philosophy piggyback one of their institutions: the year-end list of books and articles written by non tenured/permanent academics in that year.
Publications by Non-Tenure-Track Historians
Since we began publishing in 2019, Contingent has published end-of-year lists of books and articles by non-tenure-track historians released in the past calendar year. To submit something for inclusion...
contingentmagazine.org
November 26, 2025 at 9:33 AM
CONTINGENT PHILOSOPHERS! (Contractually, not metaphysically). I’ve been a big fan of @contingent-mag.bsky.social for a while. This year they’re letting philosophy piggyback one of their institutions: the year-end list of books and articles written by non tenured/permanent academics in that year.
I feel like this is a euphemism I’m going to start using. Did you hear yer man exited the market? Sure, that’ll be a well-attended funeral.
November 25, 2025 at 7:31 PM
I feel like this is a euphemism I’m going to start using. Did you hear yer man exited the market? Sure, that’ll be a well-attended funeral.
This Millikan line goes (as they say) hard.
November 25, 2025 at 11:36 AM
This Millikan line goes (as they say) hard.
Don’t think you need to know Irish to see the issue with this philosophical dictionary entry
November 25, 2025 at 10:01 AM
Don’t think you need to know Irish to see the issue with this philosophical dictionary entry
I’ve moved onto pavement weeds and can now identify: groundsel, common bittercress, maidenhair spleenwort, common tansy, spiny sowthistle, smooth cat’s ear,
pennyroyal, tufted/bramble vetch, catchfly, mugwort, wood sage, weld and garlic mustard. Every walk is a nature walk.
pennyroyal, tufted/bramble vetch, catchfly, mugwort, wood sage, weld and garlic mustard. Every walk is a nature walk.
In the last three weeks, I've learned to distinguish hawthorn, wych elm, beech, alder, elder, sessile oak, english oak, crack willow, white willow, sycamore, horse chestnut, ash, rowan, common lime, silver birch, downey birch, holly, london plane, and white beam, and it has been very rewarding.
November 24, 2025 at 4:52 PM
I’ve moved onto pavement weeds and can now identify: groundsel, common bittercress, maidenhair spleenwort, common tansy, spiny sowthistle, smooth cat’s ear,
pennyroyal, tufted/bramble vetch, catchfly, mugwort, wood sage, weld and garlic mustard. Every walk is a nature walk.
pennyroyal, tufted/bramble vetch, catchfly, mugwort, wood sage, weld and garlic mustard. Every walk is a nature walk.
It’s all fine until they show the chimps people criticising them online for being wrong in the first place. Then they double down. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Chimpanzees rationally revise their beliefs
The selective revision of beliefs in light of new evidence has been considered one of the hallmarks of human-level rationality. However, tests of this ability in other species are lacking. We examined...
www.science.org
November 23, 2025 at 5:36 PM
It’s all fine until they show the chimps people criticising them online for being wrong in the first place. Then they double down. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
I have a friend who keeps using mereology as an example of a weird thing analytic philosophers care about that has absolutely no value outside their weird little analytic philosophy debates. Looking forward to sending him this.
At last! Open Access version of the book on MIT's site. One for the syntax nerds. I argue we need to replace Merge, that there are no Phases, and that we need to rethink the basic theoretical typology of Islands. Feel free to download with abandon! 🐦🐦 #syntax direct.mit.edu/books/oa-mon...
Mereological Syntax: Phrase Structure, Cyclicity, and Islands
An argument for replacing Chomsky’s set-theoretic Merge view of syntax with a theory of syntax based on mereological objects.Mereology is the study of part
direct.mit.edu
November 23, 2025 at 2:31 PM
I have a friend who keeps using mereology as an example of a weird thing analytic philosophers care about that has absolutely no value outside their weird little analytic philosophy debates. Looking forward to sending him this.
Reposted by Fintan Mallory
Shamelessly nicked from Kris McDaniel over on Facebook: the book review that will make your weekend.
Watch Honest Review of Perspectives on Pragmatism Book on Amazon Live
Dive into the world of pragmatism with The Munro’s! Discover why this book's unique perspective, from classical to contemporary, is a must-read for curious minds and project seekers.
www.amazon.com
November 22, 2025 at 4:34 PM
Shamelessly nicked from Kris McDaniel over on Facebook: the book review that will make your weekend.
Struggling to sleep? Have you considered a rambling machine-generated podcast tangentially connected to the work of famous philosophers making use of any information in the public domain?
November 22, 2025 at 6:11 PM
Struggling to sleep? Have you considered a rambling machine-generated podcast tangentially connected to the work of famous philosophers making use of any information in the public domain?
It’s unfortunate to watch neuroscientists debating about whether spike rates or oscillatory dynamics are more important for cognition when Kant already showed that it’s done by the transcendental ego and so won’t appear in any time-series data.
November 21, 2025 at 4:47 PM
It’s unfortunate to watch neuroscientists debating about whether spike rates or oscillatory dynamics are more important for cognition when Kant already showed that it’s done by the transcendental ego and so won’t appear in any time-series data.
I can’t believe a student used ChatGPT to write their obligatory statement declaring God is Dead that I, a philosophy lecturer, have my students complete every year. What is the world coming to?
November 21, 2025 at 2:24 PM
I can’t believe a student used ChatGPT to write their obligatory statement declaring God is Dead that I, a philosophy lecturer, have my students complete every year. What is the world coming to?
I feel like we get fewer of these "I’m going to compare the views of some people I know" papers these days. It’s a genre I really like. Here's a great one by Millikan.
November 20, 2025 at 10:02 PM
I feel like we get fewer of these "I’m going to compare the views of some people I know" papers these days. It’s a genre I really like. Here's a great one by Millikan.
Happy World Philosophy Day!
Robert Brandom - What is Philosophy?
YouTube video by The Royal Institute of Philosophy
www.youtube.com
November 20, 2025 at 7:44 PM
Happy World Philosophy Day!
Reposted by Fintan Mallory
As a reminder, the traditional gift to the philosopher in your life on World Philosophy Day is cash
November 20, 2025 at 1:48 PM
As a reminder, the traditional gift to the philosopher in your life on World Philosophy Day is cash
Reposted by Fintan Mallory
Discourse surrounding “AI” these days often feels like a guy showing you his shovel and you say, “that’s a nice shovel” and he says “I am going to perform surgery on my mother with this shovel” and you say “Oh God please don’t that is not what a shovel is for.”
November 19, 2025 at 9:06 PM
Discourse surrounding “AI” these days often feels like a guy showing you his shovel and you say, “that’s a nice shovel” and he says “I am going to perform surgery on my mother with this shovel” and you say “Oh God please don’t that is not what a shovel is for.”
Happy International Men's Day! Don't forget, there's nothing more 'men' than Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.
November 19, 2025 at 8:47 PM
Happy International Men's Day! Don't forget, there's nothing more 'men' than Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.
It’s so weird when students come to your office to talk about your friend’s work. It’s weirder when they’ve been really thinking about it and they understand your friend’s ideas better than you do. Pretty neat though!
November 19, 2025 at 7:33 PM
It’s so weird when students come to your office to talk about your friend’s work. It’s weirder when they’ve been really thinking about it and they understand your friend’s ideas better than you do. Pretty neat though!
I don't mean to boast, but my grasp of the English language is far too good for me to mistake fools gold for gold, let alone water for twin-earth water.
November 18, 2025 at 10:06 PM
I don't mean to boast, but my grasp of the English language is far too good for me to mistake fools gold for gold, let alone water for twin-earth water.
A student left the first lecture with head in hands saying "It's all entangled, all the ideas are connected". I'm taking this as a good sign.
I’ve spent weeks telling my philosophy of mind students ‘don’t worry, Ruth Millikan will solve that in week 8’ and now I have 6 days to make teleosemantics work or they’ll be on to me.
November 18, 2025 at 3:35 PM
A student left the first lecture with head in hands saying "It's all entangled, all the ideas are connected". I'm taking this as a good sign.