Richard Pettigrew

@wiglet1981.bsky.social

3.5K followers 1K following 1.1K posts

Philosopher at University of Bristol 🏳️‍🌈 he/him

https://richardpettigrew.com/

Books: Epistemic Risk and the Demands of Rationality | Choosing for Changing Selves | Dutch Book Arguments | Accuracy and the Laws of Credence | Who Are Universities For? .. more

Videos

Philosophy 39%

Computer science 14%

Posts Replies Media Videos

Reposted by Richard Pettigrew

Evan Thompson @evanthompson.bsky.social · 1h

Here's my review in Mind of Mazviita Chirimuuta's fantastic book The Brain Abstracted. @pessoabrain.bsky.social you'll be interested in this one! academic.oup.com/mind/advance...

The Brain Abstracted: Simplification in the History and Philosophy of Neuroscience, by M. Chirimuuta

‘What’s in the brain that ink may character?’ asked Warren S. McCulloch (1964) (borrowing from Shakespeare) shortly before his death. Trained in philosophy

academic.oup.com

Reposted by Richard Pettigrew

European Consortium for Political Research @ecpr.bsky.social · 3h

📢 𝐎𝐩𝐞𝐧 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 #ECPRPrizes

🏆 2026 Political Theory Prize

Honour the best recent book by a first-time writer in #PoliticalTheory

💰 £450 fund
💡 Must be an ECPR Member affiliate to nominate
⏳ 9 Jan buff.ly/1FHPpmr

Jury: @diapopescusarry.bsky.social @verena-erlenbusch.bsky.social

Political Theory Prize

Deadline: Friday 9 January 2026

buff.ly

Richard Pettigrew @wiglet1981.bsky.social · 7h

Fully agree re: plane, but I do find ‘hopped on a bus’ conjures a delightful image of those old London buses from the fifties where you just sprung from the pavement straight onto a board at the back, preferably while eating an eel pie and carrying a chimney sweep’s brush

Reposted by Richard Pettigrew

Jim Waterson @jim.londoncentric.media · 10h

A lot of it is a country small enough to manage single sandwich factory. But particularly UK is world leader in sandwich bread technology, someone I know was deeply involved in the bread production process for a recently viral UK sandwich and it’s an enormously technical process lasting months.

Reposted by Richard Pettigrew

Somayeh Tohidi @somayehtohidi.bsky.social · 21h

I’ll be joining this fascinating project soon and am quite excited about it!☺️

richardpettigrew.com/the-foundati...

The Foundations of Longtermism

This is a research project funded by the Leverhulme Trust, hosted in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Bristol, and led by Richard Pettigrew. It will run from 1st September 2024 unt…

richardpettigrew.com

Reposted by Brigitte Nerlich, Dean Eckles, Richard Pettigrew

Saloni @scientificdiscovery.dev · 1d

Imagine you lived in the 18th century.

Smallpox kills 1 in 3 cases. Yet you can’t culture pathogens, don’t know germ theory, and have no idea what a virus is. How would you invent a vaccine?

In a new episode of HARD DRUGS, we trace the history of vaccines!

The history of vaccines

open.spotify.com

Richard Pettigrew @wiglet1981.bsky.social · 1d

I think the UK came so late to the game, and we’re so much smaller as a country, that there was less need for new tourist-specific infrastructure, and so less need to raise revenue for it

Richard Pettigrew @wiglet1981.bsky.social · 1d

Yeah, and I think the US situation actually much more complex. Often, in the big ones, there’s a tourist hub (Yellowstone valley or the south rim of the Grand Canyon) but also a massively larger area that may be visitable but has almost no tourist infrastructure.

Richard Pettigrew @wiglet1981.bsky.social · 1d

I think it might still not be comparable because the number & quality of services at US ones is higher. Trails, information sites, etc are usually better and more frequent in my experience. That’s not to do down the UK ones. I think they were conceived more on a conservation model than a tourist one

Richard Pettigrew @wiglet1981.bsky.social · 1d

those pessimistic about the state of contemporary poetry need look no further than r/PetsWithButtons

Katarina Hunt @katarinahunt.bsky.social · 9d

Whomst among us hasn't felt a little vacuum about snackie all done

Reposted by Tom Griffin, Richard Pettigrew

Phil Burton-Cartledge @philbc3.bsky.social · 1d

"Labour are happily - gleefully - building up the infrastructure an authoritarian regime would find useful. It's a good job a right wing extremist party isn't topping the polls and stands no chance of winning the next election."

Labour's Continued Attacks on Liberty

Here is a story that won't stick in the headlines for more than a day. David Lammy has unveiled plans to curtail the right to jury trial for...

averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com

Richard Pettigrew @wiglet1981.bsky.social · 1d

I’m now forgetting what counted as early (that whole period has a non-linear temporal dimension in my memory) but I think Sputnik and one of the Chinese vaccines were also vector vaccines

Reposted by Richard Pettigrew

BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 1d

oh Americans may not understand this, but a 'magistrate' in the UK is a local volunteer with typically no legal background. But it's ok, they receive about 10 days of training. And now they can send you to jail for two years without a jury!

The Prophet Cassandra @prophetcassandra.bsky.social · 2d

what the fuck

Reposted by Richard Pettigrew

Ian Boudreau @ianboudreau.com · 2d

Amazing to learn that Isaac Chotiner can apparently just come for you in your replies. Like suddenly realizing you're swimming in open ocean

Reposted by Robert Black, Richard Pettigrew

The Prophet Cassandra @prophetcassandra.bsky.social · 2d

what the fuck

Lammy’s reforms would cover all prosecutions, including those brought by the Serious Fraud Office and the Environment Agency. It is anticipated that the government will also remove the automatic right to appeal against convictions.
Magistrates are set to have their sentencing powers significantly increased from the maximum prison term of six months to 24 months.
Under the heading “what do these proposals mean for your department?”, Lammy told government departments that the plans would not compromise suspects’ rights and suggested that “there is no right to trial by jury”.
The move marks a departure from Lammy’s past views. In a social media comment posted five years ago, he said: “Trials are a fundamental part of our democratic settlement. Criminal trials without juries are a bad idea.”

Reposted by Richard Pettigrew

Brett Karlan @oldjerryfodor.bsky.social · 2d

I just got back from the Iteration conference and no one there knew that they knew that they knew you

Reposted by Richard Pettigrew

Fintan Mallory @fintanmallory.com · 2d

This Millikan line goes (as they say) hard.

"White Queen Psychology" is a
diatribe against meaning rationalism, as was the Epilogue of LTOBC.
My desire is to kill meaning rationalism dead, and then beat on it.
Perhaps I will succeed in raising one or two more doubts about it.
Reasoning, I insist, is done in the world, not in one's head. Logical pos-
sibility (known a priori) is impossible. And the only hope for inten-
tional psychology is to embrace its biological roots.

Reposted by David Rosnick, Richard Pettigrew

ben driscoll @daisyowl.com · 2d

maybe i am going insane

Richard Pettigrew @wiglet1981.bsky.social · 3d

New blogpost: Formal Methods in
Philosophy.

This is an entry I wrote five years ago for a handbook, but it hasn’t come out yet, so I figured it might be worth posting here. It’s sort of a paean to formal methods in philosophy. The idea was to give a sense of the variety and power of these methods.

Formal methods in philosophy

This is an entry I wrote five years ago for a handbook, but it hasn’t come out yet, so I figured it might be worth posting here.

open.substack.com

Richard Pettigrew @wiglet1981.bsky.social · 3d

Ha! I saw your original post just after seeing the Tate post elsewhere and thought, oh boy did Liam call that

Richard Pettigrew @wiglet1981.bsky.social · 3d

Also, it turns out nothing is set in Prestonpans, but apparently the new Frankenstein is partly filmed at Gosford House, which is just along the road.

Scene from Frankenstein filmed on the steps of Gosford House. A grand stone staircase with people in period dress.

Richard Pettigrew @wiglet1981.bsky.social · 3d

I can’t figure out whether they just found the name so utterly perfect they couldn’t resist using it and completely changing the reality or something else. I wouldn’t have thought it was such a nice name in the first place?

Richard Pettigrew @wiglet1981.bsky.social · 3d

A Castle for Christmas is set in ‘Dunbar’, which is near where I grew and it’s where my mum taught primary school for thirty years. However, in the film, a town of 10,000 people situated next to a nuclear power station has become a hamlet of 300 people with quaint stone bridges over babbling brooks.

mtsw @mtsw.bsky.social · 3d

A movie that takes place where you're from

Reposted by Philip N. Cohen, Brian Keegan, Richard Pettigrew

Chad, Remover of Belkans @hoffnungobliteratr.bsky.social · 3d

Reposted by Richard Pettigrew

The Fake History Hunter @fakehistoryhunter.net · 3d

😆

Reposted by Richard Pettigrew

Fungocrat @fungocrat.bsky.social · 3d

Wow, thanks so much for showing me this "Art". Just what I needed - to be drawn more deeply into the World of Illusion.

Reposted by Richard Pettigrew

mtsw @mtsw.bsky.social · 3d

A movie that takes place where you're from

Richard Pettigrew @wiglet1981.bsky.social · 4d

any filmmakers on here interested in remaking Falling Down (1993) but instead of a traffic jam on a hot day the catalyst is trying to log in to editorial manager on literally any sort of day whatsoever?

Richard Pettigrew @wiglet1981.bsky.social · 4d

The final sentence here is just pure poetry

Richard Pettigrew @wiglet1981.bsky.social · 4d

And through it aaaaall
She offers me protection
A lot of love and affection
Whether I’m right or wrong

Add to Home Screen

Light up
your news

Add to Home Screen

Light upyour news

Sign in to Lightnews

Sign up to start reading

Connect Bluesky

Connect with Bluesky

Light up
your news