Anita Leirfall
@anitaleirfall.bsky.social
Associate Professor of #Philosophy at the University of Bergen. 🇳🇴 Various philosophical interests. Kant’s theoretical philosophy is my field of specialty. Other interests: arts, science, music, literature, photography, and travels.
Reposted by Anita Leirfall
Beautiful cover for Carlotta Pavese's forthcoming book
November 19, 2025 at 9:59 AM
Beautiful cover for Carlotta Pavese's forthcoming book
Great news.
British and Australian chemists have discovered a powerful new antibiotic called pre-methylenomycin C lactone, hiding in a well-known soil bacterium. This molecule kills drug-resistant bacteria without triggering resistance. buff.ly/YlXaONo
#ShareGoodNewsToo
#ShareGoodNewsToo
Scientists find hidden antibiotic 100x stronger against deadly superbugs
A team of scientists discovered a hidden antibiotic 100 times stronger than existing drugs against deadly superbugs like MRSA. The molecule had been overlooked for decades in a familiar bacterium. It…
buff.ly
November 16, 2025 at 6:51 PM
Great news.
Reposted by Anita Leirfall
The most incredible library in the world, @bodleian.ox.ac.uk opened to OTD 1602, through the energy, money & commitment of Sir Thomas Bodley. It began with 5k books, & now more than 22m, with 2m+reader visits a year, & multi-million online users across the globe. Privilged to be its 25th librarian!
November 8, 2025 at 7:20 AM
The most incredible library in the world, @bodleian.ox.ac.uk opened to OTD 1602, through the energy, money & commitment of Sir Thomas Bodley. It began with 5k books, & now more than 22m, with 2m+reader visits a year, & multi-million online users across the globe. Privilged to be its 25th librarian!
"Ethical due diligence should become as routine as financial due diligence. Before asking how large a technology might become, we should ask what kind of behaviour it incentivises, what dependencies it creates, and who it leaves behind." time.com/7332888/we-n... #AI #ethics #PhilSky #PhilosophySky
AI Regulation is Not Enough. We Need AI Morals
"The challenge of our time is to keep moral intelligence in step with machine intelligence."
time.com
November 16, 2025 at 11:53 AM
"Ethical due diligence should become as routine as financial due diligence. Before asking how large a technology might become, we should ask what kind of behaviour it incentivises, what dependencies it creates, and who it leaves behind." time.com/7332888/we-n... #AI #ethics #PhilSky #PhilosophySky
Everyday philosophy: The super-rich are just super-lucky | By Nigel Warburton (@nigelwarburton.bsky.social)
Luck has played a part in how the world’s billionaires gathered their wealth. The issue arises when they don’t quite see it this way. www.thenewworld.co.uk/nigel-warbur... #PhilosophySky
Luck has played a part in how the world’s billionaires gathered their wealth. The issue arises when they don’t quite see it this way. www.thenewworld.co.uk/nigel-warbur... #PhilosophySky
Everyday philosophy: The super-rich are just super-lucky
Luck has played a part in how the world’s billionaires gathered their wealth. The issue arises when they don’t quite see it this way
www.thenewworld.co.uk
November 16, 2025 at 11:31 AM
Everyday philosophy: The super-rich are just super-lucky | By Nigel Warburton (@nigelwarburton.bsky.social)
Luck has played a part in how the world’s billionaires gathered their wealth. The issue arises when they don’t quite see it this way. www.thenewworld.co.uk/nigel-warbur... #PhilosophySky
Luck has played a part in how the world’s billionaires gathered their wealth. The issue arises when they don’t quite see it this way. www.thenewworld.co.uk/nigel-warbur... #PhilosophySky
Reposted by Anita Leirfall
Ethics of neurotechnology: UNESCO adopts the first global standard in the cutting-edge technology www.unesco.org/en/articles/...
Ethics of neurotechnology: UNESCO adopts the first global standard in
Today UNESCO’s Member States took the final step towards adopting the first global normative framework on the ethics of neurotechnology. The Recommendation, which will enter into force on November 12
www.unesco.org
November 6, 2025 at 2:49 PM
Ethics of neurotechnology: UNESCO adopts the first global standard in the cutting-edge technology www.unesco.org/en/articles/...
Reposted by Anita Leirfall
interesting piece. if you want to avoid getting bounced around from one bad ux to another, here's the direct link:
iai.tv/articles/sha...
iai.tv/articles/sha...
Shakespeare vs Wittgenstein: the fight for meaning | William Day
iai.tv
November 15, 2025 at 7:24 AM
interesting piece. if you want to avoid getting bounced around from one bad ux to another, here's the direct link:
iai.tv/articles/sha...
iai.tv/articles/sha...
Shakespeare vs Wittgenstein: the fight for meaning | Lost in tragedy www.facebook.com/photo.php?fb... #Wittgenstein #Shakespeare #philpsophy #PhilSky #PhilosophySky
Facebook
The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein was, famously, not a fan of William Shakespeare.
He wrote in 1946 that “Shakespeare's similes are, in the ordinary...
www.facebook.com
November 15, 2025 at 3:57 AM
Shakespeare vs Wittgenstein: the fight for meaning | Lost in tragedy www.facebook.com/photo.php?fb... #Wittgenstein #Shakespeare #philpsophy #PhilSky #PhilosophySky
Reposted by Anita Leirfall
Bryan Frances just dropped one helluva good paper on philpapers (forthcoming in Philosophical Studies). It lists 200 elementary facts from epistemology and on that basis draws interesting conclusions about the nature and progress of philosophy philarchive.org/rec/FRAPAF-2
Bryan Frances, Philosophy as Fact-Based Discipline: 200 Philosophical Facts - PhilArchive
I list 200 straightforward facts directly about philosophical matters that virtually all philosophers know and non-philosophers don’t know. We have seriously underestimated the straightforward epistem...
philarchive.org
November 15, 2025 at 3:04 AM
Bryan Frances just dropped one helluva good paper on philpapers (forthcoming in Philosophical Studies). It lists 200 elementary facts from epistemology and on that basis draws interesting conclusions about the nature and progress of philosophy philarchive.org/rec/FRAPAF-2
Reposted by Anita Leirfall
🚨 My paper on the philosophy of loneliness, particularly on Epistemic Loneliness, is now out in Synthese. I argue that there’s a specific kind of loneliness that arises when we don’t have others to share/exchange/create knowledge with.
#philosophy #philsky #PhilPsy #epistemic #loneliness
#philosophy #philsky #PhilPsy #epistemic #loneliness
What is epistemic loneliness? - Synthese
The aim of this paper is to elucidate a type of loneliness that is epistemic in nature. It is so, I will argue, in virtue of the fact that it is first and foremost related to our capacities as knowers...
link.springer.com
April 3, 2025 at 4:00 PM
🚨 My paper on the philosophy of loneliness, particularly on Epistemic Loneliness, is now out in Synthese. I argue that there’s a specific kind of loneliness that arises when we don’t have others to share/exchange/create knowledge with.
#philosophy #philsky #PhilPsy #epistemic #loneliness
#philosophy #philsky #PhilPsy #epistemic #loneliness
““Writing clearly” can’t mean stripping away all ornamentation and ambiguity where these are playing a crucial role in working on the feelings and desires of the reader. Doing that would mean failing to convey the whole thought.” open.substack.com/pub/axdougla... #writing #philosophy #PhilosophySky
Academic Philosophers and “Writing Clearly”
Cold, limp, lifeless prose is not clear
open.substack.com
November 14, 2025 at 1:55 PM
““Writing clearly” can’t mean stripping away all ornamentation and ambiguity where these are playing a crucial role in working on the feelings and desires of the reader. Doing that would mean failing to convey the whole thought.” open.substack.com/pub/axdougla... #writing #philosophy #PhilosophySky
Reposted by Anita Leirfall
Elon Musk’s AI service Grok is so drunkenly, transparently biased that it would be funny – if it weren’t a mortal threat to democracy
This week’s column by Stewart Lee
www.thenerve.news/p/stewart-le...
This week’s column by Stewart Lee
www.thenerve.news/p/stewart-le...
November 9, 2025 at 11:00 AM
Elon Musk’s AI service Grok is so drunkenly, transparently biased that it would be funny – if it weren’t a mortal threat to democracy
This week’s column by Stewart Lee
www.thenerve.news/p/stewart-le...
This week’s column by Stewart Lee
www.thenerve.news/p/stewart-le...
Reposted by Anita Leirfall
JOY conference recordings are ready! @rogerberkowitz.bsky.social @bardcollege.bsky.social
youtube.com/playlist?lis...
youtube.com/playlist?lis...
JOY: Loving the World in Dark Times - YouTube
OCTOBER 16-17, 2025 The Hannah Arendt Center's 17th annual fall conference on JOY: Loving the World in Dark Times will offer a crucial lens for finding meani...
youtube.com
November 6, 2025 at 4:56 PM
JOY conference recordings are ready! @rogerberkowitz.bsky.social @bardcollege.bsky.social
youtube.com/playlist?lis...
youtube.com/playlist?lis...
Illustrations have never played a secondary role in history of science and knowledge. They not only visualize the form of a plant, facilitating its identification but showing its essence aiding in processes of description&classification to attain scientific knowledge www.biblhertz.it/events/43483...
The Role of Images in Early Modern Botany
This seminar brings together two experts on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century plants. Zooming in on the dilemma of visualizing plants (or not), and how images could become part of epistemic methods w...
www.biblhertz.it
November 14, 2025 at 1:40 AM
Illustrations have never played a secondary role in history of science and knowledge. They not only visualize the form of a plant, facilitating its identification but showing its essence aiding in processes of description&classification to attain scientific knowledge www.biblhertz.it/events/43483...
Reposted by Anita Leirfall
New interview of me at Tevin Naidu's podcast, on whether we will know whether near-future AI systems are conscious:
YouTube: youtu.be/zxNyX1kq9ro?...
Blog Post: www.mindbodysolution.org/blog/the-epi...
Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/0WHK...
YouTube: youtu.be/zxNyX1kq9ro?...
Blog Post: www.mindbodysolution.org/blog/the-epi...
Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/0WHK...
Will We Know When AI Becomes Conscious? The Epistemic Fog of Artificial Minds | Eric Schwitzgebel
YouTube video by Mind-Body Solution
youtu.be
November 5, 2025 at 6:17 PM
New interview of me at Tevin Naidu's podcast, on whether we will know whether near-future AI systems are conscious:
YouTube: youtu.be/zxNyX1kq9ro?...
Blog Post: www.mindbodysolution.org/blog/the-epi...
Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/0WHK...
YouTube: youtu.be/zxNyX1kq9ro?...
Blog Post: www.mindbodysolution.org/blog/the-epi...
Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/0WHK...
Reposted by Anita Leirfall
Wednesday, November 19 at 4:00-5:30 pm, the Waide Center for Applied Ethics will be hosting philosopher Jeff Sebo, who will be giving a seminar on “The Moral Circle.” The event will be held remotely via Zoom and is free and open to all | Jeff Sebo | events.fairfield.edu/event/waide-...
Waide Center Seminar: Jeff Sebo, "The Moral Circle"
events.fairfield.edu
November 11, 2025 at 9:33 PM
Wednesday, November 19 at 4:00-5:30 pm, the Waide Center for Applied Ethics will be hosting philosopher Jeff Sebo, who will be giving a seminar on “The Moral Circle.” The event will be held remotely via Zoom and is free and open to all | Jeff Sebo | events.fairfield.edu/event/waide-...
The ant you can save
Should we simply assume that all animals can feel pain and are of moral concern? Or is that taking things too far? | By Jeff Sebo & Andreas L Mogensen aeon.co/essays/an-an... #animals #pain #ethics #philosophy #PhilosophySky #philsky
Should we simply assume that all animals can feel pain and are of moral concern? Or is that taking things too far? | By Jeff Sebo & Andreas L Mogensen aeon.co/essays/an-an... #animals #pain #ethics #philosophy #PhilosophySky #philsky
An ant is drowning: here’s how to decide if you should save it | Aeon Essays
Should we simply assume that all animals can feel pain and are of moral concern? Or is that taking things too far?
aeon.co
November 13, 2025 at 9:31 PM
The ant you can save
Should we simply assume that all animals can feel pain and are of moral concern? Or is that taking things too far? | By Jeff Sebo & Andreas L Mogensen aeon.co/essays/an-an... #animals #pain #ethics #philosophy #PhilosophySky #philsky
Should we simply assume that all animals can feel pain and are of moral concern? Or is that taking things too far? | By Jeff Sebo & Andreas L Mogensen aeon.co/essays/an-an... #animals #pain #ethics #philosophy #PhilosophySky #philsky
Reposted by Anita Leirfall
The Harvard Lectures of Alfred North Whitehead (1925–1927): General Metaphysical Problems of Science url: scholarlypublishingcollective.org/uip/ps/artic...
The Harvard Lectures of Alfred North Whitehead (1925–1927): General Metaphysical Problems of Science
The second volume of The Harvard Lectures of Alfred North Whitehead (HL2), edited by Brian G. Henning, Joseph Petek, and George Lucas, provides a further glimpse into the evolution of Whitehead's thou...
scholarlypublishingcollective.org
November 13, 2025 at 9:25 PM
The Harvard Lectures of Alfred North Whitehead (1925–1927): General Metaphysical Problems of Science url: scholarlypublishingcollective.org/uip/ps/artic...
Too much choice makes us less free
Liberalism has left us paralyzed by choice. A core value of Western liberal democracy is freedom, and we tend to assume that the more choice we have, the freer we are. But that’s a dangerous illusion. iai.tv/articles/too... #freedom #choice #philosophysky #PhilSky
Liberalism has left us paralyzed by choice. A core value of Western liberal democracy is freedom, and we tend to assume that the more choice we have, the freer we are. But that’s a dangerous illusion. iai.tv/articles/too... #freedom #choice #philosophysky #PhilSky
Too much choice makes us less free | Barry Schwartz
Psychologist Barry Schwartz explores why striving for the best can make us unhappy. In conversation with Alasdair Craig, he explains how the abundance of choice in modern life leads to paralysis, disa...
iai.tv
November 13, 2025 at 6:58 PM
Too much choice makes us less free
Liberalism has left us paralyzed by choice. A core value of Western liberal democracy is freedom, and we tend to assume that the more choice we have, the freer we are. But that’s a dangerous illusion. iai.tv/articles/too... #freedom #choice #philosophysky #PhilSky
Liberalism has left us paralyzed by choice. A core value of Western liberal democracy is freedom, and we tend to assume that the more choice we have, the freer we are. But that’s a dangerous illusion. iai.tv/articles/too... #freedom #choice #philosophysky #PhilSky
Reposted by Anita Leirfall
I was interviewed by the Swarthmore Bulletin about AI. magazine.swarthmore.edu/issue/fall-2...
A Focus on Trust
Benjamin Kuipers ’70 explores ethics for robots and other AIs that could potentially be members of human society.
magazine.swarthmore.edu
November 11, 2025 at 8:17 PM
I was interviewed by the Swarthmore Bulletin about AI. magazine.swarthmore.edu/issue/fall-2...
AI's capabilities may be exaggerated by flawed tests, according to new study
A study from the Oxford Internet Institute analyzed 445 tests used to evaluate AI models. www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-ne... #AI #flawed #tests #philsky
A study from the Oxford Internet Institute analyzed 445 tests used to evaluate AI models. www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-ne... #AI #flawed #tests #philsky
AI's capabilities may be exaggerated by flawed tests, according to new study
A study from the Oxford Internet Institute analyzed 445 tests used to evaluate AI models.
www.nbcnews.com
November 11, 2025 at 7:52 AM
AI's capabilities may be exaggerated by flawed tests, according to new study
A study from the Oxford Internet Institute analyzed 445 tests used to evaluate AI models. www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-ne... #AI #flawed #tests #philsky
A study from the Oxford Internet Institute analyzed 445 tests used to evaluate AI models. www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-ne... #AI #flawed #tests #philsky
Reposted by Anita Leirfall
Love the phrases "Cognitive Cost" and "Executive Function Theft" to pinpoint how exhausting it is to be constantly bombarded with apps telling you to use AI. I've been calling it "Corporate pressure" and "Force feeding". It's quite a lot right now. Seems a bit desperate tbh.
The #ExecutiveFunctionTheft of having to opt out.
Feeling annoyed at the cognitive cost of having to dismiss all the offers of "AI" assitance every time I use Acrobat to provide feedback on documents my students wrote. (NO I do NOT want an "AI" summary of this. In what world???)
Decided to check settings:
Decided to check settings:
November 10, 2025 at 6:53 PM
Love the phrases "Cognitive Cost" and "Executive Function Theft" to pinpoint how exhausting it is to be constantly bombarded with apps telling you to use AI. I've been calling it "Corporate pressure" and "Force feeding". It's quite a lot right now. Seems a bit desperate tbh.
Reposted by Anita Leirfall
This, from Adorno‘s Minima Moralia, is one of my favourite paragraphs of all time
November 10, 2025 at 12:10 PM
This, from Adorno‘s Minima Moralia, is one of my favourite paragraphs of all time
🦒💦🦒💦🦒💦🦒
November 11, 2025 at 6:44 AM
🦒💦🦒💦🦒💦🦒
The pursuit of beauty is fragmenting the self | The philosophy behind social media and the beauty industry
The worry isn’t that beauty or vanity exists; it’s that our digitized beauty culture has weaponized them against the self. iai.tv/articles/the... #beautyindustry #PhilosophySky #philsky
The worry isn’t that beauty or vanity exists; it’s that our digitized beauty culture has weaponized them against the self. iai.tv/articles/the... #beautyindustry #PhilosophySky #philsky
The pursuit of beauty is fragmenting the self
iai.tv
November 11, 2025 at 6:41 AM
The pursuit of beauty is fragmenting the self | The philosophy behind social media and the beauty industry
The worry isn’t that beauty or vanity exists; it’s that our digitized beauty culture has weaponized them against the self. iai.tv/articles/the... #beautyindustry #PhilosophySky #philsky
The worry isn’t that beauty or vanity exists; it’s that our digitized beauty culture has weaponized them against the self. iai.tv/articles/the... #beautyindustry #PhilosophySky #philsky