Paul L. Franco
@loadofbunk.bsky.social
Philosophy Professor // New Mexican 🛸 🌶️ in Washington ⛰️ 🌲
Just failed at carving a turkey at its joints so don't know why metaphysicians think they can do it for nature.
November 28, 2025 at 2:06 AM
Just failed at carving a turkey at its joints so don't know why metaphysicians think they can do it for nature.
One might be misled by language into thinking that being a tío and being an unc are the same thing, but it seems to me that not all tíos are uncs and maybe even fewer uncs are tíos?
November 27, 2025 at 8:55 PM
One might be misled by language into thinking that being a tío and being an unc are the same thing, but it seems to me that not all tíos are uncs and maybe even fewer uncs are tíos?
QUERY: Oxford Wykeham Professorship in Logic
November 27, 2025 at 6:26 PM
QUERY: Oxford Wykeham Professorship in Logic
Reposted by Paul L. Franco
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.
Reposted by Paul L. Franco
all pies are good. simply do not say to me that any pies are bad. i do not even want to know about the kind of life that would so warp a person as to think any pie is bad
November 25, 2025 at 10:51 PM
all pies are good. simply do not say to me that any pies are bad. i do not even want to know about the kind of life that would so warp a person as to think any pie is bad
If you're a stranger sending me a reminder about something I didn't do, treat me like an adult and don't make it "friendly." First of all, I'm not your friend. Second of all, I know you're mad at me for not doing the thing you originally asked me to do. Drop the act, buddy.
November 22, 2025 at 8:05 PM
If you're a stranger sending me a reminder about something I didn't do, treat me like an adult and don't make it "friendly." First of all, I'm not your friend. Second of all, I know you're mad at me for not doing the thing you originally asked me to do. Drop the act, buddy.
Spinoza (1677).
Gonna try using facts and logic to argue my brain out of being sad, will report back with results
November 19, 2025 at 8:25 PM
Spinoza (1677).
Dover really knew how to make philosophy paperback covers.
November 19, 2025 at 6:45 PM
Dover really knew how to make philosophy paperback covers.
Interviewer: Can you explain this five year gap in your resume?
Me: I did Kant's silent decade in half the time.
Me: I did Kant's silent decade in half the time.
Interviewer: Can you explain this gap in your resume?
Bertrand Russell: I spent months staring at a blank piece of paper.
Bertrand Russell: I spent months staring at a blank piece of paper.
Interviewer: Can you explain this gap in your resume?
Historian: That page was burned in the Library of Alexandria, and no modern copies survive.
Historian: That page was burned in the Library of Alexandria, and no modern copies survive.
November 15, 2025 at 4:04 PM
Interviewer: Can you explain this five year gap in your resume?
Me: I did Kant's silent decade in half the time.
Me: I did Kant's silent decade in half the time.
ICYMI: A philosopher withdrew from a recent tenure-track appointment at Texas A&M and wrote about it in the Chronicle on October 9th.
www.chronicle.com/article/why-...
www.chronicle.com/article/why-...
Opinion | Why I Withdrew From My Dream Job
At Texas A&M, politicians, not professors, decide what is taught in classrooms.
www.chronicle.com
November 14, 2025 at 4:26 PM
ICYMI: A philosopher withdrew from a recent tenure-track appointment at Texas A&M and wrote about it in the Chronicle on October 9th.
www.chronicle.com/article/why-...
www.chronicle.com/article/why-...
Fodor and Carnap are in the Epstein files (albeit mentioned by Noam Chomsky).
Clearly something of a relationship here.
There are several other emails, in which Chomsky entertains Epstein's questions. Here's a Hanukkah message where he asks about multidimensional linguistic models and jokes that Trump has written more books than he's read.
There are several other emails, in which Chomsky entertains Epstein's questions. Here's a Hanukkah message where he asks about multidimensional linguistic models and jokes that Trump has written more books than he's read.
November 13, 2025 at 9:53 PM
Fodor and Carnap are in the Epstein files (albeit mentioned by Noam Chomsky).
Wittgenstein is in the Epstein files.
November 13, 2025 at 5:42 AM
Wittgenstein is in the Epstein files.
Mary Hesse on "the political aspect of...the Vienna Circle" and why analytic philosophers had "lost the urgency" of epistemological questions given that they "divorced their philosophy from ideological and practical interests" (1980, xiii).
archive.org/details/revo...
archive.org/details/revo...
November 11, 2025 at 3:32 AM
Mary Hesse on "the political aspect of...the Vienna Circle" and why analytic philosophers had "lost the urgency" of epistemological questions given that they "divorced their philosophy from ideological and practical interests" (1980, xiii).
archive.org/details/revo...
archive.org/details/revo...
A survey of North American grad students in history of science in 1970-1971 asked: "'Are there any works which are models, methodologically, of the kind of scholarship you would like to do?"
www.jstor.org/stable/284483
www.jstor.org/stable/284483
November 10, 2025 at 6:08 PM
A survey of North American grad students in history of science in 1970-1971 asked: "'Are there any works which are models, methodologically, of the kind of scholarship you would like to do?"
www.jstor.org/stable/284483
www.jstor.org/stable/284483
D.J. O'Connor in 1959 on "The danger of the now fashionable 'Let's not be beastly to metaphysics' movement."
www.jstor.org/stable/3748624
www.jstor.org/stable/3748624
November 8, 2025 at 8:41 PM
D.J. O'Connor in 1959 on "The danger of the now fashionable 'Let's not be beastly to metaphysics' movement."
www.jstor.org/stable/3748624
www.jstor.org/stable/3748624
Thought maybe I needed to figure out microfilm, but the Internet Archive is a modern marvel that makes it possible to find issues of The Listener from 1951 in which Michael Polyani criticizes Stephen Toulmin's interpretation of the second law of thermodynamics.
archive.org/details/list...
archive.org/details/list...
November 8, 2025 at 7:53 PM
Thought maybe I needed to figure out microfilm, but the Internet Archive is a modern marvel that makes it possible to find issues of The Listener from 1951 in which Michael Polyani criticizes Stephen Toulmin's interpretation of the second law of thermodynamics.
archive.org/details/list...
archive.org/details/list...
Was it history or philosophy of science that had to make alimony payments after the divorce? Did they ever discuss staying together for the kids, Indy and Pitt? Who got to stay friends with Stephen Toulmin? Too many unanswered questions in HOHAPOS.
November 8, 2025 at 3:29 PM
Was it history or philosophy of science that had to make alimony payments after the divorce? Did they ever discuss staying together for the kids, Indy and Pitt? Who got to stay friends with Stephen Toulmin? Too many unanswered questions in HOHAPOS.
I lied. The actual best part is that once you have all the individual chapters combined, you then have to delete the JSTOR title page that is at the beginning of all the individual chapters.
The best part of doing research is having to download individual chapters of works on JSTOR or OxfordOnline or whatevs and combining them into a PDF. (Note: I understand I can go to the stacks for a physical copy in which chapters are bound together between two covers in something called a "book".)
November 8, 2025 at 12:22 AM
I lied. The actual best part is that once you have all the individual chapters combined, you then have to delete the JSTOR title page that is at the beginning of all the individual chapters.
The best part of doing research is having to download individual chapters of works on JSTOR or OxfordOnline or whatevs and combining them into a PDF. (Note: I understand I can go to the stacks for a physical copy in which chapters are bound together between two covers in something called a "book".)
November 8, 2025 at 12:17 AM
The best part of doing research is having to download individual chapters of works on JSTOR or OxfordOnline or whatevs and combining them into a PDF. (Note: I understand I can go to the stacks for a physical copy in which chapters are bound together between two covers in something called a "book".)
BREAKING: Quad cherry blossom trees also nice in Fall.
November 7, 2025 at 7:30 PM
BREAKING: Quad cherry blossom trees also nice in Fall.
<THREAD> I’m now hearing this meme that says speech acts have to be things we do with words and can't be pictures, middle fingers, sandwiches, etc.
Guys. It’s time for some speech act theory.
Guys. It’s time for some speech act theory.
is a sandwich a speech act
November 6, 2025 at 8:38 PM
<THREAD> I’m now hearing this meme that says speech acts have to be things we do with words and can't be pictures, middle fingers, sandwiches, etc.
Guys. It’s time for some speech act theory.
Guys. It’s time for some speech act theory.
Lord, give me the strength to not make a 6-7 reference in my lecture for college students today.
November 6, 2025 at 4:30 PM
Lord, give me the strength to not make a 6-7 reference in my lecture for college students today.
If you have grad students working on climate change and global justice, please share with them this call for abstracts for a conference put on by grad students in the University of Washington's philosophy department.
philevents.org/event/show/1...
philevents.org/event/show/1...
Climate Change and Global Justice
The Department of Philosophy at the University of Washington, Seattle is proud to announce a graduate conference titled Climate Change and Global Justice to be held on the UW Seattle campus on April 1...
philevents.org
November 4, 2025 at 10:34 PM
If you have grad students working on climate change and global justice, please share with them this call for abstracts for a conference put on by grad students in the University of Washington's philosophy department.
philevents.org/event/show/1...
philevents.org/event/show/1...
I hope my Cartesian wife will read the Ethics and be moved by what I was moved by and convert to Spinozism already.
November 4, 2025 at 4:10 PM
I hope my Cartesian wife will read the Ethics and be moved by what I was moved by and convert to Spinozism already.