Josh May

Weakness of Will Paper

Josh May — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:40:10 +0000

Richard Holton and I have just finished a draft of a paper we’ve been working on for the past year or so:

What in the World Is Weakness of Will? (PDF; draft)

Here’s the abstract:

Abstract: At least since the middle of the twentieth century, philosophers have tended to identify weakness of will with akrasia—i.e. acting, or having a disposition to act, contrary to one‘s judgments about what is best for one to do. However, there has been some recent debate about whether this captures the ordinary notion of weakness of will. Richard Holton (1999, 2009) claims that it doesn’t, while Alfred Mele (forthcoming) argues that, to a certain extent, it does. As Mele recognizes, the question about an ordinary concept here is one apt for empirical investigation. Our plan is to evaluate Mele’s studies and report some experiments of our own in order to investigate what in the world the ordinary concept of weakness of will is. We conclude that neither Mele nor Holton (previously) was quite right and offer a tentative proposal of our own: the ordinary notion is more like a prototype or cluster concept.

This is the extended version of a paper I’ll be presenting at the Pacific APA later this month in San Francisco.

Fav Music of 2009

Josh May — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 00:41:28 +0000

It’s already almost a month into 2010, but I usually like to take a moment to list my top 10 or so favorite albums from the previous year. To limit the toil it takes on my mind, I’ll just throw out my favorite 10 without worrying too much about the order. So here they are in alphabetical order:

Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion (9.6)
Animal Collective – Fall Be Kind EP (8.9)
The Appleseed Cast – Sagarmatha (no review)
Dan Deacon – Bromst (8.5)
Deerhoof – Offend Maggie (7.6)
Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca (9.2)
The Flaming Lips – Embryonic (9.0)
Neon Indian – Psychic Chasms (8.6)
Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix (8.5)
St. Vincent – Actor (8.5)
Sunset Rubdown – Dragonslayer (8.3)
Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It’s Blitz! (8.1)

Basically, this is the list of albums I listened to most this past year. I highly recommend them! I’m sure there are great albums I’ve missed, though. So any recommendations are much appreciated!

(Note: I also like to see what Pitchfork said about the albums I’ve liked, so their scores (out of 10) are in parentheses. And, no, I wasn’t that into the albums by Girls or Grizzly Bear this year, despite Pitchfork’s acclaim.)

Review of A Very Bad Wizard

Josh May — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 18:33:50 +0000

I read Tamler Sommer’s new book, A Very Bad Wizard: Morality behind the Curtain, recently and really liked it. So I wrote a short review of it for Metapsychology. It’s posted here, open access and all:

http://metapsychology.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=book&id=5317&cn=135

I highly recommend the book, though I do complain a bit about some of its pessimistic aspects.

UPDATE: The review got linked on the front page of Arts & Letters Daily on 1/25/10. Pretty cool.

Zimbardo on Colbert

Josh May — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 07:57:31 +0000

Philip Zimbardo, the psychologist who ran the famous Stanford Prison Experiment, was on the Colbert Report last year. Best part:

Zimbardo: Obviously you learned well in Sunday school.

Colbert: I teach Sunday school, motherf#@ker!

“Just in Case”

Josh May — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 05:51:44 +0000

I’ve posted something about the philosophical use of the phrase “just in case” over at the SoCal Phil blog.

RPP Article Open Access

Josh May — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 18:14:02 +0000

I just set up the details for publication of an article (“Practical Interests, Relevant Alternatives, and Knowledge Attributions”) I and my fellow co-authors have coming out in the Review of Philosophy and Psychology. Springer, like many journals now, has an option for the authors to pay to have the article open access so it’s free for everyone to read. I was aware of this option but not that they have agreements with some libraries in which the libraries pay for the article to be open access. Luckily, UCSB is one of them. So the article will be free to all and I didn’t have to pay, which is nice since open access costs around $3,000! This also means I didn’t have to transfer the copyright either. All very cool!

Update: Here’s the link to the open access article on Springer’s site (no page numbers yet because it’s only currently published online, not yet in print):

http://www.springerlink.com/content/v046t12463667676/fulltext.pdf

Flaming Lips – Embryonic

Josh May — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 02:32:45 +0000

I’m really getting into the new album by The Flaming Lips: Embryonic. Here’s a nice HD vid of one of the songs done live:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTCpumkw4Kk

I think Pitchfork is wise in giving it a 9.0.

Peer Review

Josh May — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 02:07:26 +0000

Funny:

(HT: Nadelhoffer)

Outstanding Graduate Student Paper Prize!

Josh May — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 02:43:06 +0000

I just found out that I got an Outstanding Graduate Student Paper Prize from the American Philosophical Association for the paper I’ll be presenting at the Pacific Division Meeting! And it comes with a travel stipend!

Again I found the email in my junk/spam mail folder. It’s starting to look like that folder is not filled with junk or spam!

Paper Accepted at Pacific APA

Josh May — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 01:26:52 +0000

I just got word that my paper “What in the World Is Weakness of Will?” (latest abstract available on this page) has been accepted for presentation at a colloquium session at the next meeting of the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association (APA)! The meeting takes place in San Francisco March 31 – April 4, 2010 at Westin St Francis.

The funny thing is… I found the acceptance email in my junk mail folder in Gmail. And I hardly ever check that folder. I just happened to check it because I accidentally marked an email as junk and went to the folder to un-junk it. I wonder what would have happened if I never looked in that junk mail folder…

UPDATE: The Main Program is now online.