We’d like to start off this bi-monthly post with some exciting news from a few of our members. Zelda Blair will be finishing her MA in philosophy at Western and matriculating into medical school at the University of Minnesota in the fall. Paul Istasy will also be starting medical school this fall at the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry. Congratulations Zelda and Paul, we wish you the best of luck in your new endeavours! Our next piece of exciting news comes from Jiangtian Li. Jiangtian (supervised by Rob Stainton) defended his PhD thesis tilted “On Polysemy: A Philosophical, Psycholinguistic, and Computational Study” on August 17 via Zoom. Congratulations, Jiangtian!

All other news from our members is listed below in alphabetical order. 

Ed Baggs wrote a review of Shaun Gallagher’s new book, “Action and Interaction”. The book argues that the ToM framework distorts our understanding of social cognition, and that we should replace it with a focus on interaction processes.

Klodian Coko’s article “‘The Multiple Dimensions of Multiple Determination” is forthcoming in the journal Perspectives on Science.

Rob Corless’s paper “Computation and applications of Mathieu functions: A historical perspective“, co-written with Chris Brimacombe and Mair Zamir, has been published.

A commentary “Is it unethical to publish data from Chinese transplant research?” by Cory Goldstein and Andrew Peterson, where they acknowledge that non-consensual organ procurement from prisoners raises serious questions regarding the ethics of Chinese transplant research has been published in the Journal of Medical Ethics.

Yousuf Hasan and Liam Clifford interviewed Indra Bishnoi (PhD Student in Neuroscience) at Gradcast Radio to chat about her research on chemotherapy and anticipatory nausea. Indra explains why cancer patients sometimes discontinue their treatment and stay away from hospitals. Indra also talks about her role as the SOGS Sustainability Chair and what she thinks about London’s Climate Action Plan. You can watch the 30-minute video here. Alternately, you can listen to the audio-only version on their podcast.

Melissa Jacquart’s paper, “Diversity Is Not Enough: The Importance of Inclusive Pedagogy”, won the 2020 Lenssen Prize for the best article on teaching philosophy published in the last two years.

Joshua Luczak’s paper “The Ehrenfests’ Use of Toy Models to Explore Irreversibility in Statistical Mechanics”, co-authored with Lena Zuchowski at the University of Bristol, has been accepted for publication, and will appear shortly in the edited volume The Legacy of Tatjana Afanassjewa by Jos Uffink, Giovanni Valente, Charlotte Werndl and Lena Zuchowski.

Alex Manafu’s new course, titled Science, Nature and God, that he developed and is teaching at York University has won a £2000 Course Development Grant from the University of St. Andrews.

Ryan Muldoon is now a co-editor of a new book series: Philosophy, Politics and Economics, by Oxford University Press. More information about the series can be found on the official website.

Philippos Papayannopoulos had a new article titled “Computing and modelling: Analog vs. Analogue”, published in the Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A.

A paper titled No Laws and Thin Powers In No (Governing) Laws Out by Stathis Psillos, Stavros Ioannidis, and Vassilis Livanios has been accepted for publication in the European Journal of Philosophy of Science.

Vicente Raja, Ed Baggs, and Mike Anderson had a paper come out titled “Extended Skill Learning“, where they try to develop a notion of skill that bridges gaps between ecological psychology and enactivism.

Anthony Skelton’s paper “Mandating Vaccination“, co-authored with Lisa Forsberg, was published by Broadview Press. He also commented on the many moral issues raised by the global response to COVID-19 in the article “Vaccine Confronts Humanity With Next Moral Test” published by Bloomberg. Anthony also had a paper titled “Practical Ethics in Sidgwick and Kant” published in Kantian and Sidgwickian Ethics: The Cosmos of Duty Above and the Moral Law Within.

Francesca Vidotto was featured in July’s “Read.Watch.Listen” segment of Western News, where she talked about what she’s currently watching, reading and listening to.

Charles Weijer wrote an article published in The Conversation titled “Ethics must not be ignored when testing COVID-19 vaccines“, where he argues that we should not let scientists infect people with COVID-19 in order to speed up vaccine development.

Pictured above: Yousuf Hasan & Liam Clifford interviewing Indra Bishnoi on the Gradcast podcast.