my writing – Page 3 – News For Wombats

Now…

My book, A Philosophy of Cover Songs, is out now!

Soon…

My book, A Philosophy of Cover Songs, is in the last throes of preproduction and will be released by the end of May.

Fodder for title ruminations

As a followup to the earlier post, here’s a bit brief summary of what the book is going to cover. Unlike the title— which might still be in flux— this broad outline of topics is locked in.

Celebration and title ruminations

I just found out today that my book on the philosophy of cover songs has been accepted for publication! Both referees said that the manuscript could be published as is, but of course went on for pages with comments about how it might be improved.

The limits of risk

My paper, The scope of inductive risk, has been accepted at the journal Metaphilosophy. I’m told it will appear in the January 2022 issue.

Abstract: The Argument from Inductive Risk (AIR) is taken to show that values are inevitably involved in making judgements or forming beliefs. After reviewing this conclusion, I pose cases which are prima facie counterexamples: the unreflective application of conventions, use of black-boxed instruments, reliance on opaque algorithms, and unskilled observation reports. These cases are counterexamples to the AIR posed in ethical terms as a matter of personal values. Nevertheless, it need not be understood in those terms. The values which load a theory choice may be those of institutions or past actors. This means that the challenge of responsibly handling inductive risk is not merely an ethical issue, but is also social, political, and historical.

Covers collaboration

At the risk of jinxing it, I’ve posted a late draft of Appreciating Covers.

I coauthored it with Cristyn Magnus, Christy Mag Uidhir, and Ron McClamrock, giving it the longest list of coauthors on any of my papers so far.

EDIT: There was initially a problem with the link. Should be fixed now.

The title tells you the thesis

10 PRINT “Art concept pluralism undermines the definitional project is the title of forthcoming discussion note that I co-wrote with Christy Mag Uidhir. In it, we argue that…”

20 GOTO 10

Forthcoming nihilism

I mean, say what you want about the Uniqueness Thesis, Dude, at least it’s an ethos.
Walter Sobchak (paraphrased)

Last Spring, in one post and another, I hit upon Nihilism as a third way in the opposition between Evidential Uniqueness and Permissivism. That grew into a paper, Evidential Nihilism, which is forthcoming in Analysis.

Risky business

My paper with Dan Hicks and Jessey Wright, Inductive Risk, Science, and Values: a reply to MacGillivray, has been accepted at the journal Risk Analysis. It went from social media musing to accepted publication in just a few months.

Back in July, Dan wrote a tweet that concluded “Anyone want to write a little response with me?” Jessey and I replied that we’d be game for it. E-mails followed. We each wrote a snippet of prose. The snippets got worked together into one document, and that document went through a bunch of revisions. We used a google doc, which highlighted changes and allowed us to make comments back and forth in the document itself. Other than a few e-mails, that’s how we interacted. No realtime conversations, even via skype.

I still use LaTeX for my own writing, but the collaborative workflow of the google doc worked really well for this project.

On science and values, accepted and forthcoming

My paper Science, Values, and the Priority of Evidence has been accepted at Logos&Episteme. I worked over the manuscript to meet their style guidelines, sent it off, and put the last draft on my website. Since it’s an OA journal, in the gratis and author-doesn’t-pay sense, I will swap in the published version when it appears.

Now that the paper is actually forthcoming, it can be cited rather than having the ideas from it attributed to me by second-hand personal communication.