Robert Talisse

Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 23:07 UTC

I realize it might be odd to speak with groups of people about the civic value of solitude, but the book is out in the fall and I’m on leave in the spring I’m already doing a bunch of talks etc about the book. But if you’d like me to visit your dept, let me know - I’ll make room

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 14:12 UTC

CIVIC SOLITUDE has a cover! It will be out with Oxford UP in a few months

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 09, 2024 at 14:39 UTC

Circa 1993 Big-time Ethics Prof, day 1 of class: In this seminar I will show that the structure of ordinary morality is deontological Me: *grimaces Prof: Huh? You don’t believe me? Me: I don’t see alignment with ordinary morality as a selling point Prof: But it is

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 09, 2024 at 02:58 UTC

I laughed. A little

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 08, 2024 at 21:40 UTC

One of the hardest things to teach graduate students is how to avoid asserting more than what’s necessary for the argument to go through.

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 08, 2024 at 21:39 UTC

If you’re considering writing a dissertation carefully delineating the subtle implicit distinctions in the later Rawls between the “reasonable,” the “unreasonable,” and the “not unreasonable,” maybe just don’t

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 08, 2024 at 14:35 UTC

Faculty colleagues in PhD-granting departments: At the start of this academic year, casually ask your 1st and 2nd year cohorts what tenure is, how it is earned, and what happens if tenure is denied You may be surprised by how few realize that tenure is an "up and out" decision

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Apr 28, 2024 at 21:34 UTC

Made it to Roanoke. I always stop for the night at the same hotel, mainly because the person who runs it is also a Sasquatch hunter.

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Apr 28, 2024 at 04:24 UTC

Final grades submitted. It’s summer!

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Apr 20, 2024 at 16:45 UTC

I didn’t need to hear a few seconds of someone singing Nick Drake’s “Pink Moon” in a Hulk Hogan voice today.

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Apr 10, 2024 at 18:04 UTC

AT A RESTAURANT IN ATHENS, 1993 Waiter: What would you like to drink? Me: I’ll have a Turkish coffee W: Huh? “Turkish coffee”? The Turks don’t make coffee Me: OK. I’ll have a Greek coffee W: Certainly

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Apr 09, 2024 at 01:46 UTC

The clouds blocked the rapture

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Mar 30, 2024 at 23:10 UTC

It was his shtick

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Mar 30, 2024 at 02:26 UTC

I used to have a colleague who was so grumpy that if you said to him on a Friday afternoon “Have a good weekend,” he’d snap back “Don’t tell me what kind of weekend to have”

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Mar 26, 2024 at 16:50 UTC

As a junior prof, I got such unbelievably poor treatment from three of the top journals (18 months then rejection w/o comments; laughably bad reports; R&R with unacceptable demands) that I vowed never to submit to them again But that was 20 years ago. Maybe they’ve suffered enough

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Mar 26, 2024 at 03:18 UTC

Good news: I’ve had an Instagram account since October and I still don’t understand how the platform works.

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Mar 20, 2024 at 15:03 UTC

After defending my dissertation, one grumpy committee member congratulated me by saying “Enjoy the moment. It’s probably the only time a group of philosophers is going to really listen to you talk” I think about that whenever I step into a room where I’ve been invited to lecture

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Mar 19, 2024 at 14:59 UTC

One of the most surprising lessons learned in my decade as department chair was that academics generally don’t know how to choose their battles

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Mar 18, 2024 at 17:31 UTC

I don’t understand why a person would choose to sit directly next to a stranger on a bench when there are plenty of other options available I was just sitting at the airport, minding my own business, and a person sat immediately next to me. She smells like Cheetos, btw

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Mar 16, 2024 at 15:37 UTC

I was once in a group of philosophers that was asked to leave a restaurant. One of the members of the group was talking (a little loudly, perhaps) about a paper he was working on arguing that we’re morally required to eat bugs.

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Mar 15, 2024 at 17:09 UTC

Overheard in a Philosophy Department: “Let’s assume that I have hands. Just what am I supposed to believe about my hands?”

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Mar 14, 2024 at 15:00 UTC

Got a “thank you” card from people who get me

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Mar 07, 2024 at 20:51 UTC

I chuckled

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Mar 07, 2024 at 00:02 UTC

I need to find a more polite way to decline on-the-spot lunch invites… Them : Have you had lunch? Me: Not yet Them: Me either. Would you like company? Me: Not today

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Mar 05, 2024 at 15:56 UTC

Next week is Spring Break and once again I forgot to plan a trip to Florida.

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Mar 04, 2024 at 18:28 UTC

I worry sometimes that I’m nice to some people simply because they remind me subconsciously of people I like

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Feb 28, 2024 at 02:04 UTC

Colleague: I heard you run a Twitter account. Why? Me: For the jokes Colleague: Sounds awful… Me: Not at all. It’s far worse than that

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Feb 27, 2024 at 22:33 UTC

New fallacy just dropped… Aikin and I discuss the “Curative Fallacy” at Philosophy15

youtu.be/EDx-ySTvVbE?...

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Feb 24, 2024 at 17:12 UTC

I'm still shocked when a grad student comes to talk to me for advice about designing a dissertation project, and I ask them "what kind of academic job do you want when you're done?," and they tell me that no one had ever asked them that before

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Feb 24, 2024 at 15:39 UTC

It wasn’t until I stoped drinking that I began noticing how many academic social events are centered around alcohol.

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Feb 23, 2024 at 21:50 UTC

FRIDAY Me, walking on campus, minding my own business… Colleague I rarely see stops me to share some campus gossip “I can’t believe you hadn’t heard!,” they say Me: “I can’t believe you think I pay attention to this stuff” They: “You made it weird” Me: “It’s what I do”

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Feb 23, 2024 at 14:46 UTC

Pretty good, as I remember.

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Feb 23, 2024 at 02:30 UTC

FYI: Watching YouTube “reaction” videos of Dead Kennedys songs is a very good use of your time

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Feb 22, 2024 at 03:57 UTC

“Around 1950 I started to write a book on justice, which I eventually completed.” Happy 103rd Birthday, Jack.

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Feb 18, 2024 at 01:33 UTC

AT THE SUPERMARKET Me: *minding my own business looking for my brand of coffee Rando: So, you like coffee, huh? Me: Yes Her: Like… *really*? Me: I guess so Her: With cream? Me: Just black Her: Oh. I don’t really like it that much. Maybe when I’m older… Me: OK *She walks away

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Feb 17, 2024 at 17:39 UTC

Bourgeois old-timer achievement unlocked: Nearly all of my anxiety dreams involve airports

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Feb 16, 2024 at 23:25 UTC

“Join us for drinks, desserts, and lively conversation” Sorry, but I don’t do any of those things.

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Feb 14, 2024 at 01:57 UTC

UK pals: I’m in Dublin for a wedding mid-July, but could tack on an academic thing thereabouts. I know it’s an odd time of the year for academic stuff, but email me if there’s interest.

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Feb 13, 2024 at 19:14 UTC

A lot of Greek food is just a delivery system for feta. Not complaining, btw.

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Feb 13, 2024 at 18:28 UTC

There’s a kind of philosophy talk that’s hard to listen to not because of its content or delivery, but simply because you can predict exactly how the q&a is going to go

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Feb 12, 2024 at 00:00 UTC

Has Taylor Swift won the Super Bowl yet?

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Feb 11, 2024 at 00:43 UTC

Why, yes, spending the entire afternoon working through Billy Zoom’s guitar parts on X’s *Under The Big Black Sun* was a spectacular use of my time. Why do you ask?

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Feb 09, 2024 at 01:45 UTC

There’s no such thing as “dictator for a day”

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Feb 07, 2024 at 22:12 UTC

I’ll say it again: Not all big time philosophers are as bad as their fans make them out to be.

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Feb 07, 2024 at 03:31 UTC

Pregaming for Superb Owl Sunday

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Feb 07, 2024 at 03:27 UTC

New Doom just dropped: Frat house just off campus blasting Billy Joel doo-wop as bros play pickle-ball on the front lawn

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Feb 07, 2024 at 03:25 UTC

Teaching Rawls makes me nostalgic for graduate school. It’s odd because back then I felt that learning him was torture. A weird kind of Stockholm syndrome.

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Feb 05, 2024 at 23:53 UTC

Is it weird when you’ve been working in the same building for 23 years, and there’s roughly a dozen people you say hi to almost every day, but don’t know their names or the departments they’re in? Asking for a friend.

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Feb 01, 2024 at 15:39 UTC

Here’s my New Books in Philosophy interview with Lisa Herzog about her fantastic new book CITIZEN KNOWLEDGE

newbooksnetwork.com/citizen-know...

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Robert Talisse @roberttalisse.bsky.social [ View ] Jan 31, 2024 at 04:00 UTC

What a time to be alive. We might be living in a world where Swifties are about to save democracy.

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