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Thalos Publishes New Book on Philosophy and Reasoning

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Mariam Thalos.

Mariam Thalos, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, has published a new book titled Reasoning in the Wild: The Public Works of Reason. 

Published in December of 2026, Thalos’s book intervenes with previous philosophical ideals by exploring reasoning as a social concept, something that public sentiment and individual processing can shape, rather than existing logical systems. It illuminates how shared understanding, the common mind, and communication influence reasoning, urging philosophers and scholars of social sciences to rethink our understanding of reason within the complex world of human connection. 

The book was published by Routledge. Reasoning in the Wild is also available via open access.

by Sloan Docekal 

Adam Cureton.

Cureton Publishes New Book on Respecting Disability

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Adam Cureton.

Adam Cureton, Lindsay Young Professor of Philosophy, has published a new book titled Respecting Disability. 

Cureton, the director of undergraduate studies in philosophy, researches ethics, political philosophy, Kant, and the philosophy of disability. Drawing on his own experiences as a legally blind person, Cureton’s book focuses on why expressing respect for disabled people is important, and how some benevolent attitudes towards disabled people can be morally problematic. It explains the moral hardships disabled people face, and explores how those who are disabled can understand themselves and maintain self-respect in a challenging social climate. 

The book was published by Oxford University Press in November of 2025.

by Sloan Docekal

Shaw teaches Classical Chinese Philosophy

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Professor Clerk Shaw has spent years preparing for the Classical Chinese course by reading texts from the 6th – 3rd centuries BCE, auditing a Chinese Intellectual History course, co-organizing a translation and discussion group that has met weekly. Some of the texts include the Analects (Confucius or Kongzi) and later texts from the entry of Buddhism into China. The course was created in response to undergraduates inquiring as to why there were no non-Western philosophy course taught. The assignments and texts selected for this course are designed to provide the student with an opportunity to “reflect on the intrinsic interest” of the text and “reflecting on how we learn new material in general”.

Course Description: Classical Chinese philosophy discusses the full range of topics familiar from other philosophical traditions: ethics, politics, epistemology, mind, language, and more. Its texts contain some views and arguments familiar from Western philosophy (e.g., forms of virtue ethics and impartialist consequentialism) but often in different forms (e.g., different core virtues or different arguments for impartiality). In other cases, the basic categories and views seem more fundamentally different (e.g. the relationship between the heart-mind [xin] and body as compared to Western discussions of metaphysics of mind). Studying classical Chinese philosophy thus stands to improve philosophical understanding and expand our sense of the views one might hold and of how one might defend them. Further, because its schools and texts have deeply influenced both Chinese and global life, culture, and politics, studying it can improve our grasp of history and of the modern world