Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Alexander Douglas

@axdouglas.bsky.social

740 followers 540 following 270 posts

Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, University of St Andrews https://axdouglas.com/ https://axdouglas.substack.com/ Latest book: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/456203/against-identity-by-douglas-alexander/9780241648216 Photo by Lauren Douglas

axdouglas.com

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Alexander Douglas @axdouglas.bsky.social · 1d

@standrewsphil.bsky.social

1 1

Reposted by Alexander Douglas

Ping Pong Philosophy 🏓 @pingpongphilosophy.bsky.social · 1d

🎙️ In the very first episode of Ping Pong Philosophy, I sit down with Greg Restall, Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of Philosophy at the University of St. Andrews, to talk about possibilia, proof-theoretic semantics, and more!🏓 Full episode out now!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHyx...

Greg Restall on possibilia, discussing logical pluralism with Graham Priest and more I EP 1 🏓

YouTube video by Ping Pong Philosophy

www.youtube.com

1 1 4

Alexander Douglas @axdouglas.bsky.social · 2d

Wow, you guys liked that. Ok. Buy my book? www.penguin.co.uk/books/456203...

Against Identity

Modern life encourages us to pursue the perfect identity. Whether we aspire to become the best lawyer or charity worker, life partner or celebrity influencer, we emulate exemplars that exist in the wo...

www.penguin.co.uk

Alexander Douglas @axdouglas.bsky.social · 2d

Sub editors are intellectual vandals

1 2

Alexander Douglas @axdouglas.bsky.social · 2d

I’m a strong advocate of ancient languages, but it seems dangerous to overpromise…

12 20 110

Alexander Douglas @axdouglas.bsky.social · 5d

www.doenwatjezelfwil.be/rene-girard-...

Doen wat je zelf wil ~ René Girard en het existentialisme ~

Jean-Paul Sartre - © Wikimedia Alexander Douglas presenteert in 'Girard', het derde deel van zijn studie Against Identity (2025, bz. 126-186), een boeiende invalshoek om het denken van René Girard bet...

www.doenwatjezelfwil.be

Alexander Douglas @axdouglas.bsky.social · 5d

Reposting because still relevant

Alexander Douglas @axdouglas.bsky.social · 12d

Alexander Douglas @axdouglas.bsky.social · 8d

www.themarginalian.org/2025/09/25/f...

Fernando Pessoa on Unselfing into Who You Really Are

“To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight,&#82…

www.themarginalian.org

Alexander Douglas @axdouglas.bsky.social · 9d

Thanks, somehow it’s consoling to know that I couldn’t have escaped.

Alexander Douglas @axdouglas.bsky.social · 9d

Unis are run by people who haven’t updated their procedures from the days when forms were printed out and filled by hand. I was just wondering if we’re the only sector stuck with this stupid anachronism (along with many others).

1 1

Alexander Douglas @axdouglas.bsky.social · 9d

We’re contractually stuck with MS, but Forms would be a whole lot better than trying to type into little boxes that don’t line up with the typing cursor, split over pages, etc.

1 1

Alexander Douglas @axdouglas.bsky.social · 9d

People who work outside universities: do people in your workplace still think that a good way to create an online form is a make a Word document with little boxes? Not using the form function on Word: drawing actual boxes, like you would for a printed form, though they are hard to type into. Anyone?

1 2

Alexander Douglas @axdouglas.bsky.social · 11d

I’ve subsequently had this thought: the Curtis Yarvin guys take the points in Girard that are obvious common sense and inflate them into some grand revelation. It’s as if I went around talking about Einstein’s WORLD CHANGING discovery that gravity exists. Right theory, wrong point.

1 1

Alexander Douglas @axdouglas.bsky.social · 11d

_I See Satan Fall Like Lightning_

Curtis Yarvin appears to have read Girard about as carefully as he reads anything else. I wrote about the tech bros and Girard here: unherd.com/2025/06/tech...

Tech bros don’t get René Girard

unherd.com

1 1 4

Alexander Douglas @axdouglas.bsky.social · 11d

A very nice result of publishing a trade book is that people contact me to share cool things they’ve written like this: philosophynow.org/issues/163/A...

Authenticity & Absurdity | Issue 163 | Philosophy Now

Paul Doolan tries to tell them apart.

philosophynow.org

1 5

Alexander Douglas @axdouglas.bsky.social · 11d

I had the same thought: ok, everything is Christianity, but why does this matter?

René Girard is clearer on this. He is up front about thinking that modern life is, on the whole, good. So his point is that we should thank God for sending his only begotten son so that we could have modernity.

1 3

Alexander Douglas @axdouglas.bsky.social · 11d

But he also says that conservative values are inherited from Christianity.

Alexander Douglas @axdouglas.bsky.social · 12d

1 8

Alexander Douglas @axdouglas.bsky.social · 12d

See you’re already doing complex calculations I can’t keep up with

Alexander Douglas @axdouglas.bsky.social · 12d

No, not ready.

1 2

Alexander Douglas @axdouglas.bsky.social · 13d

Before slogans we had to express thoughts manually. We would choose individual words, one by one, and assemble them into sentences in order to express our feelings and beliefs. Hard to imagine in this automated age, but that’s how we did it.

Alexander Douglas @axdouglas.bsky.social · 16d

Wow breaking news from the WSJ www.wsj.com/opinion/acad...

Opinion | Academic Publishing Has Become a Racket

Scientists write and review papers without getting paid, and their institutions have to pay for access.

www.wsj.com

Alexander Douglas @axdouglas.bsky.social · 19d

I think it’s a very significant finding that if you model human choices as random rather than optimising you can recover a lot of the basis for classical political economy. It seems like something that would interest me, if I still did phil econ. But I don’t, so I guess it doesn’t matter.

Alexander Douglas @axdouglas.bsky.social · 19d

No no, I didn’t mean econophysics; I meant something more specific.

Alexander Douglas @axdouglas.bsky.social · 19d

Yes, that’s interesting stuff too, but it’s not what I meant.