Quentin Ruyant

To be fair, he's actively trying to prevent... the left from taking power. Everyone has their priorities

I argued that AI personas are fictional characters in 2023 when LLM chatbots dropped! Remember the panic around "Sydney", anyone??

www.wired.com/story/artifi...

Non-paywalled version here: archive.is/PDP41

It Wasn't Fascism All Along Conservatism was a distinct ideology but it is dead and it is not coming back.

Important and correct by @polphilpod.bsky.social Toby Buckle at @liberalcurrents.com Liberal Currents.

The "all conservatism was always already Trumpist and fascist" line is ultimately a way to normalize Trump, and should be resisted.

www.liberalcurrents.com/it-wasnt-fas...

New on the Archive:

Arroyo, Raoni and Arenhart, Jonas R. B. (2026) Why metaphysics is not like mathematics. [Preprint]

https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/28415/

New on the Archive:

Ruyant, Quentin (2026) What’s Wrong with the Semantic Conception of Scientific Theories: Towards a Pragmatic View. Erkenntnis. ISSN 0165-0106

https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/28410/

Thank you!

What’s Wrong with the Semantic Conception of Scientific Theories: Towards a Pragmatic View - Erkenntnis In contrast to the syntactic conception of scientific theories, the semantic conception holds that theories are not statements about the world, but families of models. Recent debates have tended to bl...

New publication: What's Wrong with the Semantic Conception of Theories? (Erkenntnis)

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

#philsci #philpapers

I argue against the move away from linguistic analysis of theories and models in philosophy of science and outline a pragmatic conception of theories.

Figurez-vous que je pensais les accusations infondées jusqu'ici tellement il y a d'instrumentalisation sur ce sujet, mais cette sortie m'a convaincu qu'il est pas clair et qu'il joue en effet avec l'antisémitisme (ou a minima avec le complotisme)

Ah d'accord, il ne reprend que la partie russe de la théorie du complot lancée par des antisémites, donc ça va...

La polémique a été lancée par des antisémites en mode complotiste. *Effectivement* on devrait s'en foutre, mais JLM la reprend au contraire ! C'est quand même pas compliqué de voir le problème

Donc vous êtes d'accord, un media ne devrait pas mener une campagne politique, et Mediapart n'est pas criticable sur ce coup ? 👍

Donc il faut faire pareil ? 🙃

A Special issue of Philosophy and the Mind Sciences on Representation in the Neurosciences and AI has just come out and it's full of cool papers: philosophymindscience.org/index.php/ph...

Pour avoir dit (je cite l'article) "En diabolisant de manière outrancière LFI et en exonérant l’extrême droite de sa propre violence politique, le gouvernement favorise l'accession du RN au pouvoir" ? Ou "l’ultradroite a tué dix fois plus que l’ultragauche" ?

Rennes, aujourd'hui.

A few weeks of X's algorithm can make you more right-wing—and it doesn't wear off quickly A new study published in Nature has found that X's algorithm—the hidden system or "recipe" that governs which posts appear in your feed and in which order—shifts users' political opinions in a more co...

phys.org/news/2026-02...

NYAS Publications Click on the article title to read more.

📚 Now reading 📚

Henle, Mary (1976). Why study the history of psychology? Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 270: 14-20.

Will be compiling some quotes and thoughts over time. Pin📍or bookmark this thread if you want to follow along.

1/🧵

nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

#1215 Mauricio Suárez - Inference and Representation: A Study in Modeling Science YouTube video by The Dissenter

New episode (1215), with Dr. Mauricio Suárez (@msuarez.bsky.social). We talk about his great book, Inference and Representation: A Study in Modeling Science. #Philosophy #Science

YouTube: youtu.be/jMSVX0fQJYo
Podcast: bit.ly/4rKRRQb

That seems right

I didn't get the last part, are you saying LLMs don't appear to change their minds when presented with counterarguments? I think they do (but only because they follow patterns, not because they track truth), actually humans can be more stubborn!

And it's not particularly charitable... They don't structurally distinguish = they don't have that function. How would you identify the structure of an algorithm if not functionality?

I think that's the correct interpretation of these claims, and a manifestation of it is that we often suspend judgment when we don't have enough elements whereas LLMs pick a side randomly and defend it with full confidence

In a world where the US is turning into an authoritarian banana republic, Russia has wrecked its economy trying and failing to conquer its neighbor, and China is turning into a hyper-nationalistic totalitarian nightmare, it is surprising so many people are thinking that Europe is the failing one.

Great graphic showing cities on a triangle graph showing if they are most oriented to public transit, active mobility or cars.

Have you seen this? This recent study of mode share (the % share of transportation trips that are by car, transit, walking, biking etc) relative to city size and income levels in almost 800 cities in 61 countries. Interesting results. HT @davidzipper.bsky.social
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

In case anyone has been wondering what I have been doing for the past 40 years, it is summed up in this slide.
#neuroscience

"m'enfin on est quand même mieux qu'eux hein..."

Oui enfin, quand ça vise toujours, comme par hasard, des personnes racisées, et qui ne sont même pas des étrangers, le terme n'a aucun intérêt explicatif et je comprends que les sociologues s'en passent !

Révélation : Les électeurs du Rassemblement national sont des racistes Les électeurs du Rassemblement national (RN) sont racistes. Cela peut sembler anodin de le dire pour quiconque veut bien voir ce qu'il y a à voir dans ce parti, mais c'est l'une des conclusions que l…

Oui, enfin, "plouf" je sais pas, il y a des défenses qui sentent beaucoup la mauvaise foi quand même (comme faire appel à des distinctions théoriques abstraites quand on vous reproche un comportement). Mais bon.

Voilà le lien
blogs.mediapart.fr/mouais-le-jo...

Si une personne se comporte différemment envers les personnes racisées et n'a aucune volonté de modifier son comportement, on dira qu'elle est raciste, peu importe ses justifications et croyances théoriques. C'est l'usage du terme et je ne vois pas l'intérêt de lutter contre.