João Ohara

My paper on historical (anti-)realism is now available in EarlyView on @histandtheojrnl.bsky.social's website. It's my attempt at mapping the conceptual space in what I see as a deeply confused landscape, rife for unproductive polemics. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Unbelievable. 48% people went for diarrhea forever. I'm so relieved Lula won. But I'm also worried. It took the most popular left-wing leader in Latin America to beat the far-right for the tiniest of margins.

Election day in Brazil. Polls indicate this will be the closest one on record. The "everyone gets a puppy vs diarrhea forever" meme has never been more apt - and there's a high chance diarrhea forever will win. I'll need a few days to recover from this.

#HPS Funded Fellowships in History of Science at Bodleian. Deadline 27 November 2026, 5pm (GMT).

“Watson’s 1968 book, amid other slights & sexist language directed at Franklin, implied the flash of insight was his. Popular accounts still routinely suggest Franklin missed the significance of the photo. She never had a chance to challenge Watson’s dismissive narrative; she died of cancer in 1958”

Fascinating thread - especially as someone who had to come to grips with how philosophers define the concept.

I am happy to say that our volume on the history of value-laden ideals of science is out today! I am grateful to the wonderful contributors for their really nice chapters! First of its kind, check it out! www.routledge.com/Histories-of...

Today in two weeks (24.09), the autumn edition of our joint research seminar PHO2 will begin with Luke O'Sullivan (National University of Singapore) speaking about "Naturalism, History, and the Philosophy of the Science". Save the date! There will be more info also on the whole seminar soon.

Just a friendly reminder - a few more days to submit your paper for this virtual workshop!

If your report claiming that the quality of scholarship is declining over time is itself based on exceptionally poor scholarship, have you proved your point? Worth reading this comment; really is quite eye-opening how shaky are the empirical foundations of this report

This post is a gem. *chef's kiss* I would never be able to state the point so clearly.

It's baffling to me that anyone would assume that this letter is a good faith effort to defend "academic freedom" and thus sign it as an endorsement of such defense. But then I remember that some people also assumed History Reclaimed really cared about objectivity. 🤷

I've just had the best experience with peer review in my career. Sure, the reports are probably fatal to the paper, but they are so detailed, respectful, and done with such care that I am thankful I received them. With all the horror stories that we see every day, this is refreshing.

Plenty to reflect about re: the Arday affair, but I'm going to repeat this one thing. The playbook the right used here is effective even though it's not especially sophisticated, as it relies on the audience to do the dirty work. I've been calling it "Trojan horse propaganda", let's go with that. 1/

That's basically anything I ever wrote for work.

I hereby publicly apologize for mocking the common practice of objection-anticipation in analytic philosophy, even when the objection is already dealt with in the main text. You were right - sometimes you really have to make this sort of thing. I'm listening and learning.

I'm pleased to announce that @universitypress.cambridge.org has just published Antoon De Baets' Element "Censorship of History", no. 38 in the Elements in Historical Theory and Practice series. Downloadable free till Aug. 19. www.cambridge.org/core/element...

I hate so much that this needs saying, alas... Screenshot going in the syllabus.

We are so back

I think about this a lot.

And they are so damn right for it.

Tuchel: "Surely now, after 4 goals, we can just defend passively."

France players are protesting against having to work on a Saturday.

Hello, sir, please let me tell you about Disco Elysium (for cool reasons).

Surely the regularity with which these "Objectivity Defenders"™️ align with the worst of the far-right is just a fluke. A mere coincidence.

My journey from a History undergrad to doing epistemology of history.

@celsoneto.bsky.social and I have a new paper out in @philscijournal.bsky.social 🥳 We discuss the role of values in scientific recommendations and expert committees. It was such a pleasure working on this together! #PhilSci #PhilBio doi.org/10.1017/psa....

Congratulations to Herman Paul (Leiden) on the publication of his Cambridge Element, "History of the Humanities", no. 36 in the series Historical Theory and Practice! Free to download till July 27. www.cambridge.org/core/element...

Historians 🤝 analytic philosophers It's so amusing that this very specific kind of onnoxiousness is one of the few shared traits between them.

It's only appropriate for the worst Brazilian team in decades to have the worst performance in decades.

Guimarães kicked the ball with the same enthusiasm I have when grading my students.

Excellent thread by Scott, as always! (Don't listen to him when he advises you not to follow him, though)

Has anyone else felt that long commuting ruined traveling in general for them?

Congratulations to Prof. Ciara Breathnach on the publication of her @universitypress.cambridge.org Element, no 35 in the Historical Theory and Practice series--available for download full Open Access!

Today in a week (22.06), Michal Hubálek will give the talk After First Philosophy: The Case of Historical Knowledge in our joint research seminar PHO2. The talk will be hybrid, taking place in Ostrava and on Zoom. See here for the abstract and Zoom link: www.oulu.fi/en/events/af.... All welcome!

I have never had high expectations for this Brazilian team. It turns out that it's even worse than I expected.

Today in two weeks (22.06), Michal Hubálek (University of Hradec Kralove, Czechia) will give the talk "After First Philosophy: The Case of Historical Knowledge" in our joint research seminar PHO2. Save the date, and more info soon!

What an excellent thread!

In November, we'll organize the conference "Learning from History: The Philosophies of Historiography and the Historical Sciences" in Ostrava. Check out the cfp here: philevents.org/event/show/1.... The deadline for abstracts is in the end of August. Please spread the word!

New video on our Youtube channel! Watch the talk "Narrative Explanation as Aesthetic Scaffolding" that Derek Turner gave in our joint research seminar here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGA8.... Happy watching!

A friendly reminder: Tomorrow (28.05, 16/17h, Central-European/Finnish time), Derek Turner will give the talk “Narrative Explanation as Aesthetic Scaffolding” in our joint research seminar over Zoom. For more infomation and the Zoom link, please see here: www.oulu.fi/en/events/na.... All welcome!

Airports are awful in general, but Frankfurt is pushing the boundaries of awfulness. Congratulations!

We begin the final day of the INTH Conference with the last keynote, by Ewa Domanska. #INTH