Plantinga Wins Templeton Prize
Since you're all primed for a non-chess post on a football Saturday, I'll sneak in another one. Those of you who are only here for the chess are of course welcome to ignore this and wait for more chess posts, which will be coming later today. But I'm happy to note that a philosopher who influenced me a great deal (my other career was in academia, teaching philosophy) has won a major award, the 2017 Templeton Prize.
Alvin Plantinga is a retired Notre Dame philosopher who has been very influential in analytic philosophy since the 1960s, having written important works on possible worlds/modal logic, but most especially epistemology and philosophy of religion. I don't agree with him on every jot and tittle, but he strongly influenced my philosophical thinking when I was a student, and my Notre Dame fanhood is mostly a by-product of Plantinga's having taught at the school.
The announcement is here (with links to some of his more important papers at the bottom), a big video archive of short interviews covering his work is here (see also here), and the ceremony is at the Field Museum in Chicago tomorrow at 6 p.m. and will be broadcast online.