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Abuse of Title VI at Penn to target “anti-semitism”
An account here. We have noted the weaponization of Title VI (which began with Biden!) in the past.
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NYC mayor was right to skip the “Israel Parade”…
…which was really a parade celebrating the far right, racist, and pro-apartheid political leadership of Israel.
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CUNY Graduate Center’s Saul Kripke Center now hosting “Analytic Salons”…
…to bring philosophy to the public. Readers in NYC may want to check it out.
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More than 1,000 University of California faculty call on Regents to restore standardized test scores for admissions…
…due to inadequate mathematics preparation of large numbers of students for work in STEM and other fields requiring quantitative skills. The use of the SAT/ACT was suspended first during the pandemic, as it was at many places, but was never restored as an admission factor.
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Murphy from Georgetown to Notre Dame
Mark Murphy (philosophy of law, ethics, philosophy of religion), a longtime member of the Department of Philosophy at Georgetown University, has accepted an endowed chair in the philosophy department at the University of Notre Dame, where he earned his Ph.D. Among other things, Murphy is the most sophisticated and interesting philosopher of law working in…
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More on the persecution of Professor Mesyats and colleagues by the Russian government
A propos this earlier report, philosopher Elizaveta Shcherbakova at the Humboldt University in Berlin has now kindly shared this very detailed account of what is happening. Please take a few minutes to learn more about this case. I will post updates about any initiatives that the international community can take on behalf of these victims…
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Open access philosophy books, a thread: Part IV (moving to front from May 20)
The last thread had fewer entries than earlier ones, but several months have past, perhaps readers can supply some new links. The instructions, as before: In light of the growing number of these volumes, I am going to run a thread periodically in which I invite authors or readers to share links to philosophical works…
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Russian Aristotle scholar Svetlana Mesiats put under house arrest (UPDATED)
From Oxford historian Georgy Kantor on Twitter: The best Russian expert (and genuinely important scholar) on Neo-Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy, Svetlana Mesiats, has been put under house arrest in the investigation of ‘fraudulent translations of Aristotle’. https://iphras.ru/messiats.htm He explains: About 10 people been called for interrogation, there are searches in the Institute of Philosophy building.…
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Lateral moves/retirements since the 2024 Philosophical Gourmet Report: 2025-26 edition
In addition to the separate posts announcing (generally tenured) faculty moves, I will keep a running list of all lateral moves (and retirements and deaths) not reflected in the faculty lists for the 2024 PGR (some moves that took place after the 2024 PGR were reflected in the faculty list, because the editors knew of…
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The climate change catastrophe: India edition
All 50 of the hottest cities in the world were in India recently (temperatures of 110 degrees farenheit and up are not uncommon right now). Ghastly. And Modi is still pretending… (Thanks to Ruchira Paul for the pointer.)
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“Virtual Dissertation Groups”
Philosopher Joshua Smart writes: Virtual Dissertation Groups (VDG) will be running again this June – August. The VDG sign-up form is open for this summer’s groups through Saturday, June 6th. What it is: Virtual Dissertation Groups is a free service for those currently working on their doctoral dissertations in philosophy departments (or philosophy of science or…
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“Is U.S. democracy in danger?”
This documentary by a Turkish journalist doesn’t really answer its title question, but it does involve interesting interviews with the Rutgers historian Mark Bray (who fled to Spain after becoming a target of U.S. crypto- and-not-so-crypto fascists for writing about antifa), philosopher Jason Stanley (who wisely left for Canada), the infamous racist Penn law professor…
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“Great” moments in (extremely) obscure rock ‘n’ roll: Holy Rockin’ Band, “Uncle Karl,” 1981 or 1982
As we’re winding down my trip down memory lane with the Leiter & Williams “basement tapes,” here’s a song that reflects the musical fashions of “pop” music in the early 1980s, complete with synthesizer (and drum machine).
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Nottingham faculty protesting proposed bloodbath
A philosopher at the University of Nottingham calls my attention to this: He summarizes the situation as follows: – the removal of just over 600 FTE posts, if necessary through compulsory redundancy in January 2027 (that’s around 50% of academics in arts). – local union (UoNUCU) has declared a Marking and Assessment Boycott (MAB) starting on the…
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Pettigrew from Bristol to Oxford
Richard Pettigrew (epistemology, formal epistemology, logic, philosophical logic), Professor of Philosophy at the University of Bristol, has accepted appointment as Wykeham Professor of Logic at Oxford University.
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This is why Republican officials are such craven cowards…
…because Trump has a grip on the votes of tens of millions of diehard Republican voters. And it’s that devoted minority of the electorate that is leading the country to ruin. (As a reminder, Thomas Massie, who occasionally bucked the Republican herd, is also a nut.)
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With Trump, there is no bottom to the corruption
Just the latest. If this criminal and his political movement is ever defeated, the government will need to undertake legal proceedings to disgorge millions if not billions of ill-gotten gains. UPDATE: As if to prove the point, Trump and his family are now given immunity for their tax cheating by the Department of Justice. What…
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Federal judge orders Texas State to continue paying philosophy professor it wrongfully fired…
….in violation of his First Amendment rights. Thank goodness for judges, and FIRE, which retained the local lawyers representing Professor Robinson.
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Habermas and the Israeli mass killings in Gaza
As is well-known, Habermas and others issued a statement of “solidarity” with Israel about a month after the October 7 atrocities by Hamas. This was, no doubt, borne of his long efforts to resist any attempts to whitewash the Nazi atrocities, which brought the state of Israel into being. And a month after the October…
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The American Bar Association needs to investigate Texas Tech Law School for violating the First Amendment rights of a student
A Texas Tech Law alum writes: Texas Tech, as you might know, is in the forefront of demolishing any semblance of academic freedom. Their new system Chancellor (Brandon Creighton) is the former state legislator who authored SB17, the legislation that outlawed DEI, requires Regent review of syllabi, and loosens tenure protections. A Texas Tech School…
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No more Marx or Spinoza in the secondary school philosophy curriculum in Italy…
…but students will read Gentile, the philosopher of fascism.
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“The end of the road for Dr. Disgrace”
That’s Dr. Jeremy Faust’s take on Senator Bill Cassidy’s defeat in the Republican primary yesterday in Louisiana. It was Senator Cassidy’s craven vote for the imbecile Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services that enabled the imbecile’s war on public health. As Dr. Faust writes: Cassidy will go down as a…
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“Great” moment in (definitely) obscure rock ‘n’ roll: Holy Rockin’ Band, “Clouds,” 1980 or 1981
The saga of the Leiter-Williams “basement tapes” continues with this gentler number, “Clouds.” As usual, Tommy did a great job with the arrangement (and the vocals), including additional guitars and keyboards.
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Philosopher Ann Cudd’s rampage at Portland State continues
52 positions (including 4 in philosophy) are on the chopping block. As this informative post explains, the mischief originates with the Orwellian “University Innovation Alliance”: The UIA’s theory of institutional change rests on a set of identifiable assumptions: that transformation requires centralized administrative authority; that academic programs should be evaluated primarily through data analytics and…
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Kirk-Giannini from Rutgers/Newark to Southern California
Cameron Kirk-Giannini (philosophy of language, philosophy of AI, social philosophy, philosophy of religion), Associate Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University, Newark, has accepted appointment as Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern California, effective fall 2027. (Thanks to Samuel Elgin for the pointer to the social media announcement.)
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Another blow for American universities trying to recruit and enroll foreign students
From CHE: The [new Trump Administratin] guidance, which is expected to be released any day, would make visas valid for four years or the anticipated length of a student’s degree — whichever is shorter. Students in longer programs like doctorates would have to apply for an extension to finish their studies. It’s a shift from…
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AI prefers to hire resumes written by AI
Oy veh. Pretty pathetic.
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The historian Sven Beckert appears to be confused about “capitalism”
That’s the upshot of this long and interesting review of Beckert’s most recent book by the political theorist Corey Robin. I’ve not read Beckert’s book, but welcome comments from those who know more about this topic. Please do not comment unless you have read Beckert’s book or read Robin’s review.
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Meanwhile, faculty and students at Ghent are still conspiring to get Cofnas fired
This document was sent out to encourage philosophers to file complaints about the fact that Dr. Cofnas was appointed to a post-doc: Note that it evens supplies text to use in filing a complaint! Let me observe that this is not only an attack on Dr. Cofnas’s academic freedom, but also on the academic freedom…
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Cambridge’s violation of the academic freedom rights of Nathan Cofnas (and its own free speech policies)
Dr. Cofnas reviews the gory details. It’s particularly shocking that Cambridge Philosophy hired a not very competent lawyer to review the academic merits of his research rather than scholars in his field: that would be a fatal due process violation in the U.S. under AAUP standards. (Earlier coverage here and here.)
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Plato and Nietzsche
Philosopher Mark Anderson discusses (and outs himself as a Platonist). His story of his path into philosophy at the start is interesting.
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Most cited legal philosophers by D-Index according to research.com (CORRECTED & UPDATED)
We’ve noted the “D-index” (an h-index for discipline-specific journals) calculated by research.com previously. (Their rankings of universities in law are pretty silly, since the faculty lists include deceasd faculty, retired faculty, and faculty who are not law professors.) They clearly don’t count law reviews for D-index, only faculty-edited journals, which is appropriate for legal philosophy.…
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“Mind is Matter”
The film, featuring Ned Block, David Papineau and others.
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What is analytic philosophy?
I came across this chart on FB, and it’s not a bad description of analytic philosophy when it existed (except, of course, the image next to Kripke is not Kripke!):
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“Great” moments in (definitely) obscure rock ‘n’ roll: Holy Rockin’ Band, “Bourgeois Goodies,” 1979 or 1980
Another track from the Leiter-Williams “basement tapes” recorded on just 4 tracks back in 1979 or 1980. Another apt song for the latest “affordability crisis” afflicting the ordinary citizens of capitalist America, this was always my personal favorite. (Have no fear, there are only a few more songs I will share on the blog!)
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How is your school responding to the “Canvas” security breach by hackers?
Most academic readers will have heard of this fiasco. How is it affecting grades, finals, etc.? Is your administration expecting instructors to carry on as though nothing happened? You can post anonymously, but please include a valid university email address (which will not appear).
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Frequency of fabricated references (probably AI generated) in biomedical papers over a three-year period
From The Lancet: Among 97·1 million verified references [across 2.5 million papers], we identified 4046 fabricated references across 2810 papers (illustrative examples are shown in the appendix p 5–6). In 2023, approximately one in 2828 papers contained at least one fabricated reference. By 2025, this had risen to one in 458 and in the first 7…
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A philosopher takes on the “pedagogy experts”
Paul Schofield (Bates) makes the case against them at CHE. (Thanks to Brian Skyrms for the pointer.) UPDATE: Philosopher Benjamin Mitchell-Yellin writes: As both a tenured philosophy professor and director of a teaching and learning center, I read Paul Schofield’s recent CHE piece, “Why Pedagogy ‘Experts’ Are Wrong,” with great interest when I saw it…
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News and views about philosophy, the academic profession, academic freedom, intellectual culture, and other topics. The world’s most popular philosophy blog, since 2003.
Carlos Alberto Sánchez’s A Sense of Brutality: Philosophy after Narco-Culture (Amherst College Press, 2020) is a finalist for the 2026…
Georgy Maksimovich pointed me to this article in Russian: https://novayagazeta.ru/articles/2026/05/25/antisovetskie-filosofskie-kontratseptsii
David J. Gunkel «Person, Thing, Robot: A Moral and Legal Ontology for the 21st Century and Beyond» (MIT, 2023) Link:…
Giovanni Molteni Tagliabue (Italy) Rationalized and Extended Democracy – The REDemo Project. Foreword by Gilberto Corbellini. Firenze University Press 2023.…
Porphyry of Tyre on Theology and Theurgy (Harvard University Press & Center for the Study of World Religions, 2026) Permanently…
[…] Brian Leiter (Chicago), The American Bar Association Needs to Investigate Texas Tech Law School for Violating the First Amen…:…
Andrei Rodin is circulating a letter demanding the liberation of Svetlana Mesyats: https://philomatica.org/2026/05/open-letter-in-support-of-svetlana-messiats/. The prosecution has demanded a sentence of…