January 2004
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Law School Tuitions: Up, Up and Away
The January 2004 issue of The National Jurist has some eye-popping data on law school tuition for 2003-04, and increases since last year. Berkeley, for example, raised its tuition for state residents 48%, while UCLA raised it 39%. The University of Arizona led the pack, with a 81.5% increase in tuition: Arizonans paid $5,844 last…
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Colin McGinn is not being nice…
…and Brian Weatherson has the details. But, for a British philosopher (of the post-Dummett generation no less), he is an exceptionally good writer.
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Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell them in the State of the Union Address
Point by point, these folks wipe the floor with last night’s nonsense.
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Whoops…
Fantasy: “As of this month, [Afghanistan] has a new constitution, guaranteeing free elections and full participation by women.” (President Bush’s State of the Union address.) Reality: Afghan authorities have reimposed a ban on women singing on state television just days after it was lifted. (Details here.)
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Ten Books of Philosophy That Will Never Be Written are…
here courtesy of Michael Sevel. Quite amusing. (I’m not sure Sevel has got my title right, though–I’d prefer to not write In Defense of Constructive Interpretivism or The Case for Intuitions in Philosophy or New Philosophical Arguments for Intelligent Design.) ADDENDUM: And Jerry Cohen is extremely unhaughty and unOxford! UPDATE: 5 more choice books of…
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The race for the Democratic nomination for President
I promise not to make a habit of commenting on the Democratic primary process in the U.S., but I can’t resist this morning a few observations about the outcome in Iowa. But first, a few prefatory words for the benefit of non-U.S. readers. Of the “major” contenders for the Democratic nomination, only one would be…
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When Are Nazi Comparisons Deplorable?
For Fox News, only when Republicans are the target. Details here. UPDATE: Yet more on the subject here. (Thanks to a first-year law student at the University of Nebraska for this link. He also remarked: “I wish more law professors would blog. I really need more insight into what you people are thinking.” Me too!)
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Big Loss for Duke Law: Van Alstyne to William & Mary
Long Duke’s most distinguished law faculty member, William van Alstyne has accepted an offer from the law school at the College of William & Mary, where his wife, Lan Cao, teaches. Van Alstyne, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and author of many seminal articles in constitutional law, is a serious…
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Supreme Court Humor
If you’re a law student, professor, or practitioner, you’ll likely get a good laugh out of Tom Smith’s send-up of Justice O’Connor (and adulatory law professors) here. For those not familiar with American law, Justice O’Connor is well-known (notorious?) for what might be generously described as her “fact-sensitive” approach to decision-making–which often leads her to…
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Southern California Making Bid for King and Soames
University of Southern California is making offers to Jeff King (philosophy of language) at the University of California at Davis and Scott Soames (philosophy of language) at Princeton University. (Texas has also made an offer to Soames.) If these offers are accepted–and with James Higginbotham already at USC–this would make Southern California one of the…
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Top Ten Reasons Bush Wants to go to Mars…
…are here courtesy of Jack Balkin (Yale Law). This is quite funny. But it omits what I’m sure Jack knows is the real (non-funny) reason: military dominance of space.
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The Epistemology of Political Commentary: Why the Left and Right Aren’t Equal
Cornell philosopher Benjamin Hellie writes: “[L]eft- and right-wing sources are not symmetrical….[T]he goal of the right wing is perpetuating and increasing injustice, whereas the goal of the left wing is increasing justice. “People do not like injustice. The knowledge that injustice is being done to others offends their sense of morality; the knowledge that injustice…
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New Prize of Interest to Young Philosophers of Mind
ASSOCIATION FOR THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF CONSCIOUSNESS (ASSC) The ASSC William James Prize for Contributions to the Study of Consciousness Each year one prize will be awarded for an outstanding published contribution to the empirical or philosophical study of consciousness by a graduate student or postdoctoral scholar/researcher within 5 years of receiving a PhD or…
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Who needs government censorship when…
…you’ve got the marketplace to do it for you. CBS won’t permit anti-Bush ads during the Superbowl. Details here. Maybe if the ads featured these babes.
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A Gem from Chun the Unavoidable
On Paul O’Neill: “Paul O’Neill is not a friend of the working man. Paul O’Neill is a plutocrat whose considerable vanity has been offended. Paul O’Neill has told us nothing about the Bush Administration that anyone paying any attention at all didn’t already know.”
I’m not sure whether an interactive, online logic textbook counts as an open-access philosophy book, but for those who might…