March 2004
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For UT Law and Philosophy PhD Students…
…details of my fall seminar (cross-listed between Law and Philosophy) are finally available here. Let me know if you have questions.
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Parfit Accepts Part-Time Post at Rutgers
Oxford’s Derek Parfit, one of the world’s leading moral philosophers, has accepted a part-time appointment at Rutgers University at New Brunswick. On each visit, he will be at Rutgers for 7 weeks, starting in fall 2005, continuing in spring 2007, and then every other year after that. The initial period of the commitment is for…
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John Gardner in Austin…Light Posting the Next Few Days
John Gardner, the Professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford, is in Austin the next few days, which means there will be only light posting. Today, he’ll be talking to my “Jurisprudence” class about his essay “Legal Positivism: 5 1/2 Myths”; tomorrow, he’ll be presenting at the Constitutional and Legal Theory Colloqium his paper “Backwards and Forwards…
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“Worse than Watergate”
So says John Dean regarding the Bush White House in his new book; as this LA Times article comments: “Worse Than Watergate, the title of a new book by John Dean, Richard Nixon’s White House counsel, is a depressingly accurate measure of the chicanery of the Bush/Cheney cabal. According to Dean, who began his political…
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Ranking Insanity
If you want to see what happens to prospective law students when they think they’ve found the new U.S. News rankings, check this discussion site out. I think it’s credible these are the real rankings, by the way, but that’s not the point. What is scary is that, given the rather absurd ranking methodology–in which…
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Philosopher Harold Noonan from Birmingham to Nottingham
Harold Noonan (metaphysics, philosophical logic, philosophy of mind and language), a longtime member of the faculty at the University of Birmingham, has accepted appointment as Professor at Nottingham starting this fall. Birmingham, sadly, has suffered a number of losses in recent years, including the untimely death of Gregory McCulloch, and the losses of Rob Hopkins…
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Peacocke from NYU to Columbia
Christopher Peacocke (metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language and mind) at New York University has accepted an offer uptown, from Columbia University. That will certainly give a reputational boost to Columbia, though it is likely to be a wash for NYU given their other recent appointments (i.e., I would expect NYU, Princeton, and Rutgers to still…
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Upton Sinclair…
offers this memorable observation: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” (I came across this via Mickey Z, who was talking about Karl Kraus’s favorite journalist-he-never-met.)
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The Homosexual, Feminist, and Fundamentalist “Agendas” Exposed At Last!
Details here. (Thanks to Pharyngula for the pointer.)
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A Good Resource on Bush Administration Distortions about Iraq
Mark Steen, a graduate student in philosophy at Syracuse University, has kindly written with the following: “There is a searchable database at this government site of ‘237 specific misleading statements about the threat posed by Iraq made by President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld, Secretary Powell and NSA Rice in 125 separate public appearances.’…
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Two Tax Profs to Florida
Paul McDaniel, currently at Boston College (and formerly at NYU), has accepted a Chair at the University of Florida Levin College of Law. In addition, Diane Ring, currently an assistant professor of law at Harvard, has accepted a tenured offer from Florida. This solidifies Florida’s position as one of the top three graduate tax programs…
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Philosopher Brewer from Oxford to Warwick
Bill Brewer (philosophy of mind and action, metaphysics, epistemology), currently at Oxford University, has accepted a professorial chair at the University of Warwick. That marks another loss for Oxford, as discussed earlier.
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In Memoriam: Joel Feinberg
I have just received the following e-mail sent by Professor Chris Maloney, Head of Department at the University of Arizona: “I regret to inform you that Regents Professor of Philosophy and Law (Emeritus) Joel Feinberg died today, March 29, in Tucson following a long illness. “Professor Feinberg retired from the University of Arizona Philosophy Department…
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Political Philosopher Darby from Northwestern to Texas A&M
Derrick Darby (moral and political philosophy), currently an assistant professor at Northwestern University, has accepted a tenure-track appointment at Texas A&M University.
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Law School Rankings–Mine and Theirs
U.S. News will release this year’s ranking of law schools to the schools themselves on Thursday, followed by public release on Friday. There’s been no change in methodology, so, except for arbitrary fluctuations or particularly aggressive fibbing (or, shall we say, “creative” data reporting) by the schools, there really shouldn’t be any changes in the…
I respond to this report here https://jasonstanleyantifascist.substack.com/p/on-the-philosophical-muddle-that