November 2004
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Muslims don’t hate U.S. freedoms, they hate U.S. policies
So says a new report from the Pentagon (have they been reading Noam Chomsky?); an excerpt: ‘Muslims do not hate our freedom, but rather they hate our policies [the report says]. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the long-standing,…
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Rumsfeld Sued for War Crimes
One down. I suppose Rummy will have to cancel future vacations to Berlin.
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Chomsky on the 2004 Election
There is quite a lot of interesting material in Chomsky’s analysis of the 2004 election in historical perspective; an excerpt: The post-1960s era has been marked by substantial growth of popular movements dedicated to greater justice and freedom, and unwillingness to tolerate the brutal aggression and violence that had previously been granted free rein. The…
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The Library of Congress Kluge Prize in “the Human Sciences”
Last year’s prize, the first one, to Leszek Kolakowski, was clearly politically motivated and a weak choice: whatever prestige the prize might have had was squandered. (For my comments on last year’s prize and some of the controversy they generated, see here and here). This year’s prize has been awarded to the historian Jaroslva Pelikan…
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Right-Wing Identity Politics
A good analysis by Carlos Villareal, Executive Director of the San Francisco chapter of the National Lawyers Guild (and a graduate of the University of Texas School of Law with whom I had the privilege of working).
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Saramago on Bush: “the biggest liar on the planet”
Article here; an excerpt: U.S. politics over the next four years will be rooted in patriotism and religion, an ‘explosive combination’ that will require Latin Americans to ‘arm themselves with strength, courage and bravery,’ according to Portuguese writer José Saramago, winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize for Literature. Saramago spoke to writers and journalists this…
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Advice to philosophy graduate students about publishing
A philosophy PhD student writes: I read with interest your post and the comments on which philosophy journals are and are not responsible about dealing with submissions. I am still rather early in my Ph.D. program, and the question of submission for publication is a new and daunting thought for me. I wonder if you…
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Becker-Posner Blog
The economist Gary Becker and the legal scholar and jurist Richard Posner will have their own blog here. Dick has assured me, however, that despite his official entrance in to the blogosphere, he will still be guest-blogging here the week beginning Monday, December 27. (He and Becker won’t be tackling jurisprudential topics, which will be…
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Philosophy Journals: Which Ones are Responsible, Which Ones Not?
A young philosopher in Australia writes: For relatively junior people, the really useful and hard-to-get information is…which journals are well-run. For instance, it’s useful to know things like: 1. Will they get back to you in a timely manner (within 3-4 months)? If not, how long will it take? (anecdotal evidence: 7 months at PhilRev,…
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The Epistemology Page
I was talking to a prospective student interested in epistemology recently who had not yet seen Keith DeRose’s excellent resource, The Epistemology Page. In addition to commentary on graduate programs, it contains a reasonably current bibliography of writings by epistemologists, and lots of useful links. Students, current and prospective, as well as faculty in epistemology…
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Black is White
George Will is joining the chorus of attack on the universities: Academics, such as the next secretary of state, still decorate Washington, but academia is less listened to than it was. It has marginalized itself, partly by political shrillness and silliness that have something to do with the parochialism produced by what George Orwell called…
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Bush and Prayer
We’ve heard recently from the nasty reactionaries who go to Columbia Law School, now let’s hear from the more cosmopolitan students at that distinguished institution; this from Erik Encarnacion, a philosophy major from Princeton now studying at CLS; he writes: I’ve been thinking more about this whole liberal hand-wringing about Bush. On every substantive issue…
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Why does the Dean of Stanford Law School Have Such a Low Opinion of Lawyers?
Ciceronian Review has a rather good point here. (And I suspect Dean Kramer will be grateful for Professor Tribe’s review once he sees that by my colleague Professor Powe!)
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Guernica Redux
Cutting piece by Saul Landau; an excerpt: On November 12, as US jets bombed Fallujah for the ninth straight day, a Redwood City California jury found Scott Peterson guilty of murdering his wife and unborn child. That macabre theme captured the headlines and dominated conversation throughout workplaces and homes. Indeed, Peterson "news" all but drowned…
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And another nice item from the mailbag
This Australian student no doubt speaks for many observers of the U.S. election from abroad: Dear Professor Leiter Hi. I am an Australian student (of philosophy, actually, and maths). As an Australian I have had to undergo not one but two depressing elections recently. There was the one in which I got to vote, though…
Giovanni Molteni Tagliabue (Italy) Rationalized and Extended Democracy – The REDemo Project. Foreword by Gilberto Corbellini. Firenze University Press 2023.…