December 2004
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Antony Flew’s “conversion”
MOVING TO THE FRONT from 12/15/04: The plot thickens…read on! ========================= Many people by now have e-mailed me links to the various stories about the embrace of belief in God by English philosopher and longtime atheist Antony Flew, who is now in his early 80s. Here is one interview in which Flew explains his change…
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Notre Dame Philosophy on the Move!
Notre Dame already has tenured offers outstanding to Hans Halvorson (philosophy of physics) at Princeton and Michael Potter (philosophy of math, logic, history of analytic philosophy) at Cambridge; now comes word that they have made a senior offer to Keith DeRose (epistemology, philosophy of language, early modern, philosophy of religion) at Yale, who may also…
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The Pennsylvania Taliban are being hauled in to court…
…for inserting intelligent design creationism in to the school curriculum in Dover. An excerpt from the ACLU’s press release: The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and attorneys with Pepper Hamilton LLP filed a federal lawsuit today on behalf of 11 parents who say that presenting "intelligent…
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Dean of Massachussetts Law School Excoriates Harvard Law School on Plagiarism, Torture
Here. Wow! (Thanks to Anthony D’Amato for the pointer.) UPDATE: Most memorable line: [W]hile I have always been in favor of diversity of viewpoints on a faculty, and our own faculty ranges from very liberal to quite conservative — although we see no need to hire the right wing kooks who seem to be taking…
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Some Good News for the Financially Beleagured Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Brian Weatherson (Philosophy, Cornell) has the details. (I got this e-mail too, but deleted it unfortunately. Weatherson has posted the text.)
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More Paranoid Fantasies on the Right…or Why Christopher Hitchens Needs to Drink Less
I gather Hitchens–the former leftist who discovered there was more fame and money to be had pandering to the American right–is a drunk, and perhaps that explains everything. But his paranoid ranting is getting more unhinged from reality as times goes on, so it may be time to think about a ten-step plan. In any…
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Philosophers Publishing Their Friends
MOVING TO THE FRONT (from December 8): the discussion has continued, and there is much interesting debate (and even a few fireworks) with contributions from Keith DeRose, Ken Taylor, Ralph Wedgwood, Gilbert Harman, John Hawthorne, and others. Most memorable comment, from Tom Hurka at Toronto: Let’s see. Like Keith DeRose I’m getting e-mails from people…
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San Diego Law Dean Rodriguez to Resign Effective June 30, 2005
Dan Rodriguez–who left Boalt to become Dean of the University of San Diego School of Law in 1999–will resign at the end of this academic year. There can be little doubt that Rodriguez’s tenure transformed San Diego, making it a genuine national contender in the market for faculty talent and establishing the school, along with…
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“‘God is with us’: Hitler’s Rhetoric and the Lure of ‘Moral Values’”
A propos Justice Scalia’s revisionist history of the Holocaust, reader Kelvin Kean in Pennsylvania calls my attention to this striking essay: Hitler’s own speeches and writings prove, at the very least, that he presented many of the same faith-based arguments heard in America today. Religion in the schools? Hitler was for it. Intellectuals who practiced…
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Don’t Monkey Around with Bush!
At least not in New York: A portrait of President George W. Bush using monkeys to form his image has led to the closure of a New York art exhibition over the weekend and anguished protests over freedom of expression. "Bush Monkeys," a small acrylic on canvas by Chris Savido, created the stir at the…
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The Privatization-of-Social-Security Scam
It continues apace, promising misery and hardship for tens of millions of Americans in the years ahead; economist Dean Baker has some pertinent analysis: [T]he Bush plan would require a large reduction in the benefits provided by the existing system. A worker who is 20 today would see a cut of approximately one-third in his…
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Philosophy Graduate School and the Teaching Jobs Really Out There
Reader B.J. Robidoux writes: I read your article about landing a faculty philosophy job, and this is what struck me as strange, not being in either philosophy or academia. You say that the research universities produce metaphysicians who aren’t prepared to teach undergraduate survey courses, etc. My question is, why does the profession marginalize the…
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Notre Dame Making Bid for Philosopher Potter
The University of Notre Dame is making a tenured offer to Michael Potter (philosophy of math, logic, history of analytic philosophy) at Cambridge University.
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Another Fake Religious Right Sob Story
Guess what? It turns out that the current favorite poster boy of the right-wing liars–the California teacher who was purportedly barred from distributing the Declaration of Independence to his students–was, in fact, a religious zealot engaged in systematic proseltyzing of his students. In a civilized country, he’d be fired for his professional derelictions, not just…
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“Top Legal Thinkers”
Various folks have called to my attention the Legal Affairs on-line poll whose aim is to identify the "top 20 legal thinkers" in America. The list of candidates is–to put the matter gently–absurd, not because there aren’t substantial "legal thinkers" on the list (there are some), but because there are far too many on the…
I suspect we differ on big picture questions about how correlated various different mental abilities are. I think a reasonable…