June 2005
-
Kant Scholar Allison Wins International Prize
The eminent Kant scholar Henry Allison at the University of California at Davis has been awarded the Internationalen Kant-Preis for 2005. Awarded every five years for work on Kant, the prize comes with a stipend of 20,000 Euros. Previous winners include P.F. Strawson and Dieter Henrich. (If anyone has a link to a site with…
-
Sartre at 100
Distinguished Sartre scholar Ronald Aronson (Wayne State) has a nice essay marking the 100th anniversary of Sartre’s birth; an excerpt: As he deepened his extravagant claims, Sartre embarked on a great adventure of the human spirit, aiming at solving one of our greatest perplexities: Do we make ourselves, or are we determined by conditions beyond…
-
Scalia to Atheists: “Drop dead!”
Jack Balkin (Law, Yale) comments.
-
Thus Spoke Nietzsche
Our highest insights must–and should–sound like stupidities and sometimes like crimes when they are heard without permission by those who are not predisposed and predestined for them…. What serves the higher type of men as nourishment or delectation must almost be poison for a very different and inferior type. The virtues of the common man…
-
Philosopher Miller from Macquarie to a Chair at Birmingham
Alex Miller (philosophy of language, metaphysics, epistemology, metaethics) at Macquarie University has accepted a Professorial appointment at the University of Birmingham in Britain (to start January 2006), where he taught roughly a decade ago. With the appointment of Professor Miller and Helen Beebee from Manchester, and junior appointments in the pipeline, Birmingham is well on…
-
“God’s Chosen Envoy for America”
Norman Mailer explains (very funny!).
-
95 Theses on the Religious Right
Philosopher Peter Ludlow (Michigan) writes: Here’s something you may not have known or suspected. When I grew up my family went to a conservative Christian church and I subsequently went to a Swedish Baptist college in Minnesota. I recently went back to my home town and was sickened by what became of the family church…
-
Nice mail
A reader from New York sends the following gratifying missive: A while back one of your postings was linked in Arts & Letters Daily. Little did I know then that I would find a bright, quick-witted and courageous blog, where I would spend Saturday mornings enjoying intellectual and political friendship. I turn especially to your…
-
Cowardice and Being Untenured: The Cases of Juan Non-Volokh and Brian Leiter
One of the likeable things about our pseudonymous, serial purveyor of "literary rascality" Juan Non-Volokh is that he admits he is a coward. Mr. Non-Volokh has decided that because he is concerned about getting tenure, he must remain anonymous while he smears and misreads those who own their words in the light of day. But,…
-
War Criminals Protect the Flag
This certainly cuts to the chase and is appropriately rude as well: The flag amendment which just passed the House by a huge margin, and which may pass in the Senate this time around and even become a part of the Constitution, was predictable. After all, the last refuge of a scoundrel is patriotism, and…
-
Friday Poem: “Best of Times”
Best of Times These being the best of times I speak to you as spoilsport Though the day is bright I bring you shadows and harbingers In prosperity’s face I flaunt tatters and castaways In our finest hour the sun grinning I recommend sorrow I recommend dreams more tormenting than insomnia I recommend…
-
New Philosophers’ Carnival is…
…here. (Note: there is nothing below the fold, but for some reason, I can’t convince Typepad of that!)
-
A Reverse Philosophy Brain Drain?
A philosopher from Britain writes: Just wondering whether we might be in a period of ‘reverse brain drain’….With Travis coming to Kings, the appointment at Essex you reported and Alan Carter, Luc Bovens and Eli Mason all leaving Colorado for the UK there could be a small trend here. What explains it? Horrible politics in…
-
Another Student-Edited Law Review Embarrasses Itself by Publishing an Error-Ridden Article Shilling for Intelligent Design Creationism
The sordid details are here; unlike the Harvard Law Review, however, this journal, Washington University Journal of Law & Policy, is not the flagship, student-edited journal at the school. Still, as biochemist Frank Schmidt (Missouri), who brought this to my attention, aptly remarked: I wonder about such student-edited journals. In my field, journaleditorship is almost…
-
David Horowitz’s Latest (Mis)Pronouncements
David Velleman (Philosophy, Michigan) has apt comments on David Horowitz’s latest distortions about his "campaign" to stamp out academic freedom.
There is a lot to reflect on here but, having already commented enough, I won’t. Just one thing on climate…