Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

News and views about philosophy, the academic profession, academic freedom, intellectual culture, and other topics. The world’s most popular philosophy blog, since 2003.

  1. Pangrammer's avatar

    This whole comment is actually a nice bit of philosophy on which to test its own claims. I ran this…

  2. Frank Saunders Jr.'s avatar
  3. Mark's avatar

    I just want to address this comment: > What initially presents itself as impressive intelligence can, upon closer inspection by…

  4. sahpa's avatar

    Hi Dan, Actually, no, that the engine is next-token prediction does not entail that “there is only so much recycling,…

  5. Mark's avatar

    I’m a mathematician who works on AI research, though not specifically on training LLMs. Basically, we really don’t know what’s…

  6. Luis Marxuach's avatar

    My experience with LLMs as a layperson/non-philosopher is that the aforesaid are excellent as spell checkers and translators (and, at…

  7. 永江　守's avatar

    I think we need to separate several different issues here: the future of the university, the future of education, the…

April 2006

  • Jane Jacobs

    Cass Sunstein has a nice, short item about why her work is interesting for lawyers.

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  • Belgians and Cats, Last (Edmundson)

    Deep ecology meets unflinching consequentialism in the thinking of Pentti Linkola, the Finnish fisherman/philosopher.  Linkola has been little noticed in North America, despite a provocative front-page 1994 profile in the Wall Street Journal.  Gradually, his writings are appearing on the web in English translation.  Maybe Linkola’s "lifeboat" example is the trolley of tomorrow.  Let’s hope–but…

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  • An International Law Prof Abandons “Conservative” Duke and the U.S. (Leiter)

    Fascinating story here.

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  • A Former Duke Law Prof on Why He Gave Up his Green Card

    Michael Byers, an expert in international law, holder of a Canada Research Chair at the University of British Columbia, and previously a law professor at Duke, wrote the following interesting opinion piece in a Toronto newspaper: ”This is the first time I’ve met someone who wanted to do that.“ The U.S. immigration officer’s southern drawl,…

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  • Villanova’s Anderson to be New CUNY Dean

    Michelle Anderson (criminal law, family law, feminist legal theory) at Villanova Law School will be the new Dean of the City University of New York School of Law, located at Queens College.  The CUNY press release is here.

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  • Retired Army Colonel Denounces Bush for Putting Nation on “Radical Road to Ruin” (Leiter)

    Here; an excerpt: In January 2001, with the inauguration of George W. Bush as president, America set on a path to…become a revolutionary nation, a radical republic. If our country continues on this path, it will cease to be great – as happened to all great powers before it, without exception. From the Kyoto accords…

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  • A Student from Brazil Writes…(Leiter)

    …the following: I have good  reason to believe that even for American students choosing a philosophy department to apply to used to be much harder before the Philosophical Gourmet Report was established. It is  scarcely necessary to say how much more difficult that would have been for foreign students coming from contries, such as my…

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  • International Endowment for Democracy (Leiter)

    A worthy cause, notwithstanding the obstacles to democracy in the United States. (Thanks to Brian Berkey for the pointer.)

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  • Historian Juan Cole (Michigan) Responds to Libel by WSJ Hack John Fund (Leiter)

    Here.  The fabricated quote Fund attributes to Cole is probably libelous, but the tricky issue with defamation in the U.S. (except in the case of per se libel, which this is not) is always proof of damage.  (Lots of material that is defamatory in intent–there are reams of it on the Internet about Cole, Noam…

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  • USC Dean Search

    The finalists for the Deanship at the University of Southern California, I have heard from a colleague in Los Angeles, are:  Alexander Capron (USC), Jody Kraus (Virginia), Carrie Menkel-Meadow (Georgetown), and David Wippman (Cornell).  Kraus and Wippman are also finalists here at Texas.

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  • From the Annals of Bad Behavior by Deans (Leiter)

    Philosophers may find this amusing.

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  • Columbia Student Paper Article on Law School Faculty Losses

    This is an odd piece, and I wonder about its accuracy (and not only because it’s obviously silly to describe Ronald Dworkin as "the world’s foremost legal philosopher"). UPDATE:  A reader writes, "Who is the world’s foremost legal philosopher then?"  I would think the uncontroversial answer is Joseph Raz, though, for obvious reasons, Dworkin has…

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  • I would love to be wrong! (Leiter)

    But when I read stuff like this, I worry that I might have been right after all (here too) back in the fall of 2004.  (I still hope to be profoundly wrong!)  An excerpt from a particularly pernicious opinion piece in the "liberal" New York Times: THE American public needs to be prepared for what…

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  • Baylor Law Dean Closes Law Library for Son’s Prom Dinner, Disrupting Students Preparing for Finals

    Wow!

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  • New Philosophy Fellows of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (Leiter)

    The following philosophers have been elected as Fellows of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences:  Kit Fine (New York University); Anil Gupta (University of Pittsburgh); Richard Kraut (Northwestern University); and Nicholas Wolterstorff (Emeritus, Yale University).  (This material will be on the AAAS website on Monday, though an e-mail announcing the elections was sent to…

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