May 2009
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McMahan on the “Healthy” State of “Analytic” Philosophy
I was reading the Normative Ethics volume in the great "5 Questions" series from Automatic Press, and was struck by this passage from the conclusion of the interview with Jeff McMahan (Rutgers): I am highly optimistic about the prospects in normative ethics. It is evident to me that great progress has already been made since…
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The Woods from Indiana Back to Stanford
Allen Wood (Kant, 19th-Century Continental philosophy) and Rega Wood (medieval philosophy), who moved last year to Indiana University at Bloomington from Stanford University, will return to Stanford, though Rega will only be teaching at Stanford for the next two years. That's a set-back for Indiana, and a good break for Stanford.
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The Final Round: Who are the 20 “Most Important” Philosophers of All Time?
48 choices, drawn from the top vote getters in the previousl iterations of these polls. I'll let this poll run for a week. It will be interesting, obviously, to see how the moderns fare against the pre-moderns. Vote wisely!
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Who are the most important thinkers in American law of the past century?
This is a Condorcet version of our earlier first-past-the-post poll on this subject, but I've loosened up the criteria for inclusion, though have tried to confine it, among living scholars, to those 60 or older (with a couple of exceptions). Various "most cited" studies were consulted in constituting the list, but it also reflects my…
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The 20 “Most Important” Philosophers of the Pre-Modern Era
With 531 votes cast, here are the "top 20": 1. Plato (Condorcet winner: wins contests with all other choices) 2. Aristotle loses to Plato by 231–229 3. Socrates loses to Plato by 366–81, loses to Aristotle by 356–122 4. Aquinas loses to Plato by 447–37, loses to Socrates by 328–130 5. Augustine loses to Plato by 458–22, loses to Aquinas…
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Kaye from Arizona State to Penn State
David Kaye, a leading scholar in the evidence field and longtime faculty member at the Arizona State University College of Law, has accepted a senior offer from the Dickinson School of Law at Pennsylvania State University. That's a major pick up for Penn State!
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10% Budget Cut at Harvard Law School
Story here. That's quite a bit larger than what's going on here or other schools I've heard about.
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Why it would be wrong to be complacent about swine flu
Some useful reminders here. The two really big unknowns: what will happen with swine flu in the Southern Hemisphere's upcoming flu season, and will swine flu return (and in what form) when flu season starts in the Northern Hemisphere next fall?
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Publishing Philosophy While Outside the Academy; Getting Back Into Academia After Being Away
A reader writes: I am a Visiting Assistant Professor who is weighing returning to a temporary position versus exploring other, non-academic career options. I am still holding out, at least in the near term, for a permanent position, and I have been “close” to acquiring one in the past. However, I am also concerned that…
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Pippin Elected to American Philosophical Society
Robert Pippin (Kant, 19th- and 20th-century Continental Philosophy) at the University of Chicago was the only philosopher elected to the American Philosophical Society this year. Other scholars in cognate fields elected to the APS this year include Douglas Hofstadter (Indiana) and Anthony A. Long (Berkeley).
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Kusch from Cambridge HPS to Vienna
Martin Kutsch (philosophy of science, social epistemology, Wittgenstein, 20th-century German philosophy), Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at Cambridge University, will take up a chair in philosophy of science and epistemology at the University of Vienna beginning this summer.
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Prakash from San Diego to UVA
Sai Prakash (constitutional law) at the University of San Diego School of Law has accepted a senior offer from the law school at the University of Virginia. The UVA press release is here. A couple of years ago, USD was fortunate to retain Prakash in the face of an offer from Northwestern. This solidifies UVA's…
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St. Peter’s College, Oxford, September 2009
The place to be for philosophers interested in Nietzsche, and especially for philosophers of mind and action who have even a passing interest in Nietzsche. This promises to be an unusually philosophically ambitious Nietzsche conference.
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McConnell to Resign from Bench and Join Stanford Law Faculty
Michael McConnell, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit and a distinguished constitutional law scholar, will resign from the bench and join the full-time faculty at Stanford Law School. The Stanford news item is here. That is, indeed, a very significant appointment for Stanford, though Dean Kramer's hyperbole (in the…
Don’t click the transcript – it’s a mis-transcription that makes Harvey sound unhinged. The bit of it that’s visible without…