November 2009
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Philosophy Audiobooks
Reader Ken Feinstein kindly calls my attention to Librivox.org which has many free audibooks for download, including major works of philosophy: Hume's Treatise (vol. 1), for example, as well as works by Plato, Mill, and Kant, among others. Of course, cruising down the highway listening to someone reading the First Critique could be a safety hazard…
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Annals of Scathing Book Reviews, Part 78
From a review of André Burguière's Annales School: An Intellectual History (translated by Jane Marie Todd) by Cambridge historian Richard J. Evans: Self-important, pompous, pretentious, solipsistic, often obscure, sometimes barely coherent, his book seems to address itself only to those in the know. The translation by Jane Marie Todd renders all these faults with exemplary…
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On “Continental” Philosophy
Some in the legal academy try to locate their work in what they call "the Continental tradition" as a way mainly of insulating themselves from philosophical scrutiny. Within academic philosophy, there are PhD philosophers who often do the same. That there is no Continental tradition in philosophy, and that those who talk as though there is one…
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Schools Cutting PhD Admissions Because of Budget Issues?
I've received some e-mail reports that some PhD programs are cutting back on PhD admissions becaues of the financial situation. Signed reports/links on this subject are welcome in the comments.
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Leiter & Rosen’s “Oxford Handbook of Continental Philosophy”
Now in paperback, just in time for the holidays! From Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews: In sum, this handbook is a remarkable achievement. On the one hand, the scope of the themes and authors is large enough to count as an excellent overview of the many facets of continental philosophy; on the other hand, the creative…
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Non-Gossipy, Non-Trashy Post, Whose Aim is Not to Embarrass Someone or Some Firm, Appears on “Above the Law” for Thanksgiving…
…and the commenters let loose with a torrent of racist abuse. Cyber-cesspool, indeed.
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Rosenberg on Naturalism “without illusions”
Here, and a number of philosophers reply. Alex's rejoinder will be forthcoming!
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The Most Cited Books in Post-WWII Anglophone Philosophy (UPDATED to correct for Popper omission)
According to Google Scholar (in parentheses: total number of on-line articles and books citing the book in question): 1. Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (37,197) 2. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (26,768) 3. Ronald Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously (7,892) 4. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (7,169) 5. Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations (6,516)…
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There is no bottom to dumb…
…especially not among Sarah Palin supporters.
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Climate Change
The right-wing crazies–in the U.S., this phrase is now mostly redundant, I realize–have been going beserk about hacked e-mails from climate scientists which they believe–since they are dumb as well as crazy–reveal a vast conspiracy to manipulate data on global warming. There is a clear explanation of what the hacked e-mails actually reveal here. UPDATE: …
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Obama Quotes Kant (UPDATE: Or did he?)
From his welcome remarks at the White House dinner for the Indian prime minister: As we all know, in India some of life's most treasured moments are often celebrated under the cover of a beautiful tent. It's a little like tonight. We have incredible food and music and are surrounded by great friends. For it's been…
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What to find out once you have a tenure-track job offer
This is written primarly with candidates for law teaching in mind, but a lot of the advice applies to philosophy job seekers as well, so it may be worth perusing.
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“Romano” Defined
A commenter on the piece by Carlin Romano we have been discussing posted the following definitions at the CHE site: ROMANO, verb. To criticize an academic discipline as if from within by making snide over-generalizations, baselessly questioning the good faith of the discipline's practitioners, etc.E.g., "In saying '[philosophy] departments teem with abstruse courses mainly of…
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“Why is Brian Leiter so mean to me?” asks Carlin Romano
OK, that isn't quite the title of this call for a "philosophy of journalism" from Carlin Romano, whose unhappy forays into philosophy we have noted before, but it is hard not to think this question doesn't lie behind Mr. Romano's latest musings, given that he's a reader of this blog: If you examine philosophy-department offerings around America,…
Georgy Maksimovich pointed me to this article in Russian: https://novayagazeta.ru/articles/2026/05/25/antisovetskie-filosofskie-kontratseptsii