November 2013
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There is no reason to believe in miracles
I know almost everyone reading knows that, but philosopher Larry Shapiro (Wisconsin) sets out the reasons clearly.
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What an “Ad Hominem” Argument Is and Isn’t
MOVING TO FRONT FROM AUGUST 25, 2011 (NO PARTICULAR REASON, EXCEPT CONFUSIONS ABOUT 'AD HOMINEM' STILL ABOUND IN CYERSPACE, AND THIS POST WAS POPULAR AT THE TIME) We take a break from our regularly scheduled programming for a brief detour into a subject that is occasionally addressed in the philosophy blogosphere, and is standard fare…
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Trends in LSAT-taker, applications to law schools, and enrollments over 45 years
This is illuminating. Of crucial significance about the recent drop (on all three fronts) is that there are more ABA-approved law schools now than there were just a dozen years ago. UPDATE: Here's a list of ABA-approved law schools by year of approval–we've seen an increase of roughly 10% in the total number of law…
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Philosopher Ted Sider listed among “ten top” teachers at Cornell
Here. Congrats to Ted! (Thanks to Lee Elkin for the pointer.)
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Humanities are alive and well at Davidson College
Having just come back from a very enjoyable day-and-a-half at Davidson College (which has a beautiful campus, by the way, about a half-hour from Charlotte, North Carolina), I was particularly struck by how many students turned out for a talk on Nietzsche on a Tuesday evening (and how many asked questions, and good questions), and also by…
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Judge Posner is 9th most influential scholar of all time…
…once citation rates are normalized across disciplines. Marx is #1. ADDENDUM: And Chicago is the only law school in the world to have two faculty in the "top 100" for philosophy! (You have to enter "philosophy" in the area space to see the results. Nussbaum clocks in at 26th, yours truly at 76th [how I…
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“the secret wet dream…
…of the rotting corpse of the Republican Party." Indeed!
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Nagel on Greene on Moral Tribes
Philosopher and neuroscientist Joshua Greene has a new book out called Moral Tribes. Thomas Nagel has written a review for New Republic entitled, "You Can't Learn about Morality from Brain Scans:The Problem with Moral Psychology." The book just came out, so I have yet to read it (so I can't speak to that part of the…
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Nietzsche, and Nietzsche scholarship, makes “The Onion”!
Here. (Thanks to Justin Coates for the pointer.)
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Speaking of the law of religious liberty…
…I was pleasantly surprised to have my work noted by an Elder of the Mormon Church. I'm glad we share "half a loaf" as he puts it!
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Philosophical Exchanges: A Plea for Suggestions
I have considered creating a new open access, on-line journal for several years now, but it was only recently that I started converting the idea into action. Peter Ludlow’s compelling piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education on open access and the Aaron Swartz tragedy finally provided me with the extra motivation needed to try…
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300K+ Grant for a project on “Eastern and Western Conceptions of Oneness, Virtue and Human Happiness”…
…at the City University of Hong Kong, under the direction of P.J. Ivanhoe. (Thanks to Justin Tiwald for the pointer.)
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Stanford Law School’s new, and somewhat curious, “Religious Liberty” Clinic
I'm a bit late to this, but I just came across the New York Times story here. As Douglas Laycock (Virginia) notes, it's not really a religious liberty clinic, it's a "free exercise" clinic–indeed, more precisely, it's a clinic devoted to helping religious believers gain exemptions from laws that apply to the rest of us, both…
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Davidson College will find out that “The Truth is Terrible”
Later today! (The paper is here.)
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Papineau, C. Wilson to take up half-time appointments at CUNY for at least five years
David Papineau (philosophy of science and mind) at King's College London and Catherine Wilson (history of modern philosophy, ethics) at the University of York have accepted appointments at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where they will teach for one semester each for the next five years. Professor Wilson will begin in Fall 2014,…
If knowledge is sociologically conditioned, then what, exactly, happens to the truth-status of the sociology of knowledge itself? This is…