May 2014
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New Books in May
Publishers and/or authors kindly sent me these new books this month: Justice & Foreign Policy by Michael Blake (Oxford University Press, 2013). Unlearning with Hannah Arendt by Marie Luise Knott, trans. by D. Dollenmayer (Other Press, 2013). Attention by Wayne Wu (Routledge, 2014). Properties by Douglas Edwards (Polity, 2014). Aristotle's Empiricism: Experience and Mechanics in…
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Wittgenstein Nachlass…
…is coming on-line. (Thanks to Huw Price for the pointer.)
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The “Top Ten” Lateral Moves for 2013-14
Here they are, based on a scientific analysis (i.e., my best judgment) as to the significance of the hire for the hiring school and/or the loss for the losing school (the full list of moves are here); I've left out any moves connected to my school, Chicago: *Oren Bar-Gill (contracts, law & economics) from New…
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In Memoriam: Grigori Mints (1939-2014)
A leading figure in logic, he was, at the time of his death, a philosophy professor at Stanford University. Calgary's Richard Zach has more. I will add links to memorial notices as they appear.
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What is your opinion of contemporary theoretical (as opposed to “applied”) ethics?
Continuing with my series polling the readership, we turn now to theoretical ethics, broadly construed, but excluding bioethics, business ethics, environmental ethics, and the like. (I also want to exclude metaethics proper, i.e., work on the semantics and metaphysics of morality and value, but I realize that border can be fuzzy.) As before, the answers…
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Hilary Putnam has a blog
Here. Can Stanley Cavell be far behind?
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One of “the best 100” Blogs?
I get asked periodically about how it could be that a major British newspaper purportedly recommended (several years ago) as "one of the best 100 blogs" a rather bad philosophy-related blog by a former academic with a PhD in philosophy and a truckload of ressentiment against liberals, competent philosophers, leftists, atheists, successful scholars, and basically everything he is not. (I will refrain from mentioning the philosopher…
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Mark Oppenheimer, hack journalist with a PhD in American studies…
…is pissed that Maya Angelou was referred to as "Dr." No comment. UPDATE: Reader Raphael Magarik writes to point out that Dr. Oppenheimer's PhD is in "religious studies." Wissenschaften these days are not what they used to be. ADDENDUM: Reader Josh Blanchard points out that even Oppenheimer knows his PhD is a fraud; from his…
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NY Times wakes up and realizes Harvard isn’t the best university in the country…
..which has been true for awhile.
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Senior offers declined in the first half of 2014
We haven't run one of these since last fall, so here goes. These are senior offers declined over roughly the last six months: Ben Caplan (metaphysics, philosophy of language) at Ohio State University turned down an offer from the University of Bergen (Norway). Richard Samuels (philosophy of mind & cognitive science) at Ohio State University…
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More on Piketty and inequality…
…from The New Yorker's economics writer, John Cassidy, is usually well-informed. UPDATE: Piketty's reply to the criticisms in The Financial Times. It's pretty clear FT over-played its hand.
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The legal philosophy blog
Coming back to life!
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More attacks on the academic freedom of law professors: Gene Nichol at UNC-Chapel Hill
This one is far more ominous than the Laycock harassment noted the other day.



Georgy Maksimovich pointed me to this article in Russian: https://novayagazeta.ru/articles/2026/05/25/antisovetskie-filosofskie-kontratseptsii