October 2014
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New Books in October
Authors and/or publishers sent me the following new books this month: Xunzi: the Complete Text, trans. and with an introduction by Eric L. Hutton (Princeton University Press, 2014). Manipulation: Theory and Practice edited by Christian Coons & Michael Weber (Oxford University Press, 2014). Kierkegaard's Journals and Notebooks, Volume 7 (Journals NB15-NB20) edited by N.J. Cappelorn…
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MBE posts largest drop in scores in its history
What explains it? Too many ill-prepared students being admitted to law school? If that was the case with the just-graduated class, then we would expect further drops to come.
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“The war on teacher tenure”
The neoliberal assault (orchestrated by the idle rich) is currently on public school teachers, but they will get to university teachers before long, especially if successful in the first round of the assault. (Thanks to Robert McGarvey for the pointer.)
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“Religion is like a penis”
Thanks to Pierre Brunet for the pointer to this funny item.
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Congrats to the Philosophers’ Cocoon blog…
…which passed the 500,000 visitor mark last week.
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CUNY’s Iakovos Vasiliou interviewed…
…at 3AM. UPDATE: Prof. Vasiliou writes to point out that the photo accompanying the interview is not of him! I imagine this will get fixed, though perhaps not until Monday.
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New Leverhulme Prizes in the UK (UPDATED)
MOVING TO FRONT FROM OCT. 27–SEE UPDATE They aren't announced yet on-line, but Luc Bovens, Head of Department at LSE, writes about two colleagues who are among the winners: Anna Mahtani (London School of Economics) has been awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize. Her project is entitled “Subjective Probability and Intensional Contexts”. Jonathan Birch (London School…
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Videos of philosophers, psychologists, and theologians discussing different aspects of character…
…at Christian Miller's Character Project website. (Thanks to Prof. Miller for the pointer.)
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Berkeley Chancellor blocks attempt to cancel commencement address by comedian Bill Maher
IHE has the story. Mr. Maher's ability to speak freely, and reach a wide audience, would not in any way be hindered by not being honored as a commencement speaker at Berkeley. One can sympathize, though, with the Chancellor's attempt to put a stop to the endless "Generation Wuss" hair-trigger indignation and offense-taking about everything, without any…
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The downturn in applications to law schools appears to continue
Here. For those who are applying, it means you can likely get into a better school than you would have just three or four years ago, and you are more likely to get "merit aid" from more highly ranked schools than in the recent past.
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Thomas Jefferson Law School reaches restructuring agreement with majority of its bondholders
TJLS news release is here (via Blog Emperor Caron).
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A note to PGR evaluators
Brit forwarded to me variations on the following questions asked by a few evaluators, so I thought I would post the answers Brit has given (and which I've given in the past) to these questions: Can I skip faculties about which I don't know enough to evaluate? Yes Can I just complete the specialy evaluations,…
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Higher education funding “reform” comes to Australia
IHE has the details.
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Peter Ludlow sues undergraduate who made initial accusations for defamation
The Daily Northwestern has the details.
Andrei Rodin is circulating a letter demanding the liberation of Svetlana Mesyats: https://philomatica.org/2026/05/open-letter-in-support-of-svetlana-messiats/. The prosecution has demanded a sentence of…