March 2015
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Blast from the past: the Derrida Industry
Way back in 2004.
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Graduate student/TA strike at U of Toronto (MOVING TO FRONT FROM YESTERDAY)
This has been going on about a month, I've only recently caught up on it. This is a good place to start. (Thanks to Benj Hellie for the pointer.) ADDENDUM: Grad students at York University, Toronto are also striking.. UPDATE: Several readers sent the news that the strike is over, with an agreement to binding…
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If you’re thinking about law school…
…you've no doubt come across the legions of law school bashers in cyberspace, most rather badly informed and not too sharp. (I used to engage this "law school is a scam" crowd, for which my reward was mountains of vile and often defamatory abuse and campaigns of character assassination–they're a charming crowd.) There are real issues about legal education…
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Indiana Governor trying to boost sales of my book…
…by showing the wickedness that religious exemptions require.
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The Absence of Evidence for Structural Change: Recent Entry Level Outcomes (Michael Simkovic)
Some have claimed that deteriorating outcomes for recent law school graduates are a sign of permanent structural change in the legal industry and that these changes are reducing the value of legal education. There are two important problems with this claim. First, the same changes are taking place across the labor market, and are not…
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The Problem of Short-Termism (Michael Simkovic)
Law schools and prospective law students may be paying more attention to employment outcomes shortly after graduation than this short-term data deserves. One potential use of the aggregate data about entry level employment and salaries is to assess whether now is a good or bad time to apply to law school. But fluctuations in employment…
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Is philosophy in the doldrums? The poll results and a discussion
MOVING TO FRONT FROM MARCH 24–see esp. comment #25 by Paul Weithman (Notre Dame). More discussion welcome. So with not quite 1400 votes cast in our poll prompted by Frankfurt's comments, here are the results: Is philosophy in the doldrums? Yes 48%661 No 36%495 Undecided 16%228 Discuss. In particular, those who voted…
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Battles over funding, tenure in U of Wisconsin system heats up…
…with the head of the system pledging to resign if the Republican assault on the system makes it through the legislature. Folks in Wisconsin, any more details, insights in to what's going on?
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The expanding “circle of moral concern”
Entertaining essay, though for reasons discussed here (esp. at pp. 525 ff.), I doubt the circle will expand in quite the way they imagine.
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Legal media cover the USNews.com rankings
Indiana Lawyer edition.
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On teaching philosophy in prison
Christia Mercer (Columbia) writes about her experience.
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Blast from the past: Graham Harman makes things up
Here. ADDENDUM: A reader sends along this sophomoric prattle; The Monist must have fallen on hard times to be publishing material like this. The abstract alone will probably be enough for most readers, but do press on, it gives one real insight into the nether regions of the 'profession' where no actual intellectual standards prevail. Imagine, an entire…
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“The Left and Appropriate Concern”
I received the following e-mail last week: I'm sending this email anonymously since, nowadays, being linked to even the mild views that I wish to get your opinion on is grounds for being tossed in the dustbin of "bigotry." I've seen professional philosophers hint that they have these views, the ones I'm about to express,…
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Racist hate speech directed at Palestinians by Conn. College philosophy professor Andrew Pessin… (MOVING TO FRONT FROM YESTERDAY, UPDATED)
…generates outrage on campus, but no national media attention, for obvious reasons. From the linked story: Professor Pessin compared Gazan Palestinians to “rabid pit bulls” who need to be caged. He described the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as a cycle of letting the “snarling dogs” out of their “cage” and then beating them back into it. One…
Georgy Maksimovich pointed me to this article in Russian: https://novayagazeta.ru/articles/2026/05/25/antisovetskie-filosofskie-kontratseptsii