September 2016
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New books in September
Authors and/or publishers kindly sent me these new books this month: American Prophets: Seven Religious Radicals & Their Struggle for Social and Political Justice by Albert J. Raboteau (Princeton University Press, 2016). Normative Subjects: Self and Collectivity in Morality and Law by Meir Dan-Cohen (Oxford University Press, 2016). Fugitive Democracy and Other Essays by Sheldon…
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USA Today Repudiates Trump
This may be significant, since USA Today, America's news-lite national paper, has never before endorsed or dis-endorsed any candidate for the Presidency. That, together with their ordinary right-leaning "even-handedness," gives them credibility with an ill-informed segment of the electorate who might have entertained voting for Trump. Trump is clearly "unfit" for the Presidency; he's "unfit"…
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A reaction to the recent keynote speaker controversies
A philosopher elsewhere writes with an amusing reaction to this week's melodrama: This shit makes me want to retire. I already don't "go out" in the philosophy blog-o-sewer, and maybe I'll stop going to conferences too. Many of these people are not able enough to both do good philosophy and engage constantly in sanctimonious, and…
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Best PhD Programs for Metaethics for 2016-17 (CORRECTED)
Following up on this post, and once again taking account of faculty changes since the fall 2014 PGR, here's an attempted update of the top (3.5 or higher) programs for metaethics for 2016-17, again by rough "clusters" of peer programs: Group 1 (1-3) Princeton University University of Michigan, Ann Arbor University of Southern California Group 2…
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Shafer-Landau from North Carolina back to Wisconsin
Russ Shafer-Landau (ethics, metaethics), who moved from the University of Wisconsin at Madison to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2015, will be returning to Wisconsin beginning in 2017-18. Since this is significant for the metaethics specialty ranking (esp. for Wisconsin, Chapel Hill has other prominent figures in that area), I will…
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There are about 10,000 philosophy professors in the U.S….
…and three are going public that they plan to vote for Dopey Donald Chump! (Thanks to reader David Gordon who called this to my attention.) Obviously, it is embarrassing that educated people would vote for Trump, but it isn't that hard to explain. Dan Bonevac and Rob Koons–my former colleagues at Texas (with whom I…
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Assistant Prof. of S. Asian Studies at Berkeley sues three sexual harassment complainants for defamation
Story here. Is it possible that two graduate students and one undergraduate conspired to make false allegations against Prof. Wentworth? Yes. Is it likely? No, not at all. So this seems to me an effort to intimidate the complainants, but in any case, if it moves forward, it will put the matter into the hands of real courts,…
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Why Berkeley’s handling of the sexual harassment case of former Dean Sujit Chouhdry violates central norms of due process
I touched on this case briefly in my CHE piece, but this discussion by NYU law professor Rick Hills is thorough and well-informed. I should note that, unlike Prof. Hills, I am not Prof. Chouhdry's friend, and I'm not sure I've ever even met him. But due process matters, for all the reasons Prof. Hills articulates…
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More on the Midwest SCP conference and Prof. Swinburne’s talk…
…from the local organizer, philosopher Brandon Schmidly (Evangel U). (My earlier post is here, to which Prof. Schmidly briefly alludes.)
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More on the philosopher Paul Weiss
Philosopher Tom Carson (Loyola/Chicago) writes: Your readers might be interested in this anecdote about Paul Weiss. I have a close male friend going back to high school whose mother I knew quite well; she was my friend for many years. She was an English Professor who had a great interest in philosophy. She was very…
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The NY Times reviews a new biography of Hitler…
…but the review's actual subject is Donald Trump, though the latter's name is never mentioned. Coming soon: a NYT opinion piece on whether assassinating Hitler in 1932 would have been justified.
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What is it like to be a philosopher? David Chalmers edition
Here. Quite an entertaining and interesting read!
Giovanni Molteni Tagliabue (Italy) Rationalized and Extended Democracy – The REDemo Project. Foreword by Gilberto Corbellini. Firenze University Press 2023.…