December 2016
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Philosopher Taylor Carman’s twitter war on Trump
It's very funny.
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2016 in review, 3rd quarter: July, August, September
Here were some of the most poular posts for the third quarter of the year: Not assigning Professor Pogge's work because of evidence of his misconduct towards women? (July) Police killings in America: a somewhat different view (July) How should a history of sexual harassment/misconduct factor into hiring decisions? (July) Some interesting facts (July) How…
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Trump Psychological Disturbance watch: Adler weighs in…
…with the help of a mediary. (Thanks to Howard Berman for the pointer.)
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Islamic education textbook in Morocco describes philosophy as “perversion, blasphemy”
All worthwhile philosophy is, of course! (Another story about this, in French.) (Thanks to Evan Goodwin for the pointers.)
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Prisoners tell their stories…
…at The New Yorker. This series grew out of teaching that philosopher Jennifer Lackey (Northwestern) does at a maximum security prison near Chicago.
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Vera Rubin, astronomer
Here's a remarkable life. It is particularly tragic that the discoverer of "dark matter" should have, in the end, succumbed to a different kind of darkness, dementia.
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2016 in Review, 2nd quarter: April, May, June
Here are some of the most popular posts from the second quarter of 2016: Why aren't more philosophers writing about climate change? (April) Why do undergraduate women give up on philosophy? (April) On study of the humanities (April) Dickinson College has now terminated tenured philosophy professor Crispin Sartwell (April) McMahan's defense of "effective altruism" against…
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Amazon lists rant by right-wing ignoramus as top-selling work of “political philosophy”!
The legal philosopher Michael Sevel (Sydney) calls this to my attention, and gave me permission to share the letter he sent to Amazon (others should do the same): "Dear Amazon, I write in regards to a volume entitled Barbarians: How the Baby Boomers, Immigration, and Islam Screwed My Generation, by Lauren Southern, available on your…
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Federalism and Baby Jesus (with a nod to Trump)
Rick Hills (NYU) comments.
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Fake controversy du jour in right-wing crazy land: the Drexel professor who tweeted about “White Genocide” (hint: there have never been any)
This is a decent account, including about Drexel's stupid response. From the article (and kudos to these journalists for actually doing some reporting, and not just parroting on-line nonsense): "All I Want for Christmas is White Genocide," associate professor of politics and global studies George Ciccariello-Maher wrote on Christmas Eve. Not long thereafter, Ciccariello-Maher's…
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2016 in review, 1st quarter: January, February, March
Here were some of the most popular posts from the first quarter of the year: Most important Anglophone epistemologists since 1945 (January) More PhD programs whose existence is not easy to explain (January) Actually, no one has recommended closing programs "that better serve women and minorities in philosophy"… (January) How "professional" is Carolyn Dicey Jennings's data…
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Heidegger the Nazi, redux
His correspondence with his brother. The difficult question for those who take Heidegger seriously as a philosopher is whether, and how, the vulgar Catholic prejudices of his upbringing that led him down the road of Nazism and anti-Semitism can be disentangled from his philosophical views: his hostility to philosophy, towards reason, towards modernity, and so…
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Vienna, city of the century
A nice write-up in The Economist.
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Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Trump
A few useful tips here. One can be agnostic about whether it is a "disorder" or a "mental illness": the point is that it picks out a cluster of regular behaviors and attitudes.
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Law school enrollment trends over 40+ years
Useful charts here. JD enrollment has stabilized, though well below its peak; non-JD enrollment has spiked as law schools try to sustain financial viability for schools that grew to their present size during the years of peak demand for legal education.
There is a lot to reflect on here but, having already commented enough, I won’t. Just one thing on climate…