November 2017
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Primus on Calabresi’s proposal for a naked partisan power grab on the federal courts
Some readers have probably heard about the proposal by Steven Calabresi, a very conservative law professor at Northwestern who was a founder of the Federalist Society, to expand the federal circuit courts precisely so that a Republican President and Senate can fill the vacancies. Do read the critical discussion of the proposal by Richard Primus…
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Sometimes it’s not so good when your former students become well-known
One of the University of Chicago's best-known alums, alas, is Richard Spencer, the poster-boy for aggrieved, mediocre white people; from The Atlantic: Spencer graduated from UVA in 2001, then proceeded to the University of Chicago for a master’s degree in humanities. He said he studied there with the philosopher Robert Pippin, who “influenced me a…
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PGR Survey Update & Extension
Brit and I want to thank all those who have already completed the survey. More people than you realize appreciate the time and effort you put into this work. Many people have emailed asking about extending the survey time given personal commitments over the Thanksgiving holiday. I was also traveling during the last week and…
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Psychology catches up with Nietzsche, part 242: consciousness is superficial to the mind’s activities
Here; an excerpt: Most experts think that consciousness can be divided into two parts: the experience of consciousness (or personal awareness), and the contents of consciousness, which include things such as thoughts, beliefs, sensations, perceptions, intentions, memories and emotions. It’s easy to assume that these contents of consciousness are somehow chosen, caused or controlled by our…
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Heaven and Hell for philosophers
Via Søren Brogaard (the philosopher Berit's brother) comes this amusing item: A philosopher is waiting in line at the gate to Heaven, so Saint Peter can tell her whether she will go to Heaven or Hell. The wait is 3 hours long. So, she gets frustrated and goes to the front of the line and…
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The assault on tenure and academic freedom at the University of Arkansas
If the proposed rules are adopted, there will be nothing left of academic freedom in that university system.
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For those readers enjoying the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S., some movie entertainment
The 1954 film, "Salt of the Earth," written and directed by a mostly blacklisted crew, using mostly actual mine workers and their families as actors, and both pro-labor and pro-feminist in its content. Naturally, it wasn't shown in the US at the time! It's a humane and nicely done movie.
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On the “half-educated tech elite”
This is apt: Now mathematics, engineering and computer science are wonderful disciplines – intellectually demanding and fulfilling. And they are economically vital for any advanced society. But mastering them teaches students very little about society or history – or indeed about human nature. As a consequence, the new masters of our universe are people who…
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A reminder for PGR evaluators
According to Professors Brogaard and Pynes, the surveys are set to end this Sunday, November 26. So American evaluators can use their Thanksgiving break to turn in their scores, and all others: take note and get to work! As noted, I did mine already. I found the new suvey format really focussed one's attention on…
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Sorabji on Gandhi the philosopher
Interesting essay. (Thanks to Ruchira Paul for the pointer.)
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A free and different logic textbook…
…from philosopher Adam Morton.
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Wisconsin/Madison Chancellor’s letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan
Here. Its correct to put the tax-exempt status of tuition waivers front-and-center, but I wonder whether it's good strategy to add so many other objections. It is ironic that convention dictates the letter be addressed to the "honorable" Paul Ryan. Honor is cheaply had these days.
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Langdell, formalism, and realism at Harvard
Here's a video of the session from a couple of weeks ago as part of the HLS bicentennial. Opening remarks about Langdell are by John Goldberg (Harvard), who is followed by Catherine Wells (Boston College), me, Anthony Sebok (Cardozo), and Henry Smith (Harvard). For those interested, my remarks on "Langdell, Wissenschaft, Realism" begin at 19:20. I found…
To be worth using, a detector needs not only (A) not get very many false positives, but also (B) get…