February 2018
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New Books in February
Authors and/or publishers kindly sent me these new books this month: Things That Bother Me: Death, Freedom, the Self, etc. by Galen Strawson (New York Review Books, 2018). Isaac Newton and Natural Philosophy by Niccolo Guicciardini (Reaktion Books, 2018) A Philosophy of Dirt by Olli Lagerspetz (Reaktion Books, 2018). The Province of Jurisprudence Naturalized edited…
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On living with anxiety
This is a nicely written essay by philosopher Samir Chopra (Brooklyn College).
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Wealthy helicopter parents and public universities
Meet the future.
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Blast from the past: Best Anglophone philosophers of language since 1945
From a poll over two years ago.
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Private law school tuition discounting
Blog Emperor Caron has the details.
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‘Steven Pinker’s embarrassing new book is a feeble sermon for rattled liberals’
That's the title of John Gray's amusing takedown of the latest panglossian blather from Pinker; an excerpt: [For Pinker] you don’t need to bother about what the Enlightenment was actually like. By any standards, David Hume was one of the greatest Enlightenment thinkers. It was the sceptical Scottish philosopher who stirred Immanuel Kant – whose…
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Attention U of Chicago tenure-track faculty: here’s who to contact to voice support for non-tenure-track colleagues
A propos the letter in support of non-tenure-track faculty in their collective bargaining with the university, the bargaining team has supplied the following useful contact information of, [Y]our tenured colleagues on the administration bargaining committee in case you wanted to express serious concern about their current direction, and urge them instead to settle a fair…
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U Chicago tenure-track faculty only: please sign the letter…
(MOVING TO FRONT FROM FEBRUARY 22) …in support of our non-tenure-track colleagues who are trying to negotiate decent terms of employment. (More background here.)
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“The Young Karl Marx”: the trailer
It's finally getting released in the U.S., it appears; I saw it on a Lufthansa flight a year or so ago, and highly recommend it:
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European Horizons Midwest Regional Conference
This is a bit out of the ordinary for around here, but perhaps this event (organized by a student here I know well) will be of interest to some readers (undergraduate or graduate students): The European Horizons Midwest Regional Conference (MRC) application is now live and open to all undergraduate and graduate students! This is…
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New PGR for 2017-18 should be out next week
That's the jist of a short note I got from Professor Pynes, after he finally heard back from Wiley-Blackwell. Apparently the redesign of the site has delayed things, but it looks like it should be live some time next week (i.e., during the week of March 5).
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What has the Internet done to our profession?
Philosopher Alex Rosenberg (Duke) writes: Did you see that someone lifted a line from the “what it's like” interview and made it a target for the disgruntled on Daily Nous? What has the internet done to our profession, academe generally and the culture…besides electing Donald Trump? We've seen this before: the internet has certainly facilitated…
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“This is an appalling country”
It really is, and Robert Paul Wolff, as usual, sums up exactly why.
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Outgoing Hypatia Board offers “thanks” to the Associate Editors who destroyed the journal’s reputation in the Tuvel affair
Even more alarmingly, the new incoming Board includes one of the Associate Editors (Linda Alcoff) who led (and even defended after widespread condemnation) the defamation of Rebecca Tuvel, another (Talia Mae Bettcher) who signed the defamatory letter about Tuvel, and a third (Nancy Tuana) who was was involved in the "Climate for Women" scandal back in…
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Lawrence Krauss, poster boy for physicists who don’t know what they don’t know, has another problem
This one is more serious. (Earlier coverage of Prof. Krauss.) (Thanks to Ruchira Paul for the pointer.)
Apropos of Sagar’s wish to foist the A.I. industry by its own petard, this article appeared in print in yesterday’s…