May 2018
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New Books in May
Authors and/or publishers kindly sent me these new books this month: Human Rights and the Care of the Self by Alexandre Lefebvre (Duke University Press, 2018). The History of Animals: A Philosophy by Oxana Timofeeva (Bloomsbury Academic, 2018). The Routledge Handbook of Consciousness edited by Rocco J. Gennaro (2018). Plato as Critical Theorist by Jonny…
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Professor Stock replies to Professor Bettcher
Kathleen Stock (Sussex) has written a reply to the piece by Talia Mae Bettcher (Cal State/Los Angeles) that we noted yesterday. I find it hard to believe that anyone not already in an epistemic bubble could read both pieces, and come away finding Professor Bettcher more persuasive. An excerpt from Professor Stock's reply below the…
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Petition against forcible transfer of Palestinians
Chaims Gans (Tel-Aviv) has called my attention to a petition prompted by a recent decision by the Israeli Supreme Court, which has given a green light to forcible transfer of Palestinian residents of the West Bank. Here is the petition: Download Legal petition – Forcible transfer is a war crime The petition organizers seek senior…
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Four philosophers elected to the American Philosophical Society
They are: Philip Kitcher (Columbia), Avishai Margalit (emeritus, Hebrew U), Susan Neiman (Einstein Forum), and T.M. Scanlon (emeritus, Harvard). Four philosophers is an unusually large number in a single year for APS.
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All commencement speeches should be this good
Funny, wickedly direct, even insightful at places; this is comedian Tim Minchin's address to graduates at the University of Western Australia in 2013 (it's the first 11 minutes, the remainder is his getting an honorary degree):
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The toxic on-line debate about trans women (UPDATED)
Here's a remarkable back and forth–remarkable for the hate, the lack of evidence, the irrationality of the exchange. I'm sorry I found it, but having now waded into some of this literature and on-line debates, I realize that contributions like those by Professors Stock, Coleman, and Jensen are the exception, not the norm. Another reason…
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Which schools stopped hiring 2011-2018?
An interesting chart from Sarah Lawsky (Northwestern), though it was misleading to treat t14 and t20 as separate categories here–resource-rich schools like Texas, UCLA, Vanderbilt and USC, which were in the t20 category, did fairly regular hiring during this period, just like the t14 category. But it's clear, and not surprising, that lower ranked schools, which…
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“Redneck Revolt”
American gun culture meets radical politics. UPDATE: A bit more about Redneck Revolt from philosopher James Klagge (Virginia Tech) in a review of a book about antifa.
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U of Southern California President will resign
IHE has details. The cover up for the sexually abusive gynecologist (i.e., not reporting him to state medical authorities) really was beyond belief–there's going to be a lot of legal settlements for the next President to sign off on, and rightly so.
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Videos from the June 2017 memorial for Derek Parfit…
…are now available here.
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Gender, Sex, Biology and Sports
This is a quite interesting and sensible commentary on the issue from legal scholar Dorianne Coleman (Duke); I'll post a somewhat lengthy excerpt, but do read the whole thing (and you can also look at a longer scholarly article by Professor Coleman on this topic): Last week, track and field’s world governing body limited entry…
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Your neoliberal future…
…right here now in Britain. I was not aware of the severity of these cuts–as one person in the linked article observes, Thatcher could only have "dreamed" of such cuts.
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The Kuhn archives at MIT
Philosopher of science Brad Wray (Aarhus) comments.
I respond to this report here https://jasonstanleyantifascist.substack.com/p/on-the-philosophical-muddle-that