June 2018
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Tracey Ullman’s “Woke Support Group”
This is very funny because the characters are all too recognizable in current philosophy cyberspace ("problematic").
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On the importance of doing nothing
Philosopher Brian O'Connor (University College Dublin) comments.
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Speaking of posturing, preening wankers…
…one of these is being serious the other is offering a parody, but which is really which? You decide. (I thank a reader who asked for anonymity for being the source of these links; somehow I had missed this delicious display.)
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Middle Tennessee State University enters negotiations to acquire Valparaiso’s law school
An announcement from MTSU here. MTSU is located in the Nashville metropolitan area, and is the second biggest public university campus in the state.
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Carnegie-Mellon’s Clark Glymour interviewed…
…at 3AM. Funny and opinionated, as we've come to expect. An excerpt: Compare Plato and Aristotle, superficially. Plato made no effective contributions to how to acquire true belief. Plato had analyses and counterexamples (The Meno) and a huge metaphysical discourse; we still don’t know necessary and [sufficient] conditions for virtue, the subject of the Meno.…
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The continuing University subsidy of the U of Minnesota Law School
This story is certainly indicative of the depths of the decline in law school applicants especially in the Midwest. That the flagship law school, long one of the top twenty in the United States, should still be facing these difficulties is sobering. And, of course, since USNews.com runs American legal education, the school faces a…
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‘Nietzsche: The Truth is Terrible’
Everything you need to know in just 2,500 words at the Times Literary Supplement. (This is not behind a paywall.)
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$1.8 million grant to study and support minority entrepeneurship…
…awarded to a philosophy professor, in this case, Chris Suprenant (New Orleans). Now that's what I call "getting out of the armchair"!
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Gustavus Stadler, random twitter crazy of the day
Stadler, an Associate Professor of English, at Haverford College weighs in with the following on twitter (with reference to this): I was really alarmed to see many people I follow so uncritical about something coming from Leiter, a troll with tenure who wields enormous power to keep philosophy the fortress of white maleness it is.…
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In Memoriam: Marilyn Pearsall (1926-2018)
A pioneer in feminist philosophy, Professor Pearsall was emerita in philosophy at the University of Puget Sound. I first encountered her work in Feminist Interpretations of Nietzsche (1998), a volume she co-edited and contributed to. On an even more personal note, I should mention that her survivors include her wonderful grandson Teddy (my favorite ten-year-old…
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Riverside’s Jennifer Doyle actually comes to the defense of Judith Butler’s letter on behalf of Avital Ronell
UPDATE: It appears that, since this morning, Prof. Doyle has decided to make her website "private." That's a shame because, as I note in the update, below, I do like to link to those whose writings I criticize so that readers can assess matters for themselves. (ADDENDUM 5:30 pm CST: A reader sent the cached…
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Blast from the past: the failed 2014 attempt to take down the Philosophical Gourmet Report
The comments make interesting reading several years later, now that Carrie Jenkins, Alan Richardson et al. have been exposed.
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2018 Lauener Prize in Analytical Philosophy goes to…
…Bas van Fraassen, who is emeritus at Princeton and Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at San Francisco State University. Prior winners include Hilary Putnam, T.M. Scanlon, Patrick Suppes, Ruth Barcan Marcus, Fred Dretske, and Michael Dummett, among others.
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In Memoriam: Stanley Cavell (1926-2018)
Professor Cavell, a longtime member of the Harvard faculty, wrote widely on Wittgenstein, philosophy of language, aesthetics, philosophy of film, and various figures in 19th- and 20th-century American and German philosophy. I will add links to memorial notices as they appear. UPDATE: The NYT obituary.
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Paul from North Carolina to Yale
Laurie (L.A.) Paul (metaphysics, philosophy of cognitive science, formal epistemology), currently Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, will join the Philosophy Department and Cognitive Science Program at Yale University, effective this fall. That's a big loss for Chapel Hill, and a catch for Yale!
Georgy Maksimovich pointed me to this article in Russian: https://novayagazeta.ru/articles/2026/05/25/antisovetskie-filosofskie-kontratseptsii