November 2018
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Doe v. Kipnis, HarperCollins has settled
MOVING TO FRONT FROM NOVEMBER 3–UPDATED I do not know any details about the settlement, except I have been told the Kipnis book will remain unchanged. When we last heard about the case, it had survived a motion to dismiss on terms that seemed favorable to the plaintiff. This outcome suggests discovery may have been…
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Best ‘general’ journals of philosophy, 2018
636 votes in our latest poll, on the best "general" journals of philosophy (those that publish in multiple areas). The "top 20" are bolded–beyond that the results are even less meaningful I expect. Recall that The Monist was wrongly omitted from the poll, and might have made the top 20. I suspect that among readers…
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Hi-Phi Nation has been picked up by Slate
Congratulations to philosopher Barry Lam (Vassar), who created the program and made it a success. (Professor Lam was a guest-blogger here back in 2017, writing about the show.)
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Roger Scruton under fire in the UK…
…initially for arguably anti-semitic remarks in a speech in Hungary, and now for other charming remarks as well. The full text of the speech in Hungary is here, and it reveals Scruton as an unabashed apologist for the fascist Orban, which seems to me far more concerning in someone fulfilling a government policy role than…
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Sanders Public Philosophy Awards for 2018 go to…
…Regina Rini (York U, Toronto) and Amia Srinivasan (Oxford). Both nicely done essays, worth reading! UPDATE: It appears the new https protocols imposed by Google are making the link ineffective, so here's the relevant text about the award: After going through 178 submissions, we are pleased to announce two winners and two honorable mentions for…
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The best “generalist” philosophy journals: a new poll
MOVING TO FRONT FROM NOVEMBER 6–POLL CLOSES TOMORROW 35 choices of Anglophone journals that publish in multiple areas of philosophy (e.g., philosophy of language and mind, metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of science, ethics, political philosophy, history of philosophy: all these journals publish in many, but not necessarily all, of these areas). Have fun! UPDATE: Alas, I…
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Here we go again: prominent BBC host set to speak at Oxford until her verboten thoughts are revealed
What is going on in the UK? It comes complete with this typical, melodramatic falsehood: A statement said: "The decision to offer her a platform is not apolitical or neutral, especially when her views cause tangible harm to vulnerable members of our society." The thing about "tangible harms" is that they're tangible: so let someone…
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An interview with Chomsky in Scientific American
Here; some excerpts, one from the start of the interview, the others a bit later on: Do you ever chill out? Would rather skip personal matters…. Do you take seriously the Singularity, the idea that artificial intelligence and other fields will soon radically transform humanity? One can certainly imagine how, in principle, systems that can…
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“Scott Walker was a national disgrace”
Now that's to the point!
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Republicans voters are in the minority in the U.S.
Example 1: "Voters cast 44.7 million votes for Democratic Senate candidates and 32.9 million votes for Republican Senate candidates — in other words 57 percent of Senate votes went for Democrats. But given how states and cities and stuff work, and which of the former happened to be up for election this year, this gap…
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Scientific fraud watch: catching those who fake images
Interesting development. (Thanks to Jonathan Eddison for the pointer.)
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Your idiosyncratic 2018 midterm election post-mortem
The Democrats took control of the House of Representatives, despite the Republican gerrymandering advantage: good. The Repugs increased their margin in the Senate, by picking up Democratic seats in Florida (bad), North Dakota (not surprising), Indiana (disappointing), and Missouri (bad, that state has moved further to the right in the last twenty years), but they…
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Against the use of police informants
Philosopher Luke Hunt (Radford) comments. (Interestingly, Professor Hunt is also a former FBI agent.)
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Watching the midterm election results in America
I found this useful. If the Repugs keep the House of Representatives that will be as shocking as Trump winning in 2016–and maybe even more frightening.
Thanks for posting this! I’ve been experimenting with putting A.I. into very structured set-ups like these Socratic questionnaires for teaching…