January 2019
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Great moments in obscure rock ‘n’ roll: Poobah, “Rock ‘n’ Roll,” 1972
Here's another tune from the Ohio hard rock band that never made it nationally; this is also from their debut album:
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The inescapable logic of capital makes the NYT
No kidding! They’ll never admit it in public, but many of your bosses want machines to replace you as soon as possible…. [I]n private settings, including meetings with the leaders of the many consulting and technology firms whose pop-up storefronts line the Davos Promenade, these executives tell a different story: They are racing to automate…
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The gender wars and academic freedom in the UK
The situation is plainly worse there, than in the U.S., with most of the mindless extremism here confined to the Twitter red guard. UPDATE: A reader points out that Christa Peterson, one of the Twitter red guard, is waiting for me to die. Wow! This is pretty sick; I love polemics, but wishing others dead…
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Templeton awards nearly $1 million to philosophers at Missouri/St. Louis…
…for work on medieval Islamic philosophy and the epistemology of religion. (Thanks to Billy Dunaway for the pointer.)
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Most-cited law professors
If you care, you can find out here.
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UVA Law’s Class of 1990: They’re Happy!
Good for them, and good for UVA! Of course, there may be some self-selection going on: happy types may choose UVA over other top law schools!
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In Memoriam: Erik Olin Wright (1947-2019)
Professor Wright, whose blogging about his final days we noted here, has died. There's a lovely remembrance from his philosophy colleague Harry Brighouse at Wisconsin here. (Thanks to David Gordon for the pointer.)
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Ethics for robots and AI
Philosopher Derek Leben (Pittsburgh/Johnstown) talks with physicist Sean Carroll (Cal Tech).
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The American Academy of each other’s friends in the Arts & Sciences
Usually known as the AAAS, every observer knows what it mostly is, as conveyed in the title of this post: it is friends electing friends for "honor" ostensibly for their academic contributions. The AAAS is not meaningless, to be sure, and its sins are mostly ones of omission, as I've remarked previously, as…
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In Memoriam: Gary Gutting (1942-2019)
MOVING TO FRONT FROM JANUARY 20–UPDATED I was quite sorry to learn, via Martin Kusch, of the passing of Professor Gutting, a longtime member of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, where he was emeritus. He was, of course, best-known for his excellent work on Foucault, as well as on French…
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The revolt of the working class in France
This is an interesting interview; an excerpt: spiked: How have the working-classes come to be excluded? Guilluy: All the growth and dynamism is in the major cities, but people cannot just move there. The cities are inaccessible, particularly thanks to mounting housing costs. The big cities today are like medieval citadels. It is like we…
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Standard edition of Leviathan, redux
Last fall, I noted an open letter from philosophers S.A. Lloyd (USC) and A.P. Martinich (Texas) arguing that Noel Malcolm's new OUP critical edition of the Hobbes classic should not become the standard reference point for scholars and students. It has now been brought to my attention that there are several important responses to Lloyd's…
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Blast from the past: Olberding on Tuvel
Never forget.
Georgy Maksimovich pointed me to this article in Russian: https://novayagazeta.ru/articles/2026/05/25/antisovetskie-filosofskie-kontratseptsii