February 2019
-
New Books in February
Authors and/or publishers kindly sent me these new books this month: Must Politics Be War? Restoring Our Trust in the Open Society by Kevin Vallier (Oxford University Press, 2019). Blockheads! Essays on Ned Block's Philosophy of Mind and Consciousness edited by Adam Pautz & Daniel Stoljar (MIT Press, 2019). Wittgenstein's Family Letters: Corresponding with Ludwig…
-
“Joint know-how”: humans do it, other primates don’t
Philosopher Jonathan Birch (LSE) comments.
-
Solid majorities of Americans (across racial groups) disfavor consideration of race, legacy status, and athletic ability in college admissions
This is striking. I do expect the quite conservative U.S. Supreme Court to bar race-based affirmative action on constitutional grounds within the next couple of years.
-
How to compare the GRE and the LSAT?
With more than three dozen law schools now accepting the GRE for admissions purposes, this question is no doubt on the agenda at many schools across the nation. Nearly four times as many students take the GRE each year as take the LSAT. Are these two pools of students comparable in terms of academic achievements…
-
A very different take on Venezuela…
…one quite consistent with past U.S. practice vis-a-vis Latin America. UPDATE: Longtime reader S. Wallerstein calls my attention to this interview with the U.N. Rapporteur for human rights, whose report on Venezuela has been entirely ignored in the mainstream media. He says there is no humanitarian crisis there, among other things.
-
Bloated salaries in the nonprofit sector
Illuminating critique by economist Dean Baker.
-
Pettit on Brexit…
…at The New Statesman's philosophy series.
-
Q&A with investor (and Johns Hopkins philosophy supporter) Bill Miller…
…about how his philosophy training affected his approach to the stock market.
-
The latest plan to make federal student loans less appealing: cut repayment period from 25 years to 10, draft employers as debt collectors (Michael Simkovic)
Private student lenders have been trying for at least a decade to stifle competition from public student lending programs. Their advocates have come up with a myriad of reasons to raise the price of federal loan programs, reduce their availability, and make terms less generous, even though these public loan programs are profitable for the…
-
In Memoriam: Pamela M. Huby (1922-2019)
A scholar of Greek philosophy, she taught for many decades at the University of Liverpool. Her son, Bart Huby, writes: "She published papers and books over a more than 60 year period from 1957 to 2018, still working into her early nineties. In particular in recent years she collaborated with Professor Sir Richard Sorabji of…
-
Karl Marx in Teen Vogue
Really. This is from last year, but still remarkable. (Thanks to Matt Lister for the pointer.)
-
Yale-NUS’s Robin Zheng interviewed…
…at 3AM. Shockingly, after gathering "more information", she found the reasons for the harassment of Rebecca Tuvel "much more urgent and compelling." UPDATE: A young philosopher writes: Zheng 'confesses' that she didn't completely grasp the force of the arguments being made in the open letter. I confess to finding those arguments manifestly absurd, as do…
-
A busy few days here in Chicago with Steven Lukes
Steven Lukes (NYU) is here, participating in the Law & Philosophy Workshop today (talking about Marx and morality), and giving our annual Dewey Lecture on Wednesday (the latter is open to the public). So posting may be a bit lighter the next couple of days.
-
More on USNews.com’s proposed scholarly impact rankings
It appears concerns about which faculty would count for impact purpose have been heard: as the Blog Emperor notes USNews.com will still ask schools to list all tenure-stream faculty, but will also ask for their primary role to be identified (e.g., "doctrinal" or "clinical" or "legal research and writing"). USNews.com has not yet decided what…
-
Neo-Nazis in Ukraine
Another triumph of American policy.
I respond to this report here https://jasonstanleyantifascist.substack.com/p/on-the-philosophical-muddle-that