February 2019
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Einstein read and was influenced by Hume
How about that? (Thanks to Peter Kail for the pointer.) UPDATE: Matias Slavov, a visiting scholar in philosophy at UCLA, writes: Thank you for providing the link to the Daily Telegraph, which features Hume’s impact on Einstein’s special relativity. As a regular reader of your blog, I got the news from you. But I wish…
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Who do you support for the Democratic nomination for President in 2020?
No doubt the pundits have been waiting to see what the blog readers here think, so get on it! Rank your candidates from first to last (you can also choose "no opinion" for those you have no opinion about). I'll post results in a couple of days. Have fun! UPDATE: Would the person repeatedly voting…
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Another Templeton windfall: $1.3 million for philosophy of religion to Houston’s Luis Oliveira
News release here. (Thanks to David Phillips for the pointer.)
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There is no sexual morality
Philosopher Alan Goldman (William & Mary) comments.
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Rutgers makes bid for Michigan’s Caston
MOVING TO FRONT FROM JANUARY 23–UPDATED Victor Caston (ancient philosophy, philosophy of mind), Professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, has a senior offer from the Department of Philosophy at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. Students considering either place with an interest in ancient philosophy will want to keep an eye on what…
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Athens Review of Books, redux
Finally, an op-ed about the ARB case, which really deserves more media attention.
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Enoch on Case on arguing from epistemic realism to moral realism
Nice discussion here. Of course, I'm inclined to think these same considerations just confirm epistemic anti-realism (vide Chapter 4 here.)
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Steven Salaita today
Longtime readers will recall Steven Salaita, illegally fired by the University of Illinois for his constitutionally protected speech, who got a cash settlement, but not his tenured faculty position. Having been effecively blacklisted by the Zionist thought police from the academy, he trained for and is now driving a school bus. He writes about his…
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Blast from the past: Hume’s personal ad
Back in 2003.
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Great moments in public boogie-woogie piano playing
By chance, I discoverd this whole YouTube genre of boogie piano players who record themselves playing in public places,like train stations, airports, and shopping malls. Here's a few. Henri Herbert: Terry Miles:
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“Marx and Marxism” and relativism
A new essay, co-authored with an excellent PhD student here, Lawrence ("Dusty") Dallman (he is the lead author), which will eventually appear in The Routledge Handbook of Relativism, that the great Martin Kusch (Vienna) is putting together.
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USNews.com plans to include ALL tenure-stream faculty in its impact and productivity study…
…regardless of whether or not scholarly writing is part of their duties. Following up on yesterday, a colleague elsewhere writes: "I saw your post on US News’s new impact rankings. I wrote to Bob Morse earlier this week to ask for clarification about whether to include clinical, LRW, and library faculty if they are tenure/tenure-track…
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Twitter “believe it or not,” part 1
Some guy with a PhD in comparative literature from Emory (seriously!)–who appears now to be a free-lance journalist–denounced me on Twitter as a "mediocre thinker." The Twitterrabble loved it! My self-esteem, alas, will never recover.
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Concept inflation
Philosopher Spencer Case analyzes the phenomenon, focusing especially on "violence" and "gaslighting," but we could expand this to "harm, "silencing" and other concepts whose extension has been strangely expanded in recent years. It's really an instance of what Charles Stevenson called "persuasive definition," except it is rarely persuasive, and mostly transparent hyperbole.
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USNews.com to start “scholarly impact” rankings….
…basically on the model I used to do and Greg Sisk (St. Thomas) has continued now for several years, but with a couple of differences/unknowns. I guess they didn't want to be left behind by the new "gold standard"! First, the similarities: they will examine only a five-year window (2014-2018, no doubt because Sisk just…
I only just learned of Barry’s passing, and I’m enormously saddened at the news. I wrote my PhD on his…