February 2019
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The “N word” and the use/mention distinction
Several readers have been writing me about the travesty at Augsburg College, and I will say more about it soon, but this piece by law professor Randall Kennedy (Harvard) makes some important points.
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Roger Crisp (Oxford) makes the case for “open borders”…
…in The New Statesman.
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The real diversity problem in Anglophone philosophy
It's usefully illustrated by the MIT Department, which helpfully lists the research areas of its faculty clearly. Excluding emeriti, there are 14 tenure-stream faculty. Here are the areas of philosophy as represented: Metaphysics: 9 Epistemology: 5 Philosophical logic or logic: 5 Philosophy of language: 5 Philosophy of mind: 4 Ethics: 4 Philosophy of science: 2…
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UC Irvine philosophers in the public schools too!
Story here. (Thanks to Howard Gillman for calling this to my attention.)
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$3 million to support first-generation law students at U of Georgia
A creative and constructive gift!
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Per student value of university and college endowments at end of 2018
CHE has compiled the state of university and college endowments at the end of 2018; here is the per student value of these endowments, which tells a different story than simply the "gross" numbers CHE lists. The per student value is in parentheses after the school name. One school that has been climbing the "ranks"…
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Bringing philosophy to the Philly public schools
Impressive work by Penn philosopher Karen Detlefsen.
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Speaking of fascists in Hungary, there are now Neo-Nazis marching in Budapest
Are human beings so pitifully stupid and ignorant as to forget what Nazism did the last time?
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Pro-Israel bi-partisan consensus quickly disciplines Minnesota legislator for pointing out the obvious…
…namely, that lobbyists and interest-group organizations, like AIPAC, aim to sway legislative votes. And lobbyists use campaign donations to do that a lot of the time. Why is any of this news? Someone wrote a book about this, as I recall. The fact that this representative could be so swiftly condemned by both parties and…
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$1.2 million to Universidad de Los Andes (Colombia) for work on free will
Professor Vargas asked me to share this announcement, which I'm happy to do: The John Templeton Foundation has awarded $1.2 million dollars to the Universidad de los Andes in Bogota, Colombia for a project on Free Will, Agency, and Responsibility that aims to cultivate work on these topics, especially in Latin America. This is the…
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Vanishing insects
At first, one might think, "Thank God," until one remembers the whole ecosystem depends on them. Yikes!
I tried the Trolley Car thought experiment. Got the machine to argue in bad faith in about 5 steps. Machine…