February 2019
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Professors Chilton, Masur and Rozema respond on raising tenure standards and the costs
MOVING TO FRONT FROM FEBRUARY 6–MANY INTERESTING COMMENTS, BELOW; OTHER CONTRIBUTIONS WELCOME We’re grateful to Brian Leiter and Michael Simkovic for blogging about our article “Rethinking Law School Tenure Standards.” We agree with both of them that there are costs to raising tenure standards. The goal of the project is not to claim that those…
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Fascists in Hungary now set their sights on the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Matthew Kramer (Cambridge) kindly shared this message he received: Dear Colleagues, Please, spread the word. The Hungarian government is, probably unlawfully and certainly arbitrarily, introducing a new system of research funding, which will seriously undermine the scientific autonomy of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the greatest research institution in Hungary with 5000 employees. Negotiations have…
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In Memoriam: Vere Chappell (1930-2019)
MOVING TO FRONT FROM FEBRUARY 4–UPDATED Emeritus at the University of Massachussetts, Amherst, Professor Chappell was probably best-known for his important work on Locke and other figures in early modern philosophy, although he also published on contemporary topics in philosophy of mind. Chappell was one of a small number of then distinguished early-to-mid-career faculty who…
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The increasingly strange Democratic field
On the one hand, we have candidates with actual, substantive positions that make clear they are not Republicans and not neoliberal Democrats–most clearly, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren–and then we have candidates who are selling their personality and life story and "feel good" blather, and not substantive agendas: Senators Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Kristin Gillibrand,…
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Great moments in obscure rock ‘n’ roll: Buffalo, “Freedom,” 1973
Here's another, heavier number from the second album of the Australian hard blues rock band, Buffalo that we featured a few weeks ago:
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“The why of reality”: A four-year old asks a philosopher
A nicely done essay by philosopher Nathanael Stein (Florida State).
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Reality, perception, language
Philosopher Andy Clark, linguist John McWhorter, and others discuss.
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“Annals of the TERF wars”
A bit long, some of it is rather funny and does aptly capture both the vitriol and irrationality of some of the on-line exchanges. (Thanks to Steven Hales for the pointer.)
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“Twitter is public”
A philosopher in California sent me this funny essay by Hamilton Nolan from several years ago: In light of certain arguments currently taking place on the internet, we would like to issue a gentle reminder of a fact: Twitter is public. The things you write on Twitter are public. They are published on the world…
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SUNY-Fredonia philosophy department off the chopping block, at least for now
Philosopher Steve Kershnar (SUNY-Fredonia) writes: Dear Professor Leiter: Yesterday, the president of SUNY-Fredonia (Virginia Horvath) announced that she is suspending PEPRE (Fredonia’s procedure that sets up the elimination of academic programs) and, thus, the decision on whether to eliminate the philosophy major has been put on hold. I strongly suspect that your coverage of it…
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Athens Review of Books under threat from politically motivated legal action by fascist former minister Nikolaos Kotzias (UPDATED)
MOVING TO FRONT FROM JANUARY 31–LETTER UPDATED WITH NEW SIGNATORIES Philosopher Alexander Nehamas (Princeton) wrote a useful account last year of what has transpired. In the United States, this libel action by a public official would have been tossed immediately; but Greek law is at another extreme, and, together with corrupt courts, they have supported the…
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Who would bike 1,000 miles in the Alaskan winter?
Philosopher Jose Bermudez, for charity. Wow!
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Algorithms, bias and justice
Nice essay at Slate by law and philosophy student Danny Li.
I only just learned of Barry’s passing, and I’m enormously saddened at the news. I wrote my PhD on his…