June 2019
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“Humanist” refugee initially denied admission to UK for not knowing Plato or Aristotle is finally admitted
Story here. (Earlier coverage.) (Thanks to Graeme Andrews for the pointer.)
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2018 Lebowitz Prize from the APA awarded to Michael Bratman (Stanford) and Margaret Gilbert (UC Irvine)
The APA announcement is here. As the announcement explains: "Lebowitz Prize winners must be two philosophers who hold contrasting views on a chosen topic of current interest in philosophy. They present their views and engage in a dialogue at an annual Lebowitz symposium, held during an APA divisional meeting."
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Selling advertising *and* asking for donations?
This surprised me. Since I know–partly from the advertisers, and partly from occasionally being sent payment invoices that were supposed to go to the "safe space" blog–how much Weinberg's advertising costs, I can say with some confidence that he is taking in at least $30,000 (and probably more) in advertising revenue each year: so he…
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APA survey of philosophers: you do not need to be an APA member to participate
An APA member forwarded the message below the fold to me; I completed the survey and I would encourage the philosophers among my readership to take the 10-15 minutes needed to fill this out. I'm glad the APA is soliciting this feedback.
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Much ado about nothing
This piece purports to be responding to this, but it isn't. The Stonewall guidelines do indeed implicate academic freedom (for the reasons stated in the letter, which are ignored in the "response"), and the letter doesn't claim that academic freedom protects mistreatment of students–quite the contrary, as one of the signatories to the letter wrote…
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The Internet: inspiration for murder
Yet one more reason the free speech norms that worked for the traditional media won't work for the cyber-world of unmediated insanity and nonsense.
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Historian Richard Evans did not like historian Norman Stone’s life…
…and said so in a remarkable obituary. (Thanks to Ruchira Paul for the pointer.)
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Reflections on the Searle case from one of his victims…
MOVING TO FRONT FROM YESTERDAY–UPDATED …who spoke out long ago about his behavior. An excerpt: What’s relevant to me is the question of what made it so that the rest of the faculty at Berkeley – themselves, not slimy creepers and generally nice, decent people — were passive in the face of the full knowledge…
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Blast from the past: the argument from vomit
I suspect many people are now having this reaction, although for different reasons than Searle did.
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Advertising update
June isn't even over, and the fall is starting to fill up, so for those who might be thinking about advertising: there remains just one 2nd from the top spot in September, plus 3rd from the top spots; in October, there are only 3rd from the top spots still available; while November still has one…
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Raymond Geuss wishes Habermas a “Happy 90th”
Well, not exactly; an excerpt: When, at the beginning of his Minima Moralia, Adorno expressed grave reservations about the “liberal fiction which holds that any and every thought must be universally communicable to anyone whatever,” he was criticizing both political liberalism and the use of “communication” as a fundamental organizing principle in philosophy. This hostility…
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John Searle found to have violated Berkeley’s sexual harassment rules, stripped of his emeritus status
A Berkeley graduate alerted me to this statement from the Department Chair: "I am writing to let you know that, as of June 19th 2019, John Searle is no longer affiliated with UC Berkeley. Following a determination that he violated university policies against sexual harassment, President Napolitano has ended his emeritus status. This means, among…
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Why humans are the most irrational animals
Philosopher Bence Nanay (Antwerp) comments.
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Some hopeful news in American politics
Senator Elizabeth Warren is creeping up the polls, overtaking Bernie Sanders in some of them to move into second behind Biden (who is busy doing what Biden does, i.e., self-destructing with his mouth–I'd vote for Biden too at the end of the day). On substance, Warren and Sanders are close, except Warren has clearer plans,…
Sorry to keep beating a dead horse, but something just occurred to me that I haven’t seen anyone discuss. Why…