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    The McMaster Department of Philosophy has now put together the following notice commemorating Barry: Barry Allen: A Philosophical Life Barry…

The “open letter” in support of academic freedom and against the “Anti-Stock” letter…

has attracted strong support, with several hundreds of signatures now.  As I noted on Twitter, "What's particularly striking is that most of the academic philosophers who signed (a far more distinguished group than denounced Prof. Stock) are not part of the Twitter echo chamber."  I see among the signatories Kit Fine (NYU), Timothy Williamson (Oxford), Jeff McMahan (Oxford), Peter Godfrey-Smith (Sydney), Peter Singer (Princeton), Ned Hall (Harvard), Alex Byrne (MIT), Chandra Sripada (Michigan), Thomas Hurka (Toronto), Tim Crane (CEU), David Velleman (NYU emeritus; Johns Hopkins), Peter Simons (emeritus, Trinity College Dublin), Daniel Jacobson (Colorado), R.A. Duff (emeritus, Stirling), John Divers (Trinity College Dublin), Paul Russell (UBC & Lund), Gerald Dworkin (emeritus, UC Davis), Peter Carruthers (Maryland), Samir OKasha (Bristol), among many others who will be known to readers of the blog.  I don't think this supports Jason Stanley's hypothesis that most senior faculty support Stock–once again, most philosophers are sitting this out–but it does show there is strong support for basic academic freedom values and an end to the "reign of terror" of open letters attacking individual philosophers.

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