July 2021
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“The Edge of Democracy”
I recommend this Netflix documentary about the assault on democracy in the wake of Lula's social democratic revolution in Brazil, an assault that led to the rise of the fascist Bolsonaro. I've been to Brazil several times, and have many academic friends there, so have followed these matters for awhile. This documentary taught me a…
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Evanston public school teacher sues school district for race discrimination based on its curriculum and “anti-racist” [sic] training
A friend who is a Chicago lawyer sent me the complaint. Evanston is the town just north of Chicago, where Northwestern University is located. The "training" and "teaching materials" described in this complaint are rather insane, and consistently confuse race with class in a way that will miseducate the students. It is less clear to…
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Cornel West not being granted tenure at Harvard=”shadow of Jim Crow”
When your narcissism is encouraged by traditional and social media, I suppose this is what results. The"shadow of Jim Crow" didn't stop him from bouncing back and forth for decades between positions at Harvard and Princeton. It's not implausible that his political advocacy, including for the Palestinians, played a role in Harvard's refusal to give…
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Survey on “human extinction”
Philosopher Phil Torres is interested in having blog readers respond to a survey; he writes: I'm conducting a survey with a colleague of mine, Bruce Tonn, on the topic of human extinction — specifically, on what philosophers think about the ethical/evaluative implications of our permanent disappearance. Would it be good, bad, or neutral? How wrong,…
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Sanders and Templeton Foundations to sponsor a “Philosophy in the Media” initiative
Details here; briefly: The initiative aims to increase the presence of philosophy in print, audio, and video media by training philosophers to write and produce for the public and by connecting philosophers to editors and commissioners in the media industry. For the first stage of the initiative, up to 30 philosophers will be selected to…
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In Memoriam: Richard Lewontin (1929-2021)
A few readers now have suggested I should note the passing of the great evolutionary geneticist Richard Lewontin, whose work was very influential in philosophy of biology and with whom many philosophers of science studied at one point or another. The NYT obituary is here, and there is a rich and very personal memorial by…
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Cornell Interim Dean Jens David Ohlin named Dean
The Cornell announcement is here.
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Which philosophy journals accept longer papers?
MOVING TO FRONT FROM JULY 8–MANY USEFUL COMMENTS SO FAR, MORE WELCOME A philosopher elsewhere was wondering if there are journals that typically will consider and publish papers longer than, e.g., 12K words. Maybe there is a list somewhere? Otherwise, please post names of journals that are open to longer papers.
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In Memoriam: Gerasimos Xenophon Santas (1931-2021)
Professor Santas, a scholar of ancient Greek philosophy who was emeritus at the University of California, Irvine, passed away on June 20. Born and raised on the island of Lefkada, he had a long and distinguished academic career that included teaching at UC Berkeley, Brandeis, Wellesley, Johns Hopkins, Claremont Graduate, Stanford, and finally UC Irvine. …
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Disability in a post-pandemic world
Law professor Adam Samaha (NYU) writes insightfully about this issue, drawing on his own experience.
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“How Not to Read Nietzsche’s Ethics: The Case of Thomas Stern”
This review, which will appear in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, concerns a very weak volume in the Cambridge Elements series; I assume other volumes in that series are more serious and more helpful to students. (On Stern's prior efforts, see this.) The first paragraph, a middle paragraph, and the last paragraph of the review: This…
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In Memoriam: Graham Bird (1930-2021)
Graham Bird was Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Manchester, and Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Liverpool. He was a leading Kant scholar for nearly 40 years, and the author of Kant's Theory of Knowledge (1962), William James (1986), and The Revolutionary Kant (2006). He was President of the Aristotelian Society and…
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Great moments in classic blues and their rock ‘n’ roll covers: Henry Thomas, “Bull Doze Blues,” 1928
In summer 2018, I did a series on the blues roots of rock music; as I wrote then: "All the best rock 'n' roll is indebted through and through to the blues music produced by African-Americans, first in the American South in the first half of the 20th-century and then moving a bit north (to…
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Schools with the *most* philosophy majors and the highest percentage of philosophy majors among undergraduates
Fascinating data, courtesy of Professor Schwitzgebel.
I have solved complex math problems without any ‘inner speech’. Having solved a problem, one may then translate the solution…