January 2022
-
Troubles at the Liberty Fund?
An informative piece of reporting about some tragic events and what they reveal about the direction of the right-leaning Liberty Fund. Many philosophers will have participated in Liberty Fund events, although unlike, say, Social Philosophy & Policy conferences, the Liberty Fund has tended to invite more marginal figures on the right end of the spectrum,…
-
Pollitt on Srinivasan at Dissent
This is one of the more interesting reviews (both appropriately complimentary and intelligently critical) of Amia Srinivasan's The Right to Sex, by Katha Pollitt, the longtime feminist critic at The Nation (here writing in Dissent); an excerpt: The Right to Sex is clever, well-written, and worth reading, but I don’t quite understand why it’s received…
-
Is the U.S. heading for civil war?
Informative (and appropriately skeptical) interview with political scientist Barbara F. Walter (UCSD).
-
“Systemic racism” as an (uninformative) Aristotelian explanation for racial disparities
Philosopher Matt Lutz (Wuhan) comments.
-
Supreme Court will hear challenges to affirmative action in admissions at public and private universisties
Politico has the basic details here. As I've noted in the past, I do expect this Supreme Court to end affirmative action in higher education admissions. And now we can say when this will happen: in 2023. I taught at the University of Texas during the Hopwood years (when affirmative action was unlawful in the…
-
Blast from the past: Fish v. Boghossian on relativism in the NYT
Back in 2011, with a discussion by readers.
-
Federal judge holds that University of Florida cannot block professors from testifying
This is good news: In an opinion that referenced Communist China, Walker sounded baffled at times by arguments the university had put forward in defense of its policy. UF claimed to have “unlimited discretion” to restrict professors’ speech if it determined the speech “would harm an ill-defined’ ‘interest’ of the university.” “It’s worth pausing to…
-
Jeff McMahan (Oxford) talks about Derek Parfit…
…at Brain in a Vat.
-
The “metaphysics” in Pippin’s Hegel
As we saw, Pippin's Hegel has been influential in the scholarly literature, and this short essay gives a nice capsule summary of his view. I'm not sure it's actually Hegel, though; Charles Taylor's Hegel (also influential) is more plausible as an interpretation in some respects, as are Frederick Beiser's and Michael Forster's interpretations. Pippin's reading…
-
Great moments in obscure rock ‘n’ roll: Steamhammer, “When All Your Friends are Gone,” 1969
Part of the British blues explosion (and one of our "top five" finds in 2021), here they are live on the German show Beat Club performing a great number from their debut album:
-
Peter Singer comes out as a moral realist and hedonist…
…in this podcast. The Swedish moral philosopher Torbjörn Tännsjö (also in the podcast) writes: Peter Singer and I have had similar views on many topics, but while he has been a prescriptivist I have for decades been a moral realist, and while he has been a preferantialist, I have also for decades been a…
-
Battle of the economists: Judd v. Heckman
Aggrieved authors (Judd) are not the most reliable sources, but Heckman and others gave permission to share the correspondence about the disputed article. Judd doesn't seem to realize that he does not come off well in this exchange. Very weird!
-
Driverless trucks are coming
That will mean the loss of about three million well-paying human jobs that do not require a college degree.
-
CDC guidelines give the unvaccinated substantial priority for antiviral treatments for Covid
MOVING TO FRONT FROM YESTERDAY–INFORMATIVE DISCUSSION IN THE COMMENTS! This seems surprising; an excerpt: Current therapies such as Sotrovimab, a monoclonal antibody with activity against omicron, and the oral agents, Paxlovid, and Molnupiravir, exist in very short supply. Already the demand has far outstripped our capacities raising the specter of rationing and a host of medical,…
-
Most cited Anglophone books on Hegel and on Nietzsche…
…according to Google Scholar. Total citations–Hegel books in English Rank Author Book Year published Citations 1 Charles Taylor (McGill, emeritus) Hegel and Modern Society 1979 1480 2 Robert Pippin (Chicago) Hegel’s Idealism 1989 1260 3 Terry Pinkard (Georgetown) Hegel’s Phenomenology: The Sociality of Reason 1994 1120 4 Allen Wood (Indiana) Hegel’s Ethics 1990 1110 5…
Georgy Maksimovich pointed me to this article in Russian: https://novayagazeta.ru/articles/2026/05/25/antisovetskie-filosofskie-kontratseptsii