February 2022
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Russia will invade Ukraine by Monday, February 21
The Olympics end on February 20, and as my colleague Tom Ginsburg pointed out on Twitter, Putin is not going to embarrass his "ally" China by usurping all the headlines until the Olympics are over. We have noted previously why Russia will invade Ukraine. The U.S. could have prevented this by withdrawing the threat to…
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Inaugural “Alvin Plantinga Prize” from APA goes to Princeton’s Lara Buchak
From the APA announcement: The American Philosophical Association (APA) is pleased to announce that the inaugural Alvin Plantinga Prize in the amount of $10,000 has been awarded to Lara Buchak (Princeton University) for her essay, “Faith and Traditions.” The APA has also awarded two honorable mentions in the amount of $5,000 each to Charity Anderson…
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Peter Singer event at St. Olaf College goes off successfully
Professor Edmund Santurri, the Director of the College's Institute for Freedom and Community (which hosted the event), kindly shared the link for the event, for those interested. (Earlier coverage.)
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Gunmaker pays $73 million to settle claims of families of children murdered at Sandy Hook
Our only hope for reining in the gun insanity in the U.S. may be the civil liability system.
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Chicago Tribune article on the case of UIC lawprof Jason Kilborn
Here, which correctly notes that the allegations against him were bogus. Professor Kilborn has also filed an amended complaint in his lawsuit: Download Kilborn Amended Complaint
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A methodological problem for X-Phil?
Eric Schwitzgebel (UC Riverside) discusses recent work by his doctoral student Kyle Thompson.
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Scholarly impact rankings in law
Readers thinking about law school, or interested in law or legal scholarship, might find this data of interest.
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Why are all Philosophical Gourmet Report updates here on this blog?
I confess I shouldn't be surprised any longer by what the PGR/Leiter haters pretend to be concerned about, but this one really does amaze me. So let me spell it out for the benefit of those who genuinely don't understand. Since many readers are not interested in the philosophy rankings, I put all this below…
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In Memoriam: Walter E. Dellinger III (1941-2022)
A longtime member of the Duke faculty, Professor Dellinger also had a distinguished career in government service and private practice. The NYT obituary is here and the Duke memorial notice is here.
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Citation counts vary by field, 2016-2020 edition
Here's an updated version of a post from last summer, now using the Sisk data for the period 2016-2020. An important fact about interpreting citation data is that citation rates vary quite a bit by field. One can see all the subject-specific citation lists for the latest Sisk study (2016-2020) here. Of the ten most-cited faculty…
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A good refutation of a rather feeble piece on universities and free speech…
…by philosopher Michael Veber (East Carolina U) in CHE. Discovery of truth is central to the justification of academic freedom and free speech in universities. (Thanks to Andrew Beck for the pointer.)
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Will the EU now, finally, crack down on the illiberal regimes in Poland and especially Hungary?
The highest court in the EU has cleared the way for doing so, now let's hope it will really happen. Money, as usual, talks very loudly and may produce real reforms in these countries. (Recall that school desegregation in the U.S. did not start really happening until more than a dozen years after the Brown…
Georgy Maksimovich pointed me to this article in Russian: https://novayagazeta.ru/articles/2026/05/25/antisovetskie-filosofskie-kontratseptsii