January 2023
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A nice write-up about philosophy at Wake Forest University…
…where the major is thriving!
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In Memoriam: Kent Greenawalt (1936-2023)
Philosophers who work in moral, political and legal philosophy will no doubt be familiar with Professor Greenawalt's work; there is a notice and links at my law school blog for those interested.
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The NYT tunnel vision about race comes up against reality
Perhaps someone there should look at the evidence: "The fact that the five officers charged with Mr. Nichols’s murder are Black complicates the anguish." That's because in police killings, race is the not the primary variable, but rather class (as with Mr. Nichols: a high school graduate and unskilled laborer with very little money)–class, plus…
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In Memoriam: Michael J. Kelly (1938-2023)
Professor Kelly, an expert in legal ethics and the legal profession, was also a longtime Dean of the law school at the University of Maryland. The Maryland memorial notice is here. (Thanks to Robert Condlin for the pointer.)
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Class, not diversity
Kenan Malik comments at The Observer: If debates about poverty have become warped by a longstanding view that attributes blame to the individual, debates about inequality have become distorted by a more contemporary trend: the increasing tendency to look at equality in terms of “diversity”. “When you ask them for more equality, what they give you…
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Did you know you have a “right” to “revelatory autonomy”?
Me neither, but if you make up such a right, The Guardian will write about it. It does seem a bit odd to think friends and family act wrongfully by offering advice about major decisions in life, but the ever-evolving etiquette manual of academic philosophers is full of surprises! UPDATE: Philosopher Farbod Akhlaghi, whose work…
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On the neoliberal identity politics of the fake “left” in America
This essay makes a number of good points (although readers will notice echoes of Adolph Reed, the essay overall lacks his more sophisticated theoretical framework); an excerpt: [Ne]oliberal identity is u]sing one’s identity or personal experience as a justification for a political position. You may hear someone argue, “As a working-class, first-generation American, Southern woman…I…
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In Memoriam: Edward Erwin (1937-2022)
This seems to be the year for belated death announcements, but Michael Tooley just alerted me to the fact that Professor Erwin, a longtime member of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Miami, died last spring. He was particularly well-known for his philosophical investigations of the foundations of psychotherapy, especially Freudian psychoanalysis. He…
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Great moments in (extremely) obscure rock ‘n’ roll: Creepy John Thomas, “Down in the Bottom,” 1970
Reader Dave Wasser kindly flagged the long-forgotten Mr. Thomas for me; born in Australia, he recorded this number in London for his second album and it's not bad! He later played with the Edgar Broughton Band and with his own band in Berlin.
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Nyholm from Utrecht to LMU Munich
Sven Nyholm (applied ethics [esp. ethics of technology], ethics), currently Associate Professor in the Ethics Institute at Utrecht University, will become Professor of the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence on the philosophy faculty at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich this summer.
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And the prize for proposed legislation that would most clearly abolish tenure and academic freedom with it…
…goes to North Dakota. Yikes!
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Lanier Anderson to be new Chair of the APA Board
It is with genuine sadness that I must report that philosopher Lanier Anderson, an exceptionally nice guy and serious scholar, will have to be the next Chair of the American Philosophical Association Board. My condolences to Lanier and his loved ones.
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Professor Wax files grievance against Penn Law Dean Ruger
…according to Blog Emperor Caron, who has been keeping track. Most of those joined after USNews.com announced it would utilize only public data and its own survey data. According to the Blog Emperor, 53 schools have officially declined to join the boycott, while the rest are either hedging or not telling! An informative report from…
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Karl Jaspers and the origins of existentialism
A short popular account here of the now little-read Jaspers. The last time I read Jaspers it was his book on Nietzsche, which is uneven, but better than Heidegger's lectures on Nietzsche!
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The most checked-out books from the New York City public library system
I confess I've heard of none of these books and almost none of these authors Apart from old rock 'n' roll, I'm a poor consumer of popular culture. What do readers make of this list? Are some of these books worth reading?
Giovanni Molteni Tagliabue (Italy) Rationalized and Extended Democracy – The REDemo Project. Foreword by Gilberto Corbellini. Firenze University Press 2023.…