April 2023
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Neurophilosopher Patricia Churchland profiled in El Pais
Here (in English).
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James Madison University needs a new Provost
Provost Heather Coltman has just been the target of a damning resolution by the JMU Faculty Senate (more than 90% voted in favor of the resolution): Download Jmuamendedresolutionofcondemnationmar30
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American exceptionalism: guns and economic inequality…
…yields this: "The average American my age, in his mid-to-late 30s, is roughly six times more likely to die in the next year than his counterpart in Switzerland."
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Richard Marshall interviews Heinrich Heine…
…at 3:16 AM.
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Free will and addiction in the NYT…
…discussing the work of philosophers Hanna Pickard (Johns Hopkins) and Chandra Sripada (Michigan).
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Some happy news in the Benighted States of America
Fox News has fired Tucker Carlson. Now they need to fire Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and a few others, and they might actually be able to pose as a news network.
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Big investment in PPE at Buffalo
The Department of Philosophy at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York, has made a half-dozen senior and junior hires this year, with a particular eye to building up in PPE. Here are the lateral hires, senior and junior: Stewart Duncan (early modern) from the University of Florida, Gainesville, coming in as Professor.…
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A second senior professor reports an experience similar to Byrne’s with Oxford University Press
I have now heard from one other philosopher who had a trade book (not about transgender issues) rejected from OUP after consultation “with my editorial and marketing colleagues.” Despite “the manuscript [being] readable, accessible, lively, and interesting in the way that a book for a non-academic readership needs to be,” the worry was about the…
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Marx was right, part 722
From Legislative Studies Quarterly: This essay examines the relationship between legislators' class backgrounds and their votes on economic policy in the House of Representatives during the twentieth century. Like ordinary Americans, representatives from working-class occupations exhibit more liberal economic preferences than other legislators, especially those from profit-oriented professions.
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Did USNews.com miscalculate employment rates or did the schools misinterpret the data reported?
Derek Muller argues, plausibly, it was the latter.
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St. Cloud State University to cut six majors, and nearly two dozen faculty positions…
…including, alas, the philosophy major. This blood-letting began several years ago. I suspect they are not done, either, barring some change to their funding model. Comments are open for more information and links. (Thanks to John Collins for the pointer.)
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Alex Byrne’s rejection email from Oxford University Press
Given the unpleasant speculation circulating on social media, philosopher Alex Byrne kindly agreed to share the rejection email he got from Oxford University Press after submitting the manuscript that was based on the proposal that OUP had put under contract. Professor Byrne stated, in his original essay, that OUP rejected the book for the sole…
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Great moments in (somewhat) obscure rock ‘n’ roll: Savoy Brown, “Made Up My Mind,” 1969
We've mentioned the Savoy Brown Blues & Boogie Band before (several members went on to fame and fortune in Foghat in the 1970s), but this is one of my favorite numbers that one never hears on the radio:
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Taylor from Vanderbilt to UCLA
Paul C. Taylor (philosophy of race, aesthetics, social-political philosophy), currently Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University, has accepted appointment as the inaugural Presidential Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Los Angeles.
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Will the attack on tenure unite the Republicans and the “diversity” Democrats
There's a real risk it will, as this report about the Texas Senate vote to abolish tenure for new hires suggests: A little more than a year after Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick declared war on faculty tenure at the state’s public universities, the Texas Senate approved a bill Thursday that would bar schools from granting…
I only just learned of Barry’s passing, and I’m enormously saddened at the news. I wrote my PhD on his…