February 2024
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David Enoch talks about (what else?) moral realism…
…at Lance Independent. I do wonder when the current moral realism fad will pass in Anglophone philosophy? Group polarization effects may keep it going for awhile, I fear.
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Fellowships/VAPs for aspiring law professors
The Blog Emperor has updated his valuable listing.
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John Locke’s pancakes recipe
Who knew? (Thanks to Andy Hudson for the pointer.)
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Massive cuts at Manhattan College
This private liberal arts college plans to cut 25% of its faculty! Philosopher James Mahon at Lehman College in NYC tells me that three of its four philosophy faculty will be lost: one tenure-track, and one tenured professor, are being fired, and another tenured professor has opted to take the "voluntary" [sic] redundancy package. There…
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Top 40 research universities in the world ranked by “Google Scholar” citations (sort of)
We first searched for all Google Scholar citations of faculty at a particular university. We then summed the citations for the first most-cited faculty member, the tenth-most cited, the 20th, the 30th and the 40th. The data was collected several months ago. Some fields are promiscuous with citations (e.g., medicine, psychology, statistics, particle physics), and…
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Judges throws out lawsuit brought by Hastings descendents against UC San Francisco College of Law
Story here; the key bit: A judge found that an 1878 California law saying the state’s law school in San Francisco “shall forever be known” as Hastings College of the Law was not a binding contract, but simply an ordinary statute that future lawmakers were free to amend or repeal.
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Great moments in rock ‘n’ roll covers: Joan Jett does Sly & the Family Stone
From 1983: And the original:
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Northwestern students now facing obscure criminal charges after producing parody of the student newspaper…
…supporting the Palestinians. I can't believe any prosecutor would take this case, which clearly implicates core First Amendment values. UPDATE: Joel Pust points out to me on Twitter that the charges have now been dropped, thankfully.
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Petition in support of humanities & other subjects under threat at the University of Kent
Here, a propos this. Please sign. Universities dislike adverse publicity, so when thousands and thousands of academic sign a petition like this it makes clear to the decision-makers that their "brand" (that's how these people think!) is being damaged!
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The growth of PPE
That this article appears in Forbes ("capitalist tool") is, in a way, telling: at least in the US, these programs tend to have a libertarian and neoclassical economics tilt to them. They needn't, of course, but I assume that is why Forbes was interested.
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Philosophy professor turned guitar maker
Tracy Chapman used one of Judy Threet's guitars at the Grammys! (Thanks to David Martens for the pointer.)
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ABA establishes “free speech” standards for law school accreditation purposes
Story here; an excerpt: Law schools will now be asked to explicitly protect free speech rights for faculty, students and staff as part of the ABA accreditation process. Though law school faculty have long enjoyed protections for academic freedom, this would be the first accreditation standard to address free speech for the entire community within…
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Another editorial team revolts against Wiley journal policies: Journal of Economic Surveys
The statement from the editors is here: Download Public statement Resignations from the Editorial Board of the Journal of Economic Surveys (final). From the statement: The…documentation submitted to our analysis [by Wiley] appeared to emphasize quantity over quality of the papers submitted and strongly favoured cross pollination among the various Wiley publications also in relation…
I only just learned of Barry’s passing, and I’m enormously saddened at the news. I wrote my PhD on his…