March 2025
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Deja Vu all over again: Center for Research in Modern European Philosophy targetted for elimination again!
MOVING TO FRONT FROM MARCH 10: SEE UPDATE The last time it was at Middlesex University in 2010, and now it's the same thing again at Kingston University, where the program landed after the last disaster. There's an open letter from students here. Faculty have not yet been fired, but they almost certainly will be…
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Trump Administration makes demands on Columbia University…
…including treating anti-Zionism as anti-semitism (and thus making it a matter for univeristy discipline) and putting several departments into academic receivership for no other reason than faculty members hold views disfavored by the Trump Administration. Other demands are more banal, but these two are a frontal assault on academic freedom and free expression rights of…
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Victory for UIC law professor Jason Kilborn in the 7th Circuit
Here. As Prof. Keith Whittington explains, this is a significant victory for academic freedom rights of faculty.
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J.D. Vance vs. the Pope
Philosopher Steven Hales comments.
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Annals of incompetence: a reminder
The two strongest criminal cases against Donald Trump–for election interference in Georgia, and for unlawfully retaining classified documents–were both botched: the Georgia case because the local prosecutor, Fani Willis, decided to put her unqualified boyfriend into a key role in the case; and the latter, because Merrick Garland moved too slow. If the former had…
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Letter to Congress from Union of Concerned Scientists and dozens of scientific associations…
…including the Philosophy of Science Association, about threats to funding of scientific research.
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Speaking of ideology, the billionaire owner of the Washington Post changes editorial policies to focus on…
…personal liberties [e.g., like the kinds he enjoys] and the virtues of free markets. What a surprise!
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“How are Ideologies False? A Reconstruction of the Marxian Concept”
This article, in the Social Philosophy & Policy volume on "Ideology," is open access now for those who are interested. The abstract: For Karl Marx, ideological forms of consciousness are false, but how and in what respects? Ideologies must include some beliefs in order to be false, even if not all the beliefs that are inferentially…
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Trump’s surprisingly sane position on nuclear weapons
In the midst of the disaster his Administration produces every week, at least there's this.
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Blast from the past: Who was really the greatest philosopher of the 20th-century
A poll back in 2009, with more than a thousand votes. The top five: 1. Ludwig Wittgenstein (17%) 2. Bertrand Russell (16%) 3. David K. Lewis (12%) 4. Martin Heidegger (10%) 5. W.V.O. Quine (8%) 5. John Rawls (8%) The Lewis result says more about who was reading the blog in 2009, I suspect. I'd…
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Cruelty is not the point; subjugation and silencing is
An interesting interview with political theorist Corey Robin about Trump, Musk, McCarthyism and more.
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“The world is not a quantum wave function”
Philosopher Valia Allori comments.
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More on the illegality of the cancellation of contracts and grants at Columbia for alleged Title VI violations
From CHE: Samuel R. Bagenstos, who served as general counsel for the HHS under the Biden administration, said there are typically due-process requirements — such as statements of findings, hearings, and appeals — in cases alleging violations of civil-rights law. (Columbia has been accused of running afoul of Title VI, which bars discrimination in education…
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Deja Vu all over again: Center for Research in Modern European Philosophy targetted for elimination again!
The last time it was at Middlesex University in 2010, and now it's the same thing again at Kingston University, where the program landed after the last disaster. There's an open letter from students here. Faculty have not yet been fired, but they almost certainly will be if the program closures go through. Given the…
I only just learned of Barry’s passing, and I’m enormously saddened at the news. I wrote my PhD on his…