March 2026
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Muñoz from North Carolina to the ANU
Daniel Muñoz (ethics, value theory), Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has accepted appointment as Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the Australian National University, beginning in August.
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In Memoriam: Steven L. Reynolds (1956-2026)
Professor Reynolds, a longtime member of the philosophy faculty at Arizona State University (where he was emeritus), was well-known for his work on a variety of topics in epistemology. Comments are open for remembrances from those who knew Professor Reynolds or for those who would like to comment on the significance of his work.
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Texas war on free speech and academic freedom: Texas State University edition
A tenure-track philosophy professor, fired because of his lawful speech about the Israel-Palestine conflict, has sued the university. Let us hope the courts can make these rogue universities comply with the Constitution. (Thanks to Peter Kail for the pointer.)
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More on the late Ali Larijani, Kant scholar and tyrant
Prior to the recent U.S./Israeli war of aggression against Iran, Larijani led the vicious repression of protests against the theocratic regime. This Haaretz profile is quite interesting, and discusses his work on Kant (email me if you have a link that is not paywalled). The Wikipedia claim that he wrote on Kripke and Lewis appears…
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Even judges cannot figure out whether lawyers are incompetent or using AI!
Philosophy graduate student Charles Bakker sends me this interesting article from Canada about an “Ontario lawyer [who] filed seven completely fake quotations from court cases to a judge while arguing in court, but claims it was human error and not artificial intelligence tools behind it. A skeptical judge wonders if the lawyer’s claim makes things…
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Berkeley law touts its rankings
And they should, given that they are badly treated by USNews.com. The fatal problem, of course, with HeinOnLine rankngs is that they only record citations to articles in the Hein database that are cited by articles in the Hein database, which is to say that a huge amount of important legal scholarship vanishes as a…
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A note about memorial notices
MOVING TO FRONT FROM FEBRUARY, 2025 AS A REMINDER ABOUT THE NEW POLICY I have never tried to post memorial notices for all the many teachers of philosophy who die in a given year (I just do not have the time for that). I have tried to limit memorial notices to those who are…
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HTML or PDFs online?
MOVING TO FRONT FROM MARCH 19–SEE REPLY FROM OUP PHILOSOPHY EDITOR HENRY CLARKE IN THE COMMENTS Philosopher and logician Volker Halbach writes: Oxford University Press recently told me that “it appears that we no longer make individual pdfs of our works available for sale, as digital rights management is extremely challenging for that format.” Generally,…
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Martha Nussbaum talks about “opera and democracy”…
…the subject of her new book.
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“Identity politics and scolding moralism” on the “academic left”
This was amusing, from philosopher and political activist Ben Burgis: It’s one thing to know that someone whose overwhelming passion is metaphysics or epistemology or even abstract moral philosophy is a huge lib, and another to see them become more and more politically engaged in ways you find insufferable. Part of this story is about…
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Leo Strauss was mostly a charlatan, redux
Longtime readers will know that there are three characters who get called “philosophers” that I really think are a disgrace: Jacques Derrida, Ayn Rand, and Leo Strauss. They each have acolytes, who hate me for saying out loud what any serious scholar or philosopher knows. Rand is most obviously an ignorant buffoon, but Derrida and…
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Gordon Barnes talks about applied epistemology…
…with Spencer Case.
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Which AI-writing detector is best?
A reader calls my attention to this article about Pangram. Curious to hear from readers about their experiences with AI-writing detection programs, whether Pangram, or others.
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Free University of Brussels rescinds appointment of strident anti-Israeli, pro-Palestinian academic
I can’t see having a meal with Harry Pettit, who seems a bit morally depraved, but his political speech is probably lawful even in a jurisdiction with typical EU hate speech laws (see, e.g.). In any case, barring a legal judgment against him, it seems to me the VUB has clearly violated his rights, including…
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University of Florida “College Republicans,” i.e., the Hitler Youth League
Amazing. In fact, they do have a First Amendment right to be Nazis. The U.S. position on “hate speech” may soon come home to roost.
Let me recommend Eleanor Knox’s essay on IAI a few months ago for what I think is a much more…