July 2026
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Philosophy book sales, a snapshot
I recently got some information from Oxford University Press about book sales. Readers who wonder, “How much do philosophy books sell?” may find this interesting. I should note that Nietzsche books typically do well (by academic standards), since he has a multi-disciplinary audience of interested readers. I should note that many academic philosophy books (including…
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If Trump weren’t such a short-sighted malevolent buffoon…
…it might have occurred to him that murdering another country’s head of state (who was also a major religious figure) would result in threats like this to him and his family (see also). Of course, one suspects that the Iranians won’t dare act on this, since it would compel our humane leaders to murder millions…
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The latest in scams targeting academics: Amy Bloom, the “art curator” in Monaco
The saga continues: philosopher Warren Goldfarb (emeritus, Harvard) shared the email below with me, suspecting it too was a scam: From: Amy Bloom <amybloom1254@gmail.com> Subject: Reflections on Logic, Philosophy, and Cultural Narratives Date: March 13, 2026 at 4:29:11 PM EDT To: [omitted] Dear Professor Goldfarb, I’m Amy, an art curator from Monaco. I work with collectors…
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Top Producers of Law Teachers at the Leading Law Schools Since 1995 (published originally January 31, 2011)
This study identifies the law school alma mater (J.D. only) of tenure-stream academic faculty at 43 leading law faculties who graduated since 1995. Faculty lists are current for 2010-11. “Leading” law faculties were defined as those that are either in the top 35 in the academic reputation surveys conducted by U.S. News & World Report…
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CHE editor Len Gutkin on Appiah’s report on “literary studies”
For those who didn’t have time to read Appiah’s report, this is a balanced overview and assessment. An excerpt: The most trenchant of the report’s methodological critiques is on “identity as a basis for criticism.” Appiah prosecutes an attack on a deformed version of standpoint epistemology by which, in the words of the anthropologist David Stoll, an…
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Where U.S. law professors earned their law degree (2008)
The old Leiter Law Rankings site is going offline August 20, so readers who want any of the material there should copy it before then. I am going to post here some of the data that strike me as particularly useful, starting with data on placement in law teaching. =========== This study is based on…
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Journal of Medical Ethics retracts article with fake AI-generated references
JME retraction notice is here: https://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2026/07/07/jme-2025-111085ret. And here is the Bioethics article that exposed the fraud: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bioe.70099. Johann Go, who flagged this for me, observes that, “The author submitted using a French Yahoo email address, and claimed to be affiliated with the French anti-doping agency (though apparently no evidence could be found on their website…
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Lateral hires in law with tenure or on tenure-track, 2025-26 (FINAL UPDATE)
These are non-clinical/non-LRW appointments that will take effect in summer or fall 2026 (except where noted); (new additions will be in bold.) Last year’s list is here. (Link fixed.) *Ted Afield (tax) from Georgia State University to Stetson University. *Yonathan Arbel (commercial law, consumer law, law & economics, AI & law) from the University of…
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Alex Byrne comes to the defense of the traditional radical feminist theory of patriarchy…
…which does seem far more plausible than the candidate successor. (Regarding the Nietzsche quote which makes an amusing appearance near the end of Byrne’s essay: Nietzsche is obviously thinking of, among others, Kant, who finally confesses that the purpose of the critique of pure reason is to make room for faith.)
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Another journal implodes: Review of Social Economy
Roberto Veneziano, a former co-editor of the journal (which publishes a lot of philosophically-minded economics), writes: On Saturday, the 4th of July all four co-editors of the Review of Social Economy (RoSE) wrote to the Association for Social Economics (ASE) which owns the journal and announced their decision to step down. After having worked hard…
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Four philosophers elected to the British Academy
They are: Beatrice Longuenesse (emerita, NYU); Richard Pettigrew (Bristol, moving to Oxford); Nicholas Shea (Institute of Phil, Univeristy of London); and James Warren (Cambridge).
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Philosopher Paul Boghossian provides a “precis,” and reply to critics, of the “Boghossian Report”…
…at The Philosopher’s Magazine. (A relevant earlier post on this blog here.) I call particular attention to these remarks near the end of Professor Boghossian’s essay: According to the standard diagnosis, the humanities have been captured by the ideological left leading to an unacceptable viewpoint homogeneity that needs to be remedied by appointments, to be…
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Hiring committees can announce themselves and their priorities…
…via Professor Lawsky’s spreadsheet at Prawfs.
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Dear AALS: a suggestion for the FAR form
In the choices of positions for those currently in law teaching positions (e.g., “Professor,” “Lecturer” etc.), there is no provision for those who are “teaching” professors or “professors from practice” (or “professor of the practice”), which are increasingly common titles. Please think about adding those! Currently, I advise candidates to choose the closest title (e.g.,…
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Should you agree to let your books be used for LLM training?
Philosopher Daniel Wodak writes: I was wondering if you had any advice on the following issue, which might be a good topic for your blog. CUP asked me to sign an addendum authorizing them to in effect use the text of my Element in training LLMs, with the promise that I’d get 20% of unspecified…
On reviewing this thread I realize there is a deeper point that is usually missed. Consider the behavior of a…