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Class and responses to Trump’s rudeness and Biden’s gaffes
In 2016, Democrats made the mistake of focusing on Trump's rude, crude and vulgar mouth (on display, I gather at last night's "debate" [sic], which apparently some sentient people actually watched!). Alas, Democrats may be doing it again. Many people don't care (and those who do aren't on the fence), which is rather important in…
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Advertising update
October and November are fully booked, but there's one spot left in December. The next open top spot is in February (one left), and there are also some non-top spots open in January and February as well. E-mail me for more information or to reserve a spot.
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On “cancel culture” again, and a philosophy anecdote
Linguist John McWhorter (Columbia) takes another stab at the topic (earlier attempt here): Our national reckoning on race has brought to the fore a loose but committed assemblage of people given to the idea that social justice must be pursued via attempts to banish from the public sphere, as much as possible, all opinions that…
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“How does science really work?”
Recent work of philosopher Michael Strevens (NYU) discussed in The New Yorker. (Thanks to Benj Hellie for the pointer.)
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PGR haters are strangely self-unaware
Here is philosopher Udo Schuklenk (Queen's/Canada) declaring that "no serious academic would…lend their time to" the PGR. You can see a complete list of the several hundred "unserious" academics who "lend their time" to the PGR: it includes Brian Skyrms, Anthony Appiah, Ernest Sosa, Penelope Maddy, Cristina Bicchieri, Paul Guyer, Timothy Williamson, John Hawthorne, Alex…
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Many Hispanic voters do *not* view themselves as “people of color”
This is interesting, and a problem for the Democrats: Progressives commonly categorize Latinos as people of color, no doubt partly because progressive Latinos see the group that way and encourage others to do so as well. Certainly, we both once took that perspective for granted. Yet in our survey, only one in four Hispanics saw…
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In Memoriam: Amélie Oksenberg Rorty (1932-2020)
MOVING TO FRONT FROM SEPTEMBER 19–UPDATED Professor Rorty wrote very widely in moral psychology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of the emotions, and the history of philosopy (especially ancient). She taught for a quarter-century at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, and then later at Brandeis and Boston Universities, among other places. I will add links to memorial…
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Some jurisprudential articles
"The Roles of Judges in Democracies: A Realistic View" is now out in Journal of Institutional Studies, and will also be reprinted in P. Chiassoni & B. Spaic (eds.), Judges and Adjudication in Constitutional Democracies: A View from Legal Realism (Springer, 2021). From the abstract (taken from the penultimate SSRN version): What are the “obligations” of…
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NY Times quietly revises a key claim of the 1619 project!
Good catch by the World Socialist Web Site! (Thanks to Chris Morris for the pointer.)
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The biggest threat to free speech on campus and academic freedom…
…consistently comes from the pro-Israel interest groups. They are running scared because they realize that far too many of Israel's actions can not withstand public scrutiny.
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Great moments in obscure rock ‘n’ roll: Uriel, “Garden of Earthly Delights,” 1969
British pscyhedelic/blues band, this is the lead number on their debut album:
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Former Supreme Court clerks all love each other…
…as this recent endorsement of Judge Barrett reveals.
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New study estimates 10% of Americans have antibodies to COVID
Study here. Of course, we know that antibody levels wane fairly quickly, and that the key to immunity are T-cells. Is there any way to estimate from this study how many people have T-cells that recognize COVID, even though they no longer have antibodies?
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A concern about this year’s Philosopher’s Annual results
MOVING TO FRONT FROM YESTERDAY–UPDATED A couple of readers have pointed out that two of the ten papers chosen this year by the Philosopher's Annual are by faculty at Michigan, which by itself would not be notable since Michigan is a top department. The worry is that the winning papers were chosen by three Michigan…
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Four immunity scenarios for COVID
This is informative.
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Lessons from the list of highly cited books since 2000
I think there are a couple of takeaways from looking at the books that pile up huge numbers of citations in philosophy over the last twenty years: 1. Books that draw an audience outside philosophy fare much better–in part because citation practices are stingy in philosophy but profligate in some other fields (e.g., psychology). This…
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Breonna Taylor and George Floyd
The media, unfortunately, have linked these cases of police killings, even though they have almost nothing in common. And now, unsurprisingly, a Louisville grand jury has failed to indict any of the officers involved in the no-knock raid that led to Ms. Taylor's death (by contrast, the officer that killed Mr. Floyd was quickly and…
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Philosopher’s Annual, ten top papers from 2019
MOVING TO FRONT FROM SEPTEMBER 13: The papers are now available at the PA website. Here are the papers recognized this year: Brad Armendt (Arizona State), “Causal Decision Theory and Decision Instability,” from the Journal of Philosophy Maegan Fairchild (Michigan), “The Barest Flutter of the Smallest Leaf: Understanding Material Plenitude,” from the Philosophical Review
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A Hume scholar on Hume’s racism
Philosopher Paul Russell (British Columbia/Lund) comments in The Scotsman. In an e-mail to me (which he kindly gave permission to share), he observed: Suffice it to say that Hume would have laughed at the resemblance between the sanctimonious moralism of this woke mob (who are tormenting him in death) and the crazy nuttiness of the…
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A sobering account of the nightmare that will begin on November 3 in the U.S….
…unless it's a Democratic landslide. ADDENDUM: What will bring any crisis to an end is that when the economic and market turmoil becomes too great, a message that will be communicated by members of the ruling class to their lackeys in the Senate and Congress–at that point, the Republicans will stop supporting Trump in his…
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Toronto Law scandal involving political interference with academic hiring continues
Amnesty and the National Council of Canadian Muslims have joined the call for an investigation of the allegations of outside meddling in appointments, and some are now naming the judge allegedly involved, David Spiro of the Tax Court and an alumnus of the law school.
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Many universites have extended the tenure track for tenure-stream faculty…
…and they should also try to extend by a year any fixed term appointments that would end this academic year, since the job market has ground to a near-halt this year, meaning these faculty have little chance of securing other academic employment. The academic world is hitting "pause" (where it can): graduate programs are extending…
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“The Microfoundations of Marxism”
Philosopher Jaime Edwards (St. Norbert College) talks with philosopher Robert Gressis (Cal State/Northridge) about some of the ideas and arguments growing out of his important dissertation on this topic. (Edwards and I are writing the volume on Marx for my Routledge Philosophers series.)
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Philosopher Alastair Wilson (Birmingham) on “Natural Philosophies”…
…discussing quantum modal realism.
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What is court packing?
Since my e-mail "interview" with NPR is showing up in lots of stories, let me say a bit more. "Court packing" is typically used to refer to FDR's proposal in the 1930s to expand the size of the Supreme Court, which had been holding New Deal legislation unconstitutional. The idea was that FDR would add…
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Blast from the past: for a JD/PhD, does the caliber of the law school matter?
Back in 2011, and still applicable. Worth noting that Harvard, which used to fully fund all JD/PhDs, has stopped doing so. (LINK NOW FIXED TO GO DIRECTLY TO THE OLD POST.)
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The life and work of Derek Parfit
Informative essay by philosopher Jonathan Dancy (Texas).
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Great moments in obscure rock ‘n’ roll: Stack Waddy, “Mystic Eyes,” 1971
British blues rock band active in the late 1960s and early 1970s, this is from their debut album (a cover of the mid-60s number by the Irish band Them):
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On the death of Justice Ginsburg of the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS)
Her death is deeply unfortunate, not just for her family, but for the polity she served, and on many levels. To start, it makes clear how perverse "life tenure" on SCOTUS has become when people live so long. You can protect judges from political influence by giving them term-limited tenures that will extend beyond the…
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Job search at U of Toronto law school scuttled after politically motivated interference by a sitting judge
Those are the allegations, and, if true, would represent a serious breach not only of judicial ethics but of academic freedom at the University of Toronto. Job searches should be conducted and positions filled based on academic considerations, not the political concerns of members of the public, even if they are alumni and donors.
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Meanwhile, America’s democratic back-sliding continues…
…with craven political hacks meddling in public health advice for partisan ends. Of course, this is exactly what the U.S. accused China of doing at the start of the pandemic. UPDATE: I guess the NYT story was too much of an embarrassment! At least that democratic institution–a moderately free press–is still functioning on some issues.
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After Princeton President does ritual “mea culpa” for “systemic racism,” U.S. Education Department announces investigation…
…since federal money, of which Princeton gets plenty, are conditioned on non-discriminatory practices by the receivnig institution. Unfortuntely, President Eisgruber (who is, himself, a lawyer, but apparently didn't consult any in this instance) in his public statement a few weeks ago made a number of careless (and probably false) claims that, predictably, would invite scrutiny…
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Most states are doing badly on COVID benchmarks
No state meets all four benchmarks; I'm lucky that Illinois is one of a handful that meets three of the benchmarks. I doubt this would be happening if we hadn't thrown the Republican plutocrat bum out of the Governor's office in the last election. The Democratic plutocrat now in office is at least competent on…
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In Memoriam: Jeffrie G. Murphy (1940-2020)
A leading contributor to philosophy of law, especially philosophy of criminal law, and moral philosophy, Professor Murphy taught at the University of Arizona for a number of years before moving to the Arizona State University faculty in 1981; he ultimately held appointments in both the philosophy department and law school. The ASU memorial notice is…
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Possible new antibody-based treatment for COVID
Interesting, and hopeful.
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Interview with Dutch publication about Trump
I talked with a reporter for the Dutch news magazine HP/De Tijd, some of this will make its way into a story they are running in October. I'll post the full interview here, in case of it's of interest. The reporter's questions are indented and numbered, my responses are prefaced by BL. President Trump takes…
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To be worth using, a detector needs not only (A) not get very many false positives, but also (B) get…
Everything you say is true, but what is the alternative? I don’t think people are advocating a return to in-class…
The discussion here assumes an institutional context where returning to supervised in-person assessment is at least theoretically feasible, a reasonable…
Cyber security professional here -reliably determining when a computational artifact (file, etc.) was created is *hard*. This is sorta why…
Agreed with the other commentator. It is extremely unlikely that Pangram’s success is due to its cheating by reading metadata.
I see this question as a bit naïve. There is metadata on every document created by a modern word processor…
I first met Professor Hoy when I returned to UC Santa Cruz in Fall of ’92 to finish my undergraduate…