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Rousseau on impeachment…
…with some help from David Lay Williams (DePaul).
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Jacobson from Michigan to Colorado/Boulder
Daniel Jacobson (ethics, metaethics, moral psychology, aesthetics, political philosophy), Professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, has accepted a senior offer from the Department of Philosophy at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where he will hold the first endowed chair (the Benson Professorship) in that department beginning fall 2020. In addition, he…
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Great moments in obscure rock ‘n’ roll: The Factory, “Gone,” 1968
British psychedelic band that released two singles and enjoyed no recognition at the time; this is the B-side of one of the two singles (which I rather prefer to the A-side, "Path Through the Forest"):
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Which currently fashionable philosophical view is the most preposterous?
Regarding my quip about panpsychism the other day, philosopher Mohan Matthen (Toronto) writes: "Goff anticipates your objection, which is the first listed in his SEP entry, under the title, 'Objections to Panpsychism: The Incredulous Stare.' I happen to think that the Incredulous Stare holds water though, because it’s beyond crazy to argue a priori for…
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Speaking of people defamed by the media, let’s not forget the horrendous treatment of Yale PhD student Sarah Braasch
We've noted before the raw deal Ms. Braasch got in the media in the misnamed "Napping while Black" story. Particularly striking is that her exoneration by Yale from the charges of racially motivated harassment received almost no media coverage, even though the whole alleged story was supposed to be about racially motivated harassment and calling…
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Harvard Law professor Larry Lessig sues NYT for defamation
Good for him. Given the terrible state of American law–which is more favorable to defamers than any other legal jurisdiction in a democratic society–he will have an uphill battle.
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Panpsychism makes “Scientific American”!
What's next, intelligent design? (OK, bad joke.) (Thanks to Phil Gasper for the pointer.)
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Six philosophers win NEH Fellowships
They are: Dorit Bar-On (Connecticut), Michael Jacovides (Purdue), Allison Kuklok (St. Michael's College), Gabriel Mendlow (Michigan [primary appointment in the law school]), Nathanael Stein (Florida State), and David Stern (Iowa). A good year for philosophers in the NEH competition!
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“Diversity blather” originated in corporate America, and its leading proponents are members of the managerial class in academia
Prior to Bakke and the constitutionalization of "diversity" blather in the late 1970s, people knew what affirmative action was actually about: a kind of reparations for the world-historic injustices suffered by African-Americans, for example. "Diversity" was cooked up in corporate HR departments in the 1970s, and then declared the sole permissible rationale for affirmative action…
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Philosophy, logic and clear thinking
Timothy Williamson is in favor!
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In Memoriam: Roger Scruton (1944-2020)
MOVING TO FRONT FROM JANUARY 12–UPDATED Professor Scruton, who taught for two decades at Birkbeck College, University of London, has died of cancer. He did important work in aesthetics, but became better known as the philosopher of the Tories in the UK over the past thirty years. There is an announcement at his website (it…
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Top 50 Universities by membership in the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, 2019
The AAAS website has finally added a better search engine (see an earlier iteration of this study before the new search engine), although it is not ideally precise so some results had to be tabulated manually (e.g., "New York University" turns up also members at the "City University of New York"). An * indicates the…
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Papers posted on-line in 2019
For those interested, here are links to the new and revised papers I posted on-line in 2019: "The History of Philosophy Reveals that 'Great' Philosophy is Disguised Moral Advocacy: A Nietzschean Case Against the Socratic Canon in Philosophy" "Culture and Value in Nietzsche" "Nietzsche's Naturalism: Neither Liberal Nor Illiberal" "Bernard Williams' Debt to Nietzsche: Real…
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“Human and Animal Minds”
Philosopher Peter Carruthers (Maryland) is blogging at the Brains Blog this week.
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In Memoriam: Douglas N. Walton (1942-2020)
Professor Walton was best-known for his work in informal logic, especially the theory of argumentation. He spent most of his career at the University of Winnipeg, although taught most recently at the University of Windsor. The Windsor memorial notice is here. (Thanks to Scott Wisdom for the pointer.)
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What is a realist theory of law?
This programmatic essay, which was written for translation into Portuguese and Spanish for legal philosophy journals in South America, may be of interest to some readers.
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The legacy of the Texas Taliban in school textbooks
On display in the NYT.
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2019 in review, for those who missed it (the review, that is, not the year!)
As traffic picks up post-holidays, I thought I'd note that under the category "Year in Review" (in which this post appears), you can find links to the various year-in-review posts covering 2019 at the blog.
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In Memoriam: Brian McGuinness (1927-2019)
MOVING TO FRONT FROM DECEMBER 24, 2019–UPDATED Best-known for his work on Wittgenstein, Professor McGuinness taught for many years at Oxford University and then later at the University of Siena in Italy. I will add links to memorial notices as they appear. UPDATE: An obituary from The Telegraph and another from the Austrian Wittgenstein Society. …
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Great moments in obscure rock ‘n’ roll: Spice, “Astranaza,” 1968
Before Uriah Heep and Ken Hensley, vocalist David Bryon and guitarist Mick Box played with a band called Spice, which recorded more material than it released, including this quirky tune that grows on you:
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In Memoriam: Colin Howson (1945-2020)
A well-known philosopher of science and decision theorist, Professor Howson spent some four decades on the faculty at the London School of Economics. There is a brief memorial notice from the LSE Department here.
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Crispin Sartwell (Dickinson) on “guilt-by-association” and the Twitter Red Guard
This is funny; an excerpt: Last week, I published a piece on the website Quillette. Founded by Aussie Claire Lehmann, Quillette has frequently been associated with the “Intellectual Dark Web” (IDW). It’s not left-leaning, though if you rummage around you’ll find pieces from a number of different orientations. They’ve sparked controversy here and there: on James Damore’s…
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Another entry for the Black Book of capitalism…
…rising deaths by suicide and substance abuse in the working class. As this account appears in the NYT, no discussion of actual causes and effects is permitted, thus we find this: We have deep structural problems that have been a half century in the making, under both political parties, and that are often transmitted from…
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JHP Article Prize for 2019
Philosopher Jack Zupko (Alberta), editor of the Journal of History of Philosophy, shared the following: The Board of Directors of the Journal of the History of Philosophy has awarded the prize for the best article to appear in volume 57 of the JHP to Jessica Moss and Whitney Schwab for “The Birth of Belief,” JHP 57.1 (January 2019): 1–32, with an…
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Summer school in philosophy at CEU Budapest
I usually don't announce these summer schools, but I'm making an exception for this one, led by Barry Loewer (Rutgers), given the unprecedented persecution of the CEU by the fascist Orban, wihch has forced the CEU to move its programs to Vienna. But this summer school is in Budapest, focusing on the history and philosophy…
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A new “School of Liberal Arts” at U of Wollongong, led by philosopher Daniel Hutto
The program is described here–a kind of "great books," liberal arts education within a large public research university–and they have already made multiple junior appointments of philosophers working in philosophy of mind and psychology, philosophy of science, ethics, ancient philosophy, and phenomenology. An impressive investment in philosophy and philosophical education!
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John Dewey Center established in India
News release here. Professor Scott Stroud (Communication Studies, UT Austin), who called this to my attention, writes: Dewey’s student Bhimrao Ambedkar was a major figure in Indian politics, serving as the architect of India’s constitution, and he is also known as a major leader in the movement against caste oppression (he was from a so-called…
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Trump as symptom
This is very apt, from the platform of the Socialist Equality Party: Though his bourgeois opponents portray him as a monster risen from hell, Trump—whose wealth is derived from decades of fraud in the financial, real estate, casino gambling and entertainment industries—is far better understood as the personification of the parasitism of the American ruling…
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Stoicism as ideology
It makes its way to Silicon Valley. (Thanks to David Zimmerman for the pointer.)
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Virtual Dissertation Groups, once again
Joshua Smart (Ohio State) asked me to share this, which I'm happy to do: Virtual Dissertation Groups VDG is a free service that connects graduate students to provide feedback on dissertation work. Members are grouped with two others working in the same general area of philosophy. About once a month, one member sends some work…
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More on the fascist attack on the universities in India
A propos this, a reader in India (who did not want to be named for the obvious reasons, given the fascist thugs roaming around) writes: I’m writing with some more information on the follow-up of the attack on JNU which is about as outrageous as the incident itself. So far, two days after the attack,…
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Two senior term appointments for Rutgers: Antony (quarter-time) from U Mass/Amherst; Hausman from Wisconsin (UPDATED)
MOVING TO FRONT: ANTONY PART-TIME APPOINTMENT CLARIFIED, BELOW Louise Antony (philosophy of mind, feminist philosophy), Professor of Philosophy at the University of Massachussetts, Amherst, has accepted appointment as Distinguished Visiting Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University, New Brunswick for (at least) the next five years, where she will teach a graduate seminar one semester per…
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While “diversity statements” are being used system-wide in the University of California…
…we don't, at this stage, know whether all campuses are using them perniciously and illegally, as Berkeley and perhaps also Davis, and Santa Cruz are, in some significant number of their searches. The potential for this misuse is there at all the campuses, of course, and it remains to be seen how things develop elsewhere.…
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Living without smart phones
Students (prompted by their philosophy professor) write about their experience, and it's revealing. (Thanks to Dean Rowan for the pointer.)
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Sarah Braasch v. Yale, redux
Sarah Brasch is the Yale philosophy PhD student who was the victim of a media mobbing after being framed as a "racist." In order to clear her name, Ms. Braasch is trying to force Yale to release the Yale police recording of what actually transpired that evening; Yale, inexplicably and outrageously, is refusing. Here is…
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Another historian interviewed about the 1619 Project: Richard Carwardine (Oxford)
Here. An excerpt: I understand where this [1619] Project is coming from, politically and culturally. Of course, the economic well-being of the United States and the colonies that preceded it was constructed for over two-and-a-half centuries on the labor and sufferings of slaves; of course, like all entrenched wielders of power, the white political elite…
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Andrei Rodin is circulating a letter demanding the liberation of Svetlana Mesyats: https://philomatica.org/2026/05/open-letter-in-support-of-svetlana-messiats/. The prosecution has demanded a sentence of…
Carlos Alberto Sánchez’s A Sense of Brutality: Philosophy after Narco-Culture (Amherst College Press, 2020) is a finalist for the 2026…
The treatment of these scholars is atrocious and terrifying. Perhaps it is worth comparing Vladimir Putin’s conception of scholarship and…
Georgy Maksimovich pointed me to this article in Russian: https://novayagazeta.ru/articles/2026/05/25/antisovetskie-filosofskie-kontratseptsii
David J. Gunkel «Person, Thing, Robot: A Moral and Legal Ontology for the 21st Century and Beyond» (MIT, 2023) Link:…
Giovanni Molteni Tagliabue (Italy) Rationalized and Extended Democracy – The REDemo Project. Foreword by Gilberto Corbellini. Firenze University Press 2023.…
June 1, 2026. To: Dr. Leiter. Open access unlimited and unending. Today Date: 2026 June 1. Unending until 2715. Free…