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Blast from the past: Linda Alcoff and the “Climate for Women” fraud
Still amazing after all these years.
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Cross-cultural normative philosophy…
…at the Pea Soup blog. It looks like it will be mostly about Chinese philosophy to start. As I've learned more about Chinese philosophy, I've been struck by how much of it makes the same kinds of mistakes as the mainstream of the Western tradition and has a tendency to be "ideological" in roughly the…
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Gill from Arizona to Edinburgh
Michael Gill (ethics, history of ethics), Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arizona, has accepted a senior offer from the Department of Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, where he will start in the 2020-21 academic year.
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Walton’s theory of fiction as “make-believe”
Animated! This is pretty well done:
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St. Cloud State is moving forward with firing tenured faculty, including in philosophy
I've been assisting one faculty member in finding legal counsel, and may soon be raising funds to help with this tenured faculty member's legal remedies. (The faculty are unionized, and the union will be filing its own grievances regarding these terminations.) I'll post more when I can, probably later in the week. This is appalling…
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Robert Paul Wolff on Trump’s firing of John Bolton
This is funny: "Bolton is a genuinely dangerous man, and I am delighted to see him gone. His summary dismissal highlights the odd but welcome fact that Trump is a dove. A belligerent dove, a bullying dove, a bombastic dove, an ignorant dove, a feckless dictator-loving suck up of a dove, but a dove nonetheless.…
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Unintentional haikus of the philosophers
Eliran Haziza, a graduate student in philosophy at the University of Toronto, has written a program to strip occurrences of "unintentional haiku" from corpuses of text. When run on the philosophers of our time, the program locates various gems,which Mr. Haziza kindly gave permission to share: > Snow falls, and is white;> the falling is…
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America is crazy, Florida edition
Jesus Fucking Christ. Next up: arm the children.
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St. Cloud State University may fire some tenured faculty early next week
Appalling, and it looks to violate the university's own policies and procedures. (Earlier coverage.)
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Why does “evil” fascinate?
Literary critic Terry Eagleton, philosopher Susan Neiman, and others discuss.
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More on the free expression debate at Williams “Comfort” College
This account from the student newspaper last Spring is informative.
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More on the rise of the “comfort college”…
…from philosopher Steven Gerrard (Williams) (part one); an excerpt: Suppose I ask someone for the reason he or she believes something — anything. Without further context, the word “reason” is strictly ambiguous. Am I asking for the motive, the cause or the justification? If the question is “What is the reason a person believes in…
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News of world-shattering importance
Hyde Park, where the University of Chicago is located, now has a really good Italian restaurant–please go there! Nella Pizzeria is also excellent, but not as ambitious in its dishes. For the local bourgeoisie, these are very good developments.
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Best of the summer blog, 2019
For those returning to more regular blog reading, here are some highlights from the blog this summer: June What I actually think about trans gender issues "'Philosophical Discussion of Trans Identity: A Guide for the Perplexed'" Raymond Geuss wishes Habermas a "Happy 90th" Reflections on the Searle case from one of his victims July I've…
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Another elite liberal arts college with a freedom of expression problem
Philosopher Steven Gerrard recounts recent events at Williams College and introduces the concept of the "comfort college": At Williams College’s bicentennial in 1993, Frederick Rudolph, a beloved and esteemed professor of history at the school, gave a speech in which he defined the three eras of his and other elite colleges: the Christian college, the…
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Honest academic job ads
Many of these are very funny!
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Advertising update
October is sold out and there is one spot remaining in November (2nd from the top). The next open top spot is in December (one left). There is at least one top spot still open every month thereafter. E-mail me for more information.
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This week in actual “fake news” making the rounds on social media
Pretty ridiculous. (I say "actual 'fake news'" to distinguish it from the Trump "fake news" category which consists of "accurate news coverage unfavorable to me.")
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Philosophy’s aspiring “tin-pot dictators”
Philosopher Daniel Kaufman (Missouri State) comments on their latest shenanigans.
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Avital Ronell is back teaching at NYU…
…but is facing calls from students and some faculty that she be fired. I see no reason for that, based on what we know at this point. She was investigated, found guilty of certain offenses, and lost a year's salary and faces other administrative supervision now that she is back. Those are significant punishments, not…
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“Napping while Black” at Yale–what really happened?
This thorough account puts last year's incident in a different light, and while hardly uncritical of the philosophy graduate student involved, also makes clear she was badly treated by the media, both actual and social. It's particularly notable that Yale, upon investigation, did not find that there had been any racial harassment. Ms. Braasch, the…
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Great moments in obscure rock ‘n’ roll: Warpig, “Rock Star,” 1970
Canadian hard rock band of the early 1970s, that enjoyed some local success in Ontario, but not really elsewhere. This is from their one and only album (with echoes of Deep Purple): UPDATE: As reader David Frydrych points out, the "echo" may be going the other way!
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Survey of philosophy job seekers
Philosopher Charles Lassiter (Gonzaga) asked me to share this with readers (there are more details about the survey at the linked site): If you are planning to apply for academic jobs this year, we hope you'll consider participating in our study "The Philosophy Job Market: Applicant Profiles and CV Review." Our aim in this first…
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The funniest Brexit melodrama tweet…
…from philosopher Mary Leng (York), a propos this: Bro Jo says “no, no” in low blow to BoJo.
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Philosopher Sophie Allen (Keele) replies to a Twitter critic
This makes for a delightful read, and not only because Dr. Allen is so much more dialectically acute than her sanctimonious critic (who appears to be Prof. Kay Kirkpatrick, a mathematics professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign).
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Blast from the past: a classic metablog moment
It seems so long ago now.
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Correlation, causation, and the “dumbness” of data
Illuminating review essay of Judea Pearl's new book by philosopher Tim Maudlin (NYU), which includes this amusingly apt observation: The physicist Richard Feynman is widely reported as saying “Philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds.” It always surprises me that no one points out that ornithology would indeed…
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Physics, Physicalism, and What There Is
A discussion with Nancy Cartwright (Durham/UC San Diego), John Dupre (Exeter) and physicist Subir Sarkar (Oxford).
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The NYT 1619 Project and the true story of America
Robert Paul Wolff comments.
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Reaction formation watch: conversion therapy edition
Founder of a major program aimed at "converting" gay people to being "straight" has now come out as gay. Another notch in Dr. Freud's belt.
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San Francisco Board declares National Rifle Association a “domestic terrorist organization”
Good for them, although it's fair to say they are more an aider and abettor of domestic terrorism than a terrorist organization proper–but it's the thought that counts!
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Quantum physics and “common sense”
Interesting popular essay by philosopher Tim Maudlin (NYU).
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How Thatcher’s model of universities as “businesses” and students as “customers” destroyed British universities
A damning, and no doubt accurate, assessment; an excerpt: Over the past 30 years, successive governments, from Thatcher to Blair, to Cameron and May, have imposed a set of perverse incentives on universities. Their effect has been to degrade and devalue the quality of British degrees. Academic standards have collapsed. In many institutions, it is…
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“Could philosophy save Ireland?”
I didn't now Ireland needed saving but teaching philosophy in the schools sounds like a good idea!
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Three senior hires for Oxford
The newest is Catherine Abell (philosophy of art), who was previously Reader in Philosophy at the University of Manchester. The two older ones, which I had missed, were Alice Crary (ethics, feminist philosophy) who is taking up a half-time post at Oxford, but will also continue half-time at the New School in New York City;…
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Are “Social Justice Warriors” concerned with justice?
Not at all clear. (Thanks to several readers who sent this along; it's been a crazy month, so I only just got to take a look at this.)
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“Neurodiversity” and the trivialization of autism
This is interesting. (Thanks to James O'Connor for the pointer.)
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The President of the United States is an imbecile, an ongoing saga
Why didn't General Mattis save us from this imbecile?
Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog
News and views about philosophy, the academic profession, academic freedom, intellectual culture, and other topics. The world’s most popular philosophy blog, since 2003.
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Sorry to keep beating a dead horse, but something just occurred to me that I haven’t seen anyone discuss. Why…