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It did happen here, redux
Following up on this, Andrew Sullivan’s diagnosis is candid and accurate; an excerpt: Trump is…a wild boar — psychologically incapable of understanding anything but dominance and revenge, with no knowledge of history, crashing obliviously and malevolently through the ruined landscape of our constitutional democracy….. But the one thing we didn’t really know before now is…
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Farewell to Academia.edu
It was never a very good site, I thought, but now they’re getting greedy and stupid. Delete your account if you have one.
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Meanwhile, in the fascist state of Florida…
…a retired law professor has his “emeritus” status stripped because of his lawful political expression.
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High school needs philosophy classes
Ivy Watrous, a high school student in California, makes the case here.
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How much trouble are we in with the ChatGPT5?
A lot, it appears. My philosophy colleague Jason Bridges kindly gave permission to share this little experiment he ran on the newest version of the best-known large-language-model. Here was the prompt Professor Bridges gave: “Write a 1000 word essay on Scanlon’s version of contractualism, arguing that although it attempts to register the moral importance of…
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Speaking of authoritarian suppression of speech, Texas State University needs to be sued…
…for firing a tenured history professor for completely lawful political speech (what he is reported to have said comes nowhere near legally actionable "incitement" to violence–it is not even close). I hope the AFA and FIRE are on this one, it's really egregious, but a sign of the times, especially in the benighted state of…
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Authoritarian suppression of political speech now slipping across the border to Canada
Unsurprisingly, given the way the U.S. is going, those who reacted incorrectly to the murder of a far right activist this past week have been losing their jobs, even in academia. The sheer hypocrisy of the Republican Party when it comes to free speech is really breathtaking. Like far too many who talk about "free…
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Women earn an increasing share of PhDs in philosophy (more than a third now)
Interesting data via Professor Schwitzgebel. I can imagine a couple of factors that have contributed to this trend, which seems to have gotten under way in the early part of the last decade. First, starting about 15 yeras ago, many PhD programs made a concerted effort to increase the recruitment of female students, with…
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Political violence has unintended consequences
I have very little to add to what Ezra Klein said about the horrific public murder yesterday of a far right activist, the latest ugly event in a series of attacks on public political figures. We don't yet know whether this was a politically motivated killing, or, like the assassination attempt on then-candidate Trump in…
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Fascism comes to the classroom at Texas A&M
This is the insane but predictable consequence of Trump and the Texas Repugs. The teacher, a senior lecturer, was fired. As incidents like this multiply, public universities in Texas will be finished as major research institutions. What a disaster.
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The federal court decision in favor of Harvard in its lawsuit against Trump
I haven't had a chance to read it carefully, but a First Amendment expert here offers a useful overview of the decision and its significance. If this gets appealed up to the super-legislature, who knows what will happen? My guess is a settlement will be reached before then, but we will see. I suspect the…
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“Trump lawyer who praised ‘Mein Kampf’ is now accusing Harvard of antisemitism”
This pretty much sums up the fake war on anti-semitism in the universities.
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In Memoriam: George Pappas (1942-2025)
Professor Pappas, who was emeritus at Ohio State University, where he spent most of his career, was well-known for his work in epistemology and on the philosophy of George Berkeley. There is an obituary here. Comments are open for remembrances from those who knew Professor Pappas or for those who would like to comment on…
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Is Cambridge University Press still behaving badly?
This post from 2018 laid out some of the (at the time, at least) unique and bad practices of CUP. Have things changed?
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Question from international applicant about the upcoming admissions cycle
MOVING TO FRONT FROM SEPTEMBER 2–PROBABLY A MISTAKE TO HAVE POSTED TIHS ON THE HEELS OF LABOR DAY (IN THE U.S.) AND MY SUMMER BLOGGING HIATUS, SO TRYING AGAIN TO SEE IF ANY READERS WANT TO WEIGH IN A non-U.S. student writes: As an international applicant planning to apply in the coming years, I am…
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Please change your bookmark for this blog to:
https://www.leiterreports.com For now, this will take you to the current version on Typepad, but when I switch blog service provider, it will take you to the new site. I should be able to post the full URL with the WordPress site before too long, but as long as you use the URL above you will…
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Updates at my home page…
…including new books, recent and upcoming talks, former students, and video & audio links, for those who might be interested.
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Best of the summer 2025 blog
For readers who may only be tuning back in, here are some highlights from the summer: June Book talk event on "Marx" at UChicago's Stone Center on Inequality Many Trump efforts to make America unlivable are "beneath the radar" The NYC Mayoral race July The SCOTUS decision on nationawide (or "universal") injunctions Let's remember some…
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The Mafia boss running the United States and the “Department of War”
As Trump gears up for a war of aggression against Venezuela, it's only fitting that he has proposed calling the "Department of Defense" by its traditional name, "the Department of War," since that has always been its primary purpose, from the wars of aggression against Iraq and Vietnam, to the illegal invasions of Grenada and…
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Open access philosophy books: a thread, Part II
MOVING TO FRONT FROM AUGUST 6 (ORIGINALLY POSTED MARCH 13): see for what counts as a suitable submission below–no anonymous posts The last thread had 39 submissions, so I thought it's time for a second thread. Instructions as before: In light of the growing number of these volumes, I am going to run a thread…
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Florida poised to become the preventable disease capital of the developed world…
…as the yahoos who run it propose eliminating vaccine mandates for school children. That basically guarantees outbreaks of measles, chickenpox, whooping cough etc., and will have spillover effects for the millions of elderly retirees in that state. I assume anyone with a brain in their head (not everyone in Florida, needless to say) will leave…
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“Chicago is the worst and most dangerous city in the World, by far”
Thus lied the monster child the other day as a pretext for federalizing the National Guard and sending them to Chicago. (He'll get to Baltimore and San Francisco and New York before long.) Chicago isn't even the "most dangerous city" in the U.S., let alone the world. Using homicides per 100,000 people, Chicago isn't even…
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I talk about Marx, “wage slavery,” the labor theory of value and capitalism…
…at Brain in a Vat. The always delightful interocutors out themselves in this episode as anarcho-capitalists! My co-author of the Marx book, Jaime Edwards, will appear on a separate episode to discuss ideology, "class," and other topics.
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Khalifa from UCLA to Pitt HPS
Kareem Khalifa (philosophy of science), Professor of Philosophy at UCLA, has accepted appointment as Professor in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh, starting fall 2027.
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Two senior hires for Oxford: Carpenter from the Einstein Forum, Simion from Glasgow
Amber Carpenter (ancient philosophy), currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Einstein Forum, will start as Professor of Ancient Philosophy (at St Anne's Colelge) in fall 2026; Mona Simion (epistemology), currently Professor of Philosophy at the University of Glasgow, will start as Professor of Philospohy (at Exeter College) effective January 1, 2026.
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The latest on the Amy Wax case
Here. The IHE article on this is misleading (typical of IHE!): the federal judge dismissed only the discrimination claims (which seemed to me preposterous), and since that was the only federal law claim at issue, the federal court declined to take up the state law breach of contract claims. But state law breach of contract is Wax's…
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Trump’s paramilitary forces
This deserves more notice, and if the Democrats manage to retake Congress, they need to dismantle these stormtrooper outfits: I see the evisceration of due process. I see detention centers being built where it is extraordinarily hard for lawyers and families to reach the people inside. I see men in masks refusing to identify themselves…
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Blog service providers–advice sought
So Typepad, the blog service provider I have used for many yeras, is shutting down on September 30 of this year. The domain name, which I own, namely http://www.leiterreports.com, will remain unchanged, but I'll need to move the blog content to a new service provider. I'm curious whether readers have any informed opinoins about (1)…
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Jack White, redux
I heard from lots of readers after my confession of not knowing who Mr. White (born Gillis) was, but suffice it to say, now I am informed! While I can't say I care for The White Stripes (his first band with his ex-wife), I still admire his firm response to the monster child. Philosopher Robert…
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Penelope Maddy interviewed…
…by Nathan Ballantyne at The Workbench.
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In Memoriam: Harry Deutsch (1942-2025)
Emeritus at Illinois State University, Professor Detusch was a leading contributor to philosophical logic and cognate areas during his long career. There is a memorial notice here, and do see the first comment by Nathan Salmon. Comments are open for remembrances from those who knew Professor Detusch or for those who would like to comment…
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Rock musician Jack White on Donald Trump
I'd never heard of White prior to this, but kudos to this guy for pulling no punches with the monster child:
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More on the UChicago Humanities Division
The last proposal from the Humanities Dean (noted here) met with a lot of pushback, so the Dean issued a revised plan, more in line with that a faculty committee had recommended: "We will have a pause for all PhD admissions except for two departments with unique situations related to their previous pauses: Philosophy and…
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Blast from the past: best/most important books in ethics of the last 200 years
Poll results, with reader discussion, back in 2011.
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A beautifully apt description of Trump from historian Jack Rakove
Here: His overt acts, craven ambition, delusional beliefs, erratic behaviors, perpetual dishonesty, and mental capacities lie so many norms of deviation apart from all his presidential counterparts that he has to be taken as a unique case. There are other apt observations by historians and political scientists in the linked piece, but the key fact…
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CHOICE reviews Edwards & Leiter on Marx
Gratifying to see this review of our book from Choice, which influences what libraries buy in particular: “Karl Marx is simultaneously one of the most important and most mischaracterized philosophers of the last 200 years. And yet there has been no clear, transparent introduction to the life and works of Marx, until now. Students and…
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Philosopher’s Annual, 2024
Patrick Grim, the editor, has shared the results of this past year's selection process. I am pleased to see two papers I voted for (Riggle, Wodak) made the final cut! (I didn't vote/comment one way or the other on any of the other winners, whose papers were far afield of my competence and interests.) …
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Great moments in obscure rock ‘n’ roll: Tony Joe White, “Scratch My Back,” 1968
Another delightful number from the king of swamp blues rock (last time): Once again, feel free to post links to other Tony Joe White numbers (or covers of his numbers).
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.
An interesting, and in my view, entirely welcome dimension of the “new” PPA has been a return to discussion of…
Daniel says a lot I agree with but on a few of the issues I’d slightly disagree. We’re facing the…
I doubt enough experts have read enough of the articles published in the top 10 value theory journals over the…
It’s hard to see the old PPA publishing some of what the new PPA has been publishing, although that’s not…
Richard, this is all fair and certainly, impressions of the current quality of the discipline are a subjective matter. I…
The stigmatisation of certain theories, counter-intuitive to many, as ‘preposterous’ should be avoided. It is not ultimately conducive to discovering…
“given the actual number of career-worthy jobs (i.e. not per-course or adjunct positions)” The “id est” seems mistaken. Many tenure-track…