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Today in Trump’s threats to commit war crimes
What a disgrace to humanity this man is.
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Chinese philosophers publishing in Anglophone journals in 2025
Philosopher Jinze Liu (刘金泽), who teaches in the Department of Philosophy at Baoji University of Arts and Sciences, has compiled lists on his influential WeChat platform here and here. (Some of these Chinese scholars are now working in the U.S.)
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More on “left” moralizing
A propos last week’s post, this remark from Jake McNulty’s very good book on Marcuse (in my Routledge Philosophers series) is also apt: A final observation: Marcuse’s profound investment in psychoanalytic thought appears to have no parallel among the analytic critical theorists [e.g., Haslanger, Manne, Stanley]. In leftist thought and practice, psychoanalysis has often served…
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Fraser on Habermas
Interesting, and a useful synoptic overview. I, of course, agree with her that Habermas is the one who finished off Critical Theory. She does not comment on the fact that discourse ethics was always predicated on a highly implausible theory of meaning and language use. UPDATE: A reader points out, fairly, that this comment by…
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Twitter redux
Since I changed blog platforms, I’ve been back on the Twitter/X platform to try to get the word out about the new URL for the blog. This has reminded me, alas, of my prior observations about Twitter, all of which remain true unfortunately. Interacting with the members of the Strauss cult in recent days brought…
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Law professors write to the dishonorable Brendon Carr…
…the FTC Chair who is neither a public servant nor a good faith actor, or this letter would not be necessary.
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Blast from the past: A tough poll question to answer
Back in 2009, but timely again.
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Advertising update
After a slow start to the new blog site, traffic has returned to about 275,000 page views per month, which is almost back to the levels of the old blog site. (The counter on WordPress is different than what I used at Typepad, which seems to have picked up more bots, but I’m unsure). Thanks…
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The rapier wit of members of the Strauss cult: Alex Priou edition (UPDATED)
The Strauss cult may be mostly dead in political science departments, but it lives on on Twitter/X. Predictably, my saying out loud what philosophers always say about the “master” riled up the faithful on social media. A highlight was someone named Alex Priou, who teaches at the University of Austin (not the real university in…
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Muñoz from North Carolina to the ANU
Daniel Muñoz (ethics, value theory), Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has accepted appointment as Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the Australian National University, beginning in August.
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In Memoriam: Steven L. Reynolds (1956-2026)
Professor Reynolds, a longtime member of the philosophy faculty at Arizona State University (where he was emeritus), was well-known for his work on a variety of topics in epistemology. Comments are open for remembrances from those who knew Professor Reynolds or for those who would like to comment on the significance of his work.
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Texas war on free speech and academic freedom: Texas State University edition
A tenure-track philosophy professor, fired because of his lawful speech about the Israel-Palestine conflict, has sued the university. Let us hope the courts can make these rogue universities comply with the Constitution. (Thanks to Peter Kail for the pointer.)
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More on the late Ali Larijani, Kant scholar and tyrant
Prior to the recent U.S./Israeli war of aggression against Iran, Larijani led the vicious repression of protests against the theocratic regime. This Haaretz profile is quite interesting, and discusses his work on Kant (email me if you have a link that is not paywalled). The Wikipedia claim that he wrote on Kripke and Lewis appears…
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Even judges cannot figure out whether lawyers are incompetent or using AI!
Philosophy graduate student Charles Bakker sends me this interesting article from Canada about an “Ontario lawyer [who] filed seven completely fake quotations from court cases to a judge while arguing in court, but claims it was human error and not artificial intelligence tools behind it. A skeptical judge wonders if the lawyer’s claim makes things…
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A note about memorial notices
MOVING TO FRONT FROM FEBRUARY, 2025 AS A REMINDER ABOUT THE NEW POLICY I have never tried to post memorial notices for all the many teachers of philosophy who die in a given year (I just do not have the time for that). I have tried to limit memorial notices to those who are…
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HTML or PDFs online?
MOVING TO FRONT FROM MARCH 19–SEE REPLY FROM OUP PHILOSOPHY EDITOR HENRY CLARKE IN THE COMMENTS Philosopher and logician Volker Halbach writes: Oxford University Press recently told me that “it appears that we no longer make individual pdfs of our works available for sale, as digital rights management is extremely challenging for that format.” Generally,…
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Martha Nussbaum talks about “opera and democracy”…
…the subject of her new book.
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“Identity politics and scolding moralism” on the “academic left”
This was amusing, from philosopher and political activist Ben Burgis: It’s one thing to know that someone whose overwhelming passion is metaphysics or epistemology or even abstract moral philosophy is a huge lib, and another to see them become more and more politically engaged in ways you find insufferable. Part of this story is about…
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Leo Strauss was mostly a charlatan, redux
Longtime readers will know that there are three characters who get called “philosophers” that I really think are a disgrace: Jacques Derrida, Ayn Rand, and Leo Strauss. They each have acolytes, who hate me for saying out loud what any serious scholar or philosopher knows. Rand is most obviously an ignorant buffoon, but Derrida and…
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Gordon Barnes talks about applied epistemology…
…with Spencer Case.
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Which AI-writing detector is best?
A reader calls my attention to this article about Pangram. Curious to hear from readers about their experiences with AI-writing detection programs, whether Pangram, or others.
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Free University of Brussels rescinds appointment of strident anti-Israeli, pro-Palestinian academic
I can’t see having a meal with Harry Pettit, who seems a bit morally depraved, but his political speech is probably lawful even in a jurisdiction with typical EU hate speech laws (see, e.g.). In any case, barring a legal judgment against him, it seems to me the VUB has clearly violated his rights, including…
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University of Florida “College Republicans,” i.e., the Hitler Youth League
Amazing. In fact, they do have a First Amendment right to be Nazis. The U.S. position on “hate speech” may soon come home to roost.
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In Memoriam: W.D. Hart (1943-2026)
Professor Hart, well-known for his work in philosophy of mathematics and philosophical logic, was emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he taught for nearly two decades, after a comparably long stint at University College London. This is from the UIC memorial notice: The philosopher W. D. Hart, age 83, died in Mexico…
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Discussion of philosophical topics and philosophers over time
Neat charts from Eric Schwitzgebel. Comments are open over there.
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No wonder you’re paranoid, everyone really is out to get you
Philosopher Alex Byrne recounts a curious experience with a book review that was rejected by NDPR. I’ve been on the editorial board of NDPR from the beginning (25 yeras now!), and I think the current editor, Chris Shields, has done an admirable job. But Shields and his precedecessors almost never overrode the recommendations of members…
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Israeli law professor sued for defamation in small claims court…
…for basically calling (with ample justification) a racist far right Israeli settler a student of the Nazis. The small claims court, remarkably, foudn in favor of the plaintiff. Professor Harel of the Hebrew University, the defendant, kindly shares this account of the case and what it tells us about the state of Israeli society: Not…
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“General jurisprudence” in U.S. law schools
Anyone working in legal philosophy who has spent time in Europe or other civil law countries (especially) is aware that most law faculties there typically have entire departments of jurisprudence, with multiple faculty. The historical explanation for this enviable state of affairs is no doubt complex, although the huge influence of Hans Kelsen, the Austrian…
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Controversy about Nathan Cofnas, once again
Previously the controversy was at Cambridge, now Dr. Cofnas has been appointed as a post-doc at the University of Ghent in Belgium, and perhaps predictably, some faculty and students are calling for his appointment to be terminated because of his racist views. This would, of course, be a serious violation of academic freedom: he was…
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Indemnification clauses in book contracts?
Philosopher Mark Navin writes: I just walked away from a book contract with Routledge over an indemnity clause. What do you think is going on with these clauses? Routledge recently approached me to write a second edition of my vaccine ethics book (Values and Vaccine Refusal). The contract contained an indemnity clause (Clause 14.2, pasted…
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“The philosopher who learned to bust unions”
Ann Cudd, President of Portland State University, once again.
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Levinstein from Illinois/Urbana to Anthropic (!)
Ben Levinstein (epistemology, decision theory, philosophy of AI), Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has been on leave at Anthropic, the LLM company, and will be leaving Illinois this fall to continue work there. I know that AI companies do hire philosophers, but is this the first time a tenured…
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Brendan Carr, authoritarian hatchet man at the FCC
What a disgrace this man is. Media accurately reporting on the disaster of the attack on Iran are being threatened with losing their license. Meanwhile plutocrat Ellison is looking to turn CNN into the “Fox Fascist News Network,” just like he has destroyed CBS.
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Information about jobs in Asia?
Following up on this post, readers might also benefit from information about how to find out what jobs are available in Asia. It might also be useful to hear about the state of academic freedom in the various Asian countries for which there is job market information, especially China (which continues to invest in higher…
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Donald Trump, the most ignorant President in the history of the U.S., was warned even by his hand-picked general…
…about how Iran would respond to an attack. But that did not deter the imbecile. Now his only hope domestically is to sabotage the elections this fall. Rest assured he will try to do so.
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In Memoriam: Jurgen Habermas (1929-2026)
Professor Habermas was the transitional figure between the original Frankfurt School of critical theory of Horkheimer, Adorno, and Marcuse and its modern manifestation as normative moral and political philosophy, of the kind familiar in the Anglophone tradition. Comments are open for remembrances from those who knew Professor Habermas or for those who wish to comment…
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How Hitler came to see “moral purpose” in war as “weakness”
Timely coverage.
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Information on the European job market in philosophy?
MOVING TO FRONT FROM APRIL 2025–STILL HIGHLY RELEVANT, FOR THE OBVIOUS REASONS A philosophy PhD student, concerned about the political situation in the US, writes: “My questions about the European market are pretty basic: I’d want to know where jobs/post-docs are posted, whether there is any discernable hiring season, if the materials that European applications…
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Klenk from Delft to UTN
Michael Klenk (metaethics, normative ethics, ethics of technology), Assistant Professor of Philosophy at TU Delft, has accepted appointment as Professor of Practical Philosophy at the University of Technology Nuremberg (UTN), effective April 2026. (UTN is the first newly founded public university in Bavaria since 1978 and aims to integrate the liberal arts and social sciences…
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In theory, the US retains a launch-on-warning *capacity* for the ICBMs. But I’m pretty sure they’re not on an actual…
On (4), and with the usual caveat that I’m not an expert here: The US has 400 land-based ICBMs, carrying…
In itself, not much. (A few quibbles: the estimates of deployed warheads are implausibly precise; the assessment of nuclear winter…
I’ve looked only quickly at the linked piece, but I did notice a factual mistake in point 5. Point 5…
Very interesting interview with Professor Schwarcz on the latest episode of Ipse Dixit podcast: https://shows.acast.com/ipse-dixit/episodes/daniel-schwarcz-on-ai-and-human-legal-reasoning
*Yes, you are correct that the synthesis task required participants both to read the source material and draft a memo.…
What’s wrong with it is it’s so terrifying I don’t want to read it