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Frankfurt on “bullshit”
The video. (Thanks to Rob Tempio for the pointer.)
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“Many times we rise up for injustices that are not the most oppressive”
Comedian and civil rights activist Dick Gregory on a recent controversy about his autobiography.
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On what really goes on in college admissions…
…as told, quite honestly and accurately, by a former Admissions Dean at the University of Chicago. Having now been through two rounds of college applications, one for a child applying mostly to top private research universities, and one applying mostly to top private liberal arts colleges, I've gained a lot of insight into this process. …
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Elizabeth Warren is going to drive Dopey Donald Chump crazy…
…with these appropriately condescending attacks. She's got three big advantages: she's smarter, she's more articulate, and she's not a pathological liar. As this perceptive game-theoretic analysis of Dopey Donald Chump's modus operandi makes clear, Senator Warren's relentless, belittling attacks will drive him to distraction and self-destruction.
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Directory of Open Access Journals is busy purging predatory and other disreputable publishers
A good development. (Thanks to Dean Rowan for the pointer.)
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Chinese academics (mostly in law and in political science) fleeing to the U.S.
Story in The Guardian. (Thanks to Robert McGarvey for the pointer.)
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The real purpose of business school: train psychopaths to appear normal
This is really amazing. (Addendum: it's also, I think, a joke.) (Thanks to Mark Pavlick for the pointer.)
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Article about Professor Pogge’s “ethics” complaint to the New York Bar about the Olivarius law firm
Here. Ann Olivarius represents not only Fernanda Lopez Aguilar, but also the former graduate student who has sued Colin McGinn and the University of Miami over sexual harassment.
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Peter Carruthers did not like Colin McGinn’s book on “Inborn Knowledge”
He makes that clear in a pleasingly understated way: The book is framed around the contrast between Lockean empiricism and Cartesian nativism. Locke held that the contents of the mind are more-or-less veridically impressed upon it from without. McGinn devotes considerable time to arguing that this is untenable, on a variety of grounds. The mind…
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Philosophy faculty saying dumb things
The latest sexual harassment scandal in academic philosophy has, predictably, brought the usual know-nothing pontificators out in force, busy signaling their rectitude while actually harming the interests of the complainant against Pogge. Let me explain. We are told by Jonathan Ichikawa (British Columbia) that the "presumption of innocence," is rightly considered a pillar of civilised…
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Another creepy Thomas Pogge incident
Princeton philosopher Delia Graff Fara writes about her own " unpleasant experience" with Professor Pogge (which she kindly gave me permission to share): I had a mildly unpleasant experience with Pogge when I was a senior undergraduate at Harvard and he was a visiting professor who stayed in my "house", Harvard's equivalent to residential colleges at…
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Alarming data about schools awarding the highest percentage of philosophy PhDs to women, 2004-2014
Over that decade, nearly one hundred women have been awarded PhDs in philosophy from just three schools, two mediocre and one a joke: the University of Memphis, the University of Oregon, and the California Institute of Integral Studies. Indeed, of the ten programs that graduated the highest percentage of women during this decade, just three…
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Quick summer advertising update
Like last summer, I'll be doing less blogging June through August, a couple of days per week tops. Prices are cut accordingly: $300 for top spots, $250 for second, $200 for third. Click on the "public stats" icon at the bottom of the left sidebar to get a sense for traffic. (Stats last August were…
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Ten rules of thumb for philosophers writing op-eds
This is useful.
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Crypto-fascist loses Austrian Presidential race…
…just barely. I hope it's not so close in the American race (though the winner of the Austrian race is much further to the left than Clinton).
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University of Miami gets an endowed chair for the study of atheism
God bless them! More universities should have chairs endowed for the study of what's true.
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IHE piece on Pogge
It's a useful, short summary of what's now known.
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Three interesting pieces on Trump
The first is an interview with AEI political scientist Norm Ornstein, who was one of the first prominent voices to diagnose the pathological dysfunctionality of the Republican Party and who also was one of the first in 2015 to see that Trump could win. He views Trump's rise as resulting from the pathology of the…
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Dopey Donald Chump, mobster
This is amusing, but contains no surprises for anyone from New York who has watched Dopey Donald Chump for years. His is a mafia mentality from top to bottom, one familiar to any New Yorker, and one visible not just in narcissistic huckters like Trump, but in many political figures in New York, as well…
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Buzzfeed story about allegations against philosopher Thomas Pogge at Yale (UPDATED) (updated again)
MOVING TO FRONT FROM EARLIER TODAY–UPDATED AGAIN MOVING TO FRONT FROM MAY 20, 2016–UPDATED A propos last week's post, the story has now appeared. (Thanks to various readers who sent this along. I was teaching my last class of the quarter this afternoon, so have not read it yet, but wanted to share it. I…
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Clinton leads Trump by 3, Sanders leads Trump by 15
Now admittedly the reliability of these things isn't great, and in the Clinton v. Trump poll less than 90% of those polled expressed any preference, plus, of course, Trump is getting a bump from having locked up the Republican nomination, and Sanders hasn't been subjected to the kind of withering criticism that both Clinton and…
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Sunday Symphony: Brahms, 2nd
My personal favorite from Brahms:
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On threats to the liberal arts
Story at IHE, with some particularly interesting remarks by philosopher Talbot Brewer (Virginia); an excerpt: For Talbot Brewer, professor and chair of philosophy at the University of Virginia, the liberal arts need saving in part from the “black mirrors” so many of us are glued to each day. Cellular phones, computers and, especially for children,…
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Words of wisdom from John Protevi: “Despite our differences and my own often admittedly sophomoric reactions to them…”
Digging through my draft but unused posts, I found this funny one: Last August, after I posted a link to the Illinois boycott statement organized by John Protevi, he sent me the following interesting e-mail: From: John Protevi [johnprotevi@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, August 20, 2014 9:30 AM To: Leiter, Brian Subject: Thanks for the link Brian,…
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Dear Hillary Clinton: please step aside
Do it for the country.
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Conceptual Engineering Project at Oslo
Herman Cappelen (Oslo) kindly shares this news: Herman Cappelen (PI), Øystein Linnebo, Camilla Serck-Hanssen has received a $3.6 million grant for a 5-year project on Conceptual Engineering. The funding is given by The Norwegian Research Council’s Toppforsk program. The project is hosted by ConceptLab (http://www.hf.uio.no/ifikk/english/research/projects/cl/ ) at the University of Oslo. Brief description of the project: In…
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AAUP finds that University of Missouri violated due process, and thus academic freedom, in its dismissal of tenure-track faculty member
Rightly so, as far as I can see: due process matters, even when there appears to be clear evidence of misconduct.
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Academic administrators at the University of East Anglia must have a lot of time on their hands…
…to come up with stuff like this. (Thanks to Robert McGarvey for the pointer.)
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UCSD’s David Brink talks about his work…
…in connection with a Faculty Excellence award from the university (also featured in the video is his colleague Craig Callender, the philosopher of physics).
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Dopey Donald Chump’s favorite…
…book is All Quiet on the Western Front (really? who would have guessed!) and movie is (this one is remarkable) Citizen Kane. Could it be that he has some self-awareness after all?
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Saul Smilansky’s “illusionist” view of free will…
…makes it to The Atlantic. (Thanks to Parsa Pezeshki for the pointer.)
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Interview with Raymond Geuss about themes from his book “A World Without Why”
Here. (Thanks to Richard Marshall for the pointer, though I should note that he is not the interviewer in this instance!)
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The Repugs running North Carolina continue their race to the bottom…
…this time with draconian cuts aimed at historically Black colleges.
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Reaction formation watch: Republican Congressional candidate Mike Webb edition
He prefers amateurs. (Thanks to Matt Sarraf for the pointer.)
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Elsevier acquires SSRN
Some more information and an opportunity to comment on this development over here.
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What’s in a name?
University Administrative Titles Generator.
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And this month’s Karl Kraus Prize for Journalism goes to…
…Gene Weingarten at The Washington Post, who thinks because he's too dumb to understand the meaning of epistemological and ontological, that they have no meaning. (Karl Kraus famously said, "No ideas and the ability to express them: that's a journalist!")
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Today in capitalism: automation comes to trucking…
…and three million human beings will be disposed of.
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.
Matthew Ratcliffe. 2023. Grief Worlds: A Study of Emotional Experience. MIT Press (open access with no time limit) https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-monograph/5524/Grief-WorldsA-Study-of-Emotional-Experience “Experiences…
Free Robot Labour: Marx, Automation, and the Future of AI by Jamie Terence Kelly https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-032-26782-5 Palgrave Macmillan, 2026 Permanently Open…
Nietzsche’s Ecce homo, Notebooks and Letters: 1888-1889. Translation by Daniel Fidel Ferrer. ©2023 Daniel Fidel Ferrer. All rights reserved. Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs…
I only just learned of Barry’s passing, and I’m enormously saddened at the news. I wrote my PhD on his…
I am reading 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝗼𝗴𝗵𝗼𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗮𝗻 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 with mixed feelings. It is, in various ways, moderate and careful, and it certainly…
I respond to this report here https://jasonstanleyantifascist.substack.com/p/on-the-philosophical-muddle-that
Cambridge makes new volumes in its Elements series freely available for a couple of weeks following publication. My own “Innateness…