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Interesting case of an ASU professor (not philosophy) fired for sexual harassment and retaliation
Interesting story here. (Thanks to Robert McGarvey for the pointer.)
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Pigliucci from Lehman to City College
Massimo Pigliucci (philosophy of science), Professor of Philosophy at Lehman College, has accepted the K.D. Irani Professorship in Philosophy at City College. He will continue to be part of the faculty at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York as well.
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Leaving applicants to PhD programs “hanging”
A student who has applied to PhD program this season writes: I have a concern about how some departments are notifying PhD applicants of decisions. Most places send out acceptances, then waitlists, then (sometime after) rejections. And, the hope is, everyone gets the news at more or less the same time. But that does not…
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Southwell’s drawings of philosophers
These are neat. (Thanks to Brit Brogaard for the pointer.)
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Debating experimental philosophy on Philosophy TV
Jennifer Nagel (Toronto) and Joshua Alexander (Siena).
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Safari in Botswana
A great description from Robert Paul Wolff.
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‘Tis the season for exposes on anti-semitic and Nazi-sympathizing intellectuals
We recently had the latest Heidegger scandal, and now we have Louis Menand on the increasingly bizarre case of Paul DeMan, whom Menand plausibly describes as a "sociopath" rather than simply a Nazi collaborator and anti-semite, given his many years of fraud, misrepresentations, and lies. Of course, Menand has another aim, namely, to defend DeMan's work in literary…
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“Hot” philosophers?
A few funny lines, but mostly this is extremely silly. (Thanks to Michael Swanson for the pointer.)
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Prospective PhD students considering Cornell
Given the time of year, I think it is important to note that several Cornell faculty are being recruited by (or have offers from) top ten departments. Students considering Cornell should inquire with the Department.
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Jason Stanley (Yale) on propaganda…
…on the radio.
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Spohn wins GAP’s “Frege Prize”
Wolfgang Spohn (Konstanz) has won the 2014 Frege Prize awarded by the Gesellschaft für Analytische Philosophie (Society for Analytic Philosophy) for outstanding contributions to analytic philosophy. (Thanks to Franz Huber for the information.)
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Shields from Oxford to Notre Dame
Christopher Shields, Professor of Philosophy at Oxford University and a leading Aristotle scholar, has accepted the Shuster Professorship in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, where he will begin this fall. Notre Dame has long had a very strong profile in the history of philosophy (especially medieval, modern, and post-Kantian), and…
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THREE philosophers win Guggenheim Fellowships for 2014 (UPDATED)_
They are: Eva Kittay (Stony Brook) and L.A. (Laurie) Paul (North Carolina). UPDATE: I missed that John Palmer, a distinguished scholar of ancient philosophy at the University of Florida, Gainesville, also won a Guggenheim (he was listed under "Classics," though his appointment is in Philosophy). (Thanks to Dan Ferguson and Gene Witmer for flagging this…
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LeBar from Ohio U to Florida State
Mark LeBar (ethics, political philosophy, ancient philosophy), Associate Professor of Philosophy at Ohio University, has accepted a senior offer from the Department of Philosophy at Florida State University, where he will start in January 2015. That's a good development for prospective grad students interested in value theory considering FSU, which already has a strong cluster…
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Speaking of new sub-specialties…
…there's also monster ethics.
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AOS: Hummer ethics
A new field is born. (Thanks to Jerry Dworkin for the pointer.)
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Famous professional wrestler with an interest in philosophy dies–and it turns out he was a moron!
Philosopher Justin Tiehen (Puget Sound) writes to share this curious story: You might be aware that the Ultimate Warrior, an extremely famous professional wrestler, died yesterday. (It's been in the news, and the guy was famous enough that people who don't follow wrestling at all are still sometimes vaguely aware of him.) Anyway, after retiring…
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“Philosophy’s linguistic turn”
Philosophers Michael Potter, John Searle, and others discuss.
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In Memoriam: Anthony L. Brueckner (1953-2014)
A leading contributor to epistemology over the past thirty years, Professor Brueckner taught initially at Yale and then, for most of his career, at the University of California at Santa Barbara. I will post links to memorial notices as they appear. Those on Facebook have no doubt already seen the outpouring of affection and respect for…
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The more prestigious the graduate program…
…the more "professional success" (e.g., salary, rank etc.).
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More on the AAUP Salary Reports and Changes Over Time
Philosopher Benj Hellie (Toronto) writes: I crunched the numbers in the AAUP report, looking at the total "real" change in salary over the period reported — namely, 1971 to the present. I calculate both the figures for "all faculty" and "continuing faculty", in each case broken out by rank and in the aggregate. The figures…
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Peterson from Eindhoven Institute of Technology to Texas A&M
Martin Peterson (normative ethics, decision theory), currently at Eindhoven Institute of Technology, has accepted a senior offer from the Department of Philosophy at Texas A&M University, where he will start this fall.
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Annual AAUP faculty salaries report
Here. Mostly positive news. Note that the "top ten" lists for faculty salaries exclude medical school faculty, but include business school and law school faculty–very significant for a place like Chicago (and Rutgers-Newark and Maryland-Baltimore!), and makes the strong showing of Princeton, with neither, quite notable.
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Soames on “Analytic Philosophy”
This is from the title essay of one of his new collections, Analytic Philosophy in America and Other Historical and Contemporary Essays (Princeton, 2014), p. 7: [A]nalytic philosophy is not a fixed body of substantive doctrine, a precise methodology, or a radical break with most traditional philosophy of the past–save for varieties of romanticism, theism,…
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Naval officer…
…and philosophy PhD student!
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For my cyber-crimes…
…a tenured philosopher (whom I may have met once in my life, not sure) bravely issued a call a few weeks ago for other philosophers on Facebook to "ostracize" me, and since then one tenured philosopher, whom I've never met, "unfriended" me on Facebook! (I used to 'friend' folks on FB I had never met.) Fortunately, no one has yet called for…
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In Memoriam: Brian Loar (1939-2014)
MOVING TO FRONT FROM APRIL 1–SEE UPDATE Professor Loar, a leading contributor to philosophy of mind and language over the past forty years, has passed away. He taught at the Universities of Michigan, Ann Arbor and Southern California, and then for many years at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. I will link to memorial notices as…
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$2.6 Million from Templeton to Marquette Philosopher Nancy Snow (and colleagues)…
for a project on "The Self, Motivation, and Virtue." (Thanks to Alan White for the pointer.)
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Rutgers’ Ruth Chang interviewed…
…at 3AM. (Don't miss her pithy explanation of why she left lawyering to become a philosopher!)
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Information for prospective advertisers
Both top spots are now booked from May through November 2014. (There is at least one top spot available from December 2014 onwards at this point.) There is also at least one 2nd-from-the-top spot available from June onwards. There are also, of course, 3rd from the top spots available most months as well. Rates are here. E-mail me at bleiter-at-uchicago-dot-edu…
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Northwestern employees claim they were denied due process, and another sues over sexual harassment
Police officers! (Thanks to Benj Hellie for the pointer.)
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University of California grad student workers went on strike this week
Details here and here. (Thanks to Babak Bakhtiarynia for the pointers).
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“What is philosophy good for?”
Another nice set of materials, courtesy of Eddy Nahmias (Georgia State).
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Alasdair Richmond
Dr. Richmond, a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Edinburgh whom I've never met, sent me a long, somewhat rambling e-mail last week, to which I replied. The reply did not satisfy him (though I'm still not sure why), and he sent me an increasingly bizarre set of gratuitously insulting e-mails. I now am informed that he has taken to e-mailing lots…
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Charles Koch: it’s Schopenhauer’s fault that people engage in “character assassination” of the Koch brothers
This is quite bizarre. As Tad Brennan (Cornell) wrote to me, "Does anyone have any idea what he is talking about? What bit of Schopenhauer could he possibly have in mind? And did Schopenhauer actually advocate it, as well as describing it?" My guess is that since his piece is full of Rand-speak, Ayn Rand probably makes…
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Another PGR update
Later this month, I will post the first draft of the faculty lists to be used for the fall 2014 surveys (looking ahead to 2015-16), and solicit feedback and corrections. This process will continue into roughly June, though any changes to faculty rosters by mid-September should be able to be incorporated into the survey.
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I respond to this report here https://jasonstanleyantifascist.substack.com/p/on-the-philosophical-muddle-that
For what it’s worth, I agree. I have, with some trepidation, given it a bunch of my papers and asked…
Looking at some of the AI-amplified cranks on philpeople, it is hard to agree with the assessment of this article.…
Perhaps a useful distinction here is between replacing philosophers and changing the conditions under which philosophical work gets done. LLMs…
Conditional on the hypothesis that journal editors sometimes desk reject high-quality papers written and commended by world experts on a…
Some users seem to have conflicting impressions about the (absolute level of) abilities of current iterations of the LLMs. But…
I only just learned of Barry’s passing, and I’m enormously saddened at the news. I wrote my PhD on his…