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What sexual harassment does to its victims
Philosopher Heidi Lockwood collects some harrowing statements from victims. Harassers ought to read this, in particular.
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America is doomed, Part 214
What Americans believe about vaccines etc.
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Aesthetic pleasure and evolution
A very interesting essay by Mohan Matthen (Toronto).
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Are journals more likely to reject an article after a status inquiry from the author?
An untenured philosopher writes In the course of talking with each other about our experiences with journals, a few other junior faculty members and I have noticed the following happening to each of us a few times: after e-mailing the editor asking about the status of a submission, we then receive, within a very short…
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NewApps implosion continues
Berit Brogaard tells me she is also leaving, following on the heels of other contributors, including Eric Schliesser and Mohan Matthen. What started as a fairly interesting philosophy blog has pretty much devolved into endless scolding and finger-wagging, plus lame apologetics for crap philosophy. Alas.
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The argument from vomit
An interview with John Searle (Berkeley) at New Philosopher, which includes this gem: "I don’t read much philosophy, it upsets me when I read the nonsense written by my contemporaries, the theory of extended mind makes me want to throw up…."
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Philosophy limericks
Many of these are very clever and amusing. (These limericks are the work of Larisa Svirsky, a philosophy graduate student at UNC-Chapel Hill.) UPDATE: And "philosophy poems"! (Thanks to Filippo Contesi for the pointer.)
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Data collection initiatives at the APA
Amy Ferrer, Executive Director, has an informative post here. They include one Dave Chalmers told me about awhile back, namely, that PhilJobs, which partners with the APA, will soon start collecting systematic hiring data, including demographics on those hired. I've given Dave permission to incorporate the material already here into the new database. Depending on reader interest,…
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Some advice to prospective graduate students visiting departments
MOVING TO FRONT: COMMENTS ARE NOW OPEN–SIGNED COMMENTS WILL BE PREFERRED Some excellent advice from philosopher Meghan Sullivan (Notre Dame), who kindly invited me to share it: It is Prospective Visit season at PhD programs, and I know many prospective students are a bit unclear about how they ought to approach these visits. There are…
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College of Charleston chooses Confederate Flag defender as President
Egads! (A less gloomy assessment.)
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Flashback: Sartre on the launch of his newspaper Libération…
…in 1973. (Thanks to Michael Swanson for the pointer.)
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Miami makes senior offer to UMSL’s Brogaard (UPDATED)
MOVING TO FRONT: SEE THE UPDATE Berit Brogaard (philosophy of mind, psychology & language), Professor of Philosophy at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, has been offered a senior position in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Miami. Students thinking about either program will want to keep an eye on what happens; hopefully,…
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Svavarsdóttir from Ohio State to Tufts
Sigrún Svavarsdóttir (ethics, metaethics, moral psychology), Associate Professor of Philosophy at Ohio State University has accepted appointment as Associate Professor of Philosophy (also with tenure) at Tufts University, starting this fall.
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And now the apologists for Heidegger’s anti-semitism get to work
This is really quite remarkable ("it's OK, we always new he was a Catholic reactionary bigot"), and especially this: Modernity is synonymous with subversion, since with its universalist ideologies (liberalism, democracy, communism) it destroys the communitarian and traditional bonds that unite the members of a given people and separates this same people from its territory…
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Lavin from Harvard to UCL
Douglas Lavin (ethics, history of ethics, philosophy of action), presently an untenured Associate Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University, has accepted a permanent post as Lecturer in Philosophy at University College London, to begin this fall.
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RIT philosopher Torcello subjected to harassment and threats by climate denialists…
…for arguing that funding misinformation about climate change should give rise to charges of criminal negligence. That isn't the law at present, and there are a number of reasons why it probably shouldn't be the law, but Professor Torcello's essay raises some interesting points about the harms of misinformation campaigns and whether they are legally cognizable. (If the…
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New student fee system in UK may end up costing more than the system it replaced…
…due to the number of unpaid loans. Readers in the UK: is there more information about this? Feel free to add links in the comments. (Thanks to Shalom Lappin for the pointer.)
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What search committees can do for stressed job seekers
A recent job seeker writes: Young people on the job market spend a lot of time worrying about their own behavior, their own performance, their own competitiveness and so on. Having recently come off the job market myself, I feel that there are aspects of the behavior of search committees that also need to be…
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The human toll in the U.S. of the anti-vaccination stupidity
This makes it vivid. Part of the problem, unnoted in the linked article, is the ease with which so many U.S. states, including California, grant "exemptions" to supposedly mandatory vaccination schemes based on "religious" or "philosophical" objections. (Having a "philosophical" objection requires checking a box, not giving an argument, in the California system.)
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The future of physics?
Philosophers Michela Massimi and Simon Saunders, among others, discuss.
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A castle in France or an apartment in New York?
New York (my hometown) is doomed.
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Almost all philosophers belong in an asylum…
…at least in West Virginia in the 1800s.
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The Obama college rankings
These could have substantial, and probably unanticipated effects on higher education in the US.
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Barbara Herman on “The Moral Side of Non-Negligence”
UCLA's Herman was our Dewey Lecturer in Law and Philosophy this year; some readers may enjoy the video of her talk.
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In Memoriam: Ted Cohen (1939-2014)
MOVING TO FRONT FROM MARCH 17–SEE UPDATES I am sorry to report that my colleague Ted Cohen, a leading figure in the philosophy of art who taught at Chicago since 1967, has passed away. You can find out more about his work here. I will add links to memorial notices when they appear. UPDATE: There is a…
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Philosophers needed on the set!
A philosopher elsewhere writes: Hollywood has rules. You can't film a dangerous stunt without ambulances standing by. You can't have flames and explosions without consulting experts on fires. And yet Hollywood still allows Philosophy to appear on the set, without any safeguards in place. I give you this example: http://www.salon.com/2014/03/10/jake_gyllenhaal_movies_are_like_dreams_im_thrilled_by_the_open_ends_and_questions/ This tragedy could have been avoided,…
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Caie, Gelber from Syracuse to Pitt
Michael Caie (philosophical logic, philosophy of language, formal epistemology) and Jessica Gelber (ancient Greek and Roman philosophy), both Assistant Professors of Philosophy at Syracuse University have accepted tenure-track offers from the Department of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh. I usually do not post lateral junior movements, but Caie and Gelber are both advanced junior…
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Indian Philosophy
The blog.
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The “life sentence” of the future (when life might be much longer!)
Philosophers discuss.
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On jury service and a university education
Jonathan Wolff (UCL) comments.
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Martin from Penn to Claremont McKenna
Adrienne Martin (moral & political philosophy), Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pennslyvania has accepted appointment to the Shankar Professorship of Philosophy, Politics & Economics at Claremont McKenna College, effective fall 2014. She asked me to share that she is "sad to leave behind one completely awesome job, but excited to be moving to…
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Chopra on the Doniger case in India
Philosopher Samir Chopra (Brooklyn/CUNY) has a rather lengthy essay about the controversy here.
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And some additional advice for prospectives considering PhD programs outside North America
Charles Pigden (Otago) writes: Re your post from Meghan Sullivan. Graduate students contemplating a thesis only PhD in either Britain, Continental Europe or Australasia should presumably be asking a slightly different set of questions. 1) You are likely to be heavily dependent on your supervisors. Presumably you are interested in them because of their eminence the…
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The sexual harassment crisis in philosophy, the poll about student disruption of teaching and the sometimes toxic cyber-environment in which these issues are discussed
[This is a revised, and I hope more constructive, version of what I posted about ten days ago, edited down for relevance. I am grateful to a number of philosophers and students for feedback on these issues.] There is a sea change afoot in professional philosophy in the Anglophone world, and it is one that is long overdue: sexual…
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Heidegger’s anti-semitism
The newest evidence. (Thanks to Michael Weisberg for the pointer.)
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What are obligations of current students to prospective PhD students
A PhD student writes: I just saw the post on visiting prospective graduate students. I think that Prof. Sullivan is right on with her suggestions. I think talking to people who are in the programs that students are considering is eally the best way to find if the program is a good fit. I wonder,…
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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…