Philosopher John Holbo has a Nietzsche Blog, which has some interesting discussions of questions of Nietzsche interpretation, and is also interesting pedagogically, because Professor Holbo is using it in conjunction with a class on Nietzsche. This is the first instance I’ve encountered of this use of a blog.

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I am periodically asked why I don’t include a criterion like membership in the American Academy of Arts & Sciences as a factor in the philosophy rankings. You can see a list of current philosophy fellows of the American Academy here. (Note that philosophy is lumped with religion and theology in this category, and that

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…is here, where a navel-gazing recent Yale graduate of no obvious intellectual accomplishment or depth denounces the “idiocy” of, among others, Noam Chomsky, one of the major intellectual figures of the 20th-century. (And does so, oddly, on the basis of a column by Ian Buruma, which quotes [partly out of context, but that’s a different

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I’m reposting this, in light of the latest salvo by the right claiming a “bias” against conservatives in the academy. As usual, the possibility that conservatives are underrepresented because of intellectual or scholarly deficiencies isn’t broached (how could that topic be broached by a journalist, after all?) (Surely it is relevant to an assessment of

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is the guest of the Law & Philosophy Program today, and a 3-hour seminar on some chapters from his book manuscript on Natural Law in Jurisprudence and Politics will be beginning shortly, followed by a talk in the Philosophy Department (which means not much new posting today). An awful lot is written about natural law

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Given the facts as presented, I think Volokh is 100% right on this one. It’s a shame he wasn’t so quick to come to the defense of academic freedom when left-wing speech was at issue at Stanford. (In that case, last year, Stanford fired radical attorney Lynne Stewart from a paid short-term post as a

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Read about them here. Brave New World is, they charge, “pornographic” and will lead to “sexual arousal.” One suspects the critics aren’t familiar with the real thing on either count.

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The Philosopher’s Annual has announced its choices for the top ten philosophy articles of 2002: Download file You can see the articles chosen over the past quarter-century here. As the editors admit, choosing 10 articles is a rather daunting task. But if you look at their choices from 20-25 years ago, it’s certainly the case

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UPDATED TO REFLECT 2 ADDITIONAL NEW BOARD MEMBERS I am pleased to introduce seventeen additional distinguished philosophers who will be joining the Advisory Board of the Philosophical Gourmet Report and lending their expertise to the preparation of the 2004-06 Report. They are: Chris Bobonich (PhD, Berkeley) is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Stanford University, and

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The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas has more Nobel Laureates on its faculty than any medical school in the nation, as well as more than a dozen fellows of the National Academy of Sciences. Happily, these genuinely eminent scientists–contrast the coterie of “scientists” rounded up by the Discovery [sic] Institute–have penned an

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Interesting development here: some Baylor alumni want Discovery [sic] Institute poster boy Francis Beckwith removed from his directorship of an Institute at Baylor that was founded on the principle of separation of church and state. As I understand their position, they are not challenging his academic appointment at the university, just his administrative position with

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Arthur Kinoy (1920-2003) Progressive lawyer and law professor. The New York Times obituary is available here

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Aspiring young philosophers in the U.S., concerned about our nation’s belligerent posturing, may find this document of value.

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Reading Yglesias taking issue with Andrew Sullivan’s bashing of Rhodes Scholars reminded me of a dirty little secret, about which the “public” seems unaware: namely, that Oxford faculty have a quite low opinion of Rhodes Scholars from the U.S., and that the colleges fight among each other to not admit them to their college. From

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“The acceptance of evolution is responsible for the degeneration of morals in society,” said gospel preacher Mac Deever. “People are shooting at each other on the highway. Kids are being taught that they came from dirt. There is no accountability; they say, ‘I’m just a product of evolutionary theory. Evolution made me what I am,

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Thanks to one of our JD/PhD students for this one: Why do eliminative materialists sleep so well at night? Nothing on their mind.

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Quite interesting interview–interesting both biographically and philosophically– with Donald Davidson by Ernie LePore, available here.

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This excellent resource, by Jimmy Lenman, has moved with Professor Lenman to the University of Sheffield.

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Averaging over 2,000 page views per week lately. And the ratio of page views to readers is? Good question.

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Good article from Reason on David Horowitz’s Orwellian “Academic Freedom Bill of Rights.”

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In most fields which require the ability to use words and ideas, many of those who make it to “the very top” have intellectual content and ability: this is true in law, in philosophy, in economics, and so on. But it is rather painfully not true in journalism, where, in general, “quality rises to the

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Even though Washington University announced in its alumni magazine, sent to every law professor in America, that the political scientist Matthew McCubbins from UC San Diego would be joining them in 2004, I’ve received the somewhat cryptic warning from a friend of McCubbins (a reliable one, I should add) that “it won’t happen.” If that

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…is reported on in this entertaining article. The quotes from UT physicist and Noble Laureate Steven Weinberg are particularly good. The word “on the street” is that the effect of the testimony of the pro-evolution/anti-Intelligent Design Baptist ministers and the heavy-hitting real scientists has swayed the two Republican Board members who haven’t signed on to

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The new Journal of Moral Philosophy has now completed filling its editorial board, and is continuing to accept submissions for its debut next year.

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This is the time of year when law professors are deluged with publications from law schools announcing their new faculty hires. I think I’m one of the 8 or 9 law professors in America who actually reads these things (well, given my avocation, I have to, you know). Every now and then an interesting gem

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A reader tells me that Fodor’s review of McDowell’s Mind and World is available in his collection In Critical Condition which is available via this MIT site, but for a fee. Here’s the concluding paragraph of the review: “Ever since Descartes, a lot of the very best philosophers have thought of science as an invading

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Tired of birds fouling your vehicle? Even if not, you’ll still laugh out loud at this site, courtesy of a British ad agency. Click on “View Highlights” and then “clip 1.”

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I have received a handful of irate e-mails protesting the use of the term “Texas Taliban,” including one from the spouse of one of those so criticized in an earlier posting. (UT law professors have more visibility than law professors at comparable schools in other states, I fear.) Why do I use the term “Texas

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No parodies allowed in the Taliban’s America it appears. UPDATE: Two readers suggest that this site is, itself, in fact a parody! As one put it, “I think you’ve been had.” Indeed!

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I was struck by philosopher Chris Bertram’s remark, regarding Davidson’s death, that “a succession of philosophical giants” have died recently, mentioning David Lewis, John Rawls, Robert Nozick, and Bernard Williams. The death of David Lewis (1941-2001) was the first memorial notice posted on the Update Service, back on October 16, 2001. Since then the following

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A stellar graduate of the UT Law School writes in with the following story (from 1978): “Having wandered through your Texas Taliban archive, I thought you might enjoy a slightly-older anecdote: “In third grade at [name omitted] Elementary School in [city name omitted], Oklahoma (former HQ of [company name omitted] and so populated with a

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Brian Weatherson, a philosopher at Brown, has offered his own comments about last year’s hiring, partly in response to some of mine. He offers a useful and somewhat different perspective, which prospective students may find helpful. Our main difference may have to do with breadth of coverage as an important feature of a strong graduate

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A colleague in Australia writes that his infant daughter “is walking with ease, and starting to talk: only one-word phrases so far, but she can string meaningless noises into sentence-long strings with all the mannersms and facial expressions of understanding (she’ll grow out of that phase soon enough, and avoid ending up like Derrida!).”

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A solid editorial from the Houston Chronicle, which even borrows a few ideas from my Austin-Statesman essay from July. The Texas Taliban are bad for business.

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Thanks to Brian Weatherson, I discovered that Fodor’s characteristically delightful demolition of one of Putnam’s recent confused forays in to philosophy of mind is on-line. Can someone point me to an on-line version of Fodor’s TLS (or was it also LRB?) dismembering of McDowell’s 1994 Mind and World? Many philosophers do good work in demolishing

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What follows are some personal observations on the significance and import of the faculty moves that have transpired in the last year. These reflect neither a survey nor vetting by the PGR Advisory Board. Rather, this is the kind of advice and analysis I would give to a student I was advising (and which I’ve

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This is very funny: Louis Witteringswine, Tractatus Fuselagico-Umbilicus

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Eugene Volokh, a UCLA law professor, has a good post on the subject here. Since then, IU has reversed its decision, and permitted IU Professor Rasmussen to keep his comments on the university blog site.

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You can find links to numerous obituaries for Donald Davidson here. The one from The Guardian has the most philosophical content, the one from The New York Times the most interesting biographical details.

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Michael Smith, one of the half-dozen-or-so most significant philosophers working in metaethics in the world, has accepted the offer from Princeton University, to begin in 2004. He will there, of course, be reunited with his former ANU colleague Philip Pettit. (Smith also taught at Princeton in the 1980s.) With Smith, Pettit, Harman, and Johnston, Princeton

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