-
Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them–Round 4
Terri Leo is the leader of the Texas Taliban faction on the State Board of Education; she even exercised her perogative as a Board Member to make a speech before the last public hearing of the Board in Austin to profess her commitment to creationist-inspired skepticism about Darwin’s theory of evolution (and this before hearing…
-
Department of tasteless comments
Try this, courtesy of Matthew Yglesias.
-
Donald Davidson dies
IN MEMORIAM Donald Davidson (1917-2003) Professor Davidson died yesterday in Berkeley. As soon as memorial notices are available about his distinguished philosophical career and seminal contributions, I will post them here and on the Update Service. Much useful information about Davidson and valuable links to philosophical work about him are available here.
-
US News Undergraduate Rankings
The new U.S. News rankings of undergraduate institutions once again tie the University of Virginia and the University of California at Berkeley as the top state schools in the country…which brings to mind something I wrote on an earlier occasion, inspired by the parochial journalists at The New York Times. The University of Pennsylvania also…
-
The Taliban Aren’t Only in Texas
That’s what makes this present moment in American history so scary. For example…
-
Correction
Cornel West’s PhD was earned in philosophy at Princeton. Since the other points stand, all I can say is: so much the worse for the Philosophy Department at Princeton. Of course, the University of Texas has the misfortune (during the Silber era, long ago, happily) of having awarded a PhD in philosophy to William “shame…
-
Larry Summers and Harvard Law School
The New York Times Magazine here profiles Larry Summers, the unusually blunt President of Harvard University. Two aspects of the article are likely to be of interest to readers of this site: (1) The discussion of the dispute between Summers and Cornel West makes for a good read, though West is described, I am dismayed…
-
Derrida and Bullshit
It was John Searle who famously remarked that Derrida’s work is the kind of stuff that gives bullshit a bad name. And now we have yet another case in point, thanks to interviews with Habermas and Derrida about the September 11th attacks on the U.S. Although I have my reservations about Habermas as a philosopher,…
-
“Some Philosophers are Really Strange,” Part II
I confess I’m with Brad DeLong: Richard Heck is very strange, and he gets stranger as time goes on. I was perplexed initially when the guy who claimed–after the fact, of course (Richard is the master of post-hoc revisionism)–that he simply wanted to “initiate a discussion” then failed to discuss almost all my detailed responses…
-
Other Arguments for Intelligent Design
My colleague Herb Hochberg has reminded me of Ben Franklin’s argument for intelligent design: As for the human elbow, Franklin explained, it was important that it be located at the right place, otherwise it would be hard to drink wine. If Providence had placed the elbow too low on the arm, it would be hard…
-
Major Law Faculty Moves, 2003-04 (with corrections)
THIS IS A CORRECTED VERSION OF AN EARLIER POSTING Here it is, by school, for 2003-04. This list attempts to be comperehensive for the top 30 schools (as measured by faculty quality); updates or corrections would be welcome. (Most, but not all of the moves noted below, took place before the survey on faculty quality;…
-
An Exchange with Holt, Rinehart about Changes to Their Biology Textbook
Judith Fowler, President of Holt, Rinehart, defends the decision to make changes in their biology textbook (up for adoption in Texas) in response to suggestions from the Discovery [sic] Institute here: Download file I have replied to Ms. Fowler here: Download file
-
A New Letter to the State Board of Education
My colleague Sahotra Sarkar is professor of both philosophy and biology here at UT Austin; indeed, he is, to the best of my knowledge, the only philosophy PhD in the U.S. to have published work of such significance in peer-reviewed biology journals that he has now been appointed half-time and with tenure in a top…
-
Why the Holt Biology Textbook Change Matters
Philosopher John Holbo has a useful post documenting exactly why the change Holt is proposing to make in its biology textbook in response to a “suggestion” from the Discovery [sic] Institute is so worrisome. (I will be posting Holt’s letter to me, and my own response once I’m back in the office.)
-
Why is it so easy to get tenure in law schools?
So asks a colleague in philosophy, who was recently a tenure referee for a law professor at a very reputable law school who got tenure, notwithstanding what struck the colleague as quite weak work. The answer is somewhat complex, and perhaps a bit speculative, but it goes something like this: (1) Up until roughly the…
-
The Discovery [sic] Institute, R.I.P.
We bid farewell to the conmen and pathological liars at the Discovery [sic] Institute, who, like history itself, began in tragedy, but have now ended in farce. Their August 19, 2003 press release informs us that “two dozen professors from seven Texas universities have signed an open letter to the State Board of Education…urging it…
-
More Real Scientists Wiping the Floor with the “Discovery [sic] Institute” Creationists
There is an amusing exchange in the Boston Review between biologist Allen Orr and Discovery [sic] Institute propagandist William Dembski. (The debate begins with Orr’s demolition of Dembski’s latest book here.) Orr, who is a good writer as well as smart, delivers this scathing and apt conclusion to the exchange: “Dembski, Behe and associates may…
-
How Students Use the PGR
The following letter from a student (who gave permission to post it) well expresses how students actually use the PGR in my experience and the experience of everyone I’ve talked to about this (except, of course, that “really strange” guy). Here is what the student wrote: “I am a reader of the Philosophical Gourmet Report…
-
Vanderbilt Prof Says “No” to Northwestern
Vanderbilt University’s Nancy King, one of the leading criminal procedure scholars of her generation in the legal academy and co-author of the leading treatise in the field, has turned down an offer from Northwestern University School of Law. That’s a big coup for Vanderbilt, which in the past has tended to lose hiring battles with…
-
New Development in the Texas Textbook Wars
I have just received, via e-mail attachment, a letter from Judith Fowler, the President and CEO of Holt, Rinehart, responding to the criticisms here.It is a long and detailed letter, which I won’t be able to digest right away because of other pressing duties (involving my *real* job). If I can secure her permission, I…
-
Debating Intelligent Design
[Note: a first version of this posting disappeared from the site, for reasons I don’t understand…This is my attempt to recreate it.] Some readers have remarked on my recommendation of Michael Rea’s book World Without Design, a stimulating critique of philosophical naturalism that suggests, ultimately, that ours may be a “world with design.” At the…
-
Christian Philosophers and Creationism
Keith DeRose—famed philosopher at Yale, valued member of the PGR Advisory Board, and creator of the Epistemology Page (highly recommended!)—writes with the following comments on one of my earlier posts about the attack on biology textbooks in Texas: ”Regarding your recent post on the treatment of evolution in textbooks by the ‘Texas Taliban’: Since you…
-
Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them–Intelligent Design round 3
Francis Beckwith, Associate Professor of Church-State Studies at Baylor University, owner of a “.com” homepage (!), and a frequent poster boy for the Discovery [sic] Institute, is the “new face” of the Intelligent Design scam run by the Institute. Quite presentable, he almost sounds reasonable, though he turns out to be as big a liar…
-
More PGR Feedback
In today’s in-box, a graduate student at a top 50 department writes: “I should also pass along my thanks to you for all your work on the Report. Naturally, as a student at [a program not ranked more highly], I’m somewhat disgruntled about the rankings. Nevertheless, I have found the Report extremely informative and helpful,…
-
“Some Philosophers Are Really Strange”
Professor Brad DeLong, noting one of Professor Heck’s arguments, describes it, from the viewpoint of economics, as being “completely, ludicrously, laughably false.” From the viewpoint of philosophy, too, I assure you.
-
Yet Another Student “Harmed” by the PGR
Now they’re really coming out of the woodworks–another “victim” of the PGR speaks out here.
-
More Students “Harmed” by the PGR
Add Juan Comesana, a recent PhD graduate of Brown, and his wife Carolina Sartorio (PhD, MIT), to the purportedly long, but so far invisible, list of students “harmed” by the PGR. Comesana and Sartorio were two of the top candidates on the philosophy job market last year, and have now accepted tenure-track posts at the…
-
Leo Strauss Redux and How Others See Philosophy
My introduction to the blogosphere came as a result of my May 5th posting to the Update Service, commenting on the tiresome fact that the media continue to portray Leo Strauss and his acolytes as though they’re serious thinkers, when, as philosophers know, they’re just the right-wing versions of Judith Butler: intellectual poseurs and frauds,…
-
Pathological liars at the Discovery [sic] Institute Caught Red-Handed
Here’s a nice example of the chronic and pathological dishonesty of the Intelligent Design proponents at the Orwellian “Discovery [sic] Institute.” John West from the Institute (“John West, Ph.D.”, as he’s always keen to list himself–by the way, I’m “Brian Leiter, Ph.D., J.D.”–don’t you feel more confident already in what I have to say?) had…
-
Petition in support of sound science in biology textbooks
Many thanks to Jonathan Ichikawa, a recent graduate of Rice University, who has put together a petition aimed at Holt, Rinehart, the publisher of biology textbooks that appears to be caving to political pressure from anti-Darwinians, as I discussed here. The on-line petition is available here. I hope many readers will sign the petition, and…
-
More on Citations to Philosophers
Brian Weatherson, a philosopher at Brown University, writes with the following additional data on cites to philosophers at the SEP cite: “If you do a search for David Lewis you get 80 mentions in 44 entries. It’s hard to know how to compare this to other rankings, but here’s some other searches for full names…
-
Norms of the Blogosphere
One week and 1300 visitors later, I’m learning a few things about the norms of the blogosphere. An important one is you don’t put your e-mail address on your blog, or you get spammed to death. Another is that if you link to only a few blogs (I had linked to exactly three), rather than…
-
Most Cited Philosophers?
In law, as in many social and natural science disciplines, extensive use is made of citation studies as a measure of the impact and importance of scholarship. Such approaches have their drawbacks (those in law are discussed here). The drawbacks are even greater, I expect, in philosophy. But out of curiosity, I decided to take…
-
More on the Heckling Campaign
One correspondent asks: “Since the arguments on the Heck site are pretty bad, why do you think philosophers signed the letter? Is it all the Baker reason?” I think Baker hit the nail on the head about something important. But I do think there is another important factor, that is discussed briefly in my reply…
-
Iraq
Noam Chomsky is that rare philosopher who actually has something substantial to say about the world beyond philosophy (contrast: Hilary Putnam or Richard Rorty, significant philosophers who are politically and morally trivial). For a typically trenchant and provocative set of comments, that cut through the usual sanctimonious bullshit, see this recent short essay on Iraq.…
-
Biology textbooks under attack
Texas is the second largest buyer of school textbooks in the US and, unfortunately for the nation, the power to approve and reject textbooks is vested in the hands of a small State Board of Education, which is dominated by the Texas Taliban, that frightening brand of Texas politicos who are committed to making the…
-
Two Important Recent Books
Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews has recently published two informative reviews of two important recent works of philosophy; I recommend both books (though I disagree, in the end, quite strongly with one of them). The books are: (1) John Doris’s Lack of Character: Personality and Moral Behavior (CUP, 2002), which is informatively reviewed by Lawrence Blum.…
-
Whatever Became of the Heckling Campaign?
I periodically receive correspondence inquiring, in one form or another, “Whatever became of the Heckling campaign?” In the hopes of satisfying the curiosity of other users of the PGR with the same question, and thus saving myself a lot of individual correspondence, let me give an extended answer to this query: So what became 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.
He has also written a book on Descartes’ Discourse.
He is a Kant scholar and a faculty member in the Department of Philosophy at University of Tehran. He has…
Yes, he has three books, all in Farsi, and all about Kant: One is on *Kant’s Philosophy of Mathematics*. Another…
Professor David Weberman was one of my advisors at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and I was fortunate to know him…
It saddens my heart to hear of Dagfinn’s passing. I believe I was the last PhD student at Stanford to…
[…] more “dovish” opposition to “forever wars” from the unhinged monster child. He’s even prepared to put […]
[…] propos this, here’s a much friendlier (and more informative) review by Huw Price, a “fellow […]