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Great moments in obscure rock ‘n’ roll covers of blues songs: Budgie, “Baby, Please Don’t Go,” 1973
Budgie, the late great Welsh heavy metal trio, gets credit for (among other things) the best cover (to my taste) of the Big Joe Williams song from 1935:
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First the “book club” scam, now the scam of fake editors seeking to learn about your work (UPDATED with another example targeting a philosopher)
AI clearly generates many of the fake “book club” solicitations to authors of new books, and now there’s a new scam: fake editors of actual publishing houses (or impersonating actual academics) soliciting information about an author’s work. One giveaway in the cases noted: the “editors” used gmail and outlook email addresses, rather than university or…
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Boghossian Report, Appiah, and relativism, redux (UPDATED with reply by Boghossian, and responses from Leiter and Stanley)
A CHE editor asked me to redo this post as a “letter to the editor” which they have published here, and which I reprint below: To the Editor: In the interview with four authors of the “Report on the State of the Humanities and Humanistic Social Science” (hereafter “the Report”), New York University philosopher Paul…
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APA announces Spring prizes…
….including the Dewey Lecturers (Kittay, Sober), Rescher Prize (K. Fine), Romanell Lecture (Ismael), Sanders Lecture (G. Rosen), and Sosa Prize (Kornblith), among others.
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If Plato had written a dialogue about the New Infantilists and Wokerati in philosophy
As the reader who sent this to me observed, this amusing piece seems inspired by “that other philosophy blog and how it reflects some troubling trends in the profession.”
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Don’t mess with philosophy professors!
“Car thief dies after philosophy professor puts him in headlock“
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A weak response to the “Boghossian Report” by the AAUP chapters at Wash U/St. Louis and Vanderbilt (whose Chancellors comissioned the report)
The response is here. It states that, Historians, literary scholars, and anthropologists are singled out for caricature while the authors fail to acknowledge their own public biases against scholarship performed in the name of social justice. No evidence is adduced that scholars in these fields were caricatured, so we are left wondering why we should…
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A fair summary of the “Boghossian Report” by one of its co-authors (a sociologist)
Here. An excerpt: It was on #3 that the Report, unnecessarily, overclaimed, even though it’s clearly true that some scholars treat skepticism about objectivity as licensing careless or overtly politicized scholarship. 1, 2 and 4 all have clear instantiations across the humanities and humanistic social sciences.
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How is the New School selecting tenured faculty for termination…
…given its budget crisis? As this petition notes (I have signed it), only one tenured economics professor has been fired, and he was an outspoken critic of the administration and its financial mismanagement. That is, to put it gently, highly suspicious, and I hope Professor Reddy takes legal action. There is another petition in support…
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Apparently Anthony Appiah has not read Carnap (or Thomas Nagel’s “The Last Word”)
Two editors at CHE have interviewed four of the authors of the “Boghossian Report” (including the NYU philosophers Paul Boghossian and Anthony Appiah). Professor Boghossian says in the interview, “We say how we are taking the term ‘relativism’ to mean the very narrow view that epistemic values are always relative to nonepistemic values, to moral…
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The Lukács archive and research center re-opens in Budapest…
…now that the authoritarian Orban is gone. (My own view is that no one did more philosophical damage to Marxism in the 20th-century than Lukács, but there should obviously be a Lukács archive in the city that was his home for so long.) (Thanks to J.P. Loo for the pointer.)
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Some hopeful trends in America
The Financial Times has always represented the prudent wing of the capitalist class, unlike the imprudent wing that has overwhelmed the Republican Party in America. This piece by one of its regular opinion columnists (who is quite scathing about Trump et al., but knows which class he represents) is revealing: When they go low, we…
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Blast from the past: What is cancel culture?
Back in 2020, when the Wokerati and the New Infantilism still reigned supreme (including in philosophy). Compared to the predations of Trumpian authoritarianism, one feels almost nostalgic for those annoying, juvenile characters of yesteryear.
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Speaking of the intellectual decline of the humanities
The arrival of the “Boghossian Report” reminds me of this post from several years back, in which English faculty are, alas, over-represented.
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Philosopher Daniel Greco is training AI systems to replace him
He explains at CHE. An excerpt: [O]ne of my main takeaways from gig work [for AI companies] over the last few months is just how hard it is to catch the most sophisticated frontier LLMs in philosophical blunders. When ChatGPT first emerged, a common pastime among my philosopher friends was posting screenshots on social media of its…
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Great moments in obscure rock ‘n’ roll: Hotlegs, “Neanderthal Man,” 1970
A hit in Britain (but not the U.S.), “Hotlegs” subsequently rebranded (and enjoyed considerable success) as the band 10cc.
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The “Boghossian Report” on the state of scholarship in the humanities and humanistic social sciences (UPDATED)
The full report is here, and there is a collection of choice excerpts here. Readers of Professor Boghossian’s Fear of Knowledge* will recognize themes from that book in the report. (Of course, it has to be open to scholars to defend relativism and constructivism, especially since relativism and constructivism in some domains are probably true!)…
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“Growing market demand for ontologists”
A software engineer comments.
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The war on academic freedom at Texas Tech, another ongoing saga
What a disaster: About half of Texas Tech University faculty members who responded to a recent survey said they’ve changed their course content — without being asked — to comply with policies restricting how they can teach about race, sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity. Another quarter reported they’d done so at administrators’ request, and…
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In Memoriam: Virginia Held (1929-2026)
Professor Held, who was emerita at Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, was best-known for her influential work on the ethics of care, but wrote widely in political and feminist philosophy. Comments are open for remembrances from those who knew Professor Held or for those who would like…
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Financial crisis at the New School in NYC, tenured faculty being fired
According to CHE, the New School in NYC, has handed layoff notices to about 15 percent of its employees, marking the latest in a series of cost-cutting measures it’s taken to rectify a budget deficit last reported at $48 million. The New School, a private institution known for its progressive history, is also consolidating its…
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Trump’s war on democracy and the rule of law, an ongoing saga
Former FBI agents have created a support network for current agents because, [t]his administration is firing and intimidating Special Agents, Intelligence Analysts, and professional staff for blatantly partisan reasons. Political leaders are using the FBI’s authority to open poorly predicated investigations to interfere with elections, advance ideological goals, and seek vengeance. Please remember that the…
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Abuse of Title VI at Penn to target “anti-semitism”
An account here. We have noted the weaponization of Title VI (which began with Biden!) in the past.
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NYC mayor was right to skip the “Israel Parade”…
…which was really a parade celebrating the far right, racist, and pro-apartheid political leadership of Israel.
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CUNY Graduate Center’s Saul Kripke Center now hosting “Analytic Salons”…
…to bring philosophy to the public. Readers in NYC may want to check it out.
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More than 1,000 University of California faculty call on Regents to restore standardized test scores for admissions…
…due to inadequate mathematics preparation of large numbers of students for work in STEM and other fields requiring quantitative skills. The use of the SAT/ACT was suspended first during the pandemic, as it was at many places, but was never restored as an admission factor.
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Murphy from Georgetown to Notre Dame
Mark Murphy (philosophy of law, ethics, philosophy of religion), a longtime member of the Department of Philosophy at Georgetown University, has accepted an endowed chair in the philosophy department at the University of Notre Dame, where he earned his Ph.D. Among other things, Murphy is the most sophisticated and interesting philosopher of law working in…
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More on the persecution of Professor Mesyats and colleagues by the Russian government
A propos this earlier report, philosopher Elizaveta Shcherbakova at the Humboldt University in Berlin has now kindly shared this very detailed account of what is happening. Please take a few minutes to learn more about this case. I will post updates about any initiatives that the international community can take on behalf of these victims…
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Russian Aristotle scholar Svetlana Mesiats put under house arrest (UPDATED)
From Oxford historian Georgy Kantor on Twitter: The best Russian expert (and genuinely important scholar) on Neo-Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy, Svetlana Mesiats, has been put under house arrest in the investigation of ‘fraudulent translations of Aristotle’. https://iphras.ru/messiats.htm He explains: About 10 people been called for interrogation, there are searches in the Institute of Philosophy building.…
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The climate change catastrophe: India edition
All 50 of the hottest cities in the world were in India recently (temperatures of 110 degrees farenheit and up are not uncommon right now). Ghastly. And Modi is still pretending… (Thanks to Ruchira Paul for the pointer.)
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“Virtual Dissertation Groups”
Philosopher Joshua Smart writes: Virtual Dissertation Groups (VDG) will be running again this June – August. The VDG sign-up form is open for this summer’s groups through Saturday, June 6th. What it is: Virtual Dissertation Groups is a free service for those currently working on their doctoral dissertations in philosophy departments (or philosophy of science or…
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“Is U.S. democracy in danger?”
This documentary by a Turkish journalist doesn’t really answer its title question, but it does involve interesting interviews with the Rutgers historian Mark Bray (who fled to Spain after becoming a target of U.S. crypto- and-not-so-crypto fascists for writing about antifa), philosopher Jason Stanley (who wisely left for Canada), the infamous racist Penn law professor…
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“Great” moments in (extremely) obscure rock ‘n’ roll: Holy Rockin’ Band, “Uncle Karl,” 1981 or 1982
As we’re winding down my trip down memory lane with the Leiter & Williams “basement tapes,” here’s a song that reflects the musical fashions of “pop” music in the early 1980s, complete with synthesizer (and drum machine).
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Nottingham faculty protesting proposed bloodbath
A philosopher at the University of Nottingham calls my attention to this: He summarizes the situation as follows: – the removal of just over 600 FTE posts, if necessary through compulsory redundancy in January 2027 (that’s around 50% of academics in arts). – local union (UoNUCU) has declared a Marking and Assessment Boycott (MAB) starting on the…
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Pettigrew from Bristol to Oxford
Richard Pettigrew (epistemology, formal epistemology, logic, philosophical logic), Professor of Philosophy at the University of Bristol, has accepted appointment as Wykeham Professor of Logic at Oxford University.
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This is why Republican officials are such craven cowards…
…because Trump has a grip on the votes of tens of millions of diehard Republican voters. And it’s that devoted minority of the electorate that is leading the country to ruin. (As a reminder, Thomas Massie, who occasionally bucked the Republican herd, is also a nut.)
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With Trump, there is no bottom to the corruption
Just the latest. If this criminal and his political movement is ever defeated, the government will need to undertake legal proceedings to disgorge millions if not billions of ill-gotten gains. UPDATE: As if to prove the point, Trump and his family are now given immunity for their tax cheating by the Department of Justice. What…
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Federal judge orders Texas State to continue paying philosophy professor it wrongfully fired…
….in violation of his First Amendment rights. Thank goodness for judges, and FIRE, which retained the local lawyers representing Professor Robinson.
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News and views about philosophy, the academic profession, academic freedom, intellectual culture, and other topics. The world’s most popular philosophy blog, since 2003.
Dear Terence (if I may) We are rather wandering off-topic, but yes I stand by my relatively low estimate of…
Is it so? I would have liked to have overlapped more with Williams’ writing career, for the joy (or experience…
I asked Claude about the notion of “planetary telepathy,” based on the concept and architecture of an Internet of Things…
Thank you, this is very helpful. If you’re willing to indulge me, I have a few questions. First, there’s a…
Very clever, but why stop at validity? Surely a sound argument for the existence of God is better than an…
Modern logic is a branch of philosophy and ALSO a branch of mathematics, but the profession of logic seems to…
https://youtu.be/G29DXfcdhBg I’m sure many other practical philosophy teachers feel the same way, but thirty years ago I simply would not…