Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

Nietzsche blog

I haven't mentioned my Nietzsche blog in quite some time, and perhaps it will be of interest to some readers. 

Where are the Kants?

Schwitzgebel discusses.

"What's the use of philosophy?"

Gary Gutting (Notre Dame) comments, and a philosopher at Vassar offers additional thoughts.

Philosophers on the "Occupy" Movement

An account of an APA session, with links to many of the presentations.

The Fake "Climate for Women" Guide is still on-line...

MOVING TO THE FRONT FROM OCTOBER 31 (Follow the links here for background.  Still no corrections of the errors or public apology for this scandal.)

...and Oregon is still "strongly recommended."  There is still no disclosure of the underlying data on which the recommendations are allegedly based (and still on explanation for the disappearance of Oklahoma), but we are now told that, "For each particular school, we cannot be sure that any current students at that school were consulted in the creation of our report [!!!]," and then we are given this bit of nonsense by way of justification:

Our report is based on what some social scientists refer to as a “reputational survey,” meaning that it surveys the reputations of departments among some leaders in the field. In this way, departments can find out what their reputation is, surely useful information, and in this respect it is no different from other reputational surveys; it merely covers a different area of reputation. It is a way of making public the information that will likely be passed to at least some students who ask faculty for recommendations of where to apply to graduate school.

There is a world of difference between asking philosophers for their opinion about something about which they have information and first-hand knowledge (e.g., asking a Kant specialist about the quality of work done on Kant at a particular department, say) and asking philosophers for their opinion about something about which they may have no first-hand knowledge, indeed no knowledge at all.  And what can it possibly mean to say that the Guide surveyed "leaders in the field":  what field?  The field of detecting "climate for women"?  The list of those surveyed (and we still don't know how many even responded with respect to any particular department) is so heavily skewed towards SPEP members as to be no one's conception of even "leading" philosophers.

There then follows a long excuse for the poor quality of the information, which doesn't warrant comment. 

UPDATE:  A philosopher elsewhere writes:

Notice that the justification for leaving Oregon up there without comment comes, in coded form, here: " The difference between departments is not likely to be whether there are discriminatory practices or attitudes, but whether there are offsetting sources of support, such as mentors and allies, institutional signals of support, recognition and encouragement." 

This is basically a prettied-up version of Bonnie Mann's claim that there is sexual harassment everywhere, it's unimaginable not to have it, but Oregon is still good because they teach feminism and have feminists. So disappointing that her outrageous line is the one they chose to plump for!

ANOTHER:  Another "recommended" program for its "Climate for Women" has a dubious history as well.

Dennett Wins 2012 Erasmus Prize

Press release here, and a list of previous winners here.

Kitcher on Parfit

MOVING TO FRONT FROM 2 DAYS AGO, SINCE THE DISCUSSION IS STILL GOING STRONG

Here.  I'll quote just one striking criticism Kitcher levels:

THE SECOND OBJECTION concerns the method employed throughout On What Matters. Short schematic fictions—“puzzle cases”—are used as if they were analogues of experimental results that could be used to test putative theoretical hypotheses. One deep difficulty with this method is that, for all the words that Parfit expends on attempts to clarify his central concepts, particularly the notion of a reason, the concepts finally remain imprecise, and readers must constantly struggle to decide whether his assertions about the bearing of the evidence are justified. Even more importantly, the reactions he intends us to share are strikingly different from the kinds of reports that play a valuable role in the development of the sciences: whereas the standardization of observations and experimental findings is crucial to scientific objectivity, when people offer their judgments about puzzle cases in ethics there are absolutely no standards for when they are doing it well, no serious understanding of what they are doing or how, no sense of how their judgments might be distorted by prior commitment to some ethical principle—and thus no way of knowing whether their reports have the slightest evidential worth.

Comments are open, for those who would like to discuss this criticism.

Fricker from Birkbeck to Sheffield

Miranda Fricker (epistemology, ethics, feminist philosophy), currently Reader in Philosophy and Head of Department at Birkbeck College, University of London, has accepted appointment as Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield, starting this September.  Sheffield is already one of the top departments internationally in feminist philosophy (among other areas), a distinction this appointment further strengthens.

Philosophy in Brazil

An enlightened country, unlike the United States.

Time to degree

An interesting finding in this study:

The study -- by Jeffrey A. Groen of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics -- found that that the impact on time to degree in the humanities and social sciences is seen three to six years after the job market changes in various academic disciplines. This suggests that those who delay completion due to the job market are those who are in the middle or just starting their graduate programs, and that they somehow adjust their timetables. (Or the impact may be on the professors who advise grad students, but the shifts in pressure they put on Ph.D. candidates to finish would appear directed at those just starting, not those nearing the finish line.)

State Support for Higher Education Over the Last Five Years

The chart here is striking, and mostly confirms what one would have suspected.  It also, of course, explains the generally dramatic increases in tuition at state schools during this period.

Chicago's Police State

What an embarrassment.

UPDATE:  More from my Law School colleague Bernard Harcourt.

A new group blog devoted to the history of modern philosophy

Here.

Some data on the American plutocracy...

...today and over time.

Society for the Philosophy of Agency

New!

UPDATE:  Speaking of action theory, The Onion has a related piece.  (Thanks to Matt Lister for the pointer.)

Eastern Division Meeting Dates to Move to Early January in 2015-16

You can discuss here.

Schwitzgebel talks to Richard Marshall...

...at 3AM Magazine.

Trivializing Anti-Semitism

An astute set of observations by a philosopher at the University of Maryland, who is also an Orthodox Jew, who blogs pseudonymously.

UPDATE:  Also relevant.

In defense of philosophy without any practical applications

This defense (Download A Slacker's Apology), from The New Republic, is almost a century old, but still timely!  (The author is Morris Cohen.)

(Thanks to Rob Tempio for the pointer.)

Maudlin on Philosophy of Cosmology

Interview here.

(Thanks to Daniel Fogal for the pointer.)

On SOPA and PIPA

As some readers will know, many web sites and blogs "blacked out" yesteday in protest of pending legislation that aims to address the massive copyright violations the Internet facilitates.  I have not followed this closely, but for those who are interested, this paper by three intellectual property/cyber-law scholars is probably a good place to start.  In general, it seems to me that cyber-space is under-regulated by the law, which explains why it has become a repository for so much garbage, defamation, and invasion of privacy, as well as copyright violations.  (It's a shame, but predictable, that only the latter really gets the attention of Congress.)  SOPA and PIPA may be problematic responses to some of these problems, but the knee-jerk opposition of cyber-libertarians, who readily turn a blind eye to all the ugliness of cyber-space, is itself suspect in my view.

Loyola/Chicago's Trout Chosen as Romanell Professor for 2012-13

J.D. Trout (epistemology, philosophy of science), Professor of Philosophy and Psychology at Loyola University, Chicago has been chosen as the Romanell Professor for 2012-13 by Phi Betta Kappa.  He will give a series of public lectures as part of the honor.  A list of past Romanell Lecturers is here.

(Thanks to Joe Mendola for the pointer.)

More thoughts on the relevance of Marx

Reader Aravind Ayyar writes:

Reading your recent post on Marx, I was reminded again of how much a Marxian explanation of the roots of the present economic crisis corresponds with the facts far more plausibly than all the pap of the currently accepted economic theories.  See, for e.g., http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n03/benjamin-kunkel/how-much-is-too-much.

Indeed, as the recently released minutes of the meetings of the Federal Reserve from 2006 show, the nation's top economists refused to countenance the very possibility of a housing bubble that could have devastated the economy. (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/business/transcripts-show-an-unfazed-fed-in-2006.html)

As to the immiseration of the vast majority under capitalism, I wonder whether it is a "relative" one to our times after all.  Those marvelous inventions of our age, the iPhone and the iPad, simply didn't pop out of the head of that genius, Steve Jobs, as all the encomiums after his death had it.  Rather, the reality of how those devices are actually manufactured in the prison-houses in China reveals something far more horrifying, something that I doubt that even the London of Dickens could have competed with at its nadir.  And why is this tolerable today?  Because, "Paul Krugman says so."  I kid you not.

http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-child-labor-2012-1

And anyone who thinks that that's what happens in a "communist" state, should sober up to the fact that the median wage of the retail worker in this country, which used to support a middle class existence for much of the post-war era, is no longer a subsistence wage; indeed, it often doesn't even comply with whatever weak labor laws that have not yet been dismantled by the political class in the race to find the bottom against China.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/16/nyregion/study-offers-a-look-at-new-yorks-retail-workers.html?src=me&ref=nyregion

Arizona Goes Crazy...

...and it's even hit Tucson.  What a disgrace.

The 4th (!) Annual On-Line Consciousness Conference...

...is only a month away!

"The unexamined life is not worth living"

That is, of course, the famous Socratic dictum around which so much of our discipline is organized, and while some, like Nietzsche, have famously rejected it, their reasons need not immediately concern us.  For there is a more mundane question it presents:  most people--meaning the fathers, mothers, siblings, children of most academic philosophers--do not lead "examined" lives in the Socratic sense.  Is it really the case that philosophers who embrace the Socratic dictum think their lives are not worth living?  I'm curious what philosophers think, and whether they've ever had this discussion with their non-philosopher relatives.

Philosopher T-Shirts...

...but not only philosophers (scroll down).

UPDATE:  And even more philosopher T-shirts.  (Thanks to Steve McKay for the pointer.)

Will Wilkinson, a Profile in Ideological Blindness

Wilkinson, a libertarian blogger, posted several days ago a criticism of one bit of my 3AM Magazine interview, and a couple of readers asked me to comment.  

Wilkinson begins on a silly note.  After insulting me as a "bullying ideologue" (misusing, as all these cry-babies do, the label "bullying"), he then admits that I've "treated [him] disrespectfully on a few occasions for what I assume are political reasons."  I guess his assumption is as comforting as it is baseless; the simple fact is I don't respect his intelligence (and I'm not alone), and most of his criticisms are a case in point.  They themselves are mostly not interesting, but the ideological blinders on offer are, and it is to those I will turn my attention.

Let's dispense with the confused parts of Wilkinson's criticism quickly:  (1) he's beside himself that in listing Marx's "faults" I didn't mention "the labor theory of value" and "the tendency of Marxism when applied to produce totalitarian dictatorships that have caused upward of 100 millions deaths."  The latter has nothing to do with Marx, and everyone knows the former is defunct--one reason the interviewer presumably didn't ask about it is because he'd bothered to read the paper he was asking about, whereas Wilkinson apparently couldn't be bothered (I've even blogged about this, to make it easy for lazy readers like Wilkinson!); (2) he's equally confused about immiseration, as several commenters point out (the issue is relative, not absolute); everyone knows, including most importantly Marx, that capitalist societies produce large amounts of wealth, the problem starts when technological advances replace the need for human labor power, as they have been doing in all the advanced capitalist societies for more than a generation now, with predictable effects on wealth distribution (though as I noted in the interview, Marx was wildly off on the timing); (3) that Wilkinson thinks Cohen's reconstruction of historical materialism in terms of functional explanations "was doing Marx a favor" by showing historical materialism to  be "a credible form of social-scientifc explanation" shows he has no idea what explanatory paradigms are dominant in the social sciences, what the relation is between functional and causal explanations (class conflict being the causal mechanism, even on Cohen's account!), and the kinds of explanations Marxist historians have developed utilizing class conflict as the relevant explanatory mechanism.  (Hint:  read some Robert Brenner to start).  

I'll note in passing that Wilkinson concedes the correctness of Marx's theory of ideology, though, for reasons known only to him, thinks it "vacuous."

The Many Martin Luther King, Jr.'s

Historian Tom Sugrue (Penn) comments.

BPPA "Career Day" Podcasts Now Available

Richard Rowland, President of the British Postgraduate Philosophy Association, writes: 

[A]ll the talks from the careers day are now up as podcasts on our website. These include an absolutely fascinating roundtable discussion on philosophy in culture and the public sphere with Sean Kelly and John Cottingham, among others, in discussion, Brad Hooker and Helen Beebee talking about preparing for the job market, Thom Brooks giving an extremely charismatic lecture on publishing, and a roundtable discussion on equality in philosophy hosted by SWIP.

We also recently put many resources up online for postgraduate philosophers, including written advice from young philosophers who have just gotten permanent jobs in the UK.

Nietzsche in the NY Times

Several readers sent this review, asking for comment.  I've not read the historical work (about Nietzsche's reception in America) under review, but the review gives a competent summary of some main themes in Nietzsche, and thus marks a happy improvement over the irresponsible piece by William Vollmann a few years back.  On the other hand, a book that concludes its survey of Nietzsche's reception in America with the Nietzsche promoted by Cavell and Rorty is clearly not a work by someone who has any idea of the main developments in philosophical scholarship on and appropraitions of Nietzsche in the past generation in the U.S..  But that's not the reviewer's fault, though it would have been nice if he had noticed.

"Analytic" and "Continental," Again

The "odd man" out in last week's lovely set of remembrances of Michael Dummett used the occasion to grind his particular axe.  Simon Critchley (New School) wrote:

As is well known [sic], professional philosophers are broadly and lamentably divided into two opposed camps: analytic and Continental. It is Dummett’s conviction that the only way to reestablish communication amongst philosophers is by going back to the historical and conceptual point where those traditions divided. This is Dummett’s strategy in his hugely influential 1993 book “Origins of Analytical Philosophy.” Dummett recounts the history of analytic philosophy from Frege onwards in the laudable hope that a clearer understanding of the philosophical past will be a precondition for some sort of mutual comprehension between contemporary philosophers. He wrote:

"I do not mean to pretend that one should pretend that philosophy in the two traditions is basically the same; obviously that would be ridiculous. We can re-establish communication only by going back to the point of divergence. It’s no use now shouting across the gulf. It is obvious that philosophers will never reach agreement. It is a pity, however, if they can no longer talk to one another or understand one another. It is difficult to achieve such understanding, because if you think people are on the wrong track, you may have no great desire to talk with them or to take the trouble to criticize their views. But we have reached a point at which it is as if we’re working in different subjects."

Unnoted, of course, is that Dummett's conception of "analytic" philosophy--as "an armchair subject, requiring only thought" and as trying "to clarify the concepts in terms of which we conceive of [reality], and hence the linguistic expressions by means of which we formulate our conception" as he put it in his last book--was such that huge numbers of philosophers in the Anglophone world today wouldn't qualify, though one can happily stipulate that Dummett is an "analytic" philosopher in his sense, and Heidegger is not. 

The more interesting question is why it is so important for Critchley to pretend that "philosophers are broadly and lamentably divided into two opposed camps."  The reason, if you are a scholar of the Continental traditions and have read Critchley, is obvious:  by inventing the two "divided" and "opposed" camps, you insulate yourself from criticism by the opposing camp.   In my experience, the "analytic" philosophers aren't much worried about this, but those who are very keen to carve out a "Continental" category (basically the Party-Line folks) are, and for good reasons as we have seen.

But back to Dummett:  what did he mean by "the point of divergence" between the two traditions?  Based on his earlier work, I take it he meant the Frege line of philosophy versus the Husserl line of philosophy (though, ironically, Frege and Husserl both represent anti-naturalist reactions to late 19th-century naturalism).  That division makes some sense in the 20th-century, but only to some extent--Lukacs, who returned Hegel to 20th-century Marxism, was not operating in the thrall of Husserl, and nor were Horkheimer and Adorno in re-inventing Marx and Freud for 20th-century Critical Theory.  And if one asks what the connection is between Frege and John Rawls, Bernard Williams, and G.A. Cohen (apart from the fact that they all probably read "On Sense and Reference" at some point) the limits of this dividing line even for the 20th-century becomes apparent.

The actual reality is this:  there are a group of philosophers in the Anglophone world--at about a dozen PhD-granting programs in the US (basically the "SPEP universe"), and at a handful of places in the UK--who are marginalized from and not very knowledgeable about the main tendencies in Anglophone philosophy over the last fifty years, but who are deadly serious about Heidegger and who need to justify their existence to university administrators.  Even though there are now literally hundreds of philosophers at the major "analytic" departments that award PhDs who work on the Continental traditions in philosophy (including Heidegger), these SPEPPies need to perpetuate the illusion of two different "camps" so they can explain why the folks in "their camp" aren't taken seriously outside their network.  (A particular embarrassment for them is that they aren't even taken very seriously in Continental Europe anymore!)    That's the real significance of Critchley's irrelevant intervention on the occasion of Professor Dummett's passing.

Central APA and Chicago Restaurant Week

The pre-registration deadline for the former is approaching, and Mike Titelbaum (Wisconsin) points out to me that, although coming to Chicago in February may seem an odd choice to make, the APA will coincide that weekend with the start of Chicago's restaurant week.   Blackbird, Cafe Spiaggo, The Gage, Japonais, and Topolobampo are all very good indeed, and Atwood Cafe is a nice choice for lunch.  (Topolobampo can be impossibly hard to get a reservation at.) Good but not great Italian restaurants are Tuscany on Taylor (Chicago's Little Italy neighborhood) and Osterio.

Some meta-philosophy using the case of...

...philosophy of hair.

Furnished short-term apartment rentals in Madrid?

Can anyone recommend companies with which they've had good experiences in terms of decent furnished flats for short rentals (probably 4 days) ("serviced apartments" as they're sometimes called)?  Feel free to e-mail me (bleiter at uchicago-dot-edu) or post in the comments.  Many thanks.

What makes a philosophical project worthwhile?

David Livingstone Smith (New England) writes with an interesting question:

It is intuitively plausible that certain activities are of greater value than others.   I am interested in philosophers' views on (a) whether certain philosophical projects are more valuable than others (and conversely, whether some projects are a waste of time), and (b) if not, why not, and (c) and if so, what criteria ought one use to make a call?

What do readers think?

The Uses of Twitter

This item concerns the MLA, but as reader Daniel O'Connell, who flagged it for me, pointed out, "the APA's non-use of Twitter is not the most pressing issue today, clearly, but it strikes me that...this is what Twitter *could* do for APA-Eastern and for the APA as an organization."  I'm not sure we want to encourage "Tweeting" talks, but certainly Twitter could assist with all sorts of logistical issues (recall the fiasco of the blizzard that disrupted the 2010 Boston APA). 

David Barnett: Philosopher, Dancer, Inventor

This video can't really be explained, you'll have to watch it.

(Thanks to Adam Hosein for the pointer.)

"The Future of Black Politics"

This Boston Review symposium includes a contribution from philosopher Tommie Shelby (Harvard), among others.

More on "Philosophy of Cosmology": The Oxbridge Side

Details here.

Six Million Americans Owe Nearly One Trillion in Student Loan Debt...

...and that's more than the entire debt owed to credit cards.   If the federal government decides to tighten up eligibility for student loans, the ramifications for most of higher education would be dramatic and probably frightening.

CORRECTION?  David Wallace (Oxford) points out that, "If 6 million Americans owe $1 trillion in debt, that's about $160,000 each. The ABC story gives an average of $24,000, which implies the number of debtors is about 40 million."  The video clip with the writtern story is where the six million figure came from.  If anyone has a link for the correct figure, please post it in the comments.  Thanks.

New Philosophers' Carnival is...

...here.

Legal Theory in China, Volume 2

It's now on-line, mostly in Chinese, partly in English.

PhilEvents...

...and PhilJobs is doing very well too.

Spiros: "Dear APA..."

Here.  The good news (and it's actual good news) is that the APA has appointed four different task forces made up of a lot of senior philosophers who are quite aware of the very real problems and who want to do something about them, including empower the new Executive Director of the APA to lead the way on some major reforms.  So l'm guardedly optimistic.

Pyke's Photos of Philosophers

Cynthia Freeland (Houston) comments, some interesting observations, some less so--I think she largely missed why Pyke's photos are so memorable.  But do take a moment to read her analysis.  (This is more minor, but she also undercounts the number of non-Caucasians in the collection.  People interested in issues like that ought to get the numbers right!)

(Thanks to Jean Kazez for the pointer.)

The Future of Peer Review?

This mainly concerns the MLA, but reader William Brooke, who flaggd it for me, thought it might be useful to hear what philosophers think about this.  Comments are open.  Full names preferred, valid e-mails required.  Submit the comment only once, it may take awhile to appear.

Seeking Female Historians of Philosophy...

...here.

Law and Philosophy Fellowship at University of Chicago for 2012-13

[MOVING TO FRONT FROM OCT. 26 2011:  TWO MORE WEEKS TO APPLY]

This ad will run in the next JFP:

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO LAW SCHOOL. The University of Chicago Law School seeks to appoint a Law and Philosophy Fellow for the academic year 2012-13. A Ph.D. in philosophy by time of appointment is expected, though in unusual cases a Ph.D. in a related discipline, or a J.D. accompanied by strong training in philosophy, will be considered. Applications welcome from PhDs awarded in 2005 or later. Law degree (J.D. or foreign equivalent) is helpful, but not required. AOS: Any area of philosophy that intersects with issues of interest to legal scholars.  AOC: Any area of philosophy that will enable the Fellow to co-teach the Law and Philosophy Workshop for 2012-13 on the broad theme of "Freedom and Responsibility." (If the AOS is in the area of the Workshop theme, then the AOC is open.) The Workshop will meet about a dozen times over the course of the academic year to discuss work by invited speakers. The Fellow will also be expected to contribute to the intellectual life of the Law School, as well as pursue his or her research. Salary $50K + benefits + superb research environment. To be considered a candidate for this position you must apply on-line through the University website by January 20, 2012. Resume, cover letter, writing sample, reference contact information and research statement should be submitted electronically on the web site at the time of application. Three confidential letters of recommendation should be mailed to Joe Pellettiere at The University of Chicago Law School, 1111 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637 by January 20, 2012. The University of Chicago is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer.

Please e-mail me if you have any questions about the position.

"Conservatism is a tradition, not a pathology"...

...says Mark Lilla, as though these were exclusive possibilities.   He mentions as examples of conservatives constituting the "tradition" (drawing on another professor's reading list) the following:  "Burke, Maistre, Hayek, Buckley, Ayn Rand, Irving Kristol, Allan Bloom," and then asks:  "answer honestly, dear reader of The Chronicle Review: How many of these authors have you yourself read?"   Here's my answer:  Burke, Hayek, Buckley, Rand, Kristol, and Bloom.  Buckley, Rand, Kristol and Bloom are intellectual lightweights and dilettantes (surely Mark Lilla knows this?), and I would think conservative intellectuals would be embarrassed to claim them for their "tradition."  Burke and Hayek are entirely different, though I strongly suspect that if he weren't the canonical opponent of the French Revolution, even Burke would not be much read anymore (in a century that included David Hume, Immanuel Kant, and Adam Smith, why would anyone even notice Burke except for his conservatism?).   Hayek is a different case, both a bit "pathological" (think of the paranoid weirdness that runs through The Road to Serfdom) and a thinker with genuine ideas, some of which (e.g., the effectiveness of markets in recording information about what people want) are now "conventional wisdom" even on the left (there are several Hayekian moments in G.A. Cohen's last work, Why Not Socialism?)  But Hayek is no Burkean conservative, nor are his intellectual heirs:  indeed, Burkean conservatives can only bemoan the way markets destroy traditional practices and cultures, whereas Hayekians think they are essential to human freedom. 

So in a way, Lilla's list is telling that there's really no "there there":  philosophical hacks (and hacks in totally different ways!) like Bloom and Rand, journalists like Buckley and Kristol, traditionalists like Burke, and free market radicals like Hayek do not a "tradition" make.  That people like Lilla get journalistic mileage out of lumping them altogether is just an artifact of the pathologies of American society, where reactionary political and moral views proliferate, with the result that even some intellectuals apparently feel the need to prove their bona fides to the dominant culture by showing that their milieu, the universities, has room for "diversity" of opinion.  But universities aren't mainly about opinions, they are about the discovery and dissemination of knowledge, and since almost everything Bachmann and Santorum and Gingrich and their ilk profess is based on demonstrable ignorance and falsehood, it should find no place in the universities, even if popular "conservatism" takes this nonsense seriously.   By contrast, the "conservative" work that has some intellectual content, whether Burke or Smith or Hayek, is widely taught and studied and debated in universities, as it should be.  There is no need to invent a fake "conservative tradition" to justify that.