Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

Friday Poem: "Elevator Ride"

   Elevator Ride

My sluggard lift's
unhurried levitation
or descent
seems time ill-spent
departing from
returning to the firmament

Still better though
than bygone days
toiling the leaden stairs
and grateful for
a moment's breath
aspiring to the final floor

Thus on reflection
I learn time used
proportions to
the time we're in
and history
leavening impatience
brings perspectivist duration
to the time that's now or then
although tomorrow's time
continues dim

Unlike the present din
the past seems sensible
like the ride that's been
declines to jar repose
lets measure in

Oh but today does hurry so
as if fulfillment
is the only map we know
as if the little in our squint
if rendered with dispatch
would enable us to show
how it is we come
why it is we go

7/94-10/30/94, 11/3-11/17/07, 2/10-2/13/08

Copyright 1994, 2008 by Maurice Leiter

Posted with permission.

Visiting Professors from Abroad Finding it Harder to Get Into the U.S.

A distinguished academic from the U.K., who has visited a number of times at U.S. institutions, writes:

I'm thinking...of giving up longer visits to the US. Not because I don't enjoy working here. On the contrary. But for various other reasons, not least of which is the Kafkaesque bureaucracy associated with getting a visa and getting through the border and reporting every little thing one does to the feds. The whole nightmare starts with a 15-quid phone call to a rude and sullen call centre operative who handles visa appointments and slaps your wrists for asking questions. Those who live in, say, Glasgow then have to travel 500 miles to sit in the US Embassy in London incommunicado (no phones or laptops allowed, and nowhere to store them if you have the effrontery to have them with you) until someone is good and ready to take all their fingerprints and to look for trivial errors on their numerous repetitive and gratuitously intrusive forms. The cost is astronomical even without all the travel and accommodation costs. Then you never know for sure how long they will hold onto your passport: a distinguished colleague of mine recently had to cancel a long-arranged lecture in another country because the US embassy, which knew of his travel plans, kept his passport for a month AFTER confirming that his US visa had been approved! Europeans have started to refer to US travel, only half-jokingly, as 'going behind the iron curtain'. Actually, this is an insult to the Warsaw Pact countries, several of which had a much lighter touch than today's US. They're now thinking of introducing a rule that you can't buy a plane ticket to the US, even for a quick tourist visit, without advance permission from Uncle Sam! I wouldn't mind any of this if it achieved something, but we all know that it is a competition by US politicians to see who can be the biggest ultra-nationalist bully, preferably by squeezing an arbitrarily-chosen selection of non-Americans until the pips squeak.

In an era when the scholarly community in most areas of philosophy, indeed in most disciplines, is international, this is a quite pernicious development.  Have others encountered problems with getting foreign scholars into the U.S. for extended, visiting/teaching appointments?  Do others overseas share my correspondent's perceptions of the problem?  Non-anonymous comments strongly preferred, as usual, though if I can verify the identity of the commenter from the e-mail address, that will be sufficient (those addresses do not appear on the post).

The Bush Presidential Library and Institute at Southern Methodist University

The betrayal of principles of academic freedom and research makes this an embarrassment for Southern Methodist University.

Breaking News: Diebold Mistakenly Releases Results of 2008 Presidential Election Early

This is very funny.

UPDATE:  It goes without saying, I should think, that bullshit is the most important issue for voters in 2008.  (Thanks to Derek Pierson for the link to this one.)

Reading Philosophy

A reader writes:

I enjoy your blog at leiterreports. This sounds strange, but would you consider doing a blog on 'reading philosophy'? Reading philosophy isn't like reading done in other fields. The big issue that would be interesting, I think, to get feedback from others on is: how long does it typically take you to read a philosophy journal article, and what kinds of philosophers take the most time to understand. It would be interesting to have some kind of crude scale.

In a general sense, I just often find it frustrating, being a philosopher, to be able to speed-read other literature, only to have to spend hours upon hours to make my way through philosophical literature.

In Memoriam: Jay Rosenberg (1942-2008)

Jay Rosenberg, a mainstay of the Department of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for some forty years, passed away yesterday.  He was, of course, well-known for his many contributions to philosophy of language, metaphysics, and epistemology.  I will add a link to a memorial notice as soon as one is available.

UPDATE:  An obituary from a local paper is here.

ANOTHER UPDATE:  Professor Rosenberg's daughter sends the following information about a memorial service:   "A memorial service will be held 1:00 p.m. Saturday, March 15, 2008 at Extraordinary Ventures, 200 South Elliott Road, Chapel Hill 27514 www.extraordinaryventures.org. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the Jay Rosenberg Cookbook Scholarship, Reed College, 3203 SE Woodstock Blvd, Portland, OR 97202. The cookbook can also be ordered online at www.bookstore.reed.edu

ONE MORE:      Memories from former students here.

Graham from Wake Forest to Georgia State

George Graham, a leading contributor to work at the intersection of philosophy and psychology, who currently holds an endowed chair in the Philosophy Department at Wake Forest University, has accepted a senior offer from the Department of Philosophy at Georgia State University, where he will work with Eddy Nahmias, a leading young experimental philosopher, and others in developing the Brains and Behavior Program.  That's a major appointment for GSU, and will solidfy its position among the very top terminal MA programs in the country.  (The GSU news release is here.)

Buffalo Makes Bid for Braun at Rochester

David Braun (philosophy of language, philosophy of mind) at the University of Rochester has been offered the new Romanell Chair in Philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo.  (Patrick and Edna J. Romanell have funded a number of initiatives in philosophy at the national level, including the well-known Romanell Lecture of the APA.) 

It's Tough to Spell "Nietzsche"!

Proof.

What is philosophy?

The Department at Victoria University at Wellington compiles a quite interesting set of reflections by contemporary and 20th-century figures in answer to this question.  My favorite is the one from John Campbell, now at Berkeley:

Philosophy is thinking in slow motion. It breaks down, describes and assesses moves we ordinarily make at great speed - to do with our natural motivations and beliefs. It then becomes evident that alternatives are possible.       

My least favorite, since it makes philosophy out to be hopelessly conservative in its ambitions, is from David Lewis:

One comes to philosophy already endowed with a stock of opinions. It is not the business of philosophy either to undermine or to justify these pre-existing opinions, to any great extent, but only to try to discover ways of expanding them into an orderly system. It      succeeds to the extent that (1) it is systematic, and (2) it respects those of our pre-philosophical opinions to which we are firmly attached.  In so far as it does both better than any alternative we have thought of, we give it credence.   

Thomas Nagel's account is bound to be highly contentious in certain circles:

Philosophy is different from science and from mathematics.  Unlike science it doesnÍt rely on experiments or observation, but only on thought. And unlike mathematics it has no formal methods of proof.   It is done just by asking questions, arguing, trying out ideas and thinking of possible arguments against them, and wondering how our concepts really  work.

Those unhappy with Nagel, will be happier, I suspect, with Quine's take:

I see philosophy not as f groundwork for science, but as continuous with science. I see philosophy and science as in the same boat - a boat which f we can rebuild only at sea while staying afloat in it. There is no external vantage point, no first philosophy. All scientific      findings, all scientific conjectures that are at present plausible, are therefore in my view as welcome for use in philosophy as elsewhere.

Sources, and more quotes, are at the Victoria site.

Bertram on Castro

Political philosopher Chris Bertram (Bristol) offers some sensible observations about Cuba on the occasion of Castro's retirement, observations that wouldn't be remotely controversial in most of the world.  But since Professor Bertram's blog also interacts, in some measure, with the right-wing American blogosphere, the reactions from the undereducated and suitably indoctrinated has been predictable.

Yale Law School Makes Bid for Legal Philosopher Shapiro at Michigan

More details here.

New Philosophers' Carnival is...

...here.

Experimental Philosophy on Bloggingheads TV!

Here, with Joshua Knobe (North Carolina).  Accessible to non-philosophers.

Friday Poem: "Flyer"

Flyer

                    I
I see by the A&P flyer
That Passover foods are a feature
Am I the only Westchester creature
Who doesn't post a calendar
Alongside his refrigerator
What a shock to my delicate nature
For holidays to burst upon the nation
In the midst of my disorientation

I'm a boat torn from its moorings
A pigeon whose cage has been hidden
A Muslim with no sense of direction
If indeed Passover is cooking
Why then Ramadan has gone wanting
And Easter verges on rising

                      II
When the gods have left the field
And calendars have their pages sealed
When celebration like menstruation
Bows to change of life
And a bored world surrenders
Theology to euthanasia

Then oh A&P oh Winn-Dixie
Oh Ralph's oh H.E.B.
Oh Stop and Shop oh Giant Food
Oh Safeway oh Grand Union
What ungodly but delicious specials
Will in your luscious flyers brood
Absent occasion to inspire your milky pleadings
Such as Season's Greetings and similar poop

3/17-3/23, 7/16-7/25/96,  6/13/07, 2/10/08

Copyright 1996, 2008 by Maurice Leiter

Posted with permission.

Rouse on Two Kinds of Naturalism

I thought this was a provocative way of demarcating two naturalistic tendencies in philosophy, from a review by Joseph Rouse (Wesleyan):

Within the broadly secular practice of contemporary philosophy, two alternative oppositional stances have replaced anti-supernaturalism in defining a naturalistic orientation, leading to at least two divergent strands of philosophical naturalism.  One approach, sometimes characterized as "scientific naturalism" (De Caro and MacArthur 2004), and more often described as "ontological naturalism" in this volume, now might be said to define itself in opposition to humanism rather than theism.  Here lies the motivation for some naturalists' hostility to folk psychology, freedom, transcendental reason, the irreducibility of consciousness or first-person standpoints, and above all, any conception of normativity as sui generis.  Human beings live in a world indifferent or even hostile to our interests, desires, values, or perspectival priorities, and the sciences provide our primary access to this anthropo-peripheral world to which we must accommodate ourselves.  This anti-humanist strain of naturalism aspires to a hard-headed, resolute commitment to a thoroughly scientific self-understanding that can free us from the residual strands of self-aggrandizing illusion or wishful thinking that still confer disproportionate significance upon our all-too-human preoccupations.

A different, more inclusive conception of naturalism emphasizes a tolerant continuity of philosophy with the natural sciences.  Naturalism has long defined itself in opposition to conceptions of philosophy as autonomous from the natural sciences.  Yet here there has been considerable evolution.  When Frege and Husserl inveighed against psychologism in logic and naturalism in philosophy at the turn of the 20th Century, the naturalists they had in mind often sought to dispense with philosophy altogether; in Germany, the stakes were heightened by the struggles between philosophers and experimental psychologists for university chairs in philosophy.  A century later, naturalism has become an unequivocally philosophical stance toward philosophical issues, which appropriates the resources and/or the authority of natural science for philosophical ends.  If you want to find out about naturalism, you still need to read philosophy journals rather than just the scientific literature.  Within anglophone philosophy, naturalism has thus succeeded empiricism as the primary expression of a scientific orientation within philosophy, by loosening empiricist opposition to metaphysics, causality, and alethic modalities, and replacing formal logic and a priori analysis with cognitive science or evolutionary biology as the preferred basis for philosophical understanding of thought and action.

Differences between these two ways of defining a naturalistic orientation can be expressed in multiple ways.  The anti-humanist strain of naturalism is often radically revisionist, confining philosophical inquiry within the austere constraints of a physicalist ontology, a third-person standpoint, or the domains governed by natural laws.  Many familiar ways of thinking and talking must be reduced, revised, or eliminated to fit these constraints.  More inclusive versions of naturalism are not broadly revisionist in this way, while still providing considerable resources for criticism of specific positions and arguments.  Another way to distinguish the two strains is by considering where the naturalist looks for philosophical guidance.  For many anti-humanist conceptions, nature (as represented in scientific theories) provides the touchstone for philosophical work; for the more tolerant approaches, scientific practices in all their diversity provide the relevant philosophical resources, with no prior commitment to hierarchies among the sciences in their ontological commitments or explanatory resources. 

Is the "Rule of Recognition" a Conventional Rule?

I know you folks have been wondering!

More Bad News for Philosophy in the UK: The Fall 2008 AHRC Research Leave Competition Has Been Cancelled

Details here.  Coming on the heels of this, one wonders what is going on in the UK.  Are we about to see a general cutback in support for the humanities, including philosophy?  Or are these isolated events?  The combination of an improved financial situation in British universities over the last decade, plus a weak dollar, an embarrassing domestic political scene in the US, and generous leave schemes in the UK had produced something of a reverse migration of academic talent, or at least less emigration to the US--that, in any case, has been my impression.  But one imagines that cutbacks to postgraduate support and research leaves will take its toll.

Chicago's Nussbaum Declines Harvard, Brown Offers, Will Remain at Chicago

Martha Nussbaum (ancient philosophy, political philosophy, ethics), who holds appointments in the Law School, Philosophy Department, and the Divinity School at the University of Chicago, has declined the senior offers from Harvard University and Brown University.  That's the second significant retention coup for Chicago recently, one about which I am, needless to say, especially pleased.

Leiden's Philosophy Department in Trouble!

Eric Schliesser, a philosopher at Leiden University in the Netherlands, writes:

I write you because I hope you would be willing to publicize the predicament of Leiden University's Philosophy department.

In the guise of transforming graduate education at Leiden University, the new University President wishes to merge the philosophy department (and a bunch of others) into a giant Humanities/Arts department. Normally such things move at very slow pace in the Netherlands, but the University President (a specialist in employment law) appointed a committee with himself as Chair and without membership of any of the affected departments; despite assurances to the contrary, he is now implementing the committee's recommendations even before the formal consultation process has finished. The reality behind the proposal is to create a vehicle in which to slim down all the Humanities at Leiden regardless of individual performance. A free standing graduate program for Humanities is financially not viable given the way funding for Humanities research has been cut in the Netherlands. (In Holland, PhD students are paid employees who are treated as civil servants.) Once the philosophy department falls under the new accounting procedures we will be unable to replace retiring faculty or fund new PhDs. Meanwhile, our valued support staff runs the risk of being laid off.
The department is a free-standing 'faculty,' which (to simplify) means it reports straight to the University President and is responsible for its own academic policies, academic hiring, and profit/loss accounting. The department is financially secure, has growing enrollments, an ample cash reserve, and is very efficient in its management of resources. The PhD program is very small (4), but a recent graduate got a job at Washington University in St Louis and another got a prestigious Dutch fellowship. It has 12 faculty, which have strengths in the history of philosophy (we have wide coverage in Ancient, Medieval, Early Modern, Kant, Nietzsche, Husserl, and Heidegger, ethics, logic, and early Analytical philosophy). We just had a visiting committee (one of the members was Bob Pippin) which praised the faculty research productivity.

Maybe you can ask your readership to contact the University President, Prof Dr Paul van der Heijden and let him know that there is International concern and support for our independence.  Believe it or not all publicity scares the administration. I would be much obliged.

This certainly sounds like an underhanded way to destroy a well-functioning unit through administrative maneuvering.  I hope philosophers will write to President van der Heijden in support of the independence of the philosophy faculty at Leiden.

Obama is a Nietzsche Man!

Details here.

University Support for Faculty Who Win External Fellowships

A philosopher writes:

Since fellowship awards typically get announced this time of year, it might be interesting to consider the following question: What policies or practices does your institution have regarding support of external fellowships in the humanities such as the NEH or ACLS?   Such fellowships typically support around half a senior person’s salary.  What, if anything, does your institution do to help recipients make up the shortfall and secure a full year’s research release?  For example: Does your institution routinely make up the shortfall, or only when the
recipient has accrued sufficient sabbatical credit?  Is the recipient responsible for covering her own benefits, or does your institution cover that?  Details regarding the kind of institution you work at – “research” v. “teaching”, “private” v. “public, etc. – will be especially helpful.

Comments are open; signed comments strongly preferred.  Post only once. 

New Gender, Race and Philosophy Blog...

...here, with a large cast of contributors.

An American Presidential Election Update

This is mostly for the benefit of foreign readers, though perhaps some others will find it of interest.

Yesterday, was "Super Tuesday" in the U.S., with more than twenty Presidential primaries throughout the country.

Senator John McCain from Arizona emerged the clear front-runner to win the Republican nomination.  Senator McCain is not popular with "conservatives" (I'm not sure this is the right term for these people) who object to several of his positions:  for example, his opposition to torture; his opposition to the Bush tax cuts; his lack of support for all the far right judicial nominees Bush put forward; his insufficient enthusiasm for punitive measures against illegal immigrants; and his support for campaign finance reform.  Senator McCain is, of course, also a leading war-monger, who likes to joke about bombing Iran.  This combination of positions makes him "too liberal" for a section of the American electorate.

Senator Clinton won in California, her home state of New York, the neighboring state of New Jersey, her former home state of Arkansas, Massachussetts, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Arizona.

Senator Obama won in his home state of Illinois, Georgia, the frequent bellwether state of Missouri, Alabama, Connectict (which borders New York), Delaware, Utah, North Dakota, Colorado, Kansas, Idaho, and Alaska.   States like Utah, North Dakota, Idaho, and Alaska have almost no African-American population, and are largely non-Hispanic white.  In Utah, Obama beat Clinton 57% to 39%; in Idaho, 79% to 17%; in Alaska, 75% to 25%; and in North Dakota, 61% to 37%.

The margins of victory are telling elsewhere.  In her home state of New York, Clinton beat Obama by 17 percentage points; in his home state of Illinois, Obama beat Clinton by 32 percentage points.  Obama beat Clinton by a small margin in neighboring Connecticut (that he won at all is very telling), and by ten percentage points in Delaware, part of the Northeast corridor, which one might have thought safe territory for the New York Senator. 

If one remembers that Senator Clinton started with a huge name recognition advantage, and was the presumptive nominee before the process started, it is clear how much trouble she is now in.  She may yet pull it out.  The decent thing to do, of course, would be to withdraw from the race.  As one right-wing pundit wrote not long ago, "Only one thing can now unite the Republican Party:  Hillary Clinton."

UPDATE:  Ruchira Paul reflects on why older non-white women might be supporting Obama and not Clinton.

ANOTHER:  A reader was puzzled why I thought the "decent" thing for Senator Clinton to do was withdraw, so I guess I should be explicit.  I'd like her to withdraw for two reasons:  (1) there's no reason to think she's any more progressive than her husband Bill (whose domestic policies were to the right of Richard Nixon's), and she has too much blood on her hands with Iraq and her war-mongering about Iran, and (2) she's the Democrat least likely to win in November, esp. against McCain.

New Philosophers' Carnival is...

...here.

A Huge Cut in Postgraduate Funding for Philosophy in the UK?

Simon Blackburn excorciates a recent government proposal in Britain, whose implications are, indeed, ominous for philosophy:

I have been reading the Arts and Humanities Research Council document called the Delivery Plan, 2008-2011....

[T]he document reminded me of the brag sheet I once caught a glimpse of when a rather porcine business man left his laptop open and facing me on a train. It was full of sentences like “I have considerable experience of progressing hands-on product delivery serving a variety of stakeholders in a fast-moving and challenging commercial environment”, which I interpreted as meaning something like I drive a van in Gateshead. But after the joke had gone on a little long, it dawned on me that the delivery plan was serious. They actually do think in terms like “Fostering knowledge transfer by our researchers with an increasing range of partners to produce greater economic and social impact”, and yes, they do scatter bold type everywhere to show just how serious and forward-looking they are....

Mere lapses of taste can be forgiven, but as in the movies when the slightly unnerving character with the gold tooth and the unfortunate wig suddenly reveals that he is a cannibal, so the AHRC soon reveal the black-hearted villainy behind the clowning. The essence of its delivery plan (also in bold) is that “over 2008-11 we will, via the new Block Grant Partnerships, move the percentage of our postgraduate budget falling within strategic themes from a low base to some 50%... A large number of the studentships we fund will fall within our strategic priority areas, such as the creative economy and heritage.” Not only the creative economy and heritage, but also lifelong health and wellbeing, and living with environmental change, and, well, just heaps of things that make up the challenging drivers and value chains piloted with our partner stakeholders. Not classics, or history (unless it is heritage), languages, literature, law or philosophy, of course.

We heard last week that the number of postgraduate studentships is to fall next year from 1,500 to 1000, although it would then go back up to some 1,300. That seemed bad enough. But now take away half of the support for anything that most people in universities would recognise as a subject, and we are down to between 500 and 650 students a year in classics, philosophy, languages, literature and the rest. That might be defensible if there were any evidence that there had been gross overproduction of MPhils and PhDs in the years before. But the AHRC itself admits that this is not so. 55 per cent of current AHRC graduates take up academic appointments, and 45 per cent go to key positions in the public and private sectors. One wonders what the equivalent figures will be for those who have done a PhD in heritage studies.

How bad will this be?  Will it go through?  Comments from UK readers and other knowledgeable observers are welcome.

Friday Poem: "Unafraid'

Unafraid

I'm not afraid
I have my tasks to pass the time
I keep a monthly calendar
Hang up my clothes at night
And like a pilgrim to a shrine
Appear every ten days
At the washing machine

Month after month
I welcome the cleaning woman
And I freely admit
I delight at the gleaming
Washstand that she leaves

Deep in the dead of winter
I count the days to spring
While ambivalently
Savoring the coming snow
And what is more precious
Than a steaming soup to take
The chill from one's bones

I would drink
But my doctor forbids it
Leap but my leg is lame
And were it not for my breathing
I'd be without complaint

At night I keep my clock in view
And from time to time
I check its progress toward the dawn
I feel a small uncertainty
Not really fear
Just a vague suspicion

I'd rather be awake

1/6-2/11/96, 6/22/98, 10/7/07

Copyright 1996, 2007 by Maurice Leiter

Posted with permission.

Including Letters of Recommendation from Students in a Dossier?

A philosopher writes:

My colleagues and I are conducting a job search for a tenure-track position.  Several of the dossiers submitted to us have included letters of recommendation written by the job candidate's former students and speaking highly of the candidate's teaching ability.  This is a new phenomenon to us; we have conducted several searches in recent years and have never before encountered recommendation letters written by students.

Among my colleagues, opinion has been divided, with some feeling indifferent about the letters, and two feeling quite displeased about them.  (I suppose the negative reaction stems from worries about the job candidate cherry picking class favorites and soliciting letters from them, or even pressuring them into writing one.)

I wonder (a) how often your readers who have served on recent job search committees have encountered letters like this; and (b) what they have felt about such letters (did they hurt the candidate's chances, help them, or make no difference)?

My inclination is that it is a bad idea to include student letters of recommendation, since their probative value is extremely limited, certainly when compared to anonymous class evaluations.  What do readers think?