Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

Reader feedback sought

What are you favorite features/topics/subject on the blog?  Please vote!  This will help me, perhaps, in knowing where to focus my efforts.  Thanks.

This blog wordled...

Sorry about the light posting...

...but there's a lot going on, including preparing for this excellent event at Riverside.  A bit more next week I expect....

Advertising for May on the Blog--A Discount

Either top spot (left or right) is still available for May, so we're slashing the price to $300 for each spot.  Please contact me ASAP if you're interested.  

There is also at least one top spot available for each month for the remainder of the year, including the peak traffic fall months (Sept and Dec have only one spot open at present, Oct and Nov have both spots available). 

I will also offer a discount for anyone who takes a top spot for all three summer months (which would ordinarily be $810).  Again, contact me for details on the summer discount.

Traffic on This Blog Has Increased Dramatically...

...in the last two months, and I'm not quite sure why.  It began in early January, and then, I think, it was due to previews of the now-published PGR.  But it lasted beyond that, and continued to increase in February.  Clearly the discussion of the petition to the APA, and now the counter-petition, has been a factor.  But January and February were at levels of traffic (average 8,000 hits per day) usually not seen except in April right before decision time for PhD students).  I'll be interested to see whether it lasts.

So people have been saying, "Philosophers are getting on Facebook, you should too."

So I did.  Now what?  

UPDATE:  Well, I've now received lots of invitations to join other philosophers on Facebook as "friends," so that's at least part of the "what"!  Thanks for the invites.  I've also gotten invites from some people I don't know.  Perhaps one of my new Facebook friends will write on my "wall" explaining the protocols of this to me.

Reaching Me via "LinkedIn"

Over the last 12 months, a number of folks have tried to reach "Brian Leiter" via a LinkedIn site I'd created ages ago--unfortunately, I then forgot the password.  But I've now re-established access to it, for those for whom that might be relevant.  I apologize for not replying to those who had tried to contact me that way.

"The Oxford Handbook of Continental Philosophy"

Michael Rosen and I are certainly grateful to Professor Vandevelde of Marquette for this generous review of The Oxford Handbook of Continental Philosophy; his conclusion is particularly welcome, because it states well our aim and the aim of the contributors, and confirms that we achieved it:

In sum, this handbook is a remarkable achievement. On the one hand, the scope of the themes and authors is large enough to count as an excellent overview of the many facets of continental philosophy; on the other hand, the creative and critical nature of the contributions provides a thorough and in-depth discussion of the trends making up continental philosophy. It is both a scholarly work providing a large amount of information and a philosophical work testing and assessing the originality and fruitfulness of continental philosophy. If a case had to be made about the relevance, originality, and fruitfulness of the continental approaches, this handbook makes it rather convincingly and brilliantly.

If Obama Loses, It's My Fault

It's true.   (Well, not really, I would have voted for Nader.)

(Thanks to Ruchira Paul for the link.)

E-Mail Problems

A shutdown of the electrical system at the Law School on Monday night created some problems for those sending me e-mail at my Chicago address.  It appears everything got through to me, but not till morning.

Please note we're having a repeat of the same shutdown tonight (Tuesday starting around 5 pm Central Time, 6 pm NYC time), and running through Wednesday morning.  It might be best not to try to e-mail me during that time.  The system should be up and running by 6 or 7 am on Wednesday morning.  For urgent matters, leave me a phone message at my office.  Thanks.

A word about my comments policy

As longtime readers know, I open comments selectively when I think reader input is likely to be especially informative and when I have time to moderate comments.  This practice has worked well, in terms of the quality of the comment sections, but it is time-consuming and it also means that relatively few threads have commenting opportunities.   But it seems to me that more laissez-faire policies have significant disadvantages.

First, there are likely to be far more anonymous comments, and anonymity generally encourages irresponsible behavior.  Second, there would be a lot more spam--a lot of older threads with open comments get spam fairly regularly, but that never sees the light of day under the current system.  Third, the quality of threads is likely to be much more uneven--take a look at Crooked Timber threads to get an idea of what tends to happen.  There are some folks who comment rather excessively on any blog where the opportunity presents itself, and what they have in common is rarely skill and insight.  (Search "John Emerson" on Crooked Timber for an example of the problem.)  The comment sections of highly-trafficked blogs are very attractive for those who want attention, and especially if their professional competence does not permit them to get such recognition from established fora outside the blogosphere.  And some nuisance commenters are just literally nuts.  (Pharyngula maintains a whole list of permanently blocked commenters, including some denizens of Cyberspace whom he deems, not implausibly, to be mentally ill--a phenomenon, needless to say, with which I have some familiarity.)   

The question, of course, is how likely it is an "open" comments policy here would devolve in these ways.  When there was more scathing political commentary on the blog, that risk was certainly greater, but these days the quality of submitted comments are pretty good, and I approve at least 90%.  On the other hand, the amount of garbage would surely increase if there were not the specter of comment moderation, so for the foreseeable future I intend to maintain the comments status quo.  If you have thoughts on the issue, feel free to e-mail me.  Thanks.

UPDATE:  Sentiment so far is strongly in favor of continuing moderation.  One student gave apt expression to the case for moderation:

Per your recent post, I think it would be better if you kept moderating comments as you have. The vast majority of discussion on the internet is worthless, your blog being a rare exception. If comments are not moderated it is safe to assume not only that there will be more junk comments, but that this decrease in average quality will cause a decrease in the number of worthwhile comments as well. Many of the most informative and best-considered comments in current discussions come from well-respected, and no doubt very busy, philosophers, whom I imagine would have little desire to spend their scant free time engaging with belligerent internet trolls.

Pretty much my sentiments exactly.

New Contact Info for...

...Brian Leiter.  I'll continue using the Texas e-mail for awhile, but the Chicago e-mail is already working.

My Teaching at Chicago Next Year

Some students have asked; for those who are interested, there is information here.

A Favor, Once Again

I'd ask readers with blogs to please consider adding these blogs to their blogrolls (if they maintain one):

Brian Leiter's Legal Philosophy Blog

Brian Leiter's Nietzsche Blog

Thanks.

Advice Sought on Summer Travel in Southern Europe

I have professional engagements this summer in Northern Italy and Spain, and was hoping to spend some time between events with my family at some appealing place (nice beach, good swimming, great food) on the Italian or French Riviera (i.e., inbetween the Italian and Spanish engagements).  I would be grateful for suggestions!  Many thanks.

The Change in the Formatting on Posts and Comments

I have only just realized that Typepad automatically changed the formatting, limiting the number of posts per page, and the number of comments per page, with the result that these annoying little "next" lines appear at the bottom that you have to click on to continue.  I've now adjusting the settings so that the maximum number of comments and posts appear on a single page, but the maximum isn't that high:  the limit is 50.  Obviously that is a headache for the tenure-track hiring thread, where there will likely be more than 100 comments soon.  I will inquire with Typepad, since this latest "innovation" is clearly not a helpful one for our purposes.  Anyway, my apologies to readers who are finding this a nuisance.

Busy March

This is a rather hectic (but exciting) month for me, as I'm giving the Fresco Lectures in Jurisprudence at the University of Genoa in Italy, the Dunbar Lecture in Law and Philosophy at the University of Mississippi, and participating in an APA session (at the Pacific Division in Pasadena) on Nietzsche.  I may be slower than usual in replying to e-mails, but I will keep udpating the blog with pertinent faculty news, since this is likely to be a busy month for news. 

Good luck to all job seekers and to prospective students, who will also no doubt be getting news in the coming weeks!

It's Tough to Spell "Nietzsche"!

Proof.

It's not often that Ronald Dworkin and I are invoked in support of the same proposition...

..but a reader points out a rare instance, an appropriately scathing review of a childishly stupid book by a childishly stupid author, one Jonah Goldberg (about whom we had occasion to comment in passing long ago).  The passage in question:

Goldberg falsely saddles liberalism not just with relativism but with all manner of alleged errors having nothing to do with liberalism. At one point, he exhumes the likes of Derrida and Foucault in order to pummel them once more for introducing postmodernism, deconstruction, and other continental horrors into the world. What this tiresome routine has to do with liberalism escapes the reader. From the outset, liberals opposed these fads as fiercely as conservatives. Just ask Ronald Dworkin or Brian Leiter. Goldberg, like many movement conservatives, grossly overestimates the influence of postmodernism, doubtless because avowed nihilists make such good straw men (if not good theater, as Derrida and Foucault well knew).

Of course, it always make me sad to see Foucault, a genuinely learned man and creative intellect, lumped together with the charlatan Derrida.  But the reviewer is clearly correct that Derridean silliness has nothing to do with liberalism, and precious little to do with anything in the modern university.

A Google Curiosity

The top result for a Google search of "Leiter" is this blog.  Take that Al Leiter and Felix Leiter!

The "Best" of 2007

Here's some of the blog postings from 2007 that still seem to me most interesting (of course, what do I know?).  If you missed them the first time, you might enjoy checking them out now (most are by me, but I've included a handful by some of the others who occasionally blog here):   

The Changing "Sociology" of the Philosophy Profession (January)

The Proposed U.S. Troop "Surge" in Iraq (January)

Paul Campos's Problem with the First Amendment and Academic Freedom (February)

On Pluralism in Philosophy Departments, Once Again (March)

Using Google Scholar to Assesss the Impact of Scholarly Work (April)

"Because the undergraduates are better" (May)

DePaul's University Attack on Academic Freedom:  The Tenure Case of Norman Finkelstein (June)

Simon Critchley Rides to the Defense of Derrida (July)

Carlin Romano:  Total Ignorance of Philosophy is No Obstacle to Opining about Richard Rorty (September)

Geuss's Skepticism about Rawls (October)

Summary of Major Faculty Moves and Tenure-Track Hires for 2006-2007 (October)

How Do Departments Decide Whom to Interview at the APA? (November)

The Honderich-McGinn Dispute (with links to earlier postings) (October-November-December)

And from my Nietzsche blog:

Nietzsche Studies:  Where the Action Is (October)

Ridley on "Nietzsche and the Re-evaluation of Values" (November)

Where should a beginner start with Nietzsche? (December)

And from my legal philosophy blog:

The Worst Jurisprudential Article of the Year? (September)

Justifying Originalism (October)

Authorities that Perform a Partial Service:  An Objection to Raz's Objection to Soft Positivism? (November)

A Favor

I'd ask readers with blogs to please consider adding these blogs to their blogrolls (if they maintain one):

Brian Leiter's Legal Philosophy Blog

Brian Leiter's Nietzsche Blog

Thanks.

Oxford Handbook of Continental Philosophy

I'm delighted to announce that this volume (edited by myself and Michael Rosen) has now been published.  It's an outstanding group of contributors from the U.S., Britain, Australia, Canada, and Continental Europe, including many of the leading senior and junior scholars in the field.  Here is a pertinent bit from the "Introduction":

Since the 1970s, we have entered a “Golden Age” for English-speaking scholarship on the so-called “Continental” traditions of philosophy, meaning (primarily) philosophy after Kant in Germany and France in the 19th and 20^th centuries. Much of this work has been concerned to introduce and interpret the writings of major individual thinkers and to locate them within a conceptual framework that is familiar to those with a background in the mainstream of philosophy as conventionally taught in Anglophone departments. At the same time, a hallmark of recent scholarly developments is the renewed appreciation for the sometimes distinctive historical and philosophical contexts in which Continental philosophy has been produced, allowing us to appreciate both where the Continental traditions depart from those familiar in the Anglophone world and to assess the philosophical merits of the distinctive philosophical positions developed.

This volume aims to give a representative sample of these important developments in philosophical scholarship, and, more importantly, to give a broad and inclusive thematic treatment of Continental philosophy, treating its subject-matter philosophically and not simply as a series of museum pieces from the history of ideas. Each of the essays takes up a topic from within the field in such a way as to bring key ideas into focus and capture their distinctiveness as well as providing a critical assessment of their value.

Light Posting the Next Few Days...

...as Gordon Finlayson (Sussex) is here through Friday as a guest of the Law and Philosophy Program, giving workshops on the Habermas/Rawls debate and the normative foundations of the Frankfurt School (the Adorno/Habermas debate, as it were), among other topics.  Those interested in the Frankfurt School should be reading Finlayson, if they aren't doing so already.

"Legal Philosophy: 5 Questions"

An update on the book.

"Objectivity in Law and Morals" in Paperback

Cambridge has, happily, released a paperback version of this collection of essays I edited back in 2001.  Since I periodically get inquiries about the book, I thought I'd post the information about the new paperback edition here.

Brian Leiter Links Page

Your (nearly) complete Brian Leiter links page, which some readers may want to switch out for their current links to this or my other pages.  (I've got another Brian Leiter links page as well, which I may fill out further, though the Naymz site was a bit easier to use I thought.)

"Naturalizing Jurisprudence: Essays on American Legal Realism and Naturalism in Legal Philosophy"...

...has now been published in the U.S.  It is available in paperback, so hopefully someone will read it!

Books and more books

This is turning into a busy year for books.  At the end of last week, my collection of papers in legal philosophy, Naturalizing Jurisprudence:  Essays on American Legal Realism and Naturalism in Legal Philosophy, was published in Britain in both cloth and paper by Oxford University Press (it should be "officially" out in the U.S. in the next month or two).   The previously published essays have been lightly revised for this volume, and there are three new pieces totalling about fifty pages:  an introductory essay, and two postscripts replying to a variety of critics.

Oxford University Press also recently published Nietzsche and Morality, a collection of new essays--both interpretive and philosophical--on Nietzsche's moral philosophy that I edited with one of our outstanding doctoral students here at UT Austin, Neil Sinhababu.

In the fall, finally, OUP will publish The Oxford Handbook of Continental Philosophy, which I co-edited with Michael Rosen.

Readers and feedback would both be welcome!

The Future Direction of This Blog (Leiter)

When I started the blog back in August 2003, the main idea was to make it a supplement to the PGR, both for updates and more general discussion of the philosophy profession, of philosophy, and cognate topics.  As longtime readers know, I gradually migrated into more political topics, which seems to have been warmly welcomed by many readers based on earlier "surveys" of readers.  The time drain required to keep up with, and write commentary on, political and cultural topics unrelated to philosophy has grown too great, however, and so I've already had to cut back substantially in order to have the time for my main scholarly activities.  The fact that the war criminals in Washington, DC are in retreat (happily) has also lessened my enthusiasm for dissecting them.  My impression, largely from correspondence, is also that the readership has gravitated somewhat more towards those interested in philosophy and the philosophy profession, rather than those seeking cultural and political commentary.  Finally, though this was a more minor consideration, I've not been entirely happy with the fact that many of my students now know what my political views are.  While I don't always live up to the Nietzschean ideal of the teacher as the one who "takes all things seriously only in relation to his students--even himself," I do not want preconceptions about my politics to affect teacher-student interactions--especially since my political views are otherwise almost entirely invisible in my teaching and my scholarly work.  I must say I rather liked (and was pleasantly amused) that a significant number of students over the years seemed to think that I was a conservative!  That is as it should be in the pedagogical context, or so it seems to me. 

In any case, for the foreseeable future my own blogging, and that of the others on this site, will be related to philosophy, academia (including academic freedom), and the broader intellectual culture, in one way or another--sometimes professional news, sometimes reflections on the profession, sometimes substantive philosophy, and sometimes intellectual polemics.  Perhaps we'll revisit this decision at some point in the future.  But there are now enough fine politically-minded blogs (some linked to the left) that I don't think this will be a great loss to humanity.

Thanks, as always, to the many loyal readers, for their interest and good words.

Apologies for the Dearth of Postings...

...but the last couple of weeks we've had:  a one day Nietzsche conference, a day-long visit from Simon Keller (BU), and tomorrow Gideon Rosen (Princeton) as guests of the Law & Philosophy Program; PhD admissions (200+ applications this year); as well as the usual teaching and research.  In the following weeks I'm on the road to a number of different schools for talks.  I will try to keep up with appointments news during this time, but there will be fewer substantive cultural and political items.

"Why Evolutionary Biology is (so far) Irrelevant to Law" (Leiter)

A revised version of this paper I wrote with the philosopher of biology Michael Weisberg at Penn is now on-line at SSRN.  This is pretty much the penultimate version, and comments would still be timely and welcome for a few more weeks.

Rorty's Pragmatism and Judge Posner's Moral Skepticism

I've posted a draft of a short paper (slated for the University of Chicago Law Review) on Richard Rorty's Dewey Lecture at the University of Chicago Law School last year, on the subject of Dewey, Posner, and moral skepticism.  There is more detail here.  Although this isn't a rigorous philosophical piece, it might interest some readers.

Draft paper on Continental "Morality Critics": Comments Welcome! (Leiter)

MOVING TO THE FRONT FROM DECEMBER 20:  There is a slightly revised version on-line now (changes primarily in the Marx and Foucault sections).  I'd still gratefully receive comments, since I can still make changes at the copy-editing stage.

===========================

You can download the working draft here.  Comments in the next week would be especially welcome, though I will be able to make more minor edits thereafter.  Here is the abstract:

What could be wrong with morality?  Popular, including religious, thinking has long proceeded on the assumption that “morality” as a system of norms deserves our allegiance and that “moral conduct” should earn our praise and admiration.  Modern philosophy has, on this (as other matters) not been far away from the popular consensus.   Hume “discovered,” happily, that “by nature” human beings were disposed to have the sentiments and dispositions constitutive of sound morality; Kant sought to vindicate the deontological moral intuitions of the ordinary German peasant; while Sidgwick found that the “unconscious” morality of the English “peasants” was utilitarian, not deontological (and locked in hopeless conflict, alas, with egoistic considerations).  Most of moral philosophy of the past one hundred years—from Habermas and the adherents of “discourse ethics” (descendants of the Kantian project), to the proliferating Anglophone Kantians, to the earnest utilitarianisms of J.J.C. Smart, R.B. Brandt, Peter Singer, and others--has proceeded on the assumption that morality and a moral life are worth understanding because they are worth having and leading.

==============================

One striking feature of post-Kantian philosophy in Europe has been the emergence of morality critics, philosophers who, contra the popular consensus, dispute the value of morality and the moral life.  Their views find a faint echo in the work of some Anglophone moral philosophers (Philippa Foot and Bernard Williams are the main exemplars), but, as we will see, the “Continental” criticisms of morality generally cut far deeper and more radically.  Whereas the Anglophone skeptics take issue with, for example, the “demandingness” of utilitarian moral theory, or the purported “overridingness” of moral obligations as Kantians understand them, the Continental critics pitch their concerns less at the level of academic theory than at the level of social, political, and cultural life.  These Continental morality critics object that morality in practice is an obstacle to human flourishing itself.

================================

So understood, this attack on morality raises two immediate questions.  First, the Continental morality critics are plainly not without ethical views of their own—namely, views, broadly, about the good life for (some or all) human beings—since it is on the basis of these views that they criticize “morality.”  Therefore, we need to understand the contours of the “morality” to which these critics object—for ease of reference, we will call it “morality in the pejorative sense” (MPS)—since it must be distinguished from the normative considerations that inform their critiques.  We will refer to this as the “Scope Problem” about morality criticism.  Second, we can usefully divide Continental critics of morality into two camps:  those who see morality as a direct threat to human flourishing; and those who see morality as an indirect threat.  In the first camp are those thinkers who see the individual’s acceptance of morality as such as an obstacle to the individual’s flourishing; in different ways, Nietzsche and Freud are these kinds of morality critics.  In the second camp are those philosophers who see morality as among the “ideological” instruments that sustain socio-economic relations that are obstacles to individual flourishing.  On this second account—most obviously represented by Marx and perhaps some of his descendants associated with the Frankfurt School—it is not allegiance to morality per se that thwarts individual flourishing, but rather the role such allegiance plays in sustaining certain socio-economic relations, the latter of which constitute the immediate obstacle to flourishing.  We will call the former “Direct Morality Critics” and the latter “Indirect Morality Critics.”  (Foucault straddles both approaches, and so we will discuss him in a transitional section.) 

E-mail

This Brian Leiter is now back in Austin, and while e-mail is still being forwarded from my Chicago address, it would be best to reach me via the Texas address.

UT Law & Philosophy Program (Leiter)

For those who might be interested, we have finally updated the site for 2006-07.  Prospective students should feel free to contact me with any questions.

"Routledge Philosophers" Series Update (Leiter)

Just in time for the holidays, there are two new volumes in the Routledge Philosophers series I edit:  Kant by Paul Guyer of the University of Pennsylvania and Darwin by Tim Lewens of Cambridge University.  Like all titles in the series, they are available in paperback. 

As of early September, volumes in the series had already sold over 17,000 copies, which makes it a smashing success by the standards of academic publishing.  And 2007 promises another batch of outstanding volumes, including Aristotle by Christopher Shields of Oxford University, Husserl by David Woodruff Smith of the University of California at Irvine, Spinoza by Michaell Della Rocca of Yale University, Rawls by Samuel Freeman of the University of Pennsylvania, Merleau-Ponty by Taylor Carman of Barnard College and Columbia University, Hume by Don Garrett of New York University, and Heidegger by John Richardson also of New York University.

For 2008 and after, look for volumes on Aquinas by Christopher Hughes, Einstein by Arthur Fine and Thomas Ryckman, Kierkegaard by Andrew Cross, Fichte and Schelling by Sebastian Gardner, Descartes by Edwin Curley, Socrates by Paul Woodruff, Plato by Constance Meinwald, Adorno by Brian O'Connor, Marx by Alan Gilbert, Nietzsche by Maudemarie Clark and David Dudrick, Berkeley by Lisa Downing, Carnap by Michael Friedman, Frege by Warren Goldfarb and Thomas Ricketts, Quine by Dagfinn Follesdal, and Habermas by Keneneth Baynes, among others.

Texas Searching for Tenured (Full Prof or Assoc Prof) Political/Legal/Moral Philosopher This Year

This ad will appear in the November JFP, but we are happy to begin receiving applications now:

(Pending budgetary approval) The University of Texas at Austin seeks to make a tenured appointment (full or associate professor level) of a scholar of outstanding achievement in the areas of political, legal, or moral philosophy who can contribute to the University's interdisciplinary Program in Law & Philosophy. (More information on that program is here:  http://www.utexas.edu/law/academics/curriculum/philosophy/). Ph.D. required. Appointment to begin September 1, 2007. We have particular needs right now in political philosophy, though welcome applications from excellent candidates in any of the fields noted. Undergraduate and graduate teaching, typically two courses/semester, thesis supervision, usual advising and administrative responsibilities. Limited summer teaching available. EO/AAE. Appointment would be in the Department of Philosophy and possibly also the School of Law, depending on qualifications. Salary highly competitive.  Candidates should send a CV and the names of three referees to Professor Brian Leiter, Director of the Law & Philosophy Program, University of Texas, 727 East Dean Keeton Street, Austin, TX 78705. Applications must be postmarked by December 15, 2006. Candidates invited to campus for interviews will be contacted directly not later than January 26, 2007.

You may e-mail me if you have questions.

Message for Chicago Students Interested in my Jurisprudence Seminar (Leiter)

On the off-chance that some of you are readers, there is more information about my Jurisprudence seminar here.

The Future for Philosophy is Here...(Leiter)

...in paperback.  And the Spring will bring the truth, at last, about Nietzsche and Morality.

Virginia Tech Philosophy Graduate Conference (Leiter)

I don't usually post these kinds of notices, but since I'm speaking on this occasion, here is the call for papers:  Download callforpaperstovtgradphi_confsp061.rtf for anyone who is interested.

Warm Thanks to Professors Nadelhoffer and Wolff; Blogging Schedule; Site Stats (Leiter)

My sincere thanks to Professors Thomas Nadelhoffer of Dickinson College and Jonathan Wolff of University College London who did much to keep the blog lively and interesting during August and, in Tom's case, all summer long!  Remember, too, that Nadelhoffer will continue blogging at his new site, which I heartily commend to all readers.

Because I'm teaching at the University of Chicago this term, where it appears I may not have Internet access from my temporary home, I won't resume a robust schedule of blogging, though I'll be more frequent than I was in the summer.  Bill Edmundson and Jason Stanley will also continue to post as their schedules permit, and I expect Professors Hellie and Wilson back in the fray before too long.

Since Typepad, my blogging service, made it easy to add "Sitemeter" (which is free) to this page, I'm going to let my subscription to WebStat counter lapse when it expires in two weeks.  Below the fold, a final report, then, from the wealth of detail supplied by WebStat:

Anyone Have a Car in Chicago I Might "Rent"? (Leiter)

As many readers know, I'm going to be at the University of Chicago in the fall.  Driving from Austin is more hassle than it's worth, so I am wondering whether any readers in the Chicago area who might be on leave themselves in the fall, or who have an extra car, would be willing to "rent" me a vehicle for local use.  If so, please e-mail me.  Many thanks.

Sorry for all the postings today, I had some backlogged items, and decided to get them out.  I have a tenure review to complete in the next couple of weeks (among other things), so I will be posting less the remainder of the month.

Blog Roll Update (Leiter)

So I finally added, on the left side-bar, a list of "recommended" blogs, i.e., blogs I read more-or-less irregularly, but which are informative or at least fun.  I want to call your attention, in particular, to the fact that Thomas Nadelhoffer, who has done a spectacular job keeping this site interesting and educational all summer, has decided to start his own blog.  Professor Nadelhoffer will be here till the end of August, and I am hoping he will come back for a week or a month in the future, as his schedule permits.  But do check him out at his own blog site.

"Secretly Reads Brian Leiter" (Leiter)

It's time to come out of the closet!  I'm told nearly ten shirts have been sold already.  The royalties will let me buy a decaf cappucino!  (On the origin of the shirts, see here.)

Three Years, and Three Million Visits Later (Leiter)

I started this blog on August 3, 2003 largely by happenstance:  the university had created a weblog technology, and having created a virtual "public square" they needed people in it.  The computing folks in the law school asked if I wanted to play with the new toy, and after first saying no, I agreed thinking it would be a useful supplement to my law and philosophy sites.  As America became progressively crazier, I found myself increasingly writing about other things.  And so it goes....

My reflections on blogging from early on (here and here) are not much changed.  The benefits remain as they were before:  the blog is an easy way to get my own scholarly ideas into circulation, to share useful news about the profession and helpful political commentary and information (as well as moral indignation), and increasingly (thanks especially to my fine co-bloggers) to engage in intelligent discussion about philosophical topics and the profession, thanks to the high caliber of the readers. The primary downside of the blog is the one I've remarked on before:  because there are no barriers to entry in the blogosphere, it is an especially attractive forum for those lacking in social and cognitive skills that would be necessary to succeed in real life.  Coming into "virtual" contact with noxious mediocrities, the unabashedly ignorant, the intellectually incompetent, the mentally unstable, etc. who populate the blogosphere (especially the political parts of the blogosphere) has been alternately creepy and amusing,, but "virtual" contact is far to be preferred to the real thing!  Early on, I found it somewhat entertaining (or at least useful) to engage these sorry folks, but now I save the effort for the worthy or at least instructive targets.  That helped with the other downside of the blog:  the time drain.  Although I was pretty good at confining blogging to the early morning and the late evening, adding co-bloggers was one of the smarter things I did on the blog:  it has insured continuing interesting material for the readers (myself included), while at the same time permitting me to recapture time needed for other matters.  (For obvious reasons, my law school blog is less time-consuming.)

I'm posting this little item a day early because I am going to be mostly absent from Cyberspace starting tomorrow for the next two weeks or so, but I hope to resume some more regular posting as August wears on.  Until then, Thomas Nadelhoffer and Jonathan Wolff (and perhaps Jason, and maybe even Benj, Jessica, and Bill before too long) will help keep things lively.  Thanks, as always, for reading.

Reminder: New Guest-Blogger, Jonathan Wolff

Just a reminder that the political philosopher Jonathan Wolff from University College London will be guest-blogging in July and August, joining Professor Nadelhoffer who has kindly kept this blog very stimulating and lively during June.  Professors Edmundson, Hellie, Stanley, and Wilson will also put in appearances as their schedules permit, and I should be back in August (though I may post news items in July).  In the meantime, for some amusement, try the "Friday open thread" here; these folks really know how to have fun.

San Diego Vacation (Leiter)

There are many lovely things about living in Austin...but the relentless summer heat is not one of them!  In consequence, we like to flee for a bit during the summer to the place that is both easy to get to and has a perfect climate:  San Diego.  If anyone has advice about a nice hotel/resort that is children-friendly, I'd be grateful; so far, we haven't found such a place.  Please e-mail me.  Many thanks!

My Summer Hiatus (Leiter)

Dear Readers:

I am going to be leaving the blogosphere for the next couple of months, though this "group blog" will keep operating--not only with Bill Edmundson, Benj Hellie, Jason Stanley, and Jessica Wilson (as their schedules permit)--but also some wonderful new guests who have agreed to participate, starting with Thomas Nadelhoffer (who will be posting through the summer), and continuing with the political philosopher Jonathan Wolff from University College London in July and August.  I may return, on occasion, to post important news items for the philosophical community that come up during the summer (or to post, e.g., a link to a new Philosophers' Carnival), but otherwise there will be no regular political, cultural, or philosophical commentary from me until August.  (Posting will be the same at the law school blog as well, i.e., news items, that's about it.)

My "excuses" are pretty simple.  By the end of the summer, I need to (1) put together my collection of essays for Oxford University Press on Naturalizing Jurisprudence:  Essays on American Legal Realism and Naturalism in Legal Philosophy, which needs both an introductory essay and, more importantly, a concluding essay replying to critics; (2) finish editing (with Michael Rosen) The Oxford Handbook of Continental Philosophy, which includes finishing my own essay for the volume, as well as our introduction; (3) finish the essay on "Legal Realisms" for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, as well as revise and update my 2002 essay for them on "Naturalism in Legal Philosophy"; (4) finish some shorter projects--one for Walter Sinnott-Armstrong's three-volume collection for MIT Press on moral psychology, another for an OUP volume on the political theory of international relations; and (5) in an ideal world, work on revisions to some essays (on Nietzsche, on naturalized jurisprudence, on evolutionary biology and law) I've been working on for ages.  (For those who have inquired, I can also report that the Nietzsche and Morality collection--with contributions by S. Blackburn, M. Clark & D. Dudrick, T. Hurka, N. Hussain, C. Janaway, J. Knobe & B. Leiter, P. Poellner, B. Reginster, M. Risse, N. Sinhababu, and R.J. Wallace--was sent to OUP last week, so should be out next Spring!)

All this, I'm sure, is more than most of you want to know, but I do not shirk my blogging "duties" lightly (!), and I am grateful, as always, for your interest.  I am sure my co-bloggers and our new guests will have much good fare, and I hope to be back in August with suitably engaging material. 

I leave you, then, with some fun summer blog reading:

The latest addition to my rather limited blogroll.

Another good young philosopher whose blog deserves your patronage.

And another (to whom we owe the Philosophers' Carnival).

And another (a "local").

Ruchira Paul and Juan Cole, of course, for sensible political and cultural commentary.

For fun, Molly Ivins on the Republicans who know what really matters.

And, for another laugh, try one of the the proliferating parody sites, which skewer the venal, the banal, and the mentally unstable.  (ADDENDUM:  A reader fairly points out that Dadahead deserves credit for correctly pegging the last one starting well over a year ago here and here and here.)

Happy summer to all Northern Hemisphere readers!  And warm thanks to all, as always, for reading.

Start-of-the-Month Blog Stats...and a New Guest-Blogger

Over 135,000 visitor sessions last month, off slightly from April, and down 20,000 from the all-time high of March...but school is out in the U.S. and summer travels and jobs and research projects are here.  Happily, 135,000 visitor sessions for May is about the same number of visitors the site got in May 2005, when the law school updates were still here.  And it is more than double the number of visitors in May 2004.  Much of that increase is due to the wonderful, on-going guest bloggers who have joined the site.  And for June, remember, we have another:  Thomas Nadelhoffer.