Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

Three New Professorial Fellows at Aberdeen's Northern Institute of Philosophy

They are J.C. Beall (Connecticut), Oystein Linnebo (Oslo), and Greg Restall (Melbourne), effective September 1 of this year.  All three work in and around logic and philosophy of mathematics, and will contribute, among other things, to the AHRC project on "The Metaphysical Basis of Logic" led by Franz Berto (Aberdeen).  Professorial Fellows are in residence for 6-7 weeks each year.

 

Tenure-track and post-doc hiring of philosophy PhDs, 2012-13

MOVING TO FRONT ONE MORE TIME, SINCE THERE WERE SOME LATE HIRES REPORTED SINCE MID-APRIL--ORIGINALLY POSTED FEBRUARY 15, 2013 (Please note the spam filter mysteriously ate several postings, which I've now restored.  Because I am on the road, please wait at least 72 hours after posting before contacting me about missing information.  I will continue to check the spam filter regularly.)

It's that time of year again...I am opening comments on this thread for people to post news about junior, tenure-track hires in philosophy departments or of philosophy PhDs, i.e., hires made during this year of new assistant professors who will be starting in summer or fall 2013 (or thereafter). (For schools outside the US, please list new Lecturers who are on presumptively permanent appointments--not temporary lecturers.) As in prior years, you may also post information about post-doc appointments, since there are an increasing number of those in philosophy, many quite attractive. No anonymous posts will be allowed. (Please e-mail me about any errors.)

The format of the postings should be as follows: candidate's name (name of PhD-granting school) hired by [name of school]. AOS: ________; any prior positions (e.g., a postdoc, a lectureship, a visiting asst prof position). In the case of a post-doc, it should say not 'hired by' but 'post-doc at' [name of school].

Here's a fictional example:

Jane M. Jones (Rutgers) hired by University of California, Santa Barbara. AOS: Philosophy of Language.  Previously a post-doc at Yale.  

"Hired by" means a tenure-track or permanent position; a post-doc should be listed as "John Smith (Harvard) post-doc at University of Michigan."

Remember: tenure-track jobs and postdocs only. Please submit information only once; postings should appear within 24 hours.

THE ONLY PERSONS ELIGIBLE TO POST INFORMATION ARE: the candidates themselves; the chair of the hiring department; or the placement chair of the candidate's department. Three years ago, however, a placement chair jumped the gun in posting, so please, placement chairs, make sure it is OK with your students that the information appear!

Hertfordshire's Hutto to take up Professorial post at Wollongong

Daniel Hutto (philosophy of mind and psychology) at the University of Hertfordshire has accepted appointment, effective Winter 2014, as Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wollongong in Australia.  He will also continue to have a quarter-time appointment at Hertfordshire.

In Memoriam: Dallas Willard (1935-2013)

Professor Willard taught at the University of Southern California for more than forty years, and was especially well-known for his work in Christian philosophy, though he also worked extensively on phenomenology.  There is biographical information here, his USC page is here, and a memorial notice is here.

(Thanks to Jason Cruze for the links.)

UPDATE:  A very nice letter from USC School of Philosophy Director Scott Soames, and the university's own memorial notice.  (Thanks to Aaron Preston for these links.)

Turner from Leeds to Saint Louis

Jason Turner (metaphysics), Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Leeds, has accepted a tenured appointment as Associate Professor of Philosophy at Saint Louis University, effective fall 2014.

Sattler from Yale to St. Andrews

Barbara Sattler (ancient philosophy), currently Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Yale University, has accepted a (permanent) appointment as Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of St. Andrews.  This is the second loss in ancient philosophy for Yale in roughly the last year (the other being Bobzien's departure for Oxford).  Verity Harte, a leading senior scholar in the field, remains at Yale, and I would imagine the Department will make other appointments in the area before long.

Woodin from Berkeley to Harvard

W. Hugh Woodin (set theory, mathematical logic), Professor of Mathematics at the University of California at Berkeley, has accepted a joint senior appointment in the Departments of Mathematics and Philosophy at Harvard University.

Eklund from Cornell to Uppsala

Matti Eklund (metaphysics, philosophy of language and logic), Associate Professor of Philosophy at Cornell University, has acccepted the Chair in Theoretical Philosophy at Uppsala University in Sweden.  That's a notable gain for Uppsala, and a notable loss for Cornell, though with Karen Bennett and Ted Sider, among others, Cornell will continue to have a strong presence in metaphysics.

Plutynski from Utah to Wash U/St. Louis

Anya Plutynski (history and philosophy of science, esp. biology), Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Utah, has accepted appointment as Associate Professor of Philosophy at Washington University, St. Louis, effective fall 2013.

Rice makes senior offer to UVA's Gertler--UPDATED

MOVING TO FRONT FROM APRIL 1--SEE UPDATE

Brie Gertler (philosophy of mind), Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Virginia, has a senior offer from the Department of Philosophy at Rice University.  Students interested in philosophy of mind considering either UVA or Rice will want to keep an eye on what happens.

UPDATE:  Professor Gertler has declined the offer, and will remain at UVA.

Currie from Nottingham to York

Gregory Currie, a leading philosopher of art at the University of Nottingham, has accepted a professorial appointment in the Department of Philosophy at the University of York, effective this fall.  This appointment should propel the York Department, which was already strong in aesthetics, into the very top ranks for philosophy of art internationally.

Quong from Manchester to Southern California

Jonathan Quong (political philosophy), currently a Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Manchester, has accepted appointment as a tenured Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern California, effective this fall.

Amelie Rorty to be Visiting Professor at Tufts for 2013-15

Amelie Rorty, who has written widely in philosophy and its history, and whose current work focuses on issues in moral psychology, will be a Visiting Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University for 2013-15, teaching a course each term.  (She had previously held such an appointment at Boston University.)  She will continue also as a Lecturer at Harvard Medical School.

MIT's Stalnaker, on phased retirement at MIT, will be a Visiting Professor at Columbia

The Columbia announcement here.  Stalnaker will also be teaching at MIT through 2015-16, when he will become emeritus at the end of that academic year.

Philosophy PhD Applicants: You Have Until April 15th to Decide!

UPDATE:  Moving to the front as a reminder.

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

A philosopher at a PhD program writes:  "For the first time I'm involved with grad admissions, and we're already hearing from our candidates that we have waitlisted for fellowships that other schools are trying to impose deadlines for their fellowship offers in advance of the April 15 standard.  (One offender is trying to impose a March 5 deadline.)  Would you consider using your blog to let your grad school applicant readers know that they cannot be railroaded into a decision earlier than the April 15 standard?"

The American Philosophical Association's official position on offers of admission and aid is here:

Students are under no obligation to respond to offers of financial support prior to April 15; earlier deadlines for acceptance of such offers violate the intent of this Resolution. In those instances in which a student accepts an offer before April 15, and subsequently desires to withdraw that acceptance, the student may submit in writing a resignation of the appointment at any time through April 15. However, an acceptance given or left in force after April 15 commits the student not to accept another offer without first obtaining a written release from the institution to which a commitment has been made. Similarly, an offer by an institution after April 15 is conditional on presentation by the student of the written release from any previously accepted offer. It is further agreed by the institutions and organizations subscribing to the above Resolution that a copy of this Resolution should accompany every scholarship, fellowship, traineeship, and assistantship offer.

Stanley from Rutgers to Yale

Jason Stanley (philosophy of language, epistemology, history of analytic philosophy), Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University at New Brunswick, has accepted a senior offer from the Department of Philosophy at Yale University, where he will start July 1 (this is subject to Board approval, but that is expected).  That's a significant appointment for Yale, which will continue that department's upward trajectory over the last decade.

Zupko from Winnipeg to Alberta

Jack Zupko (medieval philosophy, metaphysics, philosophy of religion), currently Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Department at the University of Winnipeg, has accepted appointment as Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Department at the University of Alberta, effective July 1.

Bar-On, Simmons from North Carolina to U Conn

Dorit Bar-On (philosophy of language and mind, metaethics) and Keith Simmons (philosophy of language and logi, philosophical logic), both Professors of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, have accepted senior offers from the Department of Philosophy at the University of Connecticut at Storrs, where they will start in fall 2014.  This is the latest in a series of senior and junior hires that has almost doubled the size of the department in recent years, and given the program especially notable strengths in areas such as philosophy of logic and language.

Holton, Langton from MIT to Cambridge

Richard Holton (ethics, moral psychology, philosophy of action, philosophy of law) and Rae Langton (Kant, ethics, political philosophy, metaphysics, feminist philosophy), both Professors of Philosophy at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology, have accepted Professorships at Cambridge University, effective September 1.  That is a major hiring coup for Cambridge, and coming on the heels of recent Professorial appointments of Tim Crane and Huw Price, as well as a number of junior appointments, probably puts Cambridge Philosophy in its strongest position in several decades.  

Broome to take up part-time post at Stanford for at least two years

John Broome, White's Professor of Moral Philosophy at Oxford University, will be teaching at Stanford for one quarter per year in 2014-15 and 2015-16, with a possibility of renewal for several years beyond that.  He will continue to be at Oxford the rest of the time.

Waters from Minnesota to Calgary

C. Kenneth Waters, a leading figure in philosophy of biology at the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis-St. Paul, has accepted a Canada Research Chair in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Calgary (effective July 2014), a department which already boasts two philosophers of biology, Marc Ereschefsky and Megan Delehanty.   This is likely to move Calgary into the top half-dozen or so programs for philosophy of biology when we next do PGR surveys.

 

Braver from Hiram College to South Florida

Lee Braver (19th- and 20th-century Continental philosophy, metaphysics, Wittgenstein), Associate Professor of Philosophy at Hiram College, has accepted a senior offer from the Department of Philosophy at the University of South Florida.  South Florida has had a strong commitment to history of philosophy, including the post-Kantian Continental traditions.

Green from Virginia to U Conn

Mitchell Green (philosophy of language and mind), Professor of Philosophy at the University of Virginia, has accepted a senior offer from the Department of Philosophy at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, where he will begin this fall.  U Conn has been doing a lot of hiring lately, and apparently has other senior offers outstanding.

New Mexico's Thomson Weighing Senior Offer from South Florida (UPDATED)

MOVING TO FRONT FROM JANUARY 31

This will be significant for PhD students interested in the Continental traditions in philosophy:  Iain Thomson, a leading Heidegger scholar at the University of New Mexico, has a senior offer from the Department of Philosophy at the University of South Florida.  Students considering either program will want to keep an eye on what happens.

UPDATED:  Thomson has accepted a retention offer from New Mexico, and declined the South Florida offer.

In Memoriam: Ronald Dworkin (1931-2013)

Professor Dworkin, who was on the faculty at NYU Law School and Emeritus at both Oxford and University College London, was a prolific contributor to political and legal philosophy.  I will post links to memorial notices as they appear.

UPDATE:  There's a short AP obituary here, which is actually pretty good on the substance of his views.  (Thanks to Les Green for the pointer.)

ANOTHER:  The Guardian obituary is a bit hyperbolic, and contains some factual errors (e.g., Dworkin's daughter was a PhD candidate in philosophy at Cornell, not a philosophy professor there).  But it also gives a fuller portrait than the short AP obituary.

AND ANOTHER:   For more on the substance of Dworkin's jurisprudential views, and questions that have been raised about them, see my review essay of one of his recent books and a book of essays about his work.

MORE OBITUARIES:  Der Spiegel and The New York Times.  Also National Law Journal (requires free subscription).

DWORKIN ON EQUALITY:  A useful, short summary of his influential position.

DWORKIN ON THE UNITY OF VALUE:  A Philosophy Bites podcast.

SPIRITED PHILOSOPHICAL POLEMICS:  Dworkin had many lively debates (with Richard Posner, G.A. Cohen, H.L.A. Hart, and others), but this famous one is on-line:  Blackburn vs. Dworkin on the objectivity of ethics.

AS A LECTURER:  Dworkin was famed for his skill as an extemporaneous speaker, and YouTube offers many fine examples.  Here is but one example, a brief talk on equality at the Carnegie Council.  But there are many others.

WIKIPEDIA DISASTER:  Someone just called my attention to Dworkin's entry, which is pretty poor, even by Wikipedia standards for philosophy.  Its description of his views ranges from partly accurate to inaccurate, and it is woefully incomplete in terms of the range of his work.  Maybe some ambitious person can fix it up!

ANOTHER MEMORIAL NOTICE from the Oxford law faculty.  The quote from John Gardner, the current Professor of Jurisprudence, is a classic of implicature!

Thompson from Toronto to British Columbia

Evan Thompson, a leading contributor to philosophy of mind and cognitive science at the University of Toronto, has accepted a senior offer from the Department of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia, effective July 1, 2013.  That's a quite major appointment for UBC, which will likely establish it as the top department in Canada in these areas (where Thompson will join Murat Aydede and Eric Margolis, among others), as well as one of the leading programs in North America in these fields.

UPDATE:  Professor Thompson writes that, in addition to philosophy of mind and cognitive science, "I am increasingly doing work in cross-cultural philosophy, with a focus on bringing Indian philosophy into active exchange with philosophy of mind and cognitive science. So I'll also be working to build bridges between Philosophy and Asian Studies at UBC. And I'm excited to be joining a department where there is a strong presence in history and philosophy of science, as well as early 20th century European philosophy, which dovetails with my work on the Phenomenological tradition."

In Memoriam: Joseph L. Camp, Jr. (1942-2013)

Professor Camp taught for many years at the University of Pittsburgh, where he was emeritus.  There is a richly evocative memorial notice by one of his former students, Mark Lance (Georgetown), here.

In Memoriam: R.I.G. Hughes (1936-2013)

Best-known for his work in philosophy of physics, Professor Hughes taught for the last quarter-century in the Department of Philosophy at the University of South Carolina and, before that, for a number of years at Yale. An obituary, with information about a memorial, is here.

Segal Takes Up Half-Time Post at Reading

Gabriel Segal (philosophy of mind and psychology, philosophy of language and linguistics), who taught for many years at King's College, London, where he is presently Visiting Professor of Philosophy, has taken up a half-time post as Professor of Philosophy at the University of Reading.

Gordon from Temple to U Conn

Lewis Gordon (Africana philosophy, phenomenology, existentialism), currently the Laura H. Carnell Professor of Philosophy at Temple University, has accepted a senior offer at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, where he will be Professor of Philosophy and African-American Studies, beginning fall 2013.

Fall 2012 Update to the Philosophical Gourmet Report for 2011-12

MOVING TO FRONT FOR LAST TIME (originally posted Sept. 19):  A LINK WILL BE ADDED TO THIS FROM THE PGR.  APOLOGIES FOR SOME ERRORS IN THE PRIOR VERSION

These are the major changes at the senior faculty level since last fall's surveys; all these changes can be expected to affect the specialty rankings, and some, due to their significance and/or number, might affect the overall results (e.g., an upward bump for Berkeley; King's College, London; Manchester; Brown; Durham; York; Texas; Birmingham, among others; a downward bump for Yale, Indiana, Penn, Reading, among others):

Peter Anstey (early modern philosophy) will leave the University of Otago for the University of Sydney.

Andrew Arana (logic, philosophy of mathematics) left Kansas State University for the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Marcia Baron (ethics, Kant, philosophy of law) at Indiana University at Bloomington has accepted appointment as Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of St. Andrews, part-time to start, and full-time from January 2014.

Tim Bayne (philosophy of mind) left Oxford University for the University of Manchester.

George Bealer (metaphysics) will retire from Yale University in 2014 (though his last year of graduating teaching is this academic year), and Jules Coleman (philosophy of law) has left Yale Law School (and a secondary appointment in Philosophy) to take up a senior administrative post at New York University.  In addition, Susanne Bobzien (ancient philosophy, philosophy of language) will leave Yale for a Senior Research Fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford University in 2013.

Helen Beebee (metaphysics) left the University of Birmingham for the University of Manchester. 

Bill Brewer (metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind) left the University of Warwick for King's College, London.

Elisabeth Camp (philosophy of language and mind, aesthetics) will leave the University of Pennsylvania for Rutgers University, New Brunswick.

Nancy Cartwright (philosophy of science, physics, and social science) left her part-time appointment at the London School of Economics for a part-time appointment at the University of Durham.  (She continues to teach each Winter Quarter at the University of California at San Diego.)

David Chalmers (philosophy of mind, language, and cognitive science) has been a regular Visiting Professor at New York University and has now accepted a tenured appointment there.  For at least the next two years, he will spend falls at NYU and the rest of the year at thee Australian National University.  It is expected he will eventually be full-time at NYU, perhaps retaining some connection to ANU, though that has not yet been determined.

Tony Chemero (philosophy of cognitive science, mind & science) left Franklin & Marshall College for the University of Cincinnati.

Robert Cummins (philosophy of mind and cognitive science) has retired from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Marian David (philosophy of language, epistemology, history of analytic philosophy) left the University of Notre Dame for the University of Graz.

Janice Dowell (philosophy of language and mind, metaphysics, meta-ethics) and David Sobel (ethics, political philosophy) will leave the University of Nebraska, Lincoln for Syracuse University.

Michael Forster (18th-, 19th- and 20th-century German philosophy, philosophy of language, epistemology, ancient philosophy) will leave his full-time position at the University of Chicago for a Humboldt Professorship at the University of Bonn in February 2013, though he will continue to be roughly one-quarter time at Chicago, teaching most of each Winter Quarter.

Miranda Fricker (epistemology, ethics, feminist philosophy) has left Birkbeck College, University of London for the University of Sheffield.

Paul Guyer (Kant, aesthetics) left the University of Pennsylvania for Brown University.  In addition, Charles Kahn (ancient philosophy) is retiring this year at Penn.

Alex Miller (philosophy of language, metaethics) left the University of Birmingham for the University of Otago.

Senior offers declined

MOVING TO FRONT FROM NOVEMBER 28, 2012

For a long time, my basic policy was not to report senior offers that had been declined unless I had also reported the fact of the offer.  At least, I thought that was my policy (one designed to save me time), but some readers point out that there have been occasional exceptions going back a few years, and also point out that such information is useful, since, of course, the fact of a senior offer is a more tangible indication of how at least one other department evaluates the philosopher's work.  That latter point strikes me as especially persuasive, so I am officialy revising the practice going forward:   I will report senior offers declined when it is confirmed by the candidate or his/her (home or hiring) department chair.  I will periodically post an aggregation of such information, like the one below.

What follows is a list of philosophers who declined senior offers in 2012 or 2011.  I am opening comments, and invite additions either by the candidate or the candidate's chair of department of other offers those years that were declined that are not listed below.  Here are those I know about during this period (and which were not otherwise posted because the fact of the offer had been posted):

Thomas Christiano (political philosophy) at the University of Arizona turned down an offer from the University of Southern California.

Carl Craver (philosophy of neuroscience and biology; metaphysics, moral psychology) at Washington University, St. Louis turned down an offer from Duke University.

Joshua Dever (philosophy of language) at the University of Texas at Austin turned down an offer from the University of St. Andrews.

John Martin Fischer (philosophy of action, metaphysics, ethics) at the University of California at Riverside turned down an offer at the University of California at Irvine.

Mark Johnston (metaphysics) at Princeton University turned down an offer from the University of Notre Dame.

Niko Kolodny (ethics) at the University of California at Berkeley turned down an offer from Harvard University.

David Owens (metaphysics, epistemology, ethics) at the University of Reading turned down an offer from the University of Texas at Austin.

Adam Pautz (philosophy of mind) at the University of Texas at Austin turned down an offer from Rutgers University, New Brunswick.

Agustin Rayo (philosophy of language and logic) at Massachussetts Institute of Technology turned down an offer at Stanford University.

Mark Schroeder (ethics) at the University of Southern California turned down an offer from Rutgers University, New Brunswick.

Seven Philosophers Win NEH Fellowships for 2013-14

They are: 

Stephen Dumont (Notre Dame) for "The Two Affections of Will From Anselm to Canterbury to John Duns Scotus";

Marilyn Fischer (Dayton); "Hull House Founder Jane Addams as an International Intellectual";

Jonathan Gilmore (Visiting Scholar, Columbia) for "Evaluating Emotional Responses to Works of Art and the Imagination";

Scott Jenkins (Kansas) for "Friedrich Nietzsche and the Problem of Pessimism";

John Morrison (Barnard/Columbia) for "Reconceiving Spinoza's God"

Mark Schroeder (Southern California) for "Challenges and Prospects for the Idea of 'Reasons First' in Epistemology"; and

Amie Thomasson (Miami) for "The Descent of Metaphysics."

Camp from Penn to Rutgers

Elisabeth Camp (philosophy of mind and language, aesthetics), Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, has accepted a tenured offer from the Department of Philosophy at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, an appointment which can only further solidify Rutgers's leading position in those areas.

Penn has had a tough year, with Paul Guyer (Kant) moving to Brown, Charles Kahn (ancient philosophy) phasing into full retirement this year, and now Camp departing.  Penn did retain my friend and occasional co-author Michael Weisberg, one of the leading philosophers of biology and science of his generation, in the face of outside offers, and a bit before that, Penn also retained the distinguished political philosopher Samuel Freeman in the face of offers as well.  I expect Penn will be doing some rebuilding in the next couple of years.  Given that Penn is a university with top ten English and History departments, to name two important humanities fields, it really ought to have at least a top twenty philosophy department once again.  It is an unusually small department, relative to the size of the university, something which handicapped Yale for a number of years as well.

Major Appointments for Birmingham

It wasn't long ago, with the departures of two professors--Helen Beebee (metaphysics) to Manchester and Alex Miller (philosophy of language, metaethics) to Otago--that the situation looked dicey for philosophy at Birmingham.  But things have really turned around since the appointment of Scott Sturgeon to a Professorial position from Oxford, apparently with a good deal of administrative support for building the program.

At the senior level, Birmingham is appointing six Distinguished Visiting Research Professors, and it is a distinguished line-up indeed:  Paul Boghossian (NYU), Hartry Field (NYU), Kit Fine (NYU), Stephen Neale (CUNY), Susanna Siegel (Harvard), and Ralph Wedgwood (Southern California).  Each initial appointment is for three years, with the expectation of renewal.  Each visitor will supervise postgraduate research for at least four weeks each year in Birmingham, and will also present their own work in seminars and be the focus of colloquia and workshops led by postgraduates. 

In addition, the Department of Philosophy has been able to appoint three faculty to "Birmingham Fellowships"--the first five years of the appointment for research (in residence at Birmingham, of course), followed by a permanent teaching post on the faculty--and they have recruited a very impressive group of younger philosophers:  Justin Clarke-Doane (meta-ethics, epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mathematics), Nicholas Jones (metaphysics), and Jeremy Williams (ethics, applied ethics, political philosophy).  (I will add as a point of personal privilege that Clarke-Doane, whom I wrote for but did not teach, strikes me as one of the handful of truly outstanding young philosophers on the job market in the last couple of years.)

Most remarkable of all, perhaps, is that Professor Sturgeon tells me that Birmingham will be filling "multiple" additional permanent open-rank, open-area positions in the current international job cycle.

It's nice to see that at a time when some departments are cutting back in philosophy, a leading research university is making a major investment in the field.

Dowell, Sobel from Nebraska to Syracuse

Janice Dowell (philosophy of language and mind, metaphysics, meta-ethics), Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, and David Sobel (ethics, political philosophy), Chambers Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and the Moral Sciences, also at Nebraska, have accepted senior offers from the Department of Philosophy at Syracuse University, where they will start in fall 2013.  (Sobel will take up the Guttag Professorship in Ethics and Political Philosophy previously held by Michael Stocker, now emeritus at Syracuse.)  Syracuse now has an especially strong cohort of younger philosophers working in and around issues in ethics and meta-ethics.

In Memoriam: R.G. Frey (1941-2012)

Philosopher Michael Weber, Chair of the Department at Bowling Green, writes:

It is with sadness that I report that Ray Frey (1941-2012) passed away yesterday.  Ray was Professor Emeritus at Bowling Green State University (BGSU), and a Senior Researcher at the Social Philosophy and Policy Center at BGSU.  He joined the faculty at BGSU in 1986, having previously taught at Liverpool from 1974-86.  He is well-known for his numerous books and articles in moral and political philosophy.  His work is wide-ranging, and included important contributions in applied ethics.  Ray was also instrumental in launching Bowling Green’s innovative and highly successful Ph.D. in Applied Philosophy.  No memorial service is scheduled. 

Oxford's Williamson to be Recurring Short-Term Visitor at Michigan

Timothy Williamson, Wykeham Professor of Logic at Oxford University and a leading contributor to epistemology, metaphysics, philosophical logic and philosophy of language, will be a regular Nelson Visiting Professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, teaching an intensive three-week graduate seminar each March, beginning in 2013.  The initial appointment is for three years.

Anstey from Otago to Sydney

Peter Anstey, Professor of Early Modern Philosophy at the University of Otago, has accepted a four-year Australian Future Fellowship at the University of Sydney, which will then convert into a permanent position in the Department of Philosophy.  He commences at Sydney in December.

In Memoriam: Annette Baier (1929-2012)

Professor Baier, a longtime member of the philosophy faculty at the University of Pittsburgh, passed away last night in her native New Zealand.  She was best-known for her seminal contributions to moral philosophy and to the study of the philosophy of David Hume.  I will post memorial notices as they appear.

UPDATE:  Charles Pigden (Otago) has sent me the memorial from the Otago Department:

It is with deep regret that we announce the death of Annette Baier, who passed away at two o’clock this morning  (Friday the 2^nd of November) in Dunedin hospital where she had been admitted, following heart problems, earlier this week. She was 83. 

Annette C Baier (nee Stoop) was born in 1929 in New Zealand, and remembered swag men coming to the house for food during the Great Depression. Her father, a keen amateur astronomer would show her the craters of the moon and the rings of Saturn on cold clear nights. She studied Philosophy at the University of Otago where her teachers included D. D.  Raphael and John Passmore, both of whom helped to foster her interest in Hume.  She went on to do a B.Phil at Oxford where she wrote a dissertation on ‘Precision in Poetry’ under the supervision of J.L Austin (whose shoes sometimes bore the evidence of recent visits to see his pigs). She had a teaching post at St Andrews and another at Auckland, and it was on her way to take up this latter position that she started a shipboard romance, as a result of which she became pregnant.  The conventions of the day meant that she had to have the baby in secret, giving her up for adoption.  It was only many years later that she was happily reunited with her long-lost daughter, Sarah, and discovered that she was already the grandmother of four grandchildren. 

Annette had a rather stormy career at Auckland due to tensions with her boss R P. Anschutz (who she describes as an enemy but a generous one). She eventually left to take up a post at Sydney, but not before meeting and marrying Kurt Baier in 1958.  They had a long and happy marriage lasting till Kurt’s death in 2010, partly for the usual reason that they laughed at the same jokes.  However, she did not stay long at Sydney, as Kurt had a job in Canberra, and she disliked the moralistic cult of free-love, then current amongst some members of the Sydney department.   In 1962 Kurt was offered a chair at Pittsburgh and the Baiers left Australasia for the States. At first Annette taught at Carnegie Mellon, before joining the Pittsburgh Department in the 1970s. 

It was at Pittsburgh that her career really took off.  She became famous as a moral philosopher, a Hume scholar and a feminist, with books such as Postures of the Mind: Essays on Mind and Morals (1985), A Progress of Sentiments: Reflections on Hume's Treatise (1991), Moral Prejudices (1995)(including the essays "What Do Women Want in an Ethical Theory?" and "The Need For More Than Justice") and The Commons of the Mind (1997).  She was also an inspiring and much loved teacher.  She served as President of the Eastern Division of the APA (as did Kurt), gave the Paul Carus Lectures in Philosophy (as did Kurt) and was invited to be a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (as was Kurt), making them perhaps the only husband and wife duo to achieve this trio of distinctions.

In 1995, the Baiers retired to New Zealand dividing their time between Queenstown and Dunedin where Annette was an active and much-valued regular at the Otago Departmental Seminar.  After a brief pause to write up her husband’s life, she returned to philosophy, publishing four more books during her retirement: Death and Character: Further Reflections on Hume (2008), The Cautious, Jealous Virtue: Hume on Justice (2010), Reflections on How We Live (2010) and The Pursuits of Philosophy (2011). Friends and students of Annette – and we know she had friends the world over - will be pleased to know that she was active in philosophy right up to the last, attending and
contributing to the Otago Departmental Seminar with her usual wit and acuity to within a few weeks of her death. Her last comment was a criticism of the error theory of her friend and former colleague J.L Mackie.  She will be sorely missed.

In Memoriam: J.J.C. Smart (1920-2012)

MOVING TO FRONT FROM OCTOBER 6

The distinguished philosopher was emeritus at the Australian National University, and spent almost his entire career in Australia from 1950 onwards.  He was perhaps best-known for his defense of physicalism in the philosophy of mind and of utlitarianism in ethics.  I will link to memorial notices as they appear.

UPDATE:  Remembrances from former colleagues at Monash.  (Thanks to Josh May for the pointer.)

ANOTHER:  An obituary in The Scotsman.

AND ANOTHER:  From The Guardian.

Ramachandran from Sussex to Witwatersrand

Murali Ramachandran (philosophical logic, metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language), Reader in Philosophy at the University of Sussex, has accepted a senior offer from the Department of Philosophy at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, effective January 2013.  

Oxford's Hawthorne Switches His Part-Time US Position from Princeton to Southern California

John Hawthorne, Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy at Oxford University, who had previously been a regular Visiting Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University for six weeks each year, has now accepted appointment as Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern California, where he will be in residence and teaching part of each Fall and Spring (for a total of ten weeks per academic year) for the next five years (starting in fall 2013).

Sorell from Birmingham to Warwick

Tom Sorell, who holds a Chair in Global Ethics in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Birmingham, has accepted a senior offer from the Department of Politics at the University of Warwick, where he will also be affiliated with the Philosophy Department--this is effective January 2013.

In Memoriam: Paul Kurtz (1925-2012)

 Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo, Professor Kurtz was best known to the wider world as a leading advocate for secular humanism.  The Center for Inquiry, which he founded, has a memorial notice here.   John Shook, a philosopher at the Center, has a webpage about Kurtz's work here.

UPDATE:   An obituary from The New York Times.

Hoefer and Marti from Barcelona to Western Ontario (updated)

MOVING TO FRONT FROM YESTERDAY--UPDATED

Carl Hoefer (philosophy of science and physics), currently ICREA Research Professor of Philosophy at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, has accepted a full professorship and Directorship of the Rotman Institute at the University of Western Ontario, effective summer 2013.  That's the second major, senior hire for UWO and Rotman this year.  In addition, UWO has appointed Genoveva Marti (philosophy of language), also an ICREA Research Professor at Barcelona, to a full professorship effective July 1, 2014.

Lord from Dundee to Aberdeen

Beth Lord (history of modern philosophy, esp. Spinoza, Kant, Deleuze), Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Dundee, has accepted appointment as Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen.

Forster from Chicago to Bonn (but with some continuing ties to Chicago happily)

Michael Forster (Kant, 18th-, 19th-century and 20th-century German philosophy, ancient philosophy, Wittgenstein, philosophy of language, epistemology) at the University of Chicago has accepted the Humboldt Professorship and the Chair in Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Bonn, effective February 2013.  That's a major coup for Bonn, needless to say.  The good news for those of us here in Chicago is that Forster will continue to be here as a regular Visiting Professor of Philosophy for most of the Winter Quarter each year (he and I will also offer a joint seminar each Winter).

Schneider from Penn to U Conn

Susan Schneider (philosophy of mind, metaphysics, philosophy of cognitive science), currently at the University of Pennsylvania, has accepted a senior offer from the Department of Philosophy at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, where she will start in January 2013.

Brown from Edinburgh to Glasgow

Campbell Brown, a moral philosopher at the University of Edinburgh (one of whose papers was recognized in this year's Philosopher's Annual), has accepted a permanent post in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Glasgow, effective January 2013.  This is the second recent lateral hire for Glasgow this year.