Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

In Memoriam: Donald W. Crawford (1938-2022)

MOVING TO FRONT FROM JULY 25--UPDATED

A longtime member of the Department of Philosophy at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he was emeritus, and before that at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Professor Crawford was well-known for his work in aesthetics and the history of aesthetics.  He also served as editor of The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism.  I will add links to memorial notices when they appear.

(Thanks to Noel Carroll for the information.)

Professor Crawford's former colleague Elliott Sober (Wisconsin) and former PhD student Yuriko Saito (Emerita, Rhode Island School of Design) kindly shared this memorial notice they prepared (below the fold):

Have things really changed in philosophy since the 1990s when it comes to publication pressure and narrowness of specialization?

On the earlier thread, philosopher Gary Kemp (Glasgow) asks:

When I was coming up in the 1990s, the complaints were: Pressure/requirements to publish, and overspecialisation. I take it that the readers here think this has grown worse. What sort of evidence do we have?

This is a good question, and I'll open it for discussion.  I also "came up" in the 1990s, and it does seem to me that publication prior to entering the job market is almost de rigeur in a way it was not thirty years ago.  Specialization is more difficult to assess.  Specialization is the hallmark of the modern academy, as Weber observed more than a century ago, and it stands to reason that as more and more universities produce more and more scholars, the need to specialize even further (in order to make the proverbial "contribution to knowledge") will grow.  But that isn't exactly "evidence" for the phenomenon, just a reason for thinking it would occur.  Readers comments welcome.  Submit your comment only once, it may take awhile to appear.

California's ban on state employee travel using state funds to the benighted states...

...has implications for the academic freedom of faculty as well.  Suppose a faculty member needs to do lab or other in-person work with a colleague in one of the benighted states, and ordinarily they could utilize allocated research money for this travel.  Under current California law, they can no longer utilize that money, thus infringing upon their ability to do their research.  This seems to me a violation of their contractual and constitutional rights to academic freedom, although hardly the most egregious kind on offer lately.   If anyone knows of any faculty litigating this matter, shoot me an email.

UPDATE:  A law professor in the University of California system writes:

My understanding is that the funds that UC faculty use for travel come from sources that are not, legally speaking, considered to be "state funds."  I'm not sure what the precise definitions of state funds and non-state funds are, but my impression is that a large percentage of the money flowing through the UC system is considered "non-state."  See this FAQ sheet on this legislation from UC Berkeley's travel office. Frequently Asked Questions Regarding AB 1887 Requirements | Travel (berkeley.edu).  Considering the availability of "non-state funds" to researchers who need to travel to the prohibited states, I don't think this legislation has had any impact on anyone's ability to do research, travel to academic conferences, etc.  Perhaps your readers can provide examples of actual restrictions, but when I needed to travel to one such state, I was told there was no problem with reimbursing me.  

Former Delta flight attendant sues after being fired for attacking Trump as a racist on her Facebook page

The amazing part is that she has to sue on grounds of race discrimination, since private employees have no legal protection in the U.S. from being sanctioned by their employer for speech on matters of public interest.  (A public employee has some protection on this score--see the discussion of the Pickering test here.)   Faculty at most private universities are in  the unique position of enjoying the right to speak on matters of public interest without fear of sanction by their employer, thanks to the AAUP definition of academic freedom.  But there is no reason in a supposedly free and democratic society that all employees should not enjoy some version of that right.

The American system of legalized bribery of public officials

Many folks have puzzled about the behavior of the nominally Democratic Senator from Arizona, Kryrsten Synema, but I suspect in most cases the explanation involves payoffs known as campaign contributions.

Mind, body, and illness

Philosopher Tom Stern (UCL) comments.  (Some readers will recall I am not a fan of his Nietzsche work, but I quite enjoyed this essay.)

In Memoriam: Paul Humphreys (1950-2022)

MOVING TO FRONT FROM SATURDAY, AUGUST 13--UPDATED

Well-known for his wide-ranging work in philosophy of science, Professor Humphreys taught philosophy at the University of Virginia from 1978 until his death, where he rose to the rank of Commonwealth Professor of Philosophy.  There is a full list of his publications here, and an obituary is here.  I will add links to other memorial notices as they appear.

UPDATE:  The UVA memorial notice is here.

(Thanks to Harold Langsam for the pointer.)

India was actually the first country to ban "The Satanic Verses"

MOVING TO FRONT FROM YESTERDAY--UPDATED

Longtime reader Ruchira Paul writes "that the Indian government led by the Congress Party banned The Satanic Verses months before Ayatollah Khomeini issued his fatwa. Had it not been for South Asian Muslims rioting (never having read the book), the dying Iranian cleric may never have even heard of Rushdie's book."  She points me to this article, adding:

Th[is] piece is a bit biased against the Congress Party but the facts are mostly correct. The very first review of The Satanic Verses in the world most likely appeared in the leading Indian journal "India Today." The reviewer was a friend of Rushdie's who was given a pre-publication copy of the book. There were a few provocative quotes in the review (without proper context) which lit the fire among the South Asian Muslim communities in India and later in the UK and Pakistan. The reviewer claims that the quotes had been inserted into the piece by an editor without her knowledge! Who knows what actually happened. But we all know what ensued. 

UPDATE:   Another longtime reader, Dean Rowan, kindly sent along a link to the original India Today review.

Two sides to every issue: the civilized and the barbaric

From CNN:

[S]everal hardline Iranian newspapers poured praise on Matar [Rushdie's assailant] on Saturday, including the conservative Kayhan newspaper, whose editor-in-chief is appointed by [Ayatollah] Khamenei.  

 

"A thousand bravos, a hundred God blesses. His hand must be kissed... Bravo to the warrior and dutiful man who attacked the Apostate and wicked Salman Rushdie. The hand of the warrior must be kissed. He tore the vein of Rushdie's neck," the paper said.

 

Another hardline newspaper, Khorasan, published a headline, "The Devil on the Path to Hell" while showing a picture of Rushdie on a stretcher.

 

Time to remember the Revolutionary Association of Women of Aghanistan:  "Fundamentalism is the mortal enemy of all civilized humanity."

Richard Marshall interviews Matthew D. Walker (Yale-NUS)...

...at 3:16 AM.

Great moments in obscure rock 'n' roll: Curved Air, "It Happened Today," 1970

British progressive band, that enjoyed some modest success in the U.K. in the early 1970s, this single came from their debut album:

 

In Memoriam: Paul Snowdon (1946-2022)

Well-known for his work on the metaphysics of persons and the nature of perception, among other topics, Professor Snowdon was at the time of his death Emeritus Grote Professor of Philosophy of Mind and Logic at University College London.  Prior to moving to UCL in 2001, he taught for several decades at Oxford University.  There is a brief Oxford notice here.  I will add links to memorial notices when they appear.  Remembrances from those who knew Professor Snowdon are welcome in the comments.

(Thanks to Chris Timpson for the pointer.)

UPDATE:  The UCL memorial notice is here.

The "Elucidations" philosophy podcast is now posting transcripts of prior episodes

Here, including episodes with Agnes Callard, R.A. Briggs, Steven Nadler, Chike Jeffers, Nethanel Lipshitz, and others.

Trump's "Brownshirts" now threatening judge who signed off on the warrant to search his property

First we had the stormtrooper riot at the Capitol, and now we have threats against federal officials, including judges:

Far-right extremists on pro-Donald Trump message boards and social networks are making violent, antisemitic threats against the judge who reportedly signed the warrant that allowed the FBI to search the former president's Mar-a-Lago property in Florida.  Multiple members of these toxic online communities are even posting what appears to be Judge Bruce Reinhart’s home address, phone numbers, and names of his family members alongside threats of extreme violence.

Of course, some of these folks are just keyboard warriors, but not all are.  As long as the lawful authoriteis with the guns--the police, FBI, Federal Marshalls etc.--step up and protect the judges and others who preserve the rule of law in a democratic society, we can weather these outbursts.  The tipping point will come when the keyboard warriors also turn out to be the people charged with preserving the rule of law with force when needed.

ADDENDUM:  A timely example, alas, that the crazies are not all keyboard warriors.

Philosophers Scott Aikin and Robert Talisse (both Vanderbilt) make it into the Edsall column at the NYT on "belief polarization"

Here.  The usual sources for Edsall are social scientists and sometimes law professors.

Korsgaard's Dewey Lecture

MOVING TO FRONT FROM YESTERDAY--A COUPLE OF COMMENTS WERE CAUGHT IN THE SPAM FILTER, THEY HAVE NOW APPEARED

The text is here, and there is much that is interesting.  I excerpt some of her remarks about pressure to publish and the pernicious effects of peer review:

Young people are expected to produce an absurdly large number of papers, preferably published in refereed journals, in order to get tenure, or even in order to get jobs.  Some people even try to publish papers in order to get into graduate school.  The papers are supposed to be blind reviewed, and these days many referees for journals require that papers should respond to the extant literature on the topic, whether responding to the extant literature enhances the author’s argument in some way or not. Because the sheer mass of the literature is growing exponentially, people draw the boundaries of their specializations more and more narrowly, both in terms of subject matter and in terms of time.  The extant literature necessarily becomes the recent literature, which is a philosophically arbitrary category.  Big, systematic philosophy of the sort we find in Kant and Aristotle, philosophy that is responsible to the ways in which one’s views in one area fit in with one’s views about everything else, has become nearly impossible, because someone trying to do that kind of work would supposedly have to know the literature in too many areas…

The University of Akron "bloodbath"

We noted the (ultimately unsuccessful) efforts of fired faculty to seek legal redress last year; the CHE now has this account:

[F]or the 96 faculty members who were part of the “reduction in force,” moving on has been nearly impossible. They call themselves “the RIF,” pronounced like “riff.” They see themselves as the human toll in a nightmare version of higher ed’s future, plagued by declining enrollments, cuts in state funding, assaults on tenure, and a bottom-line mentality more suited to a business.

Finding a new academic job has proved difficult, and they don’t want to uproot their families. Thirty-six have, like Bilia [a previuosly tenured English professor], returned to work at Akron as adjuncts — doing similar jobs for less pay. The laid-off professors want their colleagues elsewhere to know that nothing can stop the cuts once they begin. Not tenure, a union, teaching awards, or praise from students....

 

In Memoriam: Geoffrey Brennan (1944-2022)

MOVING TO FRONT, ORIGINALLY POSTED JULY 29--UPDATED

A trained economist, Professor Brennan wrote widely in moral and political philosophy, and on practical and theoretical issues that arise at the intersection of politics, philosophy, and economics. He was, most recently, a member of the School of Philosophy at the Australian National University, and taught philosophy at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and political science at Duke University.  Earlier in his career, he taught at Virginia Tech with James Buchanan, and contributed to the development of public choice theory.  There is information about his career and work here.  I will add links to memorial notices as they appear.

UPDATE:  A memorial notice from Duke's Political Science Department.

ANOTHER:  A colleague at the ANU has set up a memorial site, which also permits readers to share memories. (Thanks to Barry Maguire for the pointer.)

ONE MORE:   A brief memorial notice from the Phiosophy Department at UNC-Chapel Hill, which includes funeral information (which will be viewable online).

Lateral moves (and retirements) since the 2021 Philosophical Gourmet Report

In addition to the separate posts announcing (generally tenured) faculty moves, I will keep a running list of all lateral moves not reflected in the faculty lists for the last PGR (some moves that took place after the last PGR were reflected in the faculty list, because the editors knew of them).  The year in parentheses at the end of each listing indicates the year the appointment (or retirement) takes effect.  I will move this to the front periodically, putting recent additions in bold.  Untenured lateral moves will be noted as such, otherwise the move is with tenure.  A lateral move is one from one tenure-stream position to another either into or out of a program offering the PhD or terminal MA.  Please e-mail me with additions or corrections.

*Sara Aronowitz (philosophy of cognitive science, epistemology) from the University of Arizona to the University of Toronto (untenured lateral) (2022).

*Caroline Arruda (ethics, metaethics, philosophy of action) from the University of Texas, El Past to Tulane University (2022).

*Jamin Asay (metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophy of science) from University of Hong Kong to Purdue University (2022).

*Nathan Ballantyne (epistemology) from Fordham University to Arizona State University (2022).

*John Bengson (epistemology, philosophy of mind and action, metaethics, metaphilosophy) from the University of Wisconsin, Madison to the University of Texas, Austin (2022).

*Sharon Berry (philosophy of math & logic, epistemology) from Ashoka University to Indiana University, Bloomington (untenured lateral) (2022).

*Sabina Vaccarino Bremner (Kant, value theory, Continental philosophy) from the University of Groningen to the University of Pennsylvania (untenured lateral) (2022).

*Sean Carroll (philosophy of physics, metaphilosophy [esp. naturalism]) from California Institute of Technology to Johns Hopkins University (2022).

*Colin Chamberlain (early modern philosophy) from Temple University to University College London.

*Juan Comesana (epistemology) from the University of Arizona to Rutgers University, New Brunswick (2022).

*Steven Galt Crowell (19th- and 20th-century Continental philosophy) retired from Rice University (2022).

*Nilanjan Das (epistemology, Indian philosophy) from University College London to the University of Toronto (2022).

*Guillermo Del Pinal (philosophy of language and cognitive science) from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign to the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (untenured lateral) (2022).

*Kevin Dorst (epistemology, logic, cognitive science) from the University of Pittsburgh to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (untenured lateral) (2022).

*Daniela Dover (ethics, moral psychology, social & politcal philosophy) from the University of California, Los Angeles to Oxford University (untenured lateral) (2022).

*Katrina Elliott (philosophy of science, metaphysics) from the University of California, Los Angeles (where she was tenured) to Brandeis University (untenured position, but will come up for tenure soon).

*Owen Flanagan (moral psychology, ethics, philosophy of mind and cognitive science) who had been on phased retirement at Duke University will retire fully in August (2022).

*Miranda Fricker (ethics, epistemology, feminist philosophy) from the City University of New York Graduate Center to New York University (2022).

*Courtney Fugate (Kant, pre-Kantian German philosophy) from the American University of Beirut to Florida State University (2022).

*Manon Garcia (feminist philosophy, 20th-century Continental philosophy, moral & political philosophy) from Yale University to Free University Berlin (untenured lateral) (2022).

*Charles L. Griswold (18th-century philosophy, ethics, political philosophy, ancient philosophy) will retire from Boston University at the end of the 2022-23 academic year.

*Paul Guyer (Kant, aesthetics) is on phased retirement at Brown University (he will retire fully no later than the end of June 2025, and perhaps sooner).

*Nathan Howard (ethics, metaethics, philosophy of language) from Texas A&M University to the University of Toronto (untenured lateral).

*Jenann Ismael (philosophy of physics, metaphysics, cognitive science) from Columbia University to Johns Hopkins University (2022).

*Zoe Johnson King (ethics, metaethics, epistemology) from the University of Southern California to Harvard University (untenured lateral).

*Brian Kogelmann (political philosophy) from the University of Maryland, College Park to West Virginia University (Business School) (untenured lateral).

*Douglas MacLean (applied ethics) retired from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (2022).

*Patricia Marechal (ancient philosophy) from Northwestern University to the University of California, San Diego (untenured lateral) (2022).

*Mohan Matthen (philosophy of mind & cognitive science, philosophy of biology, ancient philosophy) will retire at the University of Toronto July 1, 2023 (2023).

*Eleonore Neufeld (philosophy of language, mind, psychology, and cognitive science) from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign to the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (untenured lateral) (2022).

In Memoriam: John M. Cooper (1939-2022)

A longtime member of the Department of Philosophy at Princeton University, where he was emeritus, Professor Cooper was one of the leading scholars of ancient Greek philosophy of his generation.  Prior to joining Princeton in 1981, he taught at the University of Pittsburgh and Harvard University.  I will add links to memorial notices when they appear.  I have opened comments here for remembrances from those who knew Professor Cooper.

UPDATE:  A memorial announcement from the Princeton department here.

Blast from the past: Fodor v. Sober on natural selection and laws

Back in 2010.  This is about as high quality as philosophy available on the Internet gets.

The political ads in the Kansas abortion referendum

They're good ads, and other states and politicians should learn from them.

In-class transmission of Covid rare at a large urban university with a mandatory vaccinations and masking...

...but not physical distancing:

[T]here were over 850 cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection identified through weekly surveillance testing of all students and faculty on campus during the fall 2021 semester. The rolling mean average of positive tests ranged between 4 and 27 daily cases. Of more than 140 000 in-person class events and a total student population of 33 000 between graduate and undergraduate students, only 9 instances of potential in-class transmission were identified, accounting for 0.0045% of all classroom meetings.

Lauener Prizes in Analytical Philosophy

Two prizes:  for an outstanding ouevre in analytical philosophy, the winner is Susan Wolf (emerita, North Carolina); and for an up-and-coming philosopher, Matthieu Queloz (currently Oxford).

Past winners of the ouevre prize include Bas van Fraassen, Ruth Barcan Marcus, T.M. Scanlon, Hilary Putnam, Michael Dummett, Fred Dretske, Dagfinn Follesdal, and Patrick Suppes.

(Thanks to Paul Russell for the pointer.)

Great moments in obscure rock 'n' roll: Duffy, "Changing My Ways," 1973

Another tune from the debut album of this British band, not as good as the opening number, but would have been great at about 3 1/2 minutes!

 

Two conferences in fall 2023 in honor of Joseph Raz

One at Columbia, one at King's College, London. 

On Orban and his apologists, and Hungary's history

Exactly right.

Specialist journals that publish the best articles in moral and/or political philosophy: the results

So with 329 votes, here are the results to our latest poll.  I'll note that a late surge by Economics & Philosophy and Politics, Philosophy & Economics made me wonder whether the PPE folks didn't rally their troops, but perhaps this is just indicative of the increasing popularity of PPE work.  In any case, look at the vote tallies, not just the ordinal rank (e.g., #6-8 are essentially tied).  (The results here, I should note, were not that different than the results of the pairwise comparison poll from last week.)  You can see the 2018 poll results here.

1. Ethics  (Condorcet winner: wins contests with all other choices)

2. Philosophy & Public Affairs  loses to Ethics by 209–65

3. Journal of Political Philosophy  loses to Ethics by 245–23, loses to Philosophy & Public Affairs by 220–51

4. Journal of Moral Philosophy  loses to Ethics by 267–9, loses to Journal of Political Philosophy by 129–126

5. Utilitas  loses to Ethics by 251–13, loses to Journal of Moral Philosophy by 135–128

6. Economics & Philosophy  loses to Ethics by 227–12, loses to Utilitas by 116–111

7. Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy  loses to Ethics by 249–20, loses to Economics & Philosophy by 119–118

8. Politics, Philosophy & Economics  loses to Ethics by 235–12, loses to Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy by 121–120

9. Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics  loses to Ethics by 245–6, loses to Politics, Philosophy & Economics by 144–79

10. Oxford Studies in Metaethics  loses to Ethics by 228–7, loses to Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics by 124–81

11. Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy  loses to Ethics by 225–11, loses to Oxford Studies in Metaethics by 122–80

12. The Journal of Ethics  loses to Ethics by 217–6, loses to Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy by 146–46

13. Ethical Theory & Moral Practice  loses to Ethics by 263–8, loses to The Journal of Ethics by 102–100

14. Social Theory & Practice  loses to Ethics by 211–9, loses to Ethical Theory & Moral Practice by 114–97

15. Journal of Applied Philosophy  loses to Ethics by 255–6, loses to Social Theory & Practice by 110–101

16. Social Philosophy & Policy  loses to Ethics by 170–9, loses to Journal of Applied Philosophy by 89–78

17. Journal of Social Philosophy  loses to Ethics by 180–6, loses to Social Philosophy & Policy by 70–66

18. Political Theory  loses to Ethics by 162–8, loses to Journal of Social Philosophy by 88–57

19. Journal of Value Inquiry  loses to Ethics by 208–6, loses to Political Theory by 73–68

20. European Journal of Political Theory  loses to Ethics by 146–8, loses to Journal of Value Inquiry by 67–64

Res Publica and Public Affairs Quarterly were runners-up for the top 20.  Constructive reader comments welcome.  If you're going to criticize any particular journal, you'll have to do so with your full name and a valid email address (the latter will not appear).

UNC-Chapel Hill adopts UChicago's "Kalven Report" principles

This is very good news for faculty there (especially given recent academic freedom violations), and I hope it signals broader adoptions of the Kalven Report.

Harry Kalven, the author of the report, was a preeminent First Amendment scholar, who had a deep understanding of academic freedom (see an earlier discussion at my law school blog).  Twenty years ago, long before I was at Chicago or even knew of the Kalven Report, I recall writing to the chemist Larry Faulkner, then the President of the University of Texas at Austin, criticizing him for his public critique of a UT Austin professor's remarks about 9/11.  President Faulkner responded courteously, although he disagreed.  His political judgment may have been sound--in an ass-backwards state like Texas with an excellent university dependent on public support, the President may have needed to say something.  But from an academic freedom standpoint, this was a failure:  Presidents, Provosts, Deans, and Chairs are to be "seen and not heard," unless they are speaking about university business.   I have written before about this at CHE, but the basic rule when complaints come in about "Professor X said Y" should be:  "Individual faculty have the right to express their views on matters of public interest, and they speak for themselves not the institution." Period.  That's it. No apologies or explanations. 

Blast from the past: what to look for in a book contract with an academic publisher

Back in 2018, with a discussion by readers.

Two observations about yesterday's "midterm" elections in the U.S.

Abortion will be a winning issue for Democrats in the fall, thanks to the super-legislature's annihilation of the right.  Kansas, an extremely "conservative" (read:  religious reactionary) state, nonetheless voted by a lopdsided margin in favor of abortion rights. 

Meanwhile, Arizona Republicans nominated a fascist in-all-but-name for the Senate contest against the incumbent Democrat.   This little fascist is a protege of the oligarch Peter Thiel, whose contempt for democratic and liberal values is quite open.

In Memoriam: Terence Parsons (1939-2022)

MOVING TO FRONT FROM JULY 30

Well-known for his work in philosophy of language and metaphysics, Professor Parsons was emeritus at UCLA, where he spent the last twelve years of his career.  He taught before that at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and the University of California at Irvine.  I will add links to memorial notices as they appear.

(Thanks to Dom Lopes for the information.)

UPDATE:  Ed Zalta (Stanford) kindly shared this remembrance:

I was extremely saddened to hear that Terry Parsons passed away. Though I hadn't been in regular contact with Terry for some time, he had a significant impact on my philosophical development.  I took three classes from him while I was a graduate student at U. Massachusetts/Amherst (1976-1980): one on Frege, a graduate seminar on Tense and Aspect (co-taught with Barbara Partee), and a graduate seminar in which we read through the manuscript of his then forthcoming book Nonexistent Objects.  His classes were always insightful and helped me to get a sense of what was really going on in the texts we were studying. But it was his seminar on nonexistent objects that changed my thinking in radical ways.  I learned how to do axiomatic metaphysics in that class and though I started to work on an alternative to his theory of nonexistents, Terry agreed to supervise my thesis when I approached him about a dissertation.

Modern mysteries: "Why" would a tech billionaire (Larry Ellison) become a leading donor to the Republican Party?

Utterly mysterious that someone fabulously rich would align themselves with the imprudent wing of the ruling class party.   What a puzzle.   Maybe Marcuse could help?

Herbert Marcuse interviewed by Bryan Magee in 1978

Via Robert Paul Wolff's blog, I came across this interesting interview with Marcuse not long before his death.  His criticisms of the "New Left" are particularly striking (and apt).

A new Condorcet poll: journals that publish the best articles in moral and/or political philosophy

MOVING TO FRONT FROM YESTERDAY--THIS POLL WILL RUN FOR ABOUT ANOTHER 24 HOURS

The new poll is here.  I've made a few changes from last week:  I've added some more journals in political theory and/or the Continental European traditions of moral/political philosophy. I've also dropped the area-specific applied ethics journals (e.g. in bioethics, business ethics), since they have always fared poorly against the more generalist journals in value theory, including those generalist journals that publish on applied topics. I'll let this run until Wednesday, and we'll see what the results look like.

Note that you can choose "no opinion" for journals you don't know anything about.  And note also that for your vote to have an impact you need to rank many journals:  just ranking your favorite journal #1 won't do much!

Academic freedom in the natural sciences

A chemist at University of Southern California discusses (although she doesn't have a good handle on what distinctively "academic freedom" is, but the interview is still interesting); an excerpt:

In chemistry, which is my field, research as such is generally not controlled; we do have freedom to pursue different research topics, subject to ability to secure funding. In other domains, particularly biology, things are different. For example, research relating to populations, genetics, heredity, human biology, or sexual reproduction became extremely politicized. Academic freedom in this field is very much affected by the current climate.

But even though chemistry research is not ideologically controlled, I see censorship and other forms of suppression creeping into our institutions, professional societies, and even publishing. For instance, attempts to censor language, in a truly Orwellian fashion, are rather common. There are calls to stop referring to certain physical laws and equations by the names of the people who discovered them because of the real or made-up flaws in their characters. Some even want to replace certain technical terms. For example, the central concept in the field of quantum computing is “quantum supremacy”. This technical term simply means that the technology, once it is fully developed, will be superior to the existing computing technology. But some people dislike the English word “supremacy”, because the same word is used in the expression “white supremacy”. They argue that the term should be changed to “quantum advantage” or something equally silly. Professional societies and universities are issuing language guides with long lists of forbidden words. So there are a lot of small instances of censorship that you can laugh at since at the first glance they don’t seem to seriously affect science. But the danger is, once you start introducing this ideological censorship into your profession, it spreads. Today, they rewrite our technical language, tomorrow they remove the names from equations, and the day after that they will stop teaching the actual physics contained in these equations. If you think this is unlikely, recall that in Soviet Russia entire scientific disciplines were forbidden for ideological reasons. So I think it’s a very dangerous trend, and we need to resist it.

A "Long Covid" saga

Philosopher Eric Schliesser (Amsterdam) has been living with long Covid since early 2021, and has kept a detailed and evocative account of the ordeal on his blog (the most recent installment is here, which includes links to all the earlier posts).  For those who have not had any experience with long Covid, this is extremely eye-opening, not to mention sobering.

Great moments in obscure rock 'n' roll: The Gods, "Farthing Man," 1968

We've featured this British band (that included Ken Hensley and Lee Kerslake in their pre-Uriah Heep days) before, but this tune, from their first album, may be my favorite:

 

Reed on Black Lives Matter

Here; bracing, no-nonsense stuff as usual.  An excerpt:

There never was a coherent politics there; nor was there any objective reason to assume there could be—especially considering that it was always a wan replay of Black Power in its faith that a generic slogan and some, often Potemkin, street action could generate a mass movement, and with what agenda exactly? To be sure, BLM helped to focus public attention onto police brutality and killings of black people, but no broader left politics necessarily follows from that. And to the extent that BLM projects and insists on a race-reductionist account of that injustice, its critique does as much to obscure the systemic foundations of the police behavior as it does to illuminate the behavior itself. Moreover, BLM, and contemporary antiracist politics in general, was always ripe for articulation toward entrepreneurialism, etc., not least because the personalities most visibly associated with it were careerist race ventriloquists and corporate media operatives. Did you see Van Jones collapsing with tears of joy after Jeff Bezos gave him $100 million? Or Kimberlé Crenshaw’s declaration, in yet another attack on Sanders, that “every corporation worth its salt” had done more to support antiracist causes than the Democrats or the left?...

A free online introduction to utilitarian moral theory...

...courtesy of a leading young utilitarian moral philosopher Richard Yetter Chappell (Miami).  Strong endorsements for this resource, as well, from leading philosophers!

Ireland's experience with a constitutional abortion ban

Interesting piece at NYRB (behind their paywall, however); an excerpt:

In 1985, after the Eighth Amendment [banning abortion] had passed, 3,888 Irish women were recorded as having abortions in Britain. By 1991 the number was 4,154; by 2001 it was 6,673. The numbers began to diminish somewhat thereafter, but only because Irish women were finding ways to procure abortion pills without leaving the country. If the purpose of abortion bans is to actually reduce the rate at which women terminate pregnancies, the Irish experience shows how utterly ineffectual they are. Some poor, vulnerable, or very young women and girls can be forced to carry babies they do not want, but a policy that depends for its success on female impoverishment and powerlessness is not easy to sustain in an open society.

Richard Marshall interviews Charles Travis (Porto)...

...at 3:16 AM.  An interesting bit:

One reason I don’t see Frege as a philosopher of language is that he explicitly says that is not his topic. It seems to me that for a long time now (probably since the Vienna Circle, but I suspect much longer than that) philosophers have tended to see too much in common between language and logic, as if language (if properly done) would just be a sort of less topic-neutral language. This, I think, is responsible for huge misperceptions as to the shape of philosophical problems.

A new pairwise comparison poll: specialist journals that publish the best articles in moral and/or political philosophy...

MOVING TO FRONT FROM YESTERDAY--SEE UPDATE

...both theoretical and applied.  Note that you can choose "I can't decide," and then are given several choices, such as "don't know enough about either" or "think they're both the same" etc.

ADDENDUM:  As some readers have poitned out, some journal names are rather similar.  For example, Social Philosophy & Policy versus Social Theory & Practice.  And Journal of Ethics & Social Philosophy versus Journal of Ethics verus Journal of Social Philosophy.

UPDATE:  I've closed this poll, since there was some indication on social media of folks rallying votes.  The top six were pretty consistent with last time (Ethics, PPA, J. of Political Phil, J. of Moral Phil., J. of Ethics & Social Philosophy, Utilitas), but after that I'm less sure the results weren't affected.  Pairwise comparison is more vulnerable to strategic voting than Condorcet, alas, although in the past Condorcet also had problems. I'll try running a Condorcet version of this poll next week, and see how that comes out.  Thanks to those who voted, and stay tuned for another stab at this next week.

Fetterman, the Democrat for Senate in Pennsylvania

You have to like a candidate whose "first" issue is a pro-union message.   Fetterman is basically a social democrat, like Bernie Sanders.  Fortunately, he's younger than Bernie, and he is also very social media savvy.  He's also very down to earth, which probably has something to do with how this unconvential politician made it to Lt. Governor of Pennsylvania. He's also tall, which would make him the perfect Democrat to go up against Trump in 2024 (seriously, don't underestimate the pure impact of physicality, of a Democrat towering over Trump, and calling him on his non-stop bullshit).  I'm hopeful he will be the next Democratic Senator from Pennsylvania and the Democratic nominee in 2024.

(His Twitter feed and ridicule of his ridiculous opponent Dr. Oz is very amusing too.)

Why try to rank journals, even in this unsystematic way?

A senior philosopher with tenure expressed puzzlement (on Twitter, of course) about these rankings.  A junior philosopher responded:

For those of us whose professional futures depend on the snap judgments of people reading 100s of CVs, it is really important to have a rough idea of where people tend to rank different journals.

Amusingly, this senior philosopher was unaware that rankings are very common in many other disciplines, including economics, chemistry, political science, physics, etc.  Indeed, others have used the h-index to rank philosophy journals in the past.

Canadian academic freedom organization challenges mandatory "diversity" statement at McGill University

The letter here concerns a search in computer science.  I don't know what the relevant law is governing the use of such statements in Canada; in the U.S., they are pretty clearly instances of unlawful viewpoint discrimination (despite the shoddy arguments of some dissemblers to the contrary!).

Those knowledgeable about the relevant Canadian laws are invited to comment.

Another triumph for diversity: 4 of the 5 leaders of the major corporations at the center of America's military-industrial complex...

...are women.  What a relief!

Best "general" philosophy journals, 2022

So with not quite 1,000 participants, and nearly 90,000 votes on comparisons cast, here are the top 25 (the score in parentheses reflects the odds of the journal prevailing in a comparison):

1.  Philosophical Review (89)

2.  Nous (87)

3.  Philosophy & Phenomenological Research (86)

4.  Mind (85)

5.  Journal of Philosophy (84)

6.  Australasian Journal of Philosophy (75)

7.  Philosophical Studies (74)

8.  Philosopher's Imprint (73)

9.  Philosophical Quarterly (69)

10. Analysis (65)

11. Synthese (62)

12. Canadian Journal of Philosophy (54)

12. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (54)

14. Ergo (51)

14. Erkenntnis (51)

16. European Journal of Philosophy (49)

16. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly (49)

18. American Philosophical Quarterly (48)

19. Journal of the American Philosophical Association (46)

20. Inquiry (40)

21. Philosophical Perspectives (39)

22. The Monist (37)

23. Thought (36)

24. Philosophical Issues (33)

25. Philosophical Topics (30)

25. Ratio (30)

One error of omission was Analytic Philosophy, which might well have made the top 25 (as it did in 2018).  You can see the 2018 results here.  Online surveys probably have a slight bias in favor of online journals, like Philosopher's Imprint and, more recently, Ergo, although the former has been clearly among the top ten for quite some time now, and justfiably so it seems to me. Constructive comments/observations about the results are welcome.

 

Narratives that engage the emotions, not arguments, are more effective at producing charitable behavior

Interesting study, confirming what all Humeans and Nietzscheans already suspected.  As Nietzsche quips (in Twilight of the Idols), "Nothing is easier to erase than a dialectical effect."

UPDATE:  More thoughts, on Twitter, from philosopher Matt Lindauer (Brooklyn Coll/CUNY).  (Link now fixed.)

A new survey on the best "general" philosophy journals

The last survey was in 2018.  This new survey uses the pairwise comparison method.  "General" here means journals that publish in several different areas (if not all of these):  e.g., value theory, metaphysics & epistemology, philosophy of science, philosophy of logic, history of philosophy.  If this works, I'll run some more pairwise comparison surveys about journals in particular areas of specialization.