Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

Resources for non-academic careers

Philosopher Shane Wilkins, a member of the APA's Committee on Non-Academic Careers, asked me to share information about two new resources:

The first resource is the new Beyond Academia webpage to replace the old print edition. The goal of the website is to provide useful, actionable information for departments, graduate students, and others who are interested in a career switch. The website should be accessible to everyone.

The second resource is an upcoming APA webinar  on “Launching a Non-Academic Career” to be held 4/28/2021 at 1pm eastern time. The three panelists for the discussion will be 

• Gina Helfrich, PhD (Non-profit technology sector)
  Program Officer for Global Technology, Internews
• JC Lau, PhD (Video game development)
  Producer, Harebrained Schemes
• Shane Wilkins, PhD (Public administration)
  Management Analyst, U.S. Department of Agriculture

The facilitator for the panel will be Sherri Lynn Conklin. Please note that registration is required for the webinar, and there will be a video recording available after the fact but registration and the video link are both restricted to members of the APA.

We hope that these two resources will be helpful to an important constituency within the philosophical public and would greatly appreciate your help in making sure that everyone who would like access to this content is aware of it.

"The New Ptolemaism" in the humanities and social sciences

The author of this piece is a gender critical feminist, but I found more interesting its description of "the New Ptolemaism" than its particular application to debates about trans identity:

This is a push for scholarship to be insistently insular and to be much less interested in the study of the world than in the study of the study of the world. This kind of work, which is by now very common in the social sciences and humanities, performs the same neat trick every time. It turns out, in every such analysis, that the framing of inquiry turns out to be more significant than the object of inquiry. Inevitably, the most important research site thus becomes academia itself because academia is where the framing happens. Any real understanding of the world–and any disruption of it–must on this view begin within the academy. The academy becomes the center around which everything else revolves, and the most profound forms of intervention into systems of “power/knowledge,” to use Foucault’s famous phrase, are those that upend academic conventions.

Curious whether this rings true to any readers.  Please confine the discussion to this idea (and to whether Foucault is fairly implicated in it).

Bolsonaro's crime against humanity

What a despicable monster.

Two philosophers among winners of 1.5 million Euro/5-year research grants from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research

They are:   Erik Rietveld and Floris Roelofsen, both at the University of Amsterdam.

Richard Marshall interviews Amy Kind (Claremont-McKenna)...

...at 3:16 AM.

Connie Rosati (Texas) interviews Stephen Darwall (Yale)...

...about his career and work.  (Darwall was one of Rosati's teachers at Michigan in the 1980s.)

In Memoriam: Ed Gettier (1927-2021)

Professor Gettier was responsible for what was no doubt the most famous paper in epistemology--and the most famous short paper in Anglophone philosophy--of the past sixty years, "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?"  David Lewis, as I recall, once said that no one had ever "proved" anything in philosophy, except Gettier (readers can correct me in the comments, or supply the reference to where Lewis said this). 

Gettier was of a generation when philosophers could make careers in the academy based on high regard from their colleagues without many publications (think Rogers Albritton [Harvard, then UCLA] or Thompson Clarke [Berkeley]).   He taught at Wayne State during its own "golden era" as a center for analytic philosophy in the 1950s and 1960s, but spent most of his career at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (which he helped establish as a leading center for analytic philosophy), where he was emeritus.   Philosopher Hilary Kornblith tells me a memorial is forthcoming, which I'll add when it appears.

Words of wisdom from the late Marshall Sahlins, the famed anthropologist who died last week

Quoted here:  "We all die and we are all wrong. A good career is when the former happens before the latter."

A curious, passing remark about Bernard Williams

Shirley Williams (the philosopher's first wife) was a major figure in British politics for many decades; her passing has led to many obituaries, including this one which included the following striking brief comment:

Her marriage to Bernard Williams was happy enough, but suffered from the inevitable difficulties of two ambitious people pursuing different careers. Life was never easygoing with her first husband, a restless, witty, attractive, sometimes cruel intellectual.

"Sometimes cruel intellectual"?  Does anyone have an idea what this is supposed to mean?

Blast from the past: Carrie Jenkins, Alan Soble and "the chasm of crap"

Back in 2018.

The bloodbath at Laurentian University in Ontario

It essentially eviscerates the university (including philosophy):

The pace of change at Laurentian University, which is in the midst of insolvency negotiations, is speeding up as termination notices for faculty and staff at the Sudbury, Ont., school started to roll out Monday morning.

A total of 100 Laurentian University professors were dismissed during meetings organized by the human resources department.

The latest news from Laurentian administration said 58 undergraduate programs will be closed (107 will remain open) and 11 graduate programs will be shut (33 to remain open).

Philosopher Byron Williston (Wilfrid Laurier) writes that Laurentian,

basically declared bankruptcy at the beginning of the year after the Conservative Provincial government refused to extend them a financial lifeline. They’ve been under protection from creditors ever since. Today’s actions are part of the ‘restructuring’ process. This is a big deal because nothing like it has, to my knowledge, ever happened  before to a public university in Canada, even under the most socially regressive and anti-intellectual Provincial governments [the Harris government in Ontario 1995-2002].

Comments are open for additional details and information. 

(Thanks to Joshua Mugg for the pointerto the CBC article.)

A list of people "cancelled"

Probably overinclusive, but a useful counterweight to those invested in denying the phenomenon.  (The latter is a mix of the benighted and those who are themselves cancellers.)

(Thanks to Mark Couch for the pointer.)

ADDENDUM:  On the distinguishing features of the "cancellation" phenomenon (which is partly fueld by the Internet), see earlier discussions here and here.

The recent, sensational allegations about Foucault's pedophilia

MOVING TO FRONT FROM YESTERDAY--UPDATED

Philosopher Hans Sluga (Berkeley) comments.

UPDATE:  More (in French) on "Le Bullshit de Guy Sorman."  (Thanks to Edouard Machery for the pointer.)

Pfizer vaccine less effective against South Africa variant

UPDATE:   The news article misreports the results, probably because the lab itself communicates so poorly (you have to skip all the way down to #6 in the tweet thread for the point to finally be made clear).  In fact, there were no cases of infection by the South African variant two weeks after the second dose!  The variant did better than expected at infecting people before that time.  So, in fact, once fully faccinated, Pfizer is highly protective even against the South African variant!  Both the journalists and the lab deserve the blame here for poor communication of the results.  (Thanks to Matthew Noah Smith for calling my attention to this.)

Although how much less effective we still don't know:

A team from Tel Aviv University and the Clalit healthcare organization sequenced the swabs of 150 Israelis who tested positive for COVID-19 despite having been vaccinated.

In their study, the prevalence of the South African strain among vaccinated individuals who were infected despite their inoculation was eight times higher than its prevalence in the unvaccinated infected population. Though the number of such infections among the vaccinated was relatively small, the findings indicated that this variant was far more successful in getting through vaccinated individuals’ defenses than other strains.

“Based on patterns in the general population, we would have expected just one case of the South African variant, but we saw eight,” Prof. Adi Stern, who headed the research, told The Times of Israel....

The research, which has been posted online but not yet peer-reviewed, is likely to raise questions about Pfizer’s own real-world study, which found that in South Africa, despite the local strain being prevalent, the vaccine was 100 percent effective.

Right-wing cancel culture: "Campus Reform" edition

A well-organized and well-funded operation to rain harassment and abuse down on the heads of faculty with incorrect view.

(Thanks to John Bussanich for the pointer.)

The tensions between the pursuit of "diversity, equity, and inclusion" and "academic freedom" in the University of California system

This is an interesting and informative essay, which documents systematically the process that led to the now notorious "diversity statements."  (Note that it was pressure from the legislature that started all of this; we often note the mischief wrought on universities by legislatures in conservative states, but California provides an example of the potential trouble for public universities in liberal states.)

An excerpt from the essay:

Mutual support between the representational and intellectual missions of the University has thus been the aspiration of policy makers over the last decade, as the phrase inviting UC campuses to strive for “diversity and excellence” expresses so clearly. But the balance is changing. Academic freedom was sacrificed for the representational mission when an accounting professor at UCLA was placed on academic leave for denying students’ demands for a “no-harm” final exam following the death of George Floyd (Flaherty, 2020). It was violated when a political science professor at UCLA was subjected to a review by the University’s Discrimination Prevention Office for presenting Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” and clips from a documentary on racism, both of which included the “N-word” (Korn, 2020). It was compromised when UC Berkeley faculty and students were advised not to use the phrase “America is a melting pot” or a “land of opportunity” (Volokh 2015). And the climate for academic freedom became chillier when a professor of history at Berkeley wrote an open letter to colleagues expressing concern about the “racial injustice” and “institutional racism” narratives of the anti-racism movement and the Berkeley’s history department responded by issuing a statement that it “condemn[s] this letter: it goes against our values as a department and our commitment to equity and inclusion” (Grimes, 2020).

Frontiers of open access

MOVING TO FRONT FROM APRIL 6:  MORE COMMENTS WELCOME

The University of California and Germany have both struck open access deals with, respectively, Elsevier and Springer.  Are more such deals in the works?

 

 

Great moments in obscure rock 'n' roll: Josefus, "Feeling Good," 1969

Houston hard rock band of the late 60s and early 70s, that we last featured last summer, this number also comes from their first album:

 

If Tucker "you're not as white as me" Carlson survives this latest fiasco, it will be further proof America is doomed

Amazing that he'd go there.

The best thing about the late Prince Philip...

...was that he was a window into how the British ruling class really thinks. For that, he will be missed by me!

Another university kills philosophy and fires tenured faculty as well

Western Oregon University.  What a disgrace.

New frontiers of Republican mischief: requiring faculty at state universities to reveal their political beliefs

I am hopeful a court will strike down these laws (one in Florida, one in Iowa) for the same reason courts have struck down forced disclosure of the membership lists of organizations, mostly famously, in a case involving an attempt by Alabama to make the NAACP disclose its state members: 

Writing for a unanimous Court, Justice John Marshall Harlan II reasoned that the request for the membership list posed a potential restraint upon the freedom of association extended by the First Amendment to members of the NAACP. According to the Court, prior revelations of the “identity of its rank-and-file members has exposed these members to economic reprisal, loss of employment, threat of physical coercion,and other manifestations of public hostility. Under these circumstances, we think it apparent that compelled disclosure of petitioner’s Alabama membership is likely to affect adversely the ability of petitioner and its members to pursue their collective effort to foster beliefs which they admittedly have the right to advocate.”

Is it even lawful to consider "diversity" in hiring?

MOVING TO FRONT FROM YESTERDAY--VERY INSTRUCTIVE DISCUSSION IN THE COMMENTS, MORE CONTRIBUTIONS WELCOME.

In a discussion of the earlier poll, one junior faculty member asked:

I was a bit surprised to see so many people admit to doing more than #1 [i.e,. outreach to candidates from underrepresented groups]. My impression was that even #2 [using "diversity" as a tie-breaker] violates most universities' nondiscrimination policies and was illegal in the U.S. I wonder if some legally or other institutionally informed readers might be able to shed some light here.

Title VII says that "an unlawful employment practice is established when the complaining party demonstrates that race, color, religion, sex, or national origin was a motivating factor for any employment practice, even though other factors also motivated the practice" (https://www.eeoc.gov/statutes/title-vii-civil-rights-act-1964). The Department of Labor says that universities' affirmative action obligations as federal subcontractors do not allow "the use of race to be weighed as one factor among many in an individual’s application when rendering hiring, employment or personnel decisions, as racial preferences of any kind are prohibited under the authorities administered by OFCCP" (https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ofccp/faqs/AAFAQs). What am I missing here?

Apart from the legal issue, my own institution's DEI compliance office has told me that it violates our university's nondiscrimination policies to consider a candidate's race or gender once they have applied, even as a "tiebreaker." That's why HR doesn't pass that information along to hiring committees. I would be interested to hear whether individuals or departments who practice #2 or #3 have actually consulted their compliance offices about this, and what their institutions' policies are.

I put this question to Professor Michael Selmi, a leading employment law and civil rights expert, now at Arizona State University.  He kindly gave permission to share his answer:

In Memoriam: J. Michael Dunn (1941-2021)

MOVING TO FRONT FROM APRIL 7--UPDATED

I was sorry to learn on Facebook that Mike Dunn has passed away.  He was emeritus at Indiana University, Bloomington, where he spent most of his career from 1969 onwards.  He was best-known internationally for his work in logic, in particular (and here I quote from something written on his FB page) "information based logics, particularly relevance logics and other so-called 'substructural' logics."   He even founded the School of Informatics at Indiana, in addition to chairing the philosophy department on two occasions.  (In the 1990s, he led an effort that brought Indiana to the cusp of the top ten programs in the U.S., recruiting, among others, Jon Barwise, Michael Friedman, and Anil Gupta to Bloomington.) 

I will add links to memorial notices as they appear.

UPDATE:    There is an obituary here, and the Indiana memorial notice is here.

Three philosophers win 2021 Guggenheim Fellowships

They are:  R. Lanier Anderson (Stanford), Jennifer Lackey (Northwestern), and Roselyn Weiss (Lehigh).

More on Macquarie's bad behavior

MOVING TO FRONT FROM YESTERDAY--IMPORTANT UPDATE

Philosopher Alexander Morgan (Rice) kindly shared this message he sent to administrators at Macquarie University, regarding the evisceration of cognitive science and the "voluntary" [sic] redundancy of Professor Sutton.  Professor Morgan wrote to the administrators as follows:

I was recently saddened to learn that the higher administration at Macquarie University is, in effect, breaking up the cognitive science department – partly in the name of removing 'silos' and increasing interdisciplinarity. This is absurd on its face, since the department has been one of the most vibrant and active hubs of interdisciplinary research in the mind & brain sciences in Australasia since its inception in the 1990s. There is really nothing else quite like it in the Southern Hemisphere. As an Antipodean who has ended up with a research career in empirically-informed philosophy of mind in North America, I have deeply cherished the opportunities I've had to return 'Down Under' to explore shared interests with other philosophers and cognitive scientists at various events at Macquarie over the years. I was especially saddened to learn that Professor John Sutton, a shining exemplar of what can be achieved though careful community-building and focussed research across disciplines, is being put in a position such that 'voluntary' redundancy is his only real option. This is shameful embarrassment to your institution. I have served as an external reviewer for Macquarie graduate theses in cognitive science in the past. I can no longer in good conscience do that, and I will no longer be participating in any professional activities associated with Macquarie going forward. I will be strongly encouraging my colleagues to do the same.

Shame on you.

Sincerely,
Alex Morgan.

UPDATE:  Professor Morgan writes with an important addendum:

After my initial wave of anger and frustration about the dismantling of the Macquarie cognitive science department passed, I realized that my email, which was intended for the administration at Macquarie, should be clarified for a wider audience. The situation is specific to the cognitive science department at Macquarie, and has little to do with the philosophy department, an entirely separate entity. By all accounts, philosophy at Macquarie is thriving. I'd still encourage colleagues to avoid cognitive science for now, in the hope of effecting change there (some of the changes remain at 'proposal' stage), but please don't let this bleed over to negatively impact the philosophy department.

Update on Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

Jc Beall (Notre Dame), the current editor, has shared the following statement with the Board, and kindly gave permission to share this more widely:

Prof. Gary Gutting and Dr. Stacie Gutting created NDPR around 20 years ago. They ran the entire journal as a true labor of love, with advice and help from the NDPR Board, and with help from a part-time editorial assistant.  Very much like the SEP, which was created and run by Dr. Ed Zalta, NDPR soon became a prominent part of the philosophical profession — a venue to which all  philosophers turn, and one to which many outside of philosophy turn for updates on philosophical work and debate. After Gary Gutting died, Stacie Gutting continued to run the journal with help from a part-time editorial assistant. Eventually, Stacie stepped down, and — after just landing at Notre Dame — I agreed to take on the editorship. I spent the first 6 months learning and, in significant part, making explicit the NDPR system, and then turned towards running the process — only to be hit by the heights of the pandemic, which brought incoming reviews to a standstill, and incoming books from publishers to a trickle, not to mention the havoc the pandemic played in other respects.

Richard Marshall interviews Alexander Klein (McMaster)...

...at 3:16 AM.

Academic freedom crisis at U of San Diego continues

Really unbelievable.  (Earlier coverage, also the AFA statement.  AFA is assisting with legal support.)

In Memoriam: Kai Nielsen (1926-2021)

Professor Nielsen wrote widely in social and political philosophy, ethics, philosophy of religion, and metaphilosophy over the course of his long career, which included teaching positions at Amherst College and New York University in the United  States and, then, for many years at the University of Calgary in Canada, where he was emeritus.  You can learn more about his work here.  I will add links to memorial notices as they appear.

(Thanks to Nick Sagos for the information.)

Why philosophy needs mathematics and vice versa

Mark Wilson (Pittsburgh) discusses at Scientific Sense.

2021 Lebowitz Prize awarded to Ned Block (NYU) and Ian Phillips (Johns Hopkins)

The APA announcement is here; from the announcement: 

Professors Block and Phillips’s topic for the 2021 Lebowitz Prize is “Perception, Consciousness and the Self.” The winners will present their work in February 2022 at the APA Central Division meeting in Chicago, IL.

"Rawls on Justice"

David Runciman (Cambridge) discusses at the Talking Politics podcast.

Who doesn't use the Internet?

Almost everyone in the U.S. does, but age, poverty, lack of education, and living in rural areas are the best predictors of not using the Internet at all (and even then, the vast majority in each group do use it).

What the heck is going on in the Evanston, IL schools?

Evanston is a suburb just north of Chicago, where Northwestern University is located.  This interview with a parent there makes the school district sound like a nuthouse, a place where Ibram Kendi isn't viewed as a slightly ridiculous "anti-racism" grifter, but is instead the intellectual lodestar.  The interview is with Ndona Muboyayi, a parent, and member of the NAACP Evanston/North Shore Branch.  From the interview:

Mboyayi: One day my daughter told me she was taught that all white people are privileged and part of a system of white supremacy. My son said the same thing. So I reached out to my daughter’s teacher to find out what exactly was being taught. It was pretty much like she said: that all white people were part of this system of white supremacy, and that all white people, because of the color of their skin, had privilege. I said, “But that's not true.” And the teacher said, “Well, what do you mean?”

I have traveled a lot. My father was a university professor and taught in both the United States and Paris, France. And when I visited, I saw white people in public housing. I’ve been to Belgium and Switzerland and seen very poor white people. I’ve visited other parts of Europe. I lived in Canada for 10 years. There are poor white people in Canada as well. I’m not saying systemic racism doesn’t exist, but class exists too, and I don’t believe that all white people have privilege. That white person who’s living in the Appalachian Mountains, who has no means or prospect of changing their situation—do they, too, have privilege? Compared to me and my kids?

UPDATE:  An Evanston resident and parent of kids in the public schools there  writes:  “Your comment about Ibram Kendi isn't off the mark at all. Evanston Township High School's Family Action Network actually had Kendi on campus twice to give talks, once in 2018 and 2019. In 2020 they doubled down by having huckster Robin DiAngelo come and give a talk. The last thing you want to be caught doing in this town is questioning the dominant ideology."

"Africana Marxism"

Philosopher Vanessa Wills (George Washington) discusses at the "History of Philosophy" podcast.

Graduate school applications way up this year, including in philosophy

IHE has a story, which includes some examples of philosophy departments with big increases.  It's also been a very tough year for law school applicants, probably the most competitive in more than a decade.

Bernard Williams on utilitarianism

A video of a 1986 lecture by Williams, prepared for the Open University.

(Thanks to Richard Marshall for the pointer.)

Blast from the past: five favorite Americans of the 20th-century?

Mine and those of readers, back in 2018.

An inside look at how the "anti-racism grift" is undermining radical politics

A case study of the Chicago chapter of Democratic Socialists of America.

Great moments in obscure rock 'n' roll: Fuzzy Duck, "Time Will Be Your Doctor," 1971

Another number from the British hard rock/progressive band we featured last fall; this was probably their best-known tune at the time:

Bloodbath at Guilford College in North Carolina (UPDATE: the bloodbath was averted!)

MOVING TO FRONT--IMPORTANT UPDATES!

30% of the faculty is being cut (including 16 tenured professors), and nearly half the majors, everything from philosophy to chemistry and political science.  Guilford alums, students and faculty are fighting back.

ADDENDUM:  COVID and oppportunistic cuts?  While the humanities do get hit disproportionately, the Guilford case illustrates how widely such moves can reach.  (Thanks to Steven Hales for the pointer.)

UPDATE:  In fact, the trustees of Guilford rejected the recommendations of the then-President, so philosophy and other majors have been saved!  The current Interim President writes about the situation here.  Philosophy alumni from the college also prepared this nice video in support of the Department!

Blast from the past: recruiting female students to the major at a liberal arts college

A discussion back in 2014.

Sign of the times in academic philosophy

A senior philosopher elsewhere writes:  "It says something about the state of the academic world that I was taken in hook, line and sinker by your April Fool's gag and only realised when I clicked the link!"

Philosopher and cognitive scientist John Sutton explains his decision to take "voluntary [sic] redundancy" at Macquarie University

It's a moving statement.  What the heck is Australia doing to its universities?

(Thanks to Mohan Matthen for the pointer.)

ADDENDUM:  More examples of the destruction of Australian universities.  This will be a vicious cycle:  as Australian universities are weakened, fewer foreign students will choose them, thus further reducing revenue.

Biden's infrastructure plan will be good for higher education

This is what normal governments, interested in societal welfare, do:  they spend money improving societal conditions, including higher education.  In addition to $50 million for the National Science Foundation,

Historically Black colleges and universities and other minority-serving institutions would also be in for more funding under the proposal. The plan calls for a $10 billion investment in research and development and $15 billion to create 200 research incubators at those institutions, with the framing that those investments could eliminate racial and gender inequities in R&D and STEM. Of the $40 billion dedicated to improving research infrastructure and laboratories, half would be set aside specifically for HBCUs and other minority-serving institutions.

This is far more sensible than all the "diversity blather," and will ultimately contribute not to "diversity" but to opportunity and advancement for the primary victims of world-historic injustice in the United States.

Blast from the past: double major for a philosophy PhD?

A discussion back in 2016.

R.M. Hare & Anthony Kenny discuss moral philosophy in 1973

Here.

(Thanks to Richard Marshall for the pointer.)

Supporting scholars against censorship and persecution by the Chinese Communist [sic] Party

A scholar of Chinese philosophy shared this "statement of solidarity."  This scholar wrote:

I think it’s especially important that people who study Chinese philosophy, particularly those with stable positions, demonstrate their support, as I believe we will soon reach a point where the Chinese philosophy community’s silence—thus far the norm—will become indefensible as more academics are sanctioned, which I think is all but guaranteed. 

New philosophy rankings released

No, not the ones that matter, but a new effort to rank philosophy programs based on the percentage of faculty and graduate students who "think correctly" (the "TCR" for short) (Linda Alcoff tried this a number of years ago, but it failed.)   The top five programs in the new TCR rankings are British Columbia, UC Merced, Southern California (but ignore Scott, he'll retire soon), and the Rhetoric and Comparative Literature Departments at Berkeley.  There may be some controversy about the fact that MIT was apparently dropped from the survey after the organizers realized that Alex "Bad, Lazy Philosophy Guy" Byrne taught there.

The editors of this new effort are "Smarmy" Jonathan Ichikawa and Carolyn "Dicey indeed" Jennings; they surveyed more than 300 Twitter users to come up with these results.  You can read the full rankings here.