Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

Blast from the past: 2014, the year the philosophy profession went mad

Four years ago.   One salutary development in the interim--perhaps due to the public outrage in 2017 over the abuse of Rebecca Tuvel by the usual suspects--is increasingly visible and vocal resistance to the "bloodthirsty mob of wacko philosophy profs" by other members of the profession.

Pittsbugh Summer Program in Philosophy of Science

I was asked to share the following, which I'm happy to do:

The Pittsburgh Summer Program in Philosophy of Science is now accepting applications. We invite applications from North American female undergraduates, LGBTQA+, disabled, from racial and ethnic backgrounds, first generation, and other undergraduates from groups underrepresented in philosophy of science. Applications are due March 1, 2019, and participants will be notified by April 15, 2019. 

Website: http://www.pitt.edu/~pittcntr/Events/All/psp3/psp3.html

 

This benighted Columbia student doesn't need discipline, he needs education

He doesn't understand the term "white" (he might start by reading this) and he is plainly ignorant about the history of science and civilization.  What an embarrassment.

The implications of "self-identification" (as a woman, as a race) for traditional civil rights

Philosopher Dan Kaufman (Missouri State) comments.

On the Wisconsin Repugs

Some apt observations from Krugman:

There has been a fair amount of reporting on the power grab currently underway in Madison. Having lost every statewide office in Wisconsin last month, Republicans are using the lame-duck legislative session to drastically curtail these offices’ power, effectively keeping rule over the state in the hands of the G.O.P.-controlled Legislature.

What has gotten less emphasis is the fact that G.O.P. legislative control is also undemocratic. Last month Democratic candidates received 54 percent of the votes in State Assembly elections — but they ended up with only 37 percent of the seats.

In other words, Wisconsin is turning into Hungary on the Great Lakes, a state that may hold elections, but where elections don’t matter, because the ruling party retains control no matter what voters do.

Reactions to "The Twitter Cesspool"

Two funny reactions to last week's post.

First, from a philosopher in the UK:  "The dumb outbursts you quoted in your post establish that not all imbalances of power are injustices. Some people really should be powerless!"

Second, a somewhat longer response from a political theorist in the US:

Although I ended up in Political Science, I used your Gourmet when looking at grad schools back in 2001.  I've been a regular reader of your blog since 2003.  We are very much on different sides of many issues (I am a rather traditional Catholic, trained as a Straussian, etc.)  Nonetheless, I have always found you to be an enlightening voice of sanity and have been very grateful for your many contributions.  (When I teach Nietzsche, I always refer my students to your book. And I agree with you about Lampert's reading of Nietzsche.)

I say all this because I read your post about the attacks on you in Twitter and I was just shocked, though not surprised.  What a bunch of idiotic condescending assholes!

So, even though I am not in your field, and even though we probably disagree about more than we agree about, I wanted to thank you for the many years of service that you've given to academia, not only as a scholar but as public voice of reason (though not a voice of "public reason!").  I know you are more than capable of holding your own against these canailles (as Nietzsche would probably have called them), but damn it it's time for those of us who have profited from your labors to at least thank you for it.  So thank you!

In Memoriam: Fiona Cowie (1963-2018)

Professor Cowie, who worked at the intersections of philosophy of psychology, biology. and linguistics, had taught at the California Institute of Technology since 1992.  The Cal Tech memorial notice is here.

Philosophy at Hull in trouble?

A worrying account.  Feel free to post more information, links etc. in the comments.

(Thanks to Cesar Palacios Gonzalez for the pointer.)

Martha Nussbaum interviewed...

...at The New Statesman.

UCSD's Manuel Vargas is both a good philosopher *and* very funny

I posted Clifford Sosis's interview with Professor Vargas last week, but since I had a very hectic week, I didn't get a chance to note any excerpts.  Here's a few gems.

Siblings?

I had a younger brother and younger sister, although they are now both much older than I am, on account of my refusal to grow up. In addition to overlapping genetic code, my siblings and I share near-total certainty that disagreement with any of us is the sign of a confused mind. Although we were all bookworms, I seemed to have had more enthusiasm for school and a greater need for the approval of other nerds. The result is that they both enjoy jobs with way better parking options than I have at my job....

Best philosopher you disagree with most?

The average four-year old. They’ve got the whole “why?” thing down pat, and they tend to have poor taste in food, entertainment, and theories about the world, so it is hard to know how to move them on any important issues....

Last meal?

Something that stays down as I’m dying. Barfing while dying would suck.

And this was useful (and, at the end, funny again):

Andreja Novakovic (UC Riverside [moving to UC Berkeley]) interviewed...

...at 3AM.

2018 JHP Book Prize to Adriaenssen

Jean-Luc Solere, Book Review Editor of the Journal of the History of Philosophy, kindly informed me that the winner of the 2018 Book Prize from JHP is Han Thomas Adriaenssen (University of Groningen, NL), for Representation and Scepticism from Aquinas to Descartes (Cambridge University Press, 2017).

The latest Internet mob campaign of defamation and professional destruction

This time the target is a young social scientist, Noah Carl, who was elected to a Junior Research Fellowship at Cambridge, which the mob now wants him to lose.  I've looked into Carl a bit since I first heard about this last week.  He seems a person with foolish and reprehensible political views and an unhealthy appetite for evolutionary psychology.  But that is neither here nor there:  as this essay makes plain, many of those signing the letter don't know anything about his work or its merits or demerits.   This is a straight-up case of an Internet mob attacking core academic freedom (these folks should read Marcuse!).  His work was refereed by Cambridge and he was awarded a Fellowship; it is beyond outrageous for outsiders, most of whom are ignorant of his work, but well-informed about and outraged by his politics, to call for an investigation into his appointment.   A public letter impugning his competence is, unless true, also defamatory, both in the U.S. and certainly in the U.K.  I hope he takes legal action.  Until these kind of reckless and politically motivated attacks meet with legal repercussions, we will continue to see them.  I'll be posting a list of academic philosophers who sign this letter; they deserve to be recognized for their contempt for academic freedom.

Great moments in obscure rock 'n' roll: Freedom's Children, "That Did It," 1971

South African band, almost entirely unkonwn outside the homeland, they began as a psycedelic band in the late 1960s, gradually transforming into a hard rock/progressive band in the 1970s.   Here's a representative tune from that period:

 

UCSD's Manuel Vargas interviewed by Clifford Sosis

Here.

CUNY's Miranda Fricker at the Oxford Review of Books

Here.

The Twitter cesspool

I wasn't surprised to learn that philosopher Kate Manne (Cornell) had given up on Twitter; I'm amazed she could bear it for as long as she did, since mindless ad hominem abuse is the normal form of interchange, conjoined with particular interest in abuse aimed at gender, race and religion.  Professor Manne had the particular misfortune to become the target of the "Jordan Peterson twitter army," which can't have been pleasant.

I was amused, though, to discover that Kant had written about Twitter in 1784:   "despite the apparent wisdom of individual actions here and there, everything as a whole is made up of folly and childish vanity, and often of childish malice and destructiveness."  (OK, actually he was talking about world history.)

I'm thinking of giving up on the medium myself; at a minimum, I'm going to stop engaging, it's pretty hopeless.  On one occasion, I attracted the Twitter Nazis (literal ones), who discovered my "Jew" article on free speech, and I then received more than a thousand abusive tweets over a day or two.  (These folks definitely didn't think I was "white"--more on that in a moment.)  I responded to no one, and blocked no one, and they moved on.  This is clearly the right approach.  

Ever since I had the temerity to call attention to Kathleen Stock's critical writings about issues raised by the gender recognition law in the U.K., I've been exposed to what seems to me an equally unhinged part of twitter:   the self-annointed "trans activists."  The rabid and unhinged Katja Thieme (British Columbia), for example,  declared me an "anti-trans activist" the other week.  Apart from calling attention to views she clearly deems unacceptable, whether those of Kathleen Stock or Leslie Green, my "anti-trans [sic] activism [sic]" is on full display here and here and here and here.   But she outdid herself more recently by comparing me to the sexual harassers and anti-semites I discussed here.  Unhappy, frenzied zealots and mediocrities like this thrive on Twitter.

That article of mine, on citation practices, produced a remarkable set of outbursts on Twitter, disproportionately focused on my (alleged) race and (actual) gender; some examples:

Nikki Usher, Associate Professor in the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University, called me "a generic University of Chicago white-dude scholar who defends honorifics for Nazis."  I pointed out to her that citations, at least in real disciplines, aren't "honorifics." 

Rose Casey, Assistant Professor of English at West Virginia University, after first mocking and insulting me on Twitter, responded to my blocking her by stating that, "We need less of this white male gatekeeping in academia."  When challenged by another tweeter what she meant, she explained that "he blocked me" and that, "He is gatekeeping my access to the institution in which he wields power (incl tenure) & in which I do not."  Put aside that I'm not in her field or at her institution, as someone else amusingly quipped in response:   "Who knew that blocking someone on Twitter could derail the tenure track."  Professor Casey's own social media performance is far more likely to gatekeep her out of the academy. 

Columbia students embarrass themselves, shutting down comic for "offensive" jokes

Pathetic.  If his jokes aren't funny, don't clap and move on.  But this is what happens when "inclusivity," which is profoundly subjective, is treated as an institutional objective.

Can machines be creative?

Philosopher and cognitive scientist Margaret Boden (Sussex) and others discuss.

Royal Society of New Zealand awards major grant to philosopher Watene

Dr Krushil Watene, senior lecturer in philosophy at Massey University, has been awarded a 2018 Rutherford Discovery Fellowship. The fellowship is awarded in support of her research on Intergenerational Justice, in which she is looking at how New Zealand Maori narrative describes obligations and decision-making involving other generations. Dr Watene’s Rutherford Discovery Fellowship, which provides NZ$800,000 in research funding over five years, is the first Rutherford ever awarded to a philosopher. The Royal Society of New Zealand awards ten Fellowships per year across all disciplines.

(Thanks to Adrian Rini for the information.)

Diversity blather watch: APA edition

A well-known senior philosopher elsewhere shared with me the latest fund-raising pitch from the APA, prefacing it with this:  "I renewed my membership this year, but I think it will be the last. Never would I think of making a contribution."

Here's the latest from the APA, below the fold (and here's an indication of issues that a lot of philosophers actually think are more important):

Universities ranked by membership in the American Academy of Arts & Sciences

The American Academy of Arts & Sciences (AAAS) is the somewhat less "selective" cousin of the National Academy of Sciences, which covers not only the NAS fields, but also the arts, humanities and social sciences (the latter get some representation in the NAS but not much).  (The AAAS is "more selective" than the comparable academies in, e.g., Britain and Canada, however, which elect far more members relative to the size of their university system than does AAAS.)  The AAAS is also the ultimate "popularity" contest, as existing members vote on new ones (on a scale of 1-4) and elections follow clear patterns of influence, as friends elected then get their other friends elected in subsequent years (I'll discuss this in more detail using philosophy as an example soon).   This accounts for the "rich get richer" pattern of AAAS elections and also the sometimes shocking omissions (e.g., in philosophy, Henry Allison and Larry Laudan--they didn't have the right friends apparently).   The AAAS was closely tied to Harvard from its origin, so unsurprisingly Harvard dominates membership, even to this day:  someone who reaches the age of 70 at Harvard without being elected must really be someone not well-liked or respected by his or her colleagues (Alan Dershowitz, now emeritus at Harvard Law School, is an example).   There are several medical-related sections in the AAAS, so I've again marked those schools that lack a medical school (or only just added one) with an *; schools with an especially high-powered medical school are marked with an #.

1.  #Harvard University (490)

2.  #Stanford University (296)

3.  *Massachussetts Institute of Technology (238)

4.  *University of California, Berkeley (227)

5.  *Princeton University (197)

6.  University of Chicago (196)

7.  Columbia University (192)

8.  Yale University (181)

9.  New York University (139)

10.  University of California, Los Angeles (127)

11.  Cornell University (93)

12.  Northwestern University (87)

12.  University of California, San Diego (87)

14.  University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (85)

15.  *California Institute of Technology (79)

16.  #University of Pennsylvania (74)

17.  University of Wisconsin, Madison (67)

18.  #University of California, San Francisco (66)

19.  #Duke University (59)

20.  #Johns Hopkins University (56)

21.  #University of Washington, Seattle (55)

22.  Brown University (40)

23.  *University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (39)

24.  University of Virginia (38)

25.  *University of Texas, Austin (35)

26.  #Washington University, St. Louis (34)

27.  University of California, Irvine (33)

28.  *University of California, Santa Barbara (32)

29.  University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (31)

30.   Indiana University, Bloomington (29)

I didn't survey enough schools to extend the ranking beyond the top thirty, but here are some other schools I did check:

Best philosophy book publishers in English? (UPDATED)

MOVING TO FRONT FROM YESTERDAY

We haven't done this in about five years, so here goes:  rank these publishers by the quality of their catalogue of philosophy books in English.  Some, of course, publish more than others, so think of this in terms of something like per capita quality as it were:  if a book appears from this publisher, is it likely to be a good, worthwihle book?

UPDATE:  In view of the pattern of strategic voting for MIT Press it may be necessary to drop it from the results.  Cut it out. 

ANOTHER UPDATE:  I've closed the poll, the results are garbage.  The strategic voting for MIT Press has now been outdone by strategic voting for University of Chicago Press.  Before the mischief set in, Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Princeton, and Routledge, more or less in that order, were the top five.   A notable result, even despite the strategic voting at the high end, was that Palgrave MacMillan did quite well, "top ten-ish," as it were.  That's consistent with what does seem to be a strong set of authors/books in the last couple of years.   Since these polls have become so important that some folks now feel the need to fuck them up I guess the only alternative will be private polls, with invited respondents.  This will take more work, so won't happen soon, but at least the results will be better.

Cheesehead fascists, i.e., Wisconsin Repugs, take steps to undo effect of election they lost

This is America in 2018.  We saw the same move by the Repugs in North Carolina.   This isn't "normal" politics:  this is what fascist gangsters do first, before they turn to cracking people's skulls.

No doubt there exist Republicans who don't want to be repugnant human beings:  you better make yourself heard, because time is running out.

Colorado summer seminar in philosophy for advanced undergraduates...

...is now accepting applications!

Fascists force the CEU out of Hungary, but the CEU will continue in Vienna!

Philosopher Tim Crane (CEU) writes:

Today the CEU announced at a press conference that, since the Hungarian government has still not signed the agreement that its own officials negotiated with the State of New York in 2017, the University will now be definitely transferring many of its activities to Vienna, starting from the academic year 2019-20. The details of this dismal state of affairs are here: https://www.ceu.edu/article/2018-12-03/ceu-forced-out-budapest-launch-us-degree-programs-vienna-september-2019. 

Contrary to what has been suggested in some media outlets, the CEU is not closing. And we will be actively recruiting new MA and PhD students in philosophy to start with us in Vienna in 2019. The deadline is 31 January 2019. More details can be found here: https://www.ceu.edu/article/2018-10-05/ceu-applications-now-open-2019-2020. I’m very happy to answer questions from prospective applicants. My email can be found at https://philosophy.ceu.edu/people/tim-crane-0

Patrick O'Connor, the Chair of Temple's Board, is a disgrace...

...and a fascist.

Sex is not a social construct

Another excellent essay by philosopher Alex Byrne (MIT); particularly delicious and amusing is the analysis of Judith Butler's "argument."  This is the kind of writing that makes one remember what can be so good about analytic philosophy's intellectual hygiene.

From studying philosophy at Princeton to cooking Nigerian cuisine in London...

...and earning a Michelin star.

(Thanks to Joseph Shieber for the pointer.)

APA continues to dole out resources based on the idea that the racial, ethnic and gender diversity of the profession is the most important issue

Same old, same old.   A couple of these are good programs, but the APA needs to pursue some "diversity" in what it funds.  If you applied, but didn't get funding, I'd be interested to hear about your project.  I can share it with or without identifying information about the philosophers involved, but it might be useful for people in the profession to know what the APA is passing over.  (Perhaps no other good proposals are being submitted?)

ADDENDUM:  A reader (who asked not to be acknowledged) points out that at the "safe space" blog a reader made exactly the point, above, only to be lectured to condescendingly by Justin Weinberg; that sanctimonious weasel is true to form.

Aaron Troodler of the National Council of Young Israel is a fascist...

...because fascists always want those who express verboten views harmed and sanctioned.  Will Temple University cave in to the fascists?  We'll have to see.  In the interim, the  senior administrators might read this and learn how professionals respond to these mobs.

(Thanks to Ruchira Paul for the pointer.)

ADDENDUM: Is this the same Aaron Troodler?

Diary of capitalist decline: Paris edition December 2018

Their President isn't a monster-child, but the underlying facts are the same.

Former U.S. President George H.W. Bush

As readers will no doubt be aware, he passed away yesterday, age 94.  I haven't much to say about him.  He was the last of the "Wall Street Republicans" to be President; he came of age in a Republican Party that had not yet completely ceded to the Democrats the role of "prudent wing of the ruling class."  Obviously compared to the current monster-child in the White House he appears almost saintly.  One very good thing he did was sign the American with Disabilities Act, which makes America much better than many generally more social-democratic Western democracies in terms of requiring accomodations for those with disabilities, physical and mental.

Great moments in obscure rock 'n' roll: The Apryl Fool, "April Blues," 1969

Japanese psychedelic blues band, recorded one album, from which this instrumental comes:

 

New Books in November

Authors and/or publishers kindly sent me these new books this month:

The Problem of War:  Darwinism, Christianity, and Their Battle to Understand Human Conflict by Michael Ruse (Oxford University Press, 2019).

Philosophers in the Classroom:  Essays on Teaching edited by Steven M. Cahn, Alexandra Bradner & Andrew Mills (Hackett, 2018).

New Critical Thinking:  What Wittgenstein Offered by Sean Wilson (Lexington Books, 2018).

Aristotle's Rhetoric, trans. with intro. and notes by C.D.C. Reeve (Hackett, 2018).

Equal Citizenship and Public Reason:  A Feminist Political Liberalism by Lori Watson & Christie Hartley (Oxford University Press, 2018).

Pragmatic Naturalism:  Scienticif and Social Inquiry After Representationalism edited by Matthew Bagger (Columbia University Press, 2018).

War Crimes:  Causes, Excuses, and Blame by Matthew Talbert & Jessica Wolfendale (Oxford University Press, 2019).

H.L.A. Hart by Matthew H. Kramer (Polity, 2018).

Doing Philosophy:  From Common Curiosity to Logical Reasoning by Timothy Williamson (Oxford University Press, 2018).

From Psychology to Morality:  Essays in Ethical Naturalism by John Deigh (Oxford University Press, 2018).

Hobbes on Politics & Religion edited by Laurens van Apeldoorn & Robin Douglas (Oxford University Press, 2018).

Gods and Robots:  Myths, Machines, and Ancient Dreams of Technology by Adrienne Mayor (Princeton University Press, 2018).

How History Gets Things Wrong:  The Neuroscience of Our Addiction to Stories by Alex Rosenberg (MIT Press, 2018).

The Retrieval of Liberalism in Policing by Luke William Hunt (Oxford University Press, 2019).

Philosophy degrees, national trends

Undergraduate degrees awarded stabilizes (while History and English continue to decline)--analysis from philosopher Eric Schwitzgebel (UC Riverside).

Melissa Merrit (New South Wales) interviewed...

...at 3AM.

How the Zionist thought police work

A remarkable case study.  That view cannot even be expressed in America.

In Memoriam: John Tienson (1940-2018)

A longtime member of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Memphis, Professor Tienson was perhpas best-known for his work in philosophy of mind and cognitive science.  There is a memorial notice from the Memphis department here.

Hobbes Studies: what should be the standard edition of 'Leviathan'?

S.A. Lloyd (USC) and A.P. Martinich (Texas) have issued the following open letter, which seems to me pretty sensible:

Noel Malcolm’s recent scholarly three volume Clarendon edition of Hobbes’s Leviathan is without question an immensely valuable resource for Hobbes studies. We scholars appreciate having the English and Latin texts face to face, along with Malcolm’s annotations. What should be in question is whether requiring all scholars to refer to it facilitates, or instead burdens, our own work, and the efforts of many of us to stimulate broader interest in Hobbes studies.

Access to this Clarendon edition is de facto restricted to those who are elite or to those who are wealthy. It is available for purchase for US $375, a prohibitive cost for most people. Some university libraries in the developed world have bought a single edition to be shared amongst the entire faculty, but most college or university libraries have no edition at all. The volume cannot serve as a common reference point because so few enjoy access to it. Professors cannot teach using it because students cannot access it. Functionally, no one in the developing world could follow along with our arguments were we to have to make our references to the Clarendon volume.

This edition is also physically burdensome, weighing in at 7 pounds, too heavy to carry in a backpack or purse to class or to the coffeehouse. All that weight is unnecessary, because most people do not need, even if they were able, to simultaneously survey the Latin.

A system of reference to Leviathan by chapter and paragraph number, and/or 1651 page number, would enable the largest audience for Hobbes studies, regardless of social or economic status. All the good and widely used editions, including those of MacPherson, Tuck , Curley, Gaskin, Martinich, and now Malcolm, provide 1651 numbers; and almost all have paragraph numbers (which readers themselves can add to any edition). 1651 pages are so widely included that requiring them as the standard reference convention has none of the defects of using Clarendon edition page numbers.

In the interests both of fairness to scholars, and of expanding accessibility to Hobbes for a larger public, we urge scholars to refer to Leviathan with numbers to chapters and paragraphs and/or pages as they occur in an edition of 1651. We urge editors not to require their contributors to include page references to the Clarendon edition.

S.A Lloyd and A.P. Martinich

(Thanks to Michael Sevel for the pointer.)

UPDATE:  OUP Philosophy editor Peter Momtchiloff writes with some useful information:  "I notice the post about Lloyd and Martinich on Noel Malcolm’s Leviathan.  It is strange that they do not mention the paperback version, which is available for one-third of the hardback price which they cite.  The edition is also available online at any institutions which subscribe to Oxford Scholarly Editions Online."

 

Philosophy grad school dropout becomes YouTube sensation taking on the weird and reactionary corners of cyberspace

That's Natalie Wynn, recently profiled in The New Yorker.  She had previously been a PhD student in philosophy at Northwestern, clearly in the "Continental" side of that department judging from some of the things she says about philosophy in her videos.  She is genuinely quite funny at times (her humor is very clearly not "politcally correct"), and puts a lot of work into researching her topics (and producing her videos):  see, e.g., her explanation of "Incel" culture on the Internet, or her takedown of Jordan Peterson.

On the possible need for pseudonymous publication given self-censorship in academia

A different view of the issue du jour.

(Thanks to Mohan Matthen for the pointer.)

Markus Gabriel did not like Gregg Caruso & Owen Flanagan's edited book "Neuroexistentialism"

For our on-going series of wicked book reviews, an excerpt:

Caruso and Flanagan make lots of big claims as if they expressed generally accepted and scientifically grounded facts, such as "the mind is the brain" (p. 4) or that

for most ordinary folk and many members of the nonscientific academy, the idea that humans are animals and that the mind is the brain is destabilizing and disenchanting, quite possibly nauseating, a source of dread, fear, and trembling, sickness unto death even. (pp. 4f.)

To my mind, this sentence at best resembles an involuntary caricature of existentialism. On what grounds do they make such claims? Did they carry out surveys (and how on earth can they warrant their bold assertion that the "existentialists were sociologically naïve" (p. 15))? Do they realize that pretty much no one in the history of philosophy ever doubted that humans are animals? Are they aware that Hegel, for example, in his philosophy of nature in the Encyclopedia argues that there can be no "Geist" (no mindedness) without neural circuits, which was, of course, a known fact for centuries before the introduction of the very idea of the humanities or "Geisteswissenschaften," as they are called in my neck of the woods? Neuroexistentialism is supposed to be a consequence of such insights as "the universe is causally closed, and the mind is the brain." (p. 8) However, how do Caruso and Flanagan know these extraordinary facts given that science is nowhere near having settled such large metaphysical issues? Neuroscience, as I know it from my own collaborations with neuroscientists, has not discovered that the mind is the brain. For one thing, it is not. At most, mental processes are associated with certain subsystems of the brain. Be that as it may, Caruso and Flanagan write as if the hard problem of consciousness were solved or as if we knew what the minimal neural correlate of consciousness was (we do not). They seem to be aware of the fact that their scientific claims are, to put it mildly, exaggerations of the current state of scientific knowledge, as is evidenced by their more cautious (but still erroneous, or at least completely unsubstantiated) claim that "mind-science advances under the guidance of the regulative idea that the mind is the brain" (p. 9).

Campaign of harassment and defamation of philosopher Kathleen Stock (Sussex) continues...

...now because of this e-mail.

Blast from the past: "What is an 'area of competence'?"

Back in 2007.

Diversity blather watch

Law professor Noah Feldman (Harvard) makes several of the points I've made previously.

(Thanks to Jake Fraser for the pointer.)

Philosophy, and boredom, in prison

Philosopher Kirstine Szifris (Manchester Metropolitan) comments.

 

Temple's Espen Hammer interviewed...

...at 3AM.

"Fake Nous"

Philosopher Mike Huemer (Colorado) has started a blog.  Unlike the other philosophy blog with "Nous" in its name, this one will certainly not be a "safe space" blog.

Reviewer #2

Thanks to philosopher Clayton Littlejohn (KCL) for the brilliant image: