Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

Tories lay the legislative foundation for a substantial erosion of democracy in the UK

Not all these bills are equally bad, but 1 through 4, by themselves, would do substantial damage.  Curious if UK readers have more insight into how likely these are to pass and whether they are as dangerous as some of them seem to be?

"Nietzsche on Morality" (2nd edition) now available in Japanese...

...thanks to the great work of Yuma Oto.  Dr. Oto tells me that, "The Japanese title is 『ニーチェの道徳哲学と自然主義: 『道徳の系譜学』を読み解く』(which means, Nietzsche’s Moral Philosophy and Naturalism: Reading On the Genealogy of Morality)."  It's available on Japanese Amazon.

 

Richard Marshall interviews Wilhelm Dilthey (Berlin)...

...at 3:16 AM.

Latest fad in reactionary religious mischief: empowering parents to destroy public education

First in Oklahoma, now Texas:

Under the Parent Bill of Rights, Abbott said any educator convicted of providing minors with "obscene" content will lose their educational credentials and state licensing, forfeit their retirement benefits and will be placed on a "do not hire" list. The state will also require schools to post the bill online for parents to access....

You can guess which books will be deemed obscene.

"Gengis Khan--Hero of religious freedom?"

And popular with the Founding Fathers too.  Who knew?

The saga of Anna Stubblefield: the movie?

Curious (scroll down to Andrew Bluestone).  (Earlier coverage.)

(Thanks to Rhys Southan for the pointer.)

Troubles at the Liberty Fund?

An informative piece of reporting about some tragic events and what they reveal about the direction of the right-leaning Liberty Fund.  Many philosophers will have participated in Liberty Fund events, although unlike, say, Social Philosophy & Policy conferences, the Liberty Fund has tended to invite more marginal figures on the right end of the spectrum, which may be why it has never been as influential in academic philosophy.  I have heard good reports, however, from some philosophers in the past, so it would be a loss if it is veering off in a less intellectual direction and more mindlessly partisan political direction.

Pollitt on Srinivasan at Dissent

This is one of the more interesting reviews (both appropriately complimentary and intelligently critical) of Amia Srinivasan's The Right to Sex, by Katha Pollitt, the longtime feminist critic at The Nation (here writing in Dissent); an excerpt:

The Right to Sex is clever, well-written, and worth reading, but I don’t quite understand why it’s received so much attention....There’s almost nothing about marriage, motherhood, child care, equality with men in the workplace, domestic labor, political representation, reproductive rights, misogynist culture, women’s health, the medical pathologizing of women’s bodies and minds, the continuing power of sexism to shape women’s expectations and behavior from birth, and the myriad obvious or subtle ways so many women are pushed, little by little, into becoming the support system for a man. The urgent and growing threat of fundamentalist religion and semi-fascist nationalist movements around the world goes unmentioned, as do the millions of mothers who were forced out of their jobs, some permanently, when the pandemic closed day-care centers and schools. It’s a truism of reviewing that you have to permit a writer her choice of subject; you can’t blame her for not writing a different book...Still, I found myself wondering if the most important issues in the lives of most women have been around so long, with so little fundamental improvement, that we’d just rather talk about something else. Like incels and pornography and professors who sleep with their students.

Is the U.S. heading for civil war?

Informative (and appropriately skeptical) interview with political scientist Barbara F. Walter (UCSD).

"Systemic racism" as an (uninformative) Aristotelian explanation for racial disparities

Philosopher Matt Lutz (Wuhan) comments.

Supreme Court will hear challenges to affirmative action in admissions at public and private universisties

Politico has the basic details here.  As I've noted in the past, I do expect this Supreme Court to end affirmative action in higher education admissions.  And now we can say when this will happen:  in 2023.  I taught at the University of Texas during the Hopwood years (when affirmative action was unlawful in the 5th Circuit), and the state's response was to take advantage (as it were) of the state's segregated high schools to continue to insure racial and ethnic diversity in colleges by mandating that the top 10% of each high school class was entitled to admission at a public university.  This actually had the desired effect, but not every state has this kind of alternative available, and of those that do, I suspect fewer will want to utilize it now.  The elimination of affirmative action will probably help accelerate some other trends, like the de-emphasis on standardized testing, among other things.

Blast from the past: Fish v. Boghossian on relativism in the NYT

Back in 2011, with a discussion by readers.

Federal judge holds that University of Florida cannot block professors from testifying

This is good news:

In an opinion that referenced Communist China, Walker sounded baffled at times by arguments the university had put forward in defense of its policy. UF claimed to have “unlimited discretion” to restrict professors’ speech if it determined the speech “would harm an ill-defined’ ‘interest’ of the university.”

“It’s worth pausing to note just how shocking the defendants’ position is,” the judge wrote....

In his opinion, the judge blasted the university for taking the “remarkable position” that professors might not have a First Amendment right to testify about topics related to their expertise against the state while working at UF. In so arguing, Walker wrote, university officials had “denigrated their own professors as being no better than two-faced mercenaries when they seek to testify as experts in their field in cases challenging Florida law.”

Jeff McMahan (Oxford) talks about Derek Parfit...

...at Brain in a Vat.

The "metaphysics" in Pippin's Hegel

As we saw, Pippin's Hegel has been influential in the scholarly literature, and this short essay gives a nice capsule summary of his view.   I'm not sure it's actually Hegel, though; Charles Taylor's Hegel (also influential) is more plausible as an interpretation in some respects, as are Frederick Beiser's and Michael Forster's interpretations.  Pippin's reading has many attractions, and has had a strong influence on the "Pittsburgh Hegel."

Great moments in obscure rock 'n' roll: Steamhammer, "When All Your Friends are Gone," 1969

Part of the British blues explosion (and one of our "top five" finds in 2021), here they are live on the German show Beat Club performing a great number from their debut album:

 

Peter Singer comes out as a moral realist and hedonist...

...in this podcast.  The Swedish moral philosopher Torbjörn Tännsjö (also in the podcast) writes:  

Peter Singer and I have had similar views on many topics, but while he has been a prescriptivist I have for decades been a moral realist, and while he has been a preferantialist, I have also for decades been a hedonist. He now agrees with me on both these accounts. The latter should be of importance for his view on disability. We discuss this at the end of this podcast.

Now Professor Singer has two more mistaken views!

(Just to be clear, Singer has embraced these views in print previously, but now it's official, since it's a podcast!)

Battle of the economists: Judd v. Heckman

Aggrieved authors (Judd) are not the most reliable sources, but Heckman and others gave permission to share the correspondence about the disputed article.  Judd doesn't seem to realize that he does not come off well in this exchange.  Very weird!

Driverless trucks are coming

That will mean the loss of about three million well-paying human jobs that do not require a college degree.

CDC guidelines give the unvaccinated substantial priority for antiviral treatments for Covid

MOVING TO FRONT FROM YESTERDAY--INFORMATIVE DISCUSSION IN THE COMMENTS!

This seems surprising; an excerpt:

Current therapies such as Sotrovimab, a monoclonal antibody with activity against omicron, and the oral agents, Paxlovid, and Molnupiravir, exist in very short supply. Already the demand has far outstripped our capacities raising the specter of rationing and a host of medical, social and ethical issues. 

The use and administration of these therapies — funded by the federal government without cost to the end user — are governed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and state prioritizations. Although immunosuppressed patients are appropriately atop the list, most unvaccinated patients will be granted the next highest level of priority.  

For example, a 35-year-old unvaccinated former smoker with asthma gains priority over a 66-year-old vaccinated cancer patient. Similarly, an unvaccinated 25-year-old smoker with depression takes precedence over a 64-year-old vaccinated patient with chronic pulmonary disease. Indeed, the highest priority on the CDC list does not include a single profile of vaccinated patients other than the immunosuppressed, regardless of other comorbidities. Based on current supplies, unvaccinated patients will receive most of these lifesaving medications.  

Beyond its inherent unfairness, the decision to prioritize unvaccinated patients for scarce therapies is based on assumptions regarding risk factors, and the data regarding which risk factors contribute to a poor prognosis is weak at best. It is this very paucity of evidence that explains the lack of clear prioritizations in the initial vaccine rollout. 

I'm curious what readers, and especially those working in and around bioethics, think about this.

Most cited Anglophone books on Hegel and on Nietzsche...

...according to Google Scholar.

Total citations--Hegel books in English

Rank	Author	Book	Year published	Citations
1	Charles Taylor (McGill, emeritus)	Hegel and Modern Society	1979	1480
2	Robert Pippin (Chicago)	Hegel’s Idealism	1989	1260
3	Terry Pinkard (Georgetown)	Hegel’s Phenomenology:  The Sociality of Reason	1994	1120
4	Allen Wood (Indiana)	Hegel’s Ethics	1990	1110
5	Robert Pippin (Chicago)	Hegel’s Practical Philosophy	2008	760

Citations by year

Rank	Author	Book	Year published	Citations per year since publication
1	Robert Pippin (Chicago)	Hegel’s Practical Philosophy	2008	59
2	Frederick Neuhouser (Barnard/Columbia)	Foundations of Hegel’s Social Theory	2009	53
3	Terry Pinkard (Georgetown)	Hegel’s Phenomenology:  The Sociality of Reason	1994	42
4	Robert Pippin (Chicago)	Hegel’s Idealism	1989	39
5	Allen Wood (Indiana)	Hegel’s Ethical Thought	1990	36

Blast from the past: most important philosophers of language since WWII

Back in 2016, with a discussion of the results.

America is doomed, an ongoing saga

During 2021, American voter party identification shifted from the Democrats to Republicans. 

"Civic engagement" projects in philosophy classes

Philosopher Mylan Engel, Jr. (Northern Illinois) discusses his pedagogical approach.

"Science can't state all the facts"

Philosopher Tim Crane (CEU) discusses at IAITV.

Richard Marshall interviews Nancy Sherman (Georgetown)...

...at 3:16 AM.

A newly discovered 1964 speech by Dr. King about the civil rights struggle in the U.S. and apartheid in South Africa

At Democracy Now.

AFA letter to Penn regarding Amy Wax

Here.

UPDATE:  The Penn Law Dean has announced today that he will initiate a process that could result in sanction of Professor Wax (what that sanction might be is unclear).

Lawyer for University of Florida in First Amendment case has a bad day in court

A propos this, this latest development is rather amusing:

H. Christopher Bartolomucci, a partner at a Washington D.C.-based firm representing the UF defendants, threw a curveball. Bartolomucci, of Schaerr Jaffe LLP, told the court that “just two days ago” facts came to their attention that “should fundamentally change” how the court views this case....

“We now know,” he said, that Smith, Austin, and McDonald [the UF political science professors whose request to be expert witnesses against the state in voting rights litigation] were actively working as experts before they submitted their requests, and that they continued to work as experts after the university denied their requests. Bartolomucci proceeded to recite a number of dates on which the scholars had contributed to work on the litigation.

Yet these facts are “nowhere to be found” in the plaintiffs’ complaint or in their submitted declarations, Bartolomucci said. They have “misled” their employer, the defense counsel, and this court, he said. And their “misconduct,” he said, affects the case in several ways. For one, the plaintiffs have “unclean hands,” he said. Also, “there’s no chilling effect,” as the plaintiffs have argued, because “the policy didn’t chill them.”...

Walker, the judge, was clearly taken aback by Bartolomucci’s abrupt turn. The judge said he was “perplexed” that Bartolomucci would suggest these were newly discoverable facts when the defense had not formally asked for discovery, and the information, as far as the judge could tell, was all part of the public record. “I gotta say, I’m flummoxed.” He pressed Bartolomucci on how this was possible....

"Virtual reality" and reality

Philosopher David Chalmers (NYU) thinks the distinction will go away.  I'm skeptical...

Skrymsian Signalling Simulations

Now you can run them yourself.

Ahmed, Bertram, Bird

Philosopher Arif Ahmed (Cambridge) complains in Unherd about ideological indoctrination at the universities.  Philosopher Chris Bertram (emeritus, Bristol), who keeps track of scholars who write for publications with "incorrect" views, tweets:

Alexander Bird, a Cambridge philosopher, replies:

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

Back in 2018.  Many readers voted for MLK, unsurprisingly.

"A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies."

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. at Riverside Church in Manhattan, April 4, 1967:

Unfortunately, there has been no "revolution in values," except perhaps a counter-revolution.  As a 19th-century German thinker might observe, there can be no revolution in values without a revolution in material circumstances.

The classics "boom" in China

That's the good news--the bad news is that there's also strong interest in Leo Strauss. 

(Thanks to Chris Morris for the pointer.)

An interview with the psychologist Richard Nisbett

Nisbett's work has been important for many philosophers. He talks about his recent memoir at The Brains Blog.

 

Great moments in obscure rock 'n' roll: Epitaph, "Changing World," 1971

German progressive rock band, this is the concluding track on their debut album:

 

Smarmy Jonathan Ichikawa still dissembling

Somehow Ichikawa (part of the miscreant team from Vancouver) thinks that the unfortunate disagreement (and, in part, misunderstanding) between the PGR editors, Professors Brogaard and Pynes, and Wiley-Blackwell, shows that I'm not honest (!).  (A reader sent me his tweet [we are mutually blocked on Twitter] stating, "Brian Leiter is not an honest person, and the PGR is intellectually bankrupt.")  Since I literally have nothing do with any of this (I appointed Brogaard as a co-editor in 2014, and then Pynes as another co-editor for 2017, at which point they were in charge, and I have only offered them advice about the PGR when asked, and that's it), this really is a stretch even by Ichihkawa's standards of dishonesty, which are, to be sure, peerless.  (Recall that when Ichikawa and Carrie Jenkins were challenged over their defamation of me, their own lawyer would not defend their statements as true [see #5], arguing only that they were "lawful.")

There are two other ironies here, beyond the "pot calling the kettle black."

Do Graeber and Wengrow know what they're talking about in "The Dawn of Everything"

MOVING TO FRONT, ORIGINALLY POSTED JANUARY 6--CONTINUING, INTERESTING DISCUSSION!

When it comes to Rousseau and French Enlightenment, not at all.  Their mistakes conform to Graeber's ideological agenda, however, which has to raise a red flag about the rest of their story.   I'm curious whether readers have seen scholarly assessments of the archaeological claims in the book?

Lottocracy...

...at Vox.  An excerpt:

Representatives selected by lot don’t have to campaign and don’t need campaign funds, goes the argument, limiting opportunities for corruption. As [Alex] Guerrero [Rutgers] puts it, “Lotteries excel at preventing corruption or undue influence in the selection of representatives.”

(Thanks to Phil Gasper for the pointer.)

U.S. Free Speech Union calls out proposed Oklahoma legislation that would turn every parent into a state-appointed censor of school libraries

Really wild, even by the standards of the ass-backwards parts of America.

Galen Strawson on moral responsibility, free will, and other illusions...

...at IAITV.

Difficulty accessing the blog via Google Chrome?

I got several reports from earlier today from readers in different parts of the globe about being unable to access the blog using Google Chrome, but being able to access it with other browers.  A reader on Twitter now tells me he is able to access it via Google Chrome, so the problem may be over.   You can comment here if Google Chrome still does not work for you (it's 11:10 am in Chicago), but other browers do.  Thank you.  (You can also email me at bleiter-at-uchicago-dot-edu.)

Seven philosophers win NEH Fellowships (or equivalent) for "advanced research in humanities" (CORRECTED)

MOVING TO FRONT FROM YESTERDAY--CORRECTED

They are:   Sara Bernstein (Notre Dame), Teresa Kouri Kissel (Old Dominion), Lisa Miracchi (Penn), James Reid (Metropolitan State U), Joseph Stenberg (San Jose State), Thomas Ward (Baylor), and Rachel Zuckert (Northwestern). 

(Note:  this year, for the first time I've seen, there are two categories of awards for 'advanced research in the humanities" (usually meaning writing a book):  the traditional Fellowships (that I've always noted) and "Awards for Faculty" which are essentially Fellowships, but reserved for faculty who teach at historically Black colleges, or primarily Hispanic-serving or Tribal-serving colleges.)

(Thanks to Bob Pasnau and Abe Roth for corrections.)

 

A note on Carolyn Dicey Jennings and her compilation of placement data

Professor Jennings (UC Merced) gets credit for being the only person to not simply grouse about the PGR rankings (although she does plenty of that), but to actually try to offer an alternative resource--kudos to her for that.   The job placement data she and her team collect are useful, but she chooses to present some of it in a tendentious and misleading way, as I (and others) have noted before:  she treats placement success as landing a tenure-track job your first year out on the market, thus failing to distinguish between getting a postoc (even a fabulous postdoc) and getting nothing.  As many have also noted ad nauseam, by now, job placement data is a backward-looking measure:  Southern California didn't have very good job placement when the PGR first recorded the department's rise, now it does (which is why PGR rank correlates pretty well with tenure-track placement a few years later). I would urge students to examine the raw data on placement, not the tendentious rating of placement success.  (Of course, the reason all departments post placement data is because I "cajoled" them into doing so twenty years ago.)

The "student reputation" data Jennings et al. collect, by contrast, is far more dubious. 

Students should be aware that Professor Jennings has a history of producing extremely misleading placement rankings; of trying to use data to attack her enemies; and of not having a good command of statistics (here and here).   The recent work, fortunately, looks better, subject to the reservations noted above.

Emory Law Journal's rejection of an invited symposium piece as "hurtful" and "divisive"

There's more at my law school blog.  Note that the Emory Law Journal is edited by students, not faculty; as often happens with student-edited law reviews, they have no idea what they are doing.

America is doomed, part 415: even the Canadians think so!

A sobering (but not surprising) read; an excerpt:

By 2025, American democracy could collapse, causing extreme domestic political instability, including widespread civil violence. By 2030, if not sooner, the country could be governed by a right-wing dictatorship....

I’m a scholar of violent conflict. For more than 40 years, I’ve studied and published on the causes of war, social breakdown, revolution, ethnic violence and genocide, and for nearly two decades I led a centre on peace and conflict studies at the University of Toronto.

Today, as I watch the unfolding crisis in the United States, I see a political and social landscape flashing with warning signals.

 

Blast from the past: when English professor Jennifer Doyle (UC Riverside) actually came to the defense of Judith Butler's defense of Avital Ronell

Back in 2018.  I still puzzle about how people like this made it into universities, since it's all so crazy.

"What is happiness?"

Interesting CHE interview about a course taught by philosopher Bernard Reginster (Brown) and one of his colleagues in psychology.  As Professor Reginster aptly says:

On the one hand, the empirical investigation of a topic like happiness is only going to be as good as the initial conceptualization that frames the hypothesis guiding the inquiry. If you ask the wrong questions, the answers you get are not going to be very helpful. On the other hand, if the hypothesis your initial conceptualization supplied isn’t confirmed by empirical inquiries, then your initial conceptualization probably missed something.

Blast from the past: The "slave revolt" in philosophy, redux

Back in 2016 (with a new PGR, it is timely again).