Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

Alan Dershowitz sued for defamation by victim of billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein

I hope this one doesn't settle, as others have.  The plaintiff is represented by a powerhouse law firm.  From the complaint:

19. Dershowitz has repeatedly, publically claimed that he wanted to have a trial that would determine the facts concerning his conduct. He said on national television that he would waive the statute of limitations so that Roberts could sue him for sex abuse. However, when Robert’s counsel asked Dershowitz to do so, Dershowitz refused -- and continues to refuse.
20. Similarly, when Dershowitz was faced with an actual case brought by Edwards and Cassell which would have determined the veracity of Roberts’ claims, Dershowitz settled to avoid that determination.
21. More recently, Dershowitz, perhaps believing that Roberts who is now living with her husband and children in Australia would not be prepared to engage in litigation, has again taken to claiming publically that he demands a trial on the question of whether Roberts committed perjury and made up her statements about him for money. For example on March 2, 2019: My “accusers are Virginia Roberts and Sarah Ransome…I hereby accuse my false accusers of committing the felony of perjury and challenge them to sue me for defamation.” (Exhibit 6).
22. Mr. Dershowitz now has what he claims to have been looking for

I wonder whether the defense will try to establish a Dershowitz "modus operandi" by calling Noam Chomsky or Norman Finkelstein to testify?  (Just kidding, but that would be priceless.)

Andrea Dworkin on Bill, Hillary, and Monica Lewinsky...back in 1998

Following some links from friends on Twitter, I came upon this old essay, which has, indeed, aged well, and is scathing and funny at he same time.

Terlazzo from Kansas State to Rochester

Rose Terlazzo (moral & politcial philosophy), Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Kansas State University, has accepted a tenured offer as Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Rochester for 2019-20.

Five philosophers elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences

They are:  Anita Allen (Penn), Nancy Fraser (New School), Clark Glymour (Carnegie-Mellon), Brad Inwood (Yale), and Tommie Shelby (Harvard).  This is a more reasonable outcome than one might have expected given the issues noted last fall, although I can report that many at least as worthy candidates on the inital ballot were not elected this time around (of those, one was a woman [but not a feminist philosopher, but clearly a leader in her field], while the others were all men).  (The new way the AAAS is listing the newly elected members is much harder to decipher than in the past; I hope they'll fix it!)

ADDENDUM:  Enrique Dussell (UNAM) was also elected, although it's unclear whether it was for his work in theology or in philosophy--philosophy is conjoined with "religious studies" as a section of the Academy.  My recollection is that he was not on the philosophy ballot from the fall, but I may be wrong.

Wolff on "The Future of Socialism," Part Three

Here.

What crime did British jihadists commit?

Philosopher Cecile Fabre (Oxford) comments.

From the annals of American apartheid

Philosopher David Livingstone Smith (New England), something of an expert on the consequences of dehumanizing brutality by our species, shared this excerpt from the book he is currently working on and which he kindly gave permission to share (the bit below the fold is beyond ghastly, be forewarned, but it helps explain why the "American" approach was too much even for Hitler):

Claude Neal was a twenty-three-year-old Black man who lived in Marianna, on the Florida panhandle. On October 19, 1934, Neal was arrested and charged the murder of a nineteen-year-old White woman. In the wee hours of October 26, a group of men burst into the jail where Neal was being held and took him away to a remote spot in the North Florida pine woods, where they tortured and killed him. The NAACP sent a representative named Howard Kester to Marianna to investigate. Perhaps because he was a White man, Kester found a member of the mob who was willing to tell him what happened that night. Here’s an excerpt from Kester’s report:

Santorio from UC San Diego to Maryland

Paolo Santorio (philosophy of language and mind, philosophical logic), Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, San Diego, has accepted a tenured offer from the Department of Philosophy at the University of Maryland, College Park for 2019-20.

Pickard & Phillips from Birmingham to Johns Hopkins

Hanna Pickard (philosophy of psychology, moral psychology, medical ethics) and Ian Phillips (philosophy of mind & psychology), both currently Professors of Philosophy at the University of Birmingham, have accepted appointments as interdisciplinary Bloomberg Distinguished Professors at Johns Hopkins University.  In addition to tenured appointments in the Department of Philosophy, Pickard will also hold an appointment in the Berman Institute of Bioethics in the School of Medicine, while Phillips will also hold an appointment in Psychological and Brain Sciences.   These are the first two appointments as part of the expansion of the department of philosophy made possible by the Miller gift last year, and they certainly mark a very good start!

In praise of a good philosophical fight

A very amusing essay by my colleague Agnes Callard.

Brexit and the "will of the people"

Christian List (LSE) comments.

"Amherst Lecture in Philosophy"

An annual event since 2006, it appears, the lectures (typescripts, audios, photos) are all available on-line here.

(Thanks to Bob Gamboa for the pointer.)

Twitter may be a cesspool, but Redditt may even be worse...

...and especially in this respect.

Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris on fire...

...and the main spire has collapsed after burning.  (This is a link to live coverage.)  Pretty shocking for all those who, at some point in their lives, visited this iconic Paris landmark.  I first went there as a child in 1975, and have visited several times since.  Awful images.

Blast from the past: by what time on April 15 must students accept admissions offers?

We discussed it back in 2017.

Robert Paul Wolff on "The Future of Socialism"

Parts One and Two (with a third to come).   Well-informed and interesting, as always.

Index of all the Richard Marshall interviews with philosophers...

...at his new site.

Books you should have read but haven't

Adam Patterson, a PhD student at Syracuse University, writes with a fun idea:

I've recently learned of a game philosophers play at dinners: philosophers say what books that they are embarrassed to have not read in their area. For example, I heard a metaphysician say that s/he was embarrassed to not have yet read Material Beings or The Nature of Necessity.

I think a poll to see what books in what areas philosophers would think is most embarrassing to have not read would be fun and interesting.

I told Mr. Patterson that, rather than a poll, which would be hard to design, I'd open this for comments from readers.  I'll start:   I've never read all of A Theory of Justice. But how many people have I wonder?   If you want to post anonymous or pseudonymously, please at least indicate what area of philosophy you work in.

Morton from City College/CUNY to North Carolina

Jennifer Morton (philosophy of action, moral & political philosophy, philosophy of education), Associate Professor of Philosophy at the City College of New York and the City University of New York Graduate Center, has accepted a tenured offer from the Department of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she will start as Associate Professor in January 2020.

Great moments in obscure rock 'n' roll: Jeronimo, "Understanding," 1971

German hard rock band that had some success in Europe in the early 1970s.  This song is a bit atypical, and better than their standard fare (which I found a bit tedious):

 

Sue Prideaux's biography of Nietzsche

I review it in the current Times Literary Supplement, although most of it is behind their paywall.  Short version:  she's a good, lively and entertaining writer, but doesn't understand much about his philosophical work.  As I write at the end: 

I have studied Nietzsche for more than three decades, and I very much enjoyed this biography, but it is not for those wanting to learn something about the philosophy. Prideaux’s discussions of his ideas are, at best, superficial, at worst, wrong.  Readers who know a lot about Nietzsche, or simply enjoy the juicy soap opera of the lives of great thinkers, will find this book appealing. The former can draw sounder connections between the life and the ideas than Prideaux, while the latter can perhaps take solace in the “human, all-too-human” (as Nietzsche would say) character of genius.

The attack on the Hungarian Academy of Sciences by the fascists in Hungary, and other mischief

And all this is happening while the EU does nothing.  As the author notes:

Hungary has committed suicide in plain sight, and it has done so with the inept assistance of the European Union – while the rest of the member states stand by and watch helplessly. The death dance of democracy has begun again, just like in the 20th century, by painting human rights, freedom of the press, judicial independence, science and art to be political questions. By portraying facts and reality as a matter of threatened identity. And by depicting hate and violations of the law as moral obligations. This is not just taking place within the EU, this is the EU itself, living up to the delirious nightmares of the far right. What right-wing nationalists call "bureaucrats taking away national identities" means, in practice, that Brussels continues to provide full financial support even as mentally ill rulers dictate the destruction of entire countries – their art, literature and science – in the name of resisting interference in domestic affairs, and by keeping borders open for those chased away. The mass moral hysteria of Hungarian political conservativism is the driving force of the cold civil war that has been battering Hungary since 2002.

The irony (albeit a dangerous one) here in the U.S. is that it's precisely those who imagine themselves to be "progressives" (and not fascists) who treat "science and art" as "political questions," and specialize in pleading "threatened [or vulnerable] identity" as the justification for just about anything.  (Recall the discussion of the academic lunatics on Twitter asserting that all scholarly citations are "political.")

Regarding the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the author writes:

The most recent victim was Central European University, but now, it is the turn of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Orbán's attacks usually start with a hateful press campaign against un-Hungarianness; in the case of the Academy, the prelude was an attack on "degenerate" gender studies as a representation of lazy humanities and therefore superfluous. It is followed by an extremely rapid legal and/or financial trick, rendering the victim dysfunctional – withholding the budget of the Academy, for example. Next, prominent Fidesz politicians reinforce the fabricated narrative by focusing on complex, incomprehensible and meaningless technical details. It is enough to confuse outsiders, but for those familiar with the matter, it is based on blatant lies to such a degree that it precludes any discussion....

Then, under the pretext of negotiations (which never actually took place in the case of the CEU), the whole matter is stalled until what's left of the opposition press loses interest and the public gets used to the underlying arguments of the government narrative (basic research is unnecessary, humanities are for liberals on the leftist fringe, gender studies spread homosexuality and the government's intervention isn't really much of a shift at all). After a few months, the original plan is carried out under the guise of a compromise solution: Every conciliatory step from the victim is used against her, the noise from the tired press and the confused public grows ever quieter and the government presents itself as being the solution to the conflict it generated in the first place. The fate of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the country's beholder of intellectual capital, appears to be sealed, because in the coming EU fiscal period support will primarily be available for innovation and research, and a directly controlled structure is necessary for Orbán to appropriate the funds.

(Thanks to Balazs Gyenis for the pointer.)

Daughters of actress indicted in college admissions scandal will not be permitted to withdraw from USC

Interesting.  My guess is USC wants to secure information from them about the scam, and then to expel them, rather than permitting them to leave on their own terms.  But that's just my best guess.

(Thanks to Robert McGarvey for the pointer.)

Wisconsin/Stevens Point reverses course and will remain a university with liberal arts offerings

A pleasant bit of news!

2019 Stanton Prize in Philosophy & Psychology goes to Michigan's Chandra Sripada

You can see a list of past Stanton Prize winners here (the 2019 announcement is not yet up), and learn more about Professor Sripada's work here.

Lots of new junior appointments (tenure-track and post-docs) at PhilJobs

Add yours!

Philosopher Roger Scruton sacked as government housing adviser in Britain

Not a surprise.  (Coverage from last fall.)

"Certain Doubts," long-running epistemology blog, comes to an end

Announcement from philosopher Jonathan Kvanvig (Wash U/St. Louis) here.

Four philosophers win Guggenheim Fellowships

They are:  Agnes Callard (Chicago), Robert Pippin (Chicago), Henry Richardson (Georgetown), and Miriam Solomon (Temple).

(Thanks to Paul Weithman for the pointer.)

Blast from the past: Schopenhauer on anonymity

Back in 2005.  Schopenhauer is obviously correct:  "For a man to wrap himself up and draw his hat over his face, and then fall upon people who are walking about without any disguise—this is not the part of a gentleman, it is the part of a scoundrel and a knave." 

Advertising update

I've got one spot at each level open in May, as well as spots throughout the summer (although some top spots are taken), but as in prior years, I will be doing less blogging in the summer, and more to the point, I'm going to cut back in May this year, because I'm a bit overwhelmed with professional and personal obligations:  to students, to journals, to colleagues, and to family. Since I will be posting somewhat less often, top spots will be only $400, 2nd from the top $300, and 3rd from the top $250, and these will be the rates through the end of August.   E-mail me for more details.  Thanks.

ADDENDUM:  And you can see blog traffic statistics here.

Kant, Rawls, and philosophy and local government

An interview with South Bend, Indiana Mayor Peter Buttigieg, courtesy of the University of Notre Dame.

(Thanks to Mike Morissey and several others who sent this along [apologies for losing track of those who shared it].)

 

Stanford expels student connected to the admissions scandal

Unsurprising.

(Thanks to Jay Mullen for the pointer.)

Going into debt for a PhD or an MA in philosophy

Perhaps it's worth reiterating something I've said in the past:  don't acquire debt to get a PhD or MA in philosophy, it's just too risky a proposition given the academic job market.   Good programs that really want you will offer funding, meaning, tuition waiver and living stipend.   This is worth emphasizing regarding MA programs in particular, since funding packages vary quite a bit.   Take a fully funded offer at any of the excellent terminal MA programs over an offer that requires you to pay tuition, unless you won't acquire debt to do so.  Tufts, in particular, while it has an excellent faculty, often requires admitted students to pay non-trivial amounts of tuition.  If you can go fully funded to Northern Illinois, Georgia State, or Wisconsin/Milwaukee, I'd recommend going there, unless there is a really compelling intellectual reason to prefer Tufts.

ADDENDUM:  It's true, as someone pointed out to me, that Wisconsin/Milwaukee has suffered some notable faculty losses (e.g., Magaret Atherton has retired, while Ted Hinchman and Andrea  Westlund moved to Florida State), but it's still a strong terminal MA program faculty.  Prospective students should ask about hiring plans.

Finlay from USC to ACU

Stephen Finlay (metaethics), Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern California, has accepted a senior offer from the  Australian Catholic University in Melbourne, where he will direct the new Institute for Philosophy, a research-only institute, which will be doing a good bit of hiring in the coming years.  Finlay will continue to be in residence about two months each year at USC from 2020 onwards, and teaching a graduate seminar during that time.

ADDENDUM:  I should note that the ACU already has some quite productive, younger philosophers making a name for themselves in metathics (e.g., David Killoren, Richard Rowland), so choosing a distinguished senior figure in the field like Finlay to lead the Institue is, indeed, a wise case of playing to strength.

Philosopher Daniel Silvermint explains why it's OK to call a professional philosopher a "piece of shit" and "vile fucking human""

Good thing he earned a PhD to develop this level of insight.  And see also. 

ADDENDUM: Leave it to Justin Weinberg to show up on my Twitter feed asserting that Silvermint didn't mean what he said, and to declare the evidence adduced as "misleading."  (The link is above:  search hard for Silvermint's judgment that Shalfiei acted wrongly in deploying vulgar epithets worthy of Donald Trump at another philosopher.  The whole display is a transparent rationalization of the wrongful conduct, starting from the fabrication that there was an "attack" by Professor Lawford-Smith.)  Weinberg apparently didn't get the message last time:  I don't want to "wrestle with pigs," so I've had to block him on Twitter.

AND TWO MORE:   First, dozens of people have asked Professor Silvermint over the last 48 hours to explain or identify the "attack" that allegedly provoked the vulgar epithets directed at Professor Lawford-Smith.   There has been no response, and for the obvious reason:  there was no attack.  Second, someone discovered that during my sixteen years on social media, I once referred to an anonymous person on the Internet (seriously)--who had actually been attacking and defaming me at length and for quite awhile--as a "vile piece of garbage."  They neglected to mention I deleted the comment not long after, since it was made in anger and I thought better of it, despite their hiding behind a mask while abusing me and others (they are still pretty vile, judging from their twitter feed).  In any case, no one, that I'm aware of, defended my deleted tweet (I had no Silvermints coming to my defense) and plenty criticized it at the time.  

Philosophy at Rockefeller University in the 1960s and 1970s

Philosopher James Klagge (Virginia Tech) has put together a page of information and links about the short-lived but stellar PhD programs in philosophy and logic at Rockefeller University in New York City.  He writes:  "It is a small but significant part of the history of analytic philosophy in the 20th century.  I have had input from a number of those involved in the programs, but it is still a work in progress.  Additions or corrections can be sent to me at jklagge@vt.edu."

Notre Dame's Christopher Shields interviewed...

...by Richard Marshall at 3:16 am.

Well-being across cultures

Interesting journal issue.

Could Jordan Peterson (or any other faculty member) be disciplined by their university for failing to honor their student's preferred form of address (including pronouns)?

Les Green (Oxford) argues, correctly I think, that the answer is 'yes.'  Academic freedom does not protect speech in the classroom that constitutes sexual or racial harassment; nor does it protect speech in the classroom that undermines the pedagogical environment by demeaning and humiliating students, even if not otherwise unlawful.

Your U.S. tax dollars NOT at work

Those who voted for Trump own this one.  No doubt Trump thinks the Iranian victims are vile animals.

"Anywhere out of this world," said Baudelaire.

(Thanks to Kaave Lajevardi for the pointer.)

 

Great moments in obscure rock 'n' roll: Warhorse, "St. Louis," 1970

British hard rock band formed by ex-Deep Purple bassist Nick Simper, this was the single from their debut album (a cover of a song by The Easybeats):

 

Website for the philosopher Lester Hunt

Professor Hunt, who is emeritus at Wisconsin, and well-known for his work in moral philosophy and related areas, wrote the following on Facebook (which he gave me permission to share):  "My university recently forced me to take my entire web site (which is rather large) off its server and put it on Google Sites. Ironically, this means that google searches never lead to my site any longer, because it is now a "new" site and doesn't rate because nobody has visited it. Could you please click on the link< I need to get some page views or it will be as if the site never existed! Weird but true."  I offered to put this here, to help Lester Hunt's page and the many links to his work from disappearing from Internet searches!

Boys-Stones from Durham to Toronto

George Boys-Stones, Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the University of Durham, has accepted a senior offer from the Departments of Classics and Philospohy at the University of Toronto for 2019-20; Toronto already has one of the strongest programs in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy in the Anglophone world, and this appointment will further solidify that status.

Lachlan Murdoch, the new reactionary head of Fox News, was a Princeton philosophy major...

...writing on Kant and Hegel under Beatrice Longuenesse and who also took David Lewis's time travel course (Alan Hajek [now at the ANU] was his preceptor!)  Now, of course, he is a wicked person responsible for much that is wrong with the world.

 

Philosophy of race

Philosopher Quayshawn Spencer (Penn) talks about his undergraduate course on the subject.

Mediocre white people from around the world to gather in Finland to share delusions

Won't this be a lovely event?

Blast from the past: Most-cited Anglophone philosophy books published since WWII...

...back in 2017.

More college admissions scandal? Harvard fencing coach may be in trouble

Details here.  Short version:  rich father overpays by hundreds of thousands of dollars for fencing coach's house, and then his son is admitted to Harvard to play on the fencing team.

Anti-lesbian discrimination at LGBT Facebook group for philosophers

Two lesbian philosophers--Holly Lawford-Smith and Louise Moody--are removed from the group by Rebecca Kukla (Georgetown) after merely mentioning philosopher Kathleen Stock (Sussex).

UPDATE:  Two different readers sent along the unhinged reaction of Keyvan Shefiei, another charming PhD student self-destructing on social media:

ADDENDUM:  An amazing response to being called out for their unhinged behavior.  Among the philosophers sympathizing with Shalfiei, who apparently think it's fine to call another philosopher a "piece of shit" and a "vile fucking human," are Daniel Silvermint (Connecticut), Fiona Schick (CUNY), Amy Marvin (Oregon), Audrey Yap (Victoria), Joshua Habgood-Coote (Bristol), and Nathaneal Smith (Rochester), among others.

AND ANOTHER:  You can't make this stuff up:  a person who calls another philosopher a "piece of shit" and a"vile fucking human" is calling me "abusive" for calling attention to their abusive behavior.   The only good news is that this kind of misconduct is still a fringe phenomenon, but we can't allow it to become normalized.