Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

Did you know you have a "right" to "revelatory autonomy"?

Me neither, but if you make up such a right, The Guardian will write about it.  It does seem a bit odd to think friends and family act wrongfully by offering advice about major decisions in life, but the ever-evolving etiquette manual of academic philosophers is full of surprises!

On the neoliberal identity politics of the fake "left" in America

This essay makes a number of good points (although readers will notice echoes of Adolph Reed, the essay overall lacks his more sophisticated theoretical framework); an excerpt:

[Ne]oliberal identity is u]sing one’s identity or personal experience as a justification for a political position. You may hear someone argue, “As a working-class, first-generation American, Southern woman…I say we have to vote no.” What’s implied is that one’s identity is a comprehensive validator of one’s political strategy—that identity is evidence of some intrinsic ideological or strategic legitimacy. Marginalized identity is deployed as a conveyor of a strategic truth that must simply be accepted. Likewise, historically privileged identities are essentialized, flattened, and frequently—for better or worse— dismissed....

In Memoriam: Edward Erwin (1937-2022)

This seems to be the year for belated death announcements, but Michael Tooley just alerted me to the fact that Professor Erwin, a longtime member of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Miami, died last spring.  He was particularly well-known for his philosophical investigations of the foundations of psychotherapy, especially Freudian psychoanalysis.  He also had the misfortune to be wrongly named a defendant in a lawsuit (dismissed with prejudice by the court as against Erwin) growing out of the controversy surrounding sexual misconduct allegations against Colin McGinn, of whom Professor Erwin was the lone defender in the department.  I was surprised that the Miami Department did not post a memorial notice, although was told one was circulated locally.  Comments are open for remembrances from those who knew Professor Erwin or who would like to comment on the significance of his work.

Great moments in (extremely) obscure rock 'n' roll: Creepy John Thomas, "Down in the Bottom," 1970

Reader Dave Wasser kindly flagged the long-forgotten Mr. Thomas for me; born in Australia, he recorded this number in London for his second album and it's not bad!  He later played with the Edgar Broughton Band and with his own band in Berlin.

 

Nyholm from Utrecht to LMU Munich

Sven Nyholm (applied ethics [esp. ethics of technology], ethics), currently Associate Professor in the Ethics Institute at Utrecht University, will become Professor of the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence on the philosophy faculty at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich this summer.

And the prize for proposed legislation that would most clearly abolish tenure and academic freedom with it...

...goes to North Dakota.  Yikes!

Lanier Anderson to be new Chair of the APA Board

It is with genuine sadness that I must report that philosopher Lanier Anderson, an exceptionally nice guy and serious scholar, will have to be the next Chair of the American Philosophical Association Board.   My condolences to Lanier and his loved ones.

Karl Jaspers and the origins of existentialism

A short popular account here of the now little-read Jaspers.  The last time I read Jaspers it was his book on Nietzsche, which is uneven, but better than Heidegger's lectures on Nietzsche!

The most checked-out books from the New York City public library system

I confess I've heard of none of these books and almost none of these authors  Apart from old rock 'n' roll, I'm a poor consumer of popular culture.  What do readers make of this list?  Are some of these books worth reading?

"Ameliorative"

Awhile ago, I observed that "whatever ameliorative analysis is, it's not an analysis," but philosopher Alan Thomas has done me one better on Facebook (which he gave permission to share):   "I long for the good old days, when we just called 'ameliorative conceptual engineering' 'Newspeak'."

Blast from the past: In defense of English departments!

Back in 2014, with discussion.

Lateral moves/retirements (etc.) since the 2021 Philosophical Gourmet Report: 2023 edition

In addition to the separate posts announcing (generally tenured) faculty moves, I will keep a running list of all lateral moves (and retirements and deaths) not reflected in the faculty lists for the last PGR (some moves that took place after the last PGR were reflected in the faculty list, because the editors knew of them).  I will start a new list for each academic year, so that the list does not get unwieldy.  (The 2022 list is here, with a couple of late additions in bold.)  Unless otherwise noted, the appointment (or retirement) takes effect in 2023.  I will move this to the front periodically, putting recent additions in bold.  Untenured lateral moves will be noted as such, otherwise the move is with tenure.  A lateral move is one from one tenure-stream position to another either into or out of a program offering the PhD or terminal MA.  In addition I will list retirements and also deaths of non-emeritus faculty.  Please e-mail me with additions or corrections.

*Richard L. Arneson (political philosophy) is retiring from the University of California, San Diego at the end of the 2022-23 academic year.

*William Bechtel (philosophy of cognitive science and neuroscience) is retiring from the University of California, San Diego at the end of the 2022-23 academic year.

*Patrick Connolly (early modern philosophy and science) from Lehigh University (untenured) and University of Wisconsin, Madison (visiting) to Johns Hopkins University (effective January 2023).

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

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

*Thomas Hurka (ethics), who has been on phased retirement at the University of Toronto, is retiring at the end of the 2022-23 academic year. (This information was included in the 2021 PGR surveys, so should, in principle, have been taken into account by evaluators.)

*Katharina Kraus (Kant, philosophy of mind and psychology) from the University of Notre Dame to Johns Hopkins University (effective January 2023).

*Harvey Lederman (logic, epistemology, philosophy of language, Chinese philosophy) from Princeton University to the University of Texas, Austin (effective January 2023).

Where professors come from

An article in Nature a few months ago documented where professors across all fields got their PhDs; the study found:

Overall, 80% of all domestically trained faculty in our data were trained at just 20.4% of universities. Moreover, the five most common doctoral training universities—UC Berkeley, Harvard, University of Michigan, University of Wisconsin-Madison and Stanford—account for just over one in eight domestically trained faculty (13.8%; Fig. 2a and Extended Data Table 3). Even when disaggregated into domains of study, 80% of faculty were trained at only 19–28% of universities (Fig. 2b).

A couple of observations.  The fields studied were the humanities, social sciences, applied sciences, natural sciences, mathematics & computing, medicine & health, engineering, and education.  While the "big five" producers (above) are all excellent research universities they are also distinguished by being comprehensive in a way that, e.g., Princeton or MIT are not (the latter, for example, do not offer PhDs in education, or medicine; and MIT does not offer PhDs in all the social sciences and humanities).   

Why did Bostrom's "apology" for the racist email mention eugenics?

This author offers an hypothesis. (Earlier coverage, including a link to the strange apology.)  I don't agree with all of this analysis, but it's worth a look.

(Thanks to Phil Gasper for the pointer.)

Richard Marshall interviews Friedrich Lange...

...at 3:16 AM.  Lange was an immensely important figure in German philosophy in the second half of the 19th-century.  His major work on materialism became so well-known that Bertrand Russell wrote an introduction to an English edition in the 1920s.  The "interview" is both amusing and quite informative.

Montana Taliban trying to wreck science education

Religiously inspired stupidity isn't dead yet, as a new draft bill in Montana makes clear, which states that, "a scientific fact is observable and repeatable, and if it does not meet these criteria, it is a theory that is defined as speculation," and can't be taught in the public schools.  Oy veh!  Does the draft bill have any chance of enactment?   Comments from knowledgeable readers welcome.

(Thanks to Bradley Wood for the pointer.)

 

Blast from the past: Twitter "believe it or not" part 3: the Twitter kids can't figure out why no one is taking them seriously

Back in 2019.  I imagine most of these benighted folks are as ridiculous and clueless today as they were then.

Kraus from Notre Dame to Johns Hopkins

Katharina Kraus (Kant, philosophy of mind and psychology), Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, has accepted a tenured offer as Miller Associate Professor of Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University, where she will start this term.

In Memoriam: Joseph Agassi (1927-2023)

A student of Karl Popper, Professor Agassi was a prolific writer in philosophy of science and social science, among other areas.  He taught for many years at Boston University, and then at York University, Toronto and Tel-Aviv University (concurrently for a long time at both).  You can learn more about his career and work here.   I will add links to memorial notices when they appear.  Comments are open for remembrances from those who knew Professor Agassi, or who would like to comment on the significance of his work.

(Thanks to David Gordon for alerting me to Professor Agassi's death.)

Mandatory "diversity" training doesn't seem to work

We've touched on this before, here's the latest debunking of the DEI industrial-complex:

“We have been speaking to employers about this research for more than a decade,” wrote the sociologists Frank Dobbin and Alexandra Kalev in 2018, “with the message that diversity training is likely the most expensive, and least effective, diversity program around.” (To be fair, not all of these critiques apply as sharply to voluntary diversity trainings....

Some diversity initiatives might actually worsen the D.E.I. climates of the organizations that pay for them....

In the case of D.E.I., Dr. Dobbin and Dr. Kalev warn that diversity trainings that are mandatADory or that threaten dominant groups’ sense of belonging or make them feel blamed may elicit negative backlash or exacerbate biases.

Many popular contemporary D.E.I. approaches meet these criteria. They often seem geared more toward sparking a revolutionary reunderstanding of race relations than solving organizations’ specific problems. And they often blame white people — or their culture — for harming people of color. For example, the activist Tema Okun’s work cites concepts like objectivity and worship of the written word as characteristics of “white supremacy culture.” Robin DiAngelo’s “white fragility” trainings are designed to make white participants uncomfortable. And microaggression trainings are based on an area of academic literature that claims, without quality evidence, that common utterances like “America is a melting pot” harm the mental health of people of color. Many of these trainings run counter to the views of most Americans — of any color — on race and equality. And they’re generating exactly the sort of backlash that research predicts.

ADDENDUM:   Professors Dobbin and Kalev discuss their diversity research here.   Amusingly, they note that most management practices are not evidence-based.

(Thanks to Roger Albin for the pointer.)

Savulescu from Oxford to NUS in 2022

Reader Valentin Weber points out to me that the well-known bioethicist Julian Savulescu, previously Uehiro Professor of Practical Ethics at Oxford, took up a Chair in medical ethics at the National University of Singapore last year.  NUS, which pays competitively with the best American universities, has recruited senior faculty from the UK (and sometimes even from the U.S.) in many fields in recent years.

Great moments in (not so obscure) rock 'n' roll: David Crosby memorial edition

David Crosby, who enjoyed great success with The Byrds in the mid-1960s and then with Crosby, Stills & Nash (and sometimes Young) from the late 1960s onwards--and occasional success on his own and with Graham Nash--was a fine singer, capable especially of brilliant harmonies, but never as good a song composer as those he worked with.  Here's a few notable songs he either authored or co-authored during his long career that are among my favorites:

He co-wrote one of The Byrds's biggest hits and most memorable songs, "Eight Miles High," from 1966:

My favorite Crosby composition is "Long Time Gone," from the CSN debut in 1969:

A petition in support of philosophy at Utica University

They are, alas, the latest philosophy major under threat.  

(Thanks to Christian Miller on Twitter for calling this to my attention.)

Blast from the past: the most significant moral philosophers in the history of Western philosophy

A poll and discussion, back in 2013.

Harvard Kennedy School Dean reverses decision, and extends offer to Ken Roth of Human Rights Watch

Professor Risse tells me that Mr. Roth has accepted the Senior Fellowship.  (Earlier coverage.)  The Dean, in his letter to the faculty, wrote:

In the case of Mr. Roth, I now believe that I made an error in my decision not to appoint him as a Fellow at our Carr Center for Human Rights. I am sorry that the decision inadvertently cast doubt on the mission of the School and our commitment to open debate in ways I had not intended and do not believe to be true. The broader faculty input I have now sought and received has persuaded me that my decision was not the best one for the School. I have spoken now with a colleague at the Carr Center, and we will extend an offer to Mr. Roth to serve as a Fellow. I hope that our community will be able to benefit from his deep experience in a wide range of human rights issues. 

Blast from the past: Why academic freedom?

Back in 2017, but still relevant, needless to say.

Fraser, Menon to Dianoia Institute at the Australian Catholic University

Rachel Fraser (philosophy of language, epistemology, feminist philosophy), Associate Professor of Philosophy at Oxford University, and her husband Tushar Menon (philosophy of science and physics), currently a postdoctoral fellow at Cambridge University, have accepted appointments at the Dianoia Institute of Philosophy at the Australian Catholic University:  she will be Associate Professor, and he will be appointed as "Research Fellow" (the equivalent, roughly of an "assistant professor" in the U.S. system).

In Memoriam: David Harrah (1927-2022)

Another belated memorial notice, this one for Professor Harrah, who was emeritus in philosophy at UC Riverside, and who died last year.  In the 1960s and 1970s, he was especially well-known for his work on the logic of communication and questions.  He was also an accomplihsed alpinist, which is a focus of this obituary in The Seattle Times.  Comments are open for remembrances from those who knew Professor Harrah or wish to comment on his philosophical work.

(Thanks to Graeme Forbes for the pointer.)

Philosophers at Leibniz University Hannover receive four million euros from the German Research Foundation....

...for "a new Centre for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences...The group SOCRATES based at the Institute of Philosophy of LUH will focus on the credibility of science. SOCRATES stands for 'Social Credibility and Trustworthiness of Expert Knowledge and Science-Based Information'. The project is in receipt of funding amounting to approximately four million euros provided over an initial period of four years (2023-2027). SOCRATES is led by Prof. Dr. Mathias Frisch (spokesperson) and Prof. Dr. Torsten Wilholt."

(Thanks to Professor Wilholt for the information.)

Five philosophers win NEH Fellowships for book projects

They are:   Jacob Beck (York University, Toronto); Jeffrey Brower (Purdue); Stephen Darwall (Yale); Jennifer Lackey (Northwestern), and Emily McRae (New Mexico).

"Artificial Intelligence [sic] forever inanimate and dumb"

This is funny and probably right (and timely, given yesterday's thread):

The cognitive scientist Gary Marcus has been the most active when it comes to showing that, contrary to some of the claims referenced above, LLMs [Large Language Models] are inherently unreliable and don’t actually exhibit many of the most common features of language and thought, such as systematicity and compositionality, let alone common sense, the understanding of context in conversation, or any of the many other unremarkable “cognitive things” we do on a daily basis. In a recent post with Ernest Davis, Marcus includes an LLM Errors Tracker and outlines some of the more egregious mistakes, including the manifestation of sexist and racist biases, simple errors when carrying out basic logical reasoning or indeed basic maths, in counting up to 4 (good luck claiming that LLMs pass the Turing Test; see here), and of course the fact that LLMs constantly make things up.

Spring virtual dissertation groups

Sign ups for Spring are now open.

Two weeks until the submission deadline for the 6th meeting of the International Society of Nietzsche Studies in Atlanta

Details here.  Many PhD students have had their papers chosen in the blind review process, including graduate students from Purdue, UC Riverside, Princeton, Chicago, Oxford, Warwick, Boston University, and Duke, among others.

"Intelligent design" creationism basically finished

Biologist Jerry Coyne reviews the state of affairs.   My "Texas Taliban" alerts category was created some two decades ago precisely because of the efforts by those folks to wreck biology education in Texas!  (Years ago, a member in good standing even came to visit me in my office!  And see also.)

Blast from the past: Applying twice to the same graduate program?

A discussion back in 2008.

Will AI change teaching?

Curious piece in the NYT about growing worries about students using AI to produce written work:

While grading essays for his world religions course last month, Antony Aumann, a professor of philosophy at Northern Michigan University, read what he said was easily “the best paper in the class.” It explored the morality of burqa bans with clean paragraphs, fitting examples and rigorous arguments.

A red flag instantly went up.

Mr. Aumann confronted his student over whether he had written the essay himself. The student confessed to using ChatGPT, a chatbot that delivers information, explains concepts and generates ideas in simple sentences — and, in this case, had written the paper.

Alarmed by his discovery, Mr. Aumann decided to transform essay writing for his courses this semester. He plans to require students to write first drafts in the classroom, using browsers that monitor and restrict computer activity. In later drafts, students have to explain each revision. Mr. Aumann, who may forgo essays in subsequent semesters, also plans to weave ChatGPT into lessons by asking students to evaluate the chatbot’s responses.

Across the country, university professors like Mr. Aumann, department chairs and administrators are starting to overhaul classrooms in response to ChatGPT, prompting a potentially huge shift in teaching and learning. Some professors are redesigning their courses entirely, making changes that include more oral exams, group work and handwritten assessments in lieu of typed ones....

In higher education, colleges and universities have been reluctant to ban the A.I. tool because administrators doubt the move would be effective and they don’t want to infringe on academic freedom.

Just as an aside:  while banning AI may not be effective, it would not violate "academic freedom."  There is no "academic freedom" right of students to cheat.  So putting that confusion aside, I am curious what readers make of this.  Given some of the nonsense AI generates, I confess I'm surprised by this.

MLK speech in 1962 on the Declaration of Independence and the Emancipation Proclamation

I'd never heard this one before:

 

In Memoriam: Simo Knuuttila (1946-2022)

This is a belated notice about the death last June of Professor Knuuttila, a leading scholar of medieval philosophy and longtime faculty member at the University of Helsinki.  There is a brief memorial notice here, a longer and more personal one here, and you can get a sense of his work from his PhilPeople page.  Comments are open for remembrances of Professor Knuuttila from those who knew him or for comments on the significance of his work.

(Thanks to Stephen Menn for alerting me to this and for some of the pointers.)

Richard Marshall interviews Crispin Wright (Stirling/NYU)...

...at 3:16 AM.  An excerpt:

As to why anyone should “heed the philosophers”, I guess in the main they probably shouldn’t. Surely not many of the ideas that currently grab the lion’s share of contemporary philosophical debate are of any public significance. One possible exception are the discussions of epistemic injustice, and especially testimonial injustice. Acquaintance with these might encourage more circumspection about online “echo chambers”. And maybe also “post-truthers” —if indeed that moniker captions any ideas that are held in intellectual integrity — could learn from the debates about alethic pluralism. Generally though I am inclined with J. L Austin to wonder whether “importance” is philosophically important.

Great moments in (not so obscure) rock 'n' roll: Jeff Beck memorial edition

Beck was one of the three great British blues-inspired guitarists who passed through the Yardbirds in the 1960s--the others being Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page.  He died this week, age 78.  What follows are some selections of some better- and lesser-known highlights from his long career.

The Yardbird, "Over Under Sideways Down," 1966 (Beck on lead guitar):

Jeff Beck (with Rod Stewart on vocals), "Let Me Love You," 1968, from his very best album Truth:

 

2022: Philosophers who passed away

MOVING TO FRONT FROM DECEMBER 30, 2022, FOR THOSE WHO MAY HAVE MISSED IT DURING THE BREAK (re:  the title, see)

The passing of the following philosophers was noted on the blog during 2022:   Richard J. Bernstein, Arthur Bierman, Geoffrey Brennan, Bruno Celano, Hugh J. Chandler, John M. Cooper, Donald W. Crawford, Frank Cunningham, Milton Fisk, Harry Gensler, S.J., Dieter Henrich, Paul Humphreys, Michael (M.J.) Inwood, Gary Iseminger, Saul Kripke, Bruno Latour, Larry Laudan, Sten Lindstrom, Penelope Mackie, William E. Mann, Don Marquis, Herbert Morris, Graham Nerlich, Terence Parsons, Zenon Pylyshyn, Joseph Raz, David H. Sanford, Kenneth Sayre, T.K. Seung, Sydney Shoemaker, Aaron Smuts, Paul Snowdon, Kwasi Wiredu.  You can find more information, including (often) links to obituaries by scrolling through the "Philosophy Updates" category (in which this post also appears).

(Note: I do not attempt to list the passing of every professional philosopher in a given year; I do try to record the deaths of those likely to be known to many others in the profession.  Apologies for oversights and omissions.)

MOVING TO FRONT FROM DECEMBER 30, 2022, FOR THOSE WHO MAY HAVE MISSED IT DURING THE BREAK (re:  the title, see)

The passing of the following philosophers was noted on the blog during 2022:   Richard J. Bernstein, Arthur Bierman, Geoffrey Brennan, Bruno Celano, Hugh J. Chandler, John M. Cooper, Donald W. Crawford, Frank Cunningham, Milton Fisk, Harry Gensler, S.J., Dieter Henrich, Paul Humphreys, Michael (M.J.) Inwood, Gary Iseminger, Saul Kripke, Bruno Latour, Larry Laudan, Sten Lindstrom, Penelope Mackie, William E. Mann, Don Marquis, Herbert Morris, Graham Nerlich, Terence Parsons, Zenon Pylyshyn, Joseph Raz, David H. Sanford, Kenneth Sayre, T.K. Seung, Sydney Shoemaker, Aaron Smuts, Paul Snowdon, Kwasi Wiredu.  You can find more information, including (often) links to obituaries by scrolling through the "Philosophy Updates" category (in which this post also appears).

(Note: I do not attempt to list the passing of every professional philosopher in a given year; I do try to record the deaths of those likely to be known to many others in the profession.  Apologies for oversights and omissions.)

The DEI industry and its role in the university's appeal to "consumers" (formerly known as students)

A lot of sensible remarks in this CHE essay about the Hamline fiasco:

The DEI profession began as workplace diversity trainings aimed at protecting corporations from costly discrimination lawsuits, and it plays a similar role today. As such, it is woefully inadequate for addressing with nuance the racism, sexism, Islamophobia, and other real challenges students may face on college campuses and elsewhere. DEI offices tend to reduce complex issues to manageable problems with ready-made responses. The idea that intention (messy, subjective) matters less than impact (objective, measurable), for example, found enthusiastic embrace in the world of corporate HR and DEI, already obsessed with quantifiable metrics like “impact factor.”

Rather than improving overall campus climate, institutions like DEI offices wind up cultivating student fragility — something they need to do in order to justify their continued existence and funding. The more easily students are offended, the more the university needs a robustly funded DEI program to manage them. This vicious cycle plays out on college campuses across the country. Indeed, the Muslim students at Hamline resemble their non-Muslim peers at universities elsewhere. They assert themselves as consumers and ask to speak to the manager when unhappy with the service they’ve received.

Philosopher Nick Bostrom (Oxford) is a creepy person (UPDATED)

That's the only conclusion to be drawn about the racist views he expressed in his mid-20s.   People who aren't creepy racists (or mentally ill) don't express such views in their 20s.  Maybe some folks who aren't really creepy racists say stuff like this in their early teens.   A few observations:

1.  He should not be fired or sanctioned for this speech.

2.  The views he defends, like longtermism, are not false because he is a creepy person.

3.  The creepiness is yet a further reason to be suspicious of longtermism and the arguments for it, since they reveal a severe poverty of empathy and human emotions on the part of one its main proponents--attributes which would seem likely to spill over into "philosophical" reflections about what human beings matter and what has value.  There are plenty of objections to longtermism (see for example), but it is perfectly reasonable for someone who does not have the time to work through all the arguments to view the creepiness of one of longtermism's leading proponents as grounds for serious skepticism.  (Vide.)

 

2022 in review, 4th quarter: October, November, December

MOVING TO FRONT FROM DECEMBER 29, FOR THOSE WHO MAY HAVE MISSED IT DURING THE BREAK

October

Sleepwalking into Armageddon:  Russia, Ukraine, and nuclear weapons continued

Raz as a political philosopher

Is Wittgenstein truly a "hero" of philosophy?  Or can we do without his "wankings"?

Cedric Robinson's "Black [Anti-]Marxism"

The pernicious influence of fossil fuel money on climate research (and the role of outside money in philosophy)

A new "Creative Commons" license with some odd features

November

A philosophically substantial work on the history of Marxism?

Conference organizers may want to think twice before inviting Professor Carol Hay (U Mass/Lowell) to their event

Hundreds of Harvard "affiliates" call for Kennedy School Dean to resign in the wake of the Ken Roth fiasco

So reports the Harvard Crimson; I'm not sure what an "affiliate" is, I guess it means someone connected to Harvard (faculty, students, staff, visiting scholars etc.).  For background, see the statement from Professor Risse, Director of the Carr Center.

Muslim Public Affairs Council issues strong statement in support of wrongfully fired Hamline professor

Here, a propos this.

(Thanks to Ruchira Paul for the pointer.)

Plato, Mill and inequality

Political theorist David Lay Williams comments.

Statement by Director of Carr Center for Human Rights at Harvard on the failure to hire Ken Roth of Human Rights Watch

A propos this, philosopher Mathias Risse, who is Director of the Carr Center, kindly shared the statement he has circulated locally:

Subject: Carr Center // Ken Roth

Dear friends of the Carr Center at HKS and from around Harvard -- 

                A Happy New Year to you! You might have seen the article in the Nation that was published a few days ago and reports on the denial of a Carr Center fellowship to Ken Roth (owing to allegedly biased reporting on Israel by Human Rights Watch, the organization he led for almost 30 years). As of now, this article pretty much dominates the Harvard-related news at the national and international level: it has been taken up by multiple other outlets and unsurprisingly has also resonated quite a bit on social media, and we can expect more to come. Quite a number of people from around the university and beyond have written to share their thoughts on this, also making clear that this is a matter of common concern. I myself did not speak to the reporter (Michael Manning) about this particular decision though I had some exchanges with him about related matters; the dean’s office wanted this to be handled by its communications office. It is, however, important that everyone connected to the Carr Center knows what happened here, and where I, as the director of the center, stand on this.  

In summer 2022, we tried to recruit Ken Roth as a fellow because he is one of the most distinguished human rights leaders of our time and one of the most visible faces of the human rights movement. He had not approached us; we took the initiative, after a few conversations came to an understanding with him on what such a fellowship would involve, and then submitted this proposal to the dean’s office for approval (not expecting any difficulties). I continue to stand by this initiative, without any hesitation and qualification. Roth has courageously and over several decades stood up for human rights everywhere in the world. He has built Human Rights Watch into a trusted organization of formidable size. Their reporting sets standards in the field, and political scientists who study these matters (such as our very own Kathryn Sikkink) confirm the fairmindedness of their reporting. Ken is articulate and really quite brilliant, and never shies away from debate. He would have been accessible to the HKS community to discuss all controversial issues, including their assessment of the human rights situation in Israel.

2022 in review, 3rd quarter: July, August, September

MOVING TO FRONT FROM DECEMBER 28, FOR THOSE WHO MISSED IT DURING THE BREAK

July

Travels abroad, and some observations about philosophy

When you can't tell what's a parody and what isn't

Reed on Black Lives Matter

August

Specialist journals that published the best articles in moral and/or political philosophy, 2022

Korsgaard's Dewey Lecture

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

Best "general" journals of philosophy, 2022, by two different polling methods

Doubts about Amazon Mechanical Turk, which means trouble for Experimental Philosophy

Folks interested in XPhil should read this, if they have not already.  Comments welcome from those knowledgeable about the issues.