Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

AI philosophy "poems"

Philosopher Blake Myers (recall this earlier item) writes:

I was recently testing the new version of GPT-3 that just came out…mainly looking at its ability to capture well-known people’s views, as well as its ability to formulate such views in different styles. So, just for fun, I asked it to write a poem about your views on Derrida, Trump, and Nietzsche. The input I gave is the part at the top , and GPT-3’s output follows. Kind of funny/entertaining, and perhaps not too far off.

Here it is:

Input:

Write a poem about Brian Leiter. Include his views

about Derrida in the first stanza, his views about

Trump in the second stanza, and his views about

Nietzsche in the third stanza.

Blast from the past: Best post-WWII Anglophone scholars of ancient Greek and Roman philosophy

A poll back in 2016, with discussion.  (Only living scholars over the age of 60 were included.)

Visualizations of Philosophical Gourmet Report results

Philosopher Frank Saunders, Jr. (Yonsei University, South Korea) has produced these quite neat "visualizations" of the results of the 2021 PGR.  Thanks to Professor Saunders for this nice work!

Kanye West and Hitler

To the extent I even noticed Mr. West previously, he struck me as a talentless, ignorant buffoon, like many successful purveyors of "popular" music.   His recent forays into anti-semitism and Nazi sympathizing have put this absurd person back into the news.  One of the better commentaries on this grotesque  display comes from John Ganz; an excerpt:

While all these far-right goonies play constant games, equivocate, make bad faith disavowals, or employ euphemisms, Kanye doesn’t have the time, inclination, or ability to do all that. He just says the underlying truth of this kind of politics: he likes the Nazis! Yes, he pretty much said this verbatim, “I like the Nazis.” It was too much even for [Alex] Jones.

Caricatures of philosophers and other intellectuals

John Holbo (NUS) draws them, and they're pretty good!

Online, open access philosophy journals

MOVING TO FRONT, ORIGINALLY POSTED NOV 26-MANY MORE OPEN ACCESS JOURNALS THAN I KNEW ABOUT!  IF YOU CONTRIBUTE, MAKE SURE THE JOURNAL ISN'T ALREADY MENTIONED, AND INCLUDE A URL FOR THE JOURNAL HOMEPAGE (NOT NECESSARY TO FORMAT IT)

Philosophers' Imprint was the first mover here, and has been quite successful; more recently it has been joined by Ergo, another generalist journal.   There are several specialty journals:  I believe Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy was first; there's also Journal of Modern Philosophy, and now Philosophy of Physics.  I imagine I'm forgetting some.  If you know of other online, open access philosophy journals, please post links in the comments.

Philosopher of science Winsberg to take up 4-year British Academy Global Professorship at Cambridge University HPS

Eric Winsberg (philosophy of science, philosophy of climate science, philosophy of physics), Professor of Philosophy at the University of South Florida, will spend the next four years at Cambridge University as a British Academy Global Professor in the HPS program, where he will also accept doctoral students.  There is an announcement here.

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.)

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

"Ideology" conference

I'll be participating in the Social Philosophy & Policy conference on "Ideology" at the University of Arizona starting tomorrow, so there will be less posting until next week.

Richard Marshall interviews Ralph Cudworth (Cambridge)...

...at 3:16 AM.

The "for-profit" hospice industry sounds like bad news

This is a rather depressing report, but it's worth reading fora nyone who is confronting end-of-life decisions for someone.

"Performative woundedness"

A reader just flagged for me an old tweet by smarmy Jonathan Ichikawa, in which he purported to be in search of examples of this phenomenon:

One might have thought he did not have far to look!

Otto Neurath on "scientific management"

This was an aspect of his work with which I was unfamiliar.  Comments from those more knowledgeable about the accuracy of this account welcome.

Law schools and USNews.com rankings

Readers will have heard about the revolt (which now seems to be petering out) against the awful USNews.com law school rankings (which involve inexplicable weightings of a dozen different variables, many involving self-reported data of dubious reliability).  For those interested, I've been covering it on my law school blog:   here, here, here, and here.

Blast from the past: Peter Hacker did not like Timothy Williamson's book

Back in 2009, with discussion.

Were you wondering about the sexual behaviors and orientations of Cambridge University undergraduates?

I wasn't either, but this was still amusing (including the fact that philosophy students had the most sexual partners of any major).

Long Covid and the U.S. labor shortage

This is interesting, and not implausible.  It's clear we haven't fully reckoned with the health and economic implications of Long Covid symptoms.   I commend again to readers philosopher Eric Schliesser's account of his experience.  I know another philosopher in his early 60s who more than six months later still can't concentrate enough to do writing.  I know another in his 30s who was afflicted with such severe vertigo he was unable to teach for a period of time.  I have had briefer exchanges with other philosophers suffering long-term effects, even though the majority of academics I know who have had Covid are fully recovered.  But even in my limited "circle" of academics afflicted with Covid, those with lingering effects, some serious, is about 10%.  Over an entire population that's a public health crisis, not just an individual tragedy.  If others want to share their experiences, that might be beneficial for others, as Professor Schliesser's account has been.   Please use a real email, but you need not use your real name.

New transcriptions of lectures by Hegel (at Heidelberg) found

The scholar who found them thinks it is hugely important, perhaps unsurprisingly, but the linked account doesn't really give any details that would enable one to judge.  It is several thousand pages worth, including of Hegel's lectures on aesthetics.  So probably there are interesting items there.  Comments are open for readers who may know more details.

(Thanks to Brian O'Connor for the pointer.)

Blast from the past: Steve Pyke's "philosophers" on philosophy

Back in 2011.

"Open letter" by faculty in the College of Science and Mathematics at U Mass/Boston opposing a new mission statement...

...that eviscerates the actual purpose of the university as a place where knowledge is generated and disseminated.  (Earlier coverage here, here, and here.)

Shapiro from Simon Fraser to McGill

I had missed this (it was effective last month):  Lisa Shapiro (feminist philosophy, early modern philosophy), previously Professor of Philosophy at Simon Fraser University, has become Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Professor of Philosophy at McGill University.

Blast from the past: "The tragedy of student suicide"

Back in 2018, with reader discussion.

Great moments in obscure rock 'n' roll: Uriah Heep, "What Should Be Done," 1971

Not quite as obscure as some other featured bands (although it is probably unknown to many younger readers), the British hard rock/progressive rock band Uriah Heep enjoyed considerable success in the UK, Northern Europe, Australia, Japan, and to some extent in the U.S. from roughly 1972-1976.   This relatively "mellow" number that I've always liked comes from an album that did not fare as well, Look at Yourself (we featured several years ago a live version of a much more raucous number from that same album):

 

Jobs at selective liberal arts colleges and the expected decline in college enrollments in the coming years

At Philosopher's Cocoon, there is an interesting discussion of expected changes in enrollment patterns and whether that is in any way connected to a perception of fewer jobs at SLACs this fall.  Comments are open there.

The "sociology" of literary studies

Reader Scott Newstok called my attention to this very interesting LRB review essay of John Guillory's latest attempt to look at the history and organization of literary studies as a field.  A brief excerpt:

For Guillory, the pivotal development in the whole story was the arrival of ‘criticism’ as the dominant approach in the 1920s and 1930s, whether in the form of I.A. Richards’s ‘practical criticism’ in the UK or the New Critics’ ‘close reading’ in the US. This is when, in his view, literary studies became a discipline. But the attempt to turn criticism into a regulated and self-replicating profession generated all kinds of tensions, and Guillory urges that many of the issues agitating the field in recent decades are best seen as a working out of these tensions. For example, ‘criticism’ never quite shook off the aspiration to be in some way the criticism of society, not just literature, saddling the activity with exaggerated ambitions still evident today. At the same time, the logic of professionalism required a form of specialisation, a process carried further in the pressures towards intradisciplinary specialisation, which for the past 150 years has tended to take the form of expertise in the literature of a particular period. Even where the most ambitious conception of the discipline retains some overarching claim to underwrite the criticism of society, the cross-grained pressures of professionalisation demand ever greater subdivision: not to specialise is to risk one’s professional status by reverting to being an ‘amateur’.

A similar story might be told about academic philosophy in America one suspects, with the pivotal moment being the logical positivist invasion and takeover of America after WWII.  Thought on Guillory's analysis (or Collini's review) from those more knowledgeable about literary studies welcome (as well as thoughts about the relevance to philosophy).

 

Richard Marshall interviews David Hume...

...at 3:16 AM.

Blast from the past: "Demolishing Gertrude Himmelfarb"

Way back in 2004.

"Salt of the Earth," a blacklisted 1954 movie, makes perfect Thanksgiving day entertainment...

...for those observing the American holiday today (originally posted in 2018):

Based on an actual strike by Mexican-American workers against a zinc mining company, it is set in New Mexico, and uses actual mineworkers and their families in most of the main roles (including the male lead, Juan Chacon--his wife was played by a professional actress, however).   The movie is strongly pro-union, unsurprisingly, but much more  surprisingly, it has a strong pro-feminist twist, that wouldn't have been surprising in 1975, say, but is remarkable for 1954 (I won't spoil that part, you'll have to watch it).  The main writers and directors were blacklisted for refusing to cooperate with the fascist McCarthy Committee, but like other communist sympathizers at the time, they were, in ethical sensibility, well ahead of their time.  (At the end, the movie reveals which actors were "professionals" and which locals--there are several surprises.)

UPDATE:  Readers who enjoy the film may also find this website interesting.

Petition in support of tenure in the Florida public university system

Here.  The petition is prompted by a proposed post-tenure review system.  The basic problem with the proposal is that it eviscerates the due process protections that are supposed to attach to revocation of tenure:  individual decision-makers (chairs, deans, etc.) have too much discretion in this process to deem a faculty member's performance "unsatisfactory," which can lead to immediate termination.

 

Blast from the past: Rosenberg on the threat to our self-understanding posed by neuroscience

Back in 2018, with reader discussion.

American exceptionalism?

Here's a chart, make of it what you will:

Country	Homicide rate per 100,000	Covid deaths per 100,000	Per capita GDP	GINI coefficient (higher=more inequality)	Military expenditures per capita (2019)
United States	4.96	326.90	$69,287	41.50	$2,224
United Kingdom	1.20	312.41	$47,334	35.10	$  720
Ireland	0.87	164.87	$99,152	30.60	$  228
Australia	0.89	62.77	$59,934	34.30	$1,028
Singapore	0.16	29.04	$72,794	36.00	$1,932
Brazil	27.38	324.10	$  7,518	48.90	$  128
Germany	0.95	188.34	$50,801	31.70	$  590
Switzerland	0.59	163.03	$93,457	33.10	$  603
Chile	4.40	325.20	$16,502	44.90	$  273
Israel	1.49	136.44	$51,430	38.60	$2,402

Is it "effective" altruism to give money to Republicans?

SBF did, as well as to conservative Democrats.

Academic freedom and tenure

I spoke to United Campus Workers of Mississippi about the philosophy and mostly law of tenure and academic freedom, and then answered questions related to attacks on tenure and academic freedom in Missisisippi.  The discussion was well-received, and faculty elsewhere might find it useful.  There are a lot of basic facts about what tenure means, and what academic freedom involves, that are often not well-understood.

Law & Philosophy Fellowship at University of Chicago for 2023-24

MOVING TO FRONT, ORIGINALLY POSTED NOVEMBER 9

The ad is now live here.  Here's the description:

The University of Chicago Law School seeks a Law & Philosophy Fellow, appointed with the rank of Lecturer, for the academic year 2023-24. This is a twelve-month appointment and is expected to begin July 1, 2023. Applications welcome from new or recent PhDs or tenure-stream faculty interested in spending a year at the Law School. The Fellow will co-teach the Law & Philosophy Workshop with Brian Leiter on the theme of “Advanced Topics in General Jurisprudence.” AOS:  Philosophy of law, with a focus on topics in general jurisprudence; AOC:  open. Visiting speakers will be prominent scholars working on topics like the objectivity of law, the normativity of law, methodological positivism, law as an artifact, Scandinavian and American legal realism, recent work in natural law theory, and other topics in general jurisprudence. The Workshop with visiting speakers will meet roughly 6-8 times over the course of the year, but there will be 4-6 additional sessions taught by the instructors introducing particular topics and/or  preparing students prior to the visiting speaker sessions. The Fellow will also be asked to supervise student papers, and to contribute to the intellectual life of the Law School, as well as pursue his or her research. Salary $65K + benefits + superb research environment.

Qualifications

A PhD in philosophy--with fulfillment of all substantial requirements (including successful defense of dissertation) by appointment date--is required, though in unusual cases a PhD in a related discipline, or a JD accompanied by strong training in philosophy, will be considered.

The cover letter and/or the application materials must make clear how the applicant's work and interests fit with the planned Workshop topic.

Did Bankman-Fried and his parents need $121 million worth of property in the Bahamas?

I do wonder how his friends in the "Effective [sic] Altruism" movement thought about choices like these.

Blast from the past: Smoking habit a liability on the job market?

Back in 2008, with discussion.

Ronald Dworkin on Bill Moyers in 1987

This was one year after his book Law's Empire, and also the year of Robert Bork's failed nomination to the Supreme Court, which put originalism as a "method" of constitutional interpretation front and central in public discourse.  He mostly talks about "applied" issues (which, with Dworkin, is just as well, since he makes a hash of the jurisprudential issues):

(Thanks to Michael Sevel for the pointer.)

Professor Hay is apparently unrepentant for her misconduct

MOVING TO FRONT FROM NOVEMBER 14, 2022--17 DAYS AND COUNTING, AND THE TWEET IS STILL THERE

So ten days have passed since philosopher Carol Hay decided to humiliate Professor Byrne on Twitter based on a misrepresentation, and although she has resumed tweeting, the original tweet remains, without any acknowledgment that it is false and without any apology, which is all the more remarkable given that she learned of her misinterpretation at the Q&A on November 4.   The only conclusion I can draw is that Professor Hay views her behavior as professionally appropriate.  Conference organizers take note.   

Meanwhile, other dishonest philosophers have also been coming to her defense on Twitter, despite first-hand reports from people who were actually at the talk confirming what we all now know about its actual content.

"Electric Agora" webzine shutting down, new venture will be launched soon

Announcement here.

"Effective [sic] Altruism," Longtermism...and now the FTX crypto-currency disaster

Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the now disgraced FTX founder, was perhaps the most famous proponent of "Effective [sic] Altruism."  His financial and legal troubles--he may even face criminal liability--don't show much about E[sic]A beyond what we already knew:  that it appeals to the super rich (vide the right-wing Elon Musk) because it seems like they're doing something "good" while basically leaving the economic system in which they profit (or plunder) untouched.  (You can see how seriously SBF really took his philosophical commitment to utilitarianism and E[sic]A here.)

One of the parochial oddities of "effective [sic] altruism" is that it has migrated from promoting fairly typical charitable giving to prevent disease in poor countries (which at least is a current problem) to a putative concern with the very distant future (which of course makes it even more appealing to today's billionaires).  This "longtermism" turn was usefully discussed on a long twitter thread awhile back (and a more recent essay).  (The author of that twitter thread, Emilio Torres, also has a more ad hominem thread, that does raise some questions about the honesty and character of some of the "leading lights" of EA--see also.  This is irrelevant to the merits of the positions, although given the FTX fiasco, it may attract more interest now.)   Philosopher Kieran Setiya has penned a philosophical critique of longtermism (as set out by the philosopher William MacAskill), showing that it is implausible.  Some excerpts:

The...shock is how much more MacAskill values survival in the long term over a decrease of suffering and death in the near future. This is the sharp end of longtermism. Most of us agree that (1) world peace is better than (2) the death of 99 percent of the world’s population, which is better in turn than (3) human extinction. But how much better? Where many would see a greater gap between (1) and (2) than between (2) and (3), the longtermist disagrees. The gap between (1) and (2) is a temporary loss of population from which we will (or at least may) bounce back; the gap between (2) and (3) is “trillions upon trillions of people who would otherwise have been born.” This is the “insight” MacAskill credits to the iconic moral philosopher Derek Parfit. It’s the ethical crux of the most alarming claims in MacAskill’s book. And there is no way to evaluate it without dipping our toes into the deep, dark waters of population ethics.

Population ethicists ask how good the world would be with a given population distribution, specified by the number of people existing at various levels of lifetime well-being throughout space and time...

New online and "open access" philosophy of physics journal...

...published by LSE Press, and edited by David Wallace (Pittsburgh) and a who's who of philosophers of physics.

"Billionaires are not our saviors. They are our mistake."

A well-done excoriation of the philanthropy ruse (of which "effective [sic] altruism" provides the latest rationalization):

[B]illionaires, remember, exist at our collective pleasure. If enough of us decided to, we could enact labor, tax, antitrust and regulatory policies to make it hard for anyone to amass that much wealth while so many beg for scraps. It is not only the vast political power of billionaires that keeps us keeping them around, it’s also the popular embrace of certain myths — about the generosity, the genius, the renegade spirit, the above-it-ness of billionaires, to name a few....

[T]he money Mr. Bezos is now so magnanimously distributing was made through his dehumanizing labor practices, his tax avoidance, his influence peddling, his monopolistic power and other tactics that make him a cause of the problems of modern American life rather than a swashbuckling solution....Mega-philanthropists of his ilk tend to give through foundations, which they establish in ways that save them an immense amount in taxes, sometimes merely by moving the money from one of their own accounts to another. Giving will also burnish Mr. Bezos’s reputation, in that way preserving and protecting his opportunity to earn yet more money — and to do more social damage.

Great moments in obscure rock 'n' roll: Universe, "Rolling," 1971

ORIGINALLY POSTED MAY 21, 2016

It doesn't get much more obscure than the one-and-only album by Universe, recorded on the spur of the moment in Norway after their van broke down.  The whole album, with echoes of Cream, Traffic, and Ten Years after, is classic British rock-blues, with a countrified edge.  Here's one standout tune:

 

Since that great "business" genius Elon Musk seems to be destroying Twitter...

...I have decided to set up a Mastodon account, where all tweets are cross-posted.

The war on academic freedom in Florida continues, however

A VAP in Florida writes:

One thing that many are not fully aware of is that the SUS BOG (State University System Board of Governors) has independently incorporated a provision into the system’s regulations that is modeled on the [Stop WOKE Act] tself but is supposed to be enforceable independently as an employment provision. This is SUS BOG Regulation 10.005, “Prohibition of Discrimination in University Training or Instruction.” Most of us here in FL are thrilled that the courts have struck down the state law; but the status of the BOG regulation remains unclear to us. And so the threat to academic freedom continues — but the call is coming from inside the house, so to speak, since it’s the university system’s Board of Governors itself and not only the legislature/DeSantis that is trying to change the conditions of our employment and to weaken our academic freedom protections.

If you are able to draw attention to the continuing uncertainty around the BOG regulation on your blog, or if you find further coverage of this aspect of the situation, I know that many of us in Florida would be very grateful.

I was unaware of this, and I can't see how it can be lawful after the federal court's decision.  The faculty union should seek a declaratory judgment from a federal court to enjoin that provision.  Comments are open for readers with more information about this.

Federal judge in Florida strikes down as unconstitutional Florida's "Stop WOKE Act"

Rightly so, and hopefully other federal courts will soon follow suit in other parts of the country where similar legislation has been passed.

Generation X has more utilitarian leanings than Baby Boomers

That's one curious finding discussed in this video from the Geography of Philosophy project, along with cross-cultural studies about the objectivity of aesthetic judgments, free will, and the Knobe effect:

An interesting question is what explains the differences?  People born between 1965 and 1984 (Gen X) would in the West would have been living through the globalisation of capital and the triumph of neoliberal ideas favoring market transactions as the basis for almost all of economic and social life.    Should it be surprising that those subject to pro-market indoctrination have more utilitarian intuitions?  Perhaps experimental philosophers will dig further into the surface variations they have discovered.

(Thanks to Steve Stich for the pointer.)

Blast from the past: Should one not teach philosophers guilty (or possibly guilty) of sexual harassment?

A discussion back in 2017.  My view is unchanged:  it is pedagogical malparctice not to teach an author whose work is important to the subject because the author has engaged in personal or professional misconduct (other than scholarly fraud that implicates the work in question obviously).

Malte Willer DID like Fabrizio Cariani's book

For our new series of especially favorable book reviews, an excerpt from the conclusion:

Cariani's book combines serious and perceptive work in natural language semantics with insightful reflections on the pragmatics, epistemology, and cognition of our thought and talk about the future. While certain foundational theory choices do not strike me as inevitable, the resulting framework is elegant and predictively powerful. Cariani’s book is a benchmark for future inquiry into how we think and talk about the future.

Williamson on Kripke's legacy

A remarkably accessible essay, that even discusses Kripke's early seminal contribution to modal logic.