Kai Wehmeier (Philosophy, UC Irvine) writes:
As a German expat of sorts myself, I was very interested to read the remarks by Volker Halbach and Hannes Leitgeb on your blog. I'm not really familiar with the Austrian philosophical scene, but Volker is certainly right about Germany -- at least insofar as logicians are concerned. I conjecture that the majority of philosophically-minded logicians of my generation have left the country: Volker Halbach for Oxford, Reinhard Kahle for Coimbra/Portugal, Benedikt Loewe and Wolfram Hinzen for Amsterdam, I myself for Irvine, to mention those who immediately come to mind. (The situation seems to be at least as bad for German mathematical logicians, whose ties to philosophy are, however, generally less tight in Germany than in the Anglo-Saxon world.) I am unsure, however, whether Hannes' claim (that German-speaking philosophers have recently tended to prefer the UK over the US) is really borne out by the rather small sample; and moreover, even if this is the case, there would seem to be some obvious reasons for a bias towards the UK -- proximity to the fatherland (and hence the extended family) certainly being a major factor -- that have nothing to do with academic or professional considerations.
I've opened comments, and invite other philosophers (faculty and students) with pertinent experience and evidence to weigh in. No anonymous postings, of course.
