Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

The American Election

This remains the best source I've found on the upcoming elections, which are obviously of considerable importance for humanity at large.  We don't know, of course, what malfeasance the Republicans will engage in at the last minute, but, at this point, it seems like there should be a Democratic sweep.  Political philosopher Chris Bertram (Bristol) has apt comments on some of the pathetically low expectations for an Obama victory.  Perhaps Obama will do better than the regressive Bill Clinton.  But beyond the domestic arena, there are certainly reasons to think that the criminal military aggressions of the Bush regime will be a thing of the past under Obama, in the way they would not be under McCain.  I hope my modest expectation on that score will not be disappointed.

Advice to North Carolina Readers: It's OK to Vote Hagan for Senate

She's a Godless American, notwithstanding being an elder in the Presbyterian Church.  Now if we could just clarify whether Obama really is the Antichrist, I could support him with enthusiasm too.

UPDATE:  Meanwhile, in another bastion of enlightenment, Texas, nearly 1 in 4 voters thinks Obama is a Muslim, and gun sales are also up with the prospect of an Obama victory.

ANOTHER:  The "Young Conservatives of Texas"--a disgusting group made up of folks who, in a different place and era, would have been part of the Nazi youth league--have made their own special contribution to democratic dialogue in Texas.

"Zombie Science" in Texas Marches On!

Details here.

Princeton University Press Blog

Here.  So far nothing from any of their philosophy authors, but a number of items that are likely to be of general interest.

"Boiled Nonsense" for Lunch

Here.  Maybe they're serving Derrida or Ayn Rand?

(Thanks to Matt Burstein for the pointer.)

Never Underestimate the Stupidity of the American Electorate!

This is amusing (it would be even more so if it concerned some other country!):

How did politics in the US come to be dominated by people who make a virtue out of ignorance? Was it charity that has permitted mankind's closest living relative to spend two terms as president? How did Sarah Palin, Dan Quayle and other such gibbering numbskulls get to where they are? How could Republican rallies in 2008 be drowned out by screaming ignoramuses insisting that Barack Obama was a Muslim and a terrorist?

Like most people on my side of the Atlantic, I have for many years been mystified by American politics. The US has the world's best universities and attracts the world's finest minds. It dominates discoveries in science and medicine. Its wealth and power depend on the application of knowledge. Yet, uniquely among the developed nations (with the possible exception of Australia), learning is a grave political disadvantage....

It wasn't always like this. The founding fathers of the republic - Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton and others - were among the greatest thinkers of their age. They felt no need to make a secret of it. How did the project they launched degenerate into George W Bush and Sarah Palin?

On one level, this is easy to answer. Ignorant politicians are elected by ignorant people. US education, like the US health system, is notorious for its failures. In the most powerful nation on earth, one adult in five believes the sun revolves round the earth; only 26% accept that evolution takes place by means of natural selection; two-thirds of young adults are unable to find Iraq on a map; two-thirds of US voters cannot name the three branches of government; the maths skills of 15-year-olds in the US are ranked 24th out of the 29 countries of the OECD. But this merely extends the mystery: how did so many US citizens become so stupid, and so suspicious of intelligence? Susan Jacoby's book The Age of American Unreason provides the fullest explanation I have read so far. She shows that the degradation of US politics results from a series of interlocking tragedies.

One theme is both familiar and clear: religion - in particular fundamentalist religion - makes you stupid. The US is the only rich country in which Christian fundamentalism is vast and growing....

But there were other, more powerful, reasons for the intellectual isolation of the fundamentalists. The US is peculiar in devolving the control of education to local authorities. Teaching in the southern states was dominated by the views of an ignorant aristocracy of planters, and a great educational gulf opened up. "In the south", Jacoby writes, "what can only be described as an intellectual blockade was imposed in order to keep out any ideas that might threaten the social order."

The Southern Baptist Convention, now the biggest denomination in the US, was to slavery and segregation what the Dutch Reformed Church was to apartheid in South Africa. It has done more than any other force to keep the south stupid. In the 1960s it tried to stave off desegregation by establishing a system of private Christian schools and universities. A student can now progress from kindergarten to a higher degree without any exposure to secular teaching. Southern Baptist beliefs pass intact through the public school system as well. A survey by researchers at the University of Texas in 1998 found that one in four of the state's state school biology teachers believed humans and dinosaurs lived on earth at the same time....

In Memoriam: C.B. Martin (1924-2008)

At the time of his death, Professor Martin was an emeritus professor at the University of Calgary.  The Calgary memorial notice is here.

UPDATE:  An informative obituary by Paul Snowdon (UCL) here.  (Thanks to Stephan Blatti for the pointer.)

Life is peachy...

...if you're Nietzsche.

Thinking About Graduate School in Philosophy?

David Brink (UC San Diego) has posted some quite sensible advice on-line that covers the main issues for a prospective grad student.

UPDATE:  A graduate student writes:

One thing I noticed is that Brink claims that having a Ph.D. is necessary for full-time employment at a Community College.  While I do not personally know anyone with only an MA who has a tenure-track job (or the equivalent, as some CC's don't have a tenure system) at a Community College, I often notice that when CC's advertise full-time faculty positions, more often than not, the advertisement says that an MA is required, while a Ph.D. is preferred but not required. For philosophers who are more interested in teaching than researching, I think it would be good to know just how good of a chance there is of someone with only an MA getting a full-time job at a Community College.

Readers:  any insights into this?

More Fun with Ayn Rand

Via this German blog,  I am reminded that the 2008 Philosophical Lexicon has an amusing entry on the pseudo-philosopher du jour:

rand, n. An angry tirade occasioned by mistaking philosophical disagreement for a personal attack and/or evidence of unspeakable moral corruption. "When I questioned his second premise, he flew into a rand." Also, to attack or stigmatise through a rand. "When I defended socialised medicine, I was randed as a communist."

Summary of Faculty Changes in Ranked PhD Programs Since Fall 2006 PGR Surveys--Now Including the Top U.K., Canadian, and Australasian Departments

MOVING TO FRONT FROM OCTOBER 5, WITH SOME MORE CORRECTIONS PLUS ADDITION OF THE TOP NON-US PROGRAMS

This is a compilation of major (tenured or equivalent) faculty moves and tenure-track hires/losses involving PhD programs since the last PGR survey (fall 2006), for the benefit of students using the PGR in choosing graduate schools this coming academic year.  It covers the top 53 US departments.  I will try to add an update for U.K. Canadian, and Australasian Departments during the fall.

This list includes only faculty moves that were not reflected in the faculty lists for the Fall 2006 surveys. Remember, those faculty lists were based on expected faculty profile for fall 2007, so included some announced, planned moves.  The updates below include announced moves that may not take effect till 2009.

Many or most of the tenured faculty moves recorded here are likely to affect the specialty rankings for the areas in which these faculty work.

Please post corrections and additions in the comments; no anonymous corrections/additions will be approved.  I list programs by their 2006 overall rank.  Post corrections/additions below, do not e-mail me.  This will prevent duplication of efforts.

U.S.  Departments most improved since 2006 would seem to be NYU, Yale, CUNY Grad Center, UC Riverside, Colorado, Wash U/St. Louis, and Northwestern.  Among programs not ranked in 2006, the most improved are probably the University of Nebraska at Lincoln and the University of South Florida.  Outside the U.S., the most improved are probably British Columbia and Warwick.

"Added" faculty are those added with tenure.  For tenure-track hires, previous tenure-track positions (if any) are also noted.

The list of faculty "over 70" in 2009 includes only those new to that category from the time of the 2006-07 survey--in other words, faculty born in 1938 or 1939.  Remember:  in the U.S., there is no mandatory retirement age; prospective students should inquire with the faculty in question about their plans.

U.S. Departments:  Changes since Fall 2006 Survey

1.  New York University:  Added Samuel Scheffler (moral and political philosophy) from Berkeley, Ted Sider (metaphysics) from Rutgers, and Crispin Wright (philosophy of language, math, and logic; epistemology) from St. Andrews.  Tenure-track hires:  Laura Franklin-Hall (philosophy of biology), Columbia PhD; Japa Pallikkathayil (moral and political philosophy), Harvard PhD; and Seth Yalcin (philosophy of language, metaphysics), MIT PhD.  Faculty "over 70" in 2009:  Thomas Nagel.

2.  Rutgers University, New Brunswick:  Added Andy Egan (metaphysics, philosophy of language and mind, metaethics) from Michigan, Jeffrey King (philosophy of language) from Southern California, Martin Lin (early modern philosophy) from Toronto, and Brian Weatherson (epistemology, decision theory, metaphysics, philosophy of language) from Cornell. Lost Frank Arntzenius (philosophy of physics) to Oxford, Stephen Neale (philosophy of language) to the CUNY Graduate Center, and Ted Sider (metaphysics) to NYU.  The half-time arrangement with John Hawthorne (metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language) at Oxford University also ended.  Tenure-track hire:  Ishani Maitra (philosophy of language, feminist philosophy), MIT PhD, previously on tenure-track at Syracuse (joint with Rutgers-Newark).   Faculty "over 70" in 2009:  Alvin Goldman.

3.  Princeton University:  Added (part-time) Frank Jackson (philosophy of mind, metaphysics, metaethics) from the Australian National University and (quarter-time) John Hawthorne (metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language) from Oxford University.   Tenure-track hire:  Sarah McGrath (metaphysics, ethics), MIT PhD, previously on tenure-track at Brandeis; tenure-track loss:  Karen Bennett (philosophy of mind, metaphysics) to Cornell. Adam Elga (philosophy of science and physics, decision theory), Thomas Kelly (epistemology, ethics) and Hendrik Lorenz (ancient philosophy) were all granted tenure.  Paul Benacerraf (philosophy of mathematics) retired.   Bas van Fraassen (philosophy of science and physics) retired and moved to San Francisco State University.  Affiliated faculty member Philip Pettit (moral and political philosophy, philosophy of mind, philosophy of social science) from the Politics Department is now a full member of the Philosophy Department as well.  Faculty "over 70" in 2009:  John M. Cooper, Gilbert Harman.

3.  University of Michigan, Ann Arbor:  Added Gordon Belot (philosophy of physics) from the University of Pittsburgh; Sarah Buss (philosophy of action, ethics) from the University of Iowa; and Laura Ruetsche (philosophy of physics) from the University of Pittsburgh.  Tenure-track hires:  David Baker (philosophy of physics), Princeton PhD; Sarah Moss (philosophy of language, metaphysics, formal epistemology), MIT PhD [effective fall 2009].  Lost Stephen Darwall (ethics, history of ethics) to Yale University, Peter Ludlow (philosophy of language) to the University of Toronto (Ludlow has since moved to Northwestern), Ian Proops (history of analytic philosophy, Kant) to the University of Texas at Austin, and Scott Shapiro (philosophy of law, philosophy of action) to Yale Law School.  Tenure-track loss:  Andy Egan (metaphysics, philosophy of language and mind, metaethics) to a tenured post at Rutgers.  Faculty "over 70" in  2009:  Lawrence Sklar, Richmond Thomason, Kendall Walton.

5.  University of Pittsburgh:  Lost Gordon Belot and Laura Ruetsche (both philosophy of physics) to Michigan, and Cian Dorr (metaphysics) and Jessica Moss (ancient philosophy) to Oxford University.  Tenure-track hire: Karl Schaefer (ethics, epistemology, early modern philosophy, Kant), NYU PhD. 
Edouard Machery (philosophy of psychology and cognitive science, experimental philosophy) and Kieran Setiya (ethics) were granted tenure. 

6.  Stanford University:  Lost J.M.E. Moravcsik (ancient philosophy) and John Perry (philosophy of language and mind) to retirement; Perry has also moved half-time to UC Riverside (he still does some teaching at Stanford); also lost Allen Wood (Kant, 19th-century German philosophy) and Rega Wood (medieval philosophy) to Indiana/Bloomington. Tenure-track hire:  Alexis Burgess (metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophical logic), Princeton PhD.  Nadeem Hussain (ethics, metaethics, 19th-century German philosophy) and Krista Lawlor (philosophy of mind) were granted tenure. Tenure-track loss:  Agnieszka Jaworska (ethics) to a tenured post at the University of California, Riverside. David Hills (aesthetics, Kant, philosophy of mind, Continental philosophy), previously a lecturer in the Department, has been promoted to Associate Professor (Teaching), which permits him to, among other things, supervise dissertation.

7.  Harvard University:  Cross-appointed Tommie Shelby (social and political philosophy, African-American philosophy) from the Department of African and African-American Studies.

7.  Massachussetts Institute of Technology:  Agustin Rayo (philosophy of logic, philosophy of language) was tenured.  Tenure-track hire:  Brad Skow (philosophy of science, metaphysics), NYU PhD, previously on tenure-track at U Mass/Amherst. 

7.  University of California, Los Angeles:  Lost Calvin Normore (medieval philosophy, political philosophy, logic) to McGill.  (Normore is technically on leave, so could return.) Tenure-track hire:  Sam Cumming (philosophy of language), Rutgers PhD.  Tenure-track loss:  Christopher Smeenk (philosophy of physics) to Western Ontario.  Mark Greenberg (philosophy of language and mind, philosophy of law), Pamela Hieronymi (ethics), and Sheldon Smith (philosophy of science and physics) were all tenured.  Faculty "over 70" by 2009:  Terence Parsons.

10. Columbia University:  Lost affiliated faculty member Thomas Pogge (political philosophy) to Yale University.   Souleymane Bachir Diagne (logic, history of philosophy, Islamic philosophy, African philosophy) joined the Department of French and Romance Philology.

10. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill:  Added (part-time) Simon Blackburn (ethics, philosophy of language and mind) from Cambridge University and (full-time) Laurie (L.A.) Paul (metaphysics) from University of Arizona.  (Note:  Blackburn will teach at UNC one semester per year for the next six years, except for 2009-10; the appointment stretches beyond his retirement from Cambridge, although the first visits will run in parallel with that position, occupying terms of leave.)    Lost Jesse Prinz (philosophy of mind, moral psychology) to the CUNY Graduate Center.  Thomas Hofweber (metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophy of mathematics)  and Ram Neta (epistemology) were granted tenure.  Tenure-track hires: Matthew Kotzen (epistemology, philosophy of science), NYU PhD and Ryan Preston (ethics, philosophy of religion), NYU PhD.  Michael Resnik (philosophy of mathematics) retired.  Faculty "over 70" in 2009:  Thomas Hill, Jr..

12. University of California, Berkeley:  Lost Samuel Scheffler (moral and political philosophy) to NYU.   Branden Fitelson (philosophy of science, logic, epistemology) was tenured.  Tenure-track hire:  Lara Buchak (decision theory), Princeton PhD.  Faculty "over 70" in 2009:  Hans Sluga.

13. University of Arizona:  Added Stewart Cohen (epistemology) from Arizona State University.  Lost Laurie (L.A.) Paul (metaphysics) to North Carolina.  Michael Gill (ethics, history of ethics) and Rachana Kamtekar (ancient philosophy, ethics) were tenured.

13. University of Notre Dame:  Added Richard Cross (philosophy of religion, medieval philosophy) from Oxford University. Lost William Ramsey (philosophy of mind and cognitive science) to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.  Tenure-track hire:  Grant Ramsey (philosophy of biology), Duke PhD. 

13. University of Texas, Austin:  Added (half-time) Hans Kamp (philosophy of language, formal semantics) from Stuttgart (where he is emeritus) and (full-time) Ian Proops (history of analytic philosophy, Kant) from Michigan.  Lost Frederick Kronz (philosophy of physics) to the National Science Foundation; Brian Leiter (philosophy of law, ethics, Continental philosophy) to the University of Chicago Law School; and Robert C. Solomon (Continental philosophy, philosophy of the emotions), who passed away.  Regular visiting professor (and affiliated faculty member) Leslie Green (legal and political philosophy) is switching his part-time visiting stint to Chicago.  Tenure-track hires: Ray Buchanan (philosophy of language), NYU PhD and Anna-Sara Malmgren (epistemology), NYU PhD.  Robert Kane (ethics, philosophy of action) retires at the end of the academic year.

16.  Brown University:  Added David Christensen (epistemology, philosophy of science) from the University of Vermont. Tenure-track hire:  Katherine Dunlop (Kant), UCLA PhD. 

16.  Cornell University:  Added Karen Bennett (philosophy of mind, metaphysics) from a tenure-track position at Princeton, and Tad Brennan (ancient philosophy) from Northwestern.  Lost Brian Weatherson (epistemology, decision theory, metaphysics, philosophy of language) to Rutgers.  Tenure-track hire:  Erin Taylor (ethics), UCLA PhD.  Matti Eklund (metaphysics, philosophy of language) was tenured.

16. University of Southern California:  Added Gary Watson (philosophy of action, ethics) from UC Riverside.  Lost Jeffrey King (philosophy of language) to Rutgers.  Tenure-track hire:  Kenny Easwaran (logic, formal epistemology), Berkeley PhD.  Mark Schroeder (ethics) was tenured.  Faculty "over 70" in 2009:  Dallas Willard.

16. Yale University:  Added Stephen Darwall (ethics, history of ethics) from Michigan, Thomas Pogge (political philosophy) from Columbia University, and Kenneth Winkler (early modern philosophy) from Wellesley.  Tenure-track hire:  Barbara Sattler (ancient philosophy), Freie Universtat (Berlin) PhD, previously on tenure-track at Illinois/Urbana.  Tenure-track losses:  James Kreines (19th-century German philosophy) to a tenure-track position at Claremont-McKenna College; Michael Weber (ethics) to a tenure-track position at Bowling Green State University.  Scott Shapiro (philosophy of law, philosophy of action) joined the Law School.

20.  University of California, Irvine:  Lost Aldo Antonelli (logic) to UC Davis and Nicholas White (ancient philosophy), who retired and moved to the University of Utah.  Tenure-track hires:  M. Oreste Fiocco (metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language, ethics), UC Santa Barbara PhD; Sean Greenberg (early modern philosophy), Harvard PhD, previously on tenure-track at Johns Hopkins; Jeremy Heis (Kant, philosophy of mathematics, history of analytic philosophy), Pittsburgh PhD; Simon Huttegger (game and decision theory), Salzburg PhD; Wayne Wright (philosophy of mind and psychology), Temple PhD.  Tenure-track loss:  William Bristow (19th-century German philosophy) to Wisconsin/Milwaukee.  Aaron James (ethics) was tenured.

20.  University of California, San Diego:  Tenure-track hire:  Clinton Tolley (Kant, history of philosophy of logic, phenomenology), Chicago PhD.

20.  University of Chicago:  Tenure-track hires:  Agnes Callard (ethics, philosophy of action, ancient philosophy), Berkeley PhD, and Anton Ford (philosophy of action, ethics), Pittsburgh PhD.  Added (one-third time) Jocelyn Benoist (phenomenology, Kant, history of analytic philosophy, philosophy of mind) from the Sorbonne.  Tenure-track losses:  Jonathan Beere (ancient philosophy) to a post in Germany and Yitzhak Melamed (early modern philosophy) to Johns Hopkins.  William Wimsatt (philosophy of biology) will retire at the end of the 2008-09 academic year.  (John Haugeland [philosophy of mind, Heidegger] will retire at the end of the 2009-10 academic year which means, if we were doing a survey this fall, he'd be part of the faculty list.)  Brian Leiter (philosophy of law, ethics, Continental philosophy) and (one-third-time) Leslie Green (political and legal philosophy) joined the Law School.

Geuss on "Real Politics"

Reader Rob Sica kindly calls to my attention a podcast interview with Raymond Geuss (Cambridge) about the subject of his most recent book, what he calls "real politics," and his Marxian diagnosis of where modern political philosophy has gone wrong.  Given the, shall we say, "intense" and "passionate" response to our earlier post concerning Geuss's skepticism about Rawls, I imagine this podcast will interest a number of readers.

UPDATE:  And here's a review of Geuss's latest book, on which the podcast is based.

The "pre-eminent world publisher of academic philosophy"?

Perusing the Cambridge University Press philosophy section on-line (it is not a user-friendly web site!), I was surprised to come across this embarrassing bit of hyperbole right at the start:

Cambridge University Press is the pre-eminent world publisher of academic philosophy, with contributions from such names as Ian Hacking, Bernard Williams, Hilary Putnam, Jon Elster, Tom Nagel and Richard Rorty. We publish textbooks, monographs, and reference books in all the major sub-disciplines of philosophy.

Fifteen or twenty years ago, the claim to be "pre-eminent" might have been less ridiculous, but these days my impression is that if any press can claim to be pre-eminent in philosophy, it is Oxford University Press, and that the resurgence of strong philosophy catalogues at presses like Princeton University Press and Routledge has also made the market much more competitive than it was not long ago.  Certainly, it now seems like the top young philosophers (call them "the under 50" crowd) publish quite often with Oxford, rarely with Cambridge, except in some areas of history of philosophy.   (And, of course, some of the famous philosophers mentioned, above, in the CUP blurb also publish with presses other than Cambridge, such as Oxford and Princeton.)  I am curious what readers think, both about CUP's hyperbole (is it hyperbole?) and about whether any other press now dominates philosophy publishing as CUP perhaps once did.

Post only once; only signed comments will be approved.

Rand Follower Greenspan Wakes Up to Reality

This is priceless:

Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, said Thursday that the current financial crisis had uncovered a flaw in how the free market system works that had shocked him.

Mr. Greenspan told the House Oversight Committee on Thursday that his belief that banks would be more prudent in their lending practices because of the need to protect their stockholders had proved to be wrong.

Mr. Greenspan said he had made a “mistake” in believing that banks operating in their self-interest would be enough to protect their shareholders and the equity in their institutions.

Mr. Greenspan said that he had found “a flaw in the model that I perceived is the critical functioning structure that defines how the world works.”

Mr. Greenspan, who headed the nation’s central bank for 18.5 years, said that he and others who believed lending institutions would do a good job of protecting their shareholders are in a “state of shocked disbelief.”

He said that the current crisis had “turned out to be much broader than anything that I could have imagined....”

Mr. Greenspan did not specifically address the criticism he is receiving now as being partly to blame for the current crisis.

On Mr. Greenspan's relationship with the pseudo-philosopher Ayn Rand, see this.  For our earlier posting on this subject, see here.

UPDATE:  Jerry Dworkin (UC Davis) writes with the following apt observation:  "The mere fact that you would call Greenspan's testimony 'priceless' indicates how far you are from an accurate (Randian) vision of how the world works." 

"Naturalizing Jurisprudence: Three Approaches"

Here, for those who might be interested.

Is the Intelligent Design Scam Migrating Towards Neuroscience?

It sounds like it.

Questions of General Interest from a Prospective Graduate Student

An undergraduate student in Britain writes:

Unlike some other forms of graduate study (e.g., law school), it is very difficult for prospective applicants to discern how likely they are to gain admission to any particular graduate program. This uncertainty encourages applying to a greater number of graduate programs.

For example, a very cautious applicant might consider applying to every single program they would be happy to attend, were it the only program to admit them. Obviously, there are limits to this from the applicant's end, e.g., admissions fees and the practical limits of putting together that many applications. But, my questions are these:

1. Is there any way of getting a better sense of one's chances at admission? Is it out of line to ask the professors who will be writing the letters of recommendation?

2. Is there a point at which a professor would be offended by the number of letters sought? I don't know how the letter writing process works from the inside, so I don't know if the effort is mostly up-front with fairly low marginal effort (so that the number isn't terribly important), or if each additional letter does take a great deal of time.

My thoughts:  1.  You should ask your undergraduate teachers where they think you should be applying and you can try asking them about where they think you may have a good chance (they may be somewhat reluctant to be too candid on this score, since it could also be interpreted as revealing how strongly they will recommend you, but I don't see anything wrong with raising the general issue, i.e., "Where should I be applying and which programs do you think I could realistically regard as safeties, which as reaches?" or something like that).  If your undergraduate department has sent many students on to graduate study, you might inquire whether they have any statistics on how those students fared, organized perhaps by test scores, GPA, area of philosophy and the like.  2.  In general, I think additional letters do not involve great costs.

Comments are open; please post only once, and be patient.

The Myth of the Postmodern University

ORIGINALLY POSTED FEBRUARY 22, 2004

Misperceptions in the public culture about universities are legion, but one of the most peculiar is the perception of universities as hotbeds of "postmodernism," i.e., generalized skepticism about truth, meaning, and knowledge. As best I can tell, there are just two fields where postmodernism has a significant presence and influence: English/Literature and History. Because these fields are popular undergraduate majors, and perhaps, most significantly, because journalists appear to disproportionately have majored in one of these two subjects, the result is that the postmodern fashions of these two disciplines have led to an "official" media vision of universities as hotbeds of postmodernism. But what are the facts?

My knowledge of what is going in some fields is undoubtedly superficial or limited, but I feel reasonably confident in noting that postmodernism plays little or no role in most major academic disciplines. Consider:

Anthropology: there are postmodernist strains in cultural and social anthropology, none at all in physical anthropology. This, of course, has resulted in the bifurcation of Anthropology Departments at some universities.

Biology: postmodernism has had no impact.

Chemistry: postmodernism has had no impact.

Classics: postmodernism has had little or no impact.

Economics: postmodernism has had no impact.

Law: postmodernism has had little impact, outside certain areas like Critical Race Theory whose impact on most other branches of law has been minimal. Postmodernism has had no impact on the mainstream of jurisprudence.

Linguistics: postmodernism has had no impact.

Mathematics: postmodernism has had no impact.

Philosophy: postmodernism has had no impact in the mainstream, some influence at the margins.

Physics: postmodernism has had no impact.

Political Science: postmodernism has had some impact on political theory as practiced in Poli Sci departments, almost no impact at all on the rest of the discipline (international and comparative politics, public law, American politics, formal and rational choice theory).

Psychology: postmodernism has had little or no impact.

Sociology: postmodernism has had some impact in social theory, and little or no impact in the quantitative and empirical branches of the discipline, which dominate the field.

Unsurprisingly, the natural sciences have been untouched by postmodernism--but they are, after all, a substantial portion of any research university. The social sciences have been little affected: Anthropology the most, and Political Science and Sociology only in their abstract theoretical branches; the rest of those fields, like Economics, go about "business as usual" (and often in an anti-postmodern, scientistic way). But the Social and Natural Sciences account for a vast amount of what goes on these days at research universities. The Humanities have been most afflicted by postmodernism, though even there we find two central fields--Classics and Philosophy--largely unscathed by postmodern fashions.

So there we have it: Little or no postmodernist influences in Physical Anthropology, Biology, Chemistry, Classics, Economics, Linguistics, Mathematics, Philosophy, Physics, and Psychology. Modest, but still not significant, postmodernist influences in Law, Political Science, and Sociology. Significant postmodernist influences in Anthropology, English and the various literature disciplines, and History. It's really time for journalists to stop writing about universities and intellectual life as though postmodernism were its dominant motif; happily, it is not.

The End of Libertarianism?

Or at least, one may hope, the end of Ayn Rand.  A propos our recent encounter with some of the inhabitants of libertarian fantasy land, this piece is amusing:

The worst thing you can say about libertarians is that they are intellectually immature, frozen in the worldview many of them absorbed from reading Ayn Rand novels in high school. Like other ideologues, libertarians react to the world's failing to conform to their model by asking where the world went wrong. Their heroic view of capitalism makes it difficult for them to accept that markets can be irrational, misunderstand risk, and misallocate resources or that financial systems without vigorous government oversight and the capacity for pragmatic intervention constitute a recipe for disaster. They are bankrupt, and this time, there will be no bailout.

This perhaps paints with slightly too broad a brush, though it is certainly applicable to the Rand fanatics.

(Thanks to Jerry Dworkin for the pointer to the article linked above.)

A New Kripke Article

A transcription of the lecture by Saul Kripke (CUNY) on the occasion of his receipt of the Schock Prize has just been published in Theoria vol 74, no. 3 (September 2008) under the title:  "Frege's Theory of Sense and Reference:  Some Exegetical Notes."  This is the first publication by Kripke in awhile, I believe.

UPDATE:  A philosopher writes:  "There's a paper by Kripke in the Mind 2005 issue devoted to Russell's "On Denoting." So it hasn't been all that long since his last publication. (But I don't think he published anything between 1986 and 2005.)"

"The Epistemic Status of the Human Sciences: Critical Reflections on Foucault"

Here, for anyone who might be interested.

The Republicans Could Still Win Through the Tried-and-True Method of Suppressing the Vote

A spooky scenario here.

New Philosophers' Carnival is...

...here.

Stich Answers "Five Questions"

Stephen Stich (Rutgers) has posted his interview for the 5 Questions volume in philosophy of mind recently noted.  It has a particularly nice account of the meaning and significance of Quine's naturalistic revolution in philosophy...like all revolutions, it continues to meet with resistance from the forces of reaction.

Writing Samples in Job Applications: How Long?

A reader writes:

As a graduate student going on the market this year I find myself obsessively worrying about every aspect of my dossier.  One thing that has been a particular worry is the length of my writing sample.   I think, and have gotten comments from readers to the effect that, it’s a fine paper, in need of few changes.  But I’ve also gotten comments to the effect that, at 35 pages/twelve thousand five hundred words, it’s too long.  I thought I might turn to Leiter Reports for advice.  Is there a length for dossier papers which turns you off of a candidate when you are reviewing their file?  Does it depend merely on content?  Does it depend on the strength of the candidate’s file in general, and the sort of job she is applying for?  Ideally, philosophers across the spectrum of universities would apply.

I generally recommend not more than 25 pages, but what do readers think?  Signed comments strongly preferred, as usual.  Post only once; comments may take awhile to appear.

Nietzsche for your IPhone?

Why not?

Leibniz on McCain

Sort of, courtesy of Michael Drake.  Pretty funny.

"Debate Fallacy Bingo"

Courtesy of Peter Bradley at McDaniel College:   "Debate Fallacy Bingo."

Dwyer from UMBC to Maryland/College Park

Susan Dwyer (moral psychology, applied ethics, feminist theory), Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Maryland at Baltimore County has accepted a tenured offer from the Department of Philosophy at the University of Maryland, College Park, effective January 2009.

Timothy Williamson's Tribute to Ruth Barcan Marcus on the Occasion of Her Receipt of the Lauener Prize

Thanks to Professor Williamson for permission to post this outstanding and informative tribute to the remarkable philosophical career of Ruth Barcan Marcus (emerita, Yale):   Download Laudatio.doc.

(I should note that, at the start, Professor Williamson makes it clear that he is a believer in the existence of "analytic philosophy," and as he conceives it, there is such a discipline, though it probably does not include many of the major figures in Anglophone philosophy in the last fifty years.  But that meta-philosophical question is quite independent of the illuminating celebration of Professor Marcus's work.)

UDPATE:  Dan Korman (Illinois/Urbana) reminds me that Professor Williamson's takes a more catholic and less stipulative approach to "analytic" philosophy on p. 21 of his important recent book on The Philosophy of Philosophy.

The "Moral Sense Test"

Psychologists at Harvard have designed a series of online tests they call the "Moral Sense Test" aimed at ascertaining ordinary people's judgments about trolley-problem-like moral dilemmas and discerning the sources of variability in those judgments.  Eric Schwitzgebel (Philosophy, U.C. Riverside) and Fiery Cushman (Psychology, Harvard) have just posted a new version of the Moral Sense Test, and they're especially hoping to recruit people with philosophy degrees for this test so that they can compare philosophers' and non-philosophers' responses to moral dilemma scenarios.  The test should take about 15-20 minutes.

Ariew on the Controversy over the European Journal Rankings

Roger Ariew (South Florida) has kindly supplied some additional detail about the European initiative to rank journals, to which we alluded before.  Professor Ariew writes:

The ERIH (European Reference Index for the Humanities) is an attempt by the European Science Foundation to grade journals in the humanities – including “history and philosophy of science” and “philosophy.” The initiative proposes some lists of academic journals, with first, second, and third divisions (see ERIH initial lists here).

About sixty editors of journals in history and philosophy of science are protesting ERIH by publishing editorials in their first issues of 2009, requesting that the compilers of ERIH remove their journals’ titles from the lists (“Journals Under Threat: a Joint Response from History of Science, Technology and Medicine Editors”). According to these editors the initiative is entirely defective in conception and execution: there are major issues of accountability and transparency with ERIH. The process of producing the graded list of journals in science studies and philosophy was overseen by unrepresentative committees of four and five:

History and Philosophy of Science

Maria Carla Galavotti (Chair), Universitá di Bologna (IT)

Christopher Cullen, Needham Research Institute, Cambridge (UK)

Jaroslav Folta, National Technical Museum, Praha (CZ)

Juho Sihvola, University of Helsinki (FI)

Philosophy

François Recanati (Chair), Institut Jean Nicod, CNRS/EHESS, Paris (FR)

Manuel Garcia-Carpintero, Universitat de Barcelona (SP)

Diego Marconi, Universitá degli Studi di Torino (IT)

Kevin Mulligan, Université de Genève (CH)

Barry Smith, Birkbeck College, University of London (UK)

The great concern is that exercises such as ERIH can become self-fulfilling prophecies. 

If such measures are adopted as metrics by funding and other agencies, then scholars 

in our fields will conclude that they have little choice other than to limit their 

publications to journals in the first division. We will sustain fewer journals, much less 

diversity and impoverish our disciplines.

The protest has been gaining traction. A-HUG (The Arts & Humanities User Group) recently sent a letter to the chief Executive of the AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council — the UK's main funding agency for the arts and humanities), protesting ERIH, on behalf of such organizations as the British Philosophical Association and the British Society for the Philosophy of Science, and making use of the editorial (see A-HUG to AHRC).

Here is the A-HUG letter to AHRC:

A-HUG: The Arts & Humanities User Group

contact: Professor Robin Osborne, University of Cambridge ([email protected])

Dear Professor Esler

The Arts and Humanities community is increasingly concerned about the European Research Index in the Humanities. At the meeting which you kindly set up in February a very wide range of Arts and Humanities subject associations and learned societies were able to hear an explanation of the purposes which the ERIH is supposed to serve and to express their grave disquiet at the incoherent conception and mistaken assumptions that lie behind the ERIH and about the way in which the ERIH lists had been constructed. It is now six months later, and although Rudiger Klein of the ESF promised to take back these concerns to the board responsible for the ERIH, we have received no communication from him and there has been no public response to our calls for ERIH to be withdrawn until such time that it can be provided with a coherent rationale and competently executed.

Our concern is both with the failure of the ESF to show any sign of taking the criticisms seriously and with the failure of the AHRC to play an appropriate role in representing the UK Arts and Humanities Community to the ESF. We wish to make three points.

1. You have consistently, and most recently in your response to enquiries from the British Philosophical Association, repeated the ESF claims that ESF rankings are not qualitative. The Arts and Humanities Community have repeatedly drawn to your attention that when the ESF describes ‘A-rated’ journals as ‘High ranking, international level publication’ and ‘B-rated’ journals as ‘Standard, international level publication’ no ordinary reader can understand the distinction between 'high-ranking' and 'standard' as other than qualitative.

2. Journal editors themselves can see only harm to their interests in these rankings. There is a wide variation in the impact and quality of articles even in the very best journals. A good proportion of work rejected by the most highly rated journals and appearing in less highly rated ones is as good or better than work published in the most highly rated ones. Anything which suggests that the continuum of journal publication divides into distinct categories and gives those categories labels that can only be interpreted as a hierarchy is bound to coerce authors into aiming their submissions more exclusively at the category at the top of the hierarchy. But for editors of A-rated journal to be inundated with contributions which are an imperfect fit for the journals aims makes their task very much more difficult. The more editors are overwhelmed with contributions, the more difficult it becomes for them to set up appropriate peer review and the more likely it is that the quality of publication becomes more uneven. Nor is it in the interests of the research community that the desire to have publications in A-rated journals should lead to research being directed ever more exclusively at the sorts of topics which A-rated journals favour. It has been noted that in the social sciences, where some fields have themselves encouraged the idea that there is a hierarchy of journals in a field, the most influential papers turn out not to be published in the journals at the top of that hierarchy.

As you may be aware, the editors of journals in the History of Science have grouped together to request that the ESF withdraw their journals from the ERIH (we reproduce their joint editorial as Appendix A below). The Arts and Humanities community believes that if the ESF will not withdraw the ERIH, the only responsible action for the AHRC to take to ensure the continuing health of Arts and Humanities journals in the UK is to support and encourage such piecemeal withdrawals.

3. The aims of the ERIH, to give the Arts and Humanities an easily calculable measure by which it can indicate the impact of its research to governments, are very close to the aim of the UK's Research Assessment Exercise. The ESF aim is to give an indication of research impact at a national level, whereas the RAE aims to give an indication of research impact at the level of the individual university, but what they are concerned to measure is essentially the same. The discussions over successive RAEs and now over the REF have shown that both within and beyond the Arts and Humanities the academic community is convinced that any such assessment must be based on peer review not of journals in the abstract but of particular research outputs. The AHRC's own practices endorse this view by their dependence on research outputs. The Research Assessment Exercise panels have shown that it is possible for peer review to command the respect and confidence of the subject communities. Peer review is what both appointment to academic posts and academic promotions, both in this country and in the U.S.A. exclusively rely upon. The AHRC has been pioneering the construction of peer review networks, and the Arts and Humanities community fully supports the principle lying behind this construction.

            

We call upon the AHRC, therefore, to take the following courses of action:

a) to advise all Arts and Humanities subject associations and learned societies that, while the ERIH descriptions of journal categories A and B continue to indicate that A journals are of a higher standard than B journals it cannot support the ERIH and that it is requesting of the ESF that no journal edited in the UK be listed in the ERIH rankings;

b) to undertake a campaign within the members of the ESF to demonstrate that the aims of the ERIH would be better met by constructing a system for robust peer review based on an extension of the peer-review network which the AHRC is itself establishing.

We will offer our full support to the AHRC in undertaking both these courses of action.

Robin Osborne on behalf of:

Architectural Humanities Research Association

Association of Art Historians

AUDTRS (Association of University Departments of Theology & Religious Studies)

AUPHF (Association of University Professors of French and Heads of Departments of French in the United Kingdom and Ireland)

British Association of Slavonic and East European Studies

British Philosophical Association

British Society for the Philosophy of Science

Council for British Archaeology

Council of the British Society for the History of Science

Council of University Classical Departments

Linguistics Association of Great Britain

Media, Communications and Cultural Association

Modern Humanities Research Association (MHRA)

Philological Society

Royal Asiatic Society

Society of Legal Scholars

British Association for the Study of Religions

Appendix A

Andrew Sullivan Thinks There is "Intellectual Hope" for Conservativism

And he says it will come through sophomoric blather about philosophy (including poor Nietzsche) apparently.  Yikes!

UPDATE:  Reader Daniel Koffler points out that the post to which Sullivan links was, in fact, written by a college junior, ergo being sophomoric is not much of an offense!  So what's really curious here is that Sullivan thinks this is the "intellectual hope" of conservativism.

Chalmers, Rosenthal, Tye on Philosophy of Mind

Via the Chalmers blog, I learn of a forthcoming volume in the 5 Questions series devoted to philosophy of mind and that three of the 'interviews' are on-line:  those of David Chalmers, in draft form (ANU), David Rosenthal (CUNY), and Michael Tye (Texas).  The Tye interview includes the story (which I had heard from him orally in the past) of how he ended up getting his PhD in the 1970s at Buffalo.  (Buffalo is a rather different program these days.)

I've recently gotten the impressive-looking Epistemology volume in the series, though have not had a chance to read much of it yet; when I do, I'll post some excerpts.

Watching the Presidential Debate Like Reading Sartre???

Weird.

Jerry Dworkin Rebuts Charge of "Hackery"!

Will Wilkinson, a former philosophy graduate student and libertarian zealot, has ripped into Jerry Dworkin's attributing Greenspan's disastrous economic policies to the influence of the pseudo-philosopher Ayn Rand as mere "hackery" (though Wilkinson attributes the offending view and the "hackery", oddly, to me, a "professional philosopher").  Jerry replies:

Since at the top of the post Wilkinson is referencing it clearly states “Jerry Dworkin (UC Davis) writes” it is frankly embarrassing that Will Wilkinson, a professional—umm—dropout from a Ph.D program in philosophy, attributes the views expressed to Brian Leiter. In an even more embarrassing Calvin Klein/ Herbert Hoover-like wishful ideological free association it turns out that the only meaning the OED gives for “hackery” is “The common native bullock-cart of India used for the transport of goods” It is still more embarrassing—if such is possible—to confuse “pinning” the financial crisis on someone as opposed to the actual claim made in my post that Rand can be plausibly viewed as “an important cause’of the crisis we find ourselves in. This leaves plenty of room for Wilkinson’s only other candidate for the crisis—Bill Clinton

Some philosophers may know Mr. Wilkinson from his all-too-frequent appearances on Blogging-Heads TV.  I think BHTV is great, but they really need to have better interlocutors for the philosophers on the show.

And I certainly think Jerry Dworkin's point in the original post was apt. 

A FINAL THOUGHT:  Mr. Wilkinson--having accused Dworkin of "embarrassing...free associations" and "hackery"--now calls for a "civil discussion" (too late, Will), and suggests we debate him on BHTV.  (Is that "Bobble Heads" TV, asked Jerry?)  It appears he doesn't realize that he's not being taken seriously (he might think about why--some of the commenters on his original post might help him), though one might have thought Jerry's rejoinder would have made that clear.   In any case, someone interested in a "civil discussion" with grown-ups might start by taking responsibility for the comments section of his blog which, judging from the thread linked above, is now awash in juvenile stupidity, insults and lies directed at Jerry and me.  Class act, Mr. Wilkinson.

Friday 'Poem': "We do indeed need saving"

We do indeed need saving

Seeing the publicity bus of the Lubavitcher Yeshiva with the words Welcome Mossiach (savior) emblazoned on its well-decorated side:

Welcome Mossiach we do indeed need saving but are you the one who's got what it takes  Looking for a seer I tried Pearle Vision Centers but all they could offer were the usual suspects rimless 20 20 if you dare but no way to see beyond the moment of perception  I saw your truck on 57th neat immodest down the Avenue from St Pat's where Salvation is more regular and the Masses are always welcome  I've got to give you credit your Rebbe not long ago buried whom you had claimed the true Mossiach was only a bit of herring before the last supper 

Oh expectation oh anticipation oh 2nd 4th l00th coming pluck us once again from our mortal slumming stumbling spinning sinning sighing   Save us from each other and from the Church around the corner and from Liz and John Warner from Brooks Brothers and from property owners and from whatever ails us 

Now tell me can you do it

1997, 2008

Copyright 2008 by Maurice Leiter

Posted with permission.

The Controversy over the European Journal Rankings Initiative

CHE has a story on the controversy here.  (Thanks to George Rainbolt for the pointer.)  I confess I've been so busy, I've not followed this carefully, though I've asked one philosopher who has been following this to write something up about the issues for the blog.  Students often inquire about the relative prestige of journals, but this exercise isn't simply about establishing a prestige hierarchy.  As one scholar quoted in the article notes, a real worry with this particular enterprise is that it is meant to displace peer review of scholarly work at the tenure or promotion stage:  e.g., Deans can just say, "Professor X published in six A-level journals, therefore we don't need any review of those articles."  That would obviously be unacceptable at the best departments (NYU, Princeton et al. might well turn someone down for tenure who had published in Phil Review and Nous etc.), though might actually work fairly well as a way of streamlining the tenure process at most places (assuming the A-level journals really have meaningful peer review in their editorial process).

In any case, I hope to have more on this before too long.

Science Education Under Attack in Texas...Again!

Sadly, the Texas Taliban never rest, so this time Texas scientists are organizing to fight back.  When I first started blogging in 2003, these very same issues were being debated.  It's just depressing to realize that this nonsense continues.  May the friends of knowledge and reason prevail, for the sake of the children in Texas.

Blame it on Ayn Rand

Jerry Dworkin (UC Davis) writes:

From today's NY Times.

"For more than a decade, the former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has fiercely objected whenever derivatives have come under scrutiny in Congress or on Wall Street. “What we have found over the years in the marketplace is that derivatives have been an extraordinarily useful vehicle to transfer risk from those who shouldn’t be taking it to those who are willing to and are capable of doing so,” Mr. Greenspan told the Senate Banking Committee in 2003. “We think it would be a mistake” to more deeply regulate the contracts, he added."

And this:

"An examination of more than two decades of Mr. Greenspan’s recordon financial regulation and derivatives in particular reveals the degree to which he tethered the health of the nation’s economy to that faith.  As the nascent derivatives market took hold in the early 1990s, andi n   subsequent years,   critics denounced an absence of rules forcing institutions to disclose their positions and set aside funds as a reserve against bad bets. Time and again, Mr. Greenspan — a revered figure affectionately nicknamed the Oracle — proclaimed that risks could be handled by the markets themselves.  “Proposals to bring even minimalist regulation were basically rebuffed by Greenspan and various people in the Treasury,” recalled Alan S. Blinder, a former Federal Reserve board member and an economist at Princeton University. “I think of him as consistently cheerleading on derivatives.”

Put this together with Keynes:

” . . . the ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back."

and we get Ayn Rand as an important cause of the catastrophe we are in.

UPDATE:  I gather some readers did not know that Greenspan was not only a friend of Rand's, but a lifelong devotee of her ideas and her 'philosophy,' such as it is.  There is more detail here.

ANOTHER:  Jerry Dworkin replies to Mr. Wilkinson here.

Philosopher Ellis (UC Santa Cruz) Supports Obama Against "the Dark Side"

Here.

(Thanks to Alva Noe for the pointer.)

Department of Freudian Slips?

John McCain refers to Americans as "my fellow prisoners."  As gaffes go, this one is rich with layers of possible meanings.

The Study of Chinese Philosophy in the U.S.: The Discussion Continues

A discussion launched on this blog a couple of years ago is now continuing in the pages of one of the fall 2008 APA Newsletters here.  Manyul Im, a scholar of Chinese philosophy at Fairfield University whose comments stimulated the initial discussion, is hosting further discussion at his blog.

Law and Philosophy Fellowship at the University of Chicago Law School, 2009-2010

Once again, Chicago will be hosting a Law and Philosophy Fellow.  (You can read about this year's Fellow here.)  You can access the ad by searching under Law School positions on this site; here is the full text of the ad (which will appear in the November JFP):

The University of Chicago Law School seeks to appoint a Law and Philosophy Fellow for the academic year 2009-10. A Ph.D. in philosophy by time of appointment is expected, though in unusual cases a Ph.D. in a related discipline, or a J.D. accompanied by strong training in philosophy, will be considered. Applications also welcome from post-2003 doctorates. Law degree (J. D. or foreign equivalent), or some other record of academic training in law, is helpful, but not required.

The Fellow's research should intersect with issues of interest to legal scholars. Examples would include work on normative concepts such as equality or punishment; investigation of the philosophical dimensions of a substantive area of law, such as criminal law, constitutional law, sex equality, or property; research that bears on the legal dimensions of intention, proof, or agency; and work in jurisprudence. The Fellow will be expected to contribute to the intellectual life of the Law School, pursue his or her research, and participate in teaching either the Law and Philosophy Workshop or a seminar. Teaching duties are modest and will contribute to the Fellow's research. Salary 50K + benefits + superb research environment.

To be considered individuals must apply online at https://jobopportunities.uchicago.edu by January 15, 2009. Resume, cover letter, writing sample, reference contact information and research statement should be submitted electronically on the web site at the time of application. Three confidential letters of recommendation should be mailed to Kate Malinski, The University of Chicago Law School, 1111 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637, by January 15, 2009. The University of Chicago is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.   

Please e-mail me if you have any questions. 

Teaching philosophy in Africa

Josh Wood from Boston University writes:

I'm an American doctoral student in philosophy currently teaching in Malawi, Africa.  I teach epistemology to third-year undergraduates at the country's flagship university, Chancellor College.  22 students attend the class and a good majority of them are as bright and engaged with the material as, I imagine, any instructor could wish for.  For those who are wondering, I find myself here because my wife was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to pursue doctoral research in Malawi.  I am here to support her work, get some teaching experience at the neighboring university, and help care for our (flourishing) toddler.

I am writing because I am helping the philosophy department here draft a job announcement.  This job announcement is intended specifically for graduate students or post-docs (from either the US or UK) who are looking for teaching experience, not to mention a little adventure. 

More broadly, this job announcement is intended for anyone qualified to teach philosophy to undergraduates (2 courses per semester with a slight chance of 3), guiding senior thesis research, shouldering a light administrative load, and speaking English fluently.  So I think candidates outside the US and UK still stand a chance.

The department is willing to hire qualified candidates (up to two) for two years with the option to renew their contracts.  (The department is not interested in offering contracts for less than two years.)  There is salary involved as well as benefits.  I don't yet have hard numbers, but let me assure you that it will be very little by western standards.  The university is located in the most beautiful city in the country: Zomba. 

But I'll leave all talk of beautiful landscapes, wildlife, low cost of living, temperate climate, and vibrant markets (etc) aside.  Perhaps I should just mention that this country, though it is among the most impoverished in the world, is quite livable.

On behalf of potential candidates I have advised the head of the department to be as honest and explicit as possible about the working and living conditions here.  But between the two of us I am in the best position to explain what these are.  (For example, the university's library is not a research library by any standard and should not be counted on as a resource for one's own work.  And living in a country such as this can be very trying for visitors who are not vigilant, creative, and highly resourceful and all of these on a regular basis.) But I cannot detail everything.  As for living conditions, I would imagine that a suitable candidate will be someone who takes it upon themselves to figure out what they can ahead of time and who is capable of dealing with the challenges of living here when they present themselves.

I'd like to ask visitors of this blog for help in piquing interest in this opportunity.  My question is this: what information should be included in this job announcement--considering that interested candidates will most likely find themselves unable to visit the country, the city, or the department before accepting the job?  (That is, unless someone is willing to pay upwards of $1700 to fly to Malawi to inspect matters beforehand.)

Comments are open; please post only once, comments may take awhile to appear.

Summary of Faculty Changes for Non-US Departments

In response to several student inquiries, let me note that I hope to provide the update on faculty changes since fall 2006 for the non-US departments by the end of the month.  Thanks for your patience.

New Philosophers' Carnival is...

...here.

An Endorsement of Obama

This isn't bad, as American popular publications go.  Obama is educated and he is civilized, unlike the current President or Obama's opponents.   The endorsement, of course, ignores the question of what obligations the United States now has to the victims of its criminal war of aggression against Iraq, but this is America, and these are the New York bourgeoisie, so what can one expect?  The good news for humanity is that Obama now has a substantial lead in all the polls; barring an ugly 'October surprise' from the right-wing fanatics, this is now shaping up to be a landslide.  One may hope.

A Clear Explanation of the Current Financial Crisis and a Proposed Solution

From Richard Posner.  This is quite lucid, and his final proposed solution is close to what many economists (e.g., Krugman) have also proposed.

Logic Puzzle Solved and Winners Announced!

Here.  Mr. Gaugler from CUP writes:  "300 or so entries later, here we are....You've got some crafty readers (but I knew that)."