Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

Friday Poem: "No Place to Hide"

No Place To Hide

When I said

There’s no place to hide

Everyone thought I was making

A statement about life

About how the apocalypse

Or its nom de jour

Will suck us up

And put an end to everything

 

But that’s not what

I meant at all

I was just talking

About the stock market

And how when things sour

Everything you own goes down

Nothing is safe

 

Some looked relieved

When I explained this

But others appeared

Even more alarmed

2/14/10

Copyright 2010 by Maurice Leiter

Posted with permission.

Long Lost Letter by Descartes Found

Story here.

(Thanks to Rob Sica for the pointer.)

Pitt Establishes Prize for Work in "Systematic Philosophy" in Honor of Nicholas Rescher

Story here.

More on the Human Toll of Capitalism

In the leading organ of the supposedly prudent portion of the ruling class no less!  Of course, it may be that capitalists believe in the act/omission distinction, and so would not care to count this toll in their "black book."

Fodor Refutes Fodor's Critique of Natural Selection?

David Wallace (Oxford), following a link from my earlier post, points out this passage from Fodor's critique of Putnam's attack on cognitive science:

I don’t, myself, think that cognitive science is more in need of philosophical defence than is, say, ornithology. The warrant of the enterprise, in both cases, is not that the questions pursued are ‘well-defined’, but the truths that are discovered in the course of pursuing them. For someone who repeatedly claims to be a pragmatist, Putnam is strangely insensitive to the methodological truism that success is what justifies. If he really wants to mount a respectable attack on cognitive science (or ornithology for that matter) he has to show that the truths it claims to have discovered are spurious, or that they can be explained just as well without appeals to representational mental states and processes. That, however, would be hard work, and Putnam doesn’t even try. All of his arguments are a priori.

Dr. Wallace comments: 

All of which seems exactly right to me – but it could apply, mutatis mutandis, to Fodor’s own critique of natural selection, and indeed it’s pretty much what many of the commentators on Fodor have indeed been saying. As Fodor himself says in the same LRB critique, “what a strange business philosophy is”.

The Human Toll of Capitalism

Philosopher Tom Carson (Loyola/Chicago) called to my attention this informative and disturbing piece from The Atlantic about the consequences of chronic unemployment in the wake of the current crisis of capitalism.  An excerpt:

[I]n fact a whole generation of young adults is likely to see its life chances permanently diminished by this recession. Lisa Kahn, an economist at Yale, has studied the impact of recessions on the lifetime earnings of young workers. In one recent study, she followed the career paths of white men who graduated from college between 1979 and 1989. She found that, all else equal, for every one-percentage-point increase in the national unemployment rate, the starting income of new graduates fell by as much as 7 percent; the unluckiest graduates of the decade, who emerged into the teeth of the 1981–82 recession, made roughly 25 percent less in their first year than graduates who stepped into boom times.

But what’s truly remarkable is the persistence of the earnings gap. Five, 10, 15 years after graduation, after untold promotions and career changes spanning booms and busts, the unlucky graduates never closed the gap. Seventeen years after graduation, those who had entered the workforce during inhospitable times were still earning 10 percent less on average than those who had emerged into a more bountiful climate. When you add up all the earnings losses over the years, Kahn says, it’s as if the lucky graduates had been given a gift of about $100,000, adjusted for inflation, immediately upon graduation—or, alternatively, as if the unlucky ones had been saddled with a debt of the same size.

When Kahn looked more closely at the unlucky graduates at mid-career, she found some surprising characteristics. They were significantly less likely to work in professional occupations or other prestigious spheres. And they clung more tightly to their jobs: average job tenure was unusually long. People who entered the workforce during the recession “didn’t switch jobs as much, and particularly for young workers, that’s how you increase wages,” Kahn told me. This behavior may have resulted from a lingering risk aversion, born of a tough start. But a lack of opportunities may have played a larger role, she said: when you’re forced to start work in a particularly low-level job or unsexy career, it’s easy for other employers to dismiss you as having low potential. Moving up, or moving on to something different and better, becomes more difficult....

Strong evidence suggests that people who don’t find solid roots in the job market within a year or two have a particularly hard time righting themselves. In part, that’s because many of them become different—and damaged—people. Krysia Mossakowski, a sociologist at the University of Miami, has found that in young adults, long bouts of unemployment provoke long-lasting changes in behavior and mental health. “Some people say, ‘Oh, well, they’re young, they’re in and out of the workforce, so unemployment shouldn’t matter much psychologically,’” Mossakowski told me. “But that isn’t true.”

Examining national longitudinal data, Mossakowski has found that people who were unemployed for long periods in their teens or early 20s are far more likely to develop a habit of heavy drinking (five or more drinks in one sitting) by the time they approach middle age. They are also more likely to develop depressive symptoms. Prior drinking behavior and psychological history do not explain these problems—they result from unemployment itself. And the problems are not limited to those who never find steady work; they show up quite strongly as well in people who are later working regularly.

Forty years ago, Glen Elder, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina and a pioneer in the field of “life course” studies, found a pronounced diffidence in elderly men (though not women) who had suffered hardship as 20- and 30-somethings during the Depression. Decades later, unlike peers who had been largely spared in the 1930s, these men came across, he told me, as “beaten and withdrawn—lacking ambition, direction, confidence in themselves.” Today in Japan, according to the Japan Productivity Center for Socio-Economic Development, workers who began their careers during the “lost decade” of the 1990s and are now in their 30s make up six out of every 10 cases of depression, stress, and work-related mental disabilities reported by employers.

A large and long-standing body of research shows that physical health tends to deteriorate during unemployment, most likely through a combination of fewer financial resources and a higher stress level. The most-recent research suggests that poor health is prevalent among the young, and endures for a lifetime. Till Von Wachter, an economist at Columbia University, and Daniel Sullivan, of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, recently looked at the mortality rates of men who had lost their jobs in Pennsylvania in the 1970s and ’80s. They found that particularly among men in their 40s or 50s, mortality rates rose markedly soon after a layoff. But regardless of age, all men were left with an elevated risk of dying in each year following their episode of unemployment, for the rest of their lives. And so, the younger the worker, the more pronounced the effect on his lifespan: the lives of workers who had lost their job at 30, Von Wachter and Sullivan found, were shorter than those who had lost their job at 50 or 55—and more than a year and a half shorter than those who’d never lost their job at all.

More Fun with Leon Wieseltier

Here.  Mr. Wieseltier is not, as we have had occasion to discuss previously, an intellectual heavyweight (to put it politely).  But his penchant for wild abuse of the anti-semitism charge is truly ugly.

(Thanks to Aaron Baker for the pointer.)

Journal Problems, Redux: Not Enough Space at the Leading Journals...So Why Aren't More On-Line?

A young philosopher writes:

I'm an untenured faculty member at [a PhD-granting department], and I'm writing because I think something needs to be done about the state of philosophy journals lately. I am powerless to do anything, but maybe if some attention is drawn to the problems (again) on your blog, the situation can be improved.

The problems, as I see them, are these. Junior faculty need to publish in "good" journals. But this is getting harder and harder to do.  Currently THREE of the top six (according to the survey you did) philosophy journals are not currently accepting submissions (Nous, PPR, and AJP). The situation with AJP is a one-time only problem (the website says that the editor is ill), but it seems like Nous and PPR only accept submissions for about 6 months out of any given year lately. This has the effect of roughly doubling the number of submissions to the other top journals. These other journals are then swamped with submissions, and their review times slow. (As it is, when you send a paper to the Philosophical Review these days, six months go by before the paper is even sent to someone to read.) The editors of these journals pressure referees to be extra critical, so that they do not also acquire a long backlog of accepted papers. The editors also cut down on the number of referees who read each paper, since they have so many papers to send out. It seems to me that this does not lead to yet higher standards at these journals. Instead it just increases the amount of arbitrariness in the review process, so that it is more likely that even good papers will be rejected. Add to this the fact that the journals that are out of commission are the ones with good editorial practices and faster review times, and the result is that there are relatively few places to send your paper, you must wait a long time to find out whether it will be published, and the chances that it will be accepted are lower. For those under the time pressure of a tenure clock, this is a disaster. It is hard to imagine making the case to my dean that my paper was not published in a "good" journal because so many of those journals were out of commission for most of the last few years---even if that is a large part of the explanation.

What are the possible solutions? We either need more "good" philosophy journals, or we need the good ones to publish more often. The founding of Philosophers' Imprint was a big help here---not only is it a new journal, but because it is online-only it is not confined to publishing only four issues worth of papers each year. But no other general philosophy journal ranked in your survey has shown any signs of giving up the print-journal calendar and following this model. Why not? I'm not sure who is benefitting from the current set-up. In fact, there seems to be an opportunity here for some of the journals: journals ranked near the middle (say, the American Philosophical Quarterly) could re-invent themselves and increase their prestige by going online-only.

This seems like a smart, strategic suggestion.  Of course, the logistical and financial support of an on-line journal is not a simple matter.  But my correspondent is surely right that there is an opportunity here for an existing print journal to significantly expand its prestige and visibility by going on-line, following the PI model. 

Comments open; comments must include a valid e-mail address.  Full name in signature line preferred, esp. from faculty.  Please submit your comment only once; it may take awhile to appear.

How to find a paper topic

A funny, and instructive, anecdote, courtesy of Mark Lance (Georgetown):

A long time ago my colleague Terry Pinkard said that the actual function of words like "obviously" "clearly" etc was as a stand-in for "I have no argument for the following".  Ever since I've told students that a good way to find an easy paper is to read one by a famous philosopher, find the sentence that begins with one of those words and challenge it.  This has in fact yielded a good dozen published papers.

Fodor Finished

Ned Block (NYU) and Philip Kitcher (Columbia) have written a judicious and utterly devastating assessment in the Boston Review of Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini's new book on natural selection.   Unlike Thomas Nagel's recent embarrassment, the Fodor and Piettelli-Palmarini book is not predicated simply on sheer lazy ignorance of the relevant science, but on a purely philosophical argument about the notion of "selection for" in evolutionary theory.  Alas, as Block and Kitcher show, it's a confused argument.  The concluding paragraph of their essay (but, really, read the whole thing, it's a tour de force):

We admire the work that both Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini have produced over many decades. We regret that two such distinguished authors have decided to publish a book so cavalier in its treatment of a serious science, so full of apparently scholarly discussions that rest on mistakes and confusions—and so predictably ripe for making mischief.

Kudos to Block and Kitcher for discharging the moral responsibilities of public intellectuals in exemplary fashion.

(Addendum:  A couple of readers pointed out some time ago that there was another letter from Nagel to the TLS about his scandalous recommendation of the book by the Discovery [sic] Institute shill in which he made the astonishing admission that, "Like any layman who reads books on science [ed.--the book was published by the religion imprint of Harper Collins] for the general reader, I have to take the presentation of the data largely on trust" adding that "the book deserves a review from someone with the relevant scientific credentials."  Given this admission that he was incompetent to evaluate the book, why did he recommend it in such a high-profile forum?)

UPDATE:  One reader, a friend of Fodor's (so perhaps extra sensitive), misunderstood the title of the post, which means only that, in my judgment, Block & Kitcher finished off Fodor's critique of natural selection.  As longtime readers of the blog know, I have long been a fan of Fodor's work, especially his critical skills.

Geuss on Teaching Philosophy

From the latest edition of The Point:

I have what I have always held to be a mildly discreditable day job, that of teaching philosophy at a university. I take it to be discreditable because about 85 percent of my time and energy is devoted to training aspiring young members of the commercial, administrative or governmental elite in the glib manipulation of words, theories and arguments. I thereby help to turn out the pliable, efficient, self-satisfied cadres that our economic and political system uses to produce the ideological carapace which protects it against criticism and change. I take my job to be only mildly discreditable, partly because I don’t think, finally, that this realm of words is in most cases much more than an epiphenomenon secreted by power relations which would otherwise express themselves with even greater and more dramatic directness. Partly, too, because 10 percent of the job is an open area within which it is possible that some of these young people might become minimally reflective about the world they live in and their place in it; in the best of cases they might come to be able and willing to work for some minimal mitigation of the cruder excesses of the pervading system of oppression under which we live. The remaining 5 percent of my job, by the way, what I would call the actual “philosophical” part, is almost invisible from the outside, totally unclassifiable in any schema known to me—and quantitatively, in any case, so insignificant that it can more or less be ignored.

Fascism Watch

My esteemed former colleague Sandy Levinson notices.

New Philosophers' Carnival is...

...here, though it is more thematically coherent than usual (focusing mainly on posts about philosophical issues related to animals).

Marx Strikes Again

In The New York Times no less, an article on chronic unemployment:

“American business is about maximizing shareholder value,” said Allen Sinai, chief global economist at the research firm Decision Economics. “You basically don’t want workers. You hire less, and you try to find capital equipment to replace them.”

One wonders if Mr. Sinai knows the pedigree for this insight about capitalism?  Or if he understands the consequence of this logic?

Friday Poem: "Already Tomorrow"

Already Tomorrow

It is already tomorrow

And surprise

The morning line is ten to one

It will be like yesterday

 

Once you’re in your groove

It’s hard to deviate

Each day reflects the life you’ve chosen

Or the life that came upon you

 

And the days go rolling by

The little cloned sweethearts

Until only the calendar

Tells you which is which

 

Why even the President

Is caught up like us

And we begin to see it

Once the campaign’s promise fades

 

His days too are like the ones before

And the new becomes the old

And change deflates to stasis

And hope becomes hopeless

 

He is what he was

As we are what we are

Why should we expect another

To break the familiar mold

 

To break his particular mold

And become someone

We wished he would be

Freer than we are

 

What then sustains us

Through the echoing days

Is it vampish illusion

That gives a gloss to sameness

 

As we bring the curtain down

On just another day

And look forward to tomorrow

As if magic were in play

As if ineluctability

Could be wished away

 

1/24/10, 2/10-2/15/10

Copyright 2010 by Maurice Leiter

Posted with permission

Florida State University Firing Tenured Faculty

Not in philosophy, but in other fields.  It is no less shocking for that.  And the similarity to recent events at King's College London is alarmingly obvious.  (The closing of a unit due to financial exigencies is one of the grounds on which tenure faculty can be terminated--whether that applies in this case is already being challenged.)

"Rorty and the Philosophical Tradition: A Comment on Professor Szubka"

I'll present this short commentary at a session of the Central Meeting later today:

I agree with Tadusz Szubka's thesis that there is a "partial" continuity between Rorty's work in the 1960s (esp. The Linguistic Turn) and his later pragmatic philosophy in which he repudiated "analytic" philosophy. I suggest additional support for the thesis of continuity comes from an examination of Rorty's undergraduate and graduate education. I then argue that the real puzzle about Rorty's intellectual development is not why he gave up on "analytic" philosophy - he had never been much committed to that research agenda, even before it became moribund--but why, beginning with Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (PMN), he gave up on the central concerns of philosophy going back to antiquity. Many contemporary philosophers influenced by Quine's attack on the analytic-synthetic distinction and Sellars' attack on "the Myth of the Given" (the two argumentative linchpins of PMN) didn't abandon philosophical questions about truth, knowledge, and mind, they just concluded those questions needed to be naturalized, to be answered in conjunction with the empirical sciences. Why didn't Rorty go this route? The paper concludes with some interesting anecdotes about Rorty that invite speculative explanations.

Professor Szubka's paper is not, to my knowledge, available on-line, though it is easy enough, I think, to follow my discussion even without having read Professor Szubka's piece.  I call attention to some interesting items from the Neil Gross biography of Rorty.  Here, for example, is what a young Richard Rorty wrote in his 'statement of interests' when applying to the PhD program at Yale:

I should like to acquire a better grasp of the alternatives on the nature and content of logic, and, most of all, to learn as much as I can about the specific differences and similarities between the methods and results of the predecessors and exponents of existentialism and those of the type of philosophy which, I think, reaches its culmination in Whitehead and his successors…Eventually…I should like to study in Europe and gain a more thorough and immediate acquaintance with recent European developments in philosophy.

Different times.

"Garden of Forking Paths"--the free will blog--takes a hiatus

John Martin Fischer (UC Riverside) writes:

You might be interested in this post on the gfp in which we are announcing an indefinite hiatus.  We frankly were distressed over time with a lowering of the quality of discussion.  I resonate with your recent post in which you talk about some of the problems of the blogosphere.

Bottom line: it was a great run, and a fun experiment.  But in the end I really want something more disciplined and of higher quality.  Perhaps something will emerge in the future.

A shame, but the problems GFP confronted are real.  Only aggressive moderation can sustain serious philosophical discussion in cyberspace.  Question:  will some of the other philosophy blogs committed to substantive discussion (including many of those noted here) survive?

Good News for Those Attending the Central Division Meetings in Chicago

It's 'restaurant week' in Chicago, so there are lots of deals at some very good restaurants.

(Thanks to John Casey and David Vessey for the pointer.)

UPDATE:  So I finally had a chance to look at the list of restaurants more carefully.  For the benefit of out-of-towners, here are a few quick recommendations.  Japonais is excellent.  Good or very good are Brazzaz (if you like that kind of thing), Osteria via Stato, and Brasserie Jo.  I've been told, by reliable people, that Blackbird and Crofton on Wells are also very good.  Alas, MK, one of my favorites, isn't on the list--it's excellent, but also quite pricey.

Living with Lou Gehrig's Disease

You should read this extraordinary essay by the distinguished historian and social critic Tony Judt of NYU.

In Memoriam: Itamar Pitowsky (1950-2010)

The well-known philosopher of physics was a longtime member of The Hebrew University faculty.  There is more information about his work, as well as remembrances from friends, here.

(Thanks to Aviv Hoffmann for calling this to my attention.)

From the Waning Days of the American Plutocracy...

...the rich got richer the last fifteen years (and their taxes declined).  Who would've guessed?

In Memoriam: Nelson Pike (1930-2010)

MOVING TO FRONT FROM FEBRUARY 8; SEE UPDATE.

Professor Pike, who passed away on January 24, was a leading contributor to philosophy of religion and longtime member of the Department of Philosophy at the University of California, Irvine, where he was Professor Emeritus.  The UC Irvine Department has a detailed biblography here.  I will add links to memorial notices as they appear.

(Thanks to Kurt Smith for the information.)

UPDATE:   A memorial notice from UC Irvine.

Pitt Makes Bid for Philosopher of Science Batterman at Western Ontario

Robert Batterman (philosophy of science and physics), who holds a Canada Research Chair in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Western Ontario, has a senior offer from the Department of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh.  Both places--Pitt and UWO--have been leaders in the general area of philosophy of the sciences, mathematics, and logic for a long time (UWO is certainly the preeminent department in Canada in these areas, while Pitt has been the preeminent department in the U.S. for at least forty years [though UC Irvine now gives Pitt a 'run for the money'].)  Prospective students will want to keep an eye on what happens here.

"Chaos as an Everyday Thing"

Thanks to Varol Akman (Bilkent) for the pointer to this essay by Immanuel Wallerstein.

For Chicago Students: Spring Teaching

There seems to have been some foul-up at the registrar's office for the Spring Quarter schedule.  Michael Forster and I will be teaching a cross-listed seminar on the "Social and Political Philosophy of Hegel and Marx" on Wednesdays, from 4-6:30 pm.  E-mail me if you have questions.  In addition, I'll be teaching the Jurisprudence I course in the Law School (though auditors or students from other units are welcome).

Exploring Philosophy through Jokes?

Ruchira Paul comments on a recent book.

The Ignoble Prize in Economics

In honor of the purveyers of the "dismal science"--or simply the failed science--that has helped destroy the world.   Hmmm, awful lot of Chicago folks on that list....

UPDATE:  As Chris Hitchcock (Cal Tech) reminds me, Ignoble Prizes have been awarded for years in many fields!

"Rethinking the Genealogy of Morals"

Last October, the Center for Law, Philosophy & Human Values here at the University of Chicago sponsored a conference on "Rethinking the Genealogy of Morals."  The conference ranged far beyond Nietzsche, to look at other efforts to understanding the origins of our moral values, from Hume and Darwin, to contemporary theories in the social science.  We had six genuinely excellent and fascinating papers by my colleagues Michael Forster and Robert Richards, as well as by Daniel Batson (Kansas), Peter Kail (Oxford), John Mikhail (Georgetown), and Jesse Prinz (CUNY).   Excellent commentary was provided by my colleagues Agnes Callard and Martha Nussbaum, as well as Robin Kar (Illinois) and three PhD students:  Nir Ben-Moshe and Nic Koziolek here at Chicago, and Guy Elgat from Northwestern.

Five of the six sessions are now available on audio recordings (scroll down).  Unfortunately, a technical problem resulted in a failure to record Professor Mikhail's session, though interested readers should can find his rich and fascinating paper here.

Calvin College First School to Advertise for a Job While in Violation of APA's New Antidiscrimination Policy

MOVING TO FRONT FROM SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 7 IN CASE ANY READERS MISSED THIS

Per the new policy, Calvin's ad is the first to appear marked for failure to comply.  Several philosophers have now drafted a letter which will be sent to the Proceedings of the APA and other venues.  If you would like to add your name as a signatory, please e-mail Professor Lance at Georgetown.  The letter and contact information for Calvin College follow:

Response to Calvin College’s Rejection of APA Statement on Non-discrimination

We, the undersigned, note with concern Calvin College’s decision to reject the APA’s clarification of its non-discrimination statement to include “gender identification”.  In doing so, Calvin College enjoys the dubious honor of being the first institution identified by the APA in its new policy of flagging those institutions that refuse to honor the non-discrimination statement.

One might puzzle over a form of Christianity that is committed to the inequality of people, and in particular of job applicants for positions in philosophy.  More disturbing, however, is the stigma Calvin College feels entitled to place upon those who are doubly exposed:  as lesbians, gays, bisexuals or transgendered in a society that has yet to accept them, and as people seeking jobs during difficult economic times. 

Obtaining academic positions in philosophy is never an easy task; doing so in the face of the current economic climate is nothing less than traumatic.  That Calvin College would engage in a most egregious form of discrimination under these circumstances strikes us as not only deplorable but indeed as displaying a lack of basic human concern.

We live in a world in which it is legal in most states to fire someone simply for being, or appearing to be, gay or lesbian; in which sexual minorities are denied visitation rights to dying life-partners; and in which loving, same-sex couples are denied the right to adopt. In this environment, the decision by Calvin College to align itself with those who seek to deny human dignity and equality to their fellow citizens and our fellow philosophers is an injury that we must resist.

We urge all those in the philosophical community, regardless of their sexual or gender identification, to write to Calvin College, see below, to express their dismay at this lack of decency, and, if so moved, to contribute to the groups listed in the Grand Rapids LGBT network.  

It is imperative for us, as philosophers, coming as we do from a tradition that seeks to understand and promote truth and justice, to resist those who would betray both the most significant values of our profession and the most vulnerable members of it.

Signatories

Editor of Journal Charged with "Criminal Libel" in France Based on a Book Review!

Joseph Weiler, an NYU law professor who is editor of the European Journal of International Law, has been charged with criminal libel in France by Karin Calvo-Goller, who was displeased with a critical review of her book published in Professor Weiler's journal.  Professor Weiler gives a patient account of the matter in the editorial linked here, including a link to the review, which is critical but mild (contrast this!)  The author has obviously done more damage to her own reputation by making this criminal complaint than would have been possible by any book review, let alone the one in question.  It bears noting that "criminal libel" in France does not mean that a prosecutor has reviewed the charges and found that they have enough merit to warrant action; it suffices for the offended party, in this case Dr. Calvo-Goller, to file a criminal complaint. 

Britain is, of course, notorious for its outrageous libel laws that make it easy to suppress and punish speech that would clearly be protected under U.S. law (or any morally defensible system of free speech).  One consequence is that many U.S. jurisdictions (including major jurisdictions like New York, California, Illinois, and Florida) have passed laws that essentially make defamation judgments in foreign jurisdictions that would have been impossible in the U.S. unenforceable in a court here.  (Pending federal legislation would also create a cause of action against "libel tourists" in U.S. courts.)   What I'm unsure of is how these laws would affect a criminal libel judgment emerging from France (their main object was plainly libel judgments in the British courts).  Professor Weiler will go to trial in France, and hopefully, the French courts will dismiss the matter quickly.  But this bears watching.

Details about French 'criminal libel' law would be welcome in the comments.

(Thanks to Joel Trachtman for calling this case to my attention.)

The So-Called "Climategate" Scandal

This is an intelligent assessment of what we have actually learned from the brouhaha surrounding climate research at the University of East Anglia.

How many philosophers of religion at PhD-granting departments?

This site compiles some statistics, and not only about philosophy of religion.

The King's College, London Scandal Deepens: Using a Budget Crisis to Impose an Administrative Agenda and Attack Academic Freedom

An academic in London familiar with developments at King's College, London writes with some important information, confirming worries voiced in earlier items about what is really going on at KCL:

The KCL administration is in the process of acquiring the Centre of Contemporary British History, which is currently based at Institute of Historical Research, School of Advanced Study in the University of London. This involves hiring the 6 academics in the centre: two professors and four junior positions. Where SAS is directly funded by HEFCE (Higher Education Funding Council in the UK), in moving to KCL, these academics will have to be funded through KCL's own funds.

Although historians, they are to be hired 'cross school' with Public Policy. Allegedly there is a business plan fully to fund these positions. No explanation has been given how a centre which the IHR is divesting itself of can be self-funding, while the rest of Humanities (which of course contains the History dept proper) at KCL needs to be cut by 10%. Note also that positions are planned in German, and that two positions have been advertised in Theology.

To this date, KCL administration have issued no official statement rebutting the charges against them about the manner in which the redundancy plans are being carried through.

This makes clear that while the UK government cuts form a background to the current crisis at KCL, what is going on here is very much a matter of the administration attempting to redirect academic activity in the university from the top down and through bullying and intimidating tactics.

There is a crisis in UK Higher Education given the stringent level of cuts to be imposed by the current Government. But the KCL case is different. It presents us with an even greater threat to academic norms and academic freedom. It is important to recognize that KCL administration is being creative in the way in which universities are to be managed. If it succeeds in this, such practice may spread elsewhere in the UK. But this is not yet the norm.

So far KCL administration has sought to avoid responding to any of the public complaints about the lack of due process involved in implementing this plan. The principal and other senior administrators seem unconcerned that philosophers and linguists, and indeed medieval historians and classicists, are shocked at these actions. I encourage  people now to contact senior figures in other areas of the humanities at institutions other than KCL, inform them of the details of what has gone on and urge them to add their voices to the protest.

Ten Million Visits

Some time in the last 24 hours, this blog had its ten millionth visitor, at least according to the SiteMeter gods.   Whatever the precise number, that seems like an awful lot, given my non-existent expectations that I'd have any readers in the beginning.  The blog started in August 2003, mostly by accident:  the IT folks at the University of Texas created blog software and were looking for faculty to use it.  The IT folks in the Law School asked if I was interested, and I said 'no thanks.'  But a week later I changed my mind, since I thought it would be a good complement to the on-line ranking material, and would be an easy way to do updates and corrections.   So it began.  The disgusting behavior of the "Texas Taliban" and the shills at the Discovery [sic] Institute, as well as the criminality of Bush & his bestiary of madmen caught my attention, indeed, occupied a lot of the blog for awhile, resulting in an expansion of the readership.  (Especially memorable, I suppose, was the scandal of the Harvard Law Review publishing laudatory nonsense by a confused law student about notorious ID apologist Francis Beckwith, followed by one of Beckwith's students doing a hatchet job on me in The National Review.)    Lots of fun, and maybe it even did a bit of good, but it became too time-consuming, and so things migrated back to mostly academic stuff.

Mostly it's been enjoyable working on this blog, though my earliest reflections on the experience still ring true to me.   I've certainly enjoyed the privilege of corresponding with a lot of interesting folks (philosophers, other academics, non-academics) thanks to the blog; I've probably recruited a few extra readers for my actual scholarly work; I'm pleased to have provided useful information and help to many students, many of whom have been kind enough to write over the years; and I've had the opportunity to promote good causes, whether it is stamping out anti-gay bigotry in academia, exposing bad behavior by philosophers, or calling attention to egregious actions by administrators that affect philosophy.  Many readers have found particularly valuable the many discussion threads we've run about "issues in the profession" over the last couple of years. 

A Gloomy Economic Forecast through 2018

Here (scroll down to the February economic report), with supporting arguments.  The conclusion:

In summary, global economic recovery will disappoint as set out below:-

• Growth will slow in the first half of this year
• It should recover late this year with a modest recovery likely in 2011.
• The seeds of the next credit crisis have been sown by soaring government debt and monetary largesse. It may well be the need for a huge issuance of government loans that will cause the next credit crisis, starting around 2012 and reaching its apex in 2013.
• A new global recession, part of the ongoing depression, will begin that year and last at least two years.
• The world is unlikely to begin a new period of sustainable growth until 2018 at the earliest.

Of course, at the macro- level economists aren't generally that much better than astrologists, so....

"No Cuts at King's" Blog

Here--a good source of up-to-date information and links.

There's also a very sharp letter from the philosophers at Birkbeck about the KCL situation which I commend to everyone's attention.

"We're doomed"

It would seem so.  But at least the Marxist theory of the state in capitalist society is confirmed again.

Honneth from Frankfurt to Columbia

Axel Honneth (social and political philosophy, esp. critical theory), Professor of Philosophy at the University of Frankfurt, will take up a half-time post in a new Chair in the Humanities in the Philosophy Department at Columbia University, starting in fall 2011.  It is expected that he will move full-time to Columbia a few years thereafter.  (Honneth will come up against the mandatory retirement age in the German system circa 2014.)

It's official: Bernard-Henri Levy is the Charlatan and Poseur You Always Suspected

No serious scholar or philosopher--as opposed to a self-promoting poseur (not pensuer) like Levy--would have made this mistake:

When France’s most dashing philosopher took aim at Immanuel Kant in his latest book, calling him “raving mad” and a “fake”, his observations were greeted with the usual adulation. To support his attack, Bernard-Henri Lévy — a showman-penseur known simply by his initials, BHL — cited the little-known 20th-century thinker Jean-Baptiste Botul.

There was one problem: Botul was invented by a journalist in 1999 as an elaborate joke, and BHL has become the laughing stock of the Left Bank.

There were clues. One supposed work by Botul — from which BHL quoted — was entitled The Sex Life of Immanuel Kant. The philosopher’s school is known as Botulism and subscribes to his theory of “La Metaphysique du Mou” — the Metaphysics of the Flabby. Botul even has a Wikipedia entry that explains that he is a “fictional French philosopher”.

But Mr Lévy, a leader among the nouveaux philosophes school of the 1970s, was unaware. In On War in Philosophy, he writes that Botul had proved once and for all “just after the Second World War, in his series of lectures to the neo-Kantians of Paraguay, that their hero was an abstract fake, a pure spirit of pure appearance”.

His credulity was spotted by Aude Lancelin, a journalist with the Le Nouvel Observateur, the left-leaning weekly that is de rigueur for the thinking classes. The Botul quotes were “a nuclear gaffe that raises questions on the Lévy method”, she wrote.

Mr Lévy admitted last night that he had been fooled by Botul, the creation of a literary journalist, Frédéric Pages, but he was not exactly contrite....

Ms Lancelin told The Times she was surprised that none of the journalists who had been giving Mr Lévy the celebrity treatment had noted that he spent two pages using a non-existent philosopher to prove his argument. “I came across the quotes from Botul and burst out laughing,” she said.

(Thanks to Richard Mullender for the pointer.)

King's College, London Will Require All Humanities Faculty to "Re-apply" for Their Current Positions

News story here.  This was alluded to in earlier items, and in the comments on earlier threads, but it deserves special notice, since it means the KCL bloodbath may be far from over.   Administrators who think that "Digital and Visual Cultures" are academic growth areas are going to decide whether every scholar in the humanities is worthy of his or her role--including, I take it, faculty who have devoted careers to KCL.  Will KCL go the way of the "Trade School at Sussex" (formerly known as a "University"), and decide that no more early modern history is needed?  Will internationally distinguished scholars like Mary Margaret McCabe and David Papineau really have to apply for their own jobs?   (KCL Philosophy is a remarkably consistent unit in terms of strength, so it is an insult that any member of staff should have to re-apply for his or her job.  Indeed, we can go much further:  it is an insult and an outrage that any professional hired with an expectation of permanent employment absent gross dereliction of duties should have to re-apply for his or her job.)

Besides the ugliness and cruelty of this whole business, it is clear the KCL administrators didn't consult any economists, for they might have learned that this whole maneuver will end up costing KCL much more money over the longterm.  Here's why:  if academics are not going to receive compensation in the form of job security, they are going to have receive it in the form of money.  This effect won't be immediate, and, of course, KCL can dodge the consequence altogether if it decides that it doesn't want to compete at all in the major academic disciplines, or it decides it doesn't care who it appoints.  But if KCL imagines it can remain part of the Russell Group, and get RAE results more to its liking, then it will have to appoint serious academics, and no serious academic will go near King's without either guarantees of job security (which won't be credible after this fiasco) or much higher compensation.

So the KCL cost-cutting strategy will actually have a predictable effect:  either it will result in KCL dropping off the map of serious research institutions in the Western world or it will require KCL to pay much higher salaries than it pays currently in order to retain reputable staff.

Perhaps someone can explain this to someone with decision-making authority at this clearly dysfunctional institution.

And will this insanely destructive behavior spread to other schools in the U.K.?

Stirling's Duff to Take Up Half-Time Post in the Law School at Minnesota

Details here.

Friday Poem: "Investing in My Future"

Investing in My Future

Little time remains for me

Auditors observers come and go

But I’m the only version of myself

And while I oppose death

Death I’ll warrant opposes me

And you can guess the likely outcome

 

Even families go on

They have generations

Fathers mothers sons and daughters

And offspring on and on

So that a hundred years from now

There’ll be a trace of them

 

I hope they keep good records

Have good memories and pass

On the stories of their forebears

Else we’re over when we’re over

 

What would it take for me

To slip a poem to one or another

And remind the little darling

To pass it on to those to come

I’ll sign my name to it

To avoid misunderstanding

 

I can just see some clever fellow

A century or so from now

Looking at it skeptically

Asking who’s he and what’s this

My luck he dislikes poetry or worse

Poetry’s almost extinct

Or altered so dramatically

My scribbles won’t stand a chance

 

Now I might find this challenging

Given who I am but who can tell

What this fellow might be like

Why even a mother can’t tell

How a son or daughter will turn out

Nobody understands tomorrow

Hard enough understanding right now

Or ten thousand yesterdays

 

Perhaps I should throw caution somewhere

And try to be remembered now

By those I have nearby

Whoever they may be

Keeping a safe distance to encourage toleration

Hoping that on meeting

They’ll greet me by my name

And know a bit about me

 

Later when they feel comfortable

I’ll slip a poem to them

And another and another

So they can entertain each other

In a literary vein

That way I won’t have to ask any favors

Just sharing what I’ve done

 

The way to have a future

Is to have a present first

 

1/24-25/10

Copyright 2010 by Maurice Leiter

Posted with permission.

Faculty Firings and Financial Troubles at the University of Sussex

There is lots of information at this site.  Although it does not appear yet that Philosophy faculty are being fired (though Philosophy is a unit clearly under scrutiny), among the bizarre decisions is to end "early modern history" as a topic for research at the "university" (I think one would have to put "University" of Sussex in quotes going forward--the idea of a purported "research" university declaring "early mmodern history" as not a subject-matter to be covered is quite something).  These are bad times for higher education in the U.K. 

Full KCL "Restructuring" Plan Released

Here.  I noted the range of proposed faculty firings the other day, but the full report reveals, amazingly, that, "A need has been identified to invest in a number of areas of strategic investment and growth through six new appointments for 2010-11 at a cost of £320,000" in such areas as "Culture and Identity" and "Digital and Visual Cultures."  So senior faculty of great distinction are to be sacked, while new hires are to be made in other areas.  

It is getting hard to escape the conclusion that malevolent intent by administrators lies behind these machinations.  Why else destroy your university's strongest Humanities unit in order to invest more money in "Digital and Visual Cultures"?

The Financial Crisis and the Metaphysics of Causation

More evidence of the "impact" of philosophy.

(Thanks to Kieran Healy for the pointer.)

The Full Scope of the Proposed Faculty Firings at KCL

I've now been sent a copy of a KCL document outlining the full scale of the proposed firings of faculty:

The following activities would be restructured, with 11 fte academic staff at risk:

1. The Department of American Studies would close. One member of staff has successfully applied to the VLS, three further posts will become at risk of redundancy upon the termination of the BA degree in 2012. It may be possible for two members of staff to be relocated to the Department of English to offer courses in American and Comparative Literature, in particular on transnational literatures and cultural exchange, and on visual culture and modern cultural studies. Of these two, one post is essential to the process of restructuring and will be saved. The other post would be deployed in the English department, to respond to a need for teaching and research in visual culture and modern cultural studies.  At risk:  3 posts.

2. Linguistics would cease as a distinct activity at the School, although the MLC will continue to offer courses to the MA in Language and Cultural Diversity, which it organizes at an administrative level for the Centre for Language, Discourse and Communication. Beyond this Linguistics would cease as a distinct activity in the School of Arts and Humanities. Four posts in German, Spanish, and BMGS would be at risk of redundancy. Three members of staff would be made redundant by 31 August 2010 if no suitable alternative employment could be found and one member of staff, assessed on the need for continuing PhD supervision, would be made redundant on 31 August 2011 if there was no suitable alternative. At risk:  4 posts.

  3.  Paleography would cease as a distinct activity. At risk: 1 post by 31 August 2010. 

   4.  Computational Linguistics would cease as an activity in the School. At risk: 2 posts in the Department of Philosophy by 31 August 2010.

5. Within the Department of Classics, there is excess capacity in Classical Archaeology and Art. It is proposed that this group of staff is reduced from currently four academics to three.At risk: 1 post by 31 August 2010, chosen on the basis of performance.

 

Open Letters of Protest about the Proposed Firing of the KCL Philosophers

Students at King's College, London have drafted a very detailed 'open' letter to the KCL administration, and are now collecting signatures from concerned philosophers.  Please consider adding your name.

In addition, Jonathan Adler (Brooklyn) has created a separate on-line letter of protest, which is also available for signature.  Again, please take a moment to review this letter as well, and I hope many readers will join me in signing this one as well.

Website with Letters Protesting the Firing of the KCL Philosophers

Via Michael Martin (UCL), I learn of this site which collects various letters of protest that have been sent to KCL administrators, and which also includes the contact information for those administrators.  Since many others are, I know, preparing letters, they may find the letters posted useful models.

In Memoriam: Ralph McInerny (1929-2010)

MOVING TO FRONT FROM JANUARY 29; SEE LINKS TO NEW MEMORIAL NOTICES

A longtime faculty member at the University of Notre Dame, Professor McInerny was a leading scholar of medieval philosophy, as well as a prolific novelist.  There is a memorial notice, with links, here.

UPDATE:  An obituary by John Haldane (St. Andrews), from The Scotsman.  Anda memorial notice from the University of Notre Dame.