Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

Every philosopher's favorite malevolent bean-brain is in the news again

Ayn Rand, of course.

Paul Ryan's Plan to Abolish Medicaire and Enrich the Rich

Here's a quick-and-handy summary.

How to Weigh Overall and Specialty Rankings in the PGR in Choosing a Program

A prospective PhD student writes:

As April 15th approaches, I think it would be very helpful for many of us making final decisions on offers to have a thread on your blog that discusses whether it is a wise decision for applicants to turn down offers from programs that are much higher ranked overall in favor of a program that ranks much higher in their planned area of specialization (so, for example, turning down an offer from a top twenty program that emphasizes M&E for a top 40 program that ranks better in the history of German philosophy, for example). 

First, by the time you are choosing PhD programs, you will hopefully have a lot of additional information pertinent to your decision, that go well beyond the professional reputation of the faculty at the programs.   A lot of factors can, of course, trump the overall reputation of a program:  strength (or weakness) in your area of interest; financial support; the faculty's commitment to teaching and mentoring; and so on.   But let's assume those factors even out, and so the only differences that remain are strength in your areas of interest versus the overall reputation of the program.  Here I think a lot turns on (1) *what* your areas of interest are, and (2) how certain you are that these are your interests going forward.  (1) matters because it really isn't possible to pursue some specialties without faculty who are genuine specialists in the area (ancient philosophy is a good example, so too, in most instances, post-Kantian German philosophy).  (2) matters because, in point of fact, students often find that their interests change.  (I recall one student who came to grad school strongly interested in Heidegger, who ended up working on philosophy of language.)  So, ceteris paribus, someone strongly committed to working on the history of German philosophy ought to pick the 'top 40' program strong in that area over the top 20 program not strong in that area.  On the other hand, if the 'top 20' program does have some offerings in German philosophy, that might complicate the decision.  But then it would be good to know:  do any students ever write dissertations in that area?  Do they then get jobs?  and so on.  (There can be advantages to studying German philosophy in a department also strong in M&E--a lot of scholarship on post-Kantian German philosophy suffers from the fact that it's clear the scholars just aren't very good at or knowledgeable about philosophy generally.)

Thoughts from readers?  Signed comments will be strongly preferred, per usual.

If you want to succeed in business...

...study philosophy.

(Thanks to David de Bruijn for the pointer.)

Grayling on CNN with his new secular "bible"

Story here.  I haven't yet seen this book, though the description does call to mind Nietzsche's quip that, "It is the church, and not its poison, that repels us.--Apart from the church, we, too, love the poison" (GM I:9).

Lapointe from Kansas State to McMaster

Sandra Lapointe (history of analytic philosophy), Associate Professor of Philosophy at Kansas State University, has accepted a senior offer from the Department of Philosophy at McMaster University in Canada, where she will join, among others, Nick Griffin, a leading expert on Bertrand Russell and holder of a Canada Research Chair.

AHRC and the "Big Society" Nonsense, Once Again

Thom Brooks (Newcastle), who organized the earlier petition, writes with two requests connected to the effort to get the AHRC to drop the political sloganeering:

FIRST, I ask that you contact all learned societies and associations you are working with and ask them to contact Prof James Ladyman (Head of Department, Philosophy, Bristol). He is organizing a joint statement to be agreed by learned societies across the arts and humanities that will call upon the AHRC to remove all references to the "Big Society" in its delivery plan and other documentation with immediate effect. Please contact James by early next week or earlier. His email address is James.Ladyman@bristol.ac.uk

SECONDLY, I REQUEST ALL FELLOW MEMBERS OF THE AHRC PEER REVIEW COLLEGE TO CONFIRM WITH ME (t.brooks@newcastle.ac.uk) WHETHER THEY WILL JOIN US IN THREATENING TO RESIGN FROM THE PEER REVIEW COLLEGE BY THE END OF THIS MONTH IF NO ACTION IS TAKEN (current members-only). I genuinely hope there will be no need for us to make good on such a threat. However, I believe that the time has come to show the AHRC how many of us on its own Peer Review College genuinely oppose its decision to include the "Big Society" in its delivery plan. If you are not on the college, please contact colleagues who are and ask them to contact me ASAP. A full list of Peer Review College members can be found here: http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/About/PeerReview/Pages/default.aspx

 A few thousand of us have signed the petition and several hundred have written emails and letters. The AHRC continues to deny the problem and it refuses to act. Please let us stand together across disciplinary and political divides to make a stand against the inclusion of political campaign slogans of ANY political party entering into the delivery plans for strategic research funding priorities in the arts and humanities. If we do not win this debate, then we may well expect political campaign slogans to loom ever larger in research council plans. This is a position of principle, not politics. Please contact learned societies and AHRC Peer Review College. I remain hopeful that no resignations will be necessary, but clearly we must do something more to demonstrate the strength of our opposition to the AHRC's delivery plan.

Latest AAUP Report on Average Faculty Salaries

IHE has an overview; unsurprisingly, the news is not good, and the private-public gap continues to grow.  Note the strong average salaries among public universities offered by Rutgers, which has a unionized faculty.  Among the private universities, the high average salaries at Princeton are especially notable, given the absence of law, business, and medical schools there, unlike most other schools on that list.

UPDATE:   Aldo Antonelli (UC Davis) calls to my attention this (subscription-only) CHE piece on the new AAUP data which notes:

Tight finances on many campuses have led to another year in which average salaries barely increased, exacerbating in­equities facing seasoned faculty members, whose salaries are stagnating while their newly hired peers are compensated at competitive market rates.

That anomaly in pay, called salary compression, means that the paychecks of experienced faculty are only slightly bigger than those of new professors. Some fields, including economics and philosophy, are experiencing salary inversion, in which new assistant professors earned more than the average for assistant professors in 2009-10, according to data from the American Association of University Professors. In business administration and management, the salaries of new assistant professors have raised the pay for that rank so much that the average assistant professor earned more than the average higher-ranked associate professor last year.

Any thoughts on what explains this?

Update on the Situation for Philosophy at the University of Nevada Campuses

MOVING TO FRONT FROM YESTERDAY, TO MAKE SURE READERS ARE UP TO DATE ON THIS SITUATION

Philosopher Paul Schollmeier (UNLV) writes:

I join my colleagues in thanking Brian Leiter and his readers for their postings on this blog and for their many letters in support of the philosophy department at UNLV.  I also wish to thank the APA and its members for their unwavering support as well.  Special thanks are due the APA executive director, David Schrader, who has worked doggedly on our behalf.  David rallied both the National Executive Committee and the Pacific Executive Committee, and he sent a broadside to all APA members, who responded with a torrent of letters.

I am obliged to note, however, that the battle at UNLV is not yet won, though it has for the moment turned in our favor.  What is more, the philosophy department at UNR has come under threat.  I would ask, then, that the readers of this blog remain vigilant on our behalf, and that they now throw their support behind our colleagues in Reno.

A favor

Dear Readers with Blogs, Please be so kind as to link my name to www.brianleiter.net, so:  Brian Leiter.  This is my new homepage, which I'd like to raise in the various search engines, and your link will help.  Thanks.

Graduates by School at the Top 20 U.S. Departments, 2010-11

MOVING TO FRONT FROM APRIL 7:  I believe all the typos and errors of omission have been fixed.  Thanks to many readers for all the help.

I've listed below graduates of leading American PhD programs who are now teaching at one of "the top 20" U.S. programs in the 2009 PGR.  Only PhD programs with placements in multiple top 20 departments are listed.  Untenured faculty are marked with an asterisk.  The list is for 2010-11.  Kripke and Martin don't technically have PhDs, but did their graduate work at Harvard.

The PhD programs are listed roughly in order of their most recent PGR rank.

New York University PhDs

1.  NYU:  ---

2.  Rutgers:  ---

3.  Princeton:  *Shamik Dasgupta

4.  Pittsburgh:  *Karl Schafer

5.  Michigan:  ---

6.  Harvard:  ---

6.  MIT:  *Brad Skow

8.  Yale:  ---

9.  Stanford:  ---

9.  UC Berkeley:  *Geoffrey Lee

9.  UCLA:  ---

9.  North Carolina:  *Matthew Kotzen, *Ryan Preston

13. Columbia:  *John Morrison

13. Arizona:  ---

15.  CUNY:  ---

15.  Notre Dame:  ---

17.  Brown:   *Joshua Schechter

17.  Cornell:  ---

17.  USC:  *Shieva Kleinschmidt

20.  Texas:  *Ray Buchanan, *Sinan Dogamaci, *Anna-Sara Malmgrenn, *Adam Pautz

Rutgers University PhDs

1.  NYU:  Michael Strevens

2.  Rutgers:  Jonathan Schaffer

3.  Princeton:  ---

4.  Pittsburgh:  ---

5.  Michigan:  *David Manley, *Chandra Sripada

6.  Harvard:  ---

6.  MIT:  ---

8.  Yale:  *Jill North

9.  Stanford:  ---

9.  UC Berkeley:  ---

9.  UCLA:  *Sam Cumming

9.  North Carolina:  ---

13. Columbia:  *Stephanie Beardman

13. Arizona:  Shaun Nichols, Jonathan Weinberg

15. CUNY:  ---

15. Notre Dame:  Ted Warfield

17. Brown:  *Douglas Kutach

17. Cornell:  *Will Starr

17.  USC:  *Jacob Ross

20. Texas:  ---

Princeton University PhDs

1.  NYU:  Paul Boghossian, Jim Pryor, Samuel Scheffler, David Velleman

2.  Rutgers:  Jerry Fodor, Alvin Goldman, Stephen Stich, Larry Temkin

3.  Princeton:  Mark Johnston, *Boris Kment, *Sarah-Jane Leslie, Alexander Nehamas, Gideon Rosen

4.  Pittsburgh:  James Allen, Robert Brandom, John Earman, Gerald Massey, Nicholas Rescher, Kieran Setiya

5.  Michigan:  *David Baker, Louis Loeb, Peter Railton, Lawrence Sklar, Jamie Tappenden

6.  Harvard:  Ned Hall

6.  MIT:  Alex Byrne, *Caspar Hare, Richard Holton, Rae Langton, Robert Stalnaker

8.  Yale:  Shelly Kagan, *Joshua Knobe

9.  Stanford:  *Alexis Burgess, Michael Friedman

9.  UC Berkeley:  Janet Broughton, *Lara Buchak, R. Jay Wallace

9.  UCLA:  Tyler Burge

9.  North Carolina:  Laurie Paul, Susan Wolf

13. Columbia:  John Collins, Patricia Kitcher, Philip Kitcher, Wolfgang Mann, Christia Mercer

13.  Arizona:  Jenann Ismael

15.  CUNY:  ---

15.  Notre Dame:  Anja Jauering, Sean Kelsey, Jeffrey Speaks

17.  Brown:  James Dreier, Jaegwon Kim

17.  Cornell:  Tad Brennan, Nicholas Sturgeon

17.  USC:  Zlatan Damnjanovic, Frank Lewis, Mark Schroeder, Gary Watson

20.  Texas:  David Sosa, Paul Woodruff

University of Pittsburgh PhDs (Philosophy or HPS)

1.  NYU:  ---

2.  Rutgers:  Tim Maudlin, Susanna Schellenberg, Ernest Sosa

3.  Princeton:  Hans Halvorson

4.  Pittsburgh:  Anil Gupta, Sandra Mitchell

5.  Michigan:  Gordon Belot, Laura Ruetsche

6.  Harvard:  *Matthew Boyle, *Douglas Lavin

6.  MIT:  ---

8.  Yale:  Stephen Darwall

9.  Stanford:  ---

9.  UC Berkeley:  John MacFarlane

9.  UCLA:  ---

9.  North Carolina:  Marc Lange, Ram Neta, John Roberts, Geoffrey Sayre-McCord

13.  Columbia:  ---

13.  Arizona:  Jerry Gaus

15.  CUNY:  Iakovos Vasiliou

15.  Notre Dame:  James Sterba

17.  Brown:  ---

17.  Cornell:  ---

17.  USC:  ---

20.  Texas:  Daniel Bonevac, Cory Juhl

University of Michigan PhDs

1.  NYU: ---

2.  Rutgers:  Martha Bolton, Robert Bolton, Holly Smith

3.  Princeton:  ---

4.  Pittsburgh:  Robert Batterman, Thomas Ricketts

5.  Michigan:  Daniel Jacobson, James Joyce, Donald Regan

6.  Harvard:  ---

6.  MIT:  ---

8.  Yale:  ---

9.  Stanford:  Nadeem Hussain, Krista Lawlor

9.  UC Berkeley:  ---

9.  UCLA:  ---

9.  North Carolina:  ---

13. Columbia:  ---

13.  Arizona:  Terence Horgan, Connie Rosati

15.  CUNY:  James Muyskens

15.  Notre Dame:  Robert Audi

17.  Brown:  Felicia Ackerman

17.  Cornell:  Karen Bennett

17.  USC:  ---

20.  Texas:  ---

Why support Obama in 2012?

Robert Paul Wolff, stalwart Marxist and anarchist, sums it up.

Paul Ryan's Budget: "Ludicrous and Cruel"

That seems awfully gentle.

Guggenheim Fellowship Winners for 2011

Three philosophers are winners, two with philosophy-related projects:  Brian P. Copenhaver (History & Philosophy, UCLA) for 'Explaining by picturing in Early Modern Europe' and Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Oklahoma) for ‘Epistemic authority: an investigation of trust, authority, and autonomy in belief.'  In addition, philosopher Clancy Martin (Missouri/Kansas City) won a Guggenheim to support his fiction writing.

ADDENDUM:  Missed one:  Seyla Benhabib (Yale, Poli Sci & Philosophy) won a Fellowship for a project on 'The Contested Future of Sovereignty: International Law and Democracy.'

"How can you have a university without a philosophy department?"

Good question!  The answer:  you can't.

(Thanks to Andrew Cling for the pointer.)

Pitt's McDowell Only Philosopher to Receive a Mellon Distinguished Achievement Award in the Humanities for 2010

John McDowell at the University of Pittsburgh--whose work ranges widely across philosophy of language and mind, ethics, epistemology, and the history of ancient philosophy--is one of just three winners for 2010.

Tenure-Track and Postdoc Hiring by Philosophy Departments, 2010-11

MOVING TO FRONT (for the last time this season) FROM MARCH 30 (originally posted February 18)

It's that time of year again...I am opening comments on this thread for people to post news about junior, tenure-track hires in philosophy departments, i.e., hires made during this year of new assistant professors who will be starting in fall 2011 (or thereafter).  (For schools outside the US, please list new Lecturers who are on presumptively permanent appointments--not temporary lecturers.)  As in prior years, you may also post information about post-doc appointments, since there are an increasing number of those in philosophy, many quite attractive.  No anonymous posts will be allowed. (Please e-mail me about any errors.)

The format of the postings should be as follows:  candidate's name (name of PhD-granting school) hired by [name of school].  AOS: ________; any prior positions (e.g., a postdoc, a lectureship, a visiting asst prof position).  In the case of a post-doc, it should say not 'hired by' but 'post-doc at' [name of school].

Here's an example (fictional):

John Smith (Chicago) hired by Kenyon College.   AOS:  19th-Century Philosophy.  Previously Visiting Assistant Professor at Marquette University.

Remember:  tenure-track jobs and postdocs only.  Please submit information only once; postings should appear within 24 hours.

THE ONLY PERSONS ELIGIBLE TO POST INFORMATION ARE:   the candidates themselves; the chair of the hiring department; or the placement chair of the candidate's department.  Last year, however, a placement chair jumped the gun in posting, so please, placement chairs, make sure it is OK with your students that the information appear!

The biggest philosophy of law conference ever?

Quite possibly, at least hosted by a single institution.   Should be a very good opportunity for students interested in legal philosophy.

That Muslim propensity towards violence...

...or maybe not.

An important court decision on the free speech rights of public university professors

IHE has a good report.  Note, however, that the 4th Circuit's opinion is not at present the clear majority view nationwide.

Another Excoriation of the "Flimflam" Man's Plan to Abolish Medicare

Here.

Philosophically tone-deaf economists

Eric Schliesser beats them up!

"The Circumstances of Civility"

This is a slightly revised version of the short paper I gave as part of the "philosophy panel" at the NEH conference on "Civility and American Democracy" at Washington State University last week.  (Joe Campbell [Washington  State] organized the panel, and the other philosophy speakers were Tom Christiano [Arizona] and Josh Cohen [Stanford].)   The history panel was particularly useful, I thought, in underlining the important role of uncivil speech throughout the history of American politics.  Professor McGirr from Harvard raised the especially important question why "civility" should have come to the fore as a topic of discussion now.  I am inclined to agree, since it does seem to me mostly a distraction issue, meant to silence vigorous challenges to the status quo and preempt discussion of substance.  (After all, the real problem with Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck is not that they aren't civil, it's that they're ignorant fools and serial dissemblers.)

UNLV Philosophy Dept. Won't be Axed! (UPDATED: *MAY* NOT BE AXED)

A philosopher at UNLV writes:

So, it looks like elimination of the entire Philosophy Dept. is now off the table at UNLV--largely thanks to the campaign waged by readers of the Leiter Reports. Within the current proposal, the College is being asked for a significantly lower amount of cuts, so now only the untenured members of the Dept. would be terminated....  Women's Studies is still up for elimination entirely, and now the untenured members of Anthro and Sociology are also slated for termination. 

This is certainly welcome news, though the wholesale termination of tenure-stream faculty in just three departments is also rather draconian (philosophy has only one untenured faculty member, who is on track to get tenure).  Surely it would make more sense to cut untenured faculty not on track to get tenure across all fields, rather than pick just three fields where the untenured faculty may be (or in the case of philosophy, are in fact) very good.

UPDATE:  An important clarification from the UNLV Chair of Philosophy:

While a new proposal by the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at UNLV lays out budget cuts that do not include the elimination of the entire philosophy department, this proposal is still at the preliminary stage.  Things look much better for Philosophy at UNLV than they did last week.  But no one knows what will happen to the Philosophy Department or any other department at UNLV until the Nevada legislature finishes its session this summer.

A Reminder to Prospective PhD/MA Students and Departments

It is APA policy that students do not need to decide on admissions offers until April 15, and departments may not require earlier decisions.  Of course, if you, the student, can make an earlier decision, please do so, per our earlier discussion.  But if you need till April 15, you are entitled to April 15.

Kitcher on "Reconstruction in Philosophy"

MOVING TO FRONT FROM YESTERDAY--Philip Kitcher has now responded to some of the comments.  It has been a very good discussion, and I invite others to contribute.

==========================

This new paper by Philip Kitcher (Columbia)--who, of course, has made very substantial contributions in philosophy of science, philosophy of biology, philosophy of math, and epistemology, among many other areas--is bound to generate discussion (it appears in the April 2011 issue of Metaphilosophy); here is the abstract:

Philosophy is often conceived in the Anglophone world today as a subject that focuses on questions in particular ‘‘core areas,’’ pre-eminently epistemology and metaphysics. This article argues that the contemporary conception is a new version of the scholastic ‘‘self-indulgence for the few’’ of which Dewey complained nearly a century ago. Philosophical questions evolve, and a first task for philosophers is to address issues that arise for their own times. The article suggests that a renewal of philosophy today should turn the contemporary conception inside out, attending to and developing further the valuable work being done on the supposed ‘‘periphery’’ and attending to the ‘‘core areas’’ only insofar as is necessary to address genuinely significant questions.

 What do readers think?  Please read the paper before commenting, and signed comments will be very strongly preferred.

Price from Sydney to Cambridge

Huw Price (philosophy of science and physics, metaphysics, philosophy of language) at the University of Sydney has accepted the Bertrand Russell Professorship at Cambridge University effective October 2011, and will be full time in Cambridge from the following Fall, after completing commitments in Sydney in the (northern) Spring and Summer of 2012.  That's a major appointment for Cambridge (and also a major loss for Sydney, though they will continue to have a distinguished group working in and around philosophy of the sciences).

The Republican Proposal to Abolish Medicare

That's what it is, and let everyone refer to it accordingly.

Britain Economist cuts to the chase:  the plan is "fundamentally immoral."  That's the difference between English and American "conservatives":  the English ones aren't infantile Randian crazies, but increasingly the Americans are.  (Update:  Jacob Levy points out that the blog at the Economist site is actually written by an American!)

ANOTHER:  "A strange combination of cruelty and insanely wishful thinking."

UNLV Philosopher Todd Jones on the Value of Philosophy to a University Education

Here.

Philosophy at Nevada/Reno Also at Risk if Governor's Draconian Budget Cuts Go Through

Details here.   A message from the UNR Philosophy Chair Deborah Achtenberg was passed on to me:

The University was required to announce today a set of additional eliminations, reorganizations and reductions that would have to be made should the governor's suggested budget cuts be implemented completely. 
We can still hope that the governor's proposed budget cuts are not implemented completely.  There is no set time-frame on when we will know.  It depends on how long it takes for the legislature to determine the state budget.  I imagine it could be the beginning of June.

If the governor's budget cuts are implemented completely, the following changes will happen to the Department of Philosophy:

1.  The Department of Philosophy will continue to exist.

2.  All our degree programs would be eliminated (Philosophy BA major, Philosophy BA minor, Philosophy MA). 

3.  The number of Philosophy faculty would be reduced from seven to three.

4.  The remaining three members of the Philosophy faculty would teach service courses--i.e. courses they are qualified to teach that are needed by other programs on campus (specific details to be worked out in the future).

5.  Faculty who are terminated would remain through June 30, 2012 (termination date).

6.  The University would endeavor to help students in our programs complete their program or find a suitable alternative.

7.  I do not know how the Department's LOA budget [budget for part-time faculty] would be affected by this.  I will report to you as soon as I do know.

Again, these are changes that would take place should the governor's budget cuts be fully implemented.  We can hope that they are not.  Please, contact your legislators and the governor to tell them how you feel about this.

It has been my great privilege and honor to serve the State of Nevada and University of Nevada, Reno, for 28 years.  I am deeply saddened by these events.  It is my view that philosophy is a central component of any university education, and that the loss of a fully functioning Philosophy program at UNR would be a great loss not only to those of us who teach and do research in Philosophy, but to our students, the University and the state as a whole.

Contact information for relevant legislators can be found in the earlier posting regarding the threat to Philosophy at Nevada/Las Vegas.  It is quite imperative for Nevada residents, in particular, to make their voices heard at the legislative level.

The Plutocracy's Next Target: Medical Care for the Elderly and the Poor

The poster boy for the latest moral mischief is Congressman Paul Ryan, an Ayn Rand devotee whom Krugman aptly dubbed "the flimflam man."   One might be strongly inclined towards an expressivist interpretation of "moral obligation" when one hears Rep. Ryan describe his attack on medical care for the elderly and the poor as a matter of "moral obligation."  Here again Krugman:

[This is] going to be just like the Social Security fight, only worse: once again, Very Serious People will pretend not to notice that the Republican plan is a giant game of bait-and-switch, dismantling a key piece of the social safety net in favor of a privatized system, claiming that this is necessary to save money, but never acknowledging that privatization in itself actually costs money. And we’ll have endless obfuscation, both-sides-have-a-point reporting that misses the key point, which is that the putative savings come entirely from benefit cuts somewhere in the distant future that would, in all likelihood, never actually materialize. (What do you think will happen when retirees in 2025 discover that their Medicare vouchers aren’t enough to buy insurance?)

It pays to be a university president...

...literally.  It's striking that there's no discernible correlation between compensation and concrete achievements.  The market at work once again!

More on the Plutocracy's Class War Against Labor Unions

From IHE:

Organized labor has suffered punishing blows in recent days and weeks, in Wisconsin and Ohio, with the promise of further attacks on collective bargaining to come in other states, such as Indiana, Michigan and Florida.

“This has been about the worst year that I could have ever imagined happening,” Ed Muir, AFT's deputy director of research and information services, said at the opening plenary session Friday....

He derided what he called “gilded age budgeting” in state houses, which, he said, has favored tax cuts over public services and salaries. “It's horrifying. It is disgusting. They know no bounds,” he said before running through a litany of budgets proposed in states by Republican governors whose names provoked hissing from the audience....

New Jersey's budget would provide $2.5 billion in tax cuts for businesses (though also for larger property tax rebates) in exchange for concessions from public employees. Michigan's spending plan would replace the existing business tax with a flat corporate income tax of 6 percent, while cutting aid to higher education by 15 percent (unless the colleges curb tuition increases), ending the earned income tax credit and taxing pensions. Pennsylvania's budget would not impose taxes on industries that will begin extracting natural gas from the Marcellus Shale, but would cut in half the state's support for four-year institutions of higher education.

Education has to live with a new normal, said Muir -- one in which that sector is expected to adapt to lower levels of support while “the rich need our love and care.”

“The word for this, I believe, is evil,” said Muir.

(Warning:  the IHE piece was apparently linked by a right-wing blog yesterday, which explains some of the idiotic comments that follow.)

Plutocracy Watch: the Latest

Here.

AHRC Has Still Not Backed Off the "Big Society" Nonsense

Thom Brooks (Newcastle) writes:

The AHRC response [to the petition] has been to change nothing and I now recommend phase two: a mass email campaign to the AHRC Chief Executive, Professor Rick Rylance, confirming our continued support for the AHRC to remove all mention of "The Big Society" from its delivery plan. Please write to Professor Rylance about the importance of this small, but important change in the AHRC's delivery plan. His email address is R.Rylance@ahrc.ac.uk. You may copy and paste the below if you like:

------------------

Dear Professor Rylance,

I write in support of the petition to remove all references to "The Big Society" in the current AHRC delivery plan for strategic research funding priorities. This petition was signed by nearly 2,500 colleagues in less than a week. It can be found here: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/thebigsociety/ 

This is a position about principle, not politics. I would have equally opposed mention of "The Third Way" after the 1997 general election. Political campaign slogans should not appear in research council delivery plans. I call upon the AHRC to remove "The Big Society" from its delivery plan and all other documentation with immediate effect.

Sincerely yours,

I encourage faculty and students in Britain, British citizens teaching elsewhere, and anyone who has done referee work for the AHRC to write.

New Philosophers' Carnival is...

...here.  Recent carnivals seem to have been a bit heavy on philosophy of religion relative to more central areas.

American and British Lives More Valuable than Afghan Lives

Any observer of how imperial powers conduct themselves would have known this to be true, but Peter Singer lays out the hard evidence.

(Thanks to Bécquer Medak-Seguín for the pointer.)

Anthony Grafton on L'Affaire Cronon and the Attack on Public Universities and Professors

Here.  A particularly apt observation:

Conservative pundits and operators do their best to silence any professor who ventures into the public realm with the kind of unwelcome facts that scholarly and scientific expertise can produce. 

Philosopher Ladyman on the AHRC Nonsense

Here.

UW-Madison's Official Response to the Fishing Expedition Involving Professor Cronon's E-Mails

Professor Cronon has made available the university counsel's letter on the subject, which is illuminating as to the legal issues (academic freedom does not loom large).  

Ayn Rand is Dr. Doom!

Who knew?

(Thanks to Sarah Clark Miller for the pointer.)

Nevada Legislature Votes to Make Up Budget Shortfall by Cutting All Funding to the Governor's Office

Details of these dramatic developments here.