Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

New Books Received in February

Authors and/or publishers kindly sent me these new books this month:

Philosophical Interventions:  Reviews 1986-2011 by Martha C. Nussbaum (Oxford University Press, 2012).

Dignity:  Its History and Meaning by Michael Rosen (Harvard University Press, 2012).

From Kant to Husserl:  Selected Essays by Charles Parsons (Harvard University Press, 2012).

The Twenty-Five Years of Philosophy by Eckart Forster, trans. by Brady Bowman (Harvard University Press, 2012).

Ayn Rand, Again

Here, with a hilarious Harold Bloom quote.

(Thanks to Gary Jones for the pointer.)

A nice summation of L'Affaire Hendricks and the sexist photos...

...and a useful proposed letter to Professor Hendricks.

Gutting on the "Analytic" and the "Continental"

I haven't really been reading the "Stone" blog, but Professor Gutting was kind enough to send me a draft of this piece a couple of weeks ago, and it touches on a topic we've considered many times before, including in the context of his views.  Gutting, as one would expect, makes a number of sound points, and I'm particularly glad to see him call out the nonsense about Anglophone philosophy propagated by people like Santiago Zabala, who are utterly ignorant of actual developments in philosophy in the last forty years.  Gutting's most provocative claim, though, is about the alleged remaining "differences" between so-called "analytic" philosophy and so-called "Continental" philosophy:

These differences concern their conceptions of experience and of reason as standards of evaluation. Typically, analytic philosophy appeals to experience understood as common-sense intuitions (as well as their developments and transformations by science) and to reason understood as the standard rules of logical inference. A number of continental approaches claim to access a privileged domain of experience that penetrates beneath the veneer of common sense and science experience. For example, phenomenologists, such as Husserl, the early Heidegger, Sartre and Merleau-Ponty try to describe the concretely lived experience from which common-sense/scientific experience is a pale and distorted abstraction, like the mathematical frequencies that optics substitutes for the colors we perceive in the world. Similarly, various versions of neo-Kantianism and idealism point to a “transcendental” or “absolute” consciousness that provides the fuller significance of our ordinary experiences.

Other versions of continental thought regard the essential activity of reason not as the logical regimentation of thought but as the creative exercise of intellectual imagination. This view is characteristic of most important French philosophers since the 1960s, beginning with Foucault, Derrida and Deleuze. They maintain that the standard logic analytic philosophers use can merely explicate what is implicit in the concepts with which we happen to begin; such logic is useless for the essential philosophical task, which they maintain is learning to think beyond these concepts.

Continental philosophies of experience try to probe beneath the concepts of everyday experience to discover the meanings that underlie them, to think the conditions for the possibility of our concepts. By contrast, continental philosophies of imagination try to think beyond those concepts, to, in some sense, think what is impossible.

There's no doubt there are philosophers on both sides of these two divides, though how well they map on to "analytic" and "Continental" philosophers is, it seem sto me, less clear.

Bobzien from Yale to Oxford

Susanne Bobzien (ancient philosophy, philosophy of language), currently Senior Research Scholar in Philosophy at Yale University, has been elected to a Senior Research Fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford, where she will move full-time in 2013.

Earning another graduate degree before entering a PhD program

A philosopher at a leading liberal arts college writes:

I teach at a SLAC, and one of my senior advisees, who is writing an honors thesis with me, was asking me about applying to graduate school.  She is planning to take one or two years off, and do some teaching at private high schools while she prepares her graduate applications. One of these teaching positions pays for its teachers to earn an M.Ed. while they work.  

 

Her question was whether earning an M.Ed. would be seen as a liability or asset (or neither) in an application to a philosophy Ph.D. program.  I'm curious what you and your readers who have served on graduate admissions committees think about this.

I'm opening this for comments from readers (signed strongly preferred, but all comments must include a valid e-mail address).  My sense, perhaps dated (perhaps not), is that time away from philosophy is usually a liability, but a year or two isn't.  I'm less sure about how an M.Ed. would be received; I know of many students who got J.D.s, continued with philosophy work while in law school, then practiced or clerked, and then continued on to a PhD program, so that's one kind of precedent.  Thoughts from readers?

UC Davis Students Sue Over Notorious "Pepper Spray" Incident

Wishing them speedy success!

February JFP "Disaster"

More here.

"Faux Philosophy News"

Several very funny items here.

Mele on Free Will in 3AM Magazine

He's a believer! 

Byrne on the Afterlife

Here.

More Thoughts on L'Affaire Hendricks and the Damage Done Last Year to Professor Forrest

Here.

The Harm to Students from Photos Like Those Previously on the Hendricks Website

A senior female philosopher at a top department writes:

I think it is easy for people to forget how intimidating professors can seem to undergrads. It's interesting: I took a degree in a science field as an undergraduate, and I was a very successful student. But I left the field, and one reason was because of a required class I had with a male professor who used to make mildly inappropriate jokes about women in class and had cheesecake posters on the wall of his office. I found it deeply unsettling—the message was unequivocally that women, especially women about my age, were viewed in a sexual manner. This meant, to me as a young scientist, that I was not being viewed in the first instance as a promising intellectual star scientist. But this (being viewed as a promising intellectual star) was the only way I wanted to be viewed by my professors, and so I felt totally alienated from him, his class, and from the profession he represented. Since I had plenty of opportunities elsewhere, I left.

So it's a basic failure to see that the world as we view it is not the world as undergrads view it--what some would see as a joke or as just a bit of boy-culture virtual masturbation, is what female undergrads can see as a rejection of how they want to be classed as students. Are they sexy schoolgirls? or are they smart, or even brilliant, potential logicians? (Or maybe they just want to be taken seriously as logic students….)

Why is it so hard for people to understand this?

Why indeed.

ADDENDUM: Speaking of those who "don't get it," here's a comment from some formal philosopher named Carl (what is it with some of these folks?) in defense of the photos:

Your outrage over the photo makes you sound like one of the religious conservatives that you love to attack. Fortunately for Hendricks he lives in the relatively progressive land of Denmark. I suppose that the magazines should be on notice that Brian is not interested in posing for a photo like the one that Hendricks is in, although I’m guessing that they aren’t asking.

Alastair Norcross, Philosopher...

...and runner.

A statement from Professor Hendricks

Professor Hendricks asked me to share this statement (which is also on his website) regarding the controversy regarding the photographs from yesterday:

 

To the Philosophical Community

A recent picture on my website has caused some debate. The intention was that the picture, as cover on a forthcoming magazine, might be used to view logic from a somewhat humorous and untraditional perspective appealing to a larger audience which the magazine covers. However it had the opposite effect offending various parties in the philosophical community. I truly apologize for this and I stand completely corrected. I have removed the pictures from the website.

Vincent F. Hendricks

 

Hertfordshire's Luciano Floridi Wins 4th Annual "Covey Award" in Philosophy and Computing

Details here.

Vincent Hendricks, of Synthese Scandal Fame, has a special course webpage

Here.  I'll just quote my correspondents.  A philosopher in the UK wrote:  "here's some interesting further data about the level of professionalism of the Synthese editorial team."  A philosopher in the US:  "If one didn't already have sufficient reason to boycott the journal...."  And a philosophy grad student in the US:  "There are so many different ways in which these pictures are inappropriate, and an embarrassment to the profession. He doesn't have the time to issue a statement on the ID scandal, but he does have time to take these ludicrous pictures?  I mean, this guy is an editor of a major journal in the field and has a joint appointment at Columbia, and he has these pictures proudly on display on the front page of his website?  I find the whole thing totally disgusting."  [Minor note:  his appointment at Columbia doesn't involve regular teaching duties.]

UPDATE:  It looks like the Feminist Philosophers blog broke this story; comments are open there.

ANOTHER:  There's a very funny comment on the FP blog from Benjamin Nelson:  "It seems that at this rate of decline we may expect that a year from now Synthese will be operated entirely by the cast of Jersey Shore."

ONE MORE:  Already, the most egregiously sexist of the photos has been pulled, and the following now appears at the bottom of the page:  "Pictures for 'Man of the Month', Connery Magazine, february 2012."  Make of that what you will.  Someone should save a screen shot.

ADDENDUM:  The cached page, with the original collection of photos.  Let's assume, as appears to be the case, that this was a photo shoot for a "men's" magazine.  First, why would he agree to do it?  And second, even if one thought that decision defensible, why in the world would one then put such photos on a professional homepage and associate it with a course?  A course that women, for example, might want to take.  Unbelievable.

AND ANOTHER:  Someone has put together a screenshot page of the original, in the event the cache gets emptied.  And there's another here.  And he still has some of them elsewhere on his website.  (UPDATE:  The latter have also been pulled.)

FOR THOSE WHO MISSED LAST YEAR'S SYNTHESE SCANDAL this is probably the most important post to fill you in.

ANOTHER GREAT COMMENT FROM THE FP BLOG:  There are lots of them, but this one from "Jozef" caught my eye, partly because it's so nicely written:

This is so wrong and so hilarious/ridiculous at the same time that I am not even sure what the proper emotional reaction to it should be – pity? moral outrage/anger? laughter? envy (those shirts!)? sheer amazement? is he just awesome at being awesome? is he the man of the year? an adult icon? formal iconoclast? future star of the “hot implications and modus sexiens” vivid entertainment series? vin hendricksian? the real house-philosopher of Denmark? A real-life reductio ad absurdum? Aristotelian phronimos? Or is he shooting for a appearing on O’Reilly factor to promote our profession? But, the most important question is – who will now submit something to Synthese and be serious?

2/23 UPDATE:  This is also worth reading.

Protect Yourself Against Big Brother Google

Here's how.

Philosophers at Oregon State Teach a Course on the "Occupy" Movement

A news story about the course here, and you can see the course syllabus here.

On Academic Ebooks

Jo Wolff (UCL) comments.

The NY Times Can Acknowledge the Obvious When "Respected" Experts Who are not "Leftists" Notice

This is classic New York Times (which only in America could be regarded as a "left-wing" newspaper):

What if the legitimacy of free market capitalism in America is facing fundamental challenges that the candidates and their parties are not addressing?

Here are some of the issues that are making some politicians and political thinkers uneasy:

Are large segments of the American workforce — millions of people — at a structural disadvantage in the face of global competition, technological advance and ever more sophisticated forms of automation? Is this situation permanent?

Will the share of profits from improving corporate productivity flowing to capital and to high-earning C.E.O.s continue to grow, while the income of wage earners stagnates and their share of profits declines?

Has the surging wealth and income of the top one percent and of the top 0.1 percent reached a tipping point at which the political leverage of the very affluent decisively outweighs the influence of the electorate at large?

Is it possible that in the United States and Europe, democratic free market capitalism is no longer capable of providing broadly shared benefits to a solid majority of workers?

These are matters of concern to many highly respected experts — people not known for leftist jeremiads. Among them are Jeffrey Sachs, a professor at Columbia University; Nobel Prize winner Michael Spence; Francis Fukuyama, senior fellow at Stanford’s Center on Democracy; former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers; and three of the nation’s foremost labor economists, Richard Freeman and Lawrence Katz, both of Harvard, and David Autor of M.I.T.

Notice that these "highly respectede experts" include the architect of the "free market" shock therapy in the former Soviet Union that succeeded in actually reducing life spans in the space of just a few years; the architect of the banking dergulation in the U.S. that helped produce the global economic collapse of 2008; and a person whose best-known idea--about "the end of history"--was so manifestly silly even when published, that one hsa to wonder who, besides some moron journalists, actually respects this individual.   "No ideas and the ability to express them, that's a journalist" (Kraus).  We might add, "No judgment and the ability to express it, that's also a journalist.

Massimi from UCL to Edinburgh

Michela Massimi (history and philosophy of science, Kant), Senior Lecturer in Philosophy of Science in the Department of Science and Technology Studies at University College London, has accepted appointment as Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh.

New Philosophers' Carnival is...

...here.

 

Smith from Yale to Leeds

Matthew Smith (moral and political philosophy), currently Associate Professor of Philosophy at Yale University, has accepted a permanent post in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Leeds.

Philosophy PhD Admissions "Remix"

Here.

In Memoriam: Ruth Barcan Marcus (1921-2012)

I am very sorry to report that Professor Marcus passed away today. She was a wholly sui generis presence in philosophy of the last sixty years: she made seminal contributions to logic, metaphysics and philosophy of language; she rose to the highest levels of the profession at a time when sexist discrimination was utterly rampant; and she was a fearless and indefatigable advocate for the highest standards of intellectual integrity.  You may read the tribute to her work by Timothy Williamson (Oxford) here, and her own brief intellectual and professional autobiography here.  I will post links to other memorials and additional information soon.

UPDATE:  A nice memorial notice from the Yale Daily News.

ANOTHER:  Some nice personal remembrances from philosophers here and here.  I'll just add a few personal recollections of my own.  I corresponded with Ruth regularly from the mid-1990s onwards; our last exchanges were just last year.  During the year I taught at Yale (1998-99), I had the pleasure of having lunch with her a couple of times, as well as seeing her often at the legal theory workshops, where her audible 'whispers' about the hair-brained arguments of some of the presenters were always spot on and very funny.  Ruth was always a stalwart supporter of the PGR, and gave me much good advice over the years.  She has the distinction of being the only person to have ever reprimanded me for being insufficiently candid and direct!  And whenever she thought I made a misjudgment, she cetainly let me know (most recently, mentioning on the blog as someone who should be elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences someone she deemed absolutely unworthy--that person still hasn't been elected, I hasten to add).  I didn't always agree with her, but I always valued her input and her honesty.  Academics, alas, tend to be cowards, afraid of their own shadows, but she was the exception that proved the rule.

MORE:  Yale's memorial notice.

ANOTHER:  From The Economist.

 AND FINALLY:  The New York Times obituary has appeared, and they did a nice job on it, I thought.

The Republican War on Women

Law professor Tobias Wolff comments.

"The Village Atheist"

I haven't watched the whole thing yet, but I gather philosopher Peter Boghossian (Portland State) is pissing off people (probably the right people) in Portland.

High Quality Policing

Spying on students for being Muslim.

Juvenile Jackass Watch: The Case of IP Address 12.218.204.2...

....which is either in South Dakota or the Hilton in Middletown, NJ (depending on which look-up service one uses), and submitted a false post to the jobs thread under the name "Dawn Keebals," which the juvenile jackasses who find cyberspace their natural habitat think is funny (google it to find out why). The fake Keebals was a Rutgers PhD working in metaphysics hired by NYU. Ha-ha. Fame and glory (or anonymity, if you prefer) to the first person who can identify the jackass via the IP address: 12.218.204.2. We'll post the exciting news here.

UPDATE: The consensus from some web-savvy readers is that the first juvenile jackass posted from the Hilton at the Central APA in Chicago. And he's now been joined by a second jackass at IP address 173.254.216.68. Alas, I'll now have to ban both. Thanks to both jackasses for wasting my time.

Marshall Talks to Lindemann...

...about feminist philosophy and bioethics (with a reference to Professor Kukla's blogging stint here last fall making an appearance!).

Speaking of right-wingers with contempt for democratic freedoms...

...this Greenwald piece deserves to be widely read and linked.

A member of the ruling class lets the secret out: we prefer authoritarianism to democracy

And it's in The New York Times no less!

UPDATE: Bryan Van Norden, a leading expert on Chinese philosophy at Vassar College, writes:

Thanks for the pointer in your blog to Eric Li's editorial in the NY Times. Li's view is an extremely common one in China, and not just among government apologists. My guess (based partially on anecdotal evidence to be sure) is that most Chinese intellectuals think that an adversarial democratic system is not a model they want to follow. I'm not saying that they are right, but most Chinese are not as unhappy with their basic government system as we in the US think they ought to be.

ADDENDUM: Professor Van Norden adds: "Daniel A. Bell's China's New Confucianism is a helpful discussion of some of the figures and issues in recent Chinese political philosophy. His lead essay includes the following quotation: "It is not just the government that balks at the prospect of turning over the levers of the Chinese state to eight hundred million rural residents with primary school education. Few academics teaching in mainland Chinese universities -- including those who call themselves 'liberals' -- favor countrywide democracy within the next decade or so (and discussions are completely free in the context of alcohol-feuled dinners with friends)." Bell is here discussing the practical limitations of democracy in China, but elsewhere in the chapter (and the rest of the book) he examines leading thinkers who advocate, at most, local democracy as a political ideal.

"Media Matters"...Matters...

...which is driving the right-wing crazies crazier.

Editorial Board Member Resigns from AJOB

Full letter of resignation from John Lantos here; an excerpt:

[R]ecent events make it clear that the journal has lost credibility in ways that tarnish not just the names of people associated with it but also the reputation of the entire field of bioethics....

An academic journal in any field, and especially in a field as value-laden as bioethics, must earn the trust of readers and writers alike. Authors need to know that reviews will be fair. Readers need to know that suggested revisions are not politically or financially motivated. The current arrangements offer no such assurance. We want to know what is really going on – and what will go on – and who will be making decisions -- when the journal decides what to publish on issues ranging from research ethics, stem cell controversies, conflicts of interest, relationships between industry and academia, innovative therapy, FDA regulation, patient deaths in clinical trials, research standards in other countries, cozy relationships between biotech companies and state governments, and a host of other issues that have direct financial implications for the new editor-in-chief and the ongoing “founding editor.” AJOB’s current policy for dealing with such conflicts is that editors “…will recuse themselves from any involvement in decisions where they have a financial or other conflicting interest.” In other words, “Shut up and trust us.” I am afraid I have lost trust....

As long as the current leadership structure is in place, I will no longer submit papers to AJOB. I have withdrawn a paper that was in press and due out in March. I will discourage my colleagues from submitting papers to AJOB. I will not cite papers published in AJOB. In my opinion, the editors have failed to establish the degree of transparency that should be minimally acceptable for any journal and certainly for one charged to host a forum in which ethical evaluations are right at the center.

The United States is the Most Morally Depraved Wealthy Nation on the Face of the Earth, Part 172: Access to Critical Healthcare

Thanks to Rob Rob Icezen for flagging this story for me.

ERC Awards Million Euro Grant to Bristol's Okasha

Samir Okasha, Professor of Philosophy of Science at the University of Bristol, has been awarded an Advanced Investigators Grant of one million euros for a four and a half yera research project on "Darwinism and the Theory of Rational Choice," which will include opportunities for post-docs and graduate students that wil be advertised soon. 

Rahm Emmanuel Continues to Embarrass Chicago

My colleague Bernard Harcourt comments on the latest.

More on Glenn McGee and the AJOB Scandal Du Jour

This seems a balanced assessment of what's transpired so far.

Wilson from Aberdeen to York

Catherine Wilson, Regius Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen and a distinguished scholar of the history of early modern philosophy, has accepted a 50th Anniversary Professorship in the Department of Philosophy at the University of York.  That's both a major loss for Aberdeen (which had been in the process of rebuilding) and a significant addition for York, which has long been one of the top 15 U.K. departments.  This appointment will likely push them closer to the top ten.

FOX News: Where Racist Lowlifes Go for "Information"

For example.

Don't forget to eat...

...your Russell sprouts.

(Thanks to Joshua Blanchard for the pointer.)

Ohio State, Texas Make Offers to Princeton's E. Harman

Elizabeth Harman (ethics), Associate Professor of Philosophy and in the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University, has tenured offers from the Departments of Philosophy at both Ohio State University and the University of Texas at Austin. Students considering any of these programs will want to keep an eye on what develops, especially if they are interested in ethics.

Propaganda Watch: The Case of Iran in the American Media

Greenwald comments.

UPDATE:  The sad saga continues.  It does, indeed, recall the run-up to the criminal war of aggression against Iraq.

Survey about working conditions of non-tenure-track faculty

There's an explanation of the project here, and the document is here.

(Thanks to Phillip Schwind for the pointer.)

Stanford Makes Bid for Birkbeck's Rumfitt

Ian Rumfitt, a leading philosopher of language and logic at Birkbeck College, University of London, has a senior offer from the Department of Philosophy at Stanford University.  It is likely to be several months before this is settled, so students considering either Birkbeck or Stanford should check with the departments or Professor Rumfitt for the up-to-date informaton on where things stand.

Valentine's Day Cards Using Philosophers and Writers...

...including Hobbes, Kant, and Hegel!

(Thanks to John Schwenkler for the pointer.)

Priest on Dummett...

...on Australian radio.

(Thanks to Dirk Felleman for the pointer.)

Plutocracy Watch: American Legislative Exchange Council edition

More information here.

The pathology of the Republican field

Krugman is quite funny today about what is otherwise no laughing matter.