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.
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