Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

In Memoriam: J.J.C. Smart (1920-2012)

MOVING TO FRONT FROM OCTOBER 6

The distinguished philosopher was emeritus at the Australian National University, and spent almost his entire career in Australia from 1950 onwards.  He was perhaps best-known for his defense of physicalism in the philosophy of mind and of utlitarianism in ethics.  I will link to memorial notices as they appear.

UPDATE:  Remembrances from former colleagues at Monash.  (Thanks to Josh May for the pointer.)

ANOTHER:  An obituary in The Scotsman.

AND ANOTHER:  From The Guardian.

New Philosophy Books in October

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

Adorno by Brian O'Connor (Routledge, 2013)

Global Political Philosophy by Mathias Risse (Palgrave, 2012)

Finding Oneself in the Other by G.A. Cohen, ed. by Michael Ostuka (Princeton University Press, 2013).

Law as a Leap of Faith by John Gardner (Oxford University Press, 2012).

Why Tolerate Religion? by Brian Leiter (Princeton University Press, 2013).

On Reflection by Hilary Kornblith (Oxford University Press, 2012).

The philosophers have spoken

So with over 1800 votes cast, the philosophers have made clear their choices for President:

65% support President Obama; 9% support Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate; 7% support Republican challenger Mitt Romney; and 3% support Libertarian Gary Johnson.  1% support some other candidate, while 14% do not plan on voting.  (And if one needed further proof that U.S. law schools lean to the right, note that the same poll with law professors yielded support for Romney of 22%!)

Photos of hurricane damage

Here.  As many readers probably know, the power was turned off in all of lower Manhattan to try to minimize damage and explosions from the flooding.  I've heard from friends that the power may be out for as much as a week.   NYU is going to be closed tomorrow, though uptown, Columbia will be open tomorrow.   Good luck to all those struggling to get back to normal!

Philosophy at Pitt Profiled

Here.

Law & Philosophy Fellowship at University of Chicago for 2013-14

This ad will soon run in JFP:

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO LAW SCHOOL. The University of Chicago Law School seeks a Law and Philosophy Fellow, appointed with the rank of Lecturer, for the academic year 2013-14. A Ph.D. in philosophy by time of appointment is expected, though in unusual cases a Ph.D. in a related discipline, or a J.D. accompanied by strong training in philosophy, will be considered. Applications welcome from new or recent PhDs or tenure-stream faculty interested in spending a year at the Law School. AOS: Any area of philosophy that intersects with issues of interest to legal scholars. AOC: Any area of philosophy that will enable the Fellow to co-teach the Law and Philosophy Workshop with Martha Nussbaum on philosophical and legal issues related to "Life and Death."  (If the AOS is in the area of the Workshop theme, then the AOC is open.) The Workshop will meet about a dozen times over the course of the academic year to discuss work by invited speakers. The Fellow will also be expected to contribute to the intellectual life of the Law School, as well as pursue his or her research. Salary $50K + benefits + superb research environment. To be considered a candidate for this position you must apply on-line through the University website at http://tinyurl.com/cnp7b34 by January 18, 2013. Resume, cover letter, writing sample, reference contact information and research statement should be submitted electronically on the web site at the time of application. Three confidential letters of recommendation should be mailed to Joe Pellettiere at The University of Chicago Law School, 1111 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637 with a postmark not later than January 18, 2013.  The University of Chicago is an Affirmative Action / Equal Opportunity Employer.

"The Moral and Political Philosophy of Mitt Romney"

Courtesy of tax scholar Dan Shaviro (NYU).  Very funny (unless Romney wins).

(Thanks to David Livingstone Smith for the pointer.)

"Philosophy encourages thrift"

Noting this study, Jason Stanley (Rutgers) remarked on Facebook (he gave me permission to quote it):  "The two top universities in the United States for illegal downloading of pirated movies are the ones with the two top philosophy departments in the United States. Philosophy encourages thrift!"

CHE Article on Women in Philosophy

As a couple of correspondents pointed out to me, this piece is a bit "shallow," so much so, that I expect it was badly edited (Ms. Mangan's coverage is usually better, and given how short this is, I expect a lot of relevant content got cut).  Unfortunately, nothing was said about sexual harassment, which Ms. Mangan and I had discussed, and which is still the scandal of the philosophy profession.  My point also wasn't that changes to how philosophy is taught have driven women away, but rather that as philosophy migrated closer to the sciences in the Anglophone world over the last fifty years, it acquired the same kinds of problems those disciplines have had with gender equity--but unlike many of the science fields, philosophy has not, until recently, been particularly self-conscious about this or pro-active in remedying it.  (As Ms. Mangan and I discussed, why the sciences had these problems is a topic unto itself--no doubt sexual harassment, gender stereotyping and other explicit and implicit biases have all played a role.  But philosophy would do well to emulate what many science fields have done to try to rectify the inequities.)

Ramachandran from Sussex to Witwatersrand

Murali Ramachandran (philosophical logic, metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language), Reader in Philosophy at the University of Sussex, has accepted a senior offer from the Department of Philosophy at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, effective January 2013.  

Rutgers' Ernie LePore Interviewed...

...at 3AM.

American exceptionalism

But at least academics are well-paid!

Summer schools in philosophy?

Reader Steffen Lund Jørgensen writes:

I've spent some time trying to find graduate summer schools (and similar courses) within ancient philosophy and philosophy of language, but I have not succeeded in finding any good overview of what's on offer in Europe or in the US. Could you ask your readers for their valuable advice?

I've broadened it to summer schools in other areas of philosophy, besides ancient and philosophy of language, since I imagine others might be interested in offerings in other fields.  What do readers recommend?  You may include links and, ideally, report your own experiences, indicate what level the summer program is suitable for, and so on.  All comments must include a valid e-mail address, which will not be published.

Storm watch

Yikes!  Good luck to all friends and readers in the Northeast corridor over the next 48 hours.

U.S. Residents: Whom do you plan to vote for in the Presidential election?

In the waning days of the campaign, all sides will be watching to see where the philosophy vote is going.

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UPDATE 10/29:  So with about 1300 votes since yesterday, Obama carries the philosophy vote with 65%, Jill Stein, the Green candidate, garners 9%, Romney the Republican gets 7%, and the Libertarian, Gary Johnson, picks up just 3%.  1% are voting for yet another candidate, while 15% do not plan on voting.   I guess this lopsided victory explains why so few ads have targetted the philosophy vote this season.

FINAL UPDATE:  The poll is now closed.  With over 1800 votes cast, 65% support President Obama; 9% support Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate; 7% support Republican challenger Mitt Romney; and 3% support Libertarian Gary Johnson.  1% support some other candidate, while 14% do not plan on voting. 

Oxford's Hawthorne Switches His Part-Time US Position from Princeton to Southern California

John Hawthorne, Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy at Oxford University, who had previously been a regular Visiting Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University for six weeks each year, has now accepted appointment as Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern California, where he will be in residence and teaching part of each Fall and Spring (for a total of ten weeks per academic year) for the next five years (starting in fall 2013).

"The Methodology of Legal Philosophy"

A draft of a new essay by Alex Langlinais (a philosophy grad student here) and myself, to appear in the Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Methodology, being edited by Cappelen, Gendler, and Hawthorne.  Comments welcome.

NY Review Editor Silvers Replies to Earlier Thread

Robert Silvers, the long-time editor, wrote in response to this item:

In a recent blog post, you refer to the "long-standing hostility of the NYREOB's editor, Robert Silvers, towards philosophy." 

This statement is untrue. During recent years, we've published many articles by the following philosophers, and I could cite more: Ronald Dworkin, Colin McGinn, Thomas Nagel, John Searle, Peter Singer, and Jeremy Waldron. 

Since the Review was founded we have published many essays by Isaiah Berlin, Hannah Arendt, Bernard Williams, Stuart Hampshire, H.L.A. Hart, Richard Wollheim, Martha Nussbaum and Avishai Margalit, again, to name only some. 

Many of the people I have named were, or are, friends of mine and I have no sense of hostility toward philosophy or philosophers. 

I'll be grateful if you could publish this letter in order to make it clear that the claim of "long-standing hostility" isn't true. 

Yours sincerely,

Robert Silvers 

As I told Mr. Silvers in reply, one of those he mentions was one of those who had described him as "hostile" to philosophy.  I am also not entirely reassured that "many" of the philosophers that do get published are "friends."  One may contrast the representation of philosophers in the LRB, or Boston Review, or TLS to see the differential attention accorded the field by these publications.  In any case, I hope that having drawn attention to this issue, we will see more, and more wide-ranging, treatment of philosophy in the New York Review.

One philosopher makes list of "top ten" best-looking Princeton professors

Can you guess who?  (You can review the contenders here.)

Italy Jumps the Shark, Convicts Scientists for Failing to Predict Earthquake--NOT QUITE, SEE UPDATE

MOVING TO FRONT--UPDATED

Wow.  It's hard to imagine that any scientist will be willing to do any work for the public sector in Italy after this travesty.

UPDATE:  Reader Paolo Sandro points out that the initial news reports were a bit misleading; there is a better account here, though it is still rather surprising.

X-Phil is here to stay...

...at 3AM.

Is Interfolio Protecting the Confidentiality of Letters of Recommendation?

A philosopher elsewhere writes:

There is something going on that might be worth discussing. I think it might be fairly common--at least, I suspect it is fairly easy to do--to see one's letters of recommendation if you use interfolio. All you have to do is have them sent to a friend or set up a dummy recipient address. Candidates have an interest in seeing their letters, and I would be amazed, unless there are controls I don't know about, if people weren't doing this. *As far as I can tell*, there are no controls on Interfolio of the usual sort that a department would normally impose if it were the entity sending out the letters, ie only sending it out to advertised job addresses, etc. 

Is this right?  Have readers heard of this happening?  Signed comments preferred, but all comments must include a valid e-mail address at least.

More on Freeman Dyson and Philosophy

In CHE.  A comment from one "dvelleman" (I'm assuming it's the philosopher) that follows the article makes the key point:

Those who lament the loss of "relevance" and the rise of "specialization" in philosophy haven't read Aristotle's Metaphysics ... or Spinoza ... or Leibniz ... or Kant ... or, for that matter, Aristophanes' Clouds, which shows that their complaint is as old as the discipline itself. 

The U.S. Presidential Election and Higher Education

This IHE piece is informative on how the outcome is likely to affect higher education.  (It omits the havoc that a Romney Administration would inflict on humanity at large, but one thing at a time.)

The Rawlsian Rejection of Welfare-State Capitalism

Interesting piece in the Boston Review.  (Thanks to David Johnson for the pointer.)

A documentary about the Texas Taliban on the State Board of Education

Reader Blake Taylor kindly called my attention to this new documentary, which gets a nice write-up here.  It includes our old friend Don McElroy, who is well-described in the prior link.  I have to say, if it weren't for my experience with the Texas Taliban, I probably wouldn't have written this book.

Open Access Initiative in Canada

This is interesting!

(Thanks to Bahram Farzady for the pointer.)

If the history of philosophy were tweeted...

...it might indeed look like this.

Sorell from Birmingham to Warwick

Tom Sorell, who holds a Chair in Global Ethics in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Birmingham, has accepted a senior offer from the Department of Politics at the University of Warwick, where he will also be affiliated with the Philosophy Department--this is effective January 2013.

MIND's Editor (Tom Baldwin) Replies...

...to Laura Schroeter's question about referee reports (comment #55).  it's a very constructive reply, I think, and should resolve the issue.  Thanks to both Professors Schroeter and Baldwin, and to the many contributors to the earlier thread.

Philosophy podcasts aggregated...

...here.

Indiana Jones Denied Tenure

Not surprising.

(Thanks to Ryan Millsap for the pointer.)

"Ranking America"

This site is rather amusing.

Where should you publish?

A new blog, The Venue Poll, wants to help!

In Memoriam: Paul Kurtz (1925-2012)

 Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo, Professor Kurtz was best known to the wider world as a leading advocate for secular humanism.  The Center for Inquiry, which he founded, has a memorial notice here.   John Shook, a philosopher at the Center, has a webpage about Kurtz's work here.

UPDATE:   An obituary from The New York Times.

David Enoch, "Shameless" Realist

At 3AM.  Twenty-five years ago, Peter Railton described his own view as stark, raving moral realism, but it looks positively sober and cautious by comparison to the new-fangled varieties in Enoch, Scanlon, Parfit, and others!

More philosophers in Counterpunch

Andrew Levine (Wisconsin/Maryland), and also Phil Gasper (Madison College).

Robert Paul Wolff on "The Myth of the Self-Made Man"

Everyone should read this, and share it.

Why the New York Review of Each Other's Books Asked Freeman Dyson to review...

...a popular work on philosophy is far from obvious, though the most likely explanation is the long-standing hostility of the NYREOB's editor, Robert Silvers, towards philosophy.  But he certainly got the hatchet job he wanted.  From the 'review':

In more recent centuries, philosophers were still leaders of human destiny. Descartes and Montesquieu in France, Spinoza in Holland, Hobbes and Locke in England, Hegel and Nietzsche in Germany, set their stamp on the divergent styles of nations as nationalism became the driving force in the history of Europe. Through all the vicissitudes of history, from classical Greece and China until the end of the nineteenth century, philosophers were giants playing a dominant role in the kingdom of the mind.

Holt’s philosophers belong to the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Compared with the giants of the past, they are a sorry bunch of dwarfs. They are thinking deep thoughts and giving scholarly lectures to academic audiences, but hardly anybody in the world outside is listening. They are historically insignificant. At some time toward the end of the nineteenth century, philosophers faded from public life. Like the snark in Lewis Carroll’s poem, they suddenly and silently vanished. So far as the general public was concerned, philosophers became invisible.

The fading of philosophy came to my attention in 1979, when I was involved in the planning of a conference to celebrate the hundredth birthday of Einstein. The conference was held in Princeton, where Einstein had lived, and our largest meeting hall was too small for all the people who wanted to come. A committee was set up to decide who should be invited. When the membership of the committee was announced, there were loud protests from people who were excluded. After acrimonious discussions, we agreed to have three committees, each empowered to invite one third of the participants. One committee was for scientists, one for historians of science, and one for philosophers of science.

After the three committees had made their selections, we had three lists of names of people to be invited. I looked at the lists of names and was immediately struck by their disconnection. With a few exceptions, I knew personally all the people on the science list. On the history list, I knew the names, but I did not know the people personally. On the philosophy list, I did not even know the names,

Alas, it does not occur to Professor Dyson that this last anecdote would equally well support a different conclusion than the one he prefers.  But at least Dyson likes Nietzsche (though I can only imagine what he thinks Nietzsche means).

UPDATE:  Ned Block (NYU) suggested I open comments on this item, observing that, "There are a number of what look to me to be factual mistakes in that article but it would be nice to hear from experts."   So comments are now open for comments on the substance of the review.  Signed comments will be strongly preferred.

Audio of G.A. Cohen's Valedictory Lecture Now Available

Here.

(Thanks to Christoph Schuringa for the pointer.)

UPDATE:  Michael Otsuka (UCL, moving to LSE), editor of the collection of Cohen's papers linked above, writes:

Regarding the audio recording to which you’ve drawn your blog readers’ attention: I had originally proposed that this be included as a CD in Finding Oneself in the Other, to be listened to while reading the accompanying prepared text of the lecture, which has been published as Ch. 9 of that book. PUP informed me that they would need to raise the price of the book in order to cover the cost of this and proposed that the recording be posted on the book’s web page instead. I agreed, in order to keep the price of the book down. Pp. ix-x of my Editor’s Preface to this book, which is linked to the same web page, explains why, on account of its low quality, the audio recording is best listened to in conjunction with the written text.

Hoefer and Marti from Barcelona to Western Ontario (updated)

MOVING TO FRONT FROM YESTERDAY--UPDATED

Carl Hoefer (philosophy of science and physics), currently ICREA Research Professor of Philosophy at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, has accepted a full professorship and Directorship of the Rotman Institute at the University of Western Ontario, effective summer 2013.  That's the second major, senior hire for UWO and Rotman this year.  In addition, UWO has appointed Genoveva Marti (philosophy of language), also an ICREA Research Professor at Barcelona, to a full professorship effective July 1, 2014.

"the sharp-shooting killer-app in the philosophy of mind"

Jerry Fodor at 3AM.

The Not-so-High Standards at (at least some) "Open Access" Journals

Not a great advertisement for the genre.

(Thanks to Lucas Miotto for the pointer.)

UPDATE:  Philosopher P.D. Magnus (SUNY-Albany) writes with several important points:

Your recent blog post rightly decries "The Not-so-High Standards at (at least some) "Open Access" Journals" and describes the case as "Not a great advertisement for the genre".

Importantly, the genre in question is not Open Access journals tout court. The real problem here is OA journals that use an author-pays model. Lots of them are straight forwardly scams to chisel money out of institutions that cover that kind of publishing and out of authors who need a line on their CV.

There are other models of OA. Quality OA journals don't charge author fees. I'm thinking here especially of Philosophers' Imprint, but also of less well-known and less prestigious ones like Logos&Episteme.  We can argue about their stature in the field, but their being OA is not a demerit.

There is also the model which is sometimes called "green OA", in which authors' papers are systematically hosted in institutional or disciplinary archives. Although this does not result in OA journals as such, traditional journals can facilitate or thwart the practice depending on how they handle rights.

Qualifying your post with the caveat "at least some" is importantly not enough, because we can state precisely what's wrong here. For-profit publishers have an interest in suspicion being raised about OA in general, when really it's a specific business model that leads to egregious abuses like the one that you point to.

 

Bankruptcy in New Orleans?

The blog and the offices of Thomas J. Bell.  Now why am I posting this here?  Because Tom had an earlier career as a philosopher, and then I had the privilege of teaching him when I visited at the University of Chicago Law School back in 2006.  After practicing in Chicago, he moved back to New Orleans, where he went to college, and started his current practice.  He's a smart guy and a good guy, so if you know anyone who needs help with bankruptcy issues, give him a call!

The Onion Covers the Most Recent Presidential Debate

Amusing and basically right!

(Thanks to Dennis Kavlakoglu for the pointer.) 

 

Why Tolerate Religion?

The book is finally out.  Thanks to all those who had expressed interest in the project.

Sartre's Long-Lost Blog Discovered!

Excerpts here.

(Thanks to Steven Hales for the pointer.)

Where are the top assistant professors of 1990-91?

MOVING TO FRONT WITH SOME CORRECTIONS/ADDITIONS--BEAR IN MIND THAT THE DIRECTORY LISTING MAY NOT HAVE CORRESPONDED PERFECTLY TO THE ACTUAL FACULTY ROSTERS FOR 1990-91

We did this once before, but I recently found my old Directory of American Philosophers for 1990-91.  Here are the assistant professors at roughly "the top 15" (really 18) programs 20-odd years ago, and where they are now.  In parentheses following the school name I list five representative senior faculty there at the time.   Perhaps this will be instructive about the many professional trajectories that philosophers follow.  Bear in mind, of course, that the junior faculty here moved for all kinds of reasons--some were denied tenure, some left before tenure for personal or professional reasons, some left after tenure for personal or professional reasons, and so on.

University of Arizona (J Annas, J Feinberg, A Goldman, K Lehrer, J Pollock)

Vann McGee (PhD, Berkeley):  Professor, MIT

David W D Owen (DPhil, Oxford):  Associate Professor, Arizona

Stanford University (J Barwise, N Cartwright, D Follesdal, J Perry, P Suppes)

Rachel Cohon (PhD, UCLA):  Professor, SUNY-Albany

Eckart Forster (DPhil, Oxford):  Professor, Johns Hopkins

Marleen Rozemond (PhD, UCLA):  Professor, Toronto

Debra Satz (PhD, MIT):  Professor, Stanford

University of California, Berkeley (D Davidson, J Searle, B Stroud, B Williams, R Wollheim)

Hannah Ginsborg (PhD, Harvard):  Professor, Berkeley

Elisabeth Lloyd (PhD, Princeton):  Professor, Indiana/Bloomington

Kwong-Loi Shun (PhD, Stanford):  Professor, Chinese University of Hong Kong

University of California, Los Angeles (R Adams, R Albritton, T Burge, P Foot, D Kaplan)

Joseph Almog (DPhil, Oxford):  Professor, UCLA

Gavin Lawrence (DPhil, Oxford):  Professor, UCLA

University of Southern California (M Cohen, H Field, B Herman, B Loar, E McCann)

Frank Arntzenius (PhD, London):  Professor, Oxford

Zlatan Damnjanovic (PhD, Princeton):  Associate Professor, USC

Sharon Lloyd (PhD, Harvard):  Professor, USC

Yale University (R Bittner, SW Broadie, H Frankfurt, J Lear, RB Marcus)

Phillip Bricker (PhD, Princeton):  Professor, U Mass/Amherst

Ivan Fox (PhD, Harvard):   left philosophy (worked for ETS), now deceased

Ken Gemes (PhD, Pittsburgh):  Professor, Birkbeck, London

Randall Havas (PhD, Harvard):  Professor, Willamette

Susan Neiman (PhD, Harvard):  Director, Einstein Forum, Germany

Carol Rovane (PhD, Chicago):  Professor, Columbia

David Schmidtz (PhD, Arizona):  Professor, Arizona

Nancy Sherman (PhD, Harvard):  Professor, Georgetown

Georgia Warnke (PhD, BU):  Professor, UC Riverside

University of Chicago (D Garber, C Korsgaard, D Malament, I Mueller, H Stein)

Daniel Brudney (PhD, Harvard):  Professor, U of Chicago

Michael Forster (PhD, Princeton):  Professor, U of Chicago

Ronald McClamrock (PhD, MIT):  Professor, SUNY-Albany

Josef Stern (PhD, Columbia):  Professor, U of Chicago

Saul on the Dearth of Women in Philosophy

This is a fairly compact summary on themes covered by Professor Saul and others at the Feminist Philosophers blog and in other writings.  My sense is that sexual harassment, which seems to still be far more common in philosophy than, say, academic law, has a lot to do with it.  The APA really ought to take a leadership role on this issue and there are some indications that it may before too long.

(Thanks to Jean Kazez for the pointer.)

On Wikipedia and Anonymity

A rather scathing assessment from Wikipedia co-founder (and philosophy PhD) Larry Sanger.