Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

New Books in August

Philosophers and/or publishers kindly sent me the following new books this month:

Moral Character:  An Empirical Theory by Christian B. Miller (Oxford University Press, 2013).

Aristotle:  His Life and School by Carlos Natali, edited by D.S. Hutchinson (Princeton University Press, 2013).

On Syria

This is illuminating.  It would be yet another outrageous violation of international law for the U.S. to attack Syria, but as the world knows, this will not factor into the decision.

(Thanks to Charles Pigden for the pointer.)

UPDATE:  Philippe Lemoine, a grad student at Cornell, writes with some additional and important information:

L. A Paul interviewed... (Rebecca Kukla)

at 3:AM.

Can animals be moral?

Of course not!  But Mark Rowlands (Miami) disagrees.

Wisconsin's Lawrence Shapiro Wins 2013 Gittler Award from APA for a contribution to philosophy of the social sciences

Details here.  This is the second year in a row that a Wisconsin philosopher has received the Gittler Award!

Happy 50th anniversary, all! (Rebecca Kukla)

From me and from Joseph Stiglitz.

Philosopher's Annual: Ten Best Papers of 2012

Here are the papers recognized this year; I'll move this to the front when links to the papers are available:

Selections from the literature of 2012: 

Michael Caie, “Belief and Indeterminacy”, Philosophical Review 121 (1), 1-54 

Justin Clarke-Doane, “Morality and Mathematics: The Evolutionary Challenge,” Ethics 122 (2012): 313-340. 

David Enoch, Levi Spectre, & Talia Fisher, “Statistical Evidence, Sensitivity, and the Legal Value of Knowledge,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 40(3), 197-224

Kit Fine, “Guide to Ground” in F. Correia & B. Schneider, eds., Metaphysical Grounding, Cambridge University Press 2012, 8-25

Matthew Kotzen, “Dragging and Confirming,” The Philosophical Review 121(1), 55-93

Marko Malink & Jacob Rosen, “A Method of Modal Proof in Aristotle,” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 42, 179-261

Sarah Moss, “On the Pragmatics of Counterfactuals,” Noûs 46 (3), 561-586

Jennifer Nagel, “Intuitions and Experiments: A Defense of the Case Method in Epistemology,” Philosophy & Phenomenological Research 85 (3), 495-527

Huw Price, “Causation, Chance, and the Rational Significance of Supernatural Evidence,” Philosophical Review 121 (4), 483-538

Clinton Tolley, “The Generality of Kant's Transcendental Logic”, Journal of the History of Philosophy 50, 417-446

More thoughts about philosophy and social norm violation (Rebecca Kukla)

Drawing on helpful facebook discussions in the wake of yesterday’s post, I now think there are at least three (pernicious) versions of the perceived connection between being a ‘real’ philosopher and social norm violation.

- First, we have a tendency to excuse systematic social norm violations in (successful!) (male!) philosophers, taking them as adorable quirks that go with the territory of being a ‘true intellectual.’ You hear people saying that “all philosophers are a little Aspergers-y.” (Why that’s problematic is worth a post of its own.) We admiringly comment on some famous dude’s inability to button his shirt straight or brush his hair. We proudly find it adorable that many of our own can be mistaken for hobos.  

- Second, philosophers will cultivate their own tendency to violate social norms and conventions that apply to others and to cross boundaries, taking this as some sort of performance of their intellectual hipness and depth. This I’ve already discussed and we have all seen it on display.

- Third, we put pressure on new philosophers to join in on the norm-violating culture of the discipline. This can make people feel like they have to use profane language, push sexual boundaries, avoid the appearance of concern with their looks, etc., in order to earn their place in the philosophical community. Many of us remember the letter of recommendation that made the rounds this year, in which the writer said that he associates philosophical ability with lack of concern for personal appearance, and hence found a student’s high quality surprising since she was pretty and ‘well-groomed’.  

The problem with all of this (or one of the many problems) is, again, that it comes at the cost of the most vulnerable members of the profession - those likely to be the targets of the boundary-violations and judgmental expectations rather than their instigators. Likewise it leaves us with no recourse when we feel violated. If we complain, we are just not understanding how to be a cool philosopher, or we are not intellectual enough to get the joke. It also generally puts women, people of color, and other disciplinary minorities in a different kind of impossible position: we can’t get away with the hobo look without repercussions, but we also get dismissed if we look like we care about social conventions (please extend the synecdoche as needed).

Of course, as philosophers, our commitment to challenging and questioning norms is real, and important. Far be it from me to claim that we’d be better off if we all had to be more conventional or couldn’t play around with taboos. Doing so is essential to both the philosophical method and the high quality of life we enjoy as philosophers. It’s just a dangerous game, is all, and people get hurt, and the hurt is not evenly distributed, so serious collaborative reflection on the dynamics at play is in order. We also need to get better at distinguishing between random, thoughtless bits of ideology and convention that deserve critical challenge, and norms that are in place to protect people from damage.

(With thanks to John Protevi and Timothy Burke)

Saul on sexual harassment and some late thoughts about McGinn (Rebecca Kukla)

UPDATE: Upon consultation and reflection, and with trepidation, I am opening up comments on this thread.  I will be moderating them *heavily*.

FURTHER UPDATE: I will not publish any pseudonymous/anonymous comments unless there is an obvious and compelling reason to do so.

UPDATE TO THE FURTHER UPDATE: Opening up comments has turned out to be all-in a mistake for what were probably predictable reasons if I had half a brain.  Some productive comments have made it through and I am now closing comments back down again. 

 

Jennifer Saul has recently discussed sexual harassment in the profession on Salon and with Slate. Although Colin McGinn and his hand-themed brand of humor have been the catalyst for the recent round of attention to this issue, Saul rightly focuses on the broader systematic culture problem that the discipline of philosophy seems to have. 

In one sense, it is gratifying to see this issue get attention in the wake of McGinn's resignation. At the same time, I have found it frustrating watching people gleefully vilify and demonize him. Not because he wasn't creepy and way out of bounds, but because the kind of remarkably inappropriate 'banter' he engaged in and his complete tone-deafness to the power dynamics that structure the performative force of that banter happen ALL THE TIME in philosophy, as far as I can tell. Through his pompous and narcissistic attempts at self-defense, McGinn made himself an easy target for ridicule. I worry that this has allowed us to write him off as a moral monster, rather than reflecting on just how pervasive this kind of behavior is. In fact, I think that McGinn's clear belief that his inappropriate sexualized communication made him somehow a bold, hip, unconventional intellectual is implicitly shared by many men in the profession. 

That this kind of 'banter' is common doesn't make it harmless, by any means. It's easy to be insouciant about boundary-busting when you do so from a position of power. But in fact, this idea that we philosophers are somehow above such trivialities as social boundaries comes at the cost of the discipline's most vulnerable members (and potential members). 

Here is one articulate and moving first-person account of the impact of sexual harassment on a graduate student that has been making the rounds. 

Alva Noe on MOOCs (Rebecca Kukla)

The conversation on the previous MOOC thread is vigorous and interesting. To add to the mix, here is an interesting piece that Alva Noe wrote on MOOCs for NPR a few months ago. 

Ethical reflections on MOOC-making (Rebecca Kukla)

UPDATE: Signed comments preferred.  Non-sketchy email addresses required. 

Hi all!  It is, as always, some combination of fun and anxiety-producing to be guest blogging here again. Many thanks to Brian for inviting me back, and happy start of the fall term to everyone.

So my unit is making a MOOC.

I will admit that I’ve been underwhelmed with much of the hand-wringing about MOOCs.  Most of the time the critique seems to be that they will threaten the traditional classroom. I’m just not that convinced that the kinds of traditional classrooms they plausibly threaten - mostly overcrowded, underfunded classrooms taught by underpaid, undersupported adjuncts - are serving anyone so wonderfully that they don’t deserve a little healthy competition. This widely-circulated letter from the San Jose State University Philosophy Department articulates powerful criticisms of Michael Sandel’s MOOC, but they seemed to me to be specific to that class and not generalizable to the technology as a whole. Watching my colleagues put a MOOC together, I am pretty impressed with the technological and pedagogical creativity involved. I am not prone to nostalgia or luddism, and it strikes me as an utterly open question whether the traditional classroom is the best educational forum for the vast majority of students who are not enrolled in fancy advanced seminars at top schools.

Now that I am in on the making of one of these, though, it seems to me that there are interesting problems they raise that are getting little to no attention. I want to mention a couple, although I can’t delve into them in detail in a blog post. I don’t claim these are the most pressing issues MOOCs raise; they are just examples.

Portraits of philosophers

Here.

(Thanks to Meghan Sullivan for the pointer.)

More than a century's worth of philosophers at Michigan

An interesting list here.  Not all the dates are accurate, but most are (to the best of my knowledge).

(Thanks to Jonathan Strassfield for the pointer.)

Georgia State's George Graham talks about philosophy and psychiatry...

...in this video courtesy of OUP.

Everything you wanted to know, but didn't, about Delueze & Guattari

Actually, I did know 2 1/2 of the 13 items, but most was news to me, and the whole thing is an amusing read.

New PhilJobs site

Here, a joint product of the PhilPapers Foundation and the APA.

Kukla Guest-Blogging

I'm pleased to report that philosopher Rebecca Kukla (Georgetown) will again be a guest-blogger here for roughly the last week of August!

"Nietzsche Brian Leiter"

A journal recently sent me an automated request to referee a manuscript, which, unfortunately, I could not do within the parameters offered.  From the salutation, I learned how the editors keep track of me:

    "Dear Nietzsche Brian Leiter,"

"Why study philosophy?"

Philosopher Tomas Bogardus (Pepperdine) has put together a very useful site!

 

Tufts's Ray Jackendoff Wins 100K Cog Sci Prize

Details here.

Dead philosophers...

...on twitter!

(Thanks to Rob Tempio for the pointer.)

NYU's Paul Horwich interviewed...

...at 3AM.

In Memoriam: David Braybrooke (1924-2013)

I am sorry to report that Professor Braybrooke has passed away; there are biographical details and remembrances at the Facebook page created in his honor.   He taught in both philosophy and political science departments at Yale, Dalhousie, and at the University of Texas at Austin, where I was fortunate to be his colleague.  I will post links to other memorial notices as they appear.

There's hope for Paul Krugman...

...he may yet end up a Marxist.

Somewhat lighter blogging the rest of the month...

...for reasons noted here, though there will be usually be one or two items each day.  (For those curious, the advertisers this month were notified in advance and the advertising rates were discounted accordingly!)  And there will be a guest-blogger for roughly the last week of August, whom I will announce in about a week.

It would be best not to e-mail me bloggable items until around August 28.  However, do send me anything that is urgent or time-sensitive, and I will try to get it up while abroad.  Thanks.

An exchange between Adorno and Marcuse regarding the student movement in the late 1960s

This is really quite interesting; in retrospect, Adorno seems to have the better of the debate, though Marcuse responds effectively on many points.  Alas, both suffered from taking the nonsense of Hegelian dialectics seriously, but there is still much worthwhile in the exchange notwithstanding that.  Marcuse is upset that Horkheimer allegedly described his version of critical theory as "crude and simplified," which it was, but it wasn't, as far as I can see, inaccurate to the core ideas--indeed, as I often say to students, Marcuse often says clearly what Adorno says opaquely.

UPDATE:  Robert Paul Wolff sides with Marcuse, and makes some apt comments.

Who reads this blog?

So with not quite 2800 responses, here's the breakdown:

Philosophy faculty member   32%900 Philosophy graduate student   30%848 Philosophy undergraduate student   6%181 Faculty member in another field   7%200 Graduate student in another field   6%163 Undergraduate student in another field   1%38 School teacher (high school, middle school, elementary)   1%29 High school student   0%9 Journalist   0%10 Lawyer   3%83 Doctor   1%14 Other professional outside academia   6%157 Other   6%161

Of course, I don't know if particular groups responded at differential rates.  But on the assumption this is a representative sample, 68% of respondents are in philosophy, as faculty or students; 39% of readers are academic faculty in one field or another (40% are teachers of some kind); and the non-academic readership is somewhere around 10-15%.  I appreciate all the comments from readers, especially those who chose 'other,' and I find it very gratifying that these readers find a way to stay connected with philosophy via this site.

Should graduate students use social media?

A new graduate student writes:

As an incoming grad student, and reader of your blog, I am cognizant of the generally harsh reality of the academic job market. In light of that, I obviously do not want to do anything that would lessen my chances on the market. I am wondering what the general consensus is -- if there is one -- regarding social media accounts and academic hiring. To use Twitter as an example, there does seem to be a benefit to having a public Twitter account in order to a) control your online presence (whatever that means), and b) participate in public conversations with the philosophical community. A positive instance of the latter that comes to mind is simply a public appeal for resources in a specific area (i.e. "Does anybody know of any articles discussing narrative identity and Nussbaum's capabilities?").

The concern, however, would be that any number of Twitter gaffes could lead to a negative perception of the job candidate by the hiring committee. A candidate might Tweet in support of an unpopular political movement, or express an opinion that they later come to regret, or indicate that they have questionable work/study habits. Ignoring the more obvious of the possible kinds of poor Twitter etiquette -- swearing, racism/sexism, illegal behavior -- is it better to just hide Twitter activity altogether? Or do hiring committees not even look at such things? I would hate to lose out on a great job opportunity because I wrote a tweet three years prior in support of an unpopular/divisive issue (i.e. for/against gay marriage, government surveillance, or a particular Presidential candidate). Still,neither do I like the idea of losing out on the sorts of personal/professional relationships that Twitter might help to foster by making my profile publicly accessible. Any guidance from you or your readers would be fantastic!

My own advice would be to steer clear of any public social media:  the evidence is that first impressions are "sticky," and there is way too much risk that a bad first impression will be created by unfortunate or out-of-context remarks on social media, rather than a student's work.

I've opened this for comments from readers; graduate students may post without their name (but use a distinctive handle), but must include a valid e-mail address, which will not appear.

UPDATE:  The responses on Twitter, or at least the few I've seen, inadvertently make the point about the potential for that medium, perhaps in particular, for embarrassment.  One philosopher (who I shall not name, to protect the foolish) reads the preceding and then glosses it, bizarrely, as "Brian Leiter outs himself as a fan of cowardly conformity and surrender to group think, for others anywT telling.” Yes, my whole career has been about “cowardly conformity,” and that was precisely the question my student correspondent was asking:  "Dear Prof Leiter, how can I be more cowardly and conformist?"  Even more amusingly, someone who tweets pseudonymously (!) declares:  “The discipline's archetype Socrates saw no qualms with being held accountable for his opinions and we commend him for it.”   So why does this guy hide his identity?  You decide.  In any case, most commentators and correspondents understood that this was not about whether you should defend controversial views in your philosophical work, but whether you should risk making an ass of yourself in superficial ways on public social media...the way, say, the preceding tweeters have done.

AND FOR A DIFFERENT VIEW:  This philosopher sings the praises of Twitter.  (Thanks to Andy M. for the pointer.)

AND ONE MORE:  Even famous faculty can go down in flames on Twitter!

The case for philosophy in secondary schools

Here.

Regarding the "sexting" grad student...

...he informs me that the Daily Beast was not supposed to identify him, so I've removed the earlier post about this.

"Why Tolerate Religion?" on Freethought Radio...

...here (the portion on the book starts about half way through).

An informational website about Title IX

Here.

(Thanks to John Downes-Angus for the pointer.)

CUNY's Jesse Prinz blogging...

...at Aesthetics for Birds.

"Teach for America" is wicked

This explains why.  Many smart young people, with good intentions, have participated in it.  They should stop doing so.

University obligations under Title IX

Title IX, broadly speaking, prohibits sex discrimination in the educational context.  I am grateful to philosopher Heidi Lockwood (So. Conn. State Univ.) for an illuminating recent correspondence about Title IX, which she has given me permission to share.

Prompted by my earlier comments about the "open letter" to Professor McGinn, Professor Lockwood wrote:

Kudos on posting the critique of the open letter from concerned philosophers re: the obligation of the University of Miami to protect the student in question.  Critical press is often better than no press; you have effectively done far more to promote discussion on the issue than you would have had you simply signed the letter without further comment.

That said, I want to respectfully call attention to an important fact that you've overlooked.

I agree with your point that McGinn's right to free speech doesn't give him the right to violate a student's privacy, particularly given that students' privacy is protected by FERPA. But the university's obligation to protect the student doesn't end with FERPA. Title IX explicitly prohibits conduct that creates a hostile environment if such an environment is severe, objective, and pervasive enough to undermine a student's educational experience. As I understand it, McGinn is still on the faculty. So if U Miami doesn't address the problem (and this most likely means more than just curbing McGinn's hostilities -- it could also mean, e.g., scheduling some discussions between the department and the Title IX coordinator), they may well find themselves with a Title IX suit on their hands.

Anything you can do to increase awareness about the Title IX obligations of universities in this and similar situations would of course be much appreciated. (I have had some recent and significant experience with the OCR's interpretation of said obligations, and would be happy to draft a post if you don't have time to write this up yourself.)

I expressed uncertainty about whether mere blog postings by a faculty member on leave were enough to raise Title IX issues.  Professor Lockwood wrote back:

[A]ccording to the OCR office in Boston, blog posts are in fact enough to warrant Title IX action if they: (1) are written by a member of the university (current student, staff, or employee), (2) can be shown to be directly related to a sexual harassment complaint, and (3) can be objectively determined to be negative.

This is actually a very recent development in the DOE's interpretation of Title IX, and was codified in the form of a "Dear Collegue" letter which explicitly discusses retaliation for filing a sexual harassment complaint (and which carries the same weight as the original act for the purposes of enforcement by the OCR) released on April 24, 2013. Here's the link: http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/letters/colleague-201304.html.  Note that this letter contains a link with contact information for the local OCR office, and that the OCR offers "technical assistance."

The release of the previous "Dear Colleague" letter of April 4, 2011 marks the point at which the OCR began requiring that grievance procedures use just a "preponderance of evidence" (the "more likely than not" standard used in civil cases, rather than the stricter "clear and convincing" requirement used in criminal cases). The April 2011 Dear Colleague letter is available online here: http://thefire.org/public/pdfs/0559f332d909e0024ac3bc0d07081e60.pdf?direct

And, as footnote 27 of the original 1997 OCR Sexual Harassment Guidance document indicates, there is a long history of educational institutions being held liable under Title IX for knowing failure to take appropriate actions to remedy a hostile environment.

Arizona's Carolina Sartorio...

...at Flickers of Freedom this month.

Philosophically-minded physicist Sean Carroll interviewed...

...at 3AM.

Readers: who are you?

A propos yesterday's post, it occurred to me I should do one of these threads, which I hadn't done in years.  (Ed.: Post-docs should pick the 'faculty' category.)

 

I'm also opening comments. No need to sign your name, though please use a distinctive 'handle,' so we don't have a thread full of "anons" (e.g., "Indiana undergrad in philosophy," or "Jerry B" etc.).  Feel free to offer a bit more detail than the poll above permits (esp. if you check 'other')  and/or to say what you mostly come here to read.    Thanks.

Misogynistic cyber-harassers exposed

This should happen more than it does.  The insult "loser" does seem to characterize these individuals.

10th Anniversary of the Blog

This blog is, remarkably, ten years old today. It's the most widely read philosophy blog in the world, as best I can tell, with nearly 23 million visits and more than 30 million page views during its decade of life (I recall how surprising it was the first time it got 200 hits in one day way back in 2003!  Now, even in the summer, it's running an average of 10,000 hits per day).  Issues raised here have made it into The New York Times, The Guardian, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Education, The Boston Globe, and many other traditional media.  My thanks to all you readers for making it a success and making it worth continuing. 

Here's three things I never would have guessed way back in 2003:

1.  The extent to which blogs would become part of the mainstream of the profession.

2.  The extent to which academic philosophers, though overall a more enlightened group, would still have representatives of every political and moral pathology of the United States.  (I shall have to do another survey of the readership like this one from a few years ago.)

3.  The extent to which airing on the Internet the kind of moral and political views I express all the time to friends and colleagues would make me an object of widespread cyber-vilification--yes, in retrospect, I realize that was naive.  Cyberspace, alas, enables an extraordinary amount of shameless defamation by people with political or philosophical axes to grind; and American libel and cyber-law mostly gives them cover.

I've posted some reflections at various milestones in the past, but the realization that ten years have passed inspires more verbosity.  I've put most of it below the fold, to spare those of you who are not interested.

The McGinn case and gender issues in philosophy...

...makes it to the front page of today's New York Times.  Nothing really new for those who have been following the coverage on this blog, but it's a fair overview of the issues.  (The reporter tells me it got cut at the last minute, but even so, it seems a well-done piece.)

A new blog showcasing work by women in political philosophy

Here.

Don't take your dating advice from Nietzsche...

...is probably good advice.

(Thanks to David Livingstone Smith for the pointer.)

 

No academic freedom at Calvin College

Keith DeRose (Yale) has an understated description (with links) of this sad saga.

O'Connor's Adorno...

...reviewed by J. Gordon Finlayson (Sussex):

Introductions such as Brian O'Connor's Adorno (the latest in The Routledge Philosophers series) are a genre in their own right with their proper demands. One task is to initiate non-expert readers into the world of Adorno, and to make it accessible to the non-specialist without oversimplifying. Another is to give readers an overview of Adorno's entire work situating each aspect of it in relation to the others. O'Connor meets these demands deftly....

O'Connor's philosophical interpretation of Adorno centres on the latter's notion of experience, and the excellent chapters 3 and 4 (on Experience and Metaphysics, respectively) focus on ideas that radiate into all corners of his work. He bases his interpretation for the most part on Adorno's major published works of philosophy, Negative Dialectics, Minima Moralia, the post-humously published Aesthetic Theory, and the co-authored Dialectic of Enlightenment, but leavens his interpretation with references to the radio broadcasts, lecture series, letters, and other important studies and essays. At a pinch, one might have asked for more engagement with Adorno's essays on music and the musical monographs in the long sixth chapter on Adorno's aesthetics, but otherwise nothing is missing.

O'Connor's style is careful, mercifully jargon-free, and nicely suited to the genre. He is not seduced into emulating Adorno's scintillating style, and he handles Adorno's abstruse concepts with insight and dexterity. There is no need for a book on Adorno to read like Adorno's philosophy, as some do. Indeed there is reason for them not to: Adorno's own work is difficult enough. The pitch of this work is well-judged. It will be of interest to experts on Adorno as well as to students encountering his work for the first time.

That all seems right to me (and, unlike Finlayson, I found the summaries at the end of each chapter quite useful).  Finlayson's review spends perhaps a bit too much time on meta-philosophical issues about interpreting Adorno, at the expense of the substance of O'Connor's reading of Adorno, but hopefully the review will enocourage more readers, especially those intrigued by Adorno but put off by his sometimes awful writing, to read O'Connor's book.

Ludlow on MIT's report on the Aaron Swartz case

Here.