Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

Oxford's Tim Mawson interviewed...

...at 3AM.

Scharp from Ohio State to St. Andrews

Kevin Scharp (philosophy of language, philosophical logic, metaphysics, philosophy of science, history of analytic philosophy), Professor of Philosophy at Ohio State University, has accepted appointment as Reader in Philosophy at the University of St. Andrews.

ADDENDUM:  In addition, Prof. Scharp's partner, the philosopher Alison Duncan Kerr (philosophy of mind, moral psychology, metaethics), currently a Lecturer in Philosophy at Ohio State, will take up a post as Research Fellow in Philosophy at St. Andrews.  Both she and Prof. Scharp will be members of Arche there.

"Faculty Against Rape" letter on AAUP report on Title IX is really a letter by some philosophy faculty and grad students...

...some of whom were involved in the disgraceful Kipnis affair (which they actually have the audacity to revisit and try to rationalize in this new letter--and see also).  Here's the letter.  I would guess from the content that one of the primary authors was the author of the FP blog post we discussed awhile back.  (The letter even cites the FP blog post, and makes clear the author learned nothing from the discussion of it, which is part of what is quite alarming about these zealots.) This crowd has long made clear their contempt for fairness and due process, so their posture in this matter is hardly surprising.  I assume the adults at the AAUP will ignore this.

Cornell's Chignell has senior offers from Penn, North Carolina

Andrew Chignell (Kant, early modern philosophy, epistemology, philosophy of religion, aesthetics), Associate Professor of Philosophy at Cornell University, has senior offers from the Departments of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Advertising update for May

There's still one top and one 2nd from the top spot available in May, as well as 3rd from the top spots ($700, $600, $500 respectively).  Prospective advertisers can click on the "public stats" link (bottom of the left hand sidebar) to see the volume of traffic here, which has been averaging over 10,000 visits per day, and nearly 15,000 page views per day.  I noticed, for example, that the APA blog is asking $750 for top ad spots, which is extraordinary given that I don't have the impression many people are reading it--in any case, the APA blog has no public traffic statistics, so caveat emptor.

I'll be doing less blogging in the summer, so will be offering reduced rates:  $300 for the top, $250 for a 2nd, $200 for a 3rd.  Some spots have already been reserved for the summer (and one for September even), but there is at least one top spot still available each month going forward.  Contact me at bleiter-at-uchicago-dot-edu to reserve advertising.

Philosophy professor in Kuwait charged with "blasphemy" for suggesting the Constitution of Kuwait should take precedence over the Quaran

Our allies the Kuwaitis.

(Thanks to Graham Oddie for the pointer.)

Dickinson College has now terminated tenured philosophy professor Crispin Sartwell

MOVING TO FRONT--ORIGINALLY POSTED APRIL 9 (UPDATED, AND UPDATED AGAIN ON APRIL 12, APRIL 14)

Professor Sartwell reports this development on his blog, though he has also shared with me the documentation confirming that this is, indeed, what has transpired.  (Our earlier coverage of his case.)  I have assisted him in finding a suitable Pennsylvania lawyer to vindicate his contractual rights of tenure and academic freedom, which the College appears to have violated.  Legal representation is expensive, and the College has all the advantages here.  I urged Prof. Sartwell to create a "GoFundMe" page to assist with his legal expenses, and I have donated myself and urge others to do so.  I can not emphasize enough how serious this incident is:  a tenured professor, engaging in lawful extramural speech on his blog, was first removed from his classes mid-term and now informed that he is no longer an employee--without any process or hearings whatsoever.  Prof. Sartwell is entitled to fair legal process to vindicate his contractual and other legal rights, and I hope the community will support him.

UPDATE:  Philosopher Joel Pust (Delaware) kindly calls to my attention a highly selective account in the Dickinson newspaper about recent events.  Basically, the College, after removing Sartwell involuntarily from his classes and from campus, is trying to treat statements by Prof. Sartwell on various social media as tantamount to his having resigned his position, even though the College had sent him a termination agreement, which he never signed and explicitly rejected.  (Some of the statements, in context, were clearly assertions that the College planned to terminate him, an asessment that proved correct; others, in context, express Sartwell's anger about how he is being treated.)  The fact remains that Sartwell was removed from his classes without any kind of hearing or process, and the College has now informed him that he is no longer a faculty member without any hearing or process, even though he declined to sign the proposed termination agreement and rejected its terms.

APRIL 12 UPDATE:  The AAUP has now written to Dickinson College about the Sartwell case:  Download AAUP Letter to President Roseman 4-12-16.  I want to add two additional comments about some of the bizarre claims made by Dickinson and that I've even seen reiterated on social media by people clearly not very knowledgeable about law.   First, posting a country music video, "Time to Get a Gun," a song which itself contains no death threats, is not itself a death threat.  Making a death threat is a crime in most jurisdictions, and yet no criminal charges have been filed against Prof. Sartwell, and for obvious reasons:  he committed no crime.  Second, notice the hypocrisy in Dickinson's position in this matter:  on the one hand, they demanded that Prof. Sartwell receive a psychiatric evaluation; on the other hand, they now want to assert that e-mails and social media comments by the person they deemed in need of psychiatric evaluation constitute resignation from the faculty, even though at the very same time he rejected, more than once, proposed termination agreements.  The more I learn about this case, the more appalling Dickinson's behavior appears.  Thank you to those who have donated in support of assisting Prof. Sartwell to get a fair hearing for his legal rights.

APRIL 14 UPDATE:  Thanks to all those who have donated to Prof. Sartwell's legal fund.  He's closing in on the $5,000 goal; I hope others will contribute.  Small amounts matter too!  It's important for Dickinson to see that the academic community objects to this treatment of a tenured faculty member.

APA Development Letter from Robert Audi

Robert Audi, Chair of the the new APA Development Committee has sent out an email to APA members asking them to donate. As I have written on this blog before, I believe in development as a means for promoting philosophy.  I hope that the development committee reaches out to groups and philosophy supporters other than its members as sources of development funding.  I have included the full letter below the fold for those who are not current members of the APA who might want to donate.  Comments are open for development suggestions.

The Fall 2014 PGR as seen from Fall 2016: a post for students deciding on graduate schools for 2016-17

MOVING TO FRONT--ORIGINALLY POSTED MARCH 30, 2016

What follows is my best judgment as to how the faculty changes in the interim should lead prospective PhD students to think about the relevant hierarchy of PhD programs in the U.S. and elsewhere compared to the 2014 survey results.  Rather than offer a guestimate about an ordinal rank, I put the PhD programs into "clusters" of what I think should reasonably be considered "peer" programs among which students should choose based on considerations other than "overall prestige."   But I generally think it's reasonable to choose between programs in adjacent peer groups based on other considerations (financial aid, location, particular faculty, specialty strength etc.).

An * indicates a program that arguably belongs in the next highest peer grouping.  There are one or two possible senior moves afoot that might affect some of these groupings, but my understanding is that the programs involved have been candid with prospectives.

Group 1 (1)                                                                 Anglophone Programs outside the U.S.

New York University                                            

Group 2 (2-7)

Princeton University                                                    *Oxford University

*Rutgers University, New Brunswick

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

University of Pittsburgh

University of Southern California

Yale University

Group 3 (8-15)

Columbia University                                                University of Toronto                                            

Harvard University                                            

Massachussetts Institute of Technology

Stanford University

University of Arizona

*University of California, Berkeley

University of California, Los Angeles

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Group 4 (16-20)

Brown University                                                    Cambridge University                                                                                        

*City University of New York Graduate Center

University of Chicago

University of Notre Dame

University of Texas, Austin

Group 5 (21-27)

Cornell University                                                University of St. Andrews/University of Stirling Joint Program

Duke University                                                    University of Edinburgh                                                                                                

Indiana University, Bloomington                            King's College, London

University of California, Irvine                               University College London

*University of California, San Diego                        *Australian National University

*University of Wisconsin, Madison

Washington University, St. Louis

The real threat in public bathrooms?

Republican politicians.

Rauner’s Newest IBHE Appointee and University Layoffs

Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner recently appointed, Jack Thomas to the Illinois Board of Higher Education (IBHE). Readers may remember my earlier guest post about the IBHE and program evaluations. Dr. Thomas is also the President of WIU.

Today, President Thomas announced layoffs for 110 non-instructional staff. This is on top of the faculty layoffs announced earlier in December. In this Tri States Public Radio interview, Thomas claims that jobs could have been saved if agreements on furloughs with the various (faculty and staff) unions could have been achieved.  But, according to Thomas, an additional 20 million in cuts will need to be made over the next two years.

For readers who don’t know why Illinois doesn’t have a budget 10 months into the fiscal year, it’s because the Illinois General Assembly won’t agree to Rauner’s “Turnaround Agenda,” which aims in part to make Illinois a right to work state and weaken unions. This budget impasse has caused many of the state universities to resort to layoffs: Chicago State (900), Eastern Illinois (177), and WIU to name just a few.

Philosophy PhD Applicants: You Have Until April 15th to Decide!

UPDATE:  Moving to the front as a reminder (and I've had some reports, from faculty and students, of schools trying to force earlier decisions)

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

A philosopher at a PhD program writes:  "For the first time I'm involved with grad admissions, and we're already hearing from our candidates that we have waitlisted for fellowships that other schools are trying to impose deadlines for their fellowship offers in advance of the April 15 standard.  (One offender is trying to impose a March 5 deadline.)  Would you consider using your blog to let your grad school applicant readers know that they cannot be railroaded into a decision earlier than the April 15 standard?"

The American Philosophical Association's official position on offers of admission and aid is here:

Students are under no obligation to respond to offers of financial support prior to April 15; earlier deadlines for acceptance of such offers violate the intent of this Resolution. In those instances in which a student accepts an offer before April 15, and subsequently desires to withdraw that acceptance, the student may submit in writing a resignation of the appointment at any time through April 15. However, an acceptance given or left in force after April 15 commits the student not to accept another offer without first obtaining a written release from the institution to which a commitment has been made. Similarly, an offer by an institution after April 15 is conditional on presentation by the student of the written release from any previously accepted offer. It is further agreed by the institutions and organizations subscribing to the above Resolution that a copy of this Resolution should accompany every scholarship, fellowship, traineeship, and assistantship offer.

We know the PGR site is down (thanks for e-mailing!)...

...but don't know why, but this happens periodically.  Brit Brogaard is sending an inquiry to Blackwell.

Pietroski from Maryland to Rutgers

Paul Pietroski (philosophy of language), Professor of Philosophy and Linguistics at the University of Maryland, College Park, has accepted appointment as Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, effective fall 2017.

Professor salaries up 3.4% in 2015-16

IHE has the details of the latest AAUP survey.  IHE also reports the ten highest paying private and public research universities:

Top Private University Faculty Salaries for Full Professors, 2015-16 (Average)

1.	Columbia University	$236,300
2.	University of Chicago	$232,400
3.	Stanford University	$229,600
4.	Harvard University	$220,200
5.	Princeton University	$215,900
6.	New York University	$205,600
7.	Yale University	$203,500
8.	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	$202,600
9.	University of Pennsylvania	$202,000
10.	Johns Hopkins University	$200,900

 

Top Public University Faculty Salaries for Full Professors, 2015-16 (Average)

1.	University of California at Los Angeles	$187,800
2.	University of California at Berkeley	$178,900
3.	Rutgers University at Newark	$170,000
4.	University of Michigan at Ann Arbor	$167,500
5.	University of Virginia	$164,900
6.	University of California at Santa Barbara	$161,300
7.	University of California at San Diego	$159,800
8.	University of California at Irvine	$159,400
9.	Rutgers University at New Brunswick	$158,800
10.	University of Maryland at Baltimore	$157,200

It's very important to note that the average salary data includes law and business faculties, but not medical school faculties.  That explains why, e.g., Rutgers-Newark (which has law and business schools) has higher average salaries than Rutgers-New Brunswick.   Similarly, University of Maryland's law school is at Baltimore, not College Park.  In the case of the private universities, Chicago's strong result is due entirely to the law and business schools, as I've been told by former high level administrators here (full professors in the humanities are not, alas, making on average $232,400).  Princeton's strong showing is particularly notable given that it has neither a law school, nor a business school--but this should hardly be surprising given Princeton's extraordinary wealth.

Bruce Rauner is a disgrace

Send him back to his country club.  But seriously, this is why the Greeks used lotteries, to avoid having self-serving spoiled bozos running the polity.

Dasgupta from Princeton to Berkeley

Shamik Dasgupta (metaphysics, philosophy of science), Associate Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University, has accepted at tenured offer from the Department of Philosophy at the University of California at Berkeley, where he will be moving (he reports) "this summer."

Philosopher John Corvino (Wayne State) on T.V., taking on the bigots in North Carolina

A nice job!

Good papers for an undergraduate philosophy of law course?

A philosophy graduate student elsewhere writes:

Your recent mention of "The Case of the Speluncean Explorers" (in the poll on philosophers of law) got me thinking about other "classic" legal papers.  "Speluncean Explorers" strikes me as an unusually good example of a paper that has the ability to introduce undergraduate students to a lot of big ideas in the field (and it does so in an evocative way).  In light of your background in the area, I would be interested in hearing what you and your readers consider to be similar papers, i.e., papers that might be used to flavor a broad array of undergraduate courses that touch upon the law.  I have in mind things like "Positivism and the Separation of Law and Morals" (Hart), "Positivism and Fidelity to Law" (Fuller), "The Punishment that Leaves Something to Chance" (David Lewis), "Persons and Punishment" (Herbert Morris), and so on.

Personally, I would not teach "Positivism and Fidelity to Law," since it's just a tissue of confusions that does nothing to illuminate legal positivism or relevant objections to it.  In any case, this is open for reader suggestions.  (Comments may take awhile to appear, please be patient.)

"Open Library of Humanities": a new publishing platform

Interesting.

On illness as a stimulus to philosophy

Here.

(Thanks to Prabhu Venkataraman for the pointer.)

Great moments in obscure rock 'n' roll: Leaf Hound, "Drowned My Life in Fear,"1971

This entire album (Growers of Mushroom) is extraordinary if you like bands like Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, etc.  I'm told they've had a comeback in popularity in "Stoner Rock" circles.

 

Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Blank comments on new tenure rules

Here.  Reactions?

(Thanks to Larry Shapiro for the pointer.)

Robert Paul Wolff has "had enough" of Krugman's sucking up to Clinton

Rightly so!

Marquette professor, threatened with being fired over a blog post about a philosophy instructor, replies to the University President

McAdams, the Marquette political science professor, is an unpleasant character, but he's in the right here, and Marquette is in the wrong, as we've noted before.

Buffalo's Nicolas Bommarito interviewed...

...at 3AM.

More on the Sokal hoax at "Badiou Studies" (a journal that is itself a Sokal hoax?)

Here.

Remembering Putnam, especially his political activism

Recollections from political theorist Alan Gilbert (Denver)--many interesting anecdotes! 

(Prof. Gilbert gives too much credit, however, to some of Putnam's weaker philosophical positions, like his supposed arguments against the fact-value distinction.)

What is it like to be a philosopher? Janice Dowell edition

Here.

(Thanks to Clifford Sosis for sending this along.)

On study of the humanities

A nicely written essay by Zena Hitz (St. John's College, Annapolis).  It offers an interesting defense of a decidedly Christian understanding of the "interiority" and "dignity" of humanistic reflection (also a Platonic one, though as Nietzsche said, "Christianity is Platonism for the people") against the neoliberal ("the humanities produce people who are useful for capitalism") and liberal ("the humanities make people good democratic citizens") defenses of humanistic study.  As Nietzsche notes in the Genealogy, the "slave revolt" in morality made human beings interesting, giving them interior lives.   And the humanities (here understood capaciously to include the cognitive sciences generally) are, when done well and seriously (e.g., not Badiou studies!), are precisely those that help one become a human being who is "interesting."   That concern has no resonance for the neoliberal or liberal defenses of the humanities.  Since our age is still neoliberal to its core, that means humanistic study is doomed in the neoliberal countries.  But it will likely return elsewhere. 

What do readers think of Prof. Hitz's interesting essay?

President Obama is at the University of Chicago Law School today discussing the Supreme Court and the nomination of Judge Garland...

...which you can watch here.  And if you'd like to know the truth about what's really going on with Supreme Court nomination battles, read this.  (I'm not there, I'm at home working, since the faculty have been thrown out of their offices for the day!)

People on the autism spectrum in academia

Interesting piece by economist Tyler Cowen (George Mason) in CHE.

Details of sexual harassment cases at Berkeley in recent years

A few involve faculty, most involve staff, all are on the spectrum from pathetic to creepy.  What the heck is wrong with people that they behave in these ways in what is supposed to be a professional context? 

ADDENDUM:  On the Choudhry case (the former Law Dean at Berkeley), this is relevant.  He plainly should have been removed from the Deanship, but at present, there is no case for removing him from his tenured faculty position.

"Visit Mississippi...

...we're even worse than North Carolina."

Ted Cruz gets the Bronx welcome he deserves...

...and The New York Post has fun reporting it.

The attack on tenure in Wisconsin continues, and this time the Madison campus is the target

Details from IHE.  Comments are open for more links, information, perspective.

The place of philosophy of science in the profession (esp. its professional meetings)

An interesting post by Calgary's Ken Waters (taking up an issue Edouard Machery [Pitt] raised here awhile back).

Pitt makes senior offer to North Carolina's Laurie (L.A.) Paul

Students thinking about either program, especially those interested in metaphysics (or her more recent work on "transformative experience"), will want to take this into account.  My best guesstimate is that if Paul goes to Pitt, that would (together with some other changes, or impending ones, since the last PGR) drop North Carolina from Group 3 to Group 4.

A good year for philosophers in the Guggenheim competitions

Four faculty have won Guggenheim Fellowships:  Victor Caston (Michigan), Anjan Chakravartty (Notre Dame),  Daniel Garber (Princeton), and Richard Kraut (Northwestern).  Caston, Garber, and Kraut are primarily historians of philosophy, Chakravartty is a philosopher of science.

(Thanks to several readers for passing this on.)

Philosopher Jerry Dworkin on John Mearsheimer on lying politicans...

...at the New Rambler.

Tea Party crazy Rick Scott, Gov. of Florida, excoriated...

...by a constituent in a coffee shop.

Blogging a book...

...philosopher Massimo Pigliucci (CUNY) will be doing it over the coming weeks.

Economics as "the new astrology"

This needed to be written.

(Thanks to Richard Marshall for the pointer.)

Tennessee Taliban want Bible to be the official state book!

Pathetic, but this is the home of the Scopes monkey trial.  Good to know there's been almost no progress in that benighted state despite 80 years.

"Reply to Five Critics of WHY TOLERATE RELIGION?"

It's on-line now at the website of Criminal Law & Philosophy (though you may need to be at a university computer to access it) for those who may be interested.

Why do undergraduate women give up on philosophy?

 One recent study found that adding more women to the syllabus didn't make much difference, which is what I would have expected.  Anecdotally, I have had the impression that sexual harassment has been a major deterrent for female students, though lower levels of tolerance for this misconduct may help change that.  But a senior female philosopher elsewhere writes with an interesting and different take:

My assessment of the undergrad women in philosophy thing: undergrad women get sick of being talked over and strawmanned by their peers in and out of the classroom, and get sick of classes where the male students endlessly hold forth about their own thoughts. Relatedly, they find many thought experiments overall less compelling perhaps because, (a) women may start out in philosophy feeling less impressed with a priori speculation in general, perhaps because of confidence issues and the topics, and more importantly (b) they are less able to receive credence for their thoughts about the thought experiments when they try to engage with their peers, and (c) a lot of it seems like just more blowhard bullshitting by a bunch of dudes, on esoteric topics that they aren’t really allowed to engage in fully (see (b)). (Metaphysics is really a lot like that. Trad epistemology too.)

I will say that over two decades of teaching, it has seemed to me that the students who speak out of proportion to what they have to say are overwhelmingly male.  Maintaining control of the classroom, and creating a welcoming environment for all student contributions, can probably go some distance to rectifying this--but that, of course, supposes levels of pedagogical talent and sensitivity that many philosophy faculty probably lack.  But I'm curious what readers make of this diagnosis.

F.I.R.E. seeking student or institution as plaintiff in lawsuit to challenge regulatory overreach by the Office of Civil Rights (in the Dept of Education) regarding Title IX

An interesting development, one that could result in a case that ends up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Mind has new editors...

...and they are A.W. Moore (Oxford) and Lucy O'Brien (UCL); their initial editorial is here and indicates their intention to broaden Mind's coverage, which would be welcome given its very narrow conception of philosophy in recent decades.  Mind still has a poor reputation for the efficiency of its editorial process, and hopefully the new editors will rectify that as well.

Princeton decides not to remove Woodrow Wilson's name from schools and colleges

The Trustee Committee report, in full, is here.  It has interesting details both about his accomplishments (including securing the right to vote for women, and the 8-hour workday), his willingness to appoint Jews and Catholics to the faculty, and, of course, his virulent anti-Black racism.  I have not read the entire report, I should note.  If anyone has time to read it all, comments are open.

How right-wing are elite American universities?

Quite, judging from this:  they support, overwhelmingly, the 1970s Republican over the New Deal liberal.  Wow!  And silly too:  Clinton doesn't need their nickels and dimes, she's got Wall Street!