Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

New Books in October

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

Debating Gun Control:  How Much Regulation Do We Need by David DeGrazia & Lester H. Hunt (Oxford University Press, 2016).

Ten Neglected Classics of Philosophy edited by Eric Schliesser (Oxford University Press, 2017).

The Ethics of Sport:  Essential Readings edited by Arthur L. Caplan & Brendan Parent (Oxford University Press, 2017).

The Geography of Morals:  Varieties of Moral Possibility by Owen Flanagan (Oxford University Press, 2017).

Philosophy in the Islamic World:  A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps, Volume 3 by Peter Adamson (Oxford University Press, 2016).

A Short History of German Philosophy by Vittorio Hösle, translated by Steven Rendall (Princeton University Press, 2017).

Manchester Metropolitan University may close entire Cheshire campus

Philosopher Michael Loughlin from MMU Cheshire writes:

[P]hilosophy is one of a number of academic subjects currently offered on the Cheshire campus of Manchester Metropolitan University.  The whole campus is potentially facing closure as part of a commissioned "review" of its "financial sustainability" by a team of management consultants.  The board of governors is considering options that include the survival of the campus with a significantly reduced range of academic provisions on offer to students, and its outright closure.  In that event, a key provider of education in the Cheshire region for over 100 years would be lost and while some academic staff might be relocated to a city campus in Manchester, many academics - and many more support staff - could be facing redundancy.

We are trying to persuade the board of governors to consider less drastic options, arguing that campus closure would be a disaster for the local region and contrary to the university's commitment to "widening participation" - the region has been identified as an area with "a low density of HEIs" and we're concerned the students that commute from the local community may no longer be able to access university if the campus is closed.  Too many academic provisions are being lost across the UK as universities 'streamline' their offerings, and this tendency represents a serious concern for those of us who believe that a traditional academic education should be an option for people from a broad range of backgrounds - social, geographical and economic.  There is a case for a sustainable future for this campus, and in support of that case we're trying to get as many people as possible to sign a petition calling on the board to consider seriously the alternatives to closure.  The petition can be accessed here:

http://speakout.web.ucu.org.uk/save-manchester-metropolitan-university-cheshire-campus/

The comments that many of our former students who have already signed are instructive, and we hope members of the board will read them - but they are more likely to do so if the petition has many supporters.  So please consider clicking on the link and signing.

Democracy, Epistocracy, and the philosophers David Estlund and Jason Brennan...

...discussed in a rather intelligent essay in The New Yorker.

Explaining the inexplicable

Nancy Cartwright (Durham/UC San Diego), James Ladyman (Bristol) and others discuss.

Macquarie's Albert Atkin interviewed...

...at 3AM.

Halloween is for Irish people only

Philosopher Jason Brennan (Georgetown) comments.

Democracy in America is a disaster: the case of Trump

This sums it up quite nicely.   Do read Achen & Bartels, Demoracy for Realists, which I am grateful to Jason Brennan for flagging.  Pretty grim.

FBI Director Comey, Clinton, and the latest e-mail brouhaha

This is informative (by two legal scholars).

Great moments in obscure rock 'n' roll: James Gang, "Funk #48," 1969

Everyone knows that staple of "classic rock" radio, "Funk #49," from the James Gang's 1970 Rides Again (one of the best rock albums of that era), but how many know its precedessor from the 1969 debut album by Joe Walsh's first band:

 

 

The Yale Halloween fiasco, a year later

Worth remembering, given the attempt to whitewash what happened in some circles (bolding added):

Nearly a thousand students, faculty and deans called for my and my husband’s immediate removal from our jobs and campus home. Some demanded not only apologies for any unintended racial insensitivity (which we gladly offered) but also a complete disavowal of my ideas (which we did not) — as well as advance warning of my appearances in the dining hall so that students accusing me of fostering violence wouldn’t be disturbed by the sight of me.

Not everyone bought this narrative, but few spoke up. And who can blame them? Numerous professors, including those at Yale’s top-rated law school, contacted us personally to say that it was too risky to speak their minds. Others who generously supported us publicly were admonished by colleagues for vouching for our characters. Many students met with us confidentially to describe intimidation and accusations of being a “race traitor” when they deviated from the ascendant campus account that I had grievously injured the community. The Yale Daily News evidently felt obliged to play down key facts in its reporting, including about the two-hour-plus confrontation with a crowd of more than 100 students in which several made verbal and physical threats to my husband while four Yale deans and administrators looked on.

I have always spoken up, but far too few do, perhaps because so many are committed to making it costly to do so.

A very amusing, short interview with UC San Diego's Manuel Vargas...

...at the APA blog.  Do not mention mangos!

Best PhD Programs for Feminist Philosophy, 2016-17

Following up on this post, and once again taking account of faculty changes since the fall 2014 PGR, here's an attempted update of the top programs for Feminist Philosophy for 2016-17, again by rough "clusters" of peer programs:

Group 1 (1-10)

Birkbeck College, University of London

Cambridge University

City University of New York Graduate Center

Massachussetts Institute of Technology

University of Chicago

University of Colorado, Boulder

University of Massachussetts, Amherst

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

University of Washington, Seattle

University of Western Ontario

More support for the Humanities Center at Johns Hopkins...

...from PhD alumni, who hold an impressive array of positions nationally and internationally.

Speaking of racist right-wingers...

...here's an interesting Mother Jones profile of Richard Spencer.

It's official: "RightlyConsidered" is not only a boring litany of the usual right-wing Christian prejudices...

...plus  pathetic sexist tripe, but it also has its own resident raving anti-Semite, one "Jacques," whom no other contributor to that blog appears to have criticized for his insane bigotry.  Some quotes from comments he's posted on that sorry blog:

Since the time of Marx through the many Bolshevik mass murderers like Kaganovich through to the present era of “whiteness studies” (i.e., anti-white-gentile studies) rammed with ethnocentric anti-white Jews, there is no group of people on earth who have been more venomously effective in the propagation of anti-Christian bigotry than leftist Jews. No group is more privileged or powerful or tribalistic...Jews enabled the Moors to take Spain. Jews traded in Christian slaves in huge numbers through the middle ages. Jewish wealth funded the rabidly Christophobic Bolsheviks. The Talmud tells us Christ is in hell boiling in excrement. All major Jewish organizations righteously demand that we flood Christian lands with unvetted limitless numbers of Muslims while making no similar demands on Israel.

 Or this:

Is it anti-semitic to believe on solid evidence the true proposition[] that...“leftist Jews” have been vastly over-represented among haters, oppressors and mass murderers of Christians, and in anti-Christian anti-European movements, and notably under-represented in the defense of the interests of Christians and non-Jewish Europeans

That the blog let this stuff stand defies belief.  RightlyConsidered is operating at about the level of Breitbart, though trending towards StormFront!  If right-wing philosophers want to be taken seriously, this blog is not the way to do it!  But if they simply want to have their own cyber-circle of self-congratulation plus unabashed sexism and racism, then they're doing a great job!

Best PhD Programs for Philosophy of Art/Aesthetics for 2016-17

Following up on this post, and once again taking account of faculty changes since the fall 2014 PGR, here's an attempted update of the top (3.5 or higher) programs for Philosophy of Art for 2016-17, again by rough "clusters" of peer programs:

Group 1 (1-5)

City University of New York Graduate Center

New York University

University of British Columbia

University of St Andrews/University of Stirling Joint Program

University of York

Group 2 (6-10) 

Brown University

Columbia University (incl. Barnard)

University of Auckland

University of Leeds

University of Maryland, College Park

The list of faculty changes since the fall 2014 PGR...

...has been updated with some recent moves.   I had been moving that post to the front, but doing so changed the URL which then affects the embedded links in the PGR specialty ranking updates (which will be continuing soon).  So henceforth, I will occasionally just post a link to it when there are some new additions (which are in bold).

A prominent Christian philosopher comes out in favor of same-sex marriage

Nicholas Wolterstorff.

Brading from Notre Dame to Duke

Katherine Brading (history and philosophy of physics and modern philosophy), Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, has accepted a senior offer from the Department of Philosophy at Duke University, where she will begin in 2017-18.

"The Epistemology of the Hermeneutics of Suspicion"

My keynote address from the Bonn Summer School on "The Hermeneutics of Suspicion" from last June is now on-line courtesy of Bonn's Internationales Zentrum für Philosophie NRW.

Rapko on Geuss

Against "normativism."

Philosopher John Cottingham (emeritus, Reading) and others are...

..."In Search of the Self."

The morality of national borders...

...at Aeon.

Humanities Center at Johns Hopkins under threat (and a petition)

A philosophy graduate student at Johns Hopkins University writes:

I am a member of the philosophy department at Johns Hopkins University writing to alert you to some rather disturbing events happening in the university. In short, the university’s administration is attempting to shut down an academic department without transparency, due-process, or clear justification. The department in question is the Humanities Center, an interdisciplinary department that has been part of the university since the 1960s. The issues between the administration and the department have been developing for several years, but they have just recently been made public. Several members of the department of philosophy, including myself, feel that the administration’s handling of the situation ought to be publicized as much as possible to discourage this kind of malfeasance both now and in the future.

Here is a brief description of the situation (further details can be found on this website, which has been set up in support of the Center):

Roughly three years ago, two senior members of the Humanities Center’s faculty announced plans to retire. The department requested permission to conduct searches to replace the retiring faculty. The dean at the time, Katherine Newman, told the department that any decision regarding new hires would be up to her successor, since she was planning to leave Hopkins that same year. Her replacement was Beverly Wendland, a member of the biology faculty. Dean Wendland informed the Center that she would not be considering either of their hiring requests until the department underwent a review, despite the fact that it had been recently reviewed twice (in 2008-2009 and 2011-2012). In both cases, the reviews were generally positive.

The new "conservative" philosophy blog...

...seems to be going downhill fast (ahem).  Unabashed sexist tripe like this didn't use to appear even at the metablogs back in the day!

"The Calvinist Roots of American Anti-Intellectualism"

Very interesting read.

Philosopher Martin Kusch (Vienna) answers...

...ten questions (in German).

Petition to save philosophy at Indiana-Purdue Fort Wayne

Following up on this, there is a petition in support of the program here.  Please sign!

In Memoriam: Sandra Lee Bartky (1935-2016)

MOVING TO FRONT FROM OCTOBER 19--UPDATED

Professor Emerita at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Professor Bartky was an early pioneer in feminist philosophy.  A informative memorial notice from philosopher Kate Norlock (Trent) is at the FP blog.

UPDATE: An obituary from the NYT.  (Thanks to John Bogart for the pointer.)

Faculty at Pennsylvania universities prevail in their labor dispute

Philosopher Steve Hales (Bloomsburg) noted the victory in a comment on the earlier thread, and now Larry Udell, a philosophy professor at West Chester University, writes with some additional details and links:

You may have heard that our union recently fought off an attempt at not only union-busting, but a clear attempt to  move our state system closer to community college status and away from university status. I thought I’d send this along.

NYTimes: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/22/us/pennsylvania-universities-faculty-strike.html?_r=0

Union’s press release: http://apscuf.org/news-center/press-releases/279-apscuf-makes-contract-concessions-for-quality-education-ends-strike .

Of special note: the State System attempted to pit regular faculty vs. adjuncts and students by offering higher pay raises for full-time faculty with the remainder of their package. We rejected that and took less money in order to ensure that we remain more like universities. (E.g.: this semester I have 170 students in 4 classes, with no TA. So I read and grade all of their essays – along with trying to fit in some research.

NYU's Dale Jamieson interviewed...

...at 3AM.  I do think his prediction about how the consumption of non-human animals will be seen in the future is dubious, for reasons discussed here.

Troubles at universities in South Africa

A young philosopher writes:

I’ve been wondering for a while now at the silence (I think!) in the philosophy blogosphere re the enormous troubles at South African universities, especially Witwatersrand but also UCT and others. They’ve been going on for ages and involve violence and closures and all sorts of extremely dramatic events (including libraries on fire, students being shot, intimidation of staff, etc etc). And it’s all revolving around a very complex and interesting issue - putting in a nutshell what probably shouldn’t be put in a nutshell - the issue of making university free for all at public expense in a country like SA where it’s still mostly whites that go to uni. There’s been some coverage in the Western news but not much as far as I know, e.g. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-34615004. Of course it’s all over SA news. A rather random selection of what it was easy to find:

http://mg.co.za/article/2016-10-20-police-fire-rubber-bullets-at-students-shaeera-kalla-reportedly-shot-multiple-times

https://www.facebook.com/witsuniversity/?pnref=story

http://www.thedailyvox.co.za/special-editorial-state-fees-must-fall-2016-edition/

Anyway, I just thought I’d let you know in case you're interested and of course in case you think it worthy/appropriate for a blogpost. Indeed I guess I think it’s in itself an interesting issue why this hasn’t already cropped up in the philosophy blogosphere (if I’m right that it hasn’t).

Comments are open for more links, information etc. on what's going on.

In Memoriam: Dale Jacquette (1953-2016)

Professor Jacquette passed away in August, after teaching for many years at Pennsylvania State University and then the University of Bern.  He was perhaps best-known for his work on early analytic philosophy, especially Frege, Russell and Meinong, though his interests ranged very broadly.  There is a nice memorial notice from Nicholas Rescher here.

(Thanks to James Klagge for the pointer.)

Sunday Classical: Prokofiev, Piano Sonata No. 7

Performed by Glenn Gould:

 

Great moments in obscure rock 'n' roll: Farm, "Let That Boy Boogie," 1971

This Southern Illinois band should have made it big, but alas never did.   Think Canned Heat meets the Allman Brothers.  Their whole debut (and only) album is worth a listen, but this is the standout (concluding) number.

 

Actually, *four* philosophers support Trump

Quartz picks up the story.  (Earlier coverage here and here.)

Trump's origins...

...in the New York of the 1970s (this was the New York I grew up in, and the author captures it well).  It usefully explains the racism and the paranoia about crime.

(Thanks to Christopher Morris for the pointer.)

Another philosophy program axed...

...this time at Indiana-Purdue University Fort Wayne.  Other programs were eliminated as well.  Yet another ill-omen for our field.

(Thanks to Matthew Van Cleave for the pointer.)

This is a bracing reminder that the diehard Trump supporters are Nazis

An essay at the far right National Review.  Maybe this garbage will lead to the repeal of CDA 230, the American license for racist, sexist, and criminal absue in cyberspace. 

Best PhD Programs for Applied Ethics for 2016-17 (UPDATED)

Following up on this post, and once again taking account of faculty changes since the fall 2014 PGR, here's an attempted update of the top (3.5 or higher) programs for Applied Ethics for 2016-17, again by rough "clusters" of peer programs:

Group 1 (1-2)

Harvard University

Oxford University

Group 2 (3-9)

Duke University

New York University

Princeton University

Texas A&M University

University of Pennsylvania

University of Toronto

Yale University

Advertising update

November is now sold out, but there is one 2nd-from-the-top and one 3rd-from-the-top spot still available in December.  The next top spot is January (one remains), and there is one top spot also still available in each of February and March, as well as lower spots.

BBC's Reith Lecture...

...this year by Anthony Appiah (NYU). 

(Thanks to Clifford Sosis for the pointer.)

Writing samples for PhD programs

A prospective PhD student writes:

I'm a prospective philosophy PhD applicant preparing my applications, and I just have two questions about the writing sample that I hope you and/or readers of your blog could illuminate on. 

1) There seems to be conflicting suggestions as to whether the writing sample(s) should match the applicant's interests. I wonder which suggestion is right.

On the one hand, Richard Heck writes on Brown University philosophy department's website: "the writing sample does not have to be connected, in any way, with the area or areas you think you most want to pursue in graduate school."  (https://www.brown.edu/academics/philosophy/application-advice)

On the other hand, Paul Weirich commented in a post on your blog: "The writing sample, besides demonstrating qualifications, shows whether the student's interests fit the department well."  (http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2010/10/ma-students-and-phd-applications.html)

The University of Chicago philosophy department's website seems to support Weirich's view: “Most often, [the writing sample is] a term paper written for a philosophy course -- one that reflects your interests, that you put a lot of work into, that you did well on, and, above all, that you're proud of.” (http://philosophy.uchicago.edu/prospective/admissions.html)

2) UChicago philosophy department website says that writing samples of successful applicants will have been read by as many as 8-9 faculty members before they are admitted. Is this also true at other schools? (Whether it's true directly affects the choice of one’s writing sample -- e.g. whether to submit a paper on a topic of general interest or a specialist topic; whether to avoid submitting a paper that makes an original contribution to a technical debate, whose originality may be overlooked by non-specialists; and so on.)

Heck's advice (surprise!) doesn't seem right to me--or it puts the point too strongly.  The writing sample should bear some relationship to subjects that you are going to mention in your personal statement as ones you may want to pursue.  The main evidence of a good "fit" with a department is how you describe your interests in the personal statement, but the writing sample should be related to one of those.  At most programs, to my knowledge, writing samples are only read by the admissions committee, which usually consists of just 3 or 4 faculty.  Chicago is unusual in circulating writing samples to faculty not on the committee but who work in the area.

It would be useful to hear from faculty who have recently done graduate admissions on these questions.

Return policies of philosophers if they ran businesses...

...from Alex Baia.  A couple of very funny ones!

Yale-NUS College makes senior offer to Ganeri

Jonardon Ganeri, a leading expert on Indian philosophy who is Professor of Philosophy at NYU Abu Dhabi and a Global Professor at New York University in NYC, has been offered the Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple Chair at Yale-NUS.  Students interested in South Asian Philosophy will want to keep an eye on what happens here.

Trump l'oeil (trompe l'oeil)

From philosopher Jerry Dworkin:

Trump l'oeil  (trompe l'oeil)

Some actual dictionary definitions:

A technique designed to fool people into thinking that the objects represented are really there.

Something that misleads or deceives the senses.

Visual deception

UT Austin philosopher Daniel Bonevac on why he is voting for Trump

A propos this earlier discussion, Professor Bonevac has explained his reasons in detail.  Some dubious factual claims are involved, and some even more dubious implicit claims about cause-and-effect.  But the basic mistake is in thinking that Trump means what he says, and so is an instrumentally rational choice given Professor Bonevac's stated objectives.

"Nature" comes out against proposed new Higher Ed bill in the UK

From their editorial:

A draft law, the Higher Education and Research Bill, is making its way through the House of Commons. The bill amounts to the biggest shake-up in the sector for more than a generation. It is designed, among other things, to make it easier for private companies to set up universities, and to enable more researchers to commercialize their work. If it passes, existing funding bodies will close and replacements will be created. But in the process of change, the bill rips up an 800-year-old settlement between the nation’s scholars and the state. It opens the door to unacceptable political interference. It must be resisted.

I'd be curious to hear from UK readers, or others informed about this legislation, what they make of it and whether it will also have impact in other fields outside the sciences, like philosophy.

An adjunct in Australia commits suicide

A tragic tale.

(Thanks to John Hadley for the pointer.)

Warm thanks to Darlene Deas and Christopher Pynes...

...for providing, as always, insight and a unique perspective on the philosophy profession and its foibles.  You can see their contributions by clicking on their "guest blogger" category, below.