Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

Shithole country people respond to shithead President

These are priceless.  Every single person here appears to be more accomplished, literate and educated than the Infant-in-Chief.

Philosopher Richard Feldman, former Dean of the College, appointed Interim President of the University of Rochester

The Rochester press release is here.  I'll have a bit more to say next week about the sexual harassment controversy at Rochester that is related to this changing of the guard, since it is instructive in a variety of ways.

(Thanks to John Capps for the pointer.)

"How the Light Gets In" 2018

I've been invited to participate a couple of times, but have never ended up attending this "festival" of ideas, but the 2018 event is now open for registration and they are offering a 20% discount to blog readers by entering the code "Leiter20" at checkout.  Philosophy speakers include:  Anthony Appiah (NYU), Noam Chomsky (MIT), Andy Clark (Edinburgh), Michael Ruse (Florida State), Paul Boghossian (NYU), Huw Price (Cambridge), Amie Thomasson (Dartmouth), Bence Nanay (Antwerp/Cambridge), Maria Baghramian (UCD), and Naomi Goulder (New College of the Humanities, London), among others.  If any readers have been, I'd be interested to hear reports about past events.

Bloviating self-promoter vs. philosopher

Bloviating self-promoter:  "I think it's in the silences and absences of our current disciplinary conversations that most of the exciting possibilities (and the viable future of our discipline) are hiding....[O]ne signal to watch for is what provokes the defensive, gatekeeping reactions, like 'that’s not real philosophy.' We can listen out for what kinds of voices and questions are being dismissed and belittled by the old guard. If there wasn’t something new and powerful there, the conservative wing of our discipline wouldn’t be so flustered about it."

Philosopher:  "Hmm, not sure about this inference. Presumably the philosophical traditionalists would be similarly bothered by the growing popularity of a new way of doing things that was genuinely lacking in value, a mere distraction from the kind of philosophical inquiry that’s most worthwhile. Indeed, I take it that that’s exactly what they believe to be going on in actual cases. (Are they necessarily mistaken, such that there are no methodological boundaries worth protecting? That would be a striking claim…)."

What is an introductory philosophy course?

It's clearly not this (which various readers have been writing to me about), which is too narrow, too specialized and too demanding, though it would be fine for an upper-level seminar, say, for majors; an instructor offering such a course as an introduction to the subject is pedagogically irresponsible, privileging his own interests over the needs of students.  Here's an introductory philosophy text that even includes a section on race and gender with some sensible readings, but which also includes a large selection of materials on all the classic "problems" that are the stuff of introductory philosophy (at least when the introductory course is taught based on "problems" rather than historically).

American University of Malta fires 12 of its 13 faculty without cause and with one week's notice inbetween terms...

...and the axeman was philosopher John Ryder, the Provost.

More details here and here.  Ryder got to keep his job, but let us hope the notoriety of his involvement in this matter means it is his last in administration.

On prison rape and hashtag politics

NYU law professor Rick Hills makes an important point.

How many dimensions to reality?

Here, with appearances by Kant, Leibniz, Descartes, Aristotle, and others.

"Limitarianism"

Ingrid Robeyns (Utrecht) discusses.

Journal of the History of Philosophy suspending early modern submissions to clear out publication backlog

JHP has announced on its website the following:

Effective December 1, 2017, the JHP is suspending consideration of all new submissions in early modern philosophy up to but not including Kant. We are also suspending all new *revise and resubmits*, meaning that papers receiving R&Rs from our referees will be simply rejected.

We have enjoyed a healthy increase in submissions to the JHP this year, but along with this our publication queue has grown. This is affecting our ability to ensure all JHP articles appear within a year of their date of final acceptance.

I wrote to philosopher Jack Zupko (Alberta), the editor of JHP, to find out why early modern; my surmise was that a lot of their backlog was in early modern, which represents just one of the many periods that JHP covers (JHP has been and remains admirably broad).   Prof. Zupko kindly gave me permisson to share the following:

The JHP is committed to publishing the best scholarship in the history of western philosophy, providing equitable coverage of its main historical periods: pre-modern (ancient and medieval), early modern, modern, nineteenth and twentieth centuries.  We are also committed to publishing the articles we accept in a timely fashion, which for us means within one year of final acceptance.  

The number of submissions in each of the periods covered by the JHP varies, of course; different figures and topics have interested scholars over time.  Last year we experienced a surge of submissions in early modern, along with an increased number of papers accepted for publication, so that even after doubling up on the number of early modern articles in each issue, our early modern queue extended well into 2019.  So we decided to suspend submissions in early modern until we can once again provide authors who submit to us the reasonable expectation that their work will appear in print within a year of final acceptance.  I anticipate the early modern suspension will be lifted later this year.  In the meantime, JHP readers can look forward to even more excellent early modern articles appearing in our pages!

The suspension of new *Revise and Resubmits* was likewise instituted to deal with a more general backlog of accepted articles; I anticipate it will be removed in the next few months.

Temporary suspension of submissions is something JHP and other journal editors use from time to time to keep our venues current.  It is not something we like to do, but it does allow us to balance the different values a scholarly journal seeks to express, in view as well of the economic challenges academic publishers face in a post-print world.

Academic freedom in Sweden

As I learned when I was in Uppsala last August, the situation for academic freedom in Sweden is somewhat mixed.  Philosopher Erik Olsson (Lund), whom I had the pleasure of meeting at the Swedish Congress of Philosophy, recently called to my attention this report from the primary watchdog group on academic freedom in Sweden.  It seems some, but not all of the threats, to academic freedom are coming from other members of the academy, as in the reported case.

Why think about Marx?

I discuss the topic with Matt Teichman and Lawrence ("Dusty") Dallman at the Elucidations podcast.

Thus spoke Adorno

From 1963:

Human dependence and servitude, the vanishing point of the culture industry, could scarcely be more faithfully described than by the American interviewee who was of the opinion that the dilemmas of the contemporary epoch would end if people would simply follow the lead of prominent personalities.

(Thanks to Brian O'Connor for this one.)

"Can we learn to believe in God?"

I sure can't, but since my esteemed and very gifted colleague Agnes Callard (with whom I've had the pleasure of serving on several dissertation committees) has written an op-ed on the subject, I must post a link (it also will give you a taste of themes from her forthcoming book).

Thus spoke Goethe

From a review of a recent biography:

He alarmed people as much as he charmed them, not only by his impatience, his sudden flare-ups, and his unpredictable antics, but by his foul language. In moments of exasperation he would denounce as a shithead any of the great men who had assembled at Weimar—Wieland, Herder, Schiller. The best-remembered line from his first play, Götz von Berlichingen, is the robber baron Götz shouting through the window to the emperor’s messenger: “Tell his Imperial Majesty that he can lick my arse”—otherwise known as the Swabian salute.

(Be forewarned, the author of the review clearly does not like Goethe, and it goes off the rails at the end, having the idiotic audacity to associate Goethe with the Holocaust.)

Twitter

So I've, finally, started tweeting almost all new posts at my twitter account, which may be useful for some readers who "follow" me there.

Forecasting an increase in demand for "elite" colleges and a significant decline otherwise

This bodes ill for many institutions (and thus for the academic job market), and will  surely intensify competition for perceived "eliteness."

In stock at the "metaphysical supplies" shop

A few clever ones.

(Thanks to David Zimmerman for the pointer.)

Edinburgh's Andy Clark interviewed...

...at 3AM.

Still more from the Michael Wolff expose of the infant-in-chief

Here.  (Thanks to Michael Swanson for the pointer.)  Surely the remaining adults among the Republicans in Congerss will realize that impeachment is the only option, unless the Cabinet invokes the 25th Amendment to remove the incompetent.

Moron, fool, idiot, or child?

Rupert Murdoch, H.R. McMaster, Sam Nunberg, and other Trump "insiders" debate the correct description.

Top Metaphysics Programs 2017-18 PGR

The full results for the 2017-18 Philosophical Gourmet Report, will appear online soon. Here is a preview of the top eight programs for Metaphysics. For additional PGR related updates, click the PGR Update link.

Metaphysics

Group 1 (1-2) (rounded mean of 5.0) (median, mode)
New York University (5, 5)
Rutgers University, New Brunswick (5, 5)

Thus spoke Nietzsche: "The criminal of criminals is consequently the philosopher"

In the twilight of his sanity, seething with frustration at being so widely ignored, Nietzsche wrote the rhetorically overwrought The Anti-Christ, the one work with the smell of madness about it at many places (he seems to have recovered a bit later that fall of 1888 when he wrote the more ingenious and ironic Ecce Homo).  The book concludes with Nietzsche's proclamation of the "Law Against Christianity," which includes six propositions, of which this is the second:

Any participation in church services is an attack on public morality.  One should be harsher with Protestants than with Catholics, harsher with liberal Protestants than with orthodox ones.  The criminality of being Christian increases with one's proxmity to science.  The criminal of criminals is consequently the philosopher.

"Science" is of course Wissenschaft, so no connotation of natural science, but it does mean a discipline that purports to produce knowledge.

 

 

 

Eastern APA weather disaster

I've heard from various readers that Savannah is frozen, and access to the main conference hotel is limited or non-existent (it apparenty requires a ferry?).  Philosopher Andrew Cullison has put together a list of ad hoc sessions being rescheduled at the Hyatt hotel:

Alas, I'm en route to a funeral, so can't open comments or update this too regularly.  Good luck to those heading to or already at the APA!

Top Political Philosophy Programs 2017-18 PGR

The full results for the 2017-18 Philosophical Gourmet Report, will appear online soon. Here is a preview of the “top ten” programs for Political Philosophy. For additional PGR related updates, click the PGR Update link.

Political Philosophy

Group 1 (1) (rounded mean of 4.5) (median, mode)
University of Arizona (4.5, 5)

Yet more on the incompetent President and his international blunders...who is really in charge?

A propos yesterday's item, there's now this.

The pseudo-science of neoclassical economics, part 123

They didn't get anything right in 2017.  But since they talk the language of capitalism, we will no doubt continue to hear from them in 2018.

Since the current President of the United States is, as his Secretary of State put it, "a fucking moron"...

...foreign and military policy is actually run by Defense Secretary Mattis (for which we should probably be glad).  I suspect the other two Generals (Kelly, the Chief of Staff, and McMaster, the National Security Adviser) play a large role too in preventing the moron from killing us all.