Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

New Books in December

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

Academic Freedom edited by Jennifer Lackey (Oxford University Press, 2018).

The Tryanny of Opinion:  Conformity and the Future of Liberalism by Russell Blackford (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019).

Cricket Ball:  The Heart of the Game by Gary Cox (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019).

Articulating the Moral Community:  Toward a Constructive Ethhical Pragmatism by Henry S. Richardson (Oxford University Press, 2018).

2018: Philosophers who passed away

The passing of the following philosophers was noted on the blog during 2018:  Stefan Bernard Baumrin, Lawrence C. Becker, Sylvain Bromberger, Stanley Cavell, Robert Coburn, Fiona Cowie, Herbert Fingarette, C. Michael Gelven, Adolf Grunbaum, Isaac Levi, John J. McDermott, Mary Midgley, Marilyn Pearsall, George W. Pitcher, Vincent Shen, John Tienson, Yirmiyahu Yovel.  You can find more information, including (often) links to obituaries by scrolling through the "Philosophy Updates" category (in which this post also appears).

Great moments in obscure rock 'n' roll: the five best finds of 2018...

...in my opinion, anyway.  Glad to hear yours in the comments (click on the category, "Great Moments in Obscure Rock 'n' Roll" to see this year's selections).  Here's mine (with apologies to The Nazz, Bloodrock, Poobah, and The Frost, who almost made it):

Hawkwind, "Mirror of Illusion," 1970

Toad, "Vampires," 1972

Fat Mattress, "Black Sheep of the Family," 1969

Stepson, "Lil' Bit," 1974

Freedom's Children, "That Did It," 1971

 

Sylvain Bromberger (1924-2018) in the NYT "Lives They Lived" issue for 2018

Here.

ADDENDUM:   There's more about how the Bromberger family was saved by the remarkably courageous Aristides de Sousa Mendes, including remarks from Professor Bromberger, here.  (Thanks to David Velleman for the pointer, who tells me that his father's story is also available at the same site.  Prof. Velleman notes that his father's "'testimony' wasn't written for the De Sousa Mendes website. It was written for our children when they were young -- which explains some of the condescending parenthetical explanations.")

"The Truth is Terrible," my on-line essay on Nietzsche, was the most-read article...

...at the TLS on-line for 2018.  A pleasant surprise--thanks to many here who no doubt were among those who read it.

(Thanks to Bill Edmundson for the pointer.)

What is it like to be a philosopher: Ken Taylor edition

Here.

University of Southern California has the worst on-line system in the Anglophone world

I've dealt with the idiotic colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, and most U.S. universities with major philosophy departments:  but USC's system is so dysfunctional I fear they are going to miss out on lots of applicants.  I've uploaded my letter in the right format, and yet they won't let me submit it, with a repeated message about "required fields," yet all the marked required fields are complete.  It would be lovely if someone at USC would look into this, as I'm sure I'm not the only person encountering this problem.

UPDATE:   I’ve heard from others who had the same problem and John Hawthorne has IT folks looking into it.

2018 Year in Review, fourth quarter: October, November, December

October

My five favorite Americans of the 20th-century (and reader favorites)

What to do about the APA?

A reader response to the poll about the APA and the "diversity" issue

Academic fields of readers:  the results

Philosopher Adriel Trott, who particpated in the on-line harassment of Rebecca Tuvel, has the audacity to lecture others about on-line harsasment in philosophy!

Professions of the non-academic readers of the blog

Where blog readers live

Co-author of APA Code of Conduct violates it, without embarrassment

On "harassment":  a guide for beginners (and cry-babies)

November

Best 'general' journals of philosophy, 2018

Doe v. Kipnis, HarperCollins has settled

Rosenberg on the "threat" posed by neuroscience to our self-understanding

December

Fascists force the CEU out of Hungary, but the CEU will continue in Vienna!

Universities ranked by membership in the American Academy of Arts & Sciences

The Twitter cesspool

2018 Year in Review, third quarter: July, August, September

July

The NYU/Ronell saga:  a new revelation

Claremont Graduate University shuts its philosophy department, fires two tenured faculty

Wisconsin Supreme Court sides with Marquette professor whose contractual right to academic freedom was violated

The lawsuit against U of Miami and Colin McGinn growing out of the sexual misconduct allegations in 2012

Philosopher Yitzhak Melamed victim of anti-semitic attack in Bonn--and then a victim of police brutality

Top 50 universities by membership in the National Academy of Sciences, 2018

Most pressing issues confronting the philosophy profession in America currently

$20 million gift to UCLA philosophy

August

Marx, "cultural" Marxism, identity politics, our capitalist future

Do young philosophers really need to be on social media for professional reasons?

Philosopher's Annual announces "ten best" articles of 2017

Avital Ronell affair makes New York Times, which adds new details to the case

Latest developments in the Ronell case

Another set of updates on L'Affaire Ronell

Today in 'Avital in Wonderland'

The New Yorker piece on the Ronell case

Should scholarly journals permit use of the word "TERF"?

Literary scholar Marjorie Perloff on the Ronell case

September

'Complete and utter dickhead' watch:  social media edition

Philosophical views changing after taking medications for mental health issues?

Jordan Peterson, libel, Kate Manne, and the dishonest weasel Jonathan Ichikawa

Statement by Professor Stock about the APA blog and the behavior of one of its editors

2018-19 update to the 2017 PGR's top U.S. programs:  changes to the tenured faculties

What to look for in a book contract with an academic press?

'the feminist cause'

2018 Year in Review, second quarter: April, May, June

April

Announcing guest bloggers for April!

Sean Hermanson on "Rethinking Implicit Bias"

Where tenure-stream faculty at the U.S. top 20 (2017-18) got their PhDs

Reed College capitulates to mindless 18-year-olds

Privacy on the Internet, and with Google and Gmail in particular

Someone who actually understands Marx, better than most professional philosophers

The Leiter top ten in philosophy

Peter Singer's understanding of Marx is incompetent

May

An interview in Il Manifesto about identity politics, Marx, Trump, and more

Steps at a university in Lebanon

Why aren't more philosophers discussing the issues raised by the claim of transgender women to be women? (the blog post that launched a thousand other blog post and comments)

Mellon Foundation grant to develop a code of publishing ethics, i.e., a post-hoc rationalization for the mistreatment of Professor Tuvel

"Neither cis nor TERF"

The disappearing anonymous and pseudonymous blogs

The tragedy of student suicide

Pyramid of the capitalist system

Deciding between graduate school in philosophy and law school

Gender, Sex, Biology, and Sports

June

Blaming the victim is apparently OK when the accused in aTitle IX proceeding is a feminist literary theorist (the blog post that led to a New York Times article and exposed the "theory illuminati" for the moral hypocrites they are)

This isn't the first time 'theory' professors tried to bully a school out of investigating sexual harassment:  Derrida did it too!

"Nietzsche:  The Truth is Terrible" (all you need to know in 2500 words)

 

Stanley replies to Ludlow

Here, a propos this.

Philosophy and cognitive science catch up with Nietzsche, part 242

Philosopher Peter Carruthers explains that "conscious thought is an illusion," as that German fellow knew.

2018 Year in Review, first quarter: January, February, March

January

Why think about Marx?

The sexual harassment scandal at Rochester and its conclusion

$75 Million Gift to Philosophy at Johns Hopkins

Carrie Jenkins, Alan Soble, and the "chasm of crap"

On defending the vulnerable and the powerless, and giving them a voice

Philosophical "fads"?

February

Per student value of endowments at research universities at the end of 2017

High-quality academic dialogue...

A reliable guide to legal norms regarding academic hiring in the US?

Paul Robeson, for those under 50!

Tenure-track jobs by area advertised in 2017-18

Outgoing Hypatia Board offers "thanks" to the Associate Editors who destroyed the journal's reputation

March

Galen Strawson on "the great silliness"

What is it like to be a philosopher?  J.D. Trout edition

PGR haters seem more unhinged this time around

Philosophers behaving badly, an ongoing saga

Witness this tirade of abuse by philosopher Rachel McKinnon (Charleston) against a famous lesbian athlete.

(Thanks to Daniel Kaufman for the pointer.)

Great moments in obscure rock 'n' roll: Hard Stuff, "Hobo," 1972

Guitarist John Du Cann and drummer Paul Hammond left the Atomic Rooster to form this very good, but short-lived melodic hard rock outfit, which enjoyed some modest success in the U.K.  This is a great tune from their first album:

 

Tilburg's Sander Verhaegh talks about Quine and naturalism in an interview...

...at 3AM.  I was amused to learn that the orignial subtitle of "Epistemology Naturalized" was "The Case for Psychologism."

Federal judge permits plaintiffs against the Trump gangster family to proceed anonymously...

...since the monster-child is, well, a monster-child.  Remarkable--not the decision, but that it is so clearly justified in this instance.

Stephen Walt on the withdrawal of American troops from Syria

The realists were right about the Iraq War, and right about this I suspect.

More on philosophy at Hull...

...in  The Guardian.

Mattis and the monster-child and Syria

So the last emotionally mature adult has left the monster-child's cabinet.  If he left over the decision to withdraw the troops of the imperial army form Syria, then I have less sympathy for his decision.  Mattis may be an adult, but he is still a victim of the ideology of his time and place.

I am hopeful Secretary Mattis explained to the monster-child that if a nuclear war started, Manhattan, and the monster-child's real estate holdings, would disappear first, which may be our salvation.   All joking aside, our situation is apocalyptic and bizarre:  the one person in the world who can kill us all in the next ten minutes is not someone any adult would hire as a baby-sitter.   Let's hope the monster-child's love for his island keeps us alive.

Ludlow on Stanley on "How Fascism Works"

It's fair to say that "Peter Ludlow did not like Jason Stanley's book," but I'm not sure what excerpt would be adequate to the substantive issues raised.

"The Truth is Terrible" (Nietzsche on the aesthetic "justification" of existence)

This paper, which has been making the rounds for quite awhile is finally out in the fall issue of Journal of Nietzsche Studies, for those interested. 

More on the situation of philosophy at Hull

Philosopher Nick Zangwill, who holds the Ferens Chair in Philosophy at Hull, writes with more information:

The current situation in Hull is that the final decision concerning whether or not to suspend the Single Honours Philosophy program has not yet been made, but will be made some time in the new year. Nevertheless, many of our programs (combinations of Philosophy with other subjects) have already been slashed, which will hit recruitment and create problems in the future. The university seems not to grasp the different roles of modules and programs. It is reasonable that a module has a minimum number on it, but a program is a matter of what combinations of subjects students do, and smaller numbers on programs should be acceptable, since modules can service a wide variety of programs. They have just cut English and Philosophy, quite a popular combination with seven applicants. The motivation seems not to be financial since this is throwing away at least 200k pounds. Last year they cut Philosophy and Religion which threw away even more. Philosophy pays its way, more than most other subjects, and we have a good NSS (the National Student Survey), and recruitment for the few remaining programs is good, certainly by comparison with other subjects. (The university will not allow a Philosophy REF (research) submission, which will hit recruitment in the future.) Little evidence or justification is given for any of the decisions, which all seem to be ways of losing money for the University. The only claim that is floated is the incredible one that students don’t like a wide choice of programs, which is contrary to or not supported by all sources of evidence (including UCAS, DataHE and NSS). Students who cannot do the combination of subjects they are interested in at one institution will go to another that does. (Local competitor institutions are currently expanding in philosophy, picking up our potential students.) The decision-makers seem to be making rash decisions, perhaps so as to be seen to be doing something, when these measures will obviously make things much worse. Certainly, Philosophy is under threat in Hull from these irrational measures. We are very grateful for the support we have received from philosophers around the UK.

We've seen administrators-run-beserk in the UK before--recall the King's College, London case where, thanks to international outcry, the administration backed down.

A conversation with Charles Taylor...

...at Harvard, led by Michael Rosen.   Taylor is one of those thinkers who enjoys a better reputation outside Anglophone philosophy, than within:  partly it is a matter of his philosophical and intellectual sympathies (e.g., his interest in Hegel, his antipathy to naturalism), and partly a matter of the quality of his arguments when he engaged on territory familiar to analytic philosophers.  Not quite thirty years ago, we philosophy PhD students at Michigan prevailed upon the skeptical faculty to invite Taylor as the "Nelson philosopher in residence," and watching this conversation, with Taylor's open and engaging manner, reminded me of exactly how he was with we students back then.

"I fit the description..."

A college professor recounts his encounter with the police.

Academic hierarchy watch: which will be the "top" American philosophy departments of the 2020s...

...assuming the monster-child doesn't kill us all, of course.

In the 1950s, Princeton became a major presence in American philosophy, while Yale and Johns Hopkins entered periods of decline.

In the 1960s, Pittsburgh and MIT arrived on the scene, and so did Rockefeller at the end of the decade.

In the 1970s, Rockefeller shuttered mid-decade, while Arizona became a significant presence, as did Illinois/Chicago.

In the 1980s, things held steady until Rutgers emerged as a powerhouse at the end of the decade.

In the 1990s, Rutgers and then NYU emerged as dominant forces in the field, UC San Diego and UC Irvine jumped, while Harvard, Cornell, Chicago, Illinois/Chicago and others declined (relative to their prior positions in the profession).

In the 2000s, USC (Southern California) became a major department, Yale recovered fully from the catastrophe of the 1950s, and NYU and Rutgers continued their ascension.

In the 2010s, USC and Yale have solidified their place in the "top ten." 

What will the 2020s hold? 

Northwestern merely hosts crank evolutionary psychologist as a "visiting scholar"...

...but thousands of Northwestern students still want him evicted from a campus that doesn't pay him, and merely affords him a space for research.  Northwestern Provost Jonathan Holloway does not cover himself in glory here.  While he states, correctly, that the crank will not be evicted from campus, he also states that Kanazawa’s “scholarship presents ideas that are antithetical to values that Northwestern holds dear.”  But it is not the job of university administrators to comment on scholarship, and rule some of its ideas out of instiutional bounds.  Someone at Northwestern should send Provost Holloway this CHE essay, so that he might learn how to do his job.

Paul Russell (UBC/Lund) on Bernard Williams...

...as part of the TLS "Footnotes to Plato" series.

An open letter in support of philosophy at Hull from the British Philosophical Association and Department Heads around the UK

Here.

(Thanks to Joe Morrison for the pointer.)

A biologist excorciates the SUNY Albany President for slashing the humanities, back in 2010

Still relevant and worth reading today, alas.

(Thanks to Laurie Paul for the pointer.)

Philosophy at SUNY-Fredonia under threat

Philosopher Neil Feit (SUNY Fredonia) writes:

SUNY Fredonia President Virginia Horvath has identified our BA program in Philosophy, my department's only major, as a candidate for elimination as a cost savings measure. If you are willing to post something about it on your blog, we would be grateful. Here are some links with recent developments:

Here is an article that appeared yesterday in our local paper, the Dunkirk Observer:

http://www.observertoday.com/news/page-one/2018/12/suny-fredonia-faculty-criticize-administration-possible-cuts/

Here is a petition that one of our current majors just launched:

https://www.change.org/p/students-of-fredonia-save-the-philosophy-department-at-suny-fredonia

As the Dunkirk article makes clear, the Administration is planning on wiping out many other majors as well.  This seems utterly unworthy of a campus that is supposed to be part of the State University system in New York.

Jeffers on Du Bois

Philosopher Chike Jeffers (Dalhousie) talks about Du Bois over at Elucidations.  Professor Jeffers is writing the volume on Du Bois for my Routledge Philosophers series, and I anticipate it will become an essential resource for scholars and students.

Philosopher of education John White (UCL) interviewed...

...at 3AM.

Great moments in obscure rock 'n' roll: Poobah, "Mr. Destroyer," 1972

Youngstown, Ohio hard rock/heavy metal outfit (think Black Sabbath) led by guitarist Jim Gustafson.  They had a big Ohio following, but thanks to bad luck and lack of smart management, never made it nationally or internationally.   Hard to understand why this song, from their debut album, isn't a standard of "classic rock" radio, for example:

 

The court ruling striking down the Affordable Care Act

This is a good explanation of why it's an outrageous decision (the authors are, respectively, a libertarian and a liberal expert on statutory interpretation and administrative law)

Saudia Arabia to now offer philosophy in secondary school

Hassan Alsharif, a Ph.D. Candidate in Philosophy at the University of Kansas, writes:

I'm originally from Saudi Arabia. Teaching Philosophy in Saudi Arabia has been absent in all levels of education for some religious reasons. [Earlier this week] was a historical day over there. The government decided to allow teaching one course of philosophy for secondary school. 

I'm the first Saudi Student who is doing PhD in Philosophy, and I'm so happy that my country is getting more open-minded to other intellectual works, especially philosophy. I thought I should let you know about this so you can shed some light on it in your website. I have been interviewed by a well-know TV channel, Rotana, today to talk about this issue. Here is the link.

https://twitter.com/Alsharif_HS/status/1070702780682305538

Here is a link from UNESCO that mentioned that Saudi Arabia don't teach philosophy. Notice that almost the other countries are islands. 

http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0015/001541/154173e.pdf​

Return of the XPhil blog

Justin Sytsma (Victoria U-Wellington) writes:  "Joe Ulatowski, Dan Weijers, and I have recently revived the x-phi blog under the auspices of the Australasian Experimental Philosophy Group: xphiblog.com. Edouard has recently put up a post on the Geography of Philosophy project. And other new content is lined up over the next week."

 

Interview with Shelly Kagan (Yale) in the Erasmus Journal of Philosophy and Economics

Here.  A failed rabbi becomes a moral philosopher!  And lots of other intersting stuff.

 

The web page that can't exist

Amusing, courtesy of philosopher Brian Rabern (Edinburgh).

(Thanks to David Brady for the pointer.)

2018 Gittler Award in Philosophy of the Social Sciences goes to...

...Francesco Guala (Milan) for his book Understanding Institutions:  The Science and Philosophy of Living Together (Princeton, 2016).

Four philosophers win NEH Fellowships for university and college teachers

They are:  Erin Beeghly (Utah), Colin Chamberlain (Temple), Rachana Kamtekar (Cornell), and Suzanne Obdrzalek (Claremont-McKenna).

Every self-righteous "liberal" academic who indulges in diversity blather and kow-towing to identity politics should have to read and learn something from Adolph Reed

For example:

Antiracist activism and scholarship proceed from the view that statistical disparities in the distribution by race of goods and bads in the society in which blacks appear worse off categorically (e.g., less wealth, higher rates of unemployment, greater incidence of hypertensive and cardiovascular disease) amount to evidence that “race” remains fundamentally determinative of black Americans’ lives. As Merlin Chowkwanyun and I argue, however, disparity is an outcome, not an explanation, and deducing cause simplistically from outcome (e.g., treating racially disparate outcomes as ipso facto evidence of racially invidious causation) seems sufficient only if one has already stacked the interpretive deck in favor of a particular causal account (Reed and Chowkwanyun 2012, 167–168). We also discuss a garbage in, garbage out effect in studies that rely on large-scale aggregate data analysis; gross categories like race may mask significant micro-level dynamics that could present more complex and nuanced understandings of causality. Put another way, if you go out looking for racial effects in data sets that are organized by race as gross categories, you will be likely to find them, but that will not necessarily lead to sound interpretations of the factors that actually produce the inequalities. As likely as not that purblind approach can lead to missing “the extent to which particular inequalities that appear statistically as ‘racial’ disparities are in fact embedded in multiple social relations” (Reed and Chowkwanyun 2012, 150–151, 158–159). This issue is not a concern for antiracist politics because its fundamental goal is propagation of the view that inequalities or injustices suffered by black Americans should be understood as resulting from generic white racism. Its objective, that is, is rhetorical and ideological, not political and programmatic....

In the antiracist political project white supremacy/racism is—like “terrorism”—an amorphous, ideological abstraction whose specific content exists largely in the eyes of the beholder. Therefore, like antiterrorism, antiracism’s targets can be porous and entirely arbitrary; this means that, also like antiterrorism, the struggle can never be won...The “politics” that follows from this view centers on pursuit of recognition and representation on groupist terms—both as symbolic depiction in the public realm and as claims to articulate the interests, perspectives, or “voices” of a generic black constituency or some subset thereof, e.g., “youth” or “grassroots.” It is not interested in broadly egalitarian redistribution.

Notwithstanding its performative evocations of the 1960s Black Power populist “militancy,” this antiracist politics is neither leftist in itself nor particularly compatible with a left politics as conventionally understood. At this political juncture, it is, like bourgeois feminism and other groupist tendencies, an oppositional epicycle within hegemonic neoliberalism, one might say a component of neoliberalism’s critical self-consciousness; it is thus in fact fundamentally anti-leftist. Black political elites’ attacks on the Bernie Sanders 2016 presidential nomination campaign’s call for decommodified public higher education as frivolous, irresponsible, or even un-American underscores how deeply embedded this politics is within neoliberalism....

As A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin, Martin Luther King, Jr., and two generations of labor-oriented black activists...understood, first, the exploitation and oppression of black Americans was linked to more general dynamics of exploitation and oppression and, second, the only way to attain and especially to secure benefits for black Americans is to win them for everyone. That lesson has been lost for many antiracist activists and commentators enamored with contemporary race reductionism; instead, they channel the performative militance associated with Black Power politics as the insurgent, racially authentic tendency in the late 1960s and 1970s....

 

Temple's Board of Trustees talks to the lawyers...

...and listens to them.  The Chair of the Board should still resign, given his ignorance and contempt for constitutional rights.

Blast from the past: 2014, the year the philosophy profession went mad

Four years ago.   One salutary development in the interim--perhaps due to the public outrage in 2017 over the abuse of Rebecca Tuvel by the usual suspects--is increasingly visible and vocal resistance to the "bloodthirsty mob of wacko philosophy profs" by other members of the profession.

Pittsburgh Summer Program in Philosophy of Science

I was asked to share the following, which I'm happy to do:

The Pittsburgh Summer Program in Philosophy of Science is now accepting applications. We invite applications from North American female undergraduates, LGBTQA+, disabled, from racial and ethnic backgrounds, first generation, and other undergraduates from groups underrepresented in philosophy of science. Applications are due March 1, 2019, and participants will be notified by April 15, 2019. 

Website: http://www.pitt.edu/~pittcntr/Events/All/psp3/psp3.html

 

This benighted Columbia student doesn't need discipline, he needs education

He doesn't understand the term "white" (he might start by reading this) and he is plainly ignorant about the history of science and civilization.  What an embarrassment.

The implications of "self-identification" (as a woman, as a race) for traditional civil rights

Philosopher Dan Kaufman (Missouri State) comments.

On the Wisconsin Repugs

Some apt observations from Krugman:

There has been a fair amount of reporting on the power grab currently underway in Madison. Having lost every statewide office in Wisconsin last month, Republicans are using the lame-duck legislative session to drastically curtail these offices’ power, effectively keeping rule over the state in the hands of the G.O.P.-controlled Legislature.

What has gotten less emphasis is the fact that G.O.P. legislative control is also undemocratic. Last month Democratic candidates received 54 percent of the votes in State Assembly elections — but they ended up with only 37 percent of the seats.

In other words, Wisconsin is turning into Hungary on the Great Lakes, a state that may hold elections, but where elections don’t matter, because the ruling party retains control no matter what voters do.

Reactions to "The Twitter Cesspool"

Two funny reactions to last week's post.

First, from a philosopher in the UK:  "The dumb outbursts you quoted in your post establish that not all imbalances of power are injustices. Some people really should be powerless!"

Second, a somewhat longer response from a political theorist in the US:

Although I ended up in Political Science, I used your Gourmet when looking at grad schools back in 2001.  I've been a regular reader of your blog since 2003.  We are very much on different sides of many issues (I am a rather traditional Catholic, trained as a Straussian, etc.)  Nonetheless, I have always found you to be an enlightening voice of sanity and have been very grateful for your many contributions.  (When I teach Nietzsche, I always refer my students to your book. And I agree with you about Lampert's reading of Nietzsche.)

I say all this because I read your post about the attacks on you in Twitter and I was just shocked, though not surprised.  What a bunch of idiotic condescending assholes!

So, even though I am not in your field, and even though we probably disagree about more than we agree about, I wanted to thank you for the many years of service that you've given to academia, not only as a scholar but as public voice of reason (though not a voice of "public reason!").  I know you are more than capable of holding your own against these canailles (as Nietzsche would probably have called them), but damn it it's time for those of us who have profited from your labors to at least thank you for it.  So thank you!

In Memoriam: Fiona Cowie (1963-2018)

Professor Cowie, who worked at the intersections of philosophy of psychology, biology. and linguistics, had taught at the California Institute of Technology since 1992.  The Cal Tech memorial notice is here.