Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

Cariani from Northwestern to Maryland

Fabrizio Cariani (philosophy of language, philosophical logic, epistemology), Associate Professor of Philosophy at Northwestern University, has accepted a tenured offer from the Department of Philosophy at the University of Maryland, College Park, to begin in the 2020-21 academic year.  That's the second major senior hire for the Maryland Department in philosophy of language and cognate areas this year.

New Books in April

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

Saving People from the Harm of Death edited by Espen Gamlund & Carl Tollef Solberg (Oxford University Press, 2019).

Happiness by Alain Badiou (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019).

Medieval Philosophy:  A Multicultural Reader edited by Bruce V. Foltz (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019).

The Future of Academic Freedom by Henry Reichman (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019).

Philosophy of Sex and Love:  An Opinionated Introduction by Patricia Marino (Routledge, 2019).

A New Modern Philosophy:  The Inclusive Anthology of Primacy Sources edited by Eugene Marshall & Susanne Sreedhar (Routledge, 2019).

Why Free Will is Real by Christian List (Harvard University Press, 2019).

Converts to the Real:  Catholicism and the Making of Continental Philosophy by Edward Baring (Harvard University Press, 2019).

 

Open letter protesting the defunding of philosophy and sociology in Brazil

It is available for signatures here. I have signed, and I encourage readers to sign as well.

(Thanks to Sergio Tennenbaum for the pointer.)

Wallace from USC to Pittsburgh

David Wallace, a leading figure in philosophy of physics who is currently Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern California, has accepted the Mellon Chair at the University of Pittsburgh, with appointments in History & Philosophy of Science and in Philosophy.  This should move Pitt into the very top ranks for philosophy of physics (along with Oxford and Michigan).   It's also the second senior loss for USC this year. I expect USC is still likely to remain in the overall U.S. top ten despite these losses.

One philosopher among 2019 Carnegie Fellows

JeeLoo Liu (Cal State-Fullerton) has won support for a project on Confucian robot ethics.   The full list of 2019 fellows is here.

Avital Ronell will be back in the classroom this fall...

...teaching from experience, as it were.

(Thanks to many different readers who sent this along.)

Ontario goes crazy, sets out to destroy its excellent universities

The Canadian province of Ontario has some of Canada's, and the world's, most successful research universities, including the University of Toronto, Queen's University in Kingston, McMaster University, York University  in Toronto, and the University of Western Ontario.  But the provincial government has now been taken over by neoliberal yahoos, and this is their plan for destroying the universities:  60% of funding will be tied to "performance metrics" that don't measure performance in research or teaching, but probably do track the class status of the student body and the geographic location of the university in the province.  Philosopher Rachel Barney (Toronto) has given an apt assessment on FB which she kindly gave permission to share:

Over the next three years up to 60% of Ontario govt funding to universities will be taken out of the traditional grant-per-student system and shifted into SMA's: Strategic Mandate Agreements, one for each institution. And those Agreements (which have been around for a while, but just as planning exercises with no real money or enforcement attached) will be organized around a list of ten 'performance metrics'.

Why is this terrible?

1. None of these 'metrics' actually measures how well we educate, because that would be hard. Instead they're a pig's breakfast of Stuff Govt Likes: unis will be assessed on things like our graduates' incomes (don't ask me how), partnerships with industry, experiential learning (a good in itself apparently, rather than something that could be done well or badly), and graduation rates (so don't flunk any more students, please -- and you'd better not admit any who might face financial or other obstacles and drop out).

2. So we are being incentivized to do a lot of really stupid stuff. And collecting all these garbage stats and formulating them in managerial-speak every year will obviously be a hugely expensive exercise, so that's yet more money pulled away from the classroom and set on fire. But that's far from the worst:

Stanford University to stop subsidizing its university press

IHE has the details.  The IHE article says, bizarrely, that philosophy is one of the leading areas SUP publishes in, but that's rather obviously not true.  The only notable publication in that area I can think of are new English translations of Nietzsche's collected works, which have been slowly trickling out.

More anti-intellectual mischief from the Brazilian fascist Bolsonaro

He plans to stop providing federal funding for the study of philosophy and sociology.

Texas moves to regulate male masturbation

About time this threat to all the future humans in a man's semen got some protection.

2019 Rescher Medal in Systematic Philosophy to Columbia's Philip Kitcher

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

The University of Pittsburgh announces its award of the 2019 Nicholas Rescher Medal for Systematic Philosophy to Philip Kitcher, the John Dewey Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University.

Philip Kitcher has published extensively in the philosophy of science, the philosophy of biology, the social reception of science, and the place of science within democratic society.  His work also includes books on naturalistic ethics and philosophical themes in literature and music.

The Nicholas Rescher Medal was established by the University of Pittsburgh in 2010 in honor of a distinguished philosophy professor who has served the institution for over fifty years.  It is awarded biennially and previous recipients are Ernest Sosa of Rutgers University, Alvin Plantinga of Calvin College, Jürgen Mittelstrass of the University of Konstanz, the late Hilary Putnam of Harvard University, and Ruth Millikan of the University of Connecticut.

The 2019 Rescher Medal lecture and award ceremony will be held at the University of Pittsburgh on February 7, 2020.  For more information, please contact Thomas Berry at [email protected].

 

Great moments in obscure rock 'n' roll: Roy Young, "I'm a Loner," 1973

British rock musician who performed and recorded in many different genres over the course of nearly fifty years, although with not much success on this side of the Atlantic.  This was the b-side of a 1973 single:

 

"Modern Naturalisms: Hume, Spinoza, Nietzsche"

Aaron Garrett and Paul Katsafanas conceived a great conference, from which I expect to learn a lot today and tomorrow:

 

Blast from the past: "Me Studies" and philosophy's problems

Back in 2015, but still all-too-relevant.

An illuminating analysis of what's at stake in the Supreme Court's decision to hear a case about discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity

This is a smart analysis by Linda Greenhouse, and a hopeful one.

The Stanford Encyclopedia's coverage of Marxism and feminism: a revealing study in contrasts

I want to call attention to some important observations by philosopher Paul Russell (British Columbia/Lund) in the earlier thread on omissions at SEP.  In an initial comment, Professor Russell noted that it was surprising there were no entries on Lenin or Gramsci, both significant thinkers in the Marxist philosophical traditions.  I now reprint in its entirety his more recent comment:

[A]long with the two names I mentioned above (Lenin and Gramsci) I would also add that of Nikolai Bukharin. After Lenin, Bukharin was arguably the most important philosophical theoretician of the Russian Revolution. His work was admired by Lenin and was subject to criticism by, among others, Gramsci and Bertrand Russell. The Bukharin/Gramsci debate was not only a very important debate in within Marxist theory, it shaped much of the history of Marxist thought and had real impact in the political world. This debate is also is highly relevant to any assessment of "analytical Marxism" (i.e. as it developed at the end of the 20th C).

There is, in any case, little or nothing about the debate concerning Lenin/Bukharin/Gramsci et al in the SEP. What this shows is that there are significant movements and developments in philosophy (e.g. Marxism) that are still sorely neglected in the SEP. Despite its considerable merits and achievements, the SEP has a rather narrow and contentious conception of what 'philosophy' is. It is arguable that this reflects a deeper problem, with what could be called the "APA outlook". This is an outlook that includes a rather crude understanding of how philosophy can and should be politically "active". It is heavily focused on “professional” issues (and interests) and it is largely disconnected from real world politics and history - lacking any credible understanding of the role that philosophy has had and that it might play outside its narrow academic/professional concerns.

On Bukharin:

https://www.nytimes.com/1973/11/25/archives/bukharin-and-the-bolshevik-revolution-by-stephen-f-cohen.html
https://monthlyreview.org/product/philosophical_arabesques/
https://www.nytimes.com/1973/11/25/archives/bukharin-and-the-bolshevik-revolution-by-stephen-f-cohen.html

Arguably, Bukharin's most important work was "Historical Materialism":
https://www.marxists.org/archive/bukharin/works/1921/histmat/index.htm

Finally, if anyone is trying to gauge how unbalanced the SEP is – and, arguably, the way in which this reflects a lack of balance and judgment throughout contemporary philosophy – you might consider the number of listings in the SEP that are devoted (entirely) to feminism and feminist issues.

Philosopher Sophie Allen (Keele) on Gender Critical Feminism and a recent confused critique in the popular media

This is a really good essay, heads-and-shoulders above the sneering nonsense from the "narcissistic half-wits" on social media (to borrow Professor Stock's apt description).  It's been nearly a year since I first called attention to some of Professor Stock's writing, and there has literally been only one remotely serious and (mostly) substantive response--although, to be sure, there has been a lot of hand-waving about "the literature," content-free mockery, and moral indignation at verboten thoughts.   This, in itself, is revealing:  for some reason, the opponents of Gender Critical Feminism seem unable to successfully defend their views philosophically.

Pryor from NYU to North Carolina

Jim Pryor (epistemology, philosophy of language), Professor of Philosophy at New York University, has accepted a senior offer from the Department of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.  That caps a big hiring year for UNC, including Tom Dougherty from Cambridge, and Jennifer Morton from City College/CUNY.  These additions, given some recent losses, should be more than sufficient to keep UNC at least in the overall top 15 in the U.S.

(Thanks to Ram Neta for the information.)

DePaul University students embarrass themselves with frontal assault on academic freedom

DePaul philosophy professor Jason Hill is a serial right-wing provocateur, who is, predictably I suppose, to the right of Likud when it comes to Israel and the Palestinians.  The response of some DePaul students is, alas, standard New Infantilism and "thought police" in one serving:

We, the students of DePaul University call upon the administration to censure Professor Hill for his heinous statements against marginalized communities. His comments create unsafe and uncomfortable spaces for everyone, especially Palestinian and Muslim students who now all refuse to enroll in a class that is taught by Professor Hill. We are not only seeking censure, but for Professor Hill to commit to racial sensitivity training and to release a public apology for his immoral conduct.

Palestinian students should probably approach his classes with caution, although what is "heinous" about Professor Hill's views has nothing to do with their target being "marginalized" (which rather understates the situation of the Palestinians).  (Professor Hill is himself a Black immigrant from Jamaica, so he can join the marginalized sweepstakes here, I suppose.)   No "space" at DePaul is now "unsafe" because of Professor Hill's heinous views: the students might visit, say, Gaza to see what an actual "unsafe" space is like.  No doubt some students are made "uncomfortable" by Professor Hill's views, but no doubt some students are "uncomfortable" with some of the views of every faculty member and every student on campus.   And although Professor Hill has no discernible scholarly competence in the topics on which he is opining, his speech is plainly extramural speech on a matter of public interest, for which he enjoys contractual protection against censure, discipline or sanction as a matter of academic freedom.

DePaul, of course, has a terrible history when it comes to academic freedom, as some readers will recall.  Here, so far, the University is holding firm.  No doubt the fact that the target of criticism is not Israel has helped firm up their commitment to academic freedom.

Not sure which Democrat to support for President? Wall Street to the rescue!

Big players at Wall Street firms gave nothing to Sanders and Warren, but lots to Booker, Gillibrand, and Harris.  Case closed.

(Thanks to Joel Pust for the pointer on twitter.)

The future of the philosophy profession?

Reader Alex Parrish, observing recent shenanigans covered on the blog, writes with the following amusing observation:

Years from now, when Philosophy departments include The Collected Tweets of Rachel McKinnon on their syllabi, older generations of philosophers are going to look like fools.

Why did Judith Jarvis Thomson ever present a defense of abortion? Wouldn’t it have been better to just say that she can’t be expected to do the emotional labor of explaining why pro-lifers were wrong?

Why did Rawls ever engage with Nozick when Nozick’s speech constituted literal violence against the poor? Nozick clearly didn’t deserve to be treated like a normal member of the profession.

Clatterbuck, Whittle to Wisconsin

Hayley Clatterbuck (philosophy of biology, science, and cognitive science), Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Rochester, and Bruno Whittle (philosophical logic, metaphysics, philosophy of mathematics), Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Texas Tech University, have both accepted tenure-track appointments as Assistant Professors of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin at Madison--Whittle this fall, and Clatterbuck in Spring 2020.  I don't usually do assistant professor laterals, but both these young philosophers are fairly far along and I would expect their tenure prospects are strong.

Some more pieces by philosophers on transgender and related issues

One by Kathleen Stock (Sussex); an excerpt:

On one hand, many women feel blindsided by the argument that trans women should be considered literal women, and question the effect of the trans movement on female sex-based rights and protections, as they have come to define them. On the other, many trans people are aghast at what they feel are attempts to block their political advancement toward equal social and legal status.....

To understand what’s at stake, it’s helpful to delineate two argumentative positions at play: (1) sex eliminationism, which argues for the abolition of the recognition of biological sex as a meaningful category; and (2) gender eliminationism, which argues for the abolition of gender. As a feminist and philosopher who finds herself stuck between these two positions and their passionate advocates, I see it as a defining challenge of our complicated modern times to carve out some pragmatic middle ground: to find a narrative and set of policies protective of both the rights of trans people in a gender-conforming society, and those of females in a misogynist society. In attempting this, we should recognize that many on both sides of the dispute share at least some common ground. Specifically, they both share a deep discomfort with the sociocultural norms and stereotypes associated with being a woman or a man. I believe that this common ground may provide some basis for rapprochement.

And another by Leslie Green (Oxford & Queen's U); an excerpt:

I had not been aware that the "American Thinker" was a racist outfit...

...until I came across this piece of craziness; an excerpt:

The Left has shown itself to be dedicated to the destruction of Western civilization itself.  We have not been faced with such an existential threat since European armies threw the Turks back from Vienna in 1529.  The fascists of the mid–2oth century, for all their loathsome policies, were not the kind of threat to the fabric of our society that we face now.  Bad as they were, they did not seek the destruction of Europeans as a people, or of European culture as a living, breathing thing.  Progressivism does.  What could be more worthy of, if you will forgive the word, "resistance"?

Some reactions from professional philosophers to the on-going saga of grad students behaving stupidly on social media

This was the most recent incident, but only the most recent.  Since the Twitterati tend to encourage each other in juvenile behavior, it might be worth sharing some representative  correspondence I've gotten.

From a senior philosopher at a top 25 PhD program:  "Great work on calling out the idiots in our profession (and elsewhere) in the TERF wars.  Stunning to observe, and mind-boggling in much the same way as watching our kakistocracy operate!"

From another senior philosopher at another top 25 PhD program:  "The current climate makes me nostalgic for [Georgetown's] Mark Lance's nastiness and virtue signaling; can one responsibly do otherwise than to strongly warn potential PhD students against considering Georgetown?"  Though as this philosopher added, it's a "shame" since "there are serious people there."

U.S. Supreme Court will hear cases and decide whether Title VII (forbidding "sex discrimination") applies to sexual orientation and gender identity

This is bad news, I fear:  although many U.S. courts of appeals have applied the law to discrimination against gay and transgender employees, I strongly suspect this now very conservative Supreme Court will hold that Title VII does not cover either.   That means Congress will have to pass, and the President sign, similar employment discrimination legislation covering sexual orientation and transgender status, which won't happen without a significant change in the Senate and the Executive.  Many states may step into the breach with state laws, but of course equally many or more states will not.

Exhibit on Nietzsche's influence on art...

...at the National Gallery of Canada.

(Thanks to Andrew Sneddon for the pointer.)

American Academy membership election process

Only recently has the AAAS disclosed the election process to the Academy on its website.  An excerpt (I've bolded some bits):

• Preliminary Evaluation Ballot – The first round of voting is the Preliminary Evaluation Ballot (PEB), which includes the names of all eligible nominees in a given section and is distributed to all voting members of that section. Section panels, comprised of usually 5-10 members, review the PEB results and select approximately 12 candidates (not including candidates for International Honorary Membership) in their sections to advance to the next round.

• Appraisal List – The second-round ballot, usually consisting of 350-400 names, is distributed to all voting members in the winter. Once again, on the basis of the ballot results, the Academy’s five class committees recommend approximately 6 candidates in each section for election plus suggestions for International Honorary Members.

• Election - The Academy’s Council and Board of Directors are responsible for reviewing and approving the slate of candidates recommended for election.  Results are announced in mid-April.

The primary criteria for election are excellence in the field and a record of continued accomplishment. The section panels and class committees are also responsible for recommending a representative and diverse slate of candidates in terms of gender, race, ethnicity, institutions, geography, disciplines and balance of fields that includes both practitioners and scholars.

This suggests what I have been told in the past, namely, that the selection panels for each section have a real impact on the final results, and are not strictly bound by the vote of the membership.  That means, of course, that the composition of the section panel is quite important.   (Also notable here is the mention of institutional diversity:  last year, the University of Chicago had 15 faculty elected, this year just 4.  It appears they are taking this more seriously than in the past.)

Religious fanatics murder 290 people in Sri Lanka

The grief and the misery in photos.  Given the size of the country, this is an atrocity comparable to 9/11 in the U.S.   RAWA remains right and will always remain right:  "religious fundamentalism is the mortal enemy of all civilized humanity."

Weird times at Middlebury (UPDATED with corrections)

Last week, news broke that Middlebury College had cancelled a talk by a Polish philosophy professor with very close ties to the ruling "Law and Justice" party in Poland, due to "safety" concerns.  Calling this professor a "conservative" is quite misleading:  he's a reactionary, with strong authoritarian leanings.   (A subsequent report says the event was cancelled because of concern about the safety of the students protesting the event, which is even weirder:  who was threatening them?  Other students?  Off-campus fascists in rural Vermont?)   

The professor was invited by a student group [BL:  SEE UPDATE], so there are no academic freedom issues here, since students don't have academic freedom rights of their own.  (There would be an academic freedom issue if a scholarly department at Middlebury had invited him.)   So the issues here are more general ones about freedom of expression on campus.  Insofar as student groups are generally permitted to invite speakers at Middlebury--which I'll assume is true--then this is a loss for freedom of expression at Middlebury.   And, personally, I'd much rather hear from a reactionary philosophy professor than the typical member of "Law and Justice," a party that represents neither.  (I'm told by friends in Poland that, his reactionary social and politcial views notwithstanding, this professor is quite "smart," a Plato scholar in fact, and one who probably thinks Plato was right about democracy!)

Great moments in obscure rock 'n' roll: Kleptomania, "Stop," 1971 (not released until 1979)

This Belgian hard rock outfit released various singles throughout the 1970s, and was a popular live act on the Continent, but never had much commercial success.  Various songs from a 1971 recording session, including this one, eventually appeared on an album released in 1979.

 

Diversity blather watch: NYT edition...

...as the newspaper continues its transparent and disgraceful campaign against Bernie Sanders.   Might one not hope to have a reliably progressive candidate at the helm, unlike in 2016?  Cory Booker isn't that candidate, nor is Kamela Harris, nor Kristin Gillibrand etc.  I will say this:  given the nature of voting behavior (vide Achen and Bartels, Democracy for Realists), if the nominee is not an African-American, it will be important that the V-P nominee be one.  Depressed turnout among African-American voters in 2016 (compared to when Obama was on the ticket) was one of several clear "but for" causes of Clinton's loss.

Mueller Report post-mortems, one day later

I recommend the Lawfare analysis, as well as the observations of many of the lawyers and academics quoted at Politico (unsurprisingly, you can ignore the absurd Alan Dershowitz).  It's pretty clear now that Attorney General Barr disgraced himself with his initial misrepresentation of the report.

There's grad students behaving badly on social media...

...and then there's criminal misconduct, which appears to be what this CUNY PhD student is facing.  (NYT account here.)

(Thanks to Stephen Krogh and Gregory Mayer for the pointers.)

Hate apparently also means never having to say you're sorry

A propos this earlier abusive outburst directed at feminist philosopher Holly Lawford-Smith (Melbourne), we now have this from Keyvan Shafiei:

I assume the actual suggestion was to apologize for directing the "profane language" at another human being in a dehumanizing way.  It probably doesn't help that this graduate student is being encouraged by faculty at Georgetown, including Rebecca "suck my giant queer cock" Kukla:

NYT reporters' "live updates" on the Mueller Report

Here.  So far, it confirms what everyone awake has already known:  Trump is a gangster at heart, always trying to bend people to his will, legally or otherwise.  Too soon to pass judgment on the legal questions.

ADDENDUM:  Readers might also want to watch the Twitter feed of George Conway, a very good (conservative) lawyer who is also an astute and vigorous critic of Trump.

Alan Dershowitz sued for defamation by victim of billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein

I hope this one doesn't settle, as others have.  The plaintiff is represented by a powerhouse law firm.  From the complaint:

19. Dershowitz has repeatedly, publically claimed that he wanted to have a trial that would determine the facts concerning his conduct. He said on national television that he would waive the statute of limitations so that Roberts could sue him for sex abuse. However, when Robert’s counsel asked Dershowitz to do so, Dershowitz refused -- and continues to refuse.
20. Similarly, when Dershowitz was faced with an actual case brought by Edwards and Cassell which would have determined the veracity of Roberts’ claims, Dershowitz settled to avoid that determination.
21. More recently, Dershowitz, perhaps believing that Roberts who is now living with her husband and children in Australia would not be prepared to engage in litigation, has again taken to claiming publically that he demands a trial on the question of whether Roberts committed perjury and made up her statements about him for money. For example on March 2, 2019: My “accusers are Virginia Roberts and Sarah Ransome…I hereby accuse my false accusers of committing the felony of perjury and challenge them to sue me for defamation.” (Exhibit 6).
22. Mr. Dershowitz now has what he claims to have been looking for

I wonder whether the plaintiff will try to establish a Dershowitz "modus operandi" by calling Noam Chomsky or Norman Finkelstein to testify?  (Just kidding, but that would be priceless.)

Andrea Dworkin on Bill, Hillary, and Monica Lewinsky...back in 1998

Following some links from friends on Twitter, I came upon this old essay, which has, indeed, aged well, and is scathing and funny at he same time.

Terlazzo from Kansas State to Rochester

Rose Terlazzo (moral & politcial philosophy), Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Kansas State University, has accepted a tenured offer as Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Rochester for 2019-20.

Five philosophers elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences

They are:  Anita Allen (Penn), Nancy Fraser (New School), Clark Glymour (Carnegie-Mellon), Brad Inwood (Yale), and Tommie Shelby (Harvard).  This is a more reasonable outcome than one might have expected given the issues noted last fall, although I can report that many at least as worthy candidates on the inital ballot were not elected this time around (of those, one was a woman [but not a feminist philosopher, but clearly a leader in her field], while the others were all men).  (The new way the AAAS is listing the newly elected members is much harder to decipher than in the past; I hope they'll fix it!)

ADDENDUM:  Enrique Dussell (UNAM) was also elected, although it's unclear whether it was for his work in theology or in philosophy--philosophy is conjoined with "religious studies" as a section of the Academy.  My recollection is that he was not on the philosophy ballot from the fall, but I may be wrong.

Wolff on "The Future of Socialism," Part Three

Here.

What crime did British jihadists commit?

Philosopher Cecile Fabre (Oxford) comments.

From the annals of American apartheid

Philosopher David Livingstone Smith (New England), something of an expert on the consequences of dehumanizing brutality by our species, shared this excerpt from the book he is currently working on and which he kindly gave permission to share (the bit below the fold is beyond ghastly, be forewarned, but it helps explain why the "American" approach was too much even for Hitler):

Claude Neal was a twenty-three-year-old Black man who lived in Marianna, on the Florida panhandle. On October 19, 1934, Neal was arrested and charged the murder of a nineteen-year-old White woman. In the wee hours of October 26, a group of men burst into the jail where Neal was being held and took him away to a remote spot in the North Florida pine woods, where they tortured and killed him. The NAACP sent a representative named Howard Kester to Marianna to investigate. Perhaps because he was a White man, Kester found a member of the mob who was willing to tell him what happened that night. Here’s an excerpt from Kester’s report:

Santorio from UC San Diego to Maryland

Paolo Santorio (philosophy of language and mind, philosophical logic), Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, San Diego, has accepted a tenured offer from the Department of Philosophy at the University of Maryland, College Park for 2019-20.

Pickard & Phillips from Birmingham to Johns Hopkins

Hanna Pickard (philosophy of psychology, moral psychology, medical ethics) and Ian Phillips (philosophy of mind & psychology), both currently Professors of Philosophy at the University of Birmingham, have accepted appointments as interdisciplinary Bloomberg Distinguished Professors at Johns Hopkins University.  In addition to tenured appointments in the Department of Philosophy, Pickard will also hold an appointment in the Berman Institute of Bioethics in the School of Medicine, while Phillips will also hold an appointment in Psychological and Brain Sciences.   These are the first two appointments as part of the expansion of the department of philosophy made possible by the Miller gift last year, and they certainly mark a very good start!

In praise of a good philosophical fight

A very amusing essay by my colleague Agnes Callard.

Brexit and the "will of the people"

Christian List (LSE) comments.

"Amherst Lecture in Philosophy"

An annual event since 2006, it appears, the lectures (typescripts, audios, photos) are all available on-line here.

(Thanks to Bob Gamboa for the pointer.)

Twitter may be a cesspool, but Redditt may even be worse...

...and especially in this respect.

Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris on fire...

...and the main spire has collapsed after burning.  (This is a link to live coverage.)  Pretty shocking for all those who, at some point in their lives, visited this iconic Paris landmark.  I first went there as a child in 1975, and have visited several times since.  Awful images.