Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

New Books in January

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

Interpreting Bergson:  Critical Essays edited by Alexander Lefebvre & Nils F. Schott (Cambridge University Press, 2020).

An Ethical Guidebook to the Zombie Apocalypse:  How to Keep Your Brain without Losing Your Heart by Bryan Hall (Bloomsbury Academic, 2020).

Free Will, Responsibility, and Crime:  An Introduction by Ken M. Levy (Routledge, 2020).

The Evolution of Science:  Rethinking Science for the Anthropocene by Jürgen Renn (Princeton University Press, 2020).

The Palgrave Handbook of the Philosophy of Film and Motion Pictures edited by Noel Carroll, Laura T. DiSumma & Shawn Loht (Palgrave MacMillan, 2019).

How to be a Failure and Still Live Well:  A Philosophy by Beverley Clark (Bloomsbury Academic, 2020).

Historian Victoria Bynum (Texas State U) responds to editor of AHR

Her response, to the AHR editor's sneering, is very strong; an excerpt:

Despite your disclaimer that “in principle” being white should not “invalidate” the views of 1619 critics, in fact the skin color of historians critical of the 1619 Project has been scorned (and far worse) over and over again in the Twitterverse—by historians as well as the general public—as the preeminent reason for discrediting our views. In my case, not one of them has bothered to note (if they knew or bothered to find out) that my entire body of published works over the past thirty years has analyzed the effects of class, race, and gender on the nineteenth-century South. It’s not simply that my skin color matters to certain historians and others. It now appears that it’s all that does matter (with my age a close second)....

Perhaps it’s not surprising that racial essentialism forms the basis of much of the public reaction against historians critical of 1619, since the same essentialism underlies the Project itself. My understanding of class deeply informs my analysis of race, both of which I addressed in my interview with the WSWS, and my essay, “A Historian Critiques the 1619 Project,” published on my blog, Renegade South, and by the WSWS. In both the interview and the essay, I dismissed pseudoscientific theories about separate races and argued that such beliefs predispose one to embrace a theory of hypodescent (i.e., the “one-drop-rule” of race), which posits certain ancestral “bloodlines” as more powerful than others. From there emerges the assumption, implicit throughout the 1619 Project, that only “black” people in North America were enslaved. Yet, anyone familiar with the history of U. S. slavery knows it was a multiracial institution. We know that many enslaved women gave birth to the children of white men (often their enslavers), and that those children were decreed by law to be slaves. Yet, these children were at least as white as they were black.

Bird from KCL to Cambridge

Alexander Bird (philosophy of science and medicine, metaphysics & epistemology), currently at King's College London, will succeed Huw Price (philosophy of science, physics, and language) as the Bertrand Russell Professor of Philosophy at Cambridge University, effective October.   Price will continue on a half-time basis at Cambridge as Director of Research at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence through 2026 (although he will not have formal teaching duties).

(Thanks to Huw Price for the details about his future.)

Saul Kripke discusses Wittgenstein...

...at IAITV.

Best introductory texts to ancient Greek and Roman philosophy (or particular figures in ancient philosophy)?

MOVING TO FRONT FROM JANUARY 28--MORE COMMENTS WELCOME

Continuing with our new series about the best introductory texts in various areas of philosophy, I now invite readers to name what they think are the best introductory texts to ancient Greek and Roman philosophy (or particular figures in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy [e.g., introductions to Plato, Aristotle, Cicero etc.]).  As before, don't just name a text, but say something about why you think it's particularly notable or valuable.  Although you don't have to sign  your comment, I do think signed ones will carry more weight with readers.

How often does the NYT run articles highlighting ads attacking particular candidates....

...other than Trump, of course.  Not that often, but the prudent wing of the ruling class no doubt deems this newsworthy.   Can Sanders beat Trump?  Who knows?  Could Trump get the Republican nomination in 2016? Who knew?  Could Trump be elected President?  Who knew?   But the ruling class knows what it can't abide and their indoctrinated lackeys at the NYT do their duty!  I've corresponded over the years with various NYT journalists who read this blog:  aren't you folks appalled by this?  I'm sure you are, but speak up!

 

Brazilian Taliban

The fascist Bolsonaro picks a creationist to lead the government's higher education agency.

Wilfrid Sellars, a personal recollection...

...from his second wife, who survived him (she is now deceased).  It recounts how they met, some aspects of his career, and his death due to alcoholism.   It also includes some of her slightly odd metaphysical reflections, those can be passed over (she was no naturalist, Sellarsian or otherwise).

Were you rejected in one of the University of California job searches utilizing the unlawful "diversity statements"? (UPDATED)

MOVING TO FRONT FROM JANUARY 23--UPDATED

Pro bono legal representation may be available--read on.

As we've noted on several occasions, schools in the UC System have begun requiring applicants for faculty positions to submit a diversity statement. In most searches, these statements have been evaluated holistically as part of an overall application. However, several UC schools have participated in Advancing Faculty Diversity Pilot Programs where contribution to diversity statements have been evaluated as a threshold requirement. In other words, for these searches, if you didn’t get a passing score on your diversity statement, you were not considered further.

This methodology has had an enormous impact. As we discussed last month, for a 2018-2019 search in the Life Sciences, UC Berkeley rejected 76% of the applicants without even considering their research, teaching skills, or academic merits (out of 893 qualified applicants, 679 were eliminated solely because their diversity statements were deemed inadequate). This methodology has also resulted in extreme racial and gender disparities. In 2018-2019 UC Davis ran eight open discipline searches using this methodology. With all the other searches conducted at UC Davis in 2018-2019, under 10% of the applicant pool were minorities, just above 5% of the finalists, and 2.3% of hires. But in the pilot searches nearly a third of the applicants were minorities, over 80% of the finalists, and a full 100% of those hired were minorities. The results for female hires was similarly sharp, with 87.5% of those hired through the pilot program being women compared to 45.5% campus wide.

This is a list of all of the searches that have utilized or plan to utilize this methodology.

UC Berkeley

• Engineering 2017-2018
• Life Sciences 2018-2019

UC Davis

• Eight open discipline hires (one in each college/school) 2018-2019
• School of Medicine 2019-2020 or 2020-2021
• The College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences 2019-2020 or 2020-2021
• The College of Engineering 2019-2020 or 2020-2021

UC Riverside

• Mathematics 2018-2019
• Physical Sciences 2019-2020 or 2020-2021

UC San Francisco

• Biomedical Sciences 2017-2018

UC Santa Cruz

• Arts 2019-2020 or 2020-2021
• Engineering 2019-2020 or 2020-2021
• Global and Community Health Program in the divisions of Physical and Biological Sciences and Social Sciences 2019-2020 or 2020-2021

If you applied to and were rejected to one of these searches, or are planning to apply to one of the upcoming searches, you can help to challenge UC’s unlawful policies. Daniel Ortner from the Pacific Legal Foundation is looking for individuals who were impacted by these searches to potentially offer free pro bono representation. You can reach him at [email protected].

UPDATE:   A physics professor at UC San Diego reports that they too have been using these "diversity" statements:

"In the shadow of Auschwitz"

Philosopher Jason Stanley comments.

Conscientious objection to providing medical services?

Philosopher Jerry Dworkin discusses.

Philosopher Amia Srinivasan (Oxford) profiled...

...in the Financial Times.

Historian specializing in white supremacy responds to critiques of the NYT 1619 Project

Alex Lichtenstein (Indiana), the current editor of the American Historical Review, has penned a response, of sorts, to the various critiques of the 1619 Project.   Professor Lichtenstein's "work centers on the intersection of labor history and the struggle for racial justice in societies shaped by white supremacy," which may explain his embarrassing sneering throughout at the Marxist interpretation of history in which class trumps race.  But putting that to one side, even Professor Lichtenstein admits:  " Frankly, I wish the AHR had published these interviews, and I hope they get wide circulation. Not for the critique of the 1619 Project itself, but because collectively they insist on the significance of historical context, the careful weighing of evidence, the necessity of understanding change over time, and the potential dangers of reductionism. I would urge anyone to read them."   His defense of the journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones is a bit feeble, as anyone who compares his selective recounting (dare one say "spin"?) of the interviews with the actual interviews will see.   (Here, e.g., are the interviews with Oakes, McPherson, and Wood).   The one useful takeaway is that, at least according to Professor Lichtenstein, the teaching materials prepared by the NYT are not as one-sided and inaccurate as Hannah-Jones's lead essay.

Blast from the past: do admissions committees google applicants?

Back in 2010.

Richard Marshall interviews Liam Murphy (NYU)...

...at 3:16 AM.  This is well-said (including its description of the positivist view):

All sensible views treat matters of brute social/political fact as partly determining law’s content but some, the nonpositivists, have it that moral judgment is inevitably required in interpreting legal materials to figure out what the law says. Others, the positivists, have it that though moral judgment may well be needed if a judge is to make a decision, it is not required in order to determine what the law (already, before the decision) says; once your interpretation draws on independent moral judgment you are making law rather than finding out its content. I should say that the most important nonpositivist, my late colleague Ronald Dworkin, in his final writings on the topic abandoned what I just attributed to “all sensible views.” He concluded that legal interpretation was moral judgment all the way up and down—that is, matters of social/political fact do not determine any part of law’s content unless there is moral reason for that. I think this kind of view denies the reality of law as a normative order distinct from morality and is mistaken.

Dworkin is certainly the best-known nonpositivist, the one who did the most to deform honest discussion of issues in legal philosophy over the last fifty years; I doubt he's the most important, but that's another story.

Great moments in obscure rock 'n' roll: The Attack, "Magic in the Air," 1967

Another forgotten British psychedelic band that released a few singles in the late 1960s; this tune, which wasn't released at the time, is better than the singles in my opinion:

 

In Memoriam: David Efird (1974-2020)

MOVING TO FRONT FROM JANUARY 10--UPDATED

I'm especially sorry to report the untimely death of Dr. Efird, a philosopher of religion and Anglican priest, who had taught philosophy at the University of York for nearly twenty years.  I will post links to memorial notices as they appear.

UPDATE:   The York memorial notice is here.

Best introductory texts in philosophy of art/aesthetics?

MOVING TO FRONT FROM JANUARY 22--ADDITIONAL COMMENTS WELCOME

Continuing with our new series about the best introductory texts in various areas of philosophy, I now invite readers to name what they think are the best introductory texts in philosophy of art or aesthetics. As before, don't just name a text, but say something about why you think it's particularly notable or valuable.  Although you don't have to sign  your comment, I do think signed ones will carry more weight with readers.

ADDENDUM:   Suggestions for introductions to specific art forms (e.g., literature, film, theater) are also welcome here.

Philosopher David Wallace (Pitt) vs. any random commenter on a philosophy blog

This image captures it!

Survey for philosophy PhDs only on moral decision-making

Stephanie Brown, a philosophy and psychology double major at Williams College, is "completing a psychology senior thesis on moral psychology, and one of the areas we are studying is how familiarity with philosophy impacts moral decision making." She, and her supervisor Professor Jeremy Cone, would like philosophy PhDs to respond to the following survey (Prof. Cone confirms all IRB requirements have been met).

This survey takes 3-5 minutes, and completing the survey provides you with a 5% chance of winning a 100 dollar Amazon gift card. We would greatly appreciate your help by participating in this survey, as I am sure you can understand how difficult it is to find individuals with philosophical expertise. We are ultimately looking for 100 people to complete this survey

Link to survey:

https://williamscollege.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3m91tVNizQLmjl3

Jimmy Swaggart and Mark Alfano: when the morally self-righteous are wicked

Philosopher Daniel Kaufman (Missouri State) comments.

In Memoriam: Emanuele Severino (1929-2020)

An Italian philosopher, better known in Europe than in the Anglophone world, he was a self-described "neo-Parmenidean".  There is an obituary in Italian here.

Three more senior appointments for the Australian Catholic University in Melbourne...

...for their Dianoia Institute of Philosophy:  Dmitri Gallow (philosophy of science) from the University of Pittsburgh will join as Senior Research Fellow (equivalent to Associate Professor); Clayton Littlejohn (epistemology) from King's College, London will join as Professor; and Gillian Russell (philosophy of language) from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill will join as Professor.   They have also made two "Honorary Professor" appointments of faculty who will be in residence roughly one month per year:  Miriam Schoenfield (epistemology), Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin; and EmilyThomas (early modern philosophy, metaphysics), Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Durham.

ADDENDUM:  Earlier ACU appointments noted here and here.

The rise of Twitter and Facebook as social media platforms...

...is often invoked as explaining the general decline of blogs, something we have certainly seen in the philosophy blogosphere.  With another year of blogging behind us, it's striking how stable things have been here, however.  

2019 saw almost the exact same number of visits to the blog as in 2018:  3,566,545 in 2019 compared to 3,566,762 the year before, so an average of nearly 10,000 visits each day, and that's including the lighter blogging summer months.  That's all the more striking (at least to me!) given that 2018 was the year of L'Affaire Ronell, which saw multiple newspapers and magazines link to the blog for the scandal we first exposed, while 2019 had nothing so sensational.  2019 even had slightly more visits (about 3%) than in 2017.

On the other hand, 2019 did see a small decline (about 5%) in total page views from 2018, but there were still 4,555,275 page views last year.  (Each visit counts for one page view, as I understand it, but every additional page viewed in the same visit (such as following an internal link, or going into the comments section) adds another "page view.")   Fewer comment sections would probably suffice to depress that number, and I have generally been running fewer of those over the years because of the time required to moderate them.

In any case, I'm pleased and grateful to you, dear readers, for contributing to the more than 3.5 million visits and more than 4.5 million page views last year.   Thanks, as always, for reading.

Hillary Clinton really is an appalling shill for the prudent wing of the ruling class...

...as this makes clear.

ADDENDUM:  Some useful context.

And now: Rousseau on Twitter...

...with help from politcal theorist Boris Litvin (Stetson).

UPDATE:  And a skeptical response from a Rousseau scholar on Twitter.

Malik on Scruton...

...at The Guardian.  Of the various criticisms of Scruton, this seems to me the most measured and strongest version I've seen in the popular media.  (Here's an unmeasured critical comment:  a number of years ago, I picked up the new edition of Scruton's purported critique of "new left" thinkers.  It was sophomoric, almost beyond belief in how silly it was.   The contrast with his work in aesthetics was stunning.   Obviously, his political prejudices had a bad effect on his philosophical judgment.)

(Thanks to Phil Gasper for calling the Malik piece to my attention.)

Historian Clayborne Carson (Stanford) interviewed about the NYT 1619 Project and what is called the "Civil Rights Movement"

Here; an excerpt:

Q.  100 years after the Civil War this mass movement of very oppressed people takes place in the American South and then, as you said, it also grips the big cities. Why does it happen when it happens? Why in the 1960s?

A. ...Among the most important changes leading to the articulation of rights was the spread of literacy. As people became more literate it became harder to dominate them. Literacy in the African American tradition, from Frederick Douglass learning to read to Malcolm X being in jail and learning to read the dictionary—literacy is itself a freedom. One of the commonalities of oppressed people is that they get all of their information through people who dominate them.

For most of human history people never got more than 20 miles from where they were born. They knew very little of the world. There was no way of overcoming that until you could get to the point where you could read. That was often purposeful. Dominant people wanted to control information. You don’t want people working for you to know that they can walk 20 miles and find better conditions. Of course, you can also mystify them by religion and say, there’s this sacred book. You can’t read it, but I can interpret if for you, and tell you what your role in society is. So, literacy is huge.

Best introductory texts in philosophy of mind?

MOVING TO FRONT FROM JANUARY 16--MORE COMMENTS WELCOME

Continuing with our new series about the best introductory texts in various areas of philosophy, I now invite readers to name what they think are the best introductory texts in philosophy of mind. As before, don't just name a text, but say something about why you think it's particularly notable or valuable.  Although you don't have to sign  your comment, I do think signed ones will carry more weight with readers.

Peer-reviewed journal publishes a peer-reviewed paper some people don't like...

...so it's time for a petition, which, after 24 hours and despite being linked from the Daily Snooze this morning, has only some two dozen signatories.  (UPDATE:  after 48 hours, 48 signatories!)  It was launched by famed Twitter tough guy Mark Alfano (Macquarie), seen here threatening the paper's author, graduate student Nathan Cofnas (Oxford) (says Mafia Mark to Mr. Cofnas:   "You're about to learn why people generally avoid fucking with me").   Good to get confirmation that not only is there no norm against criticizing graduate students for their public acts and statements (which no one, other than graduate students on Twitter, believed of course), but there apparently isn't even a norm against launching a petition against the "vulnerable" and threatening them Mafia-style!

The petition is being ignored because it is so obviously foolish.  I'll give the last word on that to philosopher David Wallace (Pittsburgh), quite possibly the only adult who comments reguarly at the Daily Snooze:

Here we go again.

In the first place, the petition’s description of the paper doesn’t look factually accurate. It claims that the paper (i) “argues that the best explanation of differences in IQ scores between racial and ethnic groups is genetics”, and (ii) “completely neglects the role played by environmental injustice, housing segregation, and related forms of discrimination in producing these differences.”

As for (i), the paper’s discussion of the science argues only that it is a scientifically serious possibility that racial IQ differences have a genetic component, not that it’s cut-and-dried that it does (far less that the difference is 100% due to genetics). The section of the paper summarizing the science ends “As of now, there is nothing that would indicate that it is particularly unlikely that race differences will turn out to have a substantial genetic component.” Furthermore, that conclusion (which occurs 6 pages into a 24-page paper, at the end of a 3-page discussion of the science) is all that the author needs, because the main question the paper asks is whether we should actively prevent research on the question, and to make that an interesting question we only need to know that a genetic component isn’t scientifically unserious, not that it’s scientifically proven. (And, I should add, the author’s all-things-considered defense of allowing research on the topic is fairly nuanced, and gives a pretty sympathetic hearing to the arguments against.)

Preposterous philosophical views: the poll results

With more than 1300 votes in last Friday's poll, here are the results for "most" to "least" preposterous philosophical view:

1. External world skepticism  (Condorcet winner: wins contests with all other choices)

2. Realism about possible worlds  loses to External world skepticism by 621–597

3. Panpsychism  loses to External world skepticism by 640–574, loses to Realism about possible worlds by 619–599

4. Libertarianism about free will  loses to External world skepticism by 832–366, loses to Panpsychism by 832–366

5. Grounding is a real and unitary relation  loses to External world skepticism by 804–285, loses to Libertarianism about free will by 587–444

6. Non-naturalist moral realism  loses to External world skepticism by 866–328, loses to Grounding is a real and unitary relation by 515–499

I suspect the results tell us more about which of these views are and are not currently fashionable than about which are really the most preposterous!   (Lots of non-naturalist moral realists around today, for example, very few possible-world realists and external-world skeptics.)

A report from Australia about the bushfires ravaging the country

Michael Matthews, an Australian in Sydney and editor of the newsletter of The Society for the History and Philosophy of Science and Science Teaching, shares a personal account on p. 3 here.   (Thanks to Michael Ruse for the pointer.)

Rousseau on impeachment...

...with some help from David Lay Williams (DePaul).

Jacobson from Michigan to Colorado/Boulder

Daniel Jacobson (ethics, metaethics, moral psychology, aesthetics, political philosophy), Professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, has accepted a senior offer from the Department of Philosophy at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where he will hold the first endowed chair (the Benson Professorship) in that department beginning fall 2020.  In addition, he will serve as Director of the Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization for at least the next four years (he takes over from philosopher Robert Pasnau).   That's a big catch for Colorado, which will be an even stronger choice in value theory going forward.

(Thanks to Bob Pasnau and Matthias Steup for the details.)

Great moments in obscure rock 'n' roll: The Factory, "Gone," 1968

British psychedelic band that released two singles and enjoyed no recognition at the time; this is the B-side of one of the two singles (which I rather prefer to the A-side, "Path Through the Forest"):

 

Which currently fashionable philosophical view is the most preposterous?

Regarding my quip about panpsychism the other day, philosopher Mohan Matthen (Toronto) writes: "Goff anticipates your objection, which is the first listed in his SEP entry, under the title, 'Objections to Panpsychism: The Incredulous Stare.' I happen to think that the Incredulous Stare holds water though, because it’s beyond crazy to argue a priori for a contingent proposition, and beyond even that to argue that panpsychism is necessary."

"Beyond crazy" usually doesn't slow philosophers down, especially in the modern academy, where there are professional incentives to make sure every possible position in logical space is occupied.  The only way to settle this matter is with a poll, of course.  So please rank order these philosophical positions from most to least preposterous.

UPDATE:  Philosopher Michael Strevens (NYU) writes:   "I think that panpsychism is likely to come out looking much better if you let everything vote, not just people."   Good point!  Same goes for letting possible people in other possible worlds vote!

Speaking of people defamed by the media, let's not forget the horrendous treatment of Yale PhD student Sarah Braasch

We've noted before the raw deal Ms. Braasch got in the media in the misnamed "Napping while Black" story.  Particularly striking is that her exoneration by Yale from the charges of racially motivated harassment received almost no media coverage, even though the whole alleged story was supposed to be about racially motivated harassment and calling of the police.  As law professor Michael Simkovic put it, in writing about the Lessig defamation lawsuit against the NYT:

[T]he cartoonish fictionalized version of reality that some newspapers attempt to pass off as critical information is in reality little more than a sadistic form of entertainment--character assassination as sport. Worse than entertainment which acknowledges that it is fictional, exaggerated "news" uses real people as its sensationalized villains and callously hurts them in the process.

That is exactly what happened to Ms. Braasch.

Harvard Law professor Larry Lessig sues NYT for defamation

Good for him.   Given the terrible state of American law--which is more favorable to defamers than any other legal jurisdiction in a democratic society--he will have an uphill battle.

Panpsychism makes "Scientific American"!

What's next, intelligent design?  (OK, bad joke.)

(Thanks to Phil Gasper for the pointer.)

Richard Marshall interviews Michael Della Rocca (Yale)...

...at 3:16 AM.  

Six philosophers win NEH Fellowships

They are:  Dorit Bar-On (Connecticut), Michael Jacovides (Purdue), Allison Kuklok (St. Michael's College), Gabriel Mendlow (Michigan [primary appointment in the law school]), Nathanael Stein (Florida State), and David Stern (Iowa).  A good year for philosophers in the NEH competition!

"Diversity blather" originated in corporate America, and its leading proponents are members of the managerial class in academia

Prior to Bakke and the constitutionalization of "diversity" blather in the late 1970s, people knew what affirmative action was actually about:   a kind of reparations for the world-historic injustices suffered by African-Americans, for example.   "Diversity" was cooked up in corporate HR departments in the 1970s, and then declared the sole permissible rationale for affirmative action in college admissions by Justice Powell of the Supreme Court.   These facts probably do have something to do with the kind of grading rubric for the illegal "diversity statements" that Berkeley has proposed.   A graduate student elsewhere, seeing the connection, writes:

Leaving aside the many legitimate worries that required diversity statements raise: I have been active in the graduate employee union during my time in my PhD program. Many schools emphasize that diversity statements should mention volunteer work done in the name of diversity. And my own union has done remarkable work in this area. Just a couple brief examples: we have fought administrative efforts to lower or eliminate tuition waivers, which have a disproportionate effect on underrepresented groups being able to attend grad school; we have made progress in child care provisions and nursing provisions, both of which disproportionately help women, who are chronically underrepresented in many programs; and, by gaining wage increases, we have disproportionately benefited international students who, as they are on student visas, cannot work jobs over the summers. And yet, I know that many of those administrators who impose the diversity statement requirement would be unhappy to read that I was active in the union. Increased wages, strong bargaining units, solidarity between various interest groups within the academic community: these are not the sorts of action admins are interested in, as they (correctly) view them as a threat to their excessive power. Hence, I haven't been mentioning my significant amount of activism, because I know it's not the sort of activism that is really desired. This should give progressive advocates of diversity statements pause. After all, diversity statements generally read like the sorts of things corporate lackeys at Wal-Mart, Coca-Cola, Starbucks, and Bank of America could get behind. And this should give the lie to the idea that these diversity statements are anything other than ideological cover for the professional-managerial class.

Philosophy, logic and clear thinking

Timothy Williamson is in favor!

In Memoriam: Roger Scruton (1944-2020)

MOVING TO FRONT FROM JANUARY 12--UPDATED

Professor Scruton, who taught for two decades at Birkbeck College, University of London, has died of cancer.  He did important work in aesthetics, but became better known as the philosopher of the Tories in the UK over the past thirty years.  There is an announcement at his website (it takes awhile to load), while The Guardian news item is here (a proper obituary is forthcoming).

ADDENDUM:  Professor Scruton published these reflections about 2019 (including the discovery of his cancer) last month.

UPDATE:  Here is the proper obituary from Jane O'Grady at The Guardian.  And here is another one from the BBC. (Thanks to Phil Gasper for the pointer to the latter.)

Top 50 Universities by membership in the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, 2019

The AAAS website has finally added a better search engine (see an earlier iteration of this study before the new search engine), although it is not ideally precise so some results had to be tabulated manually (e.g., "New York University" turns up also members at the "City University of New York").  

An * indicates the university has no medical school, which is important, since there are a couple of sections of the AAAS dominated by medical school faculty.

1.    Harvard University (448)

2.    Stanford University (279)

3.    *University of California, Berkeley (225)

4.    *Massachusetts Institute of Technology (214)

5.    University of Chicago (187)

6.    *Princeton University (184)

7.    Yale University (175)

8.    Columbia University (171)

9.    New York University (135)

10.    University of California, Los Angeles (105)

11.    Cornell University (86)

12.    Northwestern University (84)

13.    University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (82)

14.    *California Institute of Technology (78)

15.    University of California, San Diego (76)

16.    University of Pennsylvania (74)

17.    University of California, San Francisco (64) (purely a medical/health disciplines campus)

18.    University of Wisconsin, Madison (63)

19.    Duke University (57)

20.    Johns Hopkins University (55)

21.    University of Washington, Seattle (52)

22.    University of Virginia (40)

23.    Brown University (37)

23.    University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (37) (relatively new medical school)

25.    University of California, Irvine (34)

25.    University of Texas, Austin (34) (relatively new medical school)

Oxford physicist wins age discrimination lawsuit against university...

MOVING TO FRONT FROM JANUARY 6--SOME INTERESTING COMMENTS (MORE WELCOME)

...before an employment tribunal.  Oxford is still enforcing mandatory retirement at 67 on almost all faculty.  Does anyone know what precedential value, if any, this decision has?  Will other faculty have to challenge this on an individual basis?  (I gather Oxford has lost other such cases recently.)   Comments from readers knowledgeable about English law welcome.

Papers posted on-line in 2019

For those interested, here are links to the new and revised papers I posted on-line in 2019:

"The History of Philosophy Reveals that 'Great' Philosophy is Disguised Moral Advocacy:  A Nietzschean Case Against the Socratic Canon in Philosophy"

"Culture and Value in Nietzsche"

"Nietzsche's Naturalism:  Neither Liberal Nor Illiberal"

"Bernard Williams' Debt to Nietzsche: Real or Illusory?"

"Foucault as a Kind of Realist:  Genealogical Critique and the Debunking of the Human Sciences"

"Marx and Marxism" (with Lawrence Dallman)

"Legal Positivism as a Realist Theory of Law"

"Human and Animal Minds"

Philosopher Peter Carruthers (Maryland) is blogging at the Brains Blog this week.

In Memoriam: Douglas N. Walton (1942-2020)

Professor Walton was best-known for his work in informal logic, especially the theory of argumentation.  He spent most of his career at the University of Winnipeg, although taught most recently at the University of Windsor.  The Windsor memorial notice is here.

(Thanks to Scott Wisdom for the pointer.)

What is a realist theory of law?

This programmatic essay, which was written for translation into Portuguese and Spanish for legal philosophy journals in South America, may be of interest to some readers.