Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

Only a poll of blog readers can bring clarity to the 2020 Democratic nomination contest

Only Americans should vote!   The masses await your guidance!

More reason to think the Democratic primary contest will come down to Sanders and Bloomberg

Biden's dysmal fifth-place finish in New Hampshire is the beginning of the end.  Creepy Pete will do poorly in South Carolina and Nevada.  Senator Warren, sadly, looks to be finished.  Senator Klobuchar will also do poorly in South Carolina and Nevada.   Bloomberg, meanwhile, is targetting the crucial demographic he needs for the Democratic nomination, beyond the suburban voters that have drifted away from the Repugs and that he'll lock up easily over Sanders.  And, of course, he has more financial resources than any of his competitors.  Given that the Democratic Party has been for at least thirty years now merely the prudent and less vicious wing of the ruling class, what could be more apt than nominating a billionaire to take on the perfect symbol of the imprudent and very vicious wing of the ruling class?

UPDATE:  As if on cue!  (Thanks to Jerry Dworkin for the pointer.)

For those who use Twitter...

...I'm continuing my practice of tweeting out links to new posts on the blog, so you can follow the new links there.  I occasionally tweet out other stuff as well unrelated to the blog.

Brownlee from Warwick to British Columbia

Kimberly Brownlee (moral, political & legal philosophy), Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick, has accepted a senior offer from the Department of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia, effective July 2020.   This will further solidify UBC's place as the #2 department in Canada, after the University of Toronto.

Britain's UCU calls for more strikes by academic staff (LINK NOW FIXED)

Philosopher Alexander Douglas (St Andrews) is skeptical.

APA extends voting rights to graduate students

Announcement here.   Will this change the APA?  If so, how?   I've no idea!  Thoughts from readers welcome, especially those more engaged with the APA.

Moral grandstanding at the Oscar ceremonies?

Philosophers Justin Tosi (Texas Tech) and Brandon Warmke (Bowling Green) comment.  The discussion is quite nuanced, making it all the more remarkable that it appears on the CNN website!

(Thanks to Alan White for the pointer.)

The Attorney General of the United States appears to be a fascist

This is beyond shocking:  this is what one expects in Russia and Hungary and Poland; this is what one expects when the rule of law is dying.  Attorney General Barr is a disgrace to the legal profession.  One can only hope the sentencing judge ignores the Department of Justice's recommendation to reduce the sentence for Trump's crony Roger Stone.

Not a great piece of "public philosophy": on Strawson and the coronavirus

I've noted with appreciation some of philosopher Regina Rini's past public work, but her debut essay for a new "ethics" series at the TLS is neither a good piece of work nor a good advertisement for philosophy.   The subject is the arrival of the novel coronavirus in Toronto, where Professor Rini teaches (at York University):

Toronto has a large Chinese Canadian community, particularly in the suburb of Markham. When I heard that someone had arrived with coronavirus from China, I admit that my first thought was to avoid restaurants in Markham for a bit.  My second thought was that my first was dangerous, probably more dangerous than the disease itself.

"[M]ore dangerous than the disease itself"?   You can read a vivid description of the condition of the sick for yourself:  those with symptoms (we have no idea what percent of the infected develop symptoms) appear to suffer for two to three weeks before recovering, if they do.  Ignoring that half of new infections are passed on by those who are not themselves symptomatic and that the virus appears to be spread just like regular influenza, Professor Rini assures us that,

Even in the unlikely chance you did catch coronavirus, the statistics suggest your risk of dying is quite small. As of February 4, with around 20,000 cases confirmed in China, 425 of those patients have died. Such a fatality rate is far less than that of Ebola or SARS.

This is an egregious mistake:   all the experts agree that we have no idea what the fatality rate of this new virus is; here's but one example:

Usually, simple math would determine this “case fatality” ratio: divide the total number of deaths by the total number of people infected. In an emerging epidemic, however, both numbers keep changing, and sometimes at different speeds. This makes simple division impossible; you will invariably get it wrong.

For example:  we don't know how many of those infected are asymptomatic, or simply not showing up in official data; we don't know how many are dying of the virus without ever coming to the attention of medical personnel; we don't know how many of the tens of thousands recently infected will die in the coming weeks; and so on.   So this is "public philosophy" predicated on a falsehood.

But even if the mortality rate were 2% (as Professor Rini supposes), that would make it 20 times more fatal than seasonal flu.   Why should anyone be nonchalant about an infection that has a 1 in 50 chance of killing you?  If you want to convince the public that philosophers lack sense, this would be a good way to do it!  Would people drive cars or fly in planes if those were the odds?  

Good news for unmarried fornicators in Virginia

You'll soon be legal!

Will it come down to Sanders and Bloomberg?

If you take a look at the national and state polls at 538, the big story is the rise of Bloomberg in the "Super Tuesday" states and nationally.   With Biden poised to come in 4th or 5th in New Hampshire, after a bad loss in Iowa, his only hope is South Carolina, where he probably will win, but that's unlikely to be enough to save him.  Mayor Pete will do miserably in South Carolina and Nevada, and then come Super Tuesday the "moderate" Democrats will vote for Bloomberg as their best hope (it helps that, unlike Biden, he's cognitively functional and can speak English and that, unlike Mayor Pete, he has substantive things to say [but that aren't too scary for "moderates"--he's the ideal suburban "soccer Mom" candidate]).   If it comes down to a brokered convention, one can guess whom the "establishment" will support as between Bloomberg and Sanders.

"Creepy Pete"

This is actually pretty apt:

“We had the belief that in the face of exhaustion and cynicism and division, in spite of every trampled norm and every poisonous tweak,” [Mayor Pete] said, “that a rising majority of Americans was hungry for action and ready for new answers.”

What action? What answers? What is this? The whole timbre and cadence of his speech seemed to be modeled after the rhetoric of Barack Obama. But it lacked all the reassuring notes of specificity that seemed to prove Obama was an actual human being, inhabiting a corporeal body in the same space-time continuum that I inhabit.

Buttigieg’s speech, on the other hand, resembled a kind of mad-lib speech in which none of the blanks had been filled. Obama was promising not just “action” but to turn back the rising sea levels. How did Pete Buttigieg manage to beat Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, Amy Klobuchar, and a dozen other people with more charm (such as Andrew Yang) with this utter pablum?

I’m not saying for sure that Pete Buttigieg is a robot or a phenomenon of massive psychotic projection. I can’t prove that. All I can say is that when he came out on stage in Iowa, I felt like we were undergoing a coup.

To be fair, I'm not sure Mayor Pete's pablum is worse than "Change we can believe in."

UPDATE:  The Onion nailed this last April!  (Thanks to Ruchira Paul for the pointer.)

When will the EU cut off funding to the fascists in its midst?

The EU has done nothing about Orban in Hungary, what about PiS in Poland?  (Even the Financial Times, which presumably has the ear of the EU ruling class, is worried!)

On the experience of being in a "manic" state

Philosopher Paul Lodge (Oxford) comments.

(Thanks to Daniel Kodsi for the pointer.)

In case anyone forgot that Rush Limbaugh is the scum of the earth (with apologies to scum)...

...a small sampling, but one that does no justice to the extent to which he has damaged the polity and the democracy over the last thirty years.

Great moments in obscure rock 'n' roll: Blodwyn Pig, "It's Only Love," 1969

After Mick Abrahams, the original guitarist for Jethro Tull, left the band after a dispute with Ian Anderson about the musical direction of the band (This Was, Tull's debut, was a much more British blues-style album than later work), Abrahams formed a new band Blodwyn Pig.  This tune comes from their debut album (and doesn't sound at all like Jethro Tull!):

 

More academic visa craziness in the UK

Together with Brexit, this stuff will be a disaster for UK academia, which is already under tremendous pressures.

The Godfather strikes back!

Does this remind you of this:

It should.  You heard it here first!

UC Santa Cruz also using "diversity statements" to weed out faculty job candidates

My colleague biologist Jerry Coyne has the details.  See also this.

On philosophy as "curating"

Interesting reflections from Leslie Green (Oxford/Queen's U), relevant to yesterday's discussion.

(Thanks to Grant Lamond for the pointer.)

Bertrand Russell's "politics of logic"

Philosopher Alexander Klein (McMaster) comments.

Best introductory texts in philosophy of religion?

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 religion.  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.

It really doesn't matter whom the Democrats nominate, as long as they beat Trump and take the Senate

On this, I fear Krugman is correct.  A Democratic Senate will not go along with a lot of what a President Sanders or Warren want; a Democratic senate will make progress on healthcare, guns, and other issues even under a President Bloomberg or Klobuchar.   No Democrat can win without huge African-American turnout, so we can only hope that Mayor Pete goes away (quite apart from his vacuity).  A Bloomberg-Abrams ticket surely has as good a chance as a Sanders-Abrams ticket, and maybe better, because lots of Repugs might vote for Bloomberg.  But I do hope Democrats don't forget that ousting the Mafia Donald is important.  Global capitalism will continue to eat everyone alive, but even Bernie Sanders isn't going to change that:  he would just plug a few more holes in the dam than Bloomberg.

UPDATE:   This post certainly pissed off some Sanders fans on Twitter!   Warren and Sanders are the only presidential candidates I've ever given money to.   I wish I were as confident that Sanders can win as some others are:  the evidence is mixed.  I certainly hope he can (Warren is fading at this point, my guess is it comes down to Sanders and Bloomberg, who will pick up the Biden and Mayor Pete votes as Mayor Pete gets destroyed in the South).

Iowa caucus humor

As we await the pony express with the final results from Iowa, I thought I'd share this funny joke from a friend on Facebook:   "Just finished 62% of this novel and I'm so excited for Gatsby and Daisy."

"Confessions of an ex philosopher"

This is making the rounds on social media, and is certainly a gripping read.   The author does underestimate--maybe accurate to his own experience, or maybe because he wasn't very good at teaching either--the impact that teaching philosophy can have on students.  Probably the main contribution most academic philosophers make is through teaching rather than writing, and I would rate that as rather more important than fixing a boat (what "Fabio," the author, now does).  Be that as it may, it's worth a look.   But who is he referring to here (the author has worked mainly in Europe, but with a strong interest it appears in American philosophers like Sellars and Brandom):

I’ve smiled and nodded, and bit my tongue when treated like a shoe-shine boy. But dude, I really don’t give a shit that you’ve published 10 books on German Idealism with a prestigious university press — you’re still an asshole and in other circumstances I’d have told you in no uncertain terms where to shove that USB drive of yours (suspiciously specific, I know).

ADDENDUM:  I have had it confirmed that the preceding refers to Robert Pippin, who is indeed unusually vain, even by academic standards.

Is pansexuality obligatory?

Philosopher Robert Gressis (Cal State/Northridge) comments.

Advertising update

There's still one 3rd-from-the-top spot open in both March and April, and several spots (including one top spot) still open in May.  E-mail me if you're interested.

Is time an illusion?

Philosophers Tim Maudlin (NYU),  Emily Thomas (Durham) and others discuss.  (I'm still trying to figure out why the moderator mentioned the charlatan Derrida in her opening remarks, but don't let that put you off!)

Richard Marshall interviews Marion Hourdequin (Colorado College)...

...at 3:16 AM.

Britain suffers worst productivity decline in 250 years!

How's that Brexit working out?

Harvard geneticist David Reich on the need for candid discussion of the genetic bases of disease, behavior, and cognition

After the failed petition to retract a peer-reviewed article by Nathan Cofnas, a graduate student at Oxford (who replies to some critics here), several readers pointed out that the same (or at least related) subject had been aired in the pages of the NYT by David Reich, a genetics professor at Harvard, back in 2018.   I invite signed comments from informed readers about the Reich essay.  (This old essay by philosopher Ned Block is also useful background here. I don't see that Reich is making the mistakes Block identifies, but I am happy to be corrected.)

UPDATE:  See also this follow-up piece by Reich, also in the NYT.  (Thanks to Jerry Dworkin for the pointer.)

Buchak from Berkeley to Princeton

Lara Buchak (decision theory, formal epistemology & ethics, philosophy of religion), Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, has accepted a senior offer from Princeton University, where she will be Professor of Philosophy starting this fall.

Cover art on philosophy books

Reader Andy Hudson writes:

I wonder if you might consider a blog post on this subject. I ask because I was passing a secondhand bookshop today, in the window of which Galen Strawson’s “Selves” was displayed; I bought it partly on the strength of the beautiful cover. Conversely, I have always been disappointed and surprised that seminal works like “Naming and Necessity” present such a dismal appearance to the world, at least in their UK editions. All a bit trivial, I realise, but I’d be interested to know (a) how much effort authors invest in this aspect of publication, (b) whether it’s thought to have any significant impact on sales, (c) whether the author or the publisher takes the lead, (d) whether securing permissions is time-consuming, expensive, etc., etc.

I can report my own experience, including with my latest book.   I typically have the publisher give me various choices, and then I choose from the ones they offer (or, in the case of my latest book [Moral Psychology with Nietzsche, advertised in the left column], my wife and daughter chose the cover).   Publishers typically have designers on staff who can offer various options--that also moots the issue of "securing permissions."   But I know others in philosophy who spend considerable time and effort in selecting their own designs or art work for the covers.

Comments are open for reader responses.

UPDATE:   If you want to include links, do not format them just include the URL, it will automatically turn into a link.  Do not include punctuation after the URL or Typepad will format that too, which ruins the link.

"Epistemological Letters" recovered

This will be of interest to historians and philosophers of science.

"How Maths Changed Philosophy"

A podcast with Silvia Jonas (Munich).

When a bidding war for moral purity turns into a proxy war for power

"The Purity Spiral," which we've seen plenty of in philosophy cyberspace, with an occasional intrusion into the real world; an excerpt:

A purity spiral occurs when a community becomes fixated on implementing a single value that has no upper limit, and no single agreed interpretation. The result is a moral feeding frenzy.

But while a purity spiral often concerns morality, it is not about morality. It’s about purity — a very different concept. Morality doesn’t need to exist with reference to anything other than itself. Purity, on the other hand, is an inherently relative value — the game is always one of purer-than-thou.

It’s not just another word for ‘woke culture’, or even ‘cancel culture’, or ‘virtue signalling’. Even though intersectional social justice is a pretty great breeding ground for purity spirals, it is one among many. Nor is it confined to the Left: neo-Nazi groups offer some of the clearest examples of purity spirals: the ongoing parsing of ethnic purity into ever-more Aryan sub-groups. Perhaps the most classic one of all hails from Salem, Massachusetts.

It is a social dynamic that plays out across that community — a process of moral outbidding, unchecked, which corrodes the group from within, rewarding those who put themselves at the extremes, and punishing nuance and divergence relentlessly.

A purity spiral propagates itself through the tipping points of preference falsification: through self-censorship, and through loyalty tests that weed out its detractors long before they can band together. In that sense, once one takes hold, its momentum can be very difficult to halt.

Linguist/philosopher McCready raising funds to sue Japanese government for recognition of same-sex marriage

MOVING TO FRONT FROM YESTERDAY--UPDATED (READERS SHOULD CONSIDER SUPPORTING THIS JUST CAUSE)

Elin McCready, a linguist and philosopher at Gakuin University in Tokyo, is also a trans woman, still married to her wife of twenty years.   We noted Professor McCready's case briefly before, but now she and her wife are raising funds in order to sue the Japanese government, which has recognized Professor McCready's change of gender in most contexts but will not recognize her continued marriage!  Perhaps this can be the case to bring legalized same-sex marriage to Japan?

UPDATE:  On Twitter, Professor McCready offers a useful clarification of the legal issue at stake:  "the government will not fully recognize my transition because doing so would require recognizing same-sex marriage (or forcibly dissolving my marriage), a tension in the law which we are suing to try to resolve."

Call for papers for the 5th annual meeting of the International Society for Nietzsche Studies

MOVING TO FRONT FROM NOVEMBER 21, 2019:   PAPERS ARE DUE BY THE END OF THE MONTH

This will take place in Oxford on June 30 and July 1, 2020; the CFP is here.   Those who have participated in ISNS in the past have often remarked that these are the highest quality discussions of Nietzsche they have ever experienced at any conference.  Graduate students have done very well in the CFPs in the past, getting the majority of the slots.  (Please note that this year, those successful in the CFP will need to secure their own funding for travel expenses.)

Great moments in obscure rock 'n' roll: The Fire, "Father's Name is Dad," 1968

Another forgotten British psychedelic band (some of whose members later migrated to The Strawbs), this was their most successful release (at least in the UK):