Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

The Lincoln Project makes the best anti-Trump ads

Let's make this official:  it may have started as the Wuhan virus, but it's now the "Trump Virus":

Somewhat more regular blogging resumes tomorrow.

 

Five philosophers elected to the British Academy

The new regular Fellows (i.e., resident in the UK) are Ursula Coope (Oxford) and Katherine Hawley (St Andrews); the Corresponding Fellows (i.e., those outside the UK) are Elizabeth Anderson (Michigan), Rainer Forst (Frankfurt), and Elliot Sober (Wisconsin).  Frederick Schauer (Virginia), a well-known First Amendment expert and also a legal philosopher, was also elected.

I'll resume somewhat regular blogging on August 1, and then truly regular blogging on September 1.

Board of Illinois Wesleyan spares Philosophy--this time

(Earlier coverage.)   Other programs were not so fortunate:   Anthropology, Greek & Roman Studies, Religious Studies, French & Italian are all being closed.   As a philosopher at IWU wrote: "Although the Philosophy Department survived—-this time—this is *not* a day for celebration. Academic freedom and tenure have been undermined at our institution, and we will continue to fight for our colleagues." 

Academic freedom and independence of Israeli universities under threat from new Minister of Higher Education

Legal theorist Alon Harel (Hebrew U) asked me to share immediately this statement from the President of Tel-Aviv University:   Download Message of the president - Significant risk to the independence of the higher education system in Israel -7.2020 (003)

Lawyer Wendy Kaminer on the unhinged responses to the Harper's letter about "cancel culture"

I was amazed to learn that the letter (referenced in passing earlier today) was actually controversial, albeit among the usual herd animals, who never met an independent thought they could abide.   The lawyer Wendy Kaminer, who signed the letter, has a suitably stinging rebuke:

‘I rest my case’, I’m tempted to say, reviewing the unhinged responses of cancel-culture fans intent on cancelling the judicious defence of free speech in our ‘Letter on Justice and Open Debate’, published by Harper’s this week. I signed emphatically, which makes me one of ‘the worst people in the world of public intellectualism’, according to In These Times. What’s so bad about defending ‘the free exchange of information and ideas’ and critiquing ‘intolerance for opposing views’ and ‘a vogue for public shaming and ostracism’? In doing so we were not really defending the right to debate and criticise, according to In These Times: we were trying to squelch debate and censor our own critics, exhibiting a ‘bizarre aversion to being argued against … [that] now borders on the pathological’.

This is what citizens of cancel culture have apparently learned from Donald Trump: confound your critics by accusing them of precisely the sins you’re busy committing. Social-justice warriors have long demanded protection from the ‘trauma’ of hearing speech they deem offensive, calling for suppression of the speech and shunning of the speaker. So, employing Trumpian tactics, they accuse free-speech advocates of the censoriousness and psychic fragility that’s the raison d’être of their movement.

"Anywhere out of this world," said Baudelaire.

And with that I'm going back on hiatus to work on the book on Marx, as well as the drearier tasks presented by post-mortem bureaucracy in the modern world.

Several dozen Princeton faculty call for massive and systematic violation of their colleagues' contractual right to academic freedom...

...for the holy cause of "anti-racism."   ("Anti-racism" doesn't, in fact, mean opposition to racism any longer, for those who have not been paying attention.  And what is the connection between an abusive cop killing George Floyd in Minneapolis and alleged racism at Princeton?  There isn't any, of course.)  Some portions of the letter are harmless and predictable--the standard opportunism of the moment to claim resources and positions--but this proposal is chilling:

11. Constitute a committee composed entirely of faculty that would oversee the investigation and discipline of racist behaviors, incidents, research, and publication on the part of faculty, following a protocol for grievance and appeal to be spelled out in Rules and Procedures of the Faculty. Guidelines on what counts as racist behavior, incidents, research, and publication will be authored by a faculty committee for incorporation into the same set of rules and procedures.

This is simply a call to violate the contractual academic freedom rights of faculty at Princeton.  Have any signatories, one wonders, even thought about academic freedom and its purpose?  Do they realize that the only review of "research and publications" by scholars that is consistent with academic freedom is one based on applicable disciplinary standards?  Vetting the moral or political bona fides of scholarship is what universities without academic freedom do.

Reminder about my July blogging hiatus

MOVING TO FRONT FROM JUNE 28

Just a reminder that I'm taking a break from blogging for July (so starting Wednesday), so as to make progress on a book and deal with some other matters.  I'll resume a reduced blogging schedule in August.   If there's something very time-sensitive I may post something in July, but otherwise please don't send me stuff for the blog until the very end of July.  Thanks as always for reading.

A petition in support of philosophy at Illinois Wesleyan

Here.  (Thanks to Aaron Garrett for creating it.)