Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

Blast from the past: when "trigger warnings" were the issue du jour

Back in 2015.

Data on academic philosophy in the U.S., 1967-2017

A new report from the APA, with a lot of data about gender, in particular.   I've only skimmed it, so readers are invited to note any interesting material in the comments.

Class and responses to Trump's rudeness and Biden's gaffes

In 2016, Democrats made the mistake of focusing on Trump's rude, crude and vulgar mouth (on display, I gather at last night's "debate" [sic], which apparently some sentient people actually watched!).  Alas, Democrats may be doing it again.   Many people don't care (and those who do aren't on the fence), which is rather important in an election!   This NYT piece from about a week ago, focusing on Biden not Trump, is instructive.  (Law professor Joan Williams addressed related issues a few years ago.)  It addresses the "cultural sensibilities" of voters in those "working-class Democratic communities that put Donald Trump over the top in 2016. They include more than 200 counties that supported Barack Obama twice before voting for Mr. Trump."  What these working class communities have in common--call it the "New Yorker sensibilty"--is that they respect those who stand up to insults and abuse, and punch back and punch hard ("don't take yourself so seriously" is foreign to those who have self-respect):

In the communities we visited, some of their most beloved Democratic politicians have a Trumpian sensibility: They are macho, quick to engage in political conflict and relentless counterpunchers. One is Ottumwa’s Jerry Parker, a former mayor and a current county supervisor. He supported Hillary Clinton during the 2016 primaries; during one local primary meeting, he threatened to take a conflict with a Bernie Sanders supporter “outside.”

Similarly, Mayor Joe Polisena of Johnston is popular even though he is a self-described political “street fighter.” Mr. Polisena doesn’t hesitate to verbally rough up citizens who openly criticize his rule — during Town Council meetings, for example, he calls them “malcontents” and “misfits.”

People in these communities admire the president because he seems familiar. As someone in Johnston told us, Mr. Trump seems “more human, more like us, the working person.” Mr. Trump’s incessant counterpunching, called a sign of a thin skin by many observers in professional circles, is often interpreted as common in many working-class communities.

 

Richard Marshall interviews Frederick Schauer (Virginia)...

...at 3:16 AM.

Philosopher Nethanel Lipshitz (Bar-Ilan/Tel-Aviv) talks about discrimination...

...at Elucidations.

Advertising update

October and November are fully booked, but there's one spot left in December. The next open top spot is in February (one left), and there are also some non-top spots open in January and February as well.  E-mail me for more information or to reserve a spot.

On "cancel culture" again, and a philosophy anecdote

Linguist John McWhorter (Columbia) takes another stab at the topic (earlier attempt here):

Our national reckoning on race has brought to the fore a loose but committed assemblage of people given to the idea that social justice must be pursued via attempts to banish from the public sphere, as much as possible, all opinions that they interpret as insufficiently opposed to power differentials. Valid intellectual and artistic endeavor must hold the battle against white supremacy front and center, white people are to identify and expunge their complicity in this white supremacy with the assumption that this task can never be completed, and statements questioning this program constitute a form of “violence” that merits shaming and expulsion.

Skeptics have labeled this undertaking “cancel culture,” which of late has occasioned a pushback from its representatives. The goal, they suggest, is less to eliminate all signs of a person’s existence—which tends to be impractical anyway— than to supplement critique with punishment of some kind....An indication of how deeply this frame of mind has penetrated many of our movers and shakers is that they tend to see this punishment clause as self-evidently just, as opposed to the novel, censorious addendum that it is.

Professor McWhorter goes on to review various examples of cancelings, successful and attempted.   One of his anecdotes concerns former philosophy PhD students:

I have heard from not one but two philosophy doctorates who left academia. One explained that he was driven out by the “accelerating creep of what felt to me a pretty stifling orthodoxy. The hiring market was dominated by a concern for diversity statements, the ability to teach fairly ideologically-slanted courses on philosophy and critical race theory or philosophy and gender, etc.; and more generally it felt progressively less like a profession where I could opt out of those trends while still being a competitive job applicant.”

There has certainly been a striking increase in job ads for philosophy of race and gender, but otherwise this may be a slight exaggeration about the state of the profession.  (After all, despite my "unwoke" condition, this is still the most heavily trafficked philosophy blog in the world--admittedly, a minority of the benighted "woke" read to get aggravated!). 

"How does science really work?"

Recent work of philosopher Michael Strevens (NYU) discussed in The New Yorker.

(Thanks to Benj Hellie for the pointer.)

PGR haters are strangely self-unaware

Here is philosopher Udo  Schuklenk (Queen's/Canada) declaring that "no serious academic would...lend their time to" the PGR.

You can see a complete list of the several hundred "unserious" academics who "lend their time" to the PGR:  it includes Brian Skyrms, Anthony Appiah, Ernest Sosa, Penelope Maddy, Cristina Bicchieri, Paul Guyer, Timothy Williamson, John Hawthorne, Alex Byrne, Gregory Currie, Martha Nussbaum, Terence Irwin, Jennifer Lackey, Cheryl Misak, Calvin Normore, Ian Rumfitt, Carolina Sartorio, Susanna Siegel, Allen Wood:  "no serious academics"!

Many Hispanic voters do *not* view themselves as "people of color"

This is interesting, and a problem for the Democrats:

Progressives commonly categorize Latinos as people of color, no doubt partly because progressive Latinos see the group that way and encourage others to do so as well. Certainly, we both once took that perspective for granted. Yet in our survey, only one in four Hispanics saw the group as people of color....[The majority of Hispanics] rejected this designation. They preferred to see Hispanics as a group integrating into the American mainstream, one not overly bound by racial constraints but instead able to get ahead through hard work.

In Memoriam: Amélie Oksenberg Rorty (1932-2020)

MOVING TO FRONT FROM SEPTEMBER 19--UPDATED

Professor Rorty wrote very widely in moral psychology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of the emotions, and the history of philosopy (especially ancient).   She taught for a quarter-century at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, and then later at Brandeis and Boston Universities, among other places.  I will add links to memorial notices when they appear.

(Thanks to Geoffrey Batt for the information.)

UPDATE:  An evocative memorial by Rachel Cohen, who teaches in the creative writing program here at the University of Chicago.  (Thanks to Aaron Garrett for the pointer.)

Some jurisprudential articles

"The Roles of Judges in Democracies:  A Realistic View" is now out in Journal of Institutional Studies, and  will also be reprinted in P. Chiassoni & B. Spaic (eds.), Judges and Adjudication in Constitutional Democracies: A View from Legal Realism (Springer, 2021).  From the abstract (taken from the penultimate SSRN version):

What are the “obligations” of judges in democracies? An adequate answer requires us to be realistic both about democracies and about law. Realism about democracy demands that we recognize that electoral outcomes are largely, though not entirely, unrelated to concrete policy choices by elected representatives or to the policy preferences of voters, who typically follow their party based on “tribal” loyalties. The latter fact renders irrelevant the classic counter-majoritarian (or counter-democratic) worries about judicial review. Realism about law requires that we recognize that judges, especially on appellate courts, will inevitably have to render moral and political judgments in order to produce authoritative resolutions of disputes, one of the central functions of a legal system in any society. That means it is impossible to discuss the “obligations” of judges without regard to their actual moral and political views, as well as the moral and political ends we believe ought to be achieved.

"Critical Remarks on Shapiro's Legality and the 'Grounding Turn' in Recent Jurisprudence," is now up on SSRN; here's the abstract:

The essay discusses some difficulties in Scott Shapiro’s LEGALITY (2011).  Many are well-known among specialists, but I set them out systematically here for the benefit of non-specialists.  These include the mischaracterization of core jurisprudential questions in terms of “grounding” relations, which unfortunately erases the major natural law positions in the field (e.g., those of Finnis and Murphy), and results in a version of “positivism” that major legal positivists (e.g., Hart) do not accept (cf. pp. 2, 10-13); but also the false claims that:  (1) “knowledge of law is normative” such that to say X has “a legal right is to draw a normative conclusion” (cf. p. 15); (2) officials have a legal obligation to follow the rule of recognition (cf. p. 17); and (3) Hart commits a “category mistake” in his discussion of social rules (cf. p. 19).  The essay also criticizes Shapiro’s discussion of jurisprudential methodology (pp. 3-8) and his (Dworkinian) attempt to show that the answer to jurisprudential questions matters to how courts should decide cases (pp. 13-14). 

The SSRN version will remain on-line and is citable, but much of the material will probably migrate into my From a Realist Point of View (Oxford University Press, forthcoming in 2022 or 2023).

Finally, "The Naturalized Epistemology Approach to Evidence," (co-authored with Gabe Broughton, who is the lead author) is also on SSRN, and will appear in C. Dahlman, A. Stein, & G. Tuzet (eds.), Philosophical Foundations of Evidence Law (Oxford University Press, 2021).  Here is the abstract:

NY Times quietly revises a key claim of the 1619 project!

Good catch by the World Socialist Web Site!

(Thanks to Chris Morris for the pointer.)

 

The biggest threat to free speech on campus and academic freedom...

...consistently comes from the pro-Israel interest groups.  They are running scared because they realize that far too many of Israel's actions can not withstand public scrutiny.

Great moments in obscure rock 'n' roll: Uriel, "Garden of Earthly Delights," 1969

British pscyhedelic/blues band, this is the lead number on their debut album:

 

Former Supreme Court clerks all love each other...

...as this recent endorsement of Judge Barrett reveals.

New study estimates 10% of Americans have antibodies to COVID

Study here.  Of course, we know that antibody levels wane fairly quickly, and that the key to immunity are T-cells.  Is there any way to estimate from this study how many people have T-cells that recognize COVID, even though they no longer have antibodies?

A concern about this year's Philosopher's Annual results

MOVING TO FRONT FROM YESTERDAY--UPDATED

A couple of readers have pointed out that two of the ten papers chosen this year by the Philosopher's Annual are by faculty at Michigan, which by itself would not be notable since Michigan is a top department.  The worry is that the winning papers were chosen by three Michigan graduate students, working together with philosopher Patrick Grim (Stony Brook), who has been involved with the Philosopher's Annual since the beginning, and has done a terrific job through the years.   This, alas, has (as we say in the law) the "appearance of impropriety," even if the papers were wholly meritorious.  To be clear, papers are suggested for inclusion by a few dozen nominating editors (of whom I am one), and the nominating editors also provide feedback on the papers nominated.  But the final decisions are made, after intensive reading and discussion, by the Michigan graduate students, working with Professor Grim.   My inclination is to think that papers by Michigan faculty should not be eligible for inclusion under these circumstances, given the clear risk of bias involved.

UPDATE:   Professor Grim asked me to share this response to these concerns, which I am happy to do:

Because we worried about implicit bias, we began our deliberations this year by agreeing that authorship by a Michigan faculty member should be treated as a presumptive mark against inclusion.  Only truly exceptional virtues in other regards were to be taken as outweighing that negative presumption.

In the cases at issue we decided that higher bar was actually met.  We allow the pieces in question to speak for themselves. 

For many years we excluded Michigan faculty as nominating editors, but eventually decided that blanket policy was depriving us of important expertise.  We feel a blanket policy against articles by Michigan faculty would similarly compromise the goal of the Philosopher’s Annual—selection each year of ten exceptional pieces, of particular interest and importance, regardless of authorship, affiliation, or place of original publication. 

I'm not sure this is responsive to the worry.  All these decisions (about "exceptional virtues" and what constitutes the "higher bar") are being made by graduate students at Michigan,whose professional futures depend on the faculty whose work they are evaluating.   Professor Grim is the only independent counterweight in the mix, but he is but one of four final decision-makers, the others being the Michigan grad students.

Four immunity scenarios for COVID

This is informative.

Lessons from the list of highly cited books since 2000

I think there are a couple of takeaways from looking at the books that pile up huge numbers of citations in philosophy over the last twenty years:

1.  Books that draw an audience outside philosophy fare much better--in part because citation practices are stingy in philosophy but profligate in some other fields (e.g., psychology).  This makes the high citation counts for books like Williamson's and Hawthorne's (books that only analytic philosophers are going to read and discuss) notable.

2.  Gender (and somewhat recently) race have become "hot" topics in the humanities and social sciences, so philosophy books that touch on those also fare well.

3.  Some of the books are actually quite good and worth reading!

Blast from the past: the 10 most important philosophers of the early modern period

A poll, back in 2009.

Breonna Taylor and George Floyd

The media, unfortunately, have linked these cases of police killings, even though they have almost nothing in common.  And now, unsurprisingly, a Louisville grand jury has failed to indict any of the officers involved in the no-knock raid that led to Ms. Taylor's death (by contrast, the officer that killed Mr. Floyd was quickly and rightly indicted, although he is planing an aggressive defense).  The failure to indict any officer for the killing of Ms. Taylor is unsurprising because:  (1) a judge had authorized the raid and the warrant to search the apartment because of Ms. Taylor's sometime-boyfriend, a suspected drug dealer, and (2) when the police entered the apartment, a different boyfriend (then at home with Ms. Taylor) fired on the police (he did not know they were police), wounding one officer; the police returned fire, resulting in Ms. Taylor's death.  On these facts, it's hard to see how any officer was culpable for Ms. Taylor's death.  Louisville subsequently banned no-knock raids, which undoubtedly contributed mightily to the cascading calamity resulting in her death.

Philosopher's Annual, ten top papers from 2019

MOVING TO FRONT FROM SEPTEMBER 13:   The papers are now available at the PA website.

Here are the papers recognized this year:

Brad Armendt (Arizona State), “Causal Decision Theory and Decision Instability,” from the Journal of Philosophy

Maegan Fairchild (Michigan), “The Barest Flutter of the Smallest Leaf: Understanding Material Plenitude,” from the Philosophical Review

A Hume scholar on Hume's racism

Philosopher Paul Russell (British Columbia/Lund) comments in The Scotsman.  In an e-mail to me (which he kindly gave permission to share), he observed:

Suffice it to say that Hume would have laughed at the resemblance between the sanctimonious moralism of this woke mob (who are tormenting him in death) and the crazy nuttiness of the Christian fanatics (who tormented him when he was alive) - they are very similar psychological types.

ADDENDUM:  And here's the petition that started it all.  The original proposal was to rename the tower after Julius Nyerere, but that didn't last long, as the petition organizer quickly did a mea culpa:

A previous iteration of this petition campaigned for the name to be changed to Julius Nyerere Tower. It has been brought to my attention by multiple students that Nyerere was harmful in his own ways, both through his ties to dictatorship and through his homophobia. This petition now only campaigns for the renaming of David Hume Tower. Thank you so much to the students who contacted me to educate me. I sincerely apologize for any harm I have caused.

Relax, you didn't cause any "harm", except ultimately to the reputation of the University of Edinburgh.

 

A sobering account of the nightmare that will begin on November 3 in the U.S....

...unless it's a Democratic landslide.

ADDENDUM:  What will bring any crisis to an end is that when the economic and market turmoil becomes too great, a message that will be communicated by members of the ruling class to their lackeys in the Senate and Congress--at that point, the Republicans will stop supporting Trump in his bid to hang on (assuming, of course, that it's a Biden victory, as expected).

Toronto Law scandal involving political interference with academic hiring continues

Amnesty and the National Council of Canadian Muslims have joined the call for an investigation of the allegations of outside meddling in appointments, and some are now naming the judge allegedly involved, David Spiro of the Tax Court and an alumnus of the law school.

Most influential books of philosophy of the last 20 years?

There was some chatter on Twitter about this, but here's what Google Scholar tells us about which books are being cited the most.

Martha Nussbaum (Chicago) looks to be the hands-down winner, with multiple books cited more than 1,500 times, including Women and Human Development (2001), with nearly 11,00 citations; but also Frontiers of Justice (2009), with 6,100 citations; Upheavals of Thought (2002), with 6,600 citations; and Hiding from Humanity:  Disgust, Shame and the Law (2009), with more than 2,000 citations.

Here are some other philosophy books published since 2000 with more than 1,500 citations according to Google Scholar (cite count rounded to the nearest 100):

Timothy Williamson (Oxford), Knowledge and Its Limits (2000), 5,400 citations

Miranda Fricker (CUNY Grad Center), Epistemic Injustice (2007), 4,000 citations

Cristina Bicchieri (Penn), The Grammar of Society (2006), 2700 citations

Jerry Fodor (late of Rutgers), The Mind Doesn't Work That Way (2001), 2,600 citations

Robert Brandom (Pittsburgh), Articulating Reasons (2009), 2,300 citations

Many universites have extended the tenure track for tenure-stream faculty...

...and they should also try to extend by a year any fixed term appointments that would end this academic year, since the job market has ground to a near-halt this year, meaning these faculty have little chance of securing other academic employment.  The academic world is hitting "pause" (where it can):  graduate programs are extending funding (and in some cases not admitting new students), tenure-stream faculty are being given extra time.  Schools that invested in recent PhDs for fixed term appointments should not throw them into the abyss! 

 

COVID risks while flying

Interesting, case study of ten-hour flight with one symptomatic passenger in business class:

We traced 217 passengers and crew to their final destinations and interviewed, tested, and quarantined them. Among the 16 persons in whom SARS-CoV-2 infection was detected, 12 (75%) were passengers seated in business class along with the only symptomatic person (attack rate 62%). Seating proximity was strongly associated with increased infection risk (risk ratio 7.3, 95% CI 1.2–46.2). We found no strong evidence supporting alternative transmission scenarios.

(Thanks to Dr. David Ozonoff for the pointer.)

"The Microfoundations of Marxism"

Philosopher Jaime Edwards (St. Norbert College) talks with philosopher Robert Gressis (Cal State/Northridge) about some of the ideas and arguments growing out of his important dissertation on this topic.  (Edwards and I are writing the volume on Marx for my Routledge Philosophers series.)

Philosopher Alastair Wilson (Birmingham) on "Natural Philosophies"...

...discussing quantum modal realism.

What is court packing?

Since my e-mail "interview" with NPR is showing up in lots of stories, let me say a bit more.

"Court packing" is typically used to refer to FDR's proposal in the 1930s to expand the size of the Supreme Court, which had been holding New Deal legislation unconstitutional.  The idea was that FDR would add justices sympatico to the New Deal, and thus change the political leanings of the Court that would, in turn, influence its constitutional decisions.

FDR's proposed method of court packing was to expand the court, which would change a century-old norm governing the court's composition.  But the essence of court packing is not expanding the size of the court, it is changing the norms governing Supreme Court appointments for partisan ends:  you can do that by expanding the size of the Court, or you can do it, as Senator McConnell did in 2016, by denying a sitting President even a vote on his nominee for a vacancy on the Court, also a massive violation of an established norm.

Senator McConnell could, perhaps, have been trying to start a new norm, but now it's clear (if anyone had doubts) that was not what he was doing:  he wants to pack the court for partisan ends by adjusting the norms for appointments to suit his political preferences, one rule for 206 when a Democrat is President, another for 2020 when a Republican is President.

A question for readers: from feudalism to capitalism?

I know the standard Marxian story (as told by Marx!), but I'd be grateful for some guidance on literature by historians, Marxists or otherwise, especially about the transitions in very roughly the period of the 16th into the 18th-centuries:   the fall of feudalism and the remnants of the feudal order, and the gradual transitions towards the beginning of the industrial capitalist age.  (I'm less interested in the heyday of feudalism, say the 11th-14th centuries, so happy for references on the passing of that period as well.)   Essays or book recommendations welcome, as well as any comments you might have about the value of the work, the perspective it takes etc.  You should feel free to e-mail me at [email protected] if you'd rather not post here.  Many thanks!

Blast from the past: for a JD/PhD, does the caliber of the law school matter?

Back in 2011, and still applicable.  Worth noting that Harvard, which used to fully fund all JD/PhDs, has stopped doing so. (LINK NOW FIXED TO GO DIRECTLY TO THE OLD POST.)

The colleges that are succeeding, despite COVID

After the "bad news" stories about college openings that journalists love, the real story now is the number of schools that seem to be making this work.  Notre Dame, with 12,000 students and a rocky start, imposed a two-week lockdown; now they have a positivity rate of 1.2% and only about five dozen active cases on campus.  As we noted before, Duke University is doing quite well, with aggressive testing and good student compliance with behavioral expectations.  Bates College, with nearly 1,800 students in the boondocks of Maine, has had only 2 cases after several weeks of class.  Amherst College, far less isolated than Bates, has had a total of 3.  No doubt this will be disappointing to those invested in the idea that it was obviously nuts to open a school during a pandemic.  But it is good news for students and their families.

ADDENDUM:   Someone on Twitter points out that Brandeis, near Boston, is also doing quite well.  I'm opening comments for readers to add links to evidence of other schools that are faring well.

The life and work of Derek Parfit

Informative essay by philosopher Jonathan Dancy (Texas).

Great moments in obscure rock 'n' roll: Stack Waddy, "Mystic Eyes," 1971

British blues rock band active in the late 1960s and early 1970s, this is from their debut album (a cover of the mid-60s number by the Irish band Them):

 

On the death of Justice Ginsburg of the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS)

Her death is deeply unfortunate, not just for her family, but for the polity she served, and on many levels.

To start, it makes clear how perverse "life tenure" on SCOTUS has become when people live so long.  You can protect judges from political influence by giving them term-limited tenures that will extend beyond the terms of political actors:  in the U.S., that would be 15 or 20 years.  Many will complain, not unreasonably, that she should have stepped down during Obama's term.  In retrospect, she should have, but recall the Merrick Garland fiasco.

The real problem, of course, is that SCOTUS is a super-legislature--here is a popular explanation and a more jurisprudential one of this point--and so the prospect that a Democratic member of the super-legislture will be replaced by a Republican one is a serious matter.  The Nazi Senator from Kentucky, Mitch McConnell, will surely try to ram one through, notwithstanding his obviously spurious claim last time around that the election should decide Justice Scalia's replacement (his absurd rationale for why Judge Garland of the DC Circuit, whom Obama nominated, should not be even considered).  If the Republicans succeed in appointing a new justice to the super-legislature, then in the next Democratic Administration (assuming there is one), SCOTUS membership will either be vastly expanded to counteract this reactionary court-packing or its jurisdiction will be stripped so that it becomes a less relevant super-legislature.

Job search at U of Toronto law school scuttled after politically motivated interference by a sitting judge

Those are the allegations, and, if true, would represent a serious breach not only of judicial ethics but of academic freedom at the University of Toronto.  Job searches should be conducted and positions filled based on academic considerations, not the political concerns of members of the public, even if they are alumni and donors.

Meanwhile, America's democratic back-sliding continues...

...with craven political hacks meddling in public health advice for partisan ends.  Of course, this is exactly what the U.S. accused China of doing at the start of the pandemic.

UPDATE:  I guess the NYT story was too much of an embarrassment!   At least that democratic institution--a moderately free press--is still functioning on some issues.

After Princeton President does ritual "mea culpa" for "systemic racism," U.S. Education Department announces investigation...

...since federal money, of which Princeton gets plenty, are conditioned on non-discriminatory practices by the receivnig institution.  Unfortuntely, President Eisgruber (who is, himself, a lawyer, but apparently didn't consult any in this instance) in his public statement a few weeks ago made a number of careless (and probably false) claims that, predictably, would invite scrutiny from an Education Department hostile to affirmative action and racial preferences; for example:

We must ask how Princeton can address systemic racism in the world, and we must also ask how to address it within our own community. That is true even though, for at least the past fifty years, this University has committed itself to becoming more inclusive....

Racism and the damage it does to people of color nevertheless persist at Princeton as in our society, sometimes by conscious intention but more often through unexamined assumptions and stereotypes, ignorance or insensitivity, and the systemic legacy of past decisions and policies....

[M]y Cabinet colleagues examined systems and practices covering all facets of the University....Much of this work is unglamorous, focused not on flashy symbols but on the nuts and bolts of University management. That is essential: to care about eradicating systemic racism, one has to care about systems...

All these statements are naturally read as saying that the current Princeton University suffers from various forms of racism.  The good, legal news for Princeton is that "systemic racism" isn't a legal category, so unless investigation turns up actual conscious discriminatory practices, nothing will come of this.  The law does not try to prohibit "systemic racism":  it prohibits intentional racial discrimination.*

Most states are doing badly on COVID benchmarks

No state meets all four benchmarks; I'm lucky that Illinois is one of a handful that meets three of the benchmarks.  I doubt this would be happening if we hadn't thrown the Republican plutocrat bum out of the Governor's office in the last election.   The Democratic plutocrat now in office is at least competent on basic matters.

In Memoriam: Jeffrie G. Murphy (1940-2020)

A leading contributor to philosophy of law, especially philosophy of criminal law, and moral philosophy, Professor Murphy  taught at the University of Arizona for a number of years before moving to the Arizona State University faculty in 1981; he ultimately held appointments in both the philosophy department and law school.  The ASU memorial notice is here.

Possible new antibody-based treatment for COVID

Interesting, and hopeful.

Interview with Dutch publication about Trump

I talked with a reporter for the Dutch news magazine HP/De Tijd, some of this will make its way into a story they are running in October.  I'll post the full interview here, in case of it's of interest.  The reporter's questions are indented and numbered, my responses are prefaced by BL.

1. President Trump takes a clear and tough position in the debate about police brutality against African Americans and the demonstrations of the Black Lives Matter movement. He glorifies the actions of Kyle Rittenhouse, who shot two protesters in Kenosha. At the same time, he shifts the discussion about racism and police brutality against black Americans to a conversation about crime, violence and law and order. How remarkable is Trump's position in this debate?

BL:   Trump is a casual, rather than, ideological racist (Hitler was the latter).  Trump’s basic attitudes were shaped by his childhood in Queens (a section of New York City), which when he grew up was a largely white, middle- or lower-middle-class enclave (Trump himself was a child of privilege, but his attitudes are those of much of the milieu).  He learned instinctive support for police (and firemen and the military) and distrust of “coloreds” and “Negroes” who were disproportionately involved in crime.  (In the United States, the hit 1970s T.V. show “All in the Family” represents this outlook in the character Archie Bunker.)   What’s remarkable is only that Trump is President and says what he says out loud; millions of course believe the same.  While there are fewer “Archie Bunker’s” even in New York these days, there are still millions of white people still alive in the United States who grew up during the apartheid era in the American South, and they and sometimes their children harbor similar attitudes.

2. Does president Trumps position in the racism debate reflect the GOP’s point of view?

BL:  It does not represent the “official” position of the GOP, but ever since Richard Nixon, the GOP has tried to exploit white anxiety about crime, especially crime by non-whites.  Trump is more open and crude about it.

3. Taking such a strong stand in the racism debate, does the president have a clear vision in mind or can we speak of impulsive actions?

2020 Hiett Prize in Humanities goes to a philosopher, Zena Hitz (St. John's, Maryland)

Announcement here.  Nice to see Professor Hitz, a fierce champion for the humanities and philosophy, recognized.

(Thanks to Scott Newstock for the pointer.)

Climate change by county in the U.S.

Fascinating maps and data, by U.S. county.   Crudely, the South and the Southwest are in for trouble, the Midwest and Great Plains will fare better over the next 25-50 years.

Philosophers on Twitter lists

Amusing, although those who are sadly deceased (like Hubert Dreyfus and Roger Scruton) should be dropped.

Columbia Marching Band trolls the NY Times

Amazing.  The NYT will come to regret running this story, I suspect.

Student-maintained Philosophy admissions for 2020-21 spread sheet...

...here.

(Thanks to Linds Whitaker for the pointner.)