Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

The U.S. Capitol police has a history of racial and other problems

This is pretty pathetic.

Christa Peterson's "hit piece" on Kathleen Stock

Christa Peterson (Southern California) will be known to readers of the blog for her penchant to tell all philosophers to "fuck off," to denounce work by feminist theorists and philosophers she doesn't like as "dumb as shit,", or just "shit", and, of course, her frequent tweeting "fuck Brian Leiter," after she tired of merely expressing her impatience that I wasn't dead and comparing my speech to that of Nazis.  

I mention all this because Peterson has now taken to scolding Kathleen Stock for being, shall we say, "unpleasant" on Twitter.  Seriously.   Peterson has taken her own voluminous tweets and turned them into an essay attacking Kathleen Stock.  (The essay has been retweeted more than 1,500 times!)  Stock replies at length here, noting that "Christa Peterson...has monitored my tweets for two and a half years, offence-mining my twitter feed for anything that looked like it might harm my reputation and archiving it."  (Philosopher Tomas Bogardus also analyzes Peterson's claims and arguments here.   I will try not to duplicate points made by Stock or Bogardus.) 

Big chunks of Peterson's essay are given over to assertions about what she deems to be obvious about trans identity, and pronouncements about how to interpret empirical evidence.   Readers can evaluate those for themselves; I found them mostly unpersuasive.  (For a contrasting view on "gender identity," see this.)   Peterson does not deign to discuss Stock's paper for the Aristotelian Society, she just refers to it derisively. This is a standing pattern with Peterson; recall her response to the paper "Are adult human females women?" by philosopher Alex Byrne (MIT) that appeared in Philosophical Studies:

That's Alex Byrne alright, he shall henceforth be known as Mr. Bad, Lazy Philosophy Guy.  But it's not just Byrne.  Leslie Green--the Professor of Philosophy of Law at Oxford who has written for decades about philosophical issues about sex and gender--commented on transgender issues in an interview, which led Peterson to declare his views "repulsive and DEEPLY UNSERIOUS haha philosophy is horrible!"   Condescension from below, with no self-awareness, may not be horrible, but it is certainly risible.

Blast from the past: Graduate school and starting a family: when?

Back in 2009, no doubt still highly relevant.

In Memoriam: John Corcoran (1937-2021)

Well-known for his contributions to mathematical logic and to the history and philosophy of logic, Professor Corcoran spent most of his career (from 1969 onwards) at the University at Buffalo of the State University of New York.  I will add links to memorial notices as they appear.

More on the allocation of scarce medical resources during the pandemic, and a lack of consensus among bioethicists about how to proceed

Bioethicist Thomas Cunningham (Loyola Marymount Bioethics Institute) writes:

Thanks as always for your continued commentary and wise read of the news of interest to the world and to philosophers, broadly conceived.

Sometime around March, you discussed allocation of scarce resources in US hospitals on your blog. At that time I suggested there was a consensus in the bioethics community about how to do this. I am writing today to revise my assessment, as this is very much in the news and may remain of interest to you and your readers.

Here in Los Angeles, we are experiencing absurdly low supplies for various resources. Speaking generally, and not about my health system in particular, I am aware of shortages in ventilators, machines that deliver high concentrations of oxygen to patients, oxygen itself, hemodialysis machines, feeding pumps, IV machines, the lines that they require to deliver therapies to patients, and other equipment. Hospitals are also seeing such unprecedented volumes of hospitalized patients that they have considered implementing triage protocols to allocate patients to lower levels of care that have adequate staffing, as reported here.

Graduate students afraid to support the open letter on academic freedom

A PhD student at one of the very top programs (who asked to not be named, for reasons that will become apparent) writes:

Thank you for your blog coverage of the recent open letters on Kathleen Stock's work. You have noted an asymmetry in the relative seniority and prestige of the signatories. I write to note another asymmetry. Signatures from graduate students in philosophy abound below the anti-Stock letter, but are hard to find below the academic freedom letter. I and other graduate students in my program feel we cannot publicly support the latter without risking future professional consequences. Graduate students are hardly weighty voices here, of course, but it is nonetheless indicative of the state of the discipline that its junior members perceive support for a sober and mainstream philosophical position like that expressed in the academic freedom letter as a liability.

This is unfortunate if understandable.  It's important to remember that the Twitter Red Guard is loud but unrepresentative.

UPDATE:  Chris "I make things up" Bertram is at it again.  His response to the preceding:

Which states are treating college teachers as "essential workers" (like K-12 teachers) for vaccine purposes and which aren't

This article is informative.

The "open letter" in support of academic freedom and against the "Anti-Stock" letter...

...has attracted strong support, with several hundreds of signatures now.  As I noted on Twitter, "What's particularly striking is that most of the academic philosophers who signed (a far more distinguished group than denounced Prof. Stock) are not part of the Twitter echo chamber."  I see among the signatories Kit Fine (NYU), Timothy Williamson (Oxford), Jeff McMahan (Oxford), Peter Godfrey-Smith (Sydney), Peter Singer (Princeton), Ned Hall (Harvard), Alex Byrne (MIT), Chandra Sripada (Michigan), Thomas Hurka (Toronto), Tim Crane (CEU), David Velleman (NYU emeritus; Johns Hopkins), Peter Simons (emeritus, Trinity College Dublin), Daniel Jacobson (Colorado), R.A. Duff (emeritus, Stirling), John Divers (Trinity College Dublin), Paul Russell (UBC & Lund), Gerald Dworkin (emeritus, UC Davis), Peter Carruthers (Maryland), Samir OKasha (Bristol), among many others who will be known to readers of the blog.  I don't think this supports Jason Stanley's hypothesis that most senior faculty support Stock--once again, most philosophers are sitting this out--but it does show there is strong support for basic academic freedom values and an end to the "reign of terror" of open letters attacking individual philosophers.

Richard Marshall interviews Richard Smith (Durham)...

...at 3:16 AM.

A striking "mea culpa" (of sorts) from Robert Paul Wolff, who has seen a lot!

I only just read this; note that it is from January 3, so before the stormtrooper riot at the Capitol.  We should all revisit this blog post in ten years.  An excerpt:

It is now clear that if the Republicans had the votes in the House and the Senate they would simply cancel the results of the election and install Trump in the White House for another four years.

Rather late in life, thus, I realize that I have spent the last 70 years and more simply taking for granted the fundamental procedural processes of American government. I have been aware all my life of the many ways in which, either legally or illegally, Democrats and Republicans have suppressed the vote, stolen votes, distorted vote totals, and in myriad other ways twisted and gamed the political system for their benefit. But I freely confess that it never occurred to me that the elected representatives sitting in the House and the Senate would, if they had the votes, simply cancel a national election.

U.S. military leaders make clear where they stand

A bulwark, for now, against much worse.

The stormtrooper riot isn't over, a reminder

This uprising continues.  I fear political assassinations may yet occur.  Reagan's revolution from the right is now coming to its final fruition:   the evisceration of the working classes and nearly 30 years of lies and anti-government rhetoric from Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, the Murdoch media, Tucker Carlson etc. is now coming to fruition.  What an ugly country this is.

University of Dallas appoints a philosophy professor as President

Jonathan Sanford, who works in virtue ethics.

The real worry about the stormtrooper riot at the Capitol last week is what it portends

I agree with much of this author's take:

This is all indicative of an incipient fascism, laying the cultural and political groundwork for a violent, extra-parliamentary mass movement of the right. It is a mistake to assume that fascism must take the form of dictatorship. Far-right movements today are shaped by the same factors: the decomposition of parliamentary legitimacy and their inherited organisational weaknesses. In that context, wielding the power of office is a pedagogical, formative experience. It allows movements with thin civic roots to project influence at a national level and try things out.

Fascism does not arrive on the scene with full uniform and programme. The Jewish socialist Arthur Rosenberg traced the origins of fascism as a mass movement to the period before the first world war, when millions were already infected by volkisch, racial-nationalist ideology, and by contempt for democratic government. It consolidates through experimentation, learning the ropes through episodes that, at first, appear amateurish and thuggish, from the beer hall (Munich) putsch to the demolition of the Babri Masjid. First as farce, then as tragedy.

 

"Transient global amnesia" and the self

Philosopher Steven Hales (Bloomsburg) comments on his experience.  I had not heard of this, it's quite remarkable.

2020 in review

For those who missed it during the holidays, here are links to the end-of-year review of 2020, broken into four quarters:   1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th.  A list of the philosophers whose deaths were noted in 2020 is here.

Against the "anti-Stock letter": an opposing open letter

Here.  They are also accepting signatures.  I strongly agree with this from the new letter:

It cannot become our standard that where analysis and discussion of matters of public concern may cause offense, the social and institutional consequences of engagement are so costly that few will be willing to do the work. It cannot become our standard that the mere allegation of harm caused by some writing or speech, in the absence of any specific evidence to that effect, is sufficient to trigger such consequences. And it cannot become our standard that the mere fact that someone who causes harm agrees with something said or written by an academic is sufficient to saddle that academic with responsibility for that harm.

The Open Letter Concerning Transphobia in Philosophy is the latest depressing example of an increasing inclination in the Academy to adopt precisely these kinds of standards. The effect can only be to discourage those whom we employ to research, think, write, and speak about these issues from doing so and to deprive students of a diverse and intellectually rigorous education. This will neither benefit our laws, regulations, and public policies nor improve the education that students receive.

Where (untenured) tenure-track faculty at the U.S. "top 24" departments in 2020-21 got their PhD

As prior studies have confirmed, PGR rank is a rather good predictor of professional outcomes, even though that's not what the PGR suveys measure. (Of course, NYU and Rutgers placement, below, would have been wholly predictable from PGR rankings of faculty quality in years past!) 

I look here, as I've done before (also here), only at the untenured tenure-stream faculty at the top American PhD programs.  This is misleading in some obvious ways.  One of the most important is that tenure-stream jobs at liberal arts colleges may be the best jobs in American higher education:  teachers enjoy excellent students, good salaries, and research support.  My anecdotal impression is that tenure-stream faculty at leading liberal arts colleges in the U.S. (places like Pomona, Reed, Colgate, Wesleyan, Carleton, Macalester, Swarthmore, Grinnell, Bowdoin, etc.) are rather happy, and often have research qualification comparable to faculty at research universities.

With those caveats, here is where tenure-stream but untenured faculty at the "top 24" U.S. programs (based on this guesstimate) earned their PhD:

1.  New York University (9)

2.  Princeton University (7)

2.  Rutgers University, New Brunswick (7)

4.  Massachusetts Institute of Technology (6)

5.  University of California, Berkeley (5)

6.  Harvard University (4)

6.  Yale University (4)

8.  University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (3)

9.  Cambridge University (2)

9.  Columbia University (2)

9.  Oxford University (2)

9.  University of California, Irvine (2)

9.  University of California, Riverside (2)

9.  University of Chicago (2)

9.  University of Pittsburgh (2)

9.  University of Texas, Austin (2)

9.  University of Wisconsin, Madison (2)

1 each:  University of Southern California, University of Toronto, University of California at Los Angelse, Stanford University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, DePaul University, University of Paris I, University of York (UK), University of Illinois at Chicago, University of Potsdam, University of Western Ontario, University of Rome III, University of Melbourne, Harvard University (Government Department), Claremont Graduate School (Religious Studies)

Berkeley, once again, is a star performer relative to its (very good but not "top 5") PGR ranking over the last decade, a credit I suspect to the quality of the training.  (MIT also out-performs its PGR rank, but not as dramatically.)  The UC Irvine and Riverside PhDs were specialists in areas where those programs are strong, as reflected in the PGR.  Both Cambridge PhDs were hired at Notre Dame.  Both Chicago PhDs were hired at Columbia or Barnard (tenure-stream Barnard faculty are part of the Columbia graduate program faculty). 

Below the fold, a list of PhDs by school (corrections welcome, of course):

An interesting essay on Trump, fascism, "big lies," and the future

A good piece of writing by historian Timothy Snyder (Yale), that many of you may have already seen, but if not, it's worth reading, even though it overemphasizes the racist aspects of all this (as real as it is, racism is largely epiphenomenal [type-epiphenomenal, for my philosophy readers!]).   An excerpt from later in the essay:

Trump’s coup attempt of 2020-21, like other failed coup attempts, is a warning for those who care about the rule of law and a lesson for those who do not. His pre-fascism revealed a possibility for American politics. For a coup to work in 2024, the breakers [Repugs like Josh Hawley, who would be glad to undermine the whole democratic system] will require something that Trump never quite had: an angry minority, organized for nationwide violence, ready to add intimidation to an election. Four years of amplifying a big lie just might get them this. To claim that the other side stole an election is to promise to steal one yourself. It is also to claim that the other side deserves to be punished.

Informed observers inside and outside government agree that right-wing white supremacism is the greatest terrorist threat to the United States. Gun sales in 2020 hit an astonishing high. History shows that political violence follows when prominent leaders of major political parties openly embrace paranoia.

 

More on the plagiarism allegations against the new rector of Boğaziçi University

A more systematic analysis here.  What an embarrassment!

Great moments in obscure rock 'n' roll: Bang, "Mother," 1972

Another great number (this from their second album) from the Philadelphia hard rock trio that deserved to be much more successful than, alas, they were:

 

Petition in support of faculty and students at Boğaziçi University

Please sign.  (Earlier coverage.)   I'm told by people there that Turkey is very keen for the University to do better in world university rankings, so the prospect of being denounced internationally by faculty matters to them.

There is no bottom to dumb, again

A friend of mine in New York City sent me this e-mail from the actual head of an investment firm.  It is below the fold.  No comment needed, the message speaks for itself.

Here's what the stormtrooper riot really looked like

I had not seen a lot of this footage before, some of it quite graphic.

 

Some sensible comments on the anti-Stock letter

The error-ridden letter attacking Kathleen Stock now has several hundred signatures; strikingly, most signatories are students (some, I believe, undergraduate students), and maybe a third are actually philosophy faculty.  (The majority of signatories, faculty and students alike, are active Twitter users, a notable aspect of this display, related to the "group polarization" phenomenon on Twitter we've noted before.)   As philosopher Jason Stanley (Yale) observed on Twitter, "maybe 1% of tenured professors in top 20 Philosophy departments" signed the letter.  I count just nine, out of some 350 or so faculty in these departments, so maybe 2-3%.  I saw no signatories at all from NYU, Rutgers, Harvard, Berkeley, UCLA, Columbia, Texas, Brown, Notre Dame, Arizona, etc., and only one each from MIT, Yale, Pittsburgh, CUNY, North Carolina, Michigan, and Stanford.  Southern California has the "distinction" of being the only U.S. top 20 department with two signatories.  I also saw no faculty signatories from Oxford or Cambridge.

Jason concludes from all this (and the fact that Stock got an OBE and was invited to speak at the Aristotelian Society in the UK [Jason notes he's never been invited]) that senior philosophers support Stock.   I hope that's right, but I don't think the abductive inference is very strong:  senior philosophers haven't much of anything to do with the OBE, and the Aristotelian Society regularly invites philosophers "despite [their] having very few publications or citations" (compared to Jason).  But the real problem, I suspect, is that (1) most senior philosophers have no views at all about Stock's Gender Critical Feminism; and (2) most senior philosophers are skeptical of "open letters," especially those involving "the usual suspects" in philosophy whose credibility is nil, and especially now that everyone knows the letter is a mess.

The injunction to be fully present "in the now"

Philosopher John Martin Fischer (UC Riverside) comments.

God bless Denmark

A new Danish children's show about a man with a very long penis that can do all sorts of (non-sexual) things.  Somehow I suspect PBS in America won't pick this one up.

The monster-child is now running scared...

...as his decision to read this speech written by someone else makes clear.  But until he is jailed or expired, no one is safe.

An amusing tweet from yesterday...

...from philosopher Nate Charlow (Toronto).

Some thoughts and questions the day after the Trump stormtrooper riot at the U.S. Capitol

1.  If a mostly unarmed mob can so easily breach the Capitol, how hard could it be for a smaller number of armed "professionals" to do so?  Presumably every country with grievances against the U.S. (a rather long list) is now exploring the possibility of an armed strike on the Capitol.   Certainly domestic terrorists are too.

2.  What are the rules for the use of deadly force by the Capitol police?   It could be that the rules are very strict, more so than for many local police.  It could also be that the police lack training about how and when to use deadly force.   The police shot one intruder inside the Capitol as she and others were trying to access the House Chamber.  Why only one?  Was that proper or improper under the circumstances? [Note: I've fixed the details about the circumstances in which the person was shot.]

3.  Even elements of the ruling class have had enough, and are calling for action against Trump, who incited his stormtroopers.  (See also.)   Will the Cabinet remove him? Will the House impeach and the Senate convict?  My guess is neither will happen for fear of bringing on another round of stormtrooper violence.  In that respect,the stormtrooper riot could be considered a victory for the fascists in our midst.  (Addendum:  more on some of the fascists involved.)

"Virtual Dissertation Groups," once again

Joshua Smart asked me to share this, which I'm happy to do:

What it is: VDG is a free service for those working on their doctoral dissertations in philosophy. Since 2014, we’ve connected students from over 30 countries to provide peer feedback on dissertation work with a minimal time commitment.

How it works: Each dissertator is placed in a group of three on the basis of a short survey about their project/area of work. About once a month, one member sends some work to the others—3,000 – 6,000 words—who then return feedback and comments in a week or so. (While this has typically been in the form of written comments, the survey now includes an option to indicate a preference for holding video discussions.)

Why it’s good: While advisors and committees are important, it can be incredibly helpful to discuss one’s work with peers in a lower-stakes environment, and it can be particularly enlightening to do so with those who take a different approach, outlook, or focus. Not only that, but there is evidence from psychological research that even just thinking about problems in relation to persons who are geographically distant can promote creative insights. With students in programs from many states, countries, and every continent (well, except Antarctica), Virtual Dissertation Groups is a great way to capture some of these benefits!

How to Join: To sign up, just fill out the short survey at www.jasmartphilosophy.com/virtual-dissertation-groups. Sign ups are open through January 16th (conditional on availability afterward).  

Democrats win both Senate seats in Georgia...

...which is good news, assuming the man in the viking hat cedes control:

"The Capitol seems to be under the control of a man in a viking hat." -- Mark Leibovich, Chief National Correspondent, NYT

APA announces 2020 prizes

The full list is here.

Meanwhile, Trump's stormtroopers are rioting at the U.S. Capitol...

...which has stopped the certifiction of the electoral votes.  This is grotesque, but the predictable consequence of Trump's incitement and the endless lying by Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones, Sean Hannity, and the others.  

The "Anti-Kathleen Stock" open letter is full of mistakes, fact-free speculation and misleading innuendo

Various folks have contacted me about the errors in the open letter defaming Kathleen Stock for being awarded an OBE.  (I suppose no one should be surprised by this given the involvement of smarmy Jonathan Ichikawa in drafting this.)  It might be useful to address the major errors in one place, so here goes:

1.  The letter states, falsely, that Professor Stock is "best-known" for her “opposition to the UK Gender Recognition Act and the importance of self-identification to establish gender identity.”  In fact, Professor Stock supports the UK's Gender Recognition Act (GRA), and it is the letter's signatories who oppose it in its current form.   Professor Stock opposed a proposed amendment to the Act that would have changed the legal process for altering one's gender, so that self-identification as a particular gender would trigger a change in one's legal rights.  (The letter also adds, misleadingly, that Professor Stock is "best-known" for "advocating that trans women should be excluded from places like women’s locker rooms or shelters,” even though Professor Stock is on record as supporting "the continued function of single-sex spaces as traditionally understood," which already includes trans women (consistent with the GRA).  The concern has always been that permitting self-ID to determine legal gender will result in people with obviously male phenotypic features, including genitalia, into these spaces:   some women, obviously, might find this unpleasant. She also is on record as supporting current UK law which makes "gender reassignment" a protected characteristic under the Equality Act.)

Georgia miracle?

The Democrats have claimed one of the two open Senate seats in Georgia, and are ahead in the other race as well by a very slim margin.   With total control of Congress and the Executive, the Democrats cab accomplish some important things (e.g., adding a public option to the Affordable Care Act, which should have been done originally, but was opposed by the whore of the insurance industry, Senator Lieberman [a Democrat!], of Connecticut).   But even with just one of the two seats, the Biden Administration is in a much better position, since they need only flip one Republican Senator to get things done, and there are several possibilities, most obviously Maine's Susan Collins, who has been friendly with Biden since their time together in the Senate.

Of course, the anticipated mischief by the Fascist Caucus today in Washington is significant primarily for what it portends for the future, none of which is good, and some of which is possibly chilling.

Richard Marshall interviews Richard Swinburne (Oxford)...

...at 3:16 AM.

PhD programs that have suspended admissions for 2020-21

CHE has a comprehensive list.  Humanities fields dominate.

Texas congressman: if the Georgia Senate seats go to Democrats...

...we'll go from "cold" to "hot" Civil War.

Authoritarian crackdown at Bogazici U in Istanbul

Following up on this:   welcome to Bogazici University in Istanbul this morning; remember this photo the next time you're filling out the surveys for the world university rankings.  According to someone there, 9 students were arrested in raids beginning at 7:30 am, and there are arrest warrants out for 28 more students:

The Anti-Kathleen Stock letter is now public

The one we alluded to the other day is now public.   The first sentence reads:

We are professional academic philosophers committed to the inclusion and acceptance of trans and gender non-conforming people, both in the public at large, and within philosophy in particular.

I strongly agree with that and would have signed any statement whose message was that (as anyone paying attention knows).   The rest of the letter, however, is a non-sequitur on that opening statement, whose shorter version is:   "Fuck you Kathleen Stock."   (Given the role of smarmy Jonathan Ichikawa in writing the statement, this is hardly a surprise.)

What is it like to be a philosopher? Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò (Georgetown) edition

Here.

You heard it here first back in 2016: Trump thinks like a Mafia Don

The audiotape of Trump's "discussion" with the Georgia election officials  just confirms that he's a mobster at heart.

Another academic libel suit

Media and communications professor Mark Crispin Miller (NYU) is suing his colleagues for defaming him.  If the statements at issue are, indeed, false, then he should prevail, since some are plainly factual and plainly damaging (some may even constitute per se defamation, meaning Professor Miller would not need to prove damage to recover).  (See especially paragraph 23 of the complaint, which calls to mind earlier defamation of Professor Stock.)   There is an interview with Professor Miller about the case here.  I suspect we will see more lawsuits like this, as academics and students become increasingly reckless with open denunciations, letters and petitions.

(As an aside, Miller does seem to be clueless about COVID, but that's irrelevant to most of the defamation claims at issue.)

(Thanks to S. Wes for the pointer.)

Richard Marshall interviews Andrew Brook (Carleton)...

...at 3:16 AM.

Canadian citizens and permanent residents: please sign this petition to help those in Canada suffering from ALS

The petition is here, and this news article gives some context.   The petition closes tomorrow, so time is of the essence.   A dear friend is suffering with ALS; the availability of experimental treatments is quite literally a life and death matter.

Political apparatchik appointed head of Boğaziçi University in Istanbul, students allege multiple instances of plagiarism in his work

It's bad enough that the fascist Erdogan has appointed a political flunkie to head one of Turkey's leading universities; now this e-mail from students is circulating (and I was sent a copy by a philosopher in the UK):

I hope this e-mail finds you well. I am a student at Boğaziçi University (İstanbul/Turkey) and we, as students, have a problem with our new rector. We are heartily sorry to inform you that the newly appointed chancellor of our university, Prof. Dr. Melih Bulu has been accused of plagiarizing the article titled “The environment and the entrepreneurial city: searching for the urban ‘sustainability fix’ in Manchester and Leeds” in one of his articles prepared in 2011. As students, we feel uncomfortable and unfortunate to have someone who plagiarizes as an administrator in our school. We do not want to have him as our rector, therefore, we kindly request you to raise awareness against this incident. We would like to hear your suggestions on action we can take.

And also, we think that it is very important to make an announcement about this issue in universal academic media. This is why we requested your help. How can we make this visible in the academic community?

PS: You can see all of the examples of his plagiarism through the link: https://twitter.com/06jank/status/1345439838397411330?s=21

We will be waiting for your response.

Regards,

Boğaziçi Students

The smarmy Jonathan Ichikawa is up to his usual mischief

Philosopher Kathleen Stock (Sussex) tweets:

Professor Antony Duff (emeritus, Stirling), a distinguished philosopher of law, sent me the letter, with this apt observation:

The draft "open letter" is of course disgraceful, though quite unsurprising, given its author(s), but I was particularly struck by the request that I not "pass on the details of this invitation, or this letter, for the time being": I'm not sure whether to find this conspiratorial tone, with its suggestion of a risky attempt to fight back against oppressors from whom the plans for resistance must be kept secret, pathetic or sinister.

I can predict at least three dozen of the first signatories, as I'm sure any reader who has been following this nonsense can do as well.

Dominic Berry is drawing a line!

MOVING TO FRONT FROM YESTERDAY:  UPDATED

As Professor Alice Sullivan (Sociology, UCL) notes on Twitter, Dr. Berry (LSE) was sufficiently outraged by the OBE awarded to Professor Stock, that he has announced on Twitter that he will not tolerate anyone even "following" Nigel Warburton on Twitter, since Dr. Warburton (host of the great PhilosophyBites podcast) had the audacity to interview Professor Stock*:

While this display certainly makes Dr. Berry look like an intolerant nut, I disagree with Professor Sullivan that this is a matter for his employer.  Until this behavior crosses over from Twitter ranting to workplace misconduct, the LSE should stay out of it.

ADDENDUM:   Amusingly, Dr. Warburton has gained many followers since Dr. Berry's ultimatum.

ANOTHER:   Dr. Berry's "infantile and illiberal" attitude has prompted a rare serious rebuke from the funniest academic on Twitter!

UPDATE:   On Twitter, Colin Wight points out to me that the unhinged Dr. Berry has gone beyond purging his Twitter following, making clear that he will not confine his intolerance of those with differing and lawful views to Twitter, but will bring it into the workplace.  (By "transphobe," he means people, like Professor Stock, who think biological sex, rather than "gender identity," should form the basis for legal protections for women.)   So Professor Sullivan was correct:  LSE needs to speak to this maniac.   Zealots like this are a threat to the integrity of the academy.

(For those who can't see the Twitter link, here is what Dominic Berry writes:  "Being a keyboard warrior isn't enough...I also hope these statements show transphobes, even polite clever ones, they aren't welcome anywhere near where I work. At all. Zero."

ANOTHER:  Nigel Warburton points out that LSE has a rather good code about free speech.  It's plain that Dr. Berry rejects its principles and has now made a public threat to put that rejection into practice in his workplace at the LSE.

*Nigel Warburton tells me that he actually did the interview with Professor Stock about her work in aesthetics, and that David Edmonds did the interview with Professor Stock about gender identity.  So either Dr. Berry is very strongly opposed to Professor Stock's views on fiction or he is shunning the wrong person!

Articles from the Journal of Aesthetic and Art Criticism...

...are currently open access (not sure how long this will last, however).