Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

Blast from the past: On an irony in the evolution of "standpoint epistemology"

Back in 2016.  And see also.

The PhD field with the fewest first-generation students?

Economics, of course.  I guess this is what happens when a discipline is defined by a class-specific ideology!

"Philosophers at risk" visiting scholar opportunity at Cornell

Details here:  

The visiting position is for a duration of 2–4 months, anytime during the academic year at Cornell. The fellowship provides air-travel expenses; a stipend of $7,000–$9,000 (depending on duration of stay); assistance with US visa application; full access to library and other scholarly resources at Cornell; and other, informal, academic assistance as may be needed. The visiting fellow will be hosted by the Sage School of Philosophy at Cornell....

Eligible applicants include those "at serious risk of political, ethnic, or religious harassment or persecution in their country of residence," among other eligibility requirements.  U.S. residents are not eligible (even if, like Professor Kershnar at Fredonia, they are targets of political persecution for their research).

Pereboom on free will

MOVING TO FRONT FROM FEBRUARY 9--SEVERAL OTHER LINKS TO CURRENTLY FREE BOOKS IN THE COMMENTS

The new book by Derk Pereboom (Cornell) on free will in the Cambridge Elements series is free online for the next two weeks!   I've read a bit of it now, and have read Pereboom's other work:  if you want to get a sense of the contemporary debate, this is a great opportunity!  If there are other worthy titles in that series currently available for free, please note them in the comments.  You don't need to format the hyperlink, just cut-and-paste the URL.

Good undergraduate experiences in philosophy?

MOVING TO FRONT FROM YESTERDAY--MORE COMMENTS WELCOME

A philosopher elsewhere writes:

I'm curious about whether your blog's readers have a sense of which American colleges and universities offer the best philosophy education for undergraduates (not necessarily undergraduates intending to make a career of philosophy). I'd be interested even in anecdotal evidence, such as personally good (or bad) experiences that people have had studying philosophy as undergrads. 

I'm asking because I have a daughter who is approaching college age, and other things being equal (an important caveat) I'd like her to go somewhere that has a good philosophy program for undergraduates.

The PGR has long had a section on undergraduate study (the section for the 2021 PGR is being updated), but I take it what is sought here are reports from current or former undergraduates or from parents whose kids had good experiences at particular schools.  Please include a valid email address, and for negative comments, a name is preferred in addition to the email address (which will not appear).

Blast from the past: Farewell to the Eastern APA, Hello to Skype!

Back in December 2010, and of course the change has largely come to pass (albeit with Zoom mostly taking the place of Skype).

Another Title IX controversy, this time at Harvard

MOVING TO FRONT, ORIGINALLY POSTED FEBRUARY 7--MULTIPLE UPDATES

It involves the anthropologist John Comaroff (who used to be here, but I do not know him at all), and has now led to an open letter in his defense from several dozen Harvard colleagues.

UPDATE:  The female complainants about Professor Comaroff have now sued Harvard University.

State legislation targetting "critical race theory" and free speech

Joseph Henderson on Twitter calls my attention to this useful compilation of the all the enacted or pending legislation targetting speech based on its content.  Many (but not all) of these bills are (or, if enacted, will be) unconstitutional--assuming, of course, that the more conservative courts don't invent new doctrines to rationalize them.  But I think that's unlikely with those that target higher education in particular.

U.S. Free Speech Union on the ACLU's abandonment of free speech

Unfortunately, this critique is warranted.  An excerpt:

Many over the years have accused the ACLU of making a virtue out of practicing a kind of reductio ad absurdum in reverse, by not only defending the rights of the most marginal and often despised one percent among us but also insisting that those rights be honored by the rest of us, the 99 percent whose opinions on that one percent typically range from indifference to hostility. But the ACLU has done so on the principle that it is vital to defend the freedoms and rights of even the most repugnant among us, lest the very repugnance of such people confuse us into committing self-sabotage on our own freedoms and rights, which are inescapably the same freedoms and rights. Were we to make them situational, contingent upon popularity, those freedoms and rights (our own and everyone’s) would start to erode—gradually, then suddenly (to quote Hemingway)....

Tiwald from San Francisco State to Hong Kong

Justin Tiwald, a leading expert on Chinese philosophy at San Francisco State University, has accepted appointment as Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong, starting in August 2022.

Richard Marshall interviews Kristin Gjesdal (Temple)...

...at 3:16 AM.

"Democracy and the polarization trap"

Philosopher Robert Talisse (Vanderbilt) comments.

Gertrude Stein studied philosophy and psychology with William James...

...but didn't feel like taking the philosophy final one day.  No problem, said Professor James!

Do secular societies need rituals?

Philosopher Noel Carroll (CUNY Grad Center), political theorist Hannah Dawson (King's College, London) and others discuss at IAITV.

More on Fredonia's treatment of philosophy professor Stephen Kershnar

Keith Whittington (Princeton) makes an interesting point:

It remains to be seen how SUNY Fredonia would distinguish Professor Kershnar's discussion of these issues on the Brain a Vat podcast in 2022, which happened to attract the attention of conservative activists, from his discussion of these issues in a scholarly monograph published in 2015 or in his 2001 or 2008 articles in scholarly journals that first developed those arguments.  Interestingly, he was promoted to full professor after the publication of the first of those articles and was serving as department chair when the book was published. It is almost as if the university recognized that he was doing ordinary philosophical work until the outside world started calling for his head. And almost as if SUNY Fredonia would be equally willing to throw any other professor under the bus if their scholarly work suddenly attracted public controversy.

Blast from the past: Capitalism and culture

Back in 2015, with reading suggestions from readers.

ADDENDUM:  Reader Don Sudduth suggested opening comments for relevant literature on this topic since 2015.

Keith Whittington talks with Jeff McMahan (Oxford) about "SUNY Fredonia, Moral Philosophy, and Forbidden Questions"

Here.

"New Left" activist, critic, writer Todd Gitlin has died

The New York Times obituary is here.  We linked periodically to his essays over the years (mostly, but not always, favorably).  I do owe to Professor Gitlin the best line ever from a reader:  writing on Robert Paul Wolff's blog, Gitlin quipped:  "I only learned of your blog a couple of weeks ago, per Leiter, whom I've been reading in search of intelligent life online."

Covid becoming "endemic" is not a good thing, and we don't know what that will be like

Many good points in this Atlantic essay; an excerpt:

What experts do agree on is that endemicity is not monolithic. The water in that tub might be hot or cold; the level it plateaus at can be very high or very low. The world’s pathogens run the gamut. Viruses such as herpes simplex 1, which causes cold sores and, less commonly, genital herpes, are considered endemic throughout the world. In the United States, HSV-1 affects, by some estimates, at least half of Americans, though most of the infections are asymptomatic or not terribly severe, especially among adults. Malaria, meanwhile, sickens more than 200 million people a year, and kills at least 400,000, most of them under the age of 5. That, too, is endemicity.

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

In Memoriam: Frank Cunningham (1940-2022)

A longtime member of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Toronto, he was well-known for his work in political philosophy and democratic theory.  The Toronto memorial notice is here.

(Thanks to Igor Shoikhedbrod for the pointer.)

Great moments in obscure rock 'n' roll: Status Quo, "Spinning Wheel Blues," 1970

This British rock band may be the most aptly named band in history, since they have always adjusted their style to the current fashions, from psychedelic, to 70s/80s stadium rock, to, in this obscure case, the British blues explosion (but I actually like this number the best):

 

YouTube pulls "Brain in a Vat" episode featuring Kershnar (UPDATED)

MOVING TO FRONT FROM FEBRUARY 3--YOU TUBE HAS RESTORED THE VIDEO--SEE BELOW

This captures pretty well the dystopian circumstances we live in:  YouTube has removed the podcast with philosopher Stephen Kershnar (on a well-established series, Brain in a Vat, whose proprietors alerted me to this) because it violated "community guidelines," especially those concerning "child safety":

We have zero tolerance for predatory behaviour on YouTube. Content that sexualises minors in any way is not allowed on YouTube.

This is beyond absurd:  Kershnar says pedophilia should be illegal, and a philosophical question about sexual mores does not "sexualize" anyone.  Sexual arousal is about the last reaction anyone could have to any episode of Brain in a Vat. 

UPDATE:   The interview is still available here, and the podcast hosts discuss the controversy about the interview here and the value of free discussion of controversial topics.

ANOTHER (2/5/22):   Mark Oppenheimer from Brain in a Vat writes:

We received the following message from YouTube. So the video is back up. We referenced the Leiter Reports article on the incident in our appeal, which we believe made an enormous difference in turning the tide. 

We mentioned FIRE and the AFA in the description of the original video to let our viewers know about their valiant efforts to stand up for academic freedom.

Hello Brain in a Vat,

We have reviewed your appeal for the following content:

Video: Sexual Taboos | Stephen Kershnar

After taking another look, we can confirm that your content does not violate our Community Guidelines.

Thanks for your patience while we reviewed this appeal. Our goal is to make sure content doesn't violate our Community Guidelines so that YouTube can be a safe place for all - and sometimes we make mistakes trying to get it right. We're sorry for any frustration our mistake caused you, and we appreciate you letting us know.

 

Open letter from faculty to SUNY-Fredonia President about the Kershnar case

F.I.R.E. has posted it, and there is information about how to add your name as a signatory.  The letter was drafted initially by Keith Whittington, with some modest input from me and a couple of others.  An excerpt:

It is unquestionably true that Professor Kershnar was discussing extremely sensitive topics during this interview (though his views have been widely misrepresented – he argues, for example, that pedophilia should in fact be illegal), just as he discusses such sensitive topics in applied ethics in his research and teaching. Many scholars and members of the public will no doubt disagree with his arguments and his conclusions, and some might find any discussion of these issues at all to be disturbing.

But academic freedom protects Professor Kershnar in discussing those topics, offering those arguments, and reaching those conclusions, regardless of whether we agree with them or not. Sanctioning Professor Kershnar for the ideas he expressed in an hour-long serious discussion on the respected philosophy podcast “Brain in a Vat” attacks the very heart of the academic enterprise.

One philosopher's journey into the field

Philosopher of biology and race Quayshawn Spencer (Penn) tells his quite interesting story, noting many f the individuals (including philosopher Richard Boyd) who made a difference.

Why would Putin risk invading Ukraine?

This isn't the reason, although most of what it says about Putin is true.  John Mearsheimer identified the real reason back in 2014, and it's the same reason the U.S. brought the world to the brink of nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis, and the same reason the U.S. would never permit Mexico, for example, to join a military alliance with China or Russia.  As Mearsheimer writes:

Putin’s actions should be easy to comprehend. A huge expanse of land that Napoleonic France, imperial Germany, and Nazi Germany all crossed to strike at Russia itself, Ukraine serves as a buffer state of enormous strategic importance to Russia. No Russian leader would tolerate a military alliance that was Moscow’s mortal enemy until recently moving into Ukraine. Nor would any Russian leader stand idly by while the West helped install a government there that was determined to integrate Ukraine into the West.

"Brain in a Vat" hosts explain the Kershnar interview and the value of free speech

Here.  (Earlier coverage.)

"Geography of Philosophy" project

The video!  (More information here.)

SUNY Fredonia philosophy professor under attack for doing philosophy

The trouble arose from his appearance on the excellent Brain in a Vat philosophy show, where he discussed various sexual taboos and their moral justifications but did not advocate violating any of them.  It has now led the clueless Fredonia President to announce there will be an "investigation."  I gather F.I.R.E. has already offered to help Professor Kershnar, a philosopher who frequently defends contrarian views on a range of applied ethics questions.  (Update:  The podcasts is still available here, for those who would like to hear the actual interview, rather than the media distortions of it.)

UPDATE:  A strong letter from the AFA to SUNY-Fredonia.

ANOTHER:  The Fredonia President is now asking to be sued by Pofessor Kershnar; the President's latest message to the community below the fold:

Thomas Nagel on Anscombe, Foot, Midgley, and Murdoch...

...at the London Review of Books.  (You may need to create a free account to read this.)  Philosophically informative, as one would expect, the review also includes some interesting personal recollections by Nagel:

As an undergraduate at Cornell, I had been a student of Norman Malcolm – like Anscombe a student and close friend of Wittgenstein – and when I went to Oxford as a graduate student in 1958, it was with an introduction from him to Anscombe. I knew her as the translator of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, as the author of the pathbreaking monograph Intention, and as the unsuccessful opponent of Truman’s degree. I spent many hours discussing philosophy in her chaotic house in St John Street, full of children and smoke (at the time one could buy cigarettes in boxes of a hundred, and there was always such a box next to her). She had a beautiful, ethereal voice and a beautiful face with one lazy eye, and her body was hidden in shapeless steerage clothes.

The invention of the "middle class" in America

Some interesting points in this book review:

Samuel places special emphasis on the ideological construction of the US as a “middle-class nation, the first of its kind in history.” In the first post-war years, he tells us, despite rising inflation that put a tight squeeze on middle-class income, the vast majority of Americans insisted upon defining themselves as members of the middle class, while simultaneously refusing to acknowledge class difference as a determinant of American social experience. According to Samuel, this phenomenon was the result of “two of the nation’s core myths: that [America is] a class-free society and, paradoxically, that individuals could rise in class through ‘upward mobility’.” Belief in American classlessness was ideologically manipulated to argue in favor of “the American Way of Life,” which was pitted against the oppressive classlessness of Soviet Communism. Simultaneously, the widespread notion that the vast majority of Americans were members of one massive class, obscured the existence of social disparities and class divisions.

How "soft fascism" will come to America if the Republicans control the federal government come January 2025

This probably gets it right:

[Professor] Kitschelt [Duke, Political Science] cited Orban as a model for Trump in achieving the goals of:

• Undermining the professionalism and neutrality of the judiciary, starting with the attorney general’s office.

• Undermining the nonpartisanship of the military, using the military for domestic purposes to repress civil liberties and liberal opposition to the erosion of American democracy.

• Redeploying the national domestic security apparatus — above all, the F.B.I. — for partisan purposes.

• Passing libel legislation to harass and undercut the liberal media and journalists, with the objective to drive them economically out of business, while consolidating conservative media empires and social websites.

Blast from the past: top 50 U.S. research universities based on membership in the National Academy of Sciences

Back in 2018, probably not much different now.

Farewell to Blackwell's bookshop in Oxford?

The family is putting the store up for sale.  Hopefully the buyer will preserve its outstanding academic book selection, especially in philosophy!

Richard Marshall interviews Immanuel Kant (Konigsberg)...

...at 3:16 AM.

Loyalty oaths, redux, in New Hampshire

This time, it's not the "loyal to diversity" kind, but the more traditional one:  loyalty to white, capitalist America.  This is so brazenly unconstitutional, it defies belief.

University of Sydney adopts restructuring plan...

...that reorganizes administrative units (including philosophy) but involves no cuts to faculty positions.  Australian readers:  what is going on?  Is this good, bad, indifferent?

Former UCLA philosophy postdoc (and Duke PhD) arrested in Colorado after making threats of violence against UCLA Department and faculty

I generally prefer to ignore tabloid stuff like this, especially as the suspect plainly suffers from serious mental health problems, but so many folks have been sending links to me, I will just note that he has been arrested in Colorado.  (Another story.)

Americans who support political violence: 20% of the population, or more like 2%?

MOVING TO FRONT FROM JANUARY 27--UPDATED

These political scientists argue for the lower figure:

[S]elf-reported attitudes on political violence are biased upwards because of respondent disengagement and survey questions that allow multiple interpretations of political violence. Addressing question wording and respondent disengagement, we find that the median ofexisting estimates of support for partisan violence is nearly 8 times larger than the median of our estimates (18.5% versus 2.4%). Critically, we show the prior estimates overstate support for political violence because of random responding by disengaged respondents.

d    Of course, if the 2.4% are heavily armed, that could still result in a lot of civil unrest.

 

  u     UPDATE:  One of the political scientists critiqued in the above-linked article responds here.  (Thanks to Jonathan Surovell for the pointer.)

UD

UP

A profile of the critic and intellectual Adolph Reed in The New Yorker

Here, prompted in part by his new book about growing up in the Jim Crow South (which I've been reading and will write more about soon--certainly recommended).   The article's headline is ironic:  "The Marxist who antagonizes liberals and the left."  Liberals, yes; but Reed is the left, so what in the world could "the left" refer to?  I guess the "anti-racists" he excoriates, but they aren't the left, as Reed himself has written. 

A brief excerpt below the fold:

An interesting perspective on the prospects for political violence in the U.S....

...from a scholar at Chicago (whom I do not know); an excerpt:

The real risk, small but terrible, is that democratic erosion we talked about earlier. The last few years have seen slippages small and large: a President who made dishonesty even more routine than usual; the politicization of the administrative state; the historically high levels of polarization between the two parties; the woeful level of public trust in government getting worse; the rise of populism; and the utter failure of government to effectively address all manner of policy challenges.

Also, you know who noticed the resilience of American institutions in 2020? Trump supporters. When Trump contested the 2020 election, the vast majority of Republican  election administrators—secretaries of state, county boards of elections, state judges, and so on—upheld Biden’s victory, no matter how pro-Trump they were personally. That’s why the most worrying activity at the moment is not white power marches or restive militias. It is the short-sighted but disciplined slice of the Republican party who are working to fill those offices with partisans who are more willing to trade democracy for short term political gain.

German-speaking Society for Analytic Philosophy in Europe issues statement in support of Prof. Kathleen Stock...

..in the wake of her resignation from the University of Sussex.  The full statement is here (in German, of course).  As the statement notes, "Transphobia is like homophobia, racism, Islamophobia and antisemitism a form of group-based hostility that is, correctly, morally proscribed.  Public accusations of any one of these is a sharp weapon, which should not be used lightly."  It goes on to observe that within the Society, "people also will take different positions on this dispute between Stock and her opponents.  One need not resolve this dispute, however, in order to be be clearly opposed to unacceptable ways of grappling with it," such as calls for institutional sanctions (instead of substantive critique) and cancellations of lectures.