Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

Otto Neurath on "scientific management"

This was an aspect of his work with which I was unfamiliar.  Comments from those more knowledgeable about the accuracy of this account welcome.

Law schools and USNews.com rankings

Readers will have heard about the revolt (which now seems to be petering out) against the awful USNews.com law school rankings (which involve inexplicable weightings of a dozen different variables, many involving self-reported data of dubious reliability).  For those interested, I've been covering it on my law school blog:   here, here, here, and here.

Blast from the past: Peter Hacker did not like Timothy Williamson's book

Back in 2009, with discussion.

Were you wondering about the sexual behaviors and orientations of Cambridge University undergraduates?

I wasn't either, but this was still amusing (including the fact that philosophy students had the most sexual partners of any major).

Long Covid and the U.S. labor shortage

This is interesting, and not implausible.  It's clear we haven't fully reckoned with the health and economic implications of Long Covid symptoms.   I commend again to readers philosopher Eric Schliesser's account of his experience.  I know another philosopher in his early 60s who more than six months later still can't concentrate enough to do writing.  I know another in his 30s who was afflicted with such severe vertigo he was unable to teach for a period of time.  I have had briefer exchanges with other philosophers suffering long-term effects, even though the majority of academics I know who have had Covid are fully recovered.  But even in my limited "circle" of academics afflicted with Covid, those with lingering effects, some serious, is about 10%.  Over an entire population that's a public health crisis, not just an individual tragedy.  If others want to share their experiences, that might be beneficial for others, as Professor Schliesser's account has been.   Please use a real email, but you need not use your real name.

New transcriptions of lectures by Hegel (at Heidelberg) found

The scholar who found them thinks it is hugely important, perhaps unsurprisingly, but the linked account doesn't really give any details that would enable one to judge.  It is several thousand pages worth, including of Hegel's lectures on aesthetics.  So probably there are interesting items there.  Comments are open for readers who may know more details.

(Thanks to Brian O'Connor for the pointer.)

Blast from the past: Steve Pyke's "philosophers" on philosophy

Back in 2011.

"Open letter" by faculty in the College of Science and Mathematics at U Mass/Boston opposing a new mission statement...

...that eviscerates the actual purpose of the university as a place where knowledge is generated and disseminated.  (Earlier coverage here, here, and here.)

Shapiro from Simon Fraser to McGill

I had missed this (it was effective last month):  Lisa Shapiro (feminist philosophy, early modern philosophy), previously Professor of Philosophy at Simon Fraser University, has become Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Professor of Philosophy at McGill University.

Blast from the past: "The tragedy of student suicide"

Back in 2018, with reader discussion.

Great moments in obscure rock 'n' roll: Uriah Heep, "What Should Be Done," 1971

Not quite as obscure as some other featured bands (although it is probably unknown to many younger readers), the British hard rock/progressive rock band Uriah Heep enjoyed considerable success in the UK, Northern Europe, Australia, Japan, and to some extent in the U.S. from roughly 1972-1976.   This relatively "mellow" number that I've always liked comes from an album that did not fare as well, Look at Yourself (we featured several years ago a live version of a much more raucous number from that same album):

 

Jobs at selective liberal arts colleges and the expected decline in college enrollments in the coming years

At Philosopher's Cocoon, there is an interesting discussion of expected changes in enrollment patterns and whether that is in any way connected to a perception of fewer jobs at SLACs this fall.  Comments are open there.

The "sociology" of literary studies

Reader Scott Newstok called my attention to this very interesting LRB review essay of John Guillory's latest attempt to look at the history and organization of literary studies as a field.  A brief excerpt:

For Guillory, the pivotal development in the whole story was the arrival of ‘criticism’ as the dominant approach in the 1920s and 1930s, whether in the form of I.A. Richards’s ‘practical criticism’ in the UK or the New Critics’ ‘close reading’ in the US. This is when, in his view, literary studies became a discipline. But the attempt to turn criticism into a regulated and self-replicating profession generated all kinds of tensions, and Guillory urges that many of the issues agitating the field in recent decades are best seen as a working out of these tensions. For example, ‘criticism’ never quite shook off the aspiration to be in some way the criticism of society, not just literature, saddling the activity with exaggerated ambitions still evident today. At the same time, the logic of professionalism required a form of specialisation, a process carried further in the pressures towards intradisciplinary specialisation, which for the past 150 years has tended to take the form of expertise in the literature of a particular period. Even where the most ambitious conception of the discipline retains some overarching claim to underwrite the criticism of society, the cross-grained pressures of professionalisation demand ever greater subdivision: not to specialise is to risk one’s professional status by reverting to being an ‘amateur’.

A similar story might be told about academic philosophy in America one suspects, with the pivotal moment being the logical positivist invasion and takeover of America after WWII.  Thought on Guillory's analysis (or Collini's review) from those more knowledgeable about literary studies welcome (as well as thoughts about the relevance to philosophy).

 

Richard Marshall interviews David Hume...

...at 3:16 AM.

Blast from the past: "Demolishing Gertrude Himmelfarb"

Way back in 2004.

"Salt of the Earth," a blacklisted 1954 movie, makes perfect Thanksgiving day entertainment...

...for those observing the American holiday today (originally posted in 2018):

Based on an actual strike by Mexican-American workers against a zinc mining company, it is set in New Mexico, and uses actual mineworkers and their families in most of the main roles (including the male lead, Juan Chacon--his wife was played by a professional actress, however).   The movie is strongly pro-union, unsurprisingly, but much more  surprisingly, it has a strong pro-feminist twist, that wouldn't have been surprising in 1975, say, but is remarkable for 1954 (I won't spoil that part, you'll have to watch it).  The main writers and directors were blacklisted for refusing to cooperate with the fascist McCarthy Committee, but like other communist sympathizers at the time, they were, in ethical sensibility, well ahead of their time.  (At the end, the movie reveals which actors were "professionals" and which locals--there are several surprises.)

UPDATE:  Readers who enjoy the film may also find this website interesting.

Petition in support of tenure in the Florida public university system

Here.  The petition is prompted by a proposed post-tenure review system.  The basic problem with the proposal is that it eviscerates the due process protections that are supposed to attach to revocation of tenure:  individual decision-makers (chairs, deans, etc.) have too much discretion in this process to deem a faculty member's performance "unsatisfactory," which can lead to immediate termination.

 

Blast from the past: Rosenberg on the threat to our self-understanding posed by neuroscience

Back in 2018, with reader discussion.

American exceptionalism?

Here's a chart, make of it what you will:

Country	Homicide rate per 100,000	Covid deaths per 100,000	Per capita GDP	GINI coefficient (higher=more inequality)	Military expenditures per capita (2019)
United States	4.96	326.90	$69,287	41.50	$2,224
United Kingdom	1.20	312.41	$47,334	35.10	$  720
Ireland	0.87	164.87	$99,152	30.60	$  228
Australia	0.89	62.77	$59,934	34.30	$1,028
Singapore	0.16	29.04	$72,794	36.00	$1,932
Brazil	27.38	324.10	$  7,518	48.90	$  128
Germany	0.95	188.34	$50,801	31.70	$  590
Switzerland	0.59	163.03	$93,457	33.10	$  603
Chile	4.40	325.20	$16,502	44.90	$  273
Israel	1.49	136.44	$51,430	38.60	$2,402

Is it "effective" altruism to give money to Republicans?

SBF did, as well as to conservative Democrats.

Academic freedom and tenure

I spoke to United Campus Workers of Mississippi about the philosophy and mostly law of tenure and academic freedom, and then answered questions related to attacks on tenure and academic freedom in Missisisippi.  The discussion was well-received, and faculty elsewhere might find it useful.  There are a lot of basic facts about what tenure means, and what academic freedom involves, that are often not well-understood.

Did Bankman-Fried and his parents need $121 million worth of property in the Bahamas?

I do wonder how his friends in the "Effective [sic] Altruism" movement thought about choices like these.

Blast from the past: Smoking habit a liability on the job market?

Back in 2008, with discussion.

Ronald Dworkin on Bill Moyers in 1987

This was one year after his book Law's Empire, and also the year of Robert Bork's failed nomination to the Supreme Court, which put originalism as a "method" of constitutional interpretation front and central in public discourse.  He mostly talks about "applied" issues (which, with Dworkin, is just as well, since he makes a hash of the jurisprudential issues):

(Thanks to Michael Sevel for the pointer.)

"Electric Agora" webzine shutting down, new venture will be launched soon

Announcement here.

"Effective [sic] Altruism," Longtermism...and now the FTX crypto-currency disaster

Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the now disgraced FTX founder, was perhaps the most famous proponent of "Effective [sic] Altruism."  His financial and legal troubles--he may even face criminal liability--don't show much about E[sic]A beyond what we already knew:  that it appeals to the super rich (vide the right-wing Elon Musk) because it seems like they're doing something "good" while basically leaving the economic system in which they profit (or plunder) untouched.  (You can see how seriously SBF really took his philosophical commitment to utilitarianism and E[sic]A here.)

One of the parochial oddities of "effective [sic] altruism" is that it has migrated from promoting fairly typical charitable giving to prevent disease in poor countries (which at least is a current problem) to a putative concern with the very distant future (which of course makes it even more appealing to today's billionaires).  This "longtermism" turn was usefully discussed on a long twitter thread awhile back (and a more recent essay).  (The author of that twitter thread, Emilio Torres, also has a more ad hominem thread, that does raise some questions about the honesty and character of some of the "leading lights" of EA--see also.  This is irrelevant to the merits of the positions, although given the FTX fiasco, it may attract more interest now.)   Philosopher Kieran Setiya has penned a philosophical critique of longtermism (as set out by the philosopher William MacAskill), showing that it is implausible.  Some excerpts:

The...shock is how much more MacAskill values survival in the long term over a decrease of suffering and death in the near future. This is the sharp end of longtermism. Most of us agree that (1) world peace is better than (2) the death of 99 percent of the world’s population, which is better in turn than (3) human extinction. But how much better? Where many would see a greater gap between (1) and (2) than between (2) and (3), the longtermist disagrees. The gap between (1) and (2) is a temporary loss of population from which we will (or at least may) bounce back; the gap between (2) and (3) is “trillions upon trillions of people who would otherwise have been born.” This is the “insight” MacAskill credits to the iconic moral philosopher Derek Parfit. It’s the ethical crux of the most alarming claims in MacAskill’s book. And there is no way to evaluate it without dipping our toes into the deep, dark waters of population ethics.

Population ethicists ask how good the world would be with a given population distribution, specified by the number of people existing at various levels of lifetime well-being throughout space and time...

New online and "open access" philosophy of physics journal...

...published by LSE Press, and edited by David Wallace (Pittsburgh) and a who's who of philosophers of physics.

"Billionaires are not our saviors. They are our mistake."

A well-done excoriation of the philanthropy ruse (of which "effective [sic] altruism" provides the latest rationalization):

[B]illionaires, remember, exist at our collective pleasure. If enough of us decided to, we could enact labor, tax, antitrust and regulatory policies to make it hard for anyone to amass that much wealth while so many beg for scraps. It is not only the vast political power of billionaires that keeps us keeping them around, it’s also the popular embrace of certain myths — about the generosity, the genius, the renegade spirit, the above-it-ness of billionaires, to name a few....

[T]he money Mr. Bezos is now so magnanimously distributing was made through his dehumanizing labor practices, his tax avoidance, his influence peddling, his monopolistic power and other tactics that make him a cause of the problems of modern American life rather than a swashbuckling solution....Mega-philanthropists of his ilk tend to give through foundations, which they establish in ways that save them an immense amount in taxes, sometimes merely by moving the money from one of their own accounts to another. Giving will also burnish Mr. Bezos’s reputation, in that way preserving and protecting his opportunity to earn yet more money — and to do more social damage.

Great moments in obscure rock 'n' roll: Universe, "Rolling," 1971

ORIGINALLY POSTED MAY 21, 2016

It doesn't get much more obscure than the one-and-only album by Universe, recorded on the spur of the moment in Norway after their van broke down.  The whole album, with echoes of Cream, Traffic, and Ten Years after, is classic British rock-blues, with a countrified edge.  Here's one standout tune:

 

Since that great "business" genius Elon Musk seems to be destroying Twitter...

...I have decided to set up a Mastodon account, where all tweets are cross-posted.

The war on academic freedom in Florida continues, however

A VAP in Florida writes:

One thing that many are not fully aware of is that the SUS BOG (State University System Board of Governors) has independently incorporated a provision into the system’s regulations that is modeled on the [Stop WOKE Act] tself but is supposed to be enforceable independently as an employment provision. This is SUS BOG Regulation 10.005, “Prohibition of Discrimination in University Training or Instruction.” Most of us here in FL are thrilled that the courts have struck down the state law; but the status of the BOG regulation remains unclear to us. And so the threat to academic freedom continues — but the call is coming from inside the house, so to speak, since it’s the university system’s Board of Governors itself and not only the legislature/DeSantis that is trying to change the conditions of our employment and to weaken our academic freedom protections.

If you are able to draw attention to the continuing uncertainty around the BOG regulation on your blog, or if you find further coverage of this aspect of the situation, I know that many of us in Florida would be very grateful.

I was unaware of this, and I can't see how it can be lawful after the federal court's decision.  The faculty union should seek a declaratory judgment from a federal court to enjoin that provision.  Comments are open for readers with more information about this.

Federal judge in Florida strikes down as unconstitutional Florida's "Stop WOKE Act"

Rightly so, and hopefully other federal courts will soon follow suit in other parts of the country where similar legislation has been passed.

Generation X has more utilitarian leanings than Baby Boomers

That's one curious finding discussed in this video from the Geography of Philosophy project, along with cross-cultural studies about the objectivity of aesthetic judgments, free will, and the Knobe effect:

An interesting question is what explains the differences?  People born between 1965 and 1984 (Gen X) would in the West would have been living through the globalisation of capital and the triumph of neoliberal ideas favoring market transactions as the basis for almost all of economic and social life.    Should it be surprising that those subject to pro-market indoctrination have more utilitarian intuitions?  Perhaps experimental philosophers will dig further into the surface variations they have discovered.

(Thanks to Steve Stich for the pointer.)

Blast from the past: Should one not teach philosophers guilty (or possibly guilty) of sexual harassment?

A discussion back in 2017.  My view is unchanged:  it is pedagogical malparctice not to teach an author whose work is important to the subject because the author has engaged in personal or professional misconduct (other than scholarly fraud that implicates the work in question obviously).

Malte Willer DID like Fabrizio Cariani's book

For our new series of especially favorable book reviews, an excerpt from the conclusion:

Cariani's book combines serious and perceptive work in natural language semantics with insightful reflections on the pragmatics, epistemology, and cognition of our thought and talk about the future. While certain foundational theory choices do not strike me as inevitable, the resulting framework is elegant and predictively powerful. Cariani’s book is a benchmark for future inquiry into how we think and talk about the future.

Williamson on Kripke's legacy

A remarkably accessible essay, that even discusses Kripke's early seminal contribution to modal logic.

Why billionaires love "Effective [sic] Altruism"...

...at The New Republic.

(Thanks to Richard Marshall for the pointer.)

Richard Marshall interviews Paul Elbourne (Oxford)...

...at 3:16 AM.

Why is the Marc Sanders Foundation sponsoring a workshop involving "professional" mentoring directed by the unprofessional Carol Hay?

This is shocking.  This Workshop is great and important (I've heard very good reports over the years), but it should not involve someone guilty of very public and irresponsible professional misconduct.  I would hope that Professors Sayre-McCord and Lam will do something about this.

The ten "most regretted" college majors

Some deserving ones on the list, some surprising ones; this is by percentage of those who majored in a subject who would now have picked a different one:

1.  Journalism (87%)

2.  Sociology (72%)

3.  Liberal arts/general studies (72%) [not sure how this is defined]

4.  Communications (64%)

5.  Education (61%)

6.  Marketing management & research (60%)

7.  Medical/clinical assisting (58%)

8.  Political science/government (56%)

9.  Biology (52%)

9.  English language & literature (52%)

Curious what readers make of this list. 

(Thanks to Ruchira Paul for the pointer.)

UPDATE:  As Professor Mayer points out in the comments, this is based on a survey of “job seekers,” so not at all a representative sample of colleges graduates.  

"Do the guilty deserve punishment?"

John Martin Fischer (UC Riverside) takes on the moral responsibility skeptics at Brain in a Vat.

The threat to academic freedom in teaching and research from the "woke" thought police, an ongoing saga

A biologist at Williams College recounts her experience:

We each have our own woke tipping point—the moment you realize that social justice is no longer what we thought it was, but has instead morphed into an ugly authoritarianism. For me that moment came in 2018, during an invited speaker talk, when the religious scholar Reza Aslan stated that “we need to write on a stone what can and cannot be discussed in colleges.” Students gave this a standing ovation.  Having been born under dictatorship in Brazil, I was alarmed....

Let’s start with teaching. I need to emphasize that this is not hypothetical. The censorious, fearful climate is already affecting the content of what we teach.

One of the most fundamental rules of biology from plants to humans is that the sexes are defined by the size of their gametes—that is, their reproductive cells. Large gametes occur in females; small gametes in males. In humans, an egg is 10 million times bigger than a sperm. There is zero overlap. It is a full binary. 

But in some biology 101 classes, teachers are telling students that sexes—not gender, sex—are on a continuum. At least one college I know teaches with the “gender unicorn” and informs students that it is bigoted to think that humans come in two distinct and discrete sexes. 

The "glories" of Empire

A useful reminder:

Elkins’s catalog of British interrogation methods is extensive and horrifying: inserting needles under fingernails (Malaya); stuffing oil-soaked sand into a man’s mouth (Palestine); inserting “gun barrels, knives, snakes, vermin, sticks, and hot eggs up men’s rectums and into women’s vaginas” (Kenya); pouring large quantities of water up someone’s nose (Palestine); applying electric shocks from car batteries (Kenya); tightening iron rings around a person’s head (Cyprus); subjecting prisoners to intense noise (Northern Ireland); and applying a lighted cigarette to the testicles (Palestine).

Thank God for civilization!

How Birkbeck senior management wrecked the finances of the university

This is a damning expose, and suggests that the only people losing their jobs should be the Vice-Chancellor and his management team; an excerpt:

Published accounts show that at least £35 million of free cash flow has been spent on the acquisition and refurbishment of new buildings since 2016, when the EU referendum signalled forthcoming volatility in the sector. Birkbeck was likely to be disproportionately exposed due to its diverse student make-up and its London location. This was clear signal that the college needed to exploit its agility as a smaller HE institution and develop a new base of applicants. Birkbeck has a record of innovation in this area, once running thousands of successful certificate courses that helped to introduce people to university study, and to begin a degree. (These were later priced out of existence by the college’s leadership.) Instead of changing quickly, drawing on the experience and knowledge of its staff, Birkbeck’s Senior Management Team began a costly programme of investment in physical infrastructure.

Historically, Birkbeck has hired large amounts of Bloomsbury teaching space in the evenings. In a period of expansion this constituted an uncontrolled expenditure, subject to rising rents by the owners. But in a period of uncertainty, where student numbers might fall, this became a competitive advantage. Strategic withdrawal was simple and quick; substantial ongoing overheads could be avoided.

All but one of the delusional 2020 election deniers running to be in charge of their state's elections lost...

...which is hopeful news.  That includes the maniac in Arizona, and others in other swing states.  The only one who won is in a solidly Repug state, Indiana.

"Effective [sic] Altruists" treat girls like "meat" just like guys who don't posture so much

I think that's a fair summary of this:

EA circles...are widely incestous where people mix their work life (in EA cause areas), their often polyamorous love life and social life in one amalgomous mix without strict separations. This is the default status quo. This means that if you’re a reasonably attractive woman entering an EA community, you get a ton of sexual requests to join polycules, often from poly and partnered men. Some of these men control funding for projects and enjoy high status in EA communities and that means there are real downsides to refusing their sexual advances and pressure to say yes, especially if your career is in an EA cause area or is funded by them.....

From experience it appears that, a ‘no’ once said is not enough for many men in EA. Having to keep replenishing that ‘no’ becomes annoying very fast, and becomes harder to give informed consent when socializing in the presence of alcohol/psychedelics. It puts your safety at risk. From experience, EA as a community, has very little respect for monogamy and many men, often competing with each other, will persuade you to join polyamory using LessWrong style jedi mindtricks while they stand to benefit from the erosion of your boundaries. (Edit: I have personally experienced this more than three times in less than one year of attending EA events and that is far too many times. )

Great moments in obscure rock 'n' roll: The Marmalade, "I See the Rain," 1967

ORIGINALLY POSTED JUNE 4, 2016

Reportedly Jimi Hendrix's favorite single of 1967, it flopped in the UK, though this Scottish band went on to have a number of hits (mostly in the UK) that were decidedly more sugary pop than this terrific psychedelic number:

 

University of California academic workers (TAs, post-docs etc.) may strike

MOVING TO FRONT FROM NOVEMBER 10--AN INTERESTING DISCUSSION OF WHAT FACULTY SHOULD DO IF TAs GO ON STRIKE; OTHER COMMENTS WELCOME

Inflation and cost of living are looming large, although I don't see graduate TAs getting 54k per year, but as a bargaining position, it's probably good to aim high.   An LA Times piece here.  Comments are open for more links or for information from those in the UC system knowledgeable about the issues, the negotiations, etc.

Why did the Democrats do relatively well: the Michigan experience

A longtime reader in Michigan shared these interesting observations: 

Democratic (both in the party affiliation and strict senses) politicians did particularly well in Michigan.

1. All state-wide offices (Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State) went to the Democratic candidates.
2. Democrats have a (narrow) majority in the State House and State Senate.  This is the first time that Democrats control the Legislature and the Governor’s office in ~4 decades. 
3. A couple of Congressional districts thought to be toss-ups or Republican leaning went Democratic.  This includes the historically conservative Grand Rapids area. 
4. Two major voter-initiated proposals to modify the State Constitution passed easily.  The nationally prominent one is modification of the constitution to preserve abortion access.  The other is likely just as important.  Rational voting access is now protected by the state constitution.  This step was taken to prevent our presently Republican dominated legislature from enacting more voting restrictions. 

How did this happen?  Three major factors:

The study of philosophy in law schools, and JD/PhD programs in the U.S. (and elsewhere), 2022 edition

This follows up on a 2017 post on this topic, which takes as its starting point the 2017 PGR section on the study of philosophy in law schools.

Some terminology:  by "general jurisprudence," I mean the core philosophical questions about the nature of law, the relationship between law and morality, and the nature of legal reasoning; by "normative jurisprudence," I mean the myriad philosophical attempts to make normative sense (or provide normative rationalizations) of different substantive areas of law, like torts, contracts, criminal law, property, anti-discrimination law, free speech, and so on.

1.  The main reason to consider a JD/PhD program at the same university is that it almost always involves saving time on your coursework--that is one of their main advantages, along with a better chance of continuity of supervision and interaction with faculty mentors.

2.  Many students, however, do the law degree at one place, and the PhD somewhere else.  This can make good sense, depending on a student's interests and the strengths of differing schools.  (In the law school here at Chicago, we have had terrific students with PhDs (or DPhils) from Oxford, Princeton, NYU, Brown, Michigan, and CUNY, among other places; in addition, outstanding law graduates from here are now pursuing PhDs in philosophy at Princeton, Pittsburgh, and Cornell, among other places.)  (As an aside, a student with a common-law law degree and a suitable background in philosophy can do a 2-3 year JSD here in the law school at Chicago focusing on general jurisprudence.)

3.  Legal academia is more pedigree-sensitive than academic philosophy (and I'm sure many of you think academic philosophy is way too pedigree-sensitive!).  Four law schools dominate the market for new law teachers:  Chicago, Harvard, Stanford, and Yale.  (With the exception of Stanford, these are also three of the top four faculties in scholarly influence, as well as the four schools that graduate the most Supreme Court clerks.)  On a per capita basis, Yale is ahead of the other three in placement in law teaching (a selection effect), and these four are ahead of everyone else (see, e.g., this from 2020, this from 2011 and this from 2007).  On a placement success rate basis (i.e., percentage of academic job seekers who actually get tenure-track jobs), Chicago and Yale generally dominate.  Stanford Law has no serious interest in legal philosophy, so is not worth considering.  Harvard Law has recently added junior faculty in normative jurisprudence (in addition to senior faculty with philosophical interests--like Richard Fallon and Cass Sunstein [constitutional theory], John Goldberg [tort theory], and Henry Smith [property theory]), so it is a better choice than previously (it still has no one in general jurisprudence, however).