Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

American gun craziness, aided and abetted by Supreme Court craziness

Law professor Eric Segall comments.   The Governor of Texas is currently defying the Supreme Court, it's time for civilized governors in civilized states to ignore the Supreme Court's deranged Second Amendment jurisprudence and enact and enforce sensible gun control measures.   (On the general topic of ignoring the Supreme Court, see this discussion.)

Budget crisis at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario

MOVING TO FRONT FROM YESTERDAY--SOME INTERESTING COMMENTS, MORE WELCOME

Somewhat sensational coverage here, but it seems the cause is pretty clear:  the Ontario government cut tuition by 10% and then froze it at 2019-20 levels (and there's been significant inflation since, of course), and international enrollments have not recovered since the worst of the pandemic.   Curious to hear from knowledgeable readers about why the Ontario government did what it did, and how this is playing out elsewhere in Ontario universities, as well as at Queen's.

(Thanks to Matt Lister for the pointer to the first link.)

Blast from the past: Is "secular" moral theory really relatively young?

Back in 2009, with reader discussion.

Plagiarism vs. copyright infringement

An interesting point in this essay:

Plagiarism...is normally understood as «[p]resenting work or ideas from

another source as your own, with or without consent of the original author,

by incorporating it into your work without full acknowledgement». This

Oxford University definition goes hand in hand with definitions stated in

various dictionaries that systematically define plagiarism as the

misappropriation of «work and ideas» and not as mere replication of words.

 

This is reasonable, since «work and ideas» should pertain to the intellectual

content and not to the words used to convey that content. It is possible to

steal someone’s research work and ideas, scientific discoveries or scholarly

contributions and present them as one’s own without repeating the same

words, without committing any copyright infringement and without being

caught by modern computer-based tools that check the originality of

research publications.

Of course, what the author calls "copyright infringement" can also be plagiarism.

(Thanks to Nick Zangwill for the pointer.)

 

Spring 2024 Virtual Dissertation Groups

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

Spring Virtual Dissertation Groups

Signups are open through Sunday, February 11^th. To join, fill out a short survey at www.jasmartphilosophy.com/virtual-dissertation-groups.

What it is: Virtual Dissertation Groups is a free service for those currently working on their doctoral dissertations in philosophy departments (or philosophy of science or the like). Since 2014, VDG has 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. Toward the end of each full month of the semester, one member will send some work (3k – 6k words) to the other two, who then return feedback in a week or so. (Usually these are written comments, though some groups choose to have video discussions.)

Masters of Legal Studies at University of Chicago Law School

This is a great opportunity for PhD students in fields other than law whose dissertation work would benefit from legal study for a year.  The ideal doctoral candidate should have completed coursework and just be embarking on dissertation work that has some connection to law.  The program is also open to established scholars whose work would benefit from legal study.

 

What is it like to be a philosopher? Heather Browning (Southampton) edition...

...courtesy of Clifford Sosis.

On the intellectual habits of contemporary philosophers that render them vulnerable to mobbing and "cancellation"

Interesting and apt discussion by philosopher Joseph Heath.

(Thanks to Chris Morris for the pointer.)

Great moments in rock 'n' roll covers: the Sex Pistols do Frank Sinatra

The original is slightly different, but the song is still recognizable in the Sex Pistols version:

 

"Hegelian Pragmatism"?

I'm skeptical, but Terry Pinkard is always worth reading on Hegel.

More on the campaign to suppress pro-Palestinian speech on campus

Apt comments from my law colleague Tom Ginsburg on a very foolish essay by a Penn law professor.

Most cited Anglophone books on Kant, Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche

This is an update to an earlier effort to look at the most-cited philosophical books written in English on four major figures in the German tradition:  Kant, Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche.  (The "philosophical" category is a bit harder to apply in the case of Marx, of course, since his major work concerned political economy, on which Anglophone scholars have written important studies.)   

KANT

Total citations

Rank	Author	Book	Year published	Citations
1	P.F. Strawson (late of Oxford)	The Bounds of Sense	1966	3220
2	Henry Allison (late of UC San Diego, BU, UC Davis)	Kant’s Transcendental Idealism	1983	3210
3	Henry Allison	Kant’s Theory of Freedom	1990	2230
4	Allen Wood (Indiana)	Kant’s Ethical Thought	1999	2040
5	Lewis White Beck (late of Rochester)	A Commentary on Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason	1963	1580

 

Citations by year

Rank	Author	Book	Year published	Citations per year since publication through 2023
1	Arthur Ripstein (Toronto)	Force and Freedom:  Kant’s Legal & Political Philosophy	2009	101
2	Allen Wood	Kant’s Ethical Thought	1999	85
3	Henry Allison	Kant’s Transcendental Idealism	1983	80
4	Henry Allison	Kant’s Theory of Freedom	1990	68
5	P.F. Strawson	The Bounds of Sense	1966	57

HEGEL

Total citations

Rank	Author	Book	Year published	Citations
1	Charles Taylor (McGill, emeritus)	Hegel	1975	3330
2	Charles Taylor	Hegel and Modern Society	1979	1730
3	Robert Pippin (Chicago)	Hegel’s Idealism	1989	1430
4	Terry Pinkard (Georgetown)	Hegel’s Phenomenology:  The Sociality of Reason	1994	1310
5	Allen Wood (Indiana)	Hegel’s Ethics	1990	1300

JHP's 2023 Article Prize goes to Northwestern's Alznauer

Deborah Boyle, editor of the Journal of the History of Philosophy, writes:

The Journal of the History of Philosophy has awarded the journal’s 2023 article prize to Mark Alznauer (Northwestern University) for his article “Untrue Concepts in Hegel’s Logic,” published in the January 2023 issue. It can be read here: https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/878520

Hume's Racism? Not so fast now...

Philosopher and leading Hume scholar Paul Russell writes:

I think that a number of your readers may be interested to see how this debate/controversy has developed. In particular, Ashton and Hutton make a strong case [longer treatment] that not only is Waldmann's original accusation [against Hume] either groundless (with respect to the charge of slavery) or exaggerated (with respect to the charge of "racism"), the university is guilty of a serious violation of standards and procedural justice. The key point relating to this is the following:

"... It is astonishing that the university leadership took this decision without appearing to question the basis of the allegations made against Hume; his guilt was taken as self-evident. It took less than three months from the launch of the online petition to the decision to remove Hume's name. Many would regard this as precipitate; after all, in a court of law, the evaluation of the evidence usually precedes the verdict."

Given the (fresh) evidence and analysis that Ashton and Hutton present, the procedural matter is compounded by the falsity of the original charge.

Since the "taint" of the charges of being "directly involved in the slave trade" and being "an unashamed racist" still hang over Hume's reputation at Edinburgh and beyond, I think that this recent contribution should be widely circulated (espcially within the philosophy community).

Earlier coverage here.

Timothy Williamson did not like Philip Kitcher's "What's the Use of Philosophy"

Not surprising, but he also has some pretty substantive and fair criticisms in my view.   From Williamson's conclusion:

Contemporary analytic philosophy has plenty to offer other disciplines, as its track
record of inter-disciplinary interaction shows. It will have even more to offer other disciplines
if it gets better at answering its own questions. There is plenty of room for methodological
improvement. Some of what Kitcher says is salutary in that respect, for instance: learn more
about modern evolutionary theory before you try to apply it. But most of his
recommendations would make philosophy worse: more anxious to imitate the neighbours and
impress the general public, and so with less to contribute of its own. That is not exactly his
intention, but as a pragmatist he should stand ready to be judged by his polemic’s
consequences in practice.

Curious to hear thoughts from readers after they read Williamson's review.

More Harvard craziness: "controversy" over appointing Harvard's "Director of the Center for Jewish Studies" to lead an anti-semitism taskforce!

Bill Ackman and Larry Summers are both a disgrace, Summers especially so since he should know better.  Ackman is too stupid to know better.  If Harvard caves on this, it would set a really terrible precedent.

"What is incoherence?"

Philosopher Alex Worsnip discusses.

Blast from the past: Trump and the Russia distraction

Back in 2017.  With the monster-child poised to be the Republican nominee again, I hope that critics will this time stay focused on actual issues.

A mandatory DEI "reorientation" session for first-year law students at Wisconsin

 The details and a critique from a law professor here.  The criticisms are apt, although students have no legal right to academic freedom, and they don't have a principled claim either since they lack a scholarly discipline which is the foundation of a claim to academic freedom.  What they do have is a constitutional right not to have political indoctrination imposed on them as a requirement for study. 

How long to wait for a journal before withdrawing an article under submission?

A very good question from the thread earlier today, that deserves separate discussion:

how long people in the discipline think it's reasonable to wait (as well as how long people actually tend to wait) before pulling the plug and withdrawing [an article] from a drawn out review process...

What do readers think?

Another journal horror story

A junior philosopher writes:

I know that you posted about issues with PPQ a while back (although I wish I had seen your post before submitting a paper there). I am a pre-tenure professor, and I’ll be submitting my tenure package this spring. I submitted a paper to PPQ and had the worst experience I’ve ever had with a journal.

I submitted my paper in March of 2023. Like the other people who contacted you, I was told that the initial review would take up to 10 weeks. I had not heard anything by July, so I reached out to the editorial assistant. I was told that they would check with the editors and get back to me.

I did not hear back. I waited until December and I wrote to them again to ask for an update. I was horrified to learn that the paper still had not been sent out for review. The editors had done nothing with it. This week (in January of 2024), I received a desk rejection with no comments. The editorial assistant apologized on behalf of the editors and told me that I could request comments if I wanted them. I asked for them and received a single page of fairly minimal comments from the editor.

This was truly the worst experience I have had with any journal. I thought I would share it with you. I would be happy to forward the emails if you would like proof of the timeline.

Thanks for everything you do in terms of sharing this kind of information with others in the field. I wish I had seen your post sooner. Luckily, my tenure package is fairly secure (I have a book coming out in a month or two). But this is an awful thing for a journal to do to anyone, regardless of their tenure status.

I hope others have had good experiences with PPQ (comments to that effect, or comments from the editors, are welcome).  How common are experiences like this at PPQ or other journals?  Please use a real email if you are going to praise or criticize, by name, a particular journal.

More on Spinoza's excommunication

Here.

(Thanks to David Livingstone Smith for the pointer.)

In Memoriam: Don Ihde (1934-2024)

A longtime member of the philosophy faculty at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Professor Ihde was well-known for his work in phenomenology and on the philosophy of technology.  Comments are open for remembrances from those who knew Professor Ihde, or for those who wish to comment on the significance of his work.  Feel free to add links to memorial notices in the comments as well.

(Thanks to David Gorodon for the information.)

In Memoriam: Richard Schmitt (1927-2024)

Professor Schmitt spent his career in the Department of Philosophy at Brown University, where he was emeritus.  He wrote widely on figures in the post-Kantian Continental traditions in philosophy, including Husserl and Marx.  He was a founder of the Radical Philosophy Association, which shared this obituary:

Richard Schmitt died on January 13th, 2024 at 6:00 PM at the age of 96. Born in 1927 in Frankfurt, Germany to a Jewish mother, he survived the Holocaust in Holland and came to the US in 1946. He was a professor emeritus of philosophy at Brown University, where his irreverence toward authority and his expertise on Marxism made him a pillar of student-led organizing in the 1960s. He was a devoted activist, immersed in global movements for pacifism, feminism, racial justice, and indigenous sovereignty over the course of many decades. The author of many books and articles on philosophy and politics, he was endlessly curious about people and ideas, and he approached the dilemmas he encountered in the world with humor, skepticism, and a resistance to oversimplified answers.

In retirement, he trained and became active as a community mediator in the Worcester court system, as well as teaching at several local colleges. He loved being a member of the Worcester Friends Meeting (Quakers), where he played a vital leadership role in peace and social concerns. He was cherished and beloved by his community, and made many friends, across generations and geographies. His commitment to feminism extended to his role as a spouse and a father, through which he lived his belief that raising children and doing housework should be shared responsibilities. He will be dearly missed by his partner of 41 years, Lucy Candib, of Worcester, MA, by his daughters, Addie Candib and her partner Max Morange, of Bellingham, WA, and Hannah Schmitt and her partner Emily Shinada, of Chatham, NY and New York City, and by one grandson, Anatole Candib.

Donations in Richard’s memory can be made to Jewish Voice for Peace via jewishvoiceforpeace.org/contribute.

Comments are open for remembrances from those who knew Professor Schmitt, or who wish to comment on the significance of his work.  (Thanks to Phil Gasper for the information).

Claudine Gay and Harvard: what really happened?

Philosopher Richard Moran (Harvard) corrects the record:  Download Moran on Claudine Gay

(My thanks to Professor Moran for giving permission to share this on the blog.)

UPDATE:  See also the essay in LRB from Harvard law professor Randall Kennedy.  (Thanks to John Bogart for the pointer.)

Blast from the past: Letters of reference and their "codes"

Back in 2003, still relevant (alas).

Some interesting data on undergraduate U.S. philosophy majors over the last two decades...

...courtesy of Professor Schwitzgebel; this particularly caught my attention:

In general, the humanities have declined sharply since 2010, and history, English, and foreign languages and literature continue to decline.  This graph shows the trend:

 

The decline in the English major is particularly striking, from 4.5% of bachelor's degrees awarded in 2000-2001 to 1.8% in 2021-2022.  Philosophy peaked at 0.60% in 2005-2006 and has held steady at 0.39%-0.40% since 2015-2016.

As Professor Schwitzgebel also notes, philosophy has benefitted from a lot of "double majors."   The general decline in humanities majors is attributable, one suspects, to the extraordinary cost of higher education, and thus the demand for "marketable" majors.  Why this hasn't affected philosophy as much is an interesting question.  Thoughts form readers welcome.

 

A well-known philosopher of physics writes about his experiences with schizophrenia over the last several decades

A remarkable and fascinating account, which we should all be grateful Professor Dickson chose to share.

(Thanks to Nathan Ballantyne on Twitter for calling this to my attention.)

Two PhDs in philosophy, but in different areas?

A student writes with an interesting question, namely, "how holding a PhD in philosophy impacts your likelihood of being accepted into another philosophy PhD program, particularly one with a focus on a different area of philosophy."   I do know of philosophers with two PhDs, one in philosophy, and the other in another, usually cognate field (e.g., mathematics, physics, German).   I can think of only one philosopher (Jeremy Goodman) who comes close to the proposed scenario:  he earned a D.Phil. in philosophy at Oxford, and a Ph.D. in philosophy at NYU, but the Oxford D.Phil. is slightly different than a U.S. Ph.D.  So what do readers think?  Are there examples of philosophy faculty with two philosophy PhDs in different areas of philosophy?  For those active in PhD admissions, how would your department view a candidate who already has a Ph.D. in philosophy?

UPDATE:   If you are going to cite examples, please include a link to homepages or CVs as evidence.   

Blast from the past: Isaiah Berlin's letter of recommendation for H.L.A. Hart

Back in 2005.

How to think like a Bayesian

Philosopher Mike Titelbaum (Wisconsin) explains.

The "toxic sludge" of American public life

A great line from the writer Christian Wiman, whom I'd not heard of previously:

One grows so tired, in American public life of the certitudes and platitudes, the megaphone mouths and stadium praise, influencers and effluencers and the whole tsunami of slop that comes pouring into our lives like toxic sludge.

The financial future of UK universities (outside Oxford and Cambridge)

MOVING TO FRONT FROM JANUARY 11--SOME INTERESTING (AND ALARMING) COMMENTS--MORE DISCUSSION WELCOME

From a philosopher in the UK:

I just don't see the basic math working long term, even for [a leading UK university, but not Oxbridge]. Tuition fees for UK students are capped at c. £9K, and have been at the same level for well over a decade. Neither main political party shows any willingness whatsoever to raise these, and have indeed ruled this out. Nor do they show willingness to increase the modest governmental subsidy to higher education institutions. Staff and other operating costs go up each year. There is thus a scramble to get more and more undergraduates and to try to attract students from abroad (esp. China), who pay more in fees. There is no endowment to fall back on, no appreciable donations in comparison with similarly research-intensive places in the US, and they have ambitious plans for new buildings and the like, which they borrow money to build. Financially, I feel as though we're, in essence, bailing out water, and soon will not be able to bail it out fast enough. Sinking isn't imminent, but I do worry about the longer term horizon of 5-10 years or more. 

Curious to hear whether this rings true to other UK academics.  If you don't want to use your name, please use a real email address, which will not appear.

Take that Wiley: the new journal "Political Philosophy" emerges from the mess Wiley made of JPP

Bob Goodin kindly shared this happy announcement (background):

The former editors of the Journal of Political Philosophy announce the launch of a new journal. 

Called simply Political Philosophy, it will be edited by Robert Goodin along with co-editors Christian Barry, Chiara Cordelli, Jeffrey Howard, Nicholas Southwood and Lea Ypi.   All the former Associate Editors and virtually all members of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Political Philosophy will serve in the same capacity at the new journal.  Political Philosophy will be published by the Open Library of Humanities as a diamond Open Access journal with no charges to authors or readers.

AIM & SCOPE:  Political Philosophy will serve as a forum for exploring theoretical aspects of public life – moral, political, social, legal and economic.  It will be an insistently interdisciplinary site for mutual engagement among practitioners of all those disciplines and more.  Political Philosophy will be methodologically capacious, equally welcoming of work that is formal and abstract or grounded and discursive. It will bring liberalism, socialism, feminism, critical theory, critical race theory, game theory and social choice theory into conversation with one another.  It will be open to historical, exegetical and comparative work that builds to a larger and more general philosophical point.  Political Philosophy's core commitments will simply be to analytical rigour and scholarly excellence.

For more information or to submit a manuscript, go to https://politicalphilosophyjournal.org. 

2023 in review, 4th quarter: October, November, December

MOVING TO FRONT FROM DECEMBER 29, 2023, FOR THOSE WHO MAY HAVE MISSED IT

October

"On the Relevance of Etiology to Justification (with reference to Marx and Nietzsche)"

Hannah Arendt, "white supremacist"?

"Politics by Other Means:  the Jurisprudence of 'Common Good Constitutionalism'"

Annals of academics with no decency or judgment

"Personal statements" for PhD programs after the Supreme Court's affirmative action decision

More recollections of Putnam and Quine

Israel/Gaza links for October 31

November

Reading recommendations on the history of Zionism and Israel?

"there is this pathology at Oxford"

Canary in the coal mine when it comes to the "diversity" mania gripping some departments

The philosophers' letters regarding Israel/Gaza continue

Kripke against materialism, 2.0?

Recommendations of math and physics texts for students wanting to study philosophy of physics

Khalidi v. Benhabib on the "Philosophers for Palestine" letter

John Martin Fischer on the latest scientist's foray into free will

December

Peter Momtchiloff, legendary OUP philosophy editor, leaving the press after 30 years

Self-destructing on Twitter, a continuing saga

Hiring of non-US PhDs in US departments

The Presidents of Harvard, MIT, and Penn were much too nice to the Republicans in Congress

Oxford University Press, recent experiences?

America is doomed, part 811: Perlstein on Trump and the hapless Democrats and media

A perceptive essay, please do take a look; this bears quoting:

According to polls (which, yes, have their uses, in moderation), something around half of likely voters would like to see as our next president a man who thinks of the law as an extension of his superior will, who talks about race like a Nazi, wants to put journalistic organizations whose coverage he doesn’t like in the dock for “treason,” and who promises that anyone violating standards of good order as he defines them—shoplifters, for instance—will be summarily shot dead by officers of the state who serve only at his pleasure. A fascist, in other words. We find ourselves on the brink of an astonishing watershed, in this 2024 presidential year: a live possibility that government of the people, by the people, and for the people could conceivably perish from these United States, and ordinary people—you, me—may have to make the kind of moral choices about resistance that mid-20th-century existentialist philosophers once wrote about. That’s the case if Trump wins. But it’s just as likely, or even more likely, if he loses, then claims he wins. That’s one prediction I feel comfortable with.

The problem is that the likely voters pay no attention, and those who are Republicans will vote for whomever is the Republican nominee, mostly unaware of the stuff Perlstein notes.  Vide Achen & Bartels.

UPDATE:  As if to drive my last point home, the NYT runs this story about Iowa Republicans and their "reasons" for supporting particular candidates:  it is a litany of false beliefs, mistakes about cause and effect, and prejudices borne of religious zealotry.

2023 in review, 3rd quarter: July, August, September

MOVING TO FRONT FROM DECEMBER 28, FOR THOSE WHO MAY HAVE MISSED IT

July

A serious blow for faculty speech in the 4th Circuit in the U.S.

Philosophers and political theorists elected as Fellows and Corresponding Fellows of the British Academy

The canary in the coal mine for academic freedom at Texas A&M University

Lateral moves/retirements (etc.) since the 2021 Philosophical Gourmet Report:  2023 edition

August

I seem to be catching on in Asia

The "bloodbath" at West Virginia University [sic]

First "the heckler's veto," now the "lone wolf's veto"

Steven Salaita is now back in academia

The "Elephant in the Room" in the debate over judicial review in Israel

Suspicious job search in philosophy at the University of Genoa

Nathan Osserof-Spicer still defaming philosophers:  this time he falsely accuses a philosopher of plagiarism!

September

MacIntyre on the moral philosophy of the 20th Century

Philosopher's Annual, top ten papers from 2022

The study of philosophy in law schools, and JD/PhD programs, 2023 edition

What does "tenure" really mean in Australia?

Where junior tenure-track faculty at the "top 20" U.S. programs got their PhD, 2023-24

Lederman on the tasks for Chinese philosophy scholarship

Mindless jurisprudence bashing on Twitter

Baron, Blumberg from the soon-to-be-defunct Dianoia Institute at the ACU to Melbourne

Two more philosophers from the ill-fated Dianoia Institute at the Australian Catholic University have taken new positions, both at the University of Melbourne:   Sam Baron (metaphysics, philosophy of science) has become Associate Professor of Philosophy at Melbourne, and Kyle Blumberg (philosophy of language, philosophy of mind) has become Lecturer in Philosophy.

The fact that the former Diaonia faculty are being snapped up by serious departments is yet a further indication of how well Dianoia was doing before the Vice-Chancellor at ACU destroyed it.

(Thanks to Howard Sankey for the information.)

John Ganz on January 6, Trump and fascism

From the conclusion:

From a certain perspective, the critics who say that talking about fascism takes Trump too seriously are correct: it involves too much hocus-pocus, it cloaks him in a certain dark grandeur, and gives everything a Spenglerian gloom that makes him seem bigger than he is. After all, he’s just a crook and a conman, an idiot. But the phoniness, that bombast, and the ridiculousness was a part of the original thing, too. There has always been a deeply moronic side to fascism. Fascism is perhaps most fundamentally a moron putting on world-historical airs. “Morons trying to make history” — what better way to describe January 6? The second biggest mistake is to take it too seriously. But the first biggest mistake is to not take it seriously enough.

Call for papers for the 7th Annual Meeting of the International Society for Nietzsche Studies

MOVING TO FRONT FROM OCTOBER 4--THE SUBMISSION DEADLINE IS TOMORROW!

The meeting will take place at the University of Porto in Portugal in March 2024; the CFP is here.  (The University should be able to provide accomodations for graduate students and junior faculty whose papers are accepted for presentation.  More details on that soon.)   Confirmed invited speakers for Porto are Tsarina Doyle (Galway), Maudemarie Clark (UC Riverside), and Christopher Fowles (Oxford).

2023 in review, 2nd quarter: April, May, June

MOVING TO FRONT FROM DECEMBER 27, 2023, FOR THOSE WHO MAY HAVE MISSED IT

April

How do departments interpret "negative" responses to requests to do tenure reviews?

The assault on New College of Florida

Good work if you can get it

Censorship of philosophy at OUP

Crisis at Journal of Political Philosophy:  Wiley (publisher) ousts longtime editor Robert Goodin

More on Wiley as a journal publisher

Dumb and dumber:  Twitter on the OUP/Byrne fiasco

May

Not all philosophy journal experiences with Wiley have been bad

What philosophical ideas should non-philosophers know about?

America is not a civilized country

Ruse on Setiya on Kitcher

Stephen Mulhall did not like Derek Parfit's way of doing philosophy

Tenure in Texas:  the aftermath

Which philosophers are mentioned in the most articles at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy?

June

Philosophy professor Stephen Kershnar sues SUNY-Fredonia for violation of his constitutional rights

Another liberal egalitarian philosopher cashes in

Chalmers/Koch bet regarding consciousness

Williamson to continue teaching at Oxford through 2026

The Supreme Court's affirmative action in admissions decision

Gaza and ethnic cleansing, redux

The truth about Israel's plan for Gaza is now coming out; see also.  At this point, all the evidence of the destruction wrought on Gaza seems consistent with this.

The mission of the university, and the need to resist external pressures

Philosopher Ned Hall comments in the Harvard Crimson; an excerpt:

It would not surprise me in the least if politicians like Rep. Elise M. Stefanik ’06 (R-N.Y.) — people who care not one whit about preserving colleges and universities as sites for the pursuit of knowledge and understanding, but who definitely smell blood in the water — press for yet more influence on institutions like Harvard. I’m prepared for the next headline announcing congressional ‘investigations’ into ‘woke curricula on college campuses.’

When these actors do turn up the pressure, the proper response won’t be to ignore them; even weasels arguing in bad faith can say things worth considering. But it will be to resist the temptation to respond with anything but a clear-eyed evaluation of the facts. Not because we owe nothing to the world outside our walls, but because we owe so much.

In Memoriam: J.B. Schneewind (1930-2024)

Professor Schneewind, a leading historian of ethics, held tenured positions at the University of Pittsburgh, Hunter College and the City University of New York Graduate Center (where he was also Provost), and, from 1981 until his retirement in 2003, at Johns Hopkins University, where he was emeritus.  Comments are open for remembrances from those who knew Professor Schneewind, or from those who wish to comment on the significance of his work.  Professor Steven Gross, Chair of the Johns Hopkins department, shared this memorial notice:

The William H. Miller III Department of Philosophy mourns the passing of Jerry Schneewind, Professor of Philosophy, emeritus. Professor Schneewind was deeply admired both for his ground-breaking work in the history of ethics and for his service to the field. He was a Guggenheim Fellow, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, President of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association, and later Chair of its Board of Officers. In March 2000, the Department organized a conference in his honor on "Reading Autonomy".

The editors of "Analysis" on the kinds of referee reports they find most helpful

Useful perspective.

2023 in review, 1st quarter: January, February, March

MOVING TO FRONT FROM DECEMBER 26, 2023, FOR THOSE WHO MAY HAVE MISSED IT

January

Wittgenstein and Darwin

"Analytic" philosophy and the McCarthy era

Philosopher Nick Bostrom (Oxford) and his creepy racism

The DEI industry and its role in the university's appeal to "consumers" (formerly known as students)

Will AI change teaching?

"Artificial Intelligence [sic] forever inanimate and dumb"

Where professors come from

February

"Western philosophy" and "Eastern philosophy"

Inviting waitlisted prospective graduate students to visit?

One philosopher is not worried about ChatGPT

Do "diversity" statements violate academic freedom?  A debate

A Black professor "trapped in anti-racist hell"

The problem with the Heterodox Academy is that it is "woke"

What happened to the Twitter maniacs from a couple of years ago?

The political economy of the academy and the decline of the humanities

March

A response to "Diversity Sometimes  Trumps Academic Freedom" in CHE

"Woke" explained

On the 'normativity' revolution in philosophy

Enemies of academic freedom watch:  Michael Berube edition

Montagu vs. Balfour in 1917

Cora Diamond calls to my attention this interesting document, an argument by Edwin Montagu (only the third practicing Jew to serve in the British Cabinet) against what soon became the "Balfour Declaration."  Some parts of his argument have not, shall we say, aged well; but parts of it are interesting (especially its frank acknowledgment of hostility towards Jews in England).  An excerpt:

• I deny that Palestine is to-day associated with the Jews or properly to be regarded as a fit place for them to live in. The Ten Commandments were delivered to the Jews on Sinai. It is quite true that Palestine plays a large part in Jewish history, but so it does in modern Mahommendan history, and, after the time of the Jews, surely it plays a larger part than any other country in Christian history. The Temple may have been in Palestine, but so was the Sermon on the Mount and the Crucifixion. I would not deny to Jews in Palestine equal rights to colonisation with those who profess other religions, but a religious test of citizenship seems to me to be the only admitted by those who take a bigoted and narrow view of one particular epoch of the history of Palestine, and claim for the Jews a position to which they are not entitled.If my memory serves me right, there are three times as many Jews in the world as could possible get into Palestine if you drove out all the population that remains there now. So that only one-third will get back at the most, and what will happen to the remainder?
• I can easily understand the editors of the Morning Post and of the New Witness being Zionists, and I am not in the least surprised that the non-Jews of England may welcome this policy. I have always recognised the unpopularity, much greater than some people think, of my community. We have obtained a far greater share of this country’s goods and opportunities than we are numerically entitled to. We reach on the whole maturity earlier, and therefore with people of our own age we compete unfairly. Many of us have been exclusive in our friendships and intolerant in our attitude, and I can easily understand that many a non-Jew in England wants to get rid of us. But just as there is no community of thought and mode of life among Christian Englishmen, so there is not among Jewish Englishmen. More and more we are educated in public schools and at the Universities, and take our part in the politics, in the Army, in the Civil Service, of our country. And I am glad to think that the prejudices against inter-marriage are breaking down. But when the Jew has a national home, surely it follows that the impetus to deprive us of the rights of British citizenship must be enormously increased. Palestine will become the world’s Ghetto. Why should the Russian give the Jew equal rights? His national home is Palestine. Why does Lord Rothschild attach so much importance to the difference between British and foreign Jews? All Jews will be foreign Jews, inhabitants of the great country of Palestine.I do not know how the fortunate third will be chosen, but the Jew will have the choice, whatever country he belongs to, whatever country he loves, whatever country he regards himself as an integral part of, between going to live with people who are foreigners to him, but to whom his Christian fellow-countrymen have told him he shall belong, and of remaining as an unwelcome guest in the country that he thought he belonged to.

Comments welcome from readers knowledgeable about this period in British history and the debate over the Balfour Declaration.

Richard Marshall interviews Pedro Tabensky about Camus and Fanon...

...at 3:16 AM.

In Memoriam: Nicholas Rescher (1928-2024)

Professor Rescher, a longtime member of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh, was an extraordinarily prolific and wide-ranging philosopher, publishing, inter alia, on Leibniz, Peirce, logic, philosophy of science, metaphysics, epistemology, and many other topics.  (See, e.g., his Google Scholar page.)  There is a memorial notice from the Center for Philosophy of Science at Pittsburgh here.   Comments are open for remembrances from those who knew Professor Rescher, or for those who wish to comment on the significance of his work.

(Thanks to David Gordon for the pointer.)

In Memoriam: Daniel Breazeale (1945-2023)

Professor Breazeale, an internationally leading Fichte scholar, died on December 30, 2023.  He was emeritus at the University of Kentucky, where he had spent his career.  Comments are open for remembances from those who knew Professor Breazeale, or for those who would like to comment on the significance of his work.  Please feel free to add links to memorial notices as well.

(Thanks to David Gordon for the information.)