Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

Blast from the past: Carrie Jenkins, Alan Soble and "the chasm of crap"

Back in 2018.

Blast from the past: five favorite Americans of the 20th-century?

Mine and those of readers, back in 2018.

Blast from the past: recruiting female students to the major at a liberal arts college

A discussion back in 2014.

Blast from the past: double major for a philosophy PhD?

A discussion back in 2016.

Blast from the past: the Ward Churchill case at the University of Colorado

Back in 2005.  Remarkably, the charlatan Paul Campos is still teaching at Colorado, while Churchill, after being wrongfully fired, has never taught again.   Churchill was an early victim of right-wing cancel culture aimed at the universities.

Blast from the past: what kinds of obligations do philosophers have to referee papers?

Back in 2009, with discussion.  Have things changed in the interim?  Comments here are also open.

 

Blast from the past: underappreciated philosophers active in the U.S. in the first half of the 20th-century

Back in 2012, poll results and a discussion.

Blast from the past: placement in PhD-granting programs...

...based on a 2017 report (albeit by a not always reliable researcher).

Blast from the past: the "progressive" contradiction when it comes to crimes in general vs. sex crimes

Back in 2016.

Blast from the past: best Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entries

Back in 2019.

Blast from the past: the ultimate "esoteric" reading of Plato

Back in 2010 (and due see the comments from several ancient philosophy experts).

Blast from the past: Bret Stephens on Heidegger and Chomsky

He was a know-nothing back in 2011 too.

Blast from the past: against "secret" waitlists in PhD admissions

Back in 2017, but timely again.  Do see the discussion as well.

Blast from the past: the most important Western philosophers of all time?

A poll and discussion, back in 2017.

Blast from the past: Best Anglophone philosophers of the last 60 years?

Back in 2017.

Blast from the past: Liberal "bias" in philosophy?

A discussion back in 2006.

Blast from the past: Tenure reviews and the length of articles

Back in 2014.

Blast from the past: T.M. Scanlon, "teenage logical positivist"

Back in 2017.

Blast from the past: Is philosophy in the doldrums? A poll and discussion

Back in 2015.

Blast from the past: when the religious right was obessed with "bathroom bills"

Back in 2016.

Blast from the past: citation networks in philosophy

Back in 2013.

Blast from the past: Best English-language journals for scholarship on the post-Kantian Continental traditions in philosophy

Back in 2012.  Inquiry has strengthened its position since then, especially for Nietzsche studies.  (Note:  Inquiry publishes the proceedings of the annual meeting of the International Society for Nietzsche Studies, but also publishes articles on Nietzsche submitted through the regular submissions process.)

UPDATE:  A more recent poll from 2017 (thanks to Sean Murphy for the reminder).

Blast from the past: When Fodor critiqued Fodor's critique of natural selection

Back in 2010.  (Link now fixed!)

Blast from the past: "What not to read" if you're a conservative Republican

Back in 2013.  A number of philosophers are verboten.

Blast from the past: In praise of terminal MA programs

Back in 2015.  This post generated a generally high quality discussion in the comments as well.

Blast from the past: On New York bluntness...

...and other offenses to "WASP decorum" (back in 2017).

Blast from the past: "Expanding notions of harm in psychology"

Back in 2015, but still relevant.

Blast from the past: the most significant moral philosophers in the history of Western philosophy?

A poll, and discussion, back in 2013.

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

Back in 2009, no doubt still highly relevant.

Blast from the past: from the bowels of cyberspace...

...back in 2010 (nothing has changed, unsurprisingly).

Blast from the past: Longuenesse on "analytic" and "Continental" philosophy

Back in 2007.

Blast from the past: the job market and "stale" PhDs

Back in 2012.   There may be less of an effect on PhDs in 2020 because of the world-historic catastrophe that everyone is familiar with, and the resulting collapse of the job market.

Blast from the past: why it's wonderful to study and teach philosophy

Back in 2011, but hopefully still true!

Blast from the past: philosophy in 2011

2020 in review will be coming up soon, but here's 2011.  Kind of amusing.  This was before online philosophy cracked up in 2014.

Blast from the past: the best or most important philosophy books/articles from 2000-2009

A pretty good list, courtesy of readers (back in 2009).  I'll open a thread for publications since 2010 later this week.

Blast from the past: Kitcher on the need for "reconstruction in philosophy"

Back in 2011, with a lively discussion in the comments, including contributions from David Wallace, Peter Ludlow, Colin Farrelly, Laurie Paul, Keith DeRose, and many others, and replies from Philip Kitcher.

Blast from the past: Does having publications hurt a job seeker at schools whose primary mission is teaching?

Back in 2009.

ADDENDUM:   A senior philosopher elsewhere writes:  "My sense is things may have changed a bit since 2009: with the exception of community colleges, almost everybody wants pubs.  Most students [at a top 30ish PhD program where this philosopher taught] compete for teaching jobs, and our sense there was things start to look good after 3 pubs.  Quality of venue mattering much less at weaker places."   I'm opening this for further comments on whether things have chnaged since 2009 and what people's experience is more recently.

Blast from the past: Brian Bruya makes things up

Five years ago, I predicted that Bruya's fraudulent and confused criticisms of the PGR and the whole Bruyahaha spectacle (and here) would have no influence on the PGR, and it didn't.   Meanwhile, Metaphilosophy was discredited by its handling of the matter, but we did learn a few useful lessons.

Blast from the past: when Robin James reported some important "theorizing"...

...that still hasn't seen the light of day alas.

Blast from the past: what is an "area of competence" for CV purposes?

Back in 2007.

Blast from the past: smoking a liability on the job market?

Back in 2008.  The comments go on to discuss other odd habits, like being a vegan!

Blast from the past: Inflated letters of recommendation

A discussion, back in 2011.

(The first link in the 2011 post isn't working:  it goes to this earlier post about the "code" in which letters of recommendation are too often written.)

Blast from the past: how difficult for a North American PhD to move from a job in the developing world to a North American job

Back in 2016, and probably on the mind of some job-seekers this year as well.

Blast from the past: remembering Annette Baier

Back in 2012.

Blast from the past: Why study history of philosophy?

Back in 2011, an open letter from Robert Pasnau (Colorado), and an extensive discussion in the comments.

Blast from the past: Hacker on Williamson on "The Philosophy of Philosophy"

Back in 2009.

Blast from the past: what blog readers most feared about a Trump Administration...

...back in Novmeber 2016.  Several did, indeed, come to pass.

Blast from the past: what Anglophone philosophers almost studied *instead* of philosophy

Back in 2016.

Blast from the past: the best post-WWII Anglophone scholars of ancient Greek and Roman philosophy

Back in 2016.

Blast from the past: where the (untenured) tenure-track faculty at the U.S. top 20 got their PhD...

...back in 2005!