Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

Blast from the (recent) past: "Identity politics" neoliberalism meets millenial narcissism

True now, as in 2022.

"Performative woundedness"

A reader just flagged for me an old tweet by smarmy Jonathan Ichikawa, in which he purported to be in search of examples of this phenomenon:

One might have thought he did not have far to look!

Smarmy Jonathan Ichikawa still dissembling

Somehow Ichikawa (part of the miscreant team from Vancouver) thinks that the unfortunate disagreement (and, in part, misunderstanding) between the PGR editors, Professors Brogaard and Pynes, and Wiley-Blackwell, shows that I'm not honest (!).  (A reader sent me his tweet [we are mutually blocked on Twitter] stating, "Brian Leiter is not an honest person, and the PGR is intellectually bankrupt.")  Since I literally have nothing do with any of this (I appointed Brogaard as a co-editor in 2014, and then Pynes as another co-editor for 2017, at which point they were in charge, and I have only offered them advice about the PGR when asked, and that's it), this really is a stretch even by Ichihkawa's standards of dishonesty, which are, to be sure, peerless.  (Recall that when Ichikawa and Carrie Jenkins were challenged over their defamation of me, their own lawyer would not defend their statements as true [see #5], arguing only that they were "lawful.")

There are two other ironies here, beyond the "pot calling the kettle black."

Philosophy as the "handmaiden of the human resources" department

Amusingly apt description of this, in an essay by philosopher Justin E.H. Smith (Paris 7) mostly concerned with literature.

More on the "Journal of Controversial Ideas"

As we saw, there were some dismissive responses to the new journal from the usual suspects (see also), but now philosopher Robert Gressis (Cal State/Northridge) has given a considered defense of the value of such a journal.

"Journal of Controversial Ideas"

The inaugural issue is here.  Not all contributors chose to use pseudonyms.  (Earlier coverage here and here.)

UPDATE:  Smarmy Jonathan Ichikawa (British Columbia) is already smearing the new journal and its contributors!  Perhaps this is exactly why the journal is needed?  (See this funny rejoinder too.)

New philosophy rankings released

No, not the ones that matter, but a new effort to rank philosophy programs based on the percentage of faculty and graduate students who "think correctly" (the "TCR" for short) (Linda Alcoff tried this a number of years ago, but it failed.)   The top five programs in the new TCR rankings are British Columbia, UC Merced, Southern California (but ignore Scott, he'll retire soon), and the Rhetoric and Comparative Literature Departments at Berkeley.  There may be some controversy about the fact that MIT was apparently dropped from the survey after the organizers realized that Alex "Bad, Lazy Philosophy Guy" Byrne taught there.

The editors of this new effort are "Smarmy" Jonathan Ichikawa and Carolyn "Dicey indeed" Jennings; they surveyed more than 300 Twitter users to come up with these results.  You can read the full rankings here.

Some further thoughts on Twitter

The first round of observations was so popular (especially on Twitter!), I thought I'd add a few more based on things I've learned and observed the last couple of months.

1.  I came across this interesting chart via Justin Weinberg's blog, which shows that the vast majority of U.S. adults do not use Twitter at all (thank God!), and that usage varies, unsurprisingly, by generation.  38% of those 18-29 use Twitter (the highest percentage), while only 7% of those over 65 use it.  I'm in the distinct minority in my age range (only 17% of those 50-64 use it), and I mostly use it to provide links to the blog for the benefit the readers who now follow the blog by Twitter. 

2.  This data is consistent with an e-mail shared on Twitter awhile back by the journalist Jesse Singal: 

"[T]he vast majority of both psychologically healthy and accomplished philosophers stay off twitter like their life depends on it. The vast majority of people I know in academic philosophy either ignore, mock, or disdain philosophy twitter." - professional philosopher in email

Although many Twitterati reacted with rage and denial to Mr. Singal's tweet, the claim about "the vast majority" is consistent with the data about usage by age alone.  (Are the non-users psychologically healthier and more accomplished?  Probably, but the preceding data are neutral on that.)   I strongly suspect that relatively few non-Twitter users "mock or disdain philosophy twitter" (although that would be a warranted response were they to look), and that most simply ignore it. 

The cancel mob of 2014 and subsequent events (a comment on the serial dissembler Jonathan Ichikawa)

Last month, bizarrely, the Twitter Red Guard discovered the 2014 campaign to take down the PGR, thanks to typical dissembling by smarmy Jonathan Ichikawa.  Of course, Ichikawa lied about lots of it and misrepresented his own misconduct and that of his wife, Carrie Jenkins, including their role in inciting--based on falsehoods--a mob to bully me.  I've written about this in the past, for example, here and here, but I'll recap the basics here (see the prior links for details, evidence, further links).  Feel free to link this on Twitter if and when this nonsense starts up again.  Readers who wisely avoid Twitter and remember these events can skip this post.

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

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

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

The Anti-Kathleen Stock letter is now public

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

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

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

The smarmy Jonathan Ichikawa is up to his usual mischief

Philosopher Kathleen Stock (Sussex) tweets:

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

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

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

Philosopher Kathleen Stock (Sussex) calls out some bad actors in academic philosophy

Here (and scroll down).

Statement in defense of the academic freedom of philosophers to discuss sex and gender

Kudos to philosophers Ned Hall (Harvard) and John Schwenkler (Florida State) for drafting the initial statement, and to those philosophers who have joined them: Jose Bermudez (Texas A&M0, Clare Chambers (Cambridge), Cordelia Fine (Melbourne), Benj Hellie (Toronto), Thomas Kelly (Princeton), Jeff McMahan (Oxford), Francesca Minerva (Ghent), Peter Singer (Princeton & Melbourne), Nicole Vincent (Technology Sydney), and Jessica Wilson (Toronto).   From the statement:

• We affirm the right of transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals to live free of harassment and abuse, and we welcome them enthusiastically as fellow participants in the profession of philosophy.
• We reject calls for censuring or deplatforming any of our colleagues on the basis of their philosophical arguments about sex and gender identity, or their social and political advocacy for sex-based rights.
• We condemn the too frequently cruel and abusive rhetoric, including accusations of hatred or transphobia, directed at these philosophers in response to their arguments and advocacy.
• We urge that the philosophical discussion of sex, gender and related social and political issues be carried out in a collegial and mutually respectful manner, reflecting the full range of interests at stake and presuming the good faith of all parties.

I strongly agree with this statement, and I am hopeful the majority of philosophers also agree.  (Professors Hall and Schwenkler shared an early draft with me, but we agreed that since I have been out front longer and louder than anyone else defending gender critical feminist philosophers from harassment and vilification I should not add my name.)

UPDATE:  In keeping with the freak show that is Twitter, the overwhelming response from many of the culprits this statement is meant to target has been denial, ridicule, and disbelief.  (In the real world, everyone agrees, and is puzzled the statement was needed.)  Several readers, who have not been following the misconduct on social media, did ask whom the statement is referring to with this:  "We condemn the too frequently cruel and abusive rhetoric, including accusations of hatred or transphobia, directed at these philosophers."  Among the philosophers, faculty and graduate students (the latter marked with an *), who have been guilty of such rhetoric, and sometimes worse, directed not only at gender critical feminists but anyone perceived as supporting them (or even just supporting their right to express their views) are B.R. George (Carnegie-Mellon), Jonathan Ichikawa (British Columbia), Rebecca Kukla (Georgetown), Eugene Marshall (Florida International), Rachel McKinney (Suffolk), Rachel McKinnon (Charleston), Garret Merriam (Cal State-Sacramento), *Nathan Oseroff (King's College, London), *Christa Peterson (Southern California), *Keyvan Shaifiei (Georgetown), *Joshua Stein (Calgary), and Matt Weiner (Vermont), and that's just off the top of my head, I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting, but these are the worst offenders (some are really sick puppies, like Shaifiei and Stein).   Professor Stock has documented many other instances of attacks on the academic freedom and free speech of gender critical feminists, mostly by non-philosophers.

Earlier this summer philosopher Jennifer Frey (South Carolina) called out the hypocritical nonsense of Christa "Fuck Brian Leiter" Peterson, one of the worst offenders for "cruel and abusive rhetoric":

Ms. Peterson has been leading the Twitter charge against Gender Critical feminist philosophers for the last year, dishing out insults, mockery, lies, half-truths, and more, and then playing the victim when anyone calls her on it.  (Her capacity to misread and thus misrepresent what she cites is also breathtaking; I suppose she counts on most of her Twitter followers not bothering to actually check.)  We first encountered Ms. Peterson more than a year ago denouncing an essay by radical activist and feminist Robert Jensen (UT Austin) as "dumb as shit."  She also denounces as "shit" this post by feminist philosophers Sophie Allen, Holly Lawford-Smith and others, refers repeatedly to philosopher Kathleen Stock (Sussex) as "a noted bigot" and mocks her continuously, calls the views of Leslie Green (the Professor of the Philosophy of Law at Oxford University) "repulsive and deeply unserious," and on and on and on, to the order of hundreds if not thousands of tweets full of sneering mockery, misrepresentation, and abuse of philosophers.

Like another bad actor, Nathan Oseroff (who did finally apologize for his misconduct), Ms. Peterson is an adult in her late 20s.  She is free to be as rude and abusive as she wants, but she can't complain when others comment on it.  She can be held to account for what she says in public, just like anyone else.  As someone in Twitter-land once observed:

 

 

Professor Stock schools the smarmy Jonathan Ichikawa

Very amusing.  (Link fixed:  click on the "3 replies" to get Stock's full response to Ichikawa's typical stupidity.)

(Thanks to Alex Parrish for the pointer.)

On defending the vulnerable and the powerless, and giving them a voice

I have always defended philosophers (and others) who have been victims of wrongdoing, and have often given them a voice and a platform:  Rebecca Tuvel, Lawrence Torcello, Crispin Sartwell, Steven Salaita, the philosophers at King's College, London, and many, many others.  Earlier this week, I did the same for Alan Soble.  Alan Soble spent most of his career at the University of New Orleans, and post-Katrina has been an adjunct professor at Drexel University.  Without a fancy perch or pedigree--no Canada Research Chair, no post at one of the world's leading research universities--he developed through hard work an entire subfield, the philosophy of sex and love.  Carrie Jenkins, holder of a Canada Research Chair at the University of British Columbia, devoted an entire section of a published journal article on philosophy of love to criticizing (indeed mocking) an undergraduate paper that she found on the Internet and that she wrongly attributed to Alan Soble, a leading figure in the field.   Her defense was “everyone makes mistakes."  But not everyone makes mistakes of this magnitude, and her response to being criticized by the victim of her carelessness was to revert to her usual self-absorption and self-pity.   As I noted, Prof. Soble wrote to me last week puzzled by the on-line outpouring of sympathy for Jenkins after his "angry" response to her when he had not been heard from.  I offered to share his actual response and objections to the reckless mistreatment to which he had been subjected.  Although most readers know who is in the right here (Soble was justifiably angry to have had undergraduate work attributed to him and mocked in a professional journal), I've been (only mildly, I confess) surprised by the minority who apparently would minimize the wrong done to Prof. Soble, ignore the vast power differentials between the victim and the wrongdoer here, and prefer that the victim remain unheard.

The dynamic lexicon: "sanctiramus"

A philosopher elsewhere writes:

I hereby introduce a new word into the language:

sanctiramus -- a pious scold who does not know what the fuck they are talking about

origins -- sanctimonious, ignoramus

from Latin sanctimonia sanctity, from sanctus holy

from legal Latin, literally: we have no knowledge of, from Latin ignōrāre to be ignorant of; 

Dear APA

Dear APA:

Although I am not a member, it has come to my attention that the American Philosophical Association has adopted a very unusual Code of ethical conduct, quite unlike that adopted by other disciplines such as the Modern Language Association, the American Historical Association, or the American Psychological Association.  None of these other codes purport to proscribe extramural speech beyond one's campus, let alone speech that might constitute what is capaciously defined as "bullying and harassment"; they focus instead on actual professional obligations in dealings with faculty colleagues, students, and research subjects.

Yet the APA purports to proscribe "bullying and harassment" quite generally, meaning, inter alia, "verbal agression...spreading malicious rumors; calling someone conventionally derogatory names or using derogatory stereotypes to describe them...'cyber-bullying' through email, text messages, or social media...subjecting an individual to repeated, unsolicited criticism, except when this is clearly limited to a matter of scholarly dispute; subjecting a person to public ridicule..."

Most of these terms admit of considerable interpretation, meaning the reach of the Code may be very broad.  As the sociologist Randall Collins has noted, there has been massive inflation of the term "bullying" over the last generation so that it encompasses more and more ordinary interactions in which one party says something critical about another.  By incorporating this inflation into the APA Code, you purport to expand the APA's authority over matters no other professional organization purports to regulate.

To avoid sexual harassment and other unprofessional conduct, philosophy departments cut back on alcohol-infused socializing

Robin Wilson, a reporter at CHE who has covered academic philosophy quite a bit, kindly sent along a link to her latest article looking at the philosophy profession (the link should be free for about 24 hours, then behind a paywall again).  Many of the changes described seem sensible, though a lot depends on the department and its members (it is possible to have parties with alcohol without stupid behavior, after all).  The NYU "be nice" rules did make me laugh, not because they're terrible ideas but because a third or more of the faculty there were, historically, serial violators of them!  I was astonished, however, by this other bit of the article:

[Philosopher Janice Dowell] initially refused to publish in the Routledge Handbook of Epistemic Contextualism, due out next year, because she had "a lot of independent evidence" that a male philosopher who had also been asked to contribute was harassing women in the field, she says. She told the editor, Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa, about her concerns, and he confirmed that the other philosopher’s work would not appear in the volume.

This calls to mind our discussion from the other day.  I wonder, did Routledge know that the editor of a purportedly scholarly volume was also a vigilante acting as judge, jury and executioner?  (Ichikawa doesn't have much judgment, to be sure, but I do wonder what the philosophy editor at Routledge thinks about this.)  How many other philosophers working in this field were excluded as a sanction for their alleged misconduct?   What do epistemologists think about this?  Doesn't this kind of editorial decision-making pose a threat to the philosophical integrity of your field?  The Routledge Handbook is now damaged goods, isn't it?  I'm happy to say I've never heard of this kind of editorial behavior in any of the fields I'm most familiar with, so maybe this is just a pathology of epistemology only.

Let me offer a constructive suggestion.  If you believe you have credible evidence about misconduct by an academic elsewhere, contact colleagues in that department or contact the Title IX office at that university.  I've done the latter on one occasion (with, alas, mixed results, but this was because a crucial witness in the end was not willing to speak further with the Title IX enforcement officer).

A classic metablog moment

Every now and then, wading through the metablog pays off.  I won't link, since whenever I do, it turns out that somewhere on the thread is something defamatory or otherwise outrageous (or something like that will soon appear after linking).  But occasionally in reading the metablog, I do stumble on something very funny (I wish there were less ranting and raving about women and the job market, and more of the funny stuff!). 

This particular metablog moment starts with reactions to this post.  A note regarding terminology:  on metablog, Jonathan Ichikawa is referred to, apparently, as "Itchy" and his spouse, Carrie Jenkins, as "Scratchy."  Here's the highlights of the dialogue prompted by my post: 

Anonymous:   Surely the only way a rich woman can heal from torture by The Chicago Grinch is by purchasing a scooter.

Reply #1: or it [the e-mail about the scooter] had nothing to do with it at all, because it’s normal to send some emails that are about other topics even when something serious has happened?  for fucks sake, this is ridiculous.

Reply to #1:  Your trivializing this trauma is both inappropriate and problematic. This rich English lady was Grinched; she suffers Post-Grinchomatic Stress Disorder, and needs a scooter to recover.

Another Reply to #1:  “something serious has happened”? She got a cranky e-mail? “for fucks sake, THAT is ridiculous”

Reply to Another Reply to #1: Look, Scratchy suffers trauma from the cranky email. And needs a scooter to recover. Who wouldn’t? Also, the cranky email was inappropriate and problematic. Horrific, even worse than losing one’s tiara.

Philosophy faculty saying dumb things

The latest sexual harassment scandal in academic philosophy has, predictably, brought the usual know-nothing pontificators out in force, busy signaling their rectitude while actually harming the interests of the complainant against Pogge.  Let me explain.

We are told by Jonathan Ichikawa (British Columbia) that the "presumption of innocence,"

is rightly considered a pillar of civilised society. But people have a tendency to over-apply it in irrelevant cases. The presumption of your innocence means that the state can't punish you for a crime unless it proves that you committed it. That's it. It has nothing to do with how one individual should treat or think about another, or whether an organisation should develop or continue a relationship with an accused individual. The presumption of innocence doesn't protect you from being unfriended on facebook, or shunned at conferences, or widely thought by other people to be a criminal. It just protects from being criminally convicted.

Why is the "presumption of innocence" considered "a pillar of civilized society"?   Presumably because there is moral value in avoiding sanctioning the innocent, and we can avoid sanctioning the innocent if we shift the burden of proof to the accuser.  That moral value exists outside the legal context, though it is particularly important in the legal context because the sanctions are very serious.  But even when the sanctions are less serious, the moral value of the presumption remains.   Think of it this way:  the First Amendment protection of free speech prevents the state from sanctioning you for the content of your speech (except under very special circumstances), but that doesn't mean "freedom of speech" has no value, and deserves no moral weight, in contexts other than the exercise of state power.  I do not suggest that there should be a legal remedy for "unfriending" on Facebook or for swarmy pontificators and shunners like Ichikawa et al., but I do think it obvious that a "presumption of innocence" plays a useful role in regulating our informal dealings with others, even if it is a defeasible assumption (and is defeated in this case, about which more in a moment).

Announcing guest bloggers for April

I've got a wonderful and diverse line-up of guests at the blog this month.  In rough order of appearance guest bloggers and their topics will include:

David Velleman (NYU): "How to find out everything you need to know about graduate programs in philosophy in only 12 weeks, 40 hours per week."

Noelle McAfee (Emory):  "Tips for Writing Your Own Wikipedia Entry."

Jonathan Ichikawa (British Columbia): "Everything you need to know about Canadian defamation law when truth is not available as a defense."

Jenny Saul (Sheffield):  "'Be nice' and other slogans for disguising who you really are."

Mark Lance (Georgetown):  "Morally pure people can't be bullies, and other holier-than-thou insights."

Finally, I'll actually be guest-blogging at the Feminist Philosophers blog this month on the topic, "Everything you need to know about due process and fairness, but would like to forget."

More here.

UPDATE;  David Velleman had a funny response to my April Fools' Joke:  he wanted to write instead on "Bullying, Mud-Slinging, and other Schoolyard Skills for Philosophers."  That would be great!   I admit he knows quite a lot about this too (this is the guy, after all, who pioneered the selective publication of other people's private e-mails), and so could do a good job, especially on bullying graduate students.  Noelle McAfee, alas, took the joke less well. But I'll put a few additional comments about "Lyin' Noelle" (where did I hear that?) over here, so as not to bore normal people.