Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

A better take on Schadenfreude and Trump...

...from philosopher Susanna Siegel (Harvard).  She makes two important points:  first, that Schadenfreude is the standard operating device of the American right; and second, Schadenfreude is symptomatic of a dysfunctional democracy (and perhaps corrosive of a functional one).   There's a substantive and interesting rejoinder here, to which Professor Siegel responds in the comments at that blog.

Trump offends the professional classes...

...but he is in most respects "business as usual" for the imprudent wing of the ruling class:

Accusations of fascism and assertions that “This is not normal!” belong to the hysteria of professionals, those for whom Trump’s poor taste and political incorrectness finds its criticism in late show monologues and The New Yorker cartoons. For them, a return to normal is merely not being forced to look at Trump’s spray tan. It is the return of feeling safe enough to not have to care. So long as they know the captain is competent, they can stop worrying about the ship going down and get back to reading White Fragility.

The reality is that Trump’s presidency has been anything but “not normal.” It has continued the same brutal worldview of his predecessors, albeit with unorthodox theatrics that has made the mockery of our two-party system transparent. This became evident when the neutralization of Bernie Sanders’s social-democratic message was celebrated even more by Democrats than Republicans, the former of whom could never get beyond Sanders’s fatal error of using the term “working class.” Unsurprisingly, these same people have nostalgically pined for the “decency” of George W. Bush and rallied behind Joe Biden, a man whose entire political career has been spent championing the very policies that made a figure like Trump appealing to so many in 2016....

There's obviously something to this, but like some on the left (I mean the actual "left," not the neoliberal-identity-politics-pretend-left), he underestimates the real threat posed by Trump's authoritarian instincts.  One would not want to repeat Ernst Thälmann's world-historic mistake of identifying the "social democrats" as the bigger threat!

A philosophy prof came up with the idea for the MacArthur "genius" [sic] grants

F. Champion Ward, who taught at Denison University and was also a protege of Robert Hutchins at the University of Chicago, entered the foundation world and seems to have come up with the idea for the now-mysterious MacArthur windfalls.  Given the Hutchins connection, he almost certainly thought these should be awards to recognize genuinely exceptional achievement. 

(Thanks to Sam Cowling for the pointer.)

 

"The Murder of Professor Schlick" and the fate of the Vienna Circle...

...reviewed at The New Yorker.

"Who is entitled?"

Philosophers Dan Kaufman (Missouri State) and Robert Gressis (Cal State/Northridge) discuss.

One-third of humanities faculty at Roehampton (in the UK) likely to lose their jobs!

A humanities staff member in the UK writes:

The University of Roehampton (London) has just announced staffing cuts of £1.6 million to be made in the Humanities school (it’s £3.2 million for the two Arts and Humanities schools together) by the end of the academic year. Roughly one third of Humanities faculty will be made redundant; that’s roughly 25 from 75 faculty in a school that has excelled in scholarship and research. This has been announced after many staff had accepted management’s ‘offer’ of a temporary 10% pay reduction in order to offset losses related to the pandemic. We don’t know yet how these cuts will be imposed across the school; a review of the degree programmes in the different subjects is underway.

The student intake this year at Roehampton was disappointing in many Humanities subjects. But this is to a large degree a direct result of a government decision in August (during the fiasco concerning the grading of A-levels in the absence of examinations) to reverse a policy that would have prevented the bigger, more prestigious institutions hoovering up domestic students in order to mitigate the financial impact of falls in international students paying higher fees. The situation now is perfectly irrational: some of the normally very selective institutions have more students than they know what to do with this year (their disgruntled staff will tell you that) while institutions like ours (which traditionally have offered working class students a way into higher education) do not have enough. This is not bad news for the government, of course, which clearly wants to see some institutions go to the wall, and thus fewer students attend university, particularly in the Humanities subjects.

https://twitter.com/SaveUoRAH

There is a petition here.

On free will

Philosophers Daniel Dennett (Tufts), Helen Steward (Leeds), and others discuss.

This is what happens when you read too much Kant

You can't even enjoy your Schadenfreude when a wicked man falls ill.  Stuff like this is an embarrassment for philosophy; maybe it should be preached from the pulpit on Sundays, or revealed in the confession booth, but to pass it off as a philosophical "insight." Oy veh.

(Thanks to Henry Cohen for the pointer.)

ADDENDUM:  Also relevant.  The explanation, of course, is either that the Democrats don't really believe Trump is a fascist dictator wannabe or they don't want to alienate the many voters who don't view the monster-child that way.  (Thanks to S. Wallerstein for the pointer.)

New study estimates 20% of Chicago residents have antibodies to the new coronavirus

Not wholly surprising, given that there have been more than 83,000 confirmed cases in a population of not quite 2.9 million in the city proper.  So 20% having been exposed would mean not quite 500,000 people with either symptomatic or asymptomatic cases over the last 8 months or so.  I've talked to some students who had COVID-like symptoms in the Spring who could not then get tested, and I suspect that phenomenon was widespread.  We're still far from "herd immunity," as the surging cases this past week illustrate:  more than 2,900 confirmed COVID cases this past week in Chicago, the highest total since last May (Chicago has been running a bit over 2,000 confirmed cases per week for a couple of months now, but it ticked up noticeably this week unfortunately).

Great moments in obscure rock 'n' roll: Bang, "Lions, Christians," 1972

Another number from the debut album of this Philadelphia band we featured a few weeks ago, who were, not wrongly, described as the "American Black Sabbath" (albeit not as successful), which one can hear in this song:

 

Ithaca College, in upstate New York, to cut 130 of its 547 faculty positions...

...as a result of budget shortfalls brought on by the pandemic.   This is a horrifyingly draconian set of cuts being contemplated (essentially 1 out of every 4 faculty may lose their jobs!).  Tenured faculty may be fired according to the college, and whole departments may be eliminated, although none yet have been named.  Although not included in the study of Covid's effect on higher education that we noted earlier this year, Ithaca seems similar to schools that that study deemed at risk.

Further details and information welcome in the comments.

What is it like to be a philosopher? Bryan Van Norden edition

Here, courtesy of Clifford Sosis as usual.

2020-21 Update for top five Canadian schools from the 2017 PGR

MOVING TO FRONT FROM SEPTEMBER 25--CORRECTED

Since the 2020-21 PGR has been delayed, this is a summary of changes at the tenured (or almost tenured) ranks at the top 5 PhD programs in Canada since the 2017 Philosophical Gourmet Report; more precisely, these are changes that were not reflected in the faculty lists evaluators saw for the 2017 PGR surveys (some moves that weren't official until 2018 were reflected in the faculty lists for the 2017 surveys).  (Please e-mail me any corrections or additions, thanks.)   My thanks to Mitchell Barrington for his assistance in compiling this information.

University of Toronto (#1 in Canada, #10 in world in 2017 PGR):  Added George Boys-Stones (ancient) from Durham; Michael Caie (philosophical logic, philosophy of language, formal epistemology) and (advanced junior lateral) Jessica Gelber (ancient Greek and Roman philosophy) from the University of Pittsburgh; Chris Fraser (classical Chinese philosophy, comparative philosophy) from the University of Hong; Elisa Freschi (advanced junior lateral) from the University of Vienna and Jonardon Ganeri from NYU-Abu Dhabi, both experts in Indian philosophy; and Michael Rosenthal (early modern, Jewish philosophy) from the University of Washington.  Lost Charles Brittain (ancient) back to Cornell University.  May lose Karolina Hubner (early modern) to Cornell, where she is currently teaching (but it appears she has not resigned yet from Toronto).  Will now be the strongest department in North America, and probably the Anglophone world, for students interested in some of the major non-Western philosophical traditions.

Southwest Baptist University in Missouri eliminates its philosophy program...

...and the job of its one tenured philosophy professor, who appears to be the real target.  Not a good look for SBU at all.

(Thanks to Rev. Beau Underwood for the pointer.)

This New England Journal of Medicine editorial would make a good opening statement at the "war crimes" trial for those politicians who failed us in the "war on COVID"

An excerpt:

Why has the United States handled this pandemic so badly? We have failed at almost every step. We had ample warning, but when the disease first arrived, we were incapable of testing effectively and couldn’t provide even the most basic personal protective equipment to health care workers and the general public. And we continue to be way behind the curve in testing. While the absolute numbers of tests have increased substantially, the more useful metric is the number of tests performed per infected person, a rate that puts us far down the international list, below such places as Kazakhstan, Zimbabwe, and Ethiopia, countries that cannot boast the biomedical infrastructure or the manufacturing capacity that we have.² Moreover, a lack of emphasis on developing capacity has meant that U.S. test results are often long delayed, rendering the results useless for disease control.

Philosophy majors in the U.S. increasing in the last few years

Eric Schwitzgebel (UC Riverside) has the details.

Douglas Husak (Rutgers) talks about punishment...

...on Brain in a Vat.

2020-21 Update for U.S. schools for the 2017 Philosophical Gourmet Report

MOVING TO FRONT--ORIGINALLY POSTED AUGUST 24

Since the 2020-21 PGR has been delayed, this is a summary of changes at the tenured (or almost tenured) ranks at roughly the top 50 PhD programs in the U.S. since the 2017 Philosophical Gourmet Report; more precisely, these are changes that were not reflected in the faculty lists evaluators saw for the 2017 PGR surveys (some moves that weren't official until 2018 were reflected in the faculty lists for the 2017 surveys).  (Please e-mail me any corrections or additions, thanks.) 

At the end, I give a rough guesstimate of the new rankings in light of these changes if surveys were done this fall.

New York University (#1 in 2017 PGR):  Lost Jim Pryor (epistemology) to the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; and Richard Foley (epistemology) and Beatrice Longuenesse (Kant, post-Kantian Continental philosophy), both of whom retired (or are about to retire), and David Velleman (ethics, moral psychology, philosophy of action), who also retired and took up a Research Professorship at Johns Hopkins University.  Will probably remain #1 despite these significant losses.

Rutgers University, New Brunswick (#2 in 2017 PGR): hired Karen Bennett (metaphysics) from Cornell, Derrick Darby (social & political philosophy, philosophy of race) from Michigan, Nir Eyal (bioethics) from the Harvard School of Public Health, Michael Glanzberg (philosophical logic, philosophy of language, metaphysics) from Northwestern University, and Brian Leftow (philosophy of religion, medieval philosophy) from Oxford University.  Daniel Hausman (philosophy of social science, ethics), who has retired at Wisconsin, has accepted a six-year appointment with the new Rutgers bioethics center, that will also include regular teaching in philosophy for the next six years.  Rutgers was already one of the very top programs in both metaphysics and philosophy of language, and will now be close to tops in philosophy of religion as well and a good choice for philosophy of race and also bioethics (with Frances Kamm, in addition to Eyal).  These appointments mostly play to strengths, but will close the gap with #1 NYU somewhat (NYU's big advantage in terms of the overall rankings has been its broader coverage of philosophy, especially history of ancient and modern philosophy, including the post-Kantian Continental traditions).

Princeton University (#3 in 2017 PGR):  hired Lara Buchak (decision, game & rational theory) from the University of California, Berkeley and Andrew Chignell (Kant, philosophy of religion) (primary appointments in Religion and Center for Human Values) from the University of Pennsylvania.  Also added junior lateral Una Stojnic (philosophy of language, philosophical logic) from Columbia University.  Will remain squarely in the top three.

The real "terror" threat in America

It's domestic and it's from the partly lunatic,  partly infantile right.

How many languages does Werner Herzog speak?

This is hysterical.  He really doesn't like to speak French!

 

Some not-so-nobel Nobel Prize choices

This is amusing.

I've read Derrida (more than I wish I had), and there's no doubt he's a charlatan, and a symptom of the decline of certain parts of the humanities

This review of a recent biography tries to suggest there's something there, but it provides some amusing ammunition for the contrary view:

One of Derrida’s examiners at his prestigious high school, the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, wrote of his work: “The answers are brilliant in the very same way that they are obscure.” His work as an undergraduate was no easier to decipher. Louis Althusser said that he could not grade his dissertation because “it’s too difficult, too obscure.” Michel Foucault could do little better, remarking: “Well, it’s either an F or an A+.”

The Derrida portrayed by Salmon would have shared these doubts. His “nagging fear that those who saw him as a charlatan were right never left him.”

At least he himself knew!  You can't really get the flavor of how bad Derrida is without reading his wild misreadings of other figures in the history of philosophy.  As I said years ago, Derrida "devoted his professional life to obfuscation and increasing the amount of ignorance in the world: by 'teaching' legions of earnest individuals how to read badly and think carelessly....[H]is legacy is one of shame for the humanities."

The First Amendment is apparently hard to understand

MOVING TO FRONT FROM OCTOBER 5--UPDATED WITH ADDITIONAL INFORMATION FROM PROFESSOR JUN

IHE had a brief item this morning about controversy over statements by philosopher Nathan Jun, who teaches at Midwestern State University.  (MSU is a public liberal arts college, in a smallish city in North Texas (about 100,000 people), on the border with Oklahoma.)   Jun did a riff on the remark attributed to Diderot that "Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest," substituting police, capitalists and politicians for priests and kings.  This is clearly lawful expression, but it was bound not to play well in that part of America (probably it wouldn't play well outside of Hyde Park or Greenwich Village). 

The University initially pointed out that the First Amendment exists and protects Professor Jun from sanction by the university for his speech.  So far, so good.  But now the University President has taken to Facebook to assure her constituencies that they're looking into lawful options for punishing Professor Jun's speech.  Not so good.  I'm struck by the commenters on her Facebook post:  some think that hate speech is not protected by the First Amendment (it is, but Jun's statement doesn't meet any statutory definition of hate speech I've seen in those jurisdictions where it is not protected--though one could imagine that politicians would be thrilled to be a protected class for hate speech!); others think his statement constitutes unlawful threats or incitement to violence (it is neither, and it's not close).  (It's true Diderot's remarks preceded the French Revolution, but no one thinks they incited anyone to the violence that ensued!)

How a Justice Amy Coney Barrett would reshape the Supreme Court

There's a lot of commentary here, a lot of it fanciful, but Mark Tushnet (emeritus, Harvard Law) cuts to the chase and probably gets it right:

With a newly constituted Supreme Court, we’re not going to see dramatic changes in constitutional law within a year. But let’s assume the court stays the same for the next five years (perhaps with replacements for Justices Stephen Breyer and Clarence Thomas). Over that period, we can expect the court to hold race-based affirmative action unconstitutional in public universities and banned by statute for private colleges; uphold one or two newly enacted restrictions on access to abortion and then, toward the end of the period, overrule Roe v. Wade; and strike down some fairly restrictive regulations of gun ownership while upholding most of the more important restrictions. The court won’t retrench on the core of its gay rights holdings, but it will allow businesspeople who object for religious reasons to providing services to LGBTQ-plus people to avoid liability under antidiscrimination laws (more broadly than a court with a liberal majority would).

Tushnet also thinks a far right Court will push back on Democratic economic regulations, although he says, rightly, it will all depend on the details that can't be predicted in advance.

ADDENDUM:  Everything you wanted to know about Judge Barrett's scholarly and judicial work, courtesy of the Congressional Research Office.  (Thanks to Dean Rowan for the pointer.)

 

Richard Marshall interviews Alice Crary (New School & Oxford)...

...at 3:16 AM.

When COVID joins the family gathering

Not a happy event:  a 13-year-old with very mild symptoms (stuffy nose) nonetheless infected 11 others!

The increasingly mysterious MacArthur windfalls

21 new windfall recipients here.  As I noted five years ago, the awards "used to be known [in the 1980s] as the 'genius' awards until it became obvious that wasn't the selection criterion! What is the selection criterion? No one is really sure."  Nomination occurs through a secret process, as does selection.  It's clear that being an academically or otherwise accomplished minority is an advantage (this year is fairly typical, with two-thirds of those recognized being racial or ethnic minorities), but beyond that, I still could not tell you what the criteria are.  Has anyone studied what these awards have accomplished?  Has all this money (by now, hundreds of millions of dollars) done anything useful for the world, other than provide a windfall for its recipients?  I don't know, but I hope the MacArthur Foundation does.

 

Another academic freedom case, at the University of New Hampshire

IHE, in a very strangely written article (more on that in a moment), reports that the University of New Hampshire has put an assistant professor of chemistry on administrative leave and is investigating him because he posted pseudonymously (posing as a minority STEM professor) on Twitter in order to critique "woke" blather.   I can't see how a public university can have any grounds for investigating or disciplining him, unless he engaged in some criminal misconduct under the pseudonym (and the article contains no suggestion of that).   This is plainly extramural speech protected by academic freedom.   And this is not like the case of the George Washington professor (Jessica Krug) who passed herself off in real life as a racial minority, which raises questions about fraudulent misrepresentations that affected her hiring.

The author of the article, Colleen Flaherty, perhaps realizes that the University has no case here, and that may account for some of the strange claims.  Ms. Flaherty writes:

Three other white academics have been outed this year as posing as people of color, two in person and one only online. All three people -- historian Jessica Krug, graduate student CV Vitolo-Haddad and #MeTooSTEM founder BethAnn McLaughlin -- caused harm, especially to members of the communities they were imitating, but they also, to varying degrees, used their fake identities to advocate for those communities. 

Notice that the article reports as fact that the imposters "caused harm, especially to members of the communities they were imitating."   Really? What is the evidence? That people were upset?  But being upset or offended is not being harmed.  Recall the apt remarks of the late John Gardner (Oxford): 

That something offends you, or more generally makes you feel bad, does not show that it does you any harm. We all feel bad about something most days and come out of it unscathed, just as we come out of most physical pain unscathed. Of course there may be harms that are consequences of offence and pain. Torture harms people by the use of pain. Upset may turn to depression and may then be disabling.

No evidence of any harm has been adduced, but Ms. Flaherty writes as though it were an established fact that there was harm.   That is shoddy journalism. 

Conservatism, libertarianism, and progresssivism

Philosopher/lawyer Ken Levy (LSU) comments.  (It's wrong to lump socialism together with liberalism, as he does, but that's minor.)

Pickup from Oxford to Birmingham

Martin Pickup (philosophy of religion, metaphysics), current a Junior Research Fellow at Oxford, has accepted appointment as Senior Lecturer in Philosophy of Religion at the University of Birmingham, effective March 2021.

Blast from the past: what PhD students wish they had known *before* starting their program

Back in 2013.

Motivate the troops...

...with heavy metal.  Bizarre!

Fox defends against defamation suit by arguing that no "reasonable viewer" could take Tucker Carlson's statements seriously

Good to know!

"Does God exist?"

Philosopher Graham Oppy (Monash) discusses on Brain in a Vat.  (Spoiler alert:  no.)

The latest on Trump's health

Here from the NYT.  They now acknowledge that his oxygen levels had fallen and that he needed some supplemental oxygen, but now think he can be discharged soon.  This may all be true, but it also reminds me of my father's experience with Covid last April.   He was admitted April 8 but discharged about five days later, after the fever passed and his oxygen levels stabilized on a small amount of supplemental oxygen (he was 87, with underlying but stable COPD).  Within a few days of discharge, things got markedly worse, and he had to be re-admitted and he ultimately died from the effects of Covid.  I learned this roller-coaster pattern is not atypical:  initial illness/symptoms, improvement after a few days, and then around days 7-10, relapse. Perhaps Trump will be lucky, but presumably the doctors understand the risks.  If he is discharged tomorrow, say, and a week from now is still out of the hospital, then he will probably recover.

Great moments in obscure rock 'n' roll: Yesterday's Children, "Sailing," 1970

Psychedelic/blues band from Connecticut, they recorded one album, from which this song comes:

 

Notre Dame President Rev. John Jenkins should resign

As multiple news outlets are reporting, Rev. Jenkins tested positive for the coronavirus after attending last week's announcement of the nomination of former Notre Dame law professor (now Judge) Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.  Rev. Jenkins violated all the public health protocols that faculty and students at Notre Dame are expected to observe, most particularly, by not wearing a mask.  (By contrast, the Dean of Notre Dame's law school did wear a mask, while sitting right next to the President!)   You cannot demand compliance with public health protocols by your faculty, staff and students, and then flout those protocols yourself in such public fashion.  What an embarrassment; he should apologize and resign the Presidency and return to his role as a faculty member in the philosophy department.

UPDATE (October 4):  Some students are also calling for his resignation; they're correct.

A poll about COVID-related restrictions

UPDATE:  Moving to front from earlier today--vote!

Philosopher Peter Godfrey-Smith (Sydney) suggested I run this poll.  It asks whether you think the level of Covid-related behavioral and economic restrictions in your own local community has been "excesssive," "about right," or "not stringent enough."  Please take it.

ADDENDUM:  Be forewarned some odd ads pop up after you've taken the poll.  I got one for Dr. Phil and "how to lose 31 pounds in a month" (that would be good!), and some gossip about the Royal Family.  Others are, I'm told, more provocative.   Unfortunately, the poll service provider controls those.

ANOTHER (October 2, 6 pm CST):  Here are the results (with about 400 votes), albeit before most of the Asian, Australasian, and European readers weigh in:  about 14% find the restrictions "excessive," 49% "about right," and 38% "not stringent enough."

OCTOBER 3, 10 AM CST:   Now with about 700 votes (including many in the last 12 hours from Australasia, Asia, and Europe), the results have shifted a bit:  33% deem them "excessive," 38% "about right," and 29% "not stringer enough."   Of course, there's always a risk that the "Covid isn't a big deal" nuts may have linked to this somewhere, I don't know.  But certainly restrictions have been more dramatic in Australasia than many parts of America, which might explain the difference.

Finally, a news story about colleges *successfully* managing COVID

In the NYT.  But you heard it here first!

Trump's COVID diagnosis

Trump is 74 and obese, two facts we do know about him, and that puts him at higher risk for complications and even death from COVID.  But counting in his favor is that he will presumably be able to get access to newer treatments, like antibody plasma from recovered patients.   Since he is purportedly asymptomatic today, it seems unlikely he would have been infectious at Tuesday's debate with Biden, since people with COVID are, from what I've read, only infectious in the 48-72 hours prior to the onset of symptoms.  But Biden is being tested as well, of course.

If a candidate for President becomes incapacitated (e.g., on a ventilator) or dies, what happens?  It can get quite messy, but here's an extended and informed discussion by election law experts.

It's hard for those of us living through this nightmare not to experience some Schadenfreude.  As a philosopher elsewhere wrote me this morning:  "The arc of the pandemic bends towards justice."   Given Trump's gross mismanagement of the pandemic, which has cost tens of thousands of people their lives, and millions of others suffering and misery, there is a kind of "justice" that it has now come back to bite him.  If he becomes seriously ill, it may give him a face-saving way to withdraw before his likely defeat.  But it may also plunge this dysfunctional country into further turmoil in ways none of us can yet anticipate.

UPDATE:  The latest this morning (9:30 am CST) is that Trump does have "mild symptoms" now, meaning that he may have been infectious on Tuesday.  What a mess.

ANOTHER:   So as of 11:30 am CST, roughly, the Bidens have tested negative.  Of course, false negatives are not uncommon, so we'll see.

Drudge Report had only 1.4 million unique visitors in August

That detail is buried in this NYT story (the subject of the latter was obviously lifted from this blog!).  According to my public stat counter, this blog had a quarter-million unique visits in August (and that was coming off my July hiatus when I only posted a few times), and 300,000 last month.  In a typical year, there are several months with 360,000 to 400,000 unique visits.  Somehow it seems like I should be a lot richer given these numbers!

The author lived through societal collapse (in his case, the Sri Lankan civil war)...

...and describes what it's like.  An excerpt:

I moved back to Sri Lanka in my twenties, just as the ceasefire fell apart. Do you know what it was like for me? Quite normal. I went to work, I went out, I dated. This is what Americans don’t understand. They’re waiting to get personally punched in the face while ash falls from the sky. That’s not how it happens.

This is how it happens. Precisely what you’re feeling now. The numbing litany of bad news. The ever rising outrages. People suffering, dying, and protesting all around you, while you think about dinner. If you’re trying to carry on while people around you die, your society is not collapsing. It’s already fallen down.

I was looking through some old photos for this article and the mix is shocking to me now. Almost offensive. There’s a burnt body in front of my office. Then I’m playing Scrabble with friends. There’s bomb smoke rising in front of the mall. Then I’m at a concert. There’s a long line for gas. Then I’m at a nightclub. This is all within two weeks....

In Memoriam: Dan W. Brock (1937-2020)

A moral philosopher, Professor Brock became especially well-known for his influential work in bioethics.  He taught philosophy at Brown University for many years, and spent the later part of his career in the Department of Biothics at Harvard Medical School.  The Harvard memorial notice is here.

UPDATE:  Philosophy Tom Carson (Loyola/Chicago) writes:

I am very sorry to learn of Dan’s death.  I knew him well in the 1970s when I was a graduate student at Brown.  He was an outstanding philosopher who did very important and seminal work in bio-ethics.  Dan was also a wonderful teacher.  He directed my doctoral dissertation and my late wife Judy’s.  He was everything a director and mentor should be: helpful, generous with his time, prompt, and diligent.  Dan was very encouraging and supportive, but he also let students know when their work was wanting.  He helped and guided many students through the difficulties and disappointments of job hunting and beginning their careers.  I still have his hand-written comments on several drafts of my dissertation and several of my graduate papers.  I didn’t fully appreciate how apt and helpful his comments were when I was a student.  Some of my early work would have been better if I had followed his suggestions more closely.  Judy was his TA at Brown for a time.  The first time she graded a set of papers for him, she gave most of them Cs and Ds.  Dan made her raise the grades which she did very reluctantly.  She always insisted that she was right in her original grades, because the arguments given by most of the papers were weak or non-existent.  Dan thought that the grades she initially assigned were unfair given the prevalence of hyper grade inflation at Brown in the 1970s.  He wasn’t a cause of that hyperinflation, but he took account of it.  Judy and I and many others were very fortunate to work with Dan and be guided by him. 

The truth about philanthropy

Some facts about where the money is going.   There should be no need for philanthropy; the state should impose an essentially confiscatory tax on all income and wealth above some appropriate threshhold ($10 million?  25 million?).  Then we could have a civilized society!

Annals of tunnel vision

A reader (who asked not to be identified for the obvious reasons) called this bizarre post by Twitter's favorite feminist philosopher to my attention:

Professor Manne is the proverbial "one trick" pony, but unfortunately, she doesn't recognize when the trick doesn't apply.  (We've seen this before.)  As commenters quickly pointed out, people had called for Justice Stevens and Justice Breyer to resign.   As others pointed out, Justice Scalia was only 68 when George W. Bush was re-elected; Justice Ginsburg was 79, when Barack Obama was re-elected, and Justice Ginsburg had a much worse history of health problems than Justice Scalia.

Manne's tunnel vision and tendency to do "philosophy by anecdote" are both usefully discussed in this review of her recent book Entitled (the review got a huge amount of Twitter attention after Manne had a tantrum about it, no doubt amplifying its effect significantly).  

Blast from the past: when "trigger warnings" were the issue du jour

Back in 2015.

Data on academic philosophy in the U.S., 1967-2017

A new report from the APA, with a lot of data about gender, in particular.   I've only skimmed it, so readers are invited to note any interesting material in the comments.

Class and responses to Trump's rudeness and Biden's gaffes

In 2016, Democrats made the mistake of focusing on Trump's rude, crude and vulgar mouth (on display, I gather at last night's "debate" [sic], which apparently some sentient people actually watched!).  Alas, Democrats may be doing it again.   Many people don't care (and those who do aren't on the fence), which is rather important in an election!   This NYT piece from about a week ago, focusing on Biden not Trump, is instructive.  (Law professor Joan Williams addressed related issues a few years ago.)  It addresses the "cultural sensibilities" of voters in those "working-class Democratic communities that put Donald Trump over the top in 2016. They include more than 200 counties that supported Barack Obama twice before voting for Mr. Trump."  What these working class communities have in common--call it the "New Yorker sensibilty"--is that they respect those who stand up to insults and abuse, and punch back and punch hard ("don't take yourself so seriously" is foreign to those who have self-respect):

In the communities we visited, some of their most beloved Democratic politicians have a Trumpian sensibility: They are macho, quick to engage in political conflict and relentless counterpunchers. One is Ottumwa’s Jerry Parker, a former mayor and a current county supervisor. He supported Hillary Clinton during the 2016 primaries; during one local primary meeting, he threatened to take a conflict with a Bernie Sanders supporter “outside.”

Similarly, Mayor Joe Polisena of Johnston is popular even though he is a self-described political “street fighter.” Mr. Polisena doesn’t hesitate to verbally rough up citizens who openly criticize his rule — during Town Council meetings, for example, he calls them “malcontents” and “misfits.”

People in these communities admire the president because he seems familiar. As someone in Johnston told us, Mr. Trump seems “more human, more like us, the working person.” Mr. Trump’s incessant counterpunching, called a sign of a thin skin by many observers in professional circles, is often interpreted as common in many working-class communities.

 

Richard Marshall interviews Frederick Schauer (Virginia)...

...at 3:16 AM.

Philosopher Nethanel Lipshitz (Bar-Ilan/Tel-Aviv) talks about discrimination...

...at Elucidations.