Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

Oseroff apologizes to Professor Stock and others for his on-line conduct

Here.  Good for him!

Bolsonaro, the Brazilian fascist

The stuff that comes out of this piece of garbage's mouth would make Trump blush (or at least feel a bit embarrassed in front of Javanka).  He is certainly on a continuum representative of the futile efforts of capitalist democracies to cope with the pathologies of economic life under capitalism, but he is not simply a rhetorical fascist.  Good wishes to the people of Brazil!  And for Americans, the key lesson is this:  if the Democratic Party were actually to become a party representing the vast majority, and not simply the prudent wing of the ruling class, we can expect a similar phenomenon.

America is doomed, part 411: bigotry & guns edition

A white supremacist murders two African-Americans  in cold blood in a Louisville supermarket because of their race.  A NeoNazi anti-semite murders eleven Jews in cold blood in their Pittsburgh house of worship because of their religion.  That's just the last few days!  Surely the intense media coverage will inspire similar armed bigots in this benighted country.  What we need to fight is not "hate"--which is a universal and often useful emotion--but racial and religious bigotry and dehumanization.  But that's hard to do when the nominal President of the United States is a racial and religious bigot himself.

Hate crimes by Trump supporters

It's a long list.

Great moments in obscure rock 'n' roll: Grand Theft, 'Ben the Rat Meets Led Zeppelin,' 1972

This raw power trio emerged from Mercer Island in the state of Washington, to record one wild album and then disappear.  This is the closing track:

 

BU's Paul Katsafanas interviewed...

...at 3AM.  An interesting interview; I agree with some things he says, disagree pretty strongly with some others.

On 'harassment': a guide for beginners (and cry-babies)

If someone is criticized for their public actions or speech, that is not "harassment":  that is criticism.   

Examples of harassment would include, e.g., becoming the target of on-line mobbing by hundreds of philosophers; being targetted with verbal abuse, such as obscenities, sexual or sexist remarks, racist or other ethnic slurs, and other derogatory epithets; being framed for or falsely impliciated in wrongful or criminal acts; receiving death wishes ("I can't wait until you're dead") or threats of death or violence ("You better watch your back, we're gonna get you").

I have been harassed in all these ways, and others, and I am not alone in having been so harassed.  To the other victims of actual harassment, my sympathies.  To those confusing criticism with harassment:  grow up!  Criticism will continue.

CEU moving MA and PhD programs to Vienna beginning in 2019-20... (MOVING TO FRONT, UPDATED)

...in light of on-going harassment by the fascist governent n Hungary.  European Union, where are you?

Readers with more information can post links or comments, below.

UPDATE:  Philosopher Tim Crane (CEU) comments on these developments.  See also the informative comment, below, by philosopher Katalin Balog (Rutgers).

Co-author of APA Code of Conduct violates it, without embarrassment

The APA Code of Conduct, with its violation of the academic freedom rights of faculty, was always an absurd document.  But one might have thought at least those responsible for it would care about it.  Apparently not!

One co-author of the Code, philosopher Yolonda Wilson (Howard), while disagreeing with my views about the APA, decided she also needed to do so by deeming me a "mediocre-ass white man."  (We shall bracket the inaptness of the characterization, apart from the "man" bit.)  Let's note some of the provisions of the Code Professor Wilson helped write which this seems to violate:

1.  Section IV, regarding "Electronic Communications," provides that "it’s best to avoid ad hominem arguments and personal attacks, especially if they amount to slander, libel, and/or sexual harassment and "Language used in professional electronic communications should use the same kind of inclusive language and reflect the same kind of mutual respect as is expected in the classroom or other face-to-face interactions."  Professor Wilson might defend her use of personal attacks and lack of mutual respect and inclusive language by noting that this was not a professional communication (although its subject was a matter of professional concern) and perhaps it was not made from her Howard University computer.  (I note in passing that in response to my pointing out her hypocrisy, she offered as a defense the claim that she would "say it to my face."  I admire that forthrightness, though if anything would violate the APA Code of Conduct, surely it would be face-to-face abuse with epithets...one hopes!)

2.  Section V, on "Bullying [sic] and Harassment," purports to apply to conduct by APA members not simply towards colleagues and students but "others in the profession."  This is specifically said to prohibit "any degrading, hostile, or offensive conduct or comment by a person towards another that the person knew or reasonably ought to have known would cause the target to be humiliated, intimidated, or otherwise gratuitously harmed. Typical examples of bullying and harassment include verbal aggression" and "calling someone conventionally derogatory names or using derogatory stereotypes to describe them."  Obviously Professor Wilson is in plain violation of this provision of the Code.  Professor Wilson, however, explained that she was not being hypocritical in her conduct because, "Truth-telling is not hypocritical."  Now in the Code as written, there is clearly no exception for "truth-telling" via verbal aggressionn and the use of derogatory names and stereotypes.  But for those originalists out there, please take note:  according to one of the framers, none of these provisions apply when one takes onself to speak truthfully!

Shall we hold our breath to see whether any officer of the APA deigns to condemn this violation of the Code by an APA member involved in drafting it?  Of course not!

Australia, inspired no doubt by Hungary, vetoes peer-reviewed humanities funding

What a total disgrace.  Someone in the Australian government who isn't a fascist better find a way to restore these grants:  the damage to the international standing of Australian universities will be terrible. 

Should scholars avoid citing the work of bad people (e.g., sexual harassers, anti-semites)?

My latest Academic Ethics column at the Chronicle of Higher Education takes up the topic. Some examples, unsurprisingly, are drawn from philosophy, but the issue is arising in many fields.

More reactionary Christian viciousness

Justice Department defends anti-trans discrimination by businesses.

Will this year *really* be a good job market for specialists in the post-Kantian Continental traditions?

Last year was shaping up to be, but in the end several of the places advertising hired in other areas or didn't hire at all.  (The excellent Samantha Matherne got some of the offers, and I was delighted an excellent student of mine also secured a tenure-track job--but overall, last year did not live up to promise for Continental candidates.)   But a job seeker this year writes:  "In glancing over this year's job ads, I get the impression that the trend continues to hold. By my count, there are jobs expressing serious interest in this area at Yale, UC Riverside (full prof.), Fordham, Boston College, Loyola Marymount, U. Mich/Dearborn, Vassar, McMaster, University College Dublin (4-year post-doc). Other ads voice interest in this area, even if they don't list it is as an AOS/AOC."  Let's hope so. The last two centuries of philosophy in Continental Europe are easily the most important and relevant in the last five hundred.  In the midst of all the diversity blather, we should remember that huge swaths of Western philosophy--the last two centuries of Continental European philosophy, not to mention medieval philosophy--are regularly ignored in Anglophone philosophy departments.  

The real dangers of a reactionary U.S. Supreme Court

This is a well-informed explanation of what's at stake from a colleague of mine who is far to my right, but also very far from being a reactionary maniac!

Best journals for moral and political philosophy?

Philosopher Peter Vallentyne (Missouri) suggested it might be worthwhile to once again run some reader polls on the best journals in vaarious areas.  I'll start with the best journals for moral and political philosophy:  this includes some generalist journals that regularly publish moral and/or political philosophy papers, as well as specialist journals.  Rank order them based on the quality of the work they publish in moral and political philosophy.  There are 34 choices; unfortunately, new choices can't be added once the poll has started, but hopefully there are no egregious omissions.

Where blog readers live

Thanks to the nearly 1500 readers who participated in the poll about where readers live.  Here are the results (remember that "Scandinavia and Norway" should really be "the Nordic countries"):

Readers, where do you live?
Selection		Votes
United States	50%	724
United Kingdom or Ireland	10%	149
Canada	9%	130
Australia or New Zealand	4%	53
Germany or Austria	5%	66
France	1%	20
Italy	1%	12
Scandinavia or Norway	4%	56
China	1%	15
Japan	1%	11
Russia	1%	9
Mexico	0%	7
Brazil	1%	10
Israel	1%	10
India	1%	11
Pakistan	0%	6
Singapore	1%	16
Other European country	5%	79
Other Central or South American country	1%	9
Other Asian country	2%	24
Other Middle Eastern country	1%	10
Africa	1%	17
1,444 total

I see I didn't entirely gauge correctly the countries to feature.  I was pleasantly surprised by the large minority of German-speaking readers.  I'd love to hear from those in Africa and the "other" categories what country you do live in.  Thanks to all for reading!  (Typepad, the blog service provider, isn't working very well today, so submit your comment only once, it may take awhile to appear.)

Interviews with philosophers of action

Lots of them at this website!  (Link now fixed.)

Nominations are currently open for APA leadership positions--until October 31

A propos this, Professor Kaufman tells me that one correspondent wrote him pointing out that the APA is presently accepting nominations for leadership positions.  Nominators and nominees must be APA members.  The philosopher who wrote Kaufman suggested that it might be good to identify a slate of candidates concerned with some of the issues we have been discussing.  This would include candidates with a robust commitment to free speech and academic freedom (including opposition to the irresponsible Code of Conduct issued by the APA); who will prioritize institutional and professional issues facing academic philosophy; and who believe that the current APA is overly-invested in diversity issues to the exclusion of equally or more pressing matters.  (To be clear, candidates can of course be supporters of affirmative action, as I am, but still think the APA needs to prioritize other issues.)

If you are an APA member, and share these concerns, and are willing to be nominated and serve, please feel free to post a comment below or to e-mail Prof. Kaufman.  If we move quickly, we might be able to produce a slate of candidates that readers can vote on.  (I should add that when the slate of nominees becomes public, I'll also run a separate thread highlighting those candidates who have been on the wrong side of these issues:  e.g., those who signed the Tuvel letter, or were involved with the Code of Conduct, etc.)

How long before Trump says openly, 'Yeah, I'm proud to be white'?

Can't be that long.

Readers, where (in what country) do you live?

MOVING TO FRONT FROM YESTERDAY:  Thanks to the more than 1100 readers who have already voted; if you've not yet participated, please do so!  Thank  you.

=========

I chose particular countries to list based on the data I do have about where readers come from; apologies to those readers whose individual countries are not listed.  Please choose the relevant region of the world instead; I'll open comments after the poll is closed for readers to identify the specific countries.  Thank you.   (CORRECTION:  I got confused about "Scandinavia," which I thought included Finalnd but not Norway, but it's the reverse--so please just treat that category as "the Nordic countries":  Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark.  I can't fix it in the poll itself once it starts, unfortunately.)

Readers, where do you live?

United States

 

United Kingdom or Ireland

 

Canada

 

Australia or New Zealand

 

Germany or Austria

 

France

 

Italy

 

Scandinavia or Norway

 

China

 

Japan

 

Russia

 

Mexico

 

Brazil

 

Israel

 

India

 

Pakistan

 

Singapore

 

Other European country

 

Other Central or South American country

 

Other Asian country

 

Other Middle Eastern country

 

Africa

 

 

pollcode.com free polls

'Philosophy of Hunting'...

...at St. Joseph's College, University of Alberta.  As they say, philosophy is about everything in principle!

(Thanks to Robert McGarvey for the pointer.)

Not-so-crypto fascists in Hungary eliminate "Gender Studies" programs in universities

IHE has the details. Domestic fascists are already expressing pleasure about this, since "academic freedom," well who cares?

If the EU doesn't kick out Hungary and Poland, it will really turn out to be a toothless entity.

Regarding an alternative to the APA

A propos our earlier discussion, philosopher Daniel Kaufman (Missouri State) has volunteered to be the point person for those interested in working on this.  You can reach him at DanielKaufman-at-MissouriState-dot-edu.  I'll of course post updates and information as things progress.

On living with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Read this essay.  Very honest and illuminating.  (I knew the author when he was a PhD student in philosophy at UT Austin.  He was a smart young man, facing a lot of challenges that he describes briefly in this essay.)

Physics and reality

Philosopher Nancy Cartwright (Durham/UC San Diego) discusses with a physicist as well as the owner of IAITV, Hilary Lawson, who really puts himself in far too many of these discussions with experts.

Reader mail

This one was quite funny, from longtime reader Michael Bramley in the U.K.:

As a longtime reader of your philosophy blog (10+ years) I wanted to write a note of thanks for your tireless coverage of these permanently furious, bloodthirsty dogmatists on the Left that give the rest of us (on the same side!) such a bad name. I referring to all this crap about diversity and New Infantilism and of course the nonsense on stilts regarding Tuvel and Stock.

One wonders what bile these True Believers would produce if you *weren't* shining a light on these specimens of slave revolt! Despite my love for medical statistics, here is one situation where I am truly glad there is no control group!

2 350 years ago, Aristotle wrote that, 'To entertain a thought without accepting it is the mark of an educated mind.' In 2018, even entertaining a hypothetical (that is contrary to the party line) is the mark of the devil . This is how the world ends, then: not with a bang, but with a hashtag. (And this is what we're trying to send to Mars?!)

I suspect the item last week on Professor Trott's hypocrisy prompted this, but he raises a good question:  namely, if someone were not shining a very public light on their misconduct, their hypocrisy, their mobbing, their attempts to suppress ideas and speech, would they be doing even worse?  It's hard to imagine what that would be, but maybe vocal opposition does slow them down a bit.  It is at least, as I know from much correspondence, helpful to the targets of the thought police to know they have much support.

Blast from the past: More Nonsense Rankings

Back in 2014, but, remarkably, some people continue to produce similarly misleading "information."  Why are some people so indifferent to the well-being of undergraduate students?  (And see this and this.)

Today in Trump Administration viciousness...

...a proposal to basically strip transgender people of Title IX legal protections from discrimination.   This is evangelical Christianity as public policy.  Whether the courts will go along with such a proposal remains to be seen:  many courts have already held that Title IX applies to discrimination based on gender identity.

Great moments in obscure rock 'n' roll: Jo Jo Gunne, 'Run, Run, Run,' 1972

This Los Angeles band had a top forty hit with this song from their debut album in 1972; I'd never heard it, however, until recently:

 

Saudi Arabia should hire a more experienced Mafia lawyer...

...before putting out transparent bullshit press releases like this.   Even John Gotti would have been embarrassed!

Sussex's Kathleen Stock interviewed...

...at 3AM.

Open letter on the case of Lara Alqasem, denied a visa to study in Israel (UPDATED)

MOVING TO FRONT FROM OCTOBER 12--UPDATED

Philosopher David Enoch (Hebrew U) asked me to share this open letter (written by him, Tamar Hess, and Amos Goldberg), which I am glad to do:  Download Letter to International Colleagues Lara AlQassem3

Note that the letter includes concrete suggestions that concerned citizens elsewhere can take to put pressure on Israel to reverse its decision.

UPDATE:  Some good news, the Israeli Supreme Court has acceoted Ms. Alqsem's appeal of her exclusion and will permit her to enter Israel.  (Thanks to David Enoch for the update.)

Open-access journal 'Ergo' seeks managing editors

The out-going editors, Franz Huber and Jonathan Weisberg, asked me to share the following, which I'm happy to do in support of open-acess publishing:

We are looking for qualified candidates to become managing editors of Ergo, an Open Access Journal of Philosophy, effective July 1, 2019. Ben Bradley (Syracuse) and Alastair Wilson (Birmingham) have generously volunteered to serve. We welcome applications that propose to complete this team, but also applications that propose their own, distinct team (e.g. for logistical or funding reasons).

Responsibilities include handling the day-to-day editorial business including the recruitment of area editors; managing copy-editing and production and publication; securing funding; and maintaining the editorial management system. Information about the journal, including its mission and policies, as well as statistics, can be found here:

https://www.ergophiljournal.org/
https://www.ergosubmissions.org/

Interested individuals and groups are asked to get in touch with Jonathan Weisberg and Franz Huber at: {jonathan.weisberg, franz.huber}@utoronto.ca

We will begin evaluating applications November 1, 2018

Professions of the non-academic readers of the blog

MOVING TO FRONT FROM OCTOBER 16--MORE READER RESPONSES WELCOME!

Thanks to more than 600 non-academic readers who responded to the earlier poll; here are the results

on-academic readers, what is your field or profession?
Selection		Votes
Medicine or medical profession	4%	23
Journalism	2%	14
Law or legal profession	20%	122
Librarian	3%	21
Teacher (not at the university level)	8%	47
Engineer or scientist	7%	43
Religion (e.g., minister, rabbi, theologian)	2%	14
Information technology	13%	81
Business or finance	10%	59
Politics or government	6%	39
Writer (fiction, non-fiction, poetry)	4%	27
Other profession	14%	84
None	6%	34

I'll invite comments from readers on a couple of things.  First, I''m curious to hear about the "other professions" that I left out among my choices.  Second, I'd be interested in more details about, e.g., the government work or the IT work etc. that you'd care to provide, since the categories were obviously broad.  Finally, if anyone cares to say why they read (did you study philosophy at one point?  are you here for other stuff?), I'd find that useful.

A reality check on the Oseroff scandal and the APA Blog (UPDATED)

Given that the Twitter Red Guard continue to dissemble and moan about Professor Stock's and my expose of the APA blog scandal, perhaps a reality check is in order.

Nathan Oseroff, a man in his late 20s, who has a prominent on-line position with the American Philosophical Association (that he continuously advertises), took it upon himself to launch a jihad against feminist philosophers, especially philosopher Kathleen Stock (Sussex) who held what he, in his superior wisdom, deemed to be a "morally unacceptable" opinion about the proposed gender self-ID law in the United Kingdom (this law would permit anyone to redesignate their gender for all legal purposes without any medical or other oversight, evaluation or waiting periods).  This man used his role at the APA blog to post a comment attacking Prof. Stock on the APA's blog that violated blog guidelines (the editor in charge of the blog apologized to Prof. Stock, removed the comment and briefly suspended the offender--remarkably, he has not been removed entirely). 

This adult male also took to social media to defame Prof. Stock as someone who directed "hate" at her students and colleagues.  Doing so would be grossly unprofessional conduct, but this man's only evidence for his libelous charge was that Prof. Stock had a different view about the gender self-ID Law in the UK than he did.   In addition, it turns out that this man also abused his role at the APA to "police" the conference practices of a philosophy society that had actually accepted one of his papers, even though the APA, let alone its blog or its editors, has no authority about how professional societies referee papers.

This adult man, who is almost 30 years old, objected that no one should criticize him since he is a PhD student in philosophy. Some of his fellow Twitteratti, endorsed this view (unsurprisingly, they are all similarly situated:  adults in school engaged in stupid on-line conduct!).  

I suggest that Donald Trump should enroll in a PhD program soon, since some segment of the population apparently believes that misconduct is entitled to a free pass if the perpetrator is an adult PhD student.  (Unfortunately for Trump, that segment may consist only of the Twitter Red Guard.)

Irwin to spend one quarter at Stanford for at least the next three years

Terence Irwin (ancient philosophy, ethics), emeritus at both Oxford and Cornell Universities, will be teaching two courses per quarter at Stanford for at least the next three years, starting with the Winter Quarter of 2018-19.  Stanford already has one of the top programs for ancient philosophy in the U.S..

A (mostly) substantive response by three philosophers to arguments put forward by philosopher Kathleen Stock and other gender critical feminists

Here.   I do not ultimately find it persuasive (see this comment by philosopher Sophie Allen [Keele] which identifies a key weakness of the response), but it is mostly serious and substantive (unlike most of the responses to Professor Stock from Nathan Oseroff & the Twitter Red Guard, I. Pohl, Talia Mae Bettcher, L. Mollica, Asia Ferrin et al.) and worth reading for anyone who has been following this debate.  (It goes off the rails towards the end, however, in trying to rationalize the idiotic rhetoric of those who would silence debate--speaking of which, this reaction is representative of the totalitarian mindset in parts of academic philosophy.)

ADDENDUM:  The last link no longer works, but Professor Stock caught a screen shot of this disgraceful performance by philosopher Rebecca Kukla (Georgetown).

Disciplines are the foundation of a university: against the interdisciplinary fad

Jonathan Kramnick, a philosophically-informed English professor at Yale, has a long and generally plausible takedown of the "interdisciplinarity" blather that has now overrun the universities; it is unfortunately behind a paywall, but here's an excerpt:

A discipline is an academic unit. It is neither a naturally occurring category nor an arbitrary relic of the history of higher learning. Rather, a discipline is an evolving body of skills, methods, and norms designed to explain parts of the world worth knowing something about. To recognize the importance of disciplines — to fight for their survival — is therefore to advocate for a picture of the world, an ontology. It is to insist that the world does not have a single order that is adequately captured by, for example, biology or physics or computation.

A pluralistic array of disciplines matches up with a pluralistic vision of the world: endocrine cells for the biologists, tectonic plates for the geologists, librettos for the musicologists, and so on. Pluralism of this variety should put limits on the way disciplines are coordinated. It should insist that no one discipline is reducible to another. It should also provide the foundations for an interdisciplinarity that is interactive, not reductive, one that takes as its premise that each discipline has something to contribute to matters of shared concern in virtue of its own methods and objects. This is an interdisciplinarity worth having....

A cliché sprung from the tech industry and business schools in the mid-’90s to describe how companies can appeal to neglected sectors of the market, "innovation" is now so ubiquitous in academic culture as almost to pass without notice. [Steven] Pinker pairs it however with a sibling piece of corporate jargon — "silo" — that is worth our attention. "If anything is naïve and simplistic," he writes, "it is the conviction that the legacy silos of academia should be fortified and that we should be forever content with current ways of making sense of the world." Surely many readers of this essay have at some point heard a dean or outside consulting agency decry faculty lodged in silos, or departments siloed in tepid irrelevance, each split off from the other. The history of this pejorative and its migration into the lexicon of university administration tells a fascinating story.

Philosopher who participated in the on-line 'harassment' of Rebecca Tuvel has the audacity to lecture others about on-line 'harassment' in philosophy

Adriel Trott (Wabash) apparently has no shame.  Note that this hypocrite is also involved with the APA Blog!  (Perhaps unsurprisingly, Prof. Trott is giving this audacious lecture at a meeting of the SPEP Advocacy Committee.)

I put "harassment" in quotes for the obvious reason:  Trott conflates actual harassment, such as death threats, with on-line "trolling" and no doubt any criticism, at least of her friends and tastes.  Her essay really isn't about harassment, but another tired attempt to whitewash suppression of the views she doesn't like--hence this bit of self-serving blather:   "Only such community projects [like the APA Blog!] can resist posts that draw in traffic and do real [sic] harm by discussing experiences and identities of marginalized groups in philosophically abstract and distant tones as if people’s lives are puzzles."  In her world, the 'harassment' of Professor Tuvel is, no doubt, a model of good community behavior!

(Thanks to several readers who sent this nonsense along.)

UPDATE:  Just to drive home the point that the word 'harassment' doesn't mean anything, we have (who else?) Nathan Oseroff tweeting this morning as follows:

Nathan Oseroff‏ @nathanoseroff 

Can't wait to hear all the established philosophers say they stand with @AdrielTrott after she was harassed by a philosopher after she gave a talk about harassment in philosophy.

4:23 AM - 19 Oct 2018

I'm sure some "established philosophers" do stand with Trott's shameless hypocrisy, no doubt because they share in it.

UK academics (and others) protest harassment of those taking critical approach to transgender issues in the proposed new UK law

Good to see many philosophers are signatories.  From the letter:

We are also concerned about the suppression of proper academic analysis and discussion of the social phenomenon of transgenderism, and its multiple causes and effects. Members of our group have experienced campus protests, calls for dismissal in the press, harassment, foiled plots to bring about dismissal, no-platforming, and attempts to censor academic research and publications. Such attacks are out of line with the ordinary reception of critical ideas in the academy, where it is normally accepted that disagreement is reasonable and even productive.

Many of our universities have close links with trans advocacy organisations who provide “training” of academics and management, and who, it is reasonable to suppose, influence university policy through these links. Definitions used by these organisations of what counts as “transphobic” can be dangerously all-encompassing and go well beyond what a reasonable law would describe. They would not withstand academic analysis, and yet their effect is to curtail academic freedom and facilitate the censoring of academic work. We also worry about the effect of such definitions on the success rates of journal submissions and research grant applications from governmental bodies such as the AHRC and ESRC.

Blast from the past: Thomas Nagel jumps the shark

Way back in 2009.

Poseur du jour: Moira Weigel edition

When I came across Weigel's sneering review of The Coddling of the American Mind by Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff, I thought it a bit thin on substance and a bit thick on rhetorical tricks:  here was another standard-issue comp lit PhD invested in identity politics and pissing all over the enemy.  (I confess to having little patience for Haidt, who did some clever psychology experiments early in his career--although he consistently misinterpreted their philosophical import--before becoming a public pontificator who apparently believes the main issue in academia these days is not enough Republican faculty:  go figure?)  Now someone has gone to the trouble to eviscerate the review, rather amusingly so.  But let's not knock ad hominem attacks, at least when not strictly fallacious.  Dr. Weigel's father, it turns out, is a retired tax partner at a "white shoe" New York law firm; I'd bet she even has a trust fund.  Any reader of Adolph Reed would hardly be surprised that an elite female child of ruling class privilege would turn out to be deeply invested in identity politics, to the point that its opponents are unintelligible to her.

Robot teaching introduction to ethics at West Point

Given the dreary state of moral philosophy, this doesn't seem that far-fetched, does it?  Next up:  robot teaches armchair metaphysics.

'The Hard Problem,' the play

Of all the hard problems in the world, this one is way down the list, but still!

Philosophy students thinking about law school?

If you've studied philosophy at the undergraduate or graduate level, and are thinking about law school, I would like to urge you to consider the University of Chicago Law School.  The Law School trails only Yale in per capita placement in law teaching, and graduates are also hugely successful in the private firm market, and in clerkships.  Although we have a relatively small faculty (38 full-time academic faculty), we have two philosophers full-time in the Law School (myself and Martha Nussbaum), and a large number of colleagues with philosophical interests of various kinds (including William Baude, Aziz Huq, Richard McAdams, David Strauss, and David Weisbach, among others).  We also have a steady stream of visiting faculty with philosophy training, including in recent years John Tasioulas (King's College, London), Robert Mark Simpson (University  College London), Ryan Doerfler (Penn), Leslie Green (Oxford), and Alon Harel (Hebrew U), among many others.  We also host an annual Law & Philosophy Fellow; past fellows include Amanda Greene (now at University College London), Adam Hosein (now at Northeastern University), Nicolas Delon (now at New College, Florida), Sarah Conly (Bowdoin College), and Ben Laurence (now teaching in philosophy and human rights here at Chicago), among others.  

Each year, we offer a Law & Philosophy Workshop, on a designated theme, which 2L and 3L students (as well as PhD students) may take for credit.  This year, I'm running the Workshop (with Nethanel Lipshitz, our Law & Philosophy Fellow) on the theme, "Enlightenment Liberalism and Its Critics, Left and Right"; outside speakers this year include Jeremy Waldron, David Brink, and Allen Wood, among others.  Prior themes have included "Life and Death" (Martha Nussbaum), "Freedom and Responsibility" (me), "Legal and Philosophical Issues about Race" (Nussbaum), and "Free Speech and Its Critics" (me).  Speakers have included Gary Watson, Derk Pereboom, Hanna Pickard, Seana Shiffrin, Jeff McMahan, Dan Brock, Derrick Darby, Charles Mills, Joshua Cohen, Pamela Hieryonimi, and Mary Kate McGowan, among many others.

The Law School also sponsors the annual Dewey Lecture in Law & Philosophy, which in the last few years has brought Philip Pettit, Elizabeth Anderson, and Axel Honneth to the Law School; upcoming Dewey Lecturers are Steven Lukes and Seyla Benhabib.

We also have regular offerings in the Law School in jurisprudence, feminist philosophy, political philosophy and other areas. Martha Nussbaum and I each teach a Spring course open to 1L students (as well as upper-level students):  I always offer the basic "Jurisprudence" class, while Martha usually teaches either "Feminist Philosophy" or "Emotions, Reason, and the Law."  Martha and I also offer seminars each year that are open to JD students, ranging over topics from "Hellenstic Ethics" to "Bernard Williams," to "Freedom and Responsibility, Contemporary and Historical," to "Global Inequality:  Philosophical and Economic Perspectives."  In a typical year, I usually supervise a couple of independent study projects related to philosophical topics as well. 

Of all the law schools in the U.S., the Chicago experience is also probably most like that of a graduate program in a PhD field, in terms of the intellectual engagement of both faculty and students.  We've also been very successful at recruiting students with philosophy backgrounds, so you will have many like-minded peers.  This year, more than 15% of the 1L class either majored in philosophy or (in three cases) has a graduate degree in the field.  I doubt the percentage of philosophy students in law school is higher anywhere in the country.

Chicago currently has substantial merit aid to offer to very strong students (the best-known are the Rubenstein Scholarships, but there are other sources of aid, including for students interested in a JD/PhD).  Philosophy students, both those with undergraduate majors and those with advanced degrees, have been very successful in getting this aid, and have performed very well at the Law School; as a result philosophy students receive favorable consideration here.   Excellent numerical credentials are very important, of course, but even within that pool, applicants with philosophy backgrounds stand out.  Students with philosophy backgrounds have recently turned down Yale, Harvard, and other peer law schools to come to Chicago.

Just in time for Halloween, something really scary

Fascism in America?   This is interesting, because it's basically a video op-ed by philosopher Jason Stanley (Yale), drawing on his recent book.  It's plainly true that Trump uses the rhetorical ploys Stanley describes, though I'm less sure that equates to fascism, as opposed to just dangerously illiberal demagoguery (there's a lot of political space on the far right, from fascism to illiberalism to authoritarianism).  So far, at least, all of Trump's policies have been implemented legally, and he actually hasn't defied any adverse court orders, despite all the bluster.  Fascist rhetoric does not itself make for fascism.   As my colleagues Tom Ginsburg and Aziz Huq have shown--focusing more on institutions than rhetoric--backsliding into an illiberal or authoritarian regime has happened in many places and remains a real possibility, including here.  Whether that will take the distinctively fascist form is less clear.

UPDATE:  Professor Stanley writes:  "I completely agree with your post. I am very careful in my book to restrict my analysis to rhetoric - my book is about fascist propaganda and ideology, not fascist policies. I tried to keep the video so restricted as well - to the rhetoric, not the policies."

What is it like to be a philosopher: Rebecca Kukla edition

Here.  The story of her early life, "upbringing" (you'll see why I put it in quotes if you read the interview), and time in graduate school and just after makes for gripping reading.    Her comment on the University of Oregon department was also funny:  "I needed to get out of Oregon, which was a hostile cesspool of a department, riddled by sexual harassment scandals, fractured by ideological battles, bitterly resentful of anything they counted as ‘mainstream’ philosophy, and marked by mean-girl pissing contests over what counted as ‘proper’ feminism. It was awful."

3AM's Richard Marshall reviews the 2018 HowtheLightGetsIn festival in London

Here.

(Thanks to  David Maclean for the pointer.)

In Memoriam: Sylvain Bromberger (1924-2018)

MOVING TO FRONT (ORIGINALLY POSTED SEPTEMBER 19)--UPDATED

A longtime member of the MIT faculty, Professor Bromberger wrote widely in philosophy of linguistics and epistemology (more details here).  There is a brief announcement from the MIT Facebook page here.  I will add links to memorial notices when they appear.

UPDATE:  Philosopher of science Brad Wray (Aarhus) writes:

I just saw on your site that Sylvain B. died.  He was a wonderful person.  I was at MIT for a term in 2015 for a sabbatical leave.

He was already very old – in his 90s.  But he was still coming in for talks, and was involved in a reading group with Chomsky.

He had a very interesting life.  The family escaped Belgium when the Nazis came in, and ended up in America via France (I believe with help from a Portuguese embassy worker).  You can find the details of that on the web.  But then he went and fought in the war.  He returned to do a PhD at Harvard, on a topic inspired by Duhem.  People were not reading Duhem in the USA – even Quine had to have Duhem drawn to his attention when he was presenting his own underdetermination paper.

Incidentally, Sylvain was the one who gave Hempel the shadow and the flag pole counter example (Hempel acknowledges this), but Sylvain said it was a tower in his own example.

Sylvain also brought Kuhn to MIT, when Kuhn was looking to leave Princeton.

Prof. Wray subsequently sent along this interesting link.

ANOTHER UPDATE:   The MIT Department has posted an obituary.

'Self-identification, sex, and gender' and the law in the UK

Sensible and balanced analysis of some of the issues by philosopher Leslie Green (Oxford).  Because it is sensible and balanced, he will surely be vilified by the usual brainless automatons in cyberspace!