Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

Nietzsche on selflessness

Philosopher Guy Elgat comments at IAITV.

"Philosophy in Focus" from OUP: 20th-century philosophy

OUP is making available free many articles (including mine on Williams's alleged debt to Nietzsche, which is how I learned of this).  The contributions range widely, covering Anscombe, Adorno, David Lewis, Frege, and many others.

"What is the value of philosophy"

Excerpts from interviews with a fairly eclectic group of mostly Anglophone philosophers, junior and senior, although clearly skewed towards those working in Mind/Language/Metaphysics/Epistemology (and relatively few value theorists and historians of philosophy) and including some non-philosophers (like Stanley Fish and Steven Pinker); among the contributors are Brian Skyrms, Tyler Burge, Timothy Williamson, Susanna Siegel, Roy Sorensen, Terence Horgan, Tim Maudlin, Frank Jackson, and many others.

 

A substack devoted to "New Work in Philosophy"

It's the creation of philosophers Marcus Arvan and Barry Maguire, and is a forum for philosophers to promote their own work but also for established philosophers to call attention to work of younger and less-established philosophers (who aren't their students or colleagues!).  Note that philosophers can either write up a description of the work or prepare a short video explaining the work.

In Memoriam: Zenon Pylyshyn (1937-2022)

A leading figure in cognitive science, whose work was quite important in philosophy as well, Professor Pylyshyn taught for many years at the University of Western Ontaro, before joining Rutgers psychology in 1991, which (with Jerry Fodor and Stephen Stich, among others, in philosophy) had become a powerhouse in cognitive science.  I will add links to memorial notices as they appear.  Remembrances from those who knew Professor Pylyshyn, or comments on the philosophical significance of his work, are welcome in the comments.

Martha Nussbaum talks about her new book on "Justice for Animals"...

...in the NYT.

"Flopping" in football (soccer) is wrong!

Philosopher David Papineau explains in the pages of the NYT.

(Thanks to Gregory Mayer for the pointer.)

Does AI language learning count against the hypothesis of "Universal Grammar"?

This popular piece suggests it does.  I'm curious to hear from experts, so comments are open.

Cambridge philosopher who defends free speech appointed to UK Equality and Human Rights...

...which is apparently controversial:

A Cambridge philosophy professor who caused a row by inviting a gender-critical author to speak at the university has joined the equalities watchdog.

Arif Ahmed was one of two appointments to the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Kemi Badenoch, the equalities minister, has announced.

The professor at Gonville and Caius College provoked a dispute in October when he invited Helen Joyce to speak. Professor Pippa Rogerson, the college master, said at the time she would not attend the event because she found the Irish journalist’s views “offensive, insulting and hateful”.

Ahmed, 48, has also begun a series of sessions at the college in which he organises debates around the history and importance of freedom of speech....

Some will regard Ahmed’s appointment as controversial because he has campaigned against what critics see as a move among university student unions and faculties to shut down free speech around sensitive issues.

(Thanks to Neil Webb for the pointer.)

AI philosophy "poems"

Philosopher Blake Myers (recall this earlier item) writes:

I was recently testing the new version of GPT-3 that just came out…mainly looking at its ability to capture well-known people’s views, as well as its ability to formulate such views in different styles. So, just for fun, I asked it to write a poem about your views on Derrida, Trump, and Nietzsche. The input I gave is the part at the top , and GPT-3’s output follows. Kind of funny/entertaining, and perhaps not too far off.

Here it is:

Input:

Write a poem about Brian Leiter. Include his views

about Derrida in the first stanza, his views about

Trump in the second stanza, and his views about

Nietzsche in the third stanza.

Kanye West and Hitler

To the extent I even noticed Mr. West previously, he struck me as a talentless, ignorant buffoon, like many successful purveyors of "popular" music.   His recent forays into anti-semitism and Nazi sympathizing have put this absurd person back into the news.  One of the better commentaries on this grotesque  display comes from John Ganz; an excerpt:

While all these far-right goonies play constant games, equivocate, make bad faith disavowals, or employ euphemisms, Kanye doesn’t have the time, inclination, or ability to do all that. He just says the underlying truth of this kind of politics: he likes the Nazis! Yes, he pretty much said this verbatim, “I like the Nazis.” It was too much even for [Alex] Jones.

Caricatures of philosophers and other intellectuals

John Holbo (NUS) draws them, and they're pretty good!

Online, open access philosophy journals

MOVING TO FRONT, ORIGINALLY POSTED NOV 26-MANY MORE OPEN ACCESS JOURNALS THAN I KNEW ABOUT!  IF YOU CONTRIBUTE, MAKE SURE THE JOURNAL ISN'T ALREADY MENTIONED, AND INCLUDE A URL FOR THE JOURNAL HOMEPAGE (NOT NECESSARY TO FORMAT IT)

Philosophers' Imprint was the first mover here, and has been quite successful; more recently it has been joined by Ergo, another generalist journal.   There are several specialty journals:  I believe Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy was first; there's also Journal of Modern Philosophy, and now Philosophy of Physics.  I imagine I'm forgetting some.  If you know of other online, open access philosophy journals, please post links in the comments.

Otto Neurath on "scientific management"

This was an aspect of his work with which I was unfamiliar.  Comments from those more knowledgeable about the accuracy of this account welcome.

Were you wondering about the sexual behaviors and orientations of Cambridge University undergraduates?

I wasn't either, but this was still amusing (including the fact that philosophy students had the most sexual partners of any major).

New transcriptions of lectures by Hegel (at Heidelberg) found

The scholar who found them thinks it is hugely important, perhaps unsurprisingly, but the linked account doesn't really give any details that would enable one to judge.  It is several thousand pages worth, including of Hegel's lectures on aesthetics.  So probably there are interesting items there.  Comments are open for readers who may know more details.

(Thanks to Brian O'Connor for the pointer.)

Richard Marshall interviews David Hume...

...at 3:16 AM.

Is it "effective" altruism to give money to Republicans?

SBF did, as well as to conservative Democrats.

Did Bankman-Fried and his parents need $121 million worth of property in the Bahamas?

I do wonder how his friends in the "Effective [sic] Altruism" movement thought about choices like these.

Ronald Dworkin on Bill Moyers in 1987

This was one year after his book Law's Empire, and also the year of Robert Bork's failed nomination to the Supreme Court, which put originalism as a "method" of constitutional interpretation front and central in public discourse.  He mostly talks about "applied" issues (which, with Dworkin, is just as well, since he makes a hash of the jurisprudential issues):

(Thanks to Michael Sevel for the pointer.)

Professor Hay is apparently unrepentant for her misconduct

MOVING TO FRONT FROM NOVEMBER 14, 2022--17 DAYS AND COUNTING, AND THE TWEET IS STILL THERE

So ten days have passed since philosopher Carol Hay decided to humiliate Professor Byrne on Twitter based on a misrepresentation, and although she has resumed tweeting, the original tweet remains, without any acknowledgment that it is false and without any apology, which is all the more remarkable given that she learned of her misinterpretation at the Q&A on November 4.   The only conclusion I can draw is that Professor Hay views her behavior as professionally appropriate.  Conference organizers take note.   

Meanwhile, other dishonest philosophers have also been coming to her defense on Twitter, despite first-hand reports from people who were actually at the talk confirming what we all now know about its actual content.

"Electric Agora" webzine shutting down, new venture will be launched soon

Announcement here.

"Effective [sic] Altruism," Longtermism...and now the FTX crypto-currency disaster

Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the now disgraced FTX founder, was perhaps the most famous proponent of "Effective [sic] Altruism."  His financial and legal troubles--he may even face criminal liability--don't show much about E[sic]A beyond what we already knew:  that it appeals to the super rich (vide the right-wing Elon Musk) because it seems like they're doing something "good" while basically leaving the economic system in which they profit (or plunder) untouched.  (You can see how seriously SBF really took his philosophical commitment to utilitarianism and E[sic]A here.)

One of the parochial oddities of "effective [sic] altruism" is that it has migrated from promoting fairly typical charitable giving to prevent disease in poor countries (which at least is a current problem) to a putative concern with the very distant future (which of course makes it even more appealing to today's billionaires).  This "longtermism" turn was usefully discussed on a long twitter thread awhile back (and a more recent essay).  (The author of that twitter thread, Emilio Torres, also has a more ad hominem thread, that does raise some questions about the honesty and character of some of the "leading lights" of EA--see also.  This is irrelevant to the merits of the positions, although given the FTX fiasco, it may attract more interest now.)   Philosopher Kieran Setiya has penned a philosophical critique of longtermism (as set out by the philosopher William MacAskill), showing that it is implausible.  Some excerpts:

The...shock is how much more MacAskill values survival in the long term over a decrease of suffering and death in the near future. This is the sharp end of longtermism. Most of us agree that (1) world peace is better than (2) the death of 99 percent of the world’s population, which is better in turn than (3) human extinction. But how much better? Where many would see a greater gap between (1) and (2) than between (2) and (3), the longtermist disagrees. The gap between (1) and (2) is a temporary loss of population from which we will (or at least may) bounce back; the gap between (2) and (3) is “trillions upon trillions of people who would otherwise have been born.” This is the “insight” MacAskill credits to the iconic moral philosopher Derek Parfit. It’s the ethical crux of the most alarming claims in MacAskill’s book. And there is no way to evaluate it without dipping our toes into the deep, dark waters of population ethics.

Population ethicists ask how good the world would be with a given population distribution, specified by the number of people existing at various levels of lifetime well-being throughout space and time...

New online and "open access" philosophy of physics journal...

...published by LSE Press, and edited by David Wallace (Pittsburgh) and a who's who of philosophers of physics.

Generation X has more utilitarian leanings than Baby Boomers

That's one curious finding discussed in this video from the Geography of Philosophy project, along with cross-cultural studies about the objectivity of aesthetic judgments, free will, and the Knobe effect:

An interesting question is what explains the differences?  People born between 1965 and 1984 (Gen X) would in the West would have been living through the globalisation of capital and the triumph of neoliberal ideas favoring market transactions as the basis for almost all of economic and social life.    Should it be surprising that those subject to pro-market indoctrination have more utilitarian intuitions?  Perhaps experimental philosophers will dig further into the surface variations they have discovered.

(Thanks to Steve Stich for the pointer.)

Malte Willer DID like Fabrizio Cariani's book

For our new series of especially favorable book reviews, an excerpt from the conclusion:

Cariani's book combines serious and perceptive work in natural language semantics with insightful reflections on the pragmatics, epistemology, and cognition of our thought and talk about the future. While certain foundational theory choices do not strike me as inevitable, the resulting framework is elegant and predictively powerful. Cariani’s book is a benchmark for future inquiry into how we think and talk about the future.

Williamson on Kripke's legacy

A remarkably accessible essay, that even discusses Kripke's early seminal contribution to modal logic.

Why billionaires love "Effective [sic] Altruism"...

...at The New Republic.

(Thanks to Richard Marshall for the pointer.)

Richard Marshall interviews Paul Elbourne (Oxford)...

...at 3:16 AM.

Why is the Marc Sanders Foundation sponsoring a workshop involving "professional" mentoring directed by the unprofessional Carol Hay?

This is shocking.  This Workshop is great and important (I've heard very good reports over the years), but it should not involve someone guilty of very public and irresponsible professional misconduct.  I would hope that Professors Sayre-McCord and Lam will do something about this.

"Do the guilty deserve punishment?"

John Martin Fischer (UC Riverside) takes on the moral responsibility skeptics at Brain in a Vat.

"Effective [sic] Altruists" treat girls like "meat" just like guys who don't posture so much

I think that's a fair summary of this:

EA circles...are widely incestous where people mix their work life (in EA cause areas), their often polyamorous love life and social life in one amalgomous mix without strict separations. This is the default status quo. This means that if you’re a reasonably attractive woman entering an EA community, you get a ton of sexual requests to join polycules, often from poly and partnered men. Some of these men control funding for projects and enjoy high status in EA communities and that means there are real downsides to refusing their sexual advances and pressure to say yes, especially if your career is in an EA cause area or is funded by them.....

From experience it appears that, a ‘no’ once said is not enough for many men in EA. Having to keep replenishing that ‘no’ becomes annoying very fast, and becomes harder to give informed consent when socializing in the presence of alcohol/psychedelics. It puts your safety at risk. From experience, EA as a community, has very little respect for monogamy and many men, often competing with each other, will persuade you to join polyamory using LessWrong style jedi mindtricks while they stand to benefit from the erosion of your boundaries. (Edit: I have personally experienced this more than three times in less than one year of attending EA events and that is far too many times. )

More on Professor Hay's Twitter misrepresentation of Professor Byrne at the PPE conference in New Orleans

A propos this, philosopher Chris Surprenant (who was also at the session) makes the following interesting point on Twitter:

What should be getting the most attention -- and it's not -- is that the content of her tweet was addressed in the q&a and Hay acknowledged that she was mistaken. But then she left the Tweet up anyway and didn't say anything to correct what she had written.

I think it's fair to say that Professor Hay has behaved rather badly and ought, as others have remarked on social media, apologize to Professor Byrne.

Graduate programs in philosophy advertising in the blogosphere

Students periodically ask me about American PhD programs that advertise on other philosophy-related blogs.  For the obvious reasons, mediocre programs do not advertise here.  Not all the programs that advertise elsewhere are mediocre, but many of them clearly are.  Proceed with caution!

Richard Marshall interviews Andrew Sepielli (Toronto)...

...at 3:16 AM.

Conference organizers may want to think twice before inviting Professor Carol Hay (U Mass/Lowell) to their event

This bizarre case of unprofessional behavior occurred while I was in Rome, and so I only just caught up on this nonsense in the last day.

On November 4, philosopher Alex Byrne (MIT) presented a paper at the PPE conference in New Orleans; here is the abstract:

Patriarchy and the Original Position
If politics is the art of the possible, political philosophy is the science of the possible. What kinds
of societies could there be, not just for Homo economicus, but for Homo sapiens, a recent product of
a long lineage of primate ancestors? One obvious—in political philosophy, often ignored—
feature of sapiens is sex. Unlike economicus, humans come in two distinct sexed forms, female and
male. And one striking apparently universal feature of past human societies (including at least
many contemporary societies), is patriarchy: the dominance of males in political and social
decision-making. As the historian Yuval Noah Harari says, it is plausible that some ‘universal
biological reason’ accounts for patriarchy. If that is right, then patriarchy may seem inevitable,
or at least hard to avoid. The first part of the paper outlines some evidence for Harari’s
‘universal biological reason’. The second part brings the first part to bear on Rawls’s use of the
original position, and the subsequent feminist adoption of it by Susan Okin. I will argue that
ignorance of one’s sex in the original position fails to deal with the problem of patriarchy, and
that the Rawlsian approach should be abandoned.

During Professor Byrne's talk, philosopher Carol Hay tweeted out the following:

Even if that were what Professor Byrne had argued--it was not, as Professor Hay has known for several days now without removing or qualifying her tweet--it is not appropriate to take to social media to humiliate a speaker behind his back during an academic conference.  But this is made worse by the fact that Professor Hay completely misrepresented Byrne's argument, as several pointed out on Twitter and as I've now had confirmed by various attendees at the session who heard the entire paper.   To do a Twitter "gotcha" at a conference is childish and stupid enough, but to do it and be wrong is beyond belief.

Kathleen Stock reflects on last year's events

Interesting essay.  This was especially striking:

I still face the challenge of dealing with the fact that sections of my former profession and the press have a vested interest in winning the disinformation war about what a heinous villain I must be. Though I tend to insulate myself well from idiots, in occasional moments of weakness I take a look within the Twitter bubbles of others and immediately wish I hadn’t. Reading Academic Twitter can be like encountering your most critical inner voices spread out on the screen for everyone else to read too — except that for some reason, my inner voices now speak in fake American accents. They say “y’all”, and talk about “trans folks”, and call me a “grifter” for continuing to make my way in the world without collapsing into ignominy. I close the laptop and remind myself that there are various ways to be in a mental prison.

We noted one such disgraceful incident involving philosopher Bryan van Norden, for which he has not, at least as far I'm aware, apologized.

A philosophically substantial work on the history of Marxism?

A longtime reader writes:

I'm wondering if you -- or even your readers, if you think it'd be fitting to pose the below question to them -- could recommend a history of marxism that could serve as an alternative to Kolakowski's comprehensive yet superficial Main Currents.  Is there another work out there that covers as much ground but is more philosophically in-depth?

I can't think of anything, but will open comments for suggestions.  The best bet is probably to look at philosophically serious and informed treatments of particular thinkers/movements within the Marxist tradition.

AI bots based on Herzog and Zizek...

...in "conversation"!  Yikes!

(Thanks to Dean Rowan for the pointer.)

What happens in illiberal societies where zealots reign supreme

Iran for instance, where a PhD student in philosophy was murdered by the local thugs of the state. 

Please remember the Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan!

(Thanks to Ruchira Paul for the pointer, and Reza Hadisi on Twitter for calling the issue to my attention.)

 

In Memoriam: Milton Fisk (1932-2022)

A longtime member of the Department of Philosophy at Indiana University at Bloomingon, where he was emeritus, Professor Fisk passed away in September.  He began his career working in metaphysics and philosophy of science, but soon shifted his interests to moral, political and social philosophy within a Marxist framework.  The Indiana meomrial notice is here.

 

(Thanks to Phil Gasper for the pointer.)

On the experience of chronic pain

Philosopher Kieran Setiya writes about his experience.

 

Birkbeck, University of London is in financial crisis and plans on firing 1 out of 4 academic staff...

MOVING TO FRONT FROM NOVEMBER 1--SEE THE UPDATE

...and more than that in philosophy.

UPDATE:  There is a petition in opposition to the draconian Birkbeck cuts here,

https://www.change.org/p/no-job-cuts-at-birkbeck-university-of-london?utm_content=cl_sharecopy_34900592_en-GB%3A6&recruited_by_id=b6cf89a0-5cf9-11ed-91a3-1154886f4a03&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_initial&share_bandit_exp=initial-34900592-en-GB

which I have signed and I urge readers to consider signing as well.

"Peter Singer is the philosopher of the status quo"

This is basically right (and I've written to similar effect previously), although parts of the piece are off base (e.g., Singer's terrible little book on Marx has not been influential).  An excerpt:

For Singer and his brand of moral philosophy, nothing fundamental can be changed. The forces that are in control of our lives and the manner in which we live and work are too powerful to be brought down. All that is left is to save those who suffer the most. Moral reflection, and philosophy more broadly, is reduced to an administrative role: do the most good you can do within a world that is broken.

UK House of Lords discusses philosophy in the state (pre-university) schools

Philosopher Onora O'Neill is among the discussants. (Thanks to Peter Atterton for the pointer)

Is there any centralized source of information about philosophy PhD programs...

...regarding size of the program and time to degree?   I know some departments make this information (especially the latter) available on their homepages, but I don't know of a centralized source aggregating all this data.   Feel free to post links in the comments.  A colleague elsewhere inquired.

In Memoriam: Fr. Harry Gensler, SJ (1945-2022)

A longtime member of the philosophy faculties at Loyola University, Chicago and John Carroll University, Professor Gensler wrote widely in ethics and also produced several widely used texts in ethics and logic.  He died this past June.  There is a memorial notice from the Midwest Jesuits here.

(Thanks to John Tilley for the pointer.)

Did a logic journal publish a supposedly pathbreaking piece with a mistake?

MOVING TO FRONT FROM YESTERDAY--UPDATED

Philosopher Thomas Mulligan calls to my attention this peer-reviewed article, which then seems to be refuted in the comments on this blog.  Peer review isn't perfect, of course, but this is an interesting case.

Curious to hear from readers better-informed about logic.

UPDATE:  A reader points out in the comments that the article has now been retracted.

Competitive debate and philosophy

Philosopher Ben Holguin (Johns Hopkins) discusses this and related topics at Dialexicon.  (The related article is here.)

"Thumos," the Platonic rock band

Philosopher Aaron Preston writes:

A curiosity, possibly of interest to readers of Leiter Reports:

I’ve just discovered that there is a “progressive doom/post-metal” band called Thumos, whose music is inspired by the works of Plato.  Among other things, they have a full-length album of instrumentals based on the Republic (available on YouTube). I can’t speak to the quality of the music (not really my genre), but the concept is intriguing.