Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

More thoughts on living with autism and social interaction

A very smart former student of mine from the University of Texas, Mark Engelson, who is on the autism spectrum, writes:

I read the post you shared on the blog with great interest, and I share your doubts about ableism.

There are things that I do (at times, not at others) that can be deeply unsettling to others. My voice has a tendency to crescendo without my conscious intention, for example. This is of a piece with a particularly verbose, larger-than-life manifestation of my autism which is, to be fair, a lot. This combines with a distinct lack of grace (I can't drive, and I once broke a partner's toe when I tried folk dancing as a college freshman). As much as I might like to believe otherwise, I can very much be the bull in the proverbial china shop.

While I had some sense of this about myself, it wasn't really clear to me just how unsettling these traits are until I saw them in someone else. I had the opportunity to meet one of my heroes in music - I don't want to call anyone out - but this gentleman does the exact same thing with his voice, and his affect was like a coiled spring that had just done a line of coke. When I spoke to him, I experienced a brief moment of uncertainty in which I was afraid the guy was going to go apeshit - possibly violent - on me; he actually hugged me. While I know of no history of violence by this individual, his bearing had that effect on me.

Richard Marshall interviews Henrik Lagerlund (Stockholm)...

...at 3:16 AM.

Writing a "trade book" in philosophy

Philosopher Tamler Sommers (Houston) recounts his experience and offers some advice.

Philosophy PhD didn't know Australia is a country, fails student for knowing that it is

Oy veh!

In Memoriam: J. Adam Morton (1945-2020)

Professor Morton's work ranged widely across epistemology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of the emotions and other areas.  He taught in the 1970s at Princeton University, where he also took his PhD, and then for more than two decades at the University of Bristol, and then held a Canada Reserch Chair at the University of Alberta and taught as a visitor at the University of British Columbia through much of the 2010s.  You can learn more about him and his work at his personal page.  I will add links to memorial notices as they appear.

Survey on "The Concept of Representation in the Mind Sciences" seeking participants

I was asked to share the following announcement, which I'm happy to do:

I am Dr. Edouard Machery, Distinguished Professor in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh (www.edouardmachery.com). I would like to you to participate in a 15-minute research study about the meaning of the notion of representation. 

If you decide to participate in this study, you will be presented with four short scenarios describing a neuroscientific experiment and asked a few questions about each. You will also be asked a few general questions and a few demographic questions. The survey is entirely anonymous. There is no risk associated with participating to this study. Although we do not currently have plans to share the data, should we do so in the future, your data will be shared in an anonymous manner. Also, your data will anonymous in any related publications or presentations. Again, participation is completely voluntary. You can choose to be in the study or not. You are also free to withdraw from the study once you begin. However, if you withdraw, any responses you provided will potentially be used. 

Here is the link to the survey to please fill out as soon as possible, but no later than November 15, 2020: 

Amerliorative analysis [sic] and Humpty Dumptying

This is amusing.

ADDENDUM: And here's the 2005 paper by philosopher Nicholas Shackel (Cardiff) that introduced this terminology.  (Thanks to David Zimmerman for the pointer.)

On being a philosopher with autism

Parts of this interview are quite eye-opening; for example:

[I]t’s not that uncommon for people to tune me out completely in the way that people in a public setting tune ou[t nearby conversations. The result is that people often treat as empty the space that I occupy in a social situation. For example, they make eye contact with everyone else while their gaze merely passes over me or they fail to hear (literally) my contributions. This treatment is most noticeable when I’m trying to socialize with people who are all, for example, standing around chatting at a conference during a break. Often when a group of people are talking while standing, how they stand in relation to each other depends on the size of the group. A group of four people might be standing at the four corners of a rough square. If one person leaves, then the others temporarily remain standing where they are so that they appear to be standing at three corners of a square, with the fourth corner empty. If no one else comes to fill the space, they tend to move in closer to form a rough equilateral triangle.

Richard Marshall interviews Carlos Montemayor (San Francisco State)...

...at 3:16 AM.

On our remarkable sense of smell

Philosopher and cognitive scientist Ann-Sophie Barwich (Indiana/Bloomington) comments.

Philosophy course at Wesleyan gets a nice-write up in the NY Times

"Living a Good Life," taught by philosophers Stephen Angle, Steven Horst, and Tushar Irani.

Gideon Rosen (Princeton) answers "five questions"...

...about himself, his work, his conception of philosophy, his fears, as part of the podcast series run by philosopher Kieran Setiya (MIT).  I've listened to a couple of these, but this was one of the most interesting I thought.

"Grandstanding: The Use and Abuse of Moral Talk"...

...reviewed at the LARB.

Americans' engagement with the humanities during the pandemic

A new study from the AAAS, with some interesting results.  A bit further down the list was researching the ethical aspects of a choice--although it doesn't suggest the research was done with the help of philosophy.

(Thanks to Robert Townsend for the pointer.)

MA programs in philosophy with funding

Via Geoff Pynn's FB page, I discover this useful resource.  It lists both free-standing terminal MA programs and those embedded in PhD-granting departments.   But do see the guidance in the PGR on how to approach MA programs, especially those embedded in PhD departments.  I increasingly counsel students to avoid Tufts, notwithstanding the strength of the faculty, since they do not provide adequate financial aid for their MA students.

 

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.

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.

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.)

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

Here, courtesy of Clifford Sosis as usual.

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.)

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.

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!)

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

...at 3:16 AM.

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.)

"Does God exist?"

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

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.

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. 

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).  

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.

Richard Marshall interviews Frederick Schauer (Virginia)...

...at 3:16 AM.

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

...at Elucidations.

"How does science really work?"

Recent work of philosopher Michael Strevens (NYU) discussed in The New Yorker.

(Thanks to Benj Hellie for the pointer.)

In Memoriam: Amélie Oksenberg Rorty (1932-2020)

MOVING TO FRONT FROM SEPTEMBER 19--UPDATED

Professor Rorty wrote very widely in moral psychology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of the emotions, and the history of philosopy (especially ancient).   She taught for a quarter-century at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, and then later at Brandeis and Boston Universities, among other places.  I will add links to memorial notices when they appear.

(Thanks to Geoffrey Batt for the information.)

UPDATE:  An evocative memorial by Rachel Cohen, who teaches in the creative writing program here at the University of Chicago.  (Thanks to Aaron Garrett for the pointer.)

A concern about this year's Philosopher's Annual results

MOVING TO FRONT FROM YESTERDAY--UPDATED

A couple of readers have pointed out that two of the ten papers chosen this year by the Philosopher's Annual are by faculty at Michigan, which by itself would not be notable since Michigan is a top department.  The worry is that the winning papers were chosen by three Michigan graduate students, working together with philosopher Patrick Grim (Stony Brook), who has been involved with the Philosopher's Annual since the beginning, and has done a terrific job through the years.   This, alas, has (as we say in the law) the "appearance of impropriety," even if the papers were wholly meritorious.  To be clear, papers are suggested for inclusion by a few dozen nominating editors (of whom I am one), and the nominating editors also provide feedback on the papers nominated.  But the final decisions are made, after intensive reading and discussion, by the Michigan graduate students, working with Professor Grim.   My inclination is to think that papers by Michigan faculty should not be eligible for inclusion under these circumstances, given the clear risk of bias involved.

UPDATE:   Professor Grim asked me to share this response to these concerns, which I am happy to do:

Because we worried about implicit bias, we began our deliberations this year by agreeing that authorship by a Michigan faculty member should be treated as a presumptive mark against inclusion.  Only truly exceptional virtues in other regards were to be taken as outweighing that negative presumption.

In the cases at issue we decided that higher bar was actually met.  We allow the pieces in question to speak for themselves. 

For many years we excluded Michigan faculty as nominating editors, but eventually decided that blanket policy was depriving us of important expertise.  We feel a blanket policy against articles by Michigan faculty would similarly compromise the goal of the Philosopher’s Annual—selection each year of ten exceptional pieces, of particular interest and importance, regardless of authorship, affiliation, or place of original publication. 

I'm not sure this is responsive to the worry.  All these decisions (about "exceptional virtues" and what constitutes the "higher bar") are being made by graduate students at Michigan,whose professional futures depend on the faculty whose work they are evaluating.   Professor Grim is the only independent counterweight in the mix, but he is but one of four final decision-makers, the others being the Michigan grad students.

Lessons from the list of highly cited books since 2000

I think there are a couple of takeaways from looking at the books that pile up huge numbers of citations in philosophy over the last twenty years:

1.  Books that draw an audience outside philosophy fare much better--in part because citation practices are stingy in philosophy but profligate in some other fields (e.g., psychology).  This makes the high citation counts for books like Williamson's and Hawthorne's (books that only analytic philosophers are going to read and discuss) notable.

2.  Gender (and somewhat recently) race have become "hot" topics in the humanities and social sciences, so philosophy books that touch on those also fare well.

3.  Some of the books are actually quite good and worth reading!

Philosopher's Annual, ten top papers from 2019

MOVING TO FRONT FROM SEPTEMBER 13:   The papers are now available at the PA website.

Here are the papers recognized this year:

Brad Armendt (Arizona State), “Causal Decision Theory and Decision Instability,” from the Journal of Philosophy

Maegan Fairchild (Michigan), “The Barest Flutter of the Smallest Leaf: Understanding Material Plenitude,” from the Philosophical Review

A Hume scholar on Hume's racism

Philosopher Paul Russell (British Columbia/Lund) comments in The Scotsman.  In an e-mail to me (which he kindly gave permission to share), he observed:

Suffice it to say that Hume would have laughed at the resemblance between the sanctimonious moralism of this woke mob (who are tormenting him in death) and the crazy nuttiness of the Christian fanatics (who tormented him when he was alive) - they are very similar psychological types.

ADDENDUM:  And here's the petition that started it all.  The original proposal was to rename the tower after Julius Nyerere, but that didn't last long, as the petition organizer quickly did a mea culpa:

A previous iteration of this petition campaigned for the name to be changed to Julius Nyerere Tower. It has been brought to my attention by multiple students that Nyerere was harmful in his own ways, both through his ties to dictatorship and through his homophobia. This petition now only campaigns for the renaming of David Hume Tower. Thank you so much to the students who contacted me to educate me. I sincerely apologize for any harm I have caused.

Relax, you didn't cause any "harm", except ultimately to the reputation of the University of Edinburgh.

 

Most influential books of philosophy of the last 20 years?

There was some chatter on Twitter about this, but here's what Google Scholar tells us about which books are being cited the most.

Martha Nussbaum (Chicago) looks to be the hands-down winner, with multiple books cited more than 1,500 times, including Women and Human Development (2001), with nearly 11,00 citations; but also Frontiers of Justice (2009), with 6,100 citations; Upheavals of Thought (2002), with 6,600 citations; and Hiding from Humanity:  Disgust, Shame and the Law (2009), with more than 2,000 citations.

Here are some other philosophy books published since 2000 with more than 1,500 citations according to Google Scholar (cite count rounded to the nearest 100):

Timothy Williamson (Oxford), Knowledge and Its Limits (2000), 5,400 citations

Miranda Fricker (CUNY Grad Center), Epistemic Injustice (2007), 4,000 citations

Cristina Bicchieri (Penn), The Grammar of Society (2006), 2700 citations

Jerry Fodor (late of Rutgers), The Mind Doesn't Work That Way (2001), 2,600 citations

Robert Brandom (Pittsburgh), Articulating Reasons (2009), 2,300 citations

"The Microfoundations of Marxism"

Philosopher Jaime Edwards (St. Norbert College) talks with philosopher Robert Gressis (Cal State/Northridge) about some of the ideas and arguments growing out of his important dissertation on this topic.  (Edwards and I are writing the volume on Marx for my Routledge Philosophers series.)

Philosopher Alastair Wilson (Birmingham) on "Natural Philosophies"...

...discussing quantum modal realism.

The life and work of Derek Parfit

Informative essay by philosopher Jonathan Dancy (Texas).

In Memoriam: Jeffrie G. Murphy (1940-2020)

A leading contributor to philosophy of law, especially philosophy of criminal law, and moral philosophy, Professor Murphy  taught at the University of Arizona for a number of years before moving to the Arizona State University faculty in 1981; he ultimately held appointments in both the philosophy department and law school.  The ASU memorial notice is here.

2020 Hiett Prize in Humanities goes to a philosopher, Zena Hitz (St. John's, Maryland)

Announcement here.  Nice to see Professor Hitz, a fierce champion for the humanities and philosophy, recognized.

(Thanks to Scott Newstock for the pointer.)

Philosophers on Twitter lists

Amusing, although those who are sadly deceased (like Hubert Dreyfus and Roger Scruton) should be dropped.

Student-maintained Philosophy admissions for 2020-21 spread sheet...

...here.

(Thanks to Linds Whitaker for the pointner.)