Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

ChatGPT4: still not very good at logic puzzles

Philosopher Ned Hall (Harvard) tried again:  Download Ned Hall GPT4 logic puzzle attempt 3-26-23.  (Earlier try.)

For what it's worth, I gave GPT3 my jurisprudence exam question from last year; the answer was failing, and not even close.

Richard Marshall interviews Jean-Jacques Rousseau...

...at 3:16 AM.

"Using AI to fight crime"

Philosopher David Boonin (Colorado) discusses at Brain in a Vat.

Noam Chomsky talks about the history and philosophy of linguistics...

...at Robinson's Podcast.

On the situation at Bowling Green

I try not to comment on internal departmental matters, unless there is substantial information in the public sphere (or I have substantial information that I have permission to share).  Thus, while I have noted some developments at Bowling Green, I have not weighed in on the merits, because there simply is not enough public information for doing so.  Alas, this has not stopped others, for example, here and here.  These accounts both adopt the perspective of Professor Christian Coons, whose job is on the line at Bowling Green.  His perspective may, in fact, be wholly correct, I simply do not know (it wins support from other public comments on social media by former faculty [Molly Gardner] and graduate students [David Faraci]).  What gives me pause is the following information that is also in the public record:

Q(uirky) S(illiness) philosophy rankings for 2023 are here

As usual, the primary explanation for the results is the geographical distribution of the respondents (which they won't disclose), and it would seem this year, the areas of respondents (formal philosophers/philosophers of science were probably over-represented--although, again, there is no disclosure).  QS is a dubious operation, as I've noted before, and it really is a shame that this stuff is probably influencing student decisions.

Sober wins PhilInBioMed Award from the University of Bordeaux

Dr. Thomas Pradeu (Boredeaux) writes:

The PhilInBioMed Award is given annually for an outstanding contribution to the advancement of biology or medicine through the use of philosophical and theoretical tools. To complement this recognition, the laureate receives a prize of €5,000, which is awarded by the PhilInBioMed Institute in Bordeaux, France. 

We are pleased to announce that the first laureate of the PhilInBioMed Award is Elliott Sober, who is the Hans Reichenbach Professor and William F. Vilas Research Professor in the Department of Philosophy at University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA. 

The ceremony will be held at the University of Bordeaux, France on June 12^th, 2023.  

What is it like to be a philosopher? Gregg Caruso edition

Here.

Paul Woodruff discusses philosophy and war...

...at Robinson's Podcast.  Professor Woodruff, now emeritus at the University of Texas at Austin where he taught for nearly fifty years, served in the army in Vietnam.

Philosopher Ann Cudd as Provost at Pitt

As recently noted, she will soon become President of Portland State University.  At Pittsburgh, she had a rough run.  A reader at Pittsburgh also flagged the following for me:

Ann Cudd, philosopher, University of Pittsburgh provost, and soon-to-be president of Portland State University, responded publicly today to demands to cancel campus events featuring controversial speakers. The decision, for now, is the right one, and Provost Cudd seems to grasp the correct rationale for it. But the statement quickly veers into a familiar sort of DEI homily. Provost Cudd openly advertises her political views and implies that the university itself condemns the speech in question (at one point suggesting it represents a "misunderstanding"). The statement culminates in the following fervent pronouncement:

“One fact is unshakable and unchangeable: Before, during, and after these events, our touchstones—the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion—will continue to not only persist and sustain us but will gain even more strength."

Now Pitt's mission statement doesn't so much as mention these so-called touchstones. That aside, I was struck by the religious quality of the statement. I did time at a conservative, religious-affiliated university. To my ear, the grandiose, moralizing tone is unmistakable. I hope that Provost Cudd, and whoever follows her at Pitt, will continue to uphold free expression on campus. This kind of official sermonizing, which in effect raises the stakes for students who oppose the DEI line, does not inspire confidence. 

Richard Marshall interviews Hermann Cohen (the NeoKantian)...

...at 3:16 AM.

In Memoriam: Fred F. Wilson (1937-2023)

MOVING TO FRONT FROM MARCH 15--SOME REALLY INTERESTING REMEMBRANCES OF PROF. WILSON

Professor Wilson, a longtime member of the philosophy faculty at the University of Toronto (where he was emeritus), died in January.  He wrote widely on issues in the history of modern philosophy and science.  The Toronto memorial notice is here.  Comments are open for remembrances from those who knew Professor Wilson or who would like to comment on the significance of his work.

(Thanks to Will Sweet for the pointer.)

BJHP "Best Article" prize for 2022

Alix Cohen, co-editor of the British Journal of the History of Philosophy, shared this announcement [link to Prof. Kremer fixed, I had copied and pasted what was sent]:

The British Journal for the History of Philosophy has awarded the 2022 Rogers Prize—its annual prize for the best article it publishes—to Michael Kremer (University of Chicago) for his paper “Margaret MacDonald and Gilbert Ryle: a philosophical friendship”

Philosopher Dirk Baltzy on Stoicism...

...at rhizastance.

Philosopher David Enoch (Hebrew U) arrested during protests against the government's attack on the judiciary

Photo and details here (in Hebrew, but the "translate" function gives you a pretty good sense for what transpired).  Professor Enoch went to jail on a prior occasion for refusing to be called up as a reservist in protest over Israeli treatment of the Palestinians.

(Thanks to Ori Herstein for the pointer.)

"Philosophy of Science Office Hour" sponsored by the PSA

This is a nice idea:

[T]he PSA is introducing the ‘PSA Office Hour’ as a pilot project. Each month, for some months of the year, a philosophical theme will be chosen and two influential philosophers working within that theme will be made available, individually, to graduate students via Zoom through online sign-up sheet posted on the PSA member website The students will select from the following categories that which best describes what they seek out of the opportunity:

• Input on dissertation topic choice
• Guidance on a problem occurring in own research
• Clarification on an issue within professor’s research
• Other (please describe)

and be invited to write a short paragraph in which they describe in more detail what they would like to discuss with the professor. Up to 6 students will be selected to participate in the office hour, where the selection will be made to maximize thematic cohesion and promote resource redistribution. Office hours will last up to 90 minutes and participants must be current members of the PSA. This opportunity is primarily for graduate students, but postdocs are free to apply as well.

Do any other philosophy organizations do this?

Libet, free will, and more

Philosophers Julian Baggini, Peter Godfrey-Smith, and others discuss at IAITV.

Noam Chomsky (and colleagues) express skepticism about ChatGPT

Here; an excerpt:

The human mind is not, like ChatGPT and its ilk, a lumbering statistical engine for pattern matching, gorging on hundreds of terabytes of data and extrapolating the most likely conversational response or most probable answer to a scientific question. On the contrary, the human mind is a surprisingly efficient and even elegant system that operates with small amounts of information; it seeks not to infer brute correlations among data points but to create explanations.

"Human Nature Forum"

A new website of videos, projects, and discussion fora (via Edouard Machery).

In Memoriam: Ernst Tugendhat (1930-2023)

Professor Tugendhat was an early and influential proponent of "analytic" style linguistic philosophy in Germany, but also wrote influentially on Husserl and Heidegger.  He taught at a number of German universities during his career, including Heidelberg and the Free University of Berlin. There is an obituary in English here.  Comments are open for remembrances from those who knew Professor Tugendhat or for those who wish to comment on the significance of his work.

UPDATE:  A statement of condolences regarding Professor Tugendhat from the German President!  (Thanks to Christian Beyer for the pointer.)

Philosopher Susan Wolf on happiness and the meaning of life...

...at rhizastance.

Richard Marshall interviews Macchiavelli...

...at 3:16 AM.

Austria awards nearly 9 million Euros for an "excellence cluster" project on "Knowledge in Crisis"

The project is led by philosopher Tim Crane (CEU), with participants from the Universities of Vienna, Graz, and Salzburg.  On twitter, Professor Crane reports that with matching funds, they will have about 15 million Euros over the next five years for the project.

"What good is philosophy?"

MOVING TO FRONT FROM FEBRUARY 23--NOW UPDATED WITH THE SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

An online conference to "raise the funds required to establish a Centre for Civic Engagement at Kyiv Mohyla Academy."

(Thanks to Aaron Wendland for the pointer.)

The proposed "constitutional putsch" in Israel

Philosopher and legal scholar Alon Harel (Hebrew University, Jerusalem) comments:  Download Harel 2023 Proposed Constitutional Revolution12. 

More on intuitions and reality...

...a rejoinder to Machery, from Nevin Climenhaga, also at IAITV.

In Memoriam: John G. Slater (1930-2022)

MOVING TO FRONT FROM FEBRUARY 17--UPDATED

Professor Slater, a well-known expert on the life and work of Bertrand Russell, died in November from Covid.  He taught philosophy at the University of Toronto for more than 30 years, where he was emeritus since 1995.  I will add links to memorial notices as they appear.  Comments are open for remembrances from those who knew Professor Slater or who would like to comment on the significance of his work.

(Thanks to Mohan Matthen for the information.)

UPDATE:  The Toronto memorial notices is here.

Pope Benedict's engagement with Nietzsche

This is curious.  His rejoinders to Nietzsche are remarkably feeble, and suggest his engagement did not run very deep--perhaps unsurprisingly!

(Thanks to Robert McGarvey for the pointer.)

In Memoriam: J.N. Mohanty (1928-2023)

Professor Mohanty, who was emeritus at Temple University, wrote widely on Kant and Husserl, as well as on classical Indian philosophy.  I will add links to memorial notices as they appear.  Comments are open for remembrances from those who knew Professor Mohanty or who wish to comment on the significance of his work.

(Thanks to Matt Kramer for the information.)

UPDATE:   Professor Wolfsdorf, Chair of the Temple Department, kindly shared the memorial notice, which is below the fold

Agnes Callard profiled in The New Yorker

Here, complete with all the details of her complicated personal life!  But they missed the opportunity to include a photo of her office!

Tim Maudlin talks about laws of nature, absolute space, free will, and more...

...at Robinson's Podcast.

In Memoriam: Charles H. Kahn (1928-2023)

A leading scholar of ancient Greek philosophy, Professor Kahn spent most of his career at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was emeritus.  Professor Michael Weisberg, the Chair of the Penn Department, kindly shared a memorial notice, which is below the fold. Comments are also open for remembrances from those who knew Professor Kahn or for those who wish to comment on the significance of his philosophical and scholarly contributions.

"The Sobby Logician"

Many readers will know Hannes Leitgeb for his work in logic and formal philosophy more generally, but he's also a composer and performer of songs!

The Birkbeck catastrophe, the case of the philosophy department

We noted earlier the financial crisis at Birkbeck, produced by an incompetent administration.  Now the consequences are in for philosophy.  Six of 14 faculty are retiring or leaving according to an email sent out by the Head of the Department, philosopher Kristoffer Ahlstrom-Vij:

Prof Ken Gemes and Prof Susan James will be retiring. Dr Stacie Friend will be moving to Edinburgh, Dr Michael Garnett to KCL, and Dr Tim Stoll to Warwick. Dr Cristian Constantinescu will also be leaving the department. All of these will be effective in July.

The following colleagues will remain in the department: Prof Hallvard Lillehammer, Prof Robert Northcott, Dr Sarah Patterson, Dr Florian Steinberger, Dr Alex Grzankowski, Dr Keith Hossack, Dr Sophia Connell, and myself.

Christopher Bobonich (Stanford) discusses whether ancient ethics are relevant today...

...at Robinson's Podcast.

Gabriel Greenberg (UCLA) talks about semiotics, representation, and film...

...at Robinson's Podcast.

Richard Marshall interviews de La Mettrie...

...at 3:16 AM.  Now this is an interview that's hard to come by!

"The Workbench"

Philosopher Nathan Ballantyne interviews other philosophers about their writing practices and habits.

What happened to the Twitter maniacs from a couple of years ago?

The good news is that many of them have left academia (e.g., this one, this one, and this one), some self-destructing in a way consistent with their online antics, others just failing to find academic positions.   Alas, some of the juvenile jackasses remain in the academy, at least for now.  Let me add that the only ones who ought to have their online stupidity held against them are those who are openly hostile to academic freedom.  There are enough threats to the latter without multiplying them from within the academy.

MARCH 18 UPDATE:  A reader just flagged for me that the aforementioned juvenile jackass, Dallas Jokic, offered this response (on Twitter of course) to the original post:   "It is very strange indeed that a prominent philosopher is gloating about his graduate student critics having left academia following his bullying of them. Stranger still that he seems to view this as a victory for 'academic freedom.'" There really is no bottom to dumb with these pathetic people: none of the three who have left academia were critics of me, let alone "bullied" by me or anyone else, and all three made clear their hostility towards core academic freedom values, which is why their departure is good news for the academy.

Florida Philosophical Association statement on the attack on the universities by Viktor DeSantis

Here, it's a good statement. An excerpt:

The professoriate stands accused, by politicians, of “indoctrinating” students. Like Socrates (famously, and falsely, accused of “corrupting the youth” and “impiety”), we teach our students to think critically about common wisdom, to question authority, and to welcome fresh perspectives and ideas–even when doing so results in discomfort. We urge you to reject political edicts that prohibit the teaching of ideas on which we might disagree, that replace critical academic inquiry with pre-packaged state-approved lessons, and that demand fearful obedience rather than the courage to have difficult conversations about truth and justice.

This is clearly true of every philosophy department in the Florida public university system I know about (including New College, FSU, and UF), but is it true of other humanities departments?  I really don't know.  I doubt such fine distinctions keep Ron Orban up at nights, of course.

The "Login Project"

Podcast interviews with philosophers from underrepresented groups who do logic and/or formal philosophy.

(Thanks to Richard Kimberly Heck for the pointer.)

Temple Philosophy faculty statement of support for striking graduate students

The University has been playing pretty vicious hardball with the striking students (e.g., pulling their health insurance, demanding they now pay tuition), but the strike continues, no doubt because the average annual salary of graduate student TAs is about $19,500, which is astonishingly low.  The statement of support from the Temple philosophers is below the fold:

Heidegger the Nazi, redux

An illuminating review of a new book by the intellectual historian Richard Wolin; an excerpt:

Heidegger in Ruins draws on the work of a range of historians to present the by-now familiar story of Weimar’s reactionary modernists who attacked democracy and supported dictatorship. But four other elements of the book are new and important, especially in the English language scholarship. First, Heidegger’s mendacity and his corruption of scholarly ethics in connection with the publication of his collected works; second, the persistence and the intensity of his radical antisemitism; third, the apocalyptic, extremist, and eschatological nature of his writings during World War II and the Holocaust; and fourth, the manner in which his discussion of technology contributed to apologia for Nazism in postwar West Germany.

As has become clear, Heidegger's reactionary bigotry infects parts of his work (in a way, say, that Frege's virulent anti-semitism does not infect his).  One reason, I suspect, for the appeal in the Anglophone world of Dreydegger (Hubert Dreyfus's selective reading of Heidegger) is that it extracts ideas of philosophical interest that are more remote from the ugly reality of the man and his actual views.

Is there a right to sex?

Philosopher Raja Halwani (School of the Art Institute, Chicago) discusses at Brain in a Vat.

Jewish philosophers in the UK issue statement about the attack on judicial independence in Israel

Thanks to David Ruben for sharing this:

We are philosophers in the United Kingdom who are also Jewish. We all support the right of Israel to exist; most of us have visited Israel on many occasions, for professional or other purposes. None of us has a history of criticising Israel in public.

However, the Israeli government’s current plan to undermine the separation of powers between the legislative and judicial branches of government poses a threat to the State of Israel that we cannot ignore. Those like us who care passionately about the health of Israel as a democratic Jewish state cannot remain silent.

The tragic story of Ian Fishback, soldier, whistelblower, and philosophy PhD

MOVING TO FRONT--LINK FIXED

We noted briefly Dr. Fischback's death in 2021; now reader Shawn Loht calls my attention to an in depth portrait of Dr. Fishback, and the tragic toll of mental illness.

"Transformer models"

ChatGPT is a "transformer" model, and philosopher Ben Levinstein explains what transformer models are!

"Intuitions are not a good guide to reality"

Philosopher Edouard Machery comments.  They are certainly not a good guide to moral reality (which does not exist).  They are useful for ethnography however!

The crisis of democracy in Israel

Israel is facing dramatic changes to its legal system, being forced through by the right-wing coalition in control:  it would effectively do to Israel what has happened in Hungary and Poland, especially by destroying the independence and power of the judiciary.  This website by Israeli law professors has much information, including a useful capsule summary of what is being proposed.  (Thanks to David Enoch for the pointer.)

Philosopher David Heyd drafted an open letter to the Prime Minister and Minister of Justice of Israel, which has now been signed by 90% of the philosophers in Israel; I paste it below the fold:

More explanations of ChatGPT

Philosopher David Lobina writes:

I saw you posted a video on what large language models like ChatGPT actually do, and I thought that readers might enjoy this piece, which is a much more detailed explanation, and a very good one too (except, of course, the stuff about the "laws" of language and thought being much simpler than anyone had thought).