Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

Evolution does not select for veridical perception

Nietzsche knew this, and Stephen Stich made the point decades ago; now here's an evolutionary game theoretic explanation, which is nicely done.

Unintentional haikus of the philosophers

Eliran Haziza, a graduate student in philosophy at the University of Toronto, has written a program to strip occurrences of "unintentional haiku" from corpuses of text. When run on the philosophers of our time, the program locates various gems,which Mr. Haziza kindly gave permission to share:

> Snow falls, and is white;
> the falling is a process,
> the whiteness is not.
> (Bertrand Russell, The Analysis of Mind)
> 
> The game, one would like
> to say, has not only rules
> but also a point.
> (Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations)
> 
> No Grandfather, no
> Father; no Father, no Tim;
> no Tim, no killing.
> (David Lewis, “The Paradoxes of Time Travel”)
> 
> Suppose that I cling
> to some rock as a mere means
> of escaping death.
> (Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons)
> 
> We sometimes say: in
> later life I will be a
> different person.
> (David Lewis, "Survival and Identity")
> 
> You have an auto
> accident one winter night
> on a lonely road.
> (Thomas Nagel, The View from Nowhere)
> 
> When I turn my eye
> inward, I find nothing but
> doubt and ignorance.
> (David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature)

Richard Marshall interviews Anthony Booth (Sussex)...

...at 3:16 AM.

St. Cloud State University may fire some tenured faculty early next week

Appalling, and it looks to violate the university's own policies and procedures.  (Earlier coverage.)

Why does "evil" fascinate?

Literary critic Terry Eagleton, philosopher Susan Neiman, and others discuss.

More on the free expression debate at Williams "Comfort" College

This account from the student newspaper last Spring is informative.

More on the rise of the "comfort college"...

...from philosopher Steven Gerrard (Williams) (part one); an excerpt:

Suppose I ask someone for the reason he or she believes something — anything. Without further context, the word “reason” is strictly ambiguous. Am I asking for the motive, the cause or the justification? If the question is “What is the reason a person believes in God?” the answer could be a motive (to find comfort at 3 a.m.) or a cause (his parents raised him that way). A justification would take the form of a rational argument.

Notice, though, that while motive and cause are subjective — that is, they only hold depending on the individual — justification is objective; if it holds for one, it holds for all. Only justification is directly tied to the truth. As the ending of “1984” brutally demonstrates, one can be motivated and caused to believe 2 plus 2 equals 5. For all the techniques of Big Brother, however, it still equals 4.

Thrasymachus, a post-modernist a couple of millennia ahead of his time, denies there is such a thing as justification — there is only motive and cause. There’s only one answer to the question Why should I be just? Swords and spears.

It took 2,400 years, but Thrasymachus has won in the comfort college. When objectivity is scorned, when justification is considered only subjective, when reason and logic are taken to be only the tools of oppression and the province of the oppressor, then all that is left is power.

To ask the reason for something can only mean to ask for the motive or cause. The study of logic has a name for what happens when we confuse the origin of a belief with its truth, or the origin of an argument with its validity. It’s called the genetic fallacy.

The comfort college’s acolytes make the figurative fallacy literal. It is the arguer’s genes that determine truth and validity, not facts or reason. That is why, in the comfort college, testimony has come to substitute for rational argument. When students (and more and more faculty) demand a new policy, their arguments often begin as (and rarely go beyond) accounts of victimization; the account is justification enough.

This ritual institutionalizes the denial of rational justification. It corrupts the healthy multicultural idea, built on Enlightenment universalism and cosmopolitanism, that different perspectives matter, and that what one sees often depends on where one stands — and that we are all better off from listening to those who stand in different places, who see the part of the truth that is blocked from our particular vision. The liberal ideal of the pursuit of knowledge is that by cooperating we all can see and understand better. But identity politicians reject the Enlightenment’s hope of mutual understanding and reason’s path to get us there. In the fragmented comfort college, the only tool is power — the power to enforce the dogma.

Do see the appalling account of the institutionalized hiring advice committees at Williams get as well!

 

Libet's "readiness potential" and free will

Several readers kindly sent along this article about some new research purporting to undermine Libet's results; of course, objections to Libet's interpretation of his original results are well-known (the article doesn't really convey that accurately it seemed to me).  But I'd be curious to hear from readers familiar with this new research and the philosophical issues what they make of all this.  Feel free to include links to other relevant material.

Philosophy's aspiring "tin-pot dictators"

Philosopher Daniel Kaufman (Missouri State) comments on their latest shenanigans.

"Napping while Black" at Yale--what really happened?

This thorough account puts last year's incident in a different light, and while hardly uncritical of the philosophy graduate student involved, also makes clear she was badly treated by the media, both actual and social. It's particularly notable that Yale, upon investigation, did not find that there had been any racial harassment.

Ms. Braasch, the student at the center of the controversy, is seeking funding for legal redress; certainly some of the media accounts were defamatory or portrayed her in a "false light."  The statute of limitations may run soon on some of these damaging accounts, so I hope she is able to secure legal counsel.

Survey of philosophy job seekers

Philosopher Charles Lassiter (Gonzaga) asked me to share this with readers (there are more details about the survey at the linked site):

If you are planning to apply for academic jobs this year, we hope you'll consider participating in our study "The Philosophy Job Market: Applicant Profiles and CV Review." Our aim in this first phase is to get a picture of job market applicants: what journals are they publishing in (if at all)? for how many classes are they the instructor of record (if at all)? There has been, as far as we know, no systematic attempt to collect information about people going into the job market. In the second phase of this study, we will the collected information to randomly generate CVs and investigate the behavior of potential search committee members in reviewing them.

In consultation with the Gonzaga University IRB, it was determined that IRB approval was not needed for this phase project. IRB approval will be obtained for the second phase. Nonetheless, all responses will be kept private and information secured on the hard drives of the investigators. Results will be made available at leiterreports.typepad.com, dailynous.com, philosopherscocoon.typepad.com, and philarchive.org

The survey should take about 10 minutes to complete. Participants will be entered into a drawing for two $25 Amazon gift cards. If you are willing to participate, you can find the survey here. Please email Charles Lassiter at lassiter@gonzaga.edu if you have any questions.

The link (in case it shouldn't carry over with a simple copy and paste job) is: https://gonzaga.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_b8dXHKBn1pRWR3n

Philosopher Sophie Allen (Keele) replies to a Twitter critic

This makes for a delightful read, and not only because Dr. Allen is so much more dialectically acute than her sanctimonious critic (who appears to be Prof. Kay Kirkpatrick, a mathematics professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign).

Correlation, causation, and the "dumbness" of data

Illuminating review essay of Judea Pearl's new book by philosopher Tim Maudlin (NYU), which includes this amusingly apt observation:

The physicist Richard Feynman is widely reported as saying “Philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds.” It always surprises me that no one points out that ornithology would indeed be a great use to birds—if they could ask the ornithologists for advice, and if they could understand it.

Physics, Physicalism, and What There Is

A discussion with Nancy Cartwright (Durham/UC San Diego), John Dupre (Exeter) and physicist Subir Sarkar (Oxford).

Quantum physics and "common sense"

Interesting popular essay by philosopher Tim Maudlin (NYU).

"Could philosophy save Ireland?"

I didn't now Ireland needed saving but teaching philosophy in the schools sounds like a good idea!

Philosophy books for "tweens"?

A lawyer I know (who studied philosophy before law school) poses a good question:

Do you have any ideas for beginning philosophy books for tweens?  I should probably say books that exemplify a philosophical way of thinking. My son is 11 and I’d like to develop that ability in him.  And my 9-year-old daughter just the other day figured out there is no Santa Claus and no God so she might be ready, too.  I’m not sure I know of anything that might fit the bill, though. 

I did not.  Suggestions from readers?

Are "Social Justice Warriors" concerned with justice?

Not at all clear.

(Thanks to several readers who sent this along; it's been a crazy month, so I only just got to take a look at this.)

Zealots working overtime now to shut down gender critical feminists

Philosopher Kathleen Stock (Sussex) asked me to share her statement about recent events, which I'm happy to do (the title of this blog post is mine; Prof. Stock's statement follows):

I see that the blog of the Institute of Art and Ideas has taken down a piece ( Download The current transgender debate polarizes Western societies like no other) to which Holly Lawford-Smith and I contributed, alongside Julie Bindel, Robin Dembroff, Susan Stryker and Rebecca Kukla. I assume the reason to be the fuss the latter three have been making on social media and letters to the editor since the piece was published. 

One complaint I’ve seen from them is that I have no relevant expertise in this area. Yet my contribution links to my forthcoming piece on sexual orientation, sex, and gender, in the Aristotelian Society proceedings. (Moreover this isn’t a criteria I’ve ever seen employed when the contributor agrees with self-ID in law and policy, as we obviously do not. As usual it’s a highly selective use of a norm).

Virtual Dissertation Groups, once again

Philosopher Joshua Smart (Ohio State) asked me to share this announcement:

Virtual Dissertation Groups

VDG is a free service that connects graduate students to provide feedback on dissertation work. Members are grouped with two others working in the same general area of philosophy. About once a month, one member sends some work (3-6K words) to the others, who return feedback and comments in a week or so.

While advisors and committees are important, it can be incredibly helpful to discuss one’s work with peers in a lower-stakes environment, and it can be particularly enlightening to do so with those who take a different approach, outlook, or focus. Not only that, but there is evidence from psychological research that thinking about problems in relation to persons who are geographically distant can increase creativity. With students in programs from many states, countries, and every continent with a philosophy Ph.D. program, Virtual Dissertation Groups is a great way to capture some of these benefits!

You can sign up to participate here. Open signups through Sunday, September 8th [Afterwards, new dissertators are accepted conditional on available spots]

Berkeley memorial event for Barry Stroud will be November 2

Details here.

Human rights vs. laudable aspirations

Philosopher John Tasioulas (KCL) comments.

Einstein and Hume, redux

Here.

As I first observed more than five years ago...

...philosopher Rachel McKinnon (Charleston) is unhinged, and everything since has served to confirm that, including the ugliness noted here.  However, it is not the job of the College of Charleston to police her public statements.  Her public speech, albeit tasteless and often worse, is not unlawful, and is none of the College's business.

UPDATE:  A reader points out that the other toxic "Rachel McK" on philosophy twitter--philosopher Rachel McKinney (Suffolk)--has actually "deleted her account" (as the Twitter joke goes).  We may only hope the even more noxious Rachel McK (above) follows suit, for her sake and ours.

Philosophy, and tenured faculty jobs, under threat at St. Cloud State University

I was asked to share this statement about ominous developments at St. Cloud State University; I encourage readers to e-mail  the administrators mentioned at the end:

The philosophy department at St. Cloud State University is under threat and we are appealing to the philosophy community for help.  The administration is proposing retrenchment of faculty in the College of Liberal Arts in order to offset a budgetary shortfall.  We believe they have capriciously and unfairly targeted the philosophy department (3 positions), the library program (4 positions) and the theater program (1 position).  No other programs in the college are facing retrenchments, even though several other department in the college are similar in terms of student enrollment, size, etc. 

The three layoffs they are proposing for philosophy involve two tenured full professors (Michael Shaffer and Paul Neiman) and one tenured associate professor (Omar Mirza).  This attack on senior tenured professors and on the Philosophy department is unprecedented at St. Cloud State.  Since there are seven members in our department, this means that the SCSU administration is proposing to cut the positions of almost half of our faculty. The remaining four philosophy professors will also retire in the near future, and SCSU has not approved new faculty hires in philosophy for quite some time. Thus, if these cuts are made, the philosophy major at SCSU will almost certainly be completely shut down. 

Moreover, this attack on our department appears to be in violation of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MNSCU) own retrenchment policy.  This policy explicitly states that retrenchment should occur only after all other means of cost saving (i.e. offering early retirement, reassignment, retraining, etc.) have been exhausted.  No such steps have been taken to date and notices of retrenchment must be delivered by September 16^th.  In addition, all retrenchments are supposed to occur only after sufficient data has been gathered and reviewed that justifies the specific cuts being proposed.  Our Faculty Association president reported to us on August 20^th that when asked about data indicating the need for the extensive cuts in philosophy rather than cuts elsewhere, she was told by the President of the university that they had no such data. 

We have three demands.  First, we believe that SCSU should seriously attempt to avoid all of the proposed retrenchments through other means and in accord with the MNSCU retrenchment policy.  Second, we believe that the proposed cuts are clearly unfair.  Thirdly, even if cuts are ultimately necessary, we believe that they should be fairly spread throughout the college rather than concentrated so heavily on our department. 

We hope that you will lend your support in opposing this unfair attack on the SCSU Philosophy department by emailing our President (Dr. Robbyn Wacker: rrwacker@stcloudstate.edu ), Provost (Dr. Daniel Gregory: ddgregory@stcloudstate.edu) and Dean of the College of Liberal Arts (Mark Springer: mspringer@stcloudstate.edu).

Richard Marshall interview Daniel Kaufman (Missouri State)...

...at 3:16 AM.

What is it like to be a philosopher? Robin Dembroff edition

Here.

In Memoriam: Barry Stroud (1935-2019)

MOVING TO FRONT (ORIGINALLY POSTED AUGUST 10)--UPDATED

A longtime member of the faculty at Berkeley, Professor Stroud wrote widely and influentially on both historical and systematic topics, including skepticism, Hume, Wittgenstein, and realism.  I will add links to memorial notices as they appear.

UPDATE:   Some charming photos courtesy of one of his daughters.

ANOTHER: A video of a conversation between Stroud and Donald Davidson.  (I owe this link to Andy Carpenter on FB.)

MORE:  An initial brief memorial notice from the Berkeley department.

A PHILOSOPHICALLY SUBSTANTIAL MEMORIAL by philosopher John Schwenkler (Florida State).

MORE:   An informative obituary from the University of California, Berkeley.  (Thanks to Julie Stroud for the pointer.)

Philosopher's Annual: Ten top articles from the 2018 literature

Editor Patrick Grim just shared this announcement with the nominating editors:

The Philosopher’s Annual volume 38

from the literature of 2018

Mark J. Alfano, J. Adam Carter & Marc Cheong, “Technological Seduction and Self-Radicalization,” from the Journal of the American Philosophical Association

Jc Beall, “The Simple Argument for Subsclassical Logic,” from Philosophical Issues

Selim Berker, “The Unity of Grounding,” from Mind

Guillermo Del Pinal, “Meaning, Modulation, and Context: A Multidimensional Semantics for Truth-Conditional Pragmatics,” from Linguistics and Philosophy

Louise Hanson, “Moral Realism, Aesthetic Realism, and the Asymmetry Claim,” from Ethics

Remco Heesen, “When Journal Editors Play Favorites,” from Philosophical Studies

Matthias Jenny, “Counterpossibles in Science: The Case of Relative Computability,” from Noûs

Dilip Ninan, “Quanficiation and Epistemic Modality,” from the Philosophical Review

Amia Srinivasan, “The Aptness of Anger,” from the Journal of Political Philosophy

Kenneth Walden, “Practical Reason Not As Such,” from the Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy

Editors:

            Patrick Grim

            Center for Study of Complex Systems, University of Michigan

            Logic & Formal Semantics, Philosophy, Stony Brook

            Eduardo Martinez

            Angela Sun

            Elise Woodard

                        Philosophy, University of Michigan

Nominating Editors: 

Jc Beall, Ned Block, Ben Bradley, Liam Kofi Bright, Lara Buchak, Tyler Burge, Victor Caston, David Chalmers, Andrew Chignell, Therese Cory, Roger Crisp, Helen De Cruz, Cian Dorr, Adam Elga, Branden Fitelson, Graeme Forbes, John Gardner, Michael Glanzberg, Alexander Guerrero, Alan Hajek, Ned Hall, Elizabeth Harman, Gary Hatfield, Benj Hellie, Christopher Hitchcock, Des Hogan, Simon Huttegger, Brad Inwood, Simon Keller, Tom Kelly, Niko Kolodny, Jennifer Lackey, Marc Lange, Brian Leiter, Ernie Lepore, Neil Levy, Martin Lin, Antonia LoLordo, John Marenbon, Colin McLarty, Jeff McMahan, Shaun Nichols, Paul Noordhof, Rohit Parikh, Derk Pereboom, Richard Pettigrew, Duncan Pritchard, Greg Restall, Geoffrey Sayre-McCord, Barry Schein, Mark Schroeder, Laura Schroeter, Stewart Shapiro, Ted Sider, Scott Soames, Roy Sorensen, Katie Steele, Eric Swanson, Johan van Benthem, Mark van Roojen, Sergio Tenenbarum, Peter B. M. Vranas, Eric Watkins, Sam Wheeler, Gideon Yaffe, Jose Zalabardo, Kevin Zollman

Legally, UK academics lack tenure...but what does that really mean?

MOVING TO FRONT FROM AUGUST 12--UPDATED

This is useful, from philosopher Michael Otsuka (LSE).   (He tells me it was vetted by employment lawyers.)   One thing he doesn't mention, but is worth noting, is that when tenure was abolished by Thatcher, academic freedom received statutory protection at the same time.  (The protection is more narrow in the UK than the US:  it protects only speech, whether scholarly or in popular media, related to one's scholarly expertise.  But unlike in the US, the protection is by statute.)

UPDATE:  An important clarification from Prof. Saladin Meckled-Garcia (UCL):

Academic freedom in the UK is not actually protected for individuals by statute (in the sense of legislation). It is protected in some institutions by “university statutes”. University statutes are instruments that act like a constitution for certain universities that have Chartered status (granted a Chartered status by the Queen). They can vary across those universities that have them.

The original UK legislation (Education Reform Act 1988) that ended formal tenure in the UK at the same time charged a special body of ‘Commissioners’ to establish universities as charitable entities (‘corporations’) with statutes, and instructed those Commissioners to make sure the statutes paid heed to academic freedom (‘freedom within the law to question and test received wisdom’).

The legislation does not provide a direct protection of that freedom to individual persons whose institutions do not retain statutes with the protection. The ‘Commissioners’ no longer exist as they were a transitional body (in the transition from tenure to statute protections).

Mike’s post was about those institutions that do retain some protection (versus the vast majority that do not because they have removed the statute protections in order to be more “streamlined”—making the changing provisions and protections a matter of policy, more readily changeable than university-statute rights).

Academics in the UK do have free speech rights (under the Human Rights Act 1998) but these do not specify special protections for academics.

When talking about protection of academic freedom in statute in the UK it is always best to clarify this by qualifying this as (some) ‘university statutes’.

295 most-cited authors in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Courtesy of Professor Schwitzgebel.  Do note the counting principles:  for example, the list includes only authors born since 1900 and, more importantly, each author is only counted once per entry (even if, e.g., the author has six or seven entries in the bibliography).   Obviously the distribution of SEP topics affects the results, as Professor Schwitzgebel notes (a lot of philosophy of mind and philosophy of religion and feminist philosophy entries, for example).

ADDENDUM:  Using the Schwitzgebel method, I clock in at 22, which should put me in the top 400.  What a relief!  (Amusingly, it does make me the second most-cited non-emeritus philosopher on SEP here at Chicago, after Martha Nussbaum [who is near the very top of the whole list, of course] and in a tie with Jonathan Lear.)

"How to make the right decision"

A video of a talk by philosopher J. McKenzie Alexander (LSE).

What it's like being a transgender woman

Philosopher Sophie-Grace Chappell (Open U) recounts her experience frankly and movingly.

Richard Marshall interviews Sharon A. Lloyd (USC)...

...at 3:16 AM.  It's a nice overview of Lloyd's influential revisionary reading of Hobbes.

Richard Marshall interviews Tom Sorell (Warwick)...

...at 3:16 AM.

Philosophy's "woke triangle"

This is funny and apt about the "woke" cult in philosophy; an excerpt (but read it all, really):

As is so often the case, these recent woke outbursts were caused by something utterly ordinary and reasonable, specifically, a short piece that appeared in Inside Higher Education, in which twelve philosophers called for an end to the no-platforming and silencing of critics of contemporary gender identity theory and for a conversation on sex and gender within the discipline that is simultaneously rigorous and civil. (2) In making one’s way through the woke responses to the piece, one finds oneself confronted with rhetorical maneuvers straight out of the Oceanian playbook: repeated outrages to reason and common sense; bold inversions of reality; a constant refrain of “nothing to see here,” regarding things that are staring you right in the face; and of course, cynical manipulations of language and rejection of the ordinary, standard uses of common words.

Many of the usual suspects sign letter opposing the recent defense of the academic freedom of Gender Critical feminists

Same old, same old.  (They're "responding" [sic] to this defense of academic freedom.)  The overlap with those involved in L'Affaire Tuvel is striking but not surprising.  (Some signatories do surprise me, however.)  Professor Stock replies here, with appropriate snark about what she aptly calls "the closed talking shop that is current academic feminist philosophy."  (If so many of these analytic philosophers weren't so undereducated, they would recognize the echoes with the most absurd sectarian disputes among Marxist ideologues of the last century.)  A couple of choice excerpts from Professor Stock's response:

There is diversity of viewpoints within feminist philosophy about sex and gender but, crucially, not about whether transwomen are literally members of the category women — this is now taken as axiomatic, and treated as immoral to question; and in fact, self-identification is now taken as the criterion of womanhood by most. What has happened, according to my reconstruction, is that in the past, feminists within the academy — indeed, at least one signatory to this very letter — have endorsed accounts which imply that (self-identifying) transwomen are not women, but not explicitly, as such. (Obvious exceptions include: Sheila Jeffreys; Janice Raymond. These people only ever get discussed in the sorts of shocked tones reserved for war criminals). In recent years, the Overton window has shifted, and it has became commonplace within academic feminist philosophy to take the fact that an account of womanhood is “exclusionary” of (self-identifying) trans women, either inadvertently or deliberately, as fatal to it. This is reflected in the two Stanford Encyclopedia posts cited in the APA post as supposed evidence of the rich diversity of feminist viewpoints....

So no, feminist philosophers [who signed the letter], I don’t think there are ‘significantly different philosophical views’ on the topic at issue in your ranks. I think that in your club, it’s now pro-self-ID or receive-the-open-letter; and very definitely, transwomen are women. And no, even you can’t escape accusations of transphobia, such is the bizarre, heavily moralised form of objection you’ve allowed to become part of the established repertoire in discussing these matters....

If you mean that we have to take transpeople’s accounts of “who they are” at face value, in every legal and social context, on pain of being horrible and exclusionary, why only them? Why not lesbians who understood themselves as exclusively female-attracted homosexuals, or women who understand themselves, necessarily and sufficiently, as adult human females? And do you mean the British Columbia beauty therapists should do this with regard to Yaniv, and just get on with waxing her female balls? Do you see a problem yet? If on the other hand you mean that transpeople should be respectfully left alone to get on with their lives, free from discrimination, harm, and fear, and to self-describe as they wish in most but not all contexts, then we agree. All of us. And have said so repeatedly. And mean it.

And here is Phillipe Lemoine, a PhD student in philosophy at Cornell currently in Paris:

I just saw your post on that ridiculous blog post on Daily Nous against "gender critical feminists". You may also want to check the open letter, signed by 33 professors of philosophy, published on the blog of the APA: https://blog.apaonline.org/2019/08/07/on-philosophical-scholarship-of-gender-a-response-to-12-leading-scholars/.

It's very short and contains this remarkable sentence: "There are many diverse, contentious views about gender and gender identity that can be–and are–engaged with in ways that do not call into question the integrity and sincerity of trans people nor the validity of their own understanding of who they are."

The authors insist that, despite what some people would have you believe (I guess they're talking about people who don't refuse to see what their eyes show them), there are no verboten views about sex and gender in philosophy. What some object to, we are supposed to believe, is the manner in which some people express their views.

But the passage I just quoted clearly shows that it's false. Suppose that you believe that, in fact, trans women are men. In that case, to the extent that trans women see themselves as women, there is simply no way you can argue for your position in a way that is consistent with the rule they state in that passage, since your view implies that trans women who think of themselves in that way are wrong.

One may also wonder if this principle is only supposed to apply to the debate about gender and sex or if it's supposed to regulate philosophical debates on every issue. If the latter, it would seem to imply that, for instance, a Marxist is not allowed to defend the position that workers are affected by false consciousness, since by definition this claim questions "the validity of their own understanding of who they are". If the former, then what principled reason is there to apply this rule to the debate about gender and sex, but not to other philosophical debates?

To be honest, I don't care much for either side of this debate. (My father is transgender and I think "gender critical feminists" often lack compassion, even if some of that is probably because they lash out in response to unfair criticism.) But I only see one side trying to make some views verboten in philosophy and this is where I draw the line. It's even worse when they deny that it's what they're trying to do.

Anyway, I hope you will address the obvious issues with this open letter, because someone has to. Feel free to quote me on anything I wrote above if you think it would be helpful.

I do think there have been failures of compassion by some Gender Critical feminists during this debate (although not by Kathleen Stock, who is so often a target of defamatory abuse), but I agree with Mr. Lemoine that only one side of this debate wants to violate the basic norms of academic freedom and philosophical discussion, and it is not the Gender Critical side but rather, to coin a phrase, "the Haslanger side."

Language and reality

A podcast with Paul Boghossian (NYU), Silvia Jonas (Van Leer Instiute, Jerusalem), and Saul Kripke (CUNY) (plus the IAI owner...).

The latest stupidity about gender critical feminists

I confess I'm amazed that even Weinberg couldn't see that this piece was pitifully stupid (or maybe he advised them to write anonymously because he did--but then why publish it?)  Philosopher Kathleen Stock (Sussex) comments here and here.  Philosopher Jason Brennan (Georgetown) gave permission to share his apt comments from Facebook about this absurd display:

The central thesis of this anonymous piece is that certain gender-critical feminists (hereafter GCFs) are actually engaging in *activism* rather than scholarship, which presumably means whatever academic freedom should be extended to scholarly speech does not quite apply to them.

But the article doesn't even try to provide evidence for this claim (that it's activism rather than scholarly speech). Rather, all it does is list examples of things which the GCFs think and say (things which are trivially implied by their position) in their scholarly works and then complains that these things are morally wrong and bad. But it doesn't provide evidence that they are in fact engaging in activism rather than scholarship.

This kind of behavior is getting tiresome. The standard liberal theory distinguishes between speech and violence, as well as between speech and activism. In order to generate illiberal conclusions, some philosophers try to argue that speech is in fact a form of violence. It's not convincing, so now they turn to arguing that it's really activism. Also not convincing, in part because this long-winded piece contains literally zero evidence for such a conclusion.

NB: I am not endorsing GCF. I am merely critiquing the transparently bullshit behavior various philosophers exhibit toward the GCFs.

ADDENDUM:  I suppose we shouldn't be surprised that (as a reader points out) Kate Manne (Cornell) disagrees with Professor Brennan and thinks this critique of GCFs is "excellent."

In Memoriam: James D. Wallace (1937-2019)

A well-known moral philosopher, he was emeritus at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he taught for nearly fifty years.  (He was also the father of the writer David Foster Wallace, who predeceased him.)   An obituary is here.

(Thanks to Nir Ben-Moshe for the pointer.)

Richard Marshall interviews Steven DeLay about phenomenology...

...at 3:16 AM.

In Memoriam: Daniel Callahan (1930-2019)

He was a pioneering bioethicist and founder of the Hastings Center; the NYT obituary is here.

(Thanks to Phil Gasper for the pointer.)

East Anglia's Robert Sugden wins 2019 Gittler Award in philosophy of the social sciences

Details from the APA here.

In Memoriam: George I. Mavrodes (1926-2019)

A leading analytic philosopher of religion, Professor Mavrodes earned his Ph.D. at the University of Michigan, where he also spent almost his entire career.  I will add links to memorial notices as they appear.

(Thanks to David Gordon for the information.)

UPDATE:   A profile from Michigan upon his retirement in 1995.

Do you disappear when you die?

Philosopher Palle Yourgrau (Brandeis) comments.

New Books in July

Authors and/or publishers kindly sent me these new books this month:

Death, Immortality, and Meaning in Life by John Martin Fischer (Oxford University Press, 2019).

On Mercy by Malcolm Bull (Princeton University Press, 2019).

The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche, volume 14:  Unpublished Fragments from the Period of Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Summer 1882-Winter 1883/84) trans. with afterword by Paul S. Loeb & David F. Tinsley (Stanford University Press, 2019).

Current Controversies in Philosophy of Religion edited by Paul Draper (Routledge, 2019).

A Philosopher Goes to the Doctor:  A Critical Look at Philosophical Assumptions in Medicine by Dien Ho (Routledge, 2019).

What is Scientific Knowledge?  An Introduction to Contemporary Epistemology of Science edited by Kevin McCain & Kostas Kampourakis (Routledge, 2019).

Against Capital Punishment by Benjamin S. Yost (Oxford University Press, 2019).

In the Ruins of Neoliberalism:  The Rise of Antidemocratic Politics in the West by Wendy Brown (Columbia University Press, 2019).

Hominessence by Michel Serres (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019).

Discourse and Truth and Parresia by Michel Foucault, edited by Henri-Paul Fruchaud & Daniele Lorenzini (University of Chicago Press, 2019).

 

Nathan Oseroff and Christa Peterson are not victims, they are wrongdoers

Kate Manne (yes that Kate Manne) is now on Twitter misrepresenting (or just lying about?) their abusive treatment of gay and feminist philosophers like Kathleen Stock, Holly Lawford-Smith, Leslie Green and others:  for details, see here and here (the update).  (Oseroff apologized for his misconduct, because that's what it was, but he's been dissembling about it ever since.) 

UPDATE:  A  reader points out that Prof. Manne is also feeling bad for this maniac.  Apparently calling a philosophy professor a "vile fucking human" is OK with Kate Manne (indeed she "admires greatly" all these abusive adults).  Good to know!

FUNNY:  The Twitter Red Guard is responding to the evidence of what those mentioned above said and did (follow the links, it's all public evidence) by declaring it to be "lies" and "smears" (at least they didn’t call the actual news “fake news”).  (Addendum:  A reader sent a link in which one of the Twitter Red Guard zealots compared Stock, Lawford-Smith et al. to Milo Yannopoulos!)

Philosophy professor at Queen's/Canada awarded 25K for university's mistreatment of her

A strange and complex case; the finding against the university is certainly damning.

(Thanks to Steve Yates for the pointer.)

Part I of Arash Abizadeh's "Hobbes and the Two Faces of Ethics" available free on-line until August 31

Professor Abizadeh, a political theorist at McGill, was awarded the 2019 Canadian Philosophical Association Biennial Book Prize (English), and in recognition Cambridge University Press has made part of the book available for free through the end of August at http://ow.ly/Rqvf50vcvPw.

(Thanks to Victoria Willingale for the pointer.)

In Memoriam: Tom Campbell (1938-2019)

Professor Campbell, who wrote widely in legal, political and moral philosophy (especially on rights and human rights), taught for more than twenty years in Scotland, at the Universities of Glasgow and Stirling, before joining the Australian National University law faculty in 1990.  He retired in 2001, and was at the time of his death an emeritus Professorial Fellow at the Charles Stuart University.  I will add links to memorial notices as they appear.

(Thanks to Matt Kramer and Brian Bix for alering me to his passing.)