Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

Richard Marshall interviews Michael Rosen (Harvard)...

...at 3:16 AM.

Bertrand Russell and the "realist" revolt in metaphysics

Philosopher Fraser MacBride (Manchester) discusses.

Some skepticsm about grouping Anscombe, Foot, Midgley, and Murdoch together philosophically

Philosopher Jennifer Frey (South Carolina) makes some very good points in this review essay of the recent books we have noted previously; some excerpts:

On both accounts, each member of the quartet was able to reach her full potential as a philosopher because the Big Men on Campus—A. J. Ayer, J. L. Austin, Isaiah Berlin, Stuart Hampshire, Richard Hare and others—were away fighting the war. Their absence was critical, these books argue, because these men, who dominated the intellectual scene at Oxford, were hell-bent on destroying traditional philosophical reflection into metaphysics and morals...

This narrative frame comes from Mary Midgley herself, who, in 2013, wrote a letter to the Guardian arguing that she and her friends were able to thrive as philosophers because “there were fewer men about then"....

While this account fits with Midgley’s idea that women are bound by their sex to do philosophy differently (and perhaps better) than men, and surely reflects her own experience of Oxford, it strikes me as out of joint with what we know about the personalities of some of her friends. The insistence of all three authors on shoehorning these women’s stories into an all-too-familiar pop-feminist narrative distorts the unique nature of the bonds these women forged together. It also insinuates, insultingly, that they needed to be treated with kid gloves in order to mature intellectually. I find it difficult to believe that Anscombe needed to be sheltered from the clever men of Oxford in order to cultivate her legendary philosophical habits, or that Murdoch would have lacked the boldness to hold her own in a room full of men who plainly lacked the imaginative vision she herself possessed...

A 1961 program introducing existentialism

Here, featuring the philosopher (and Sartre's English translator) Hazel Barnes.

(Thanks to Richard Marshall for the pointer.)

Justice Ginsburg is a philosopher, and other great moments in the Dunning-Kruger Effect

A propos this (and especially this), it was recently brought to my attention that philosopher Sandra LaPointe (McMaster), opined as follows on Twitter:

Richard Marshall interviews Joseph Mitterer (Klagenfurt [Austria])...

...at 3:16 AM.  I thought this was interesting, about his road into philosophy and the situation in Austria after WWII:

Still at school I had the chance to attend the annual European Forum at Alpbach, a village in the Austrian Tyrol near my home town. There I met Hans Albert, Karl-Otto Apel, Paul Feyerabend, Walter Kaufmann and Herbert Marcuse amongst others.

It was the mid sixties of the last century, I hated the confinements of my high school, the Ex-Nazi teachers, and I couldn’t wait for these three weeks of intellectual challenge to arrive in late summer. I was excited by the atmosphere of Alpbach and it was there, where I decided to put my life on philosophy.

Academic philosophy in Austria back then was hardly attractive. Twenty years after the war the scene in Vienna was dominated by a transcendental philosophy whose Post-Nazi-representatives had prevented the return of the exiled philosophers of the “Vienna Circle”.

Philosopher James Ladyman (Bristol) talks about "Metaphysics Naturalized"...

...at Interalia Magazine.  An excerpt:

Scientists and others sometimes deride philosophy on the basis of very little if any evidence of what it is like. There is a lot of extraordinarily brilliant work in metaphysics but there is a predominance of a priori methodology and a lack of engagement with scientific knowledge. This means that while the work is not worthless, since it often exemplifies great rigour and clarity and sophistication of argument and concepts, it is largely irrelevant for someone interested in the nature of reality. Our idea is that naturalised metaphysics exists to say how the world is in the light of all the sciences, and to say something about how the ontologies of the sciences relate to each other and to physics. We define fundamental physics as the science that is maximally general in respect of the scales to which it applies. We argue that as yet we have no account of a fundamental level nor any reason to think there is one and so we ought to unify the sciences without reference to one. This we do with the ideas of scale relativity of ontology and real patterns. The latter have causal/lawlike structure so we are realists about causation, but also pluralists about it so that the causation in evolutionary dynamics can in principle be different from that in economics or medicine. The world conceived as a totality, a single finished entity, may not exist, but there are plenty of things that do including galaxies, cells, viruses, atoms and electromagnetic radiation, and let’s not forget people

Changing perceptions of time during the pandemic

Philosopher Ian Phillips (Johns Hopkins) comments.

Richard Marshall interviews Brian Skyrms (UC Irvine)...

...at 3:16 AM.  Very informative overview of his work.

On Wittgenstein's early private notebooks

Philosopher Kieran Setiya (MIT) comments; an excerpt:

With rare exceptions, analytic philosophy cannot be read as poetry. If it has value, it’s not the value of artistic achievement, unless perhaps in the medium of thought. Nor does analytic philosophy explore “the problem of life.” There’s plenty of work in applied philosophy, including ethics, engaging with practical questions—climate change, democracy, the treatment of non-human animals. But these are not the sorts of problems Wittgenstein fought. For the most part, analytic philosophy is detached, at least in its self-image, from the personal struggles of philosophers.

Not just philosophy, but philosophers: that is what these notebooks help us to see. A philosophy of philosophers, even—shown, if not said.

Philosopher George Sher (Rice) talks about the morality of "nasty thoughts"...

...at The Dissenter.

Richard Marshall interviews Hud Hudson (Western Washington)...

...at 3:16 AM.

Blast from the past: Sean Kelly (Harvard) on the renewed interest in phenomenology

MOVING TO FRONT FROM YESTERDAY--SOME INTERESTING COMMENTS, INCLUDING FROM PROF. KELLY

Back in 2008.  How do things look today?

Dolan reads Pinkard reading Sartre's "Critique of Dialectical Reason"

Interesting, especially considering how spectacularly difficult Sartre's late text is.

"Naturalism and Its Challenges," redux

The Iranian Institute of Philosophy has posted videos of all the talks from the conference earlier this week.  The videos aren't labelled, but many readers will no doubt recognize many of the speakers, including Timothy Williamson, Philip Pettit, Simon Blackburn, Paul Boghossian, Daniel Dennett, and others.

Russell vs. Hegel

A retelling of the story, more favorable to Hegel, by philosopher Paul Redding (Sydney).

On the meanings of Schrodinger's cat

Several philosophers (including Jenann Ismael [Columbia], Tim Maudlin [NYU], and Alyssa Ney [UC Davis]) are among those commenting.

Susanna Newcome, early 18th-century utilitarian

Interesting.

Misak on Lipscomb on Anscombe, Foot, Midgley, and Murdoch

This is one of the more philosophically substantial reviews I've seen; an excerpt:

Those in the grip of the picture that is supposed to result in inaction on the ethical stage were progressive socialists for the most part, heavily involved on the ground in political and ethical matters. Ayer was a left-wing activist and agitated against appeasement. The members of the Vienna Circle objected, in strong words and actions, to Nazism. Those who manged to flee (often to America) were engaged in progressive politics there. Hare had been a prisoner of war, building the Burma-Thailand railway under inhuman conditions, doing countless good deeds for his fellow POWs along the way. He worked out his philosophical theory during this time and would become a leading utilitarian in the 20^th century, a philosophical project deeply committed to social reform and individual improvement. He wrote papers on topics ranging from slavery to abortion to whether we shouldn’t eat animals.

Do we not require an explanation for how the [proponents of a philosophical outlook]...so apparently bloodless for ethics, could be believed by philosophers acting so powerfully at the moral coalface, at the place where whatever views they had about ethics met practical problems?...

Here’s [one] possible answer. Ayer and the members of the Vienna Circle found it liberating to distinguish fact from value, so that they could escape the constraints of the so-called ethical facts, which were lodged within a religious framework that dictated what was right and what was wrong.

"The return of metaphysics"

Philosophers Patricia Churchlanad (UC San Diego) and Galen Strawson (Texas/Austin) discuss at IAITV (also in the discussion, alas, is Hilary Lawson, the owner of IAITV--but one can skip past that if one wants).

Richard Marshall interviews Justin E.H. Smith (Paris VII)...

...at 3:16 AM.  Entertaining and eclectic!

A methodological problem for X-Phil?

Eric Schwitzgebel (UC Riverside) discusses recent work by his doctoral student Kyle Thompson.

Richard Marshall interviews Alexus McLeod (Connecticut)...

...about Chinese philosophy at 3:16 AM.

Richard Marshall interviews Kristin Gjesdal (Temple)...

...at 3:16 AM.

Do secular societies need rituals?

Philosopher Noel Carroll (CUNY Grad Center), political theorist Hannah Dawson (King's College, London) and others discuss at IAITV.

"Geography of Philosophy" project

The video!  (More information here.)

One well-known empirical data point in support of the hypothesis of "embodied cognition"...

...fails to replicate.

Richard Marshall interviews Wilhelm Dilthey (Berlin)...

...at 3:16 AM.

The "metaphysics" in Pippin's Hegel

As we saw, Pippin's Hegel has been influential in the scholarly literature, and this short essay gives a nice capsule summary of his view.   I'm not sure it's actually Hegel, though; Charles Taylor's Hegel (also influential) is more plausible as an interpretation in some respects, as are Frederick Beiser's and Michael Forster's interpretations.  Pippin's reading has many attractions, and has had a strong influence on the "Pittsburgh Hegel."

"Civic engagement" projects in philosophy classes

Philosopher Mylan Engel, Jr. (Northern Illinois) discusses his pedagogical approach.

Richard Marshall interviews Nancy Sherman (Georgetown)...

...at 3:16 AM.

"Virtual reality" and reality

Philosopher David Chalmers (NYU) thinks the distinction will go away.  I'm skeptical...

An interview with the psychologist Richard Nisbett

Nisbett's work has been important for many philosophers. He talks about his recent memoir at The Brains Blog.

 

"What is happiness?"

Interesting CHE interview about a course taught by philosopher Bernard Reginster (Brown) and one of his colleagues in psychology.  As Professor Reginster aptly says:

On the one hand, the empirical investigation of a topic like happiness is only going to be as good as the initial conceptualization that frames the hypothesis guiding the inquiry. If you ask the wrong questions, the answers you get are not going to be very helpful. On the other hand, if the hypothesis your initial conceptualization supplied isn’t confirmed by empirical inquiries, then your initial conceptualization probably missed something.

Dennett on Rorty's newly published "unpublished" papers

An appreciative (perhaps generous) review:

I’m also a bit chagrined to now acknowledge that the definition in my Philosophical Lexicon of ‘ a rortiori’ (adj. ‘for even more obscure and fashionable Continental reasons’) has probably contributed to a caricature of Rorty’s work that is all too convenient: an idea of the analytic philosopher turned Continental belle-lettrist. On the contrary, as this volume shows, Rorty was always keenly alert to the historically-blinkered vision of his fellow analytic philosophers, and after his ‘Continental turn’ he continued to compose masterful analyses of later stars of the analytic discipline – Kripke, McDowell, Mackie, Hacking, Kim, Brandom, Davidson, Searle, Nagel, Goldman and Fodor, to name a few highlights – well seasoned with his growing confidence about how they fit into the larger project of human inquiry. His 1994 paper, ‘The Current State of Philosophy in the United States’ should be required reading for every graduate or prospective graduate student in philosophy in the US (and elsewhere), since it’s full of observations that I believe are as true today as they were twenty-seven years ago: for instance, about the attempt by philosophers to escape the humanities and join forces with the sciences; about the gravitational attraction of problems that can be addressed with little or no historical understanding; and about the pinched perspective on the issues that has resulted from this trend.

Earlier posts on Rorty and his legacy.

New Yorker article on "mind-reading" technology

MOVING TO FRONT FROM DECEMBER 5--SEE ESP. INTERESTING COMMENTS FROM  NED BLOCK AND MOHAN MATTHEN; MORE COMMENTS WELCOME

An interesting read, but I'm curious what readers--especially, but not only, philosophers--make of this claim about the purported upshot of the new technologies for tracking meaning in the brain:

Now we know what [thoughts] really are: patterns of neural activation that correspond to points in meaning space. The mind—the only truly private place—has become inspectable from the outside. In the future, a therapist, wanting to understand how your relationships run awry, might examine the dimensions of the patterns your brain falls into. Some epileptic patients about to undergo surgery have intracranial probes put into their brains; researchers can now use these probes to help steer the patients’ neural patterns away from those associated with depression.

Causation from the point of view of physics

Jenann Ismael (Columbia) and James Woodward (Pittsburgh) discuss.

(Thanks to Lauren Ross for the pointer on Twitter.)

Think about death, become happier

Maybe!

Unexplored questions in philosophy?

A rather eclectic group of philosophers addresses the topic.

Open letter in support of philosophy at Bloomsburg University

Philosopher Steve Hales at Bloomsburg has shared with me this excellent open letter to the Chancellor of the university system that he has drafted; I encourage everyone to sign, and I suspect other philosophy departments may want to adopt some of its language if they come under threat.  From the letter:

Authentic higher education is not just worker training for businesses. Philosophy has been the central discipline of universities since Plato’s Academy. We invented logic, systematic ethics, and the natural sciences—philosophy is not some ephemeral, boutique area of study but the heart of the university. Young Pennsylvanians deserve the chance to improve their lives through the study of philosophy, and not just if they are privileged enough to go to U. Penn or Swarthmore.

We are not requesting an “opportunity” to re-apply for the major, which would no doubt involve promising unattainable deliverables to meet arbitrary benchmarks. It does not matter how many students major in philosophy; we will never attract as many as fields that are the names of jobs. What matters is that students have the choice that you promised on November 5th. What matters is that Bloomsburg University retain the philosophy major as our students deserve. We request that you guarantee its continuance.

 

Richard Marshall interviews Mattia Riccardi (Porto) about Nietzsche's philosophical psychology...

...at 3:16 AM.

What is "Critical Race Theory" and what does it have to do with "Critical Theory" (i.e., the Frankfurt School)?

The "Critical Race Theory Scare," a bit like the old "Red Scare," has conjured up a bogeyman from a minor movement in academic legal scholarship that goes by the name "Critical Race Theory," and that is associated with law professors like Kimberle Crenshaw, Patricia Williams, the late Derrick Bell, Richard Delgado, and others.  As is no doubt well-known to readers of this blog, the current bogeyman "Critical Race Theory" (CRT) has only a little to do with the body of writing by law professors--indeed, as this profile of the creator of the current hysteria makes clear, the real targets are the half-baked "ideas" of Robin DiAngelo and Ibram Kendi that have been put into practice in many workplaces (and some schools):  e.g., treating race as the marker of moral and epistemic status, treating disparate impact as evidence of "racism," overgeneralizing about the supposed attributes of "whiteness" (e.g., "objectivity" is white), interpreting effects of the capitalist marketplace as "racial" effects, and so on.  The DiAngelo-Kendi schtick makes the other white victims of the capitalist marketplace into agents and instigators of morally reprehensible oppression.

DiAngelo and Kendi, in any case, cite some CRT articles, and the propagandists decided that CRT was a good stand-in for the enemy.  DiAngelo and Kendi should be consigned to oblivion, and most of the objections to the CRT bogeyman are really objections to their stupidity, as any Marxist would agree.  But CRT is not by any stretch of the imagination a "Marxist" theory (and has little to do with Frankfurt School Critical Theory), so what is it about?

Review of a new book about Anscombe, Foot, Midgley, and Murdoch

Here.  Unfair to emotivism, however--because the volume is Oxford-centric,it mentions only Ayer, but not Stevenson, although Foot took on Stevenson directly (not successfully though).

Why every department should have at least one or two faculty specializing in the post-Kantian Continental traditions in philosophy of the 19th- and 20th-century (UPDATED)

Following up on this earlier post about ranked departments that, remarkably, have no specialists in these traditions, let me note the most obvious prudential reason why all departments should want to have faculty teaching in these areas:   undergraduate students are interested, really interested, in Marx and Nietzsche, and, when given the chance, in Schopenhauer and Foucault and (someone I don't like much) Heidegger.   Philosophy departments can pass off the student interest in these figures to hacks and intellectual tourists in other departments, but that will just be large student enrollments lost to the Philosophy Department.  There are now so many excellent and philosophically-informed scholars in these traditions, that there is no credible excuse any longer for not having specialists in these fields.  You can hire someone who will bring in the student enrollments for 19th-century German philosophers and still be able to talk to the epistemologists and moral psychology folks in your department.

What is philosophy and why should we do it? Readings for high school students?

MOVING TO FRONT FROM OCT 29--INTERESTING DISCUSSION, AND MR FOISY RESPONDS TO SOME OF THE SUGGESTIONS

Reader Matt Foisy writes seeking suggestions:

I am a high school teacher in Calgary, Canada. I am clearly not a professional philosopher, but I do read quite widely in philosophy, and I even think I can understand most of what I read! I primarily teach history and politics, but am lucky enough to teach a philosophy course (extremely rare in high schools in Canada, as I’m sure it is in the US as well). My philosophy course is part of the IB or international Baccalaureate program, which is a quite widely recognized and rigorous academic program--so much so that most major universities will offer first year credits to students who score well enough on their exams. So basically I think I am teaching what might be the equivalent of a first year undergrad philosophy course.

As I am not part of the academy it is not always the easiest thing for me to find applicable resources or works or whatever for some things that my students must do, and this is the question I have for you.

On most topics that I need to discuss there are no issues, but I am hoping for a little guidance on one topic. The students must write a paper that is basically on the purpose or role of philosophy. Or basically what philosophy is and why we need to be doing it. My students are intelligent and can do this with their own thoughts and ideas quite easily, but they must engage with the academy on questions like this. So their answers to this question must consider and evaluate the work of other philosophers in coming to their answers. I of course think that this is a great thing for them to be doing, but I also find that on this topic I am a little short on resources, and it is not always the easiest for me to find the time to do all of the reading required to find these resources. Plato and Aristotle offer some good answers to these questions, as does Thomas Nagel (in an introduction to philosophy book I think), but unfortunately I don’t have too many other resources for this type of a question.

Death...and its role in life

Philosopher Susanna Siegel (Harvard) discusses.

Bourget & Chalmers on the 2020 PhilPaper survey of the views of philosophers

Here. And you can see detailed results for each question here.

A few striking results (rounded to nearest 1):  while 50% of respondents endorsed "naturalism," 73% of respondents believe there is a priori knowledge, 63% believe in the analytic/synthetic distinction (although maybe it's because they think there are trivial analytic truths), 62% are moral realists (only 26% are moral anti-realists [what an embarrassment!]), and only 11% hold the correct view about free will, namely, that there is none.  (59% are compatibilists about free will, pretty close to the figure for moral realists:  I'll bet there is some overlap here.)  Only 67% of respondents were atheists,  while 19% were theists.

77% of respondents would not enter Nozick's Experience Machine, one of the biggest majorities for a single position in the survey.

Comments are open, feel free to discuss the results that strike you.

"Causation with a Human Face"

The philosopher of science James Woodward (Pittsburgh) discusses his new book at The Brains Blog.

Carl Schmitt in China...

...or why the CCP is interested in Schmitt.

(Thanks to Matt Kramer for the pointer.)

UPDATE:  A PhD student with a special interest in China writes with some useful perspective:

What is it like to be a philosopher? Mike Huemer (Colorado) edition

MOVING TO FRONT FROM OCTOBER 14--UPDATED

Here.  An amusing interview, as one would expect.  He thinks there's not enough substantive philosophy on blogs like this one, but I guess the evidence suggests that trying to do actual philosophy on blogs doesn't always go well!

UPDATE:  Philosopher Colin McGinn responds to an allegation in Huemer's interview.  (Thanks to David Gordon for the pointer.)