This is striking.
This is striking.
Posted by Brian Leiter on October 27, 2011 at 10:52 AM in Issues in the Profession, Philosophical Gourmet Report, The Academy | Permalink
Posted by Brian Leiter on October 27, 2011 at 08:09 AM in Issues in the Profession, Of Cultural Interest, The Academy | Permalink
(Thanks to James Klagge for the pointer.)
Posted by Brian Leiter on October 27, 2011 at 05:55 AM in Personal Ads of the Philosophers (and other humor), Philosophy in the News | Permalink
[MOVING TO FRONT: LINK IS NOW WORKING]
This ad will run in the next JFP:
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO LAW SCHOOL. The University of Chicago Law School seeks to appoint a Law and Philosophy Fellow for the academic year 2012-13. A Ph.D. in philosophy by time of appointment is expected, though in unusual cases a Ph.D. in a related discipline, or a J.D. accompanied by strong training in philosophy, will be considered. Applications welcome from PhDs awarded in 2005 or later. Law degree (J.D. or foreign equivalent) is helpful, but not required. AOS: Any area of philosophy that intersects with issues of interest to legal scholars. AOC: Any area of philosophy that will enable the Fellow to co-teach the Law and Philosophy Workshop for 2012-13 on the broad theme of "Freedom and Responsibility." (If the AOS is in the area of the Workshop theme, then the AOC is open.) The Workshop will meet about a dozen times over the course of the academic year to discuss work by invited speakers. The Fellow will also be expected to contribute to the intellectual life of the Law School, as well as pursue his or her research. Salary $50K + benefits + superb research environment. To be considered a candidate for this position you must apply on-line through the University website by January 20, 2012. Resume, cover letter, writing sample, reference contact information and research statement should be submitted electronically on the web site at the time of application. Three confidential letters of recommendation should be mailed to Joe Pellettiere at The University of Chicago Law School, 1111 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637 by January 20, 2012. The University of Chicago is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer.
Please e-mail me if you have any questions about the position.
Posted by Brian Leiter on October 26, 2011 at 12:56 PM in Legal Philosophy | Permalink
At least this way we get clear answers. Among the results so far: humans have souls, and beauty is in the eye of the beholder!
Posted by Brian Leiter on October 26, 2011 at 08:09 AM in Personal Ads of the Philosophers (and other humor) | Permalink
A grad student in Europe writes:
Now that I'm sitting down to put together some applications for philosophy job positions, it occurs to me that I don't know how to write a cover letter for the American job market. For example, for PhD positions it was natural to state the people I'd like to work with. But now that I have a PhD, is this still the norm? Because while I really would like to work with, and learn from, AAA and YYY, since I'm applying for a tenure track position, aren't I supposed to be something approximating to a finished article - ready to stand on my own and complement my colleagues? In this case, would it not be better just to state why my research would complement the research profile of the department? And if so, would I benefit or harm my case by observing that my research would fill a gap in the department's teaching profile? What would be the right combination of flattery and self-confidence?
Thoughts from readers?
Posted by Brian Leiter on October 26, 2011 at 06:33 AM in Advice for Academic Job Seekers | Permalink | Comments (18)
Gilbert Harman has posted a revised version of his earlier remarks, along with a reply by Marc Hauser. It seems to me that "theft of ideas" clearly constitutes plagiarism and academic dishonesty (see the discussion in Harman's piece on this subject), though many egregious cases go unpunished and unnoted because the ideas in question were only in oral form prior to the theft. But that is not the case in this instance. In any case, see the detailed analysis by Harman and the rejoinder from Hauser.
Posted by Brian Leiter on October 25, 2011 at 06:23 AM in Issues in the Profession, Philosophy in the News, The Academy | Permalink
The mathematicians set it up, but why don't the philosophers use it?
Posted by Brian Leiter on October 25, 2011 at 06:20 AM in Issues in the Profession | Permalink
MOVING TO FRONT FROM YESTERDAY: NOTE SLIGHTLY LONGER EXTENSION
It looks like we're up to around 250 evaluators in the overall and/or specialty rankings, but I've had various requests for some extra time from folks who still want to participate, so I'm extending the survey for 24 hours, to 5 pm Wednesday, October 26--that's Chicago time , so I'm exteding the survey for about 36 hours, until noon on Thursday, October 27--that's Chicago time, so it would be 1 pm in New York or Toronto, 6 pm in London, but 10 am in Los Angeles or Vancouver, and around 5 am or so in Sydney on Friday! (I'm afraid we can't extend much longer consistent with processing the results and getting the Report on-line by early December, so that it can be of use to the current crop of grad school applicants.)
Some of the specialty areas have had lower turnouts relative to the numbers invited so far, so any evaluators in those areas, please note: your votes will be especially important! These include philosophy of mathematics, Kant, medieval philosophy, philosophy of biology, Chinese philosophy, and philosophy of race.
Let me add that evaluators are well-advised not to wait until the last minute to complete the surveys, lest the server slow down to a crawl!
Posted by Brian Leiter on October 24, 2011 at 01:33 PM in Philosophical Gourmet Report | Permalink
J. B. Kennedy recently proposed a radical new interpretation of the Platonic dialogues, arguing that their stichometric structure is based in a Greek twelve-tone musical scale. We explore to what extent such an interpretation might be borne out historically by Greek music-theoretical traditions: the concept of scale, the significance of number 12 (on which Kennedy's theory is anchored), conceptual differences between Harmonicists and Pythagoreans, and the applicability of Kennedy's scale within the context of Plato's thought. While the statistical correlations Kennedy notes are intriguing, their foundation in Greek music-theoretical traditions proves problematic.
Earlier discussion here.
Posted by Brian Leiter on October 24, 2011 at 06:52 AM in Philosophy in the News, What is Philosophy? | Permalink
Here.
Posted by Brian Leiter on October 24, 2011 at 05:25 AM in Hermeneutics of Suspicion, Of Cultural Interest | Permalink
...for a great ten days of blogging, which stimualted some fine comment threads as well; you can review her contributions at this link in case you missed any of it. I hope to have more guest bloggers in the future, and will hopefully be able to persuade Rebecca to come back.
I sometimes get asked where I find the guest-bloggers, some of whom (including Rebecca) I've never even met in person! Generally, I invite folks with whom I've corresponded and/or who post sensible comments frequently, and who seem to be just generally interesting philosophers with useful perspsectives and insight on issues in philosophy and the profession that I think the regular readership will enjoy.
Posted by Brian Leiter on October 24, 2011 at 05:15 AM | Permalink
Implicit bias is a hot topic in philosophy these days; for instance, there are awesomely interesting-looking upcoming conferences advertised here and here. (Incidentally, this strikes me as a little corner of the discipline in which those with explicitly feminist training and interests and those without are working together and learning from one another beautifully.)
Posted by Rkukla on October 23, 2011 at 05:18 PM in Guest Blogger: Rebecca Kukla | Permalink
I am very sad to report that Professor Goldie, a leading writer on the philosophy of the emotions and moral psychology, has passed away. There is a brief memorial notice from his former colleagues at King's College, London here. I first met Peter when he came to seminars I was giving on Nietzsche at University College London about a decade ago, where he was an invaluable participant. I subsequently saw him at Manchester, where he took up the Chair in Philosophy in 2005, in order to rebuild the faculty. His book on The Emotions is one of the two or three best in a vast literature. His remarkable philosophical career is all the more notable in that it was his second career, after one in business. A great loss for the field of philosophy.
Posted by Brian Leiter on October 23, 2011 at 06:30 AM in Philosophy Updates | Permalink
I've mentioned that I do not publish nasty or ad hominem comments, or comments that are anonymous unless I can tell that there is a good reason for the anonymity. If your only reason for wanting anoynmity is that you want to say things that are nastier than you are willing to take the consequences for saying, this doesn't count as a good reason; rather, you're an example of why many people think that allowing anonymous comments is a bad idea. I should have added: If your comment is anonymous AND you provide an intentionally invalid email address, I will not publish your comment; neither will I be able to contact you to discuss your reasons for desiring anonymity and/or ways to make your comment more productive and less nasty.
Posted by Rkukla on October 21, 2011 at 07:32 AM in Guest Blogger: Rebecca Kukla | Permalink
Posted by Brian Leiter on October 21, 2011 at 05:19 AM in Philosophy in the News, What is Philosophy? | Permalink
Readers at the University of Chicago may be interested in this petition that the university is submitting in support of the Occupy Chicago movement. Thanks to Jacob Swenson for the pointer. Jacob also suggests that those at other universities should consider drafting similar petition letters.
UPDATE: Here is a similar petition for those at Northwestern University. Thanks to Seth Green for letting me know.
SECOND UPDATE: David Velleman (NYU) comments: "I note that although the university petitions mention several important grievances of the protesters, they omit a central grievance that hits closer to home - namely, the crushing debt with which today's students graduate from college. (For examples, flip through the "We Are the 99 Percent" tumblr at wearethe99percent.tumblr.com). We academics bear some responsibility for the costs of higher education. It is all very well to cheer on the protests from the sidelines -- or to join them in the streets -- but we should not pretend that we are entirely on the side of the angels."
Posted by Rkukla on October 21, 2011 at 12:19 AM in Guest Blogger: Rebecca Kukla | Permalink
As the discussion about the climate for women in the subdisciplines heats up (thanks all!), it seems a good time to provide a pointer to a growing resource, the What We're Doing About What It's Like blog, an initiative of the Women in Philosophy Task Force, where people write in with concrete examples of steps they have taken or witnessed that aim to improve the climate for women in philosophy (at the individual, departmental, or any other level). There's lots of interesting stuff up there, including for instance a departmental climate survey tool devised by social scientists and submitted by Ruth Chang and used at Michigan. Take a look! And, help build the resource by submitting something if you can.
Posted by Rkukla on October 20, 2011 at 11:21 AM in Guest Blogger: Rebecca Kukla | Permalink
BREAKING NEWS 10/21: Cathy Kemp writes: Informal report of results for SPEP resolution in support of "'Pluralist' Guide": 118 yes 24 no 5 abstentions.
(In other news: eminent philosopher Jon Cogburn forced to eat hat.)
* * * * *
I firmly intended not to guest-blog about the "Pluralist's Guide", as I considered the issue sooooo July 2011, but the Flying Spaghetti Monster seems to have different plans for me. It was just brought to my attention that SPEP members will be voting on a proposed resolution in support of the guide at their annual meeting this coming weekend. Here is the full text of the resolution:
I The membership of the Society of Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy supports the independent efforts of the new Pluralist’s Guide to Philosophy to:
1) provide new sources of information on areas of philosophy that remain underrepresented in most doctoral programs in the discipline and
2) provide information on the conditions for women and minorities in graduate philosophy programs. The membership of SPEP has long championed pluralistic approaches to philosophy, as well as increased diversity in a field that continues to have the lowest representation by women and people of color compared to all other disciplines in the humanities and social sciences.
II. We commend those committed to providing enhanced information about doctoral programs in philosophy in the US, as well as those working to promote diversity in the profession. While we appreciate those who have engaged in constructive dialogue about the Guide and its production, we condemn the incivility that has marked some criticisms, especially ad hominem attacks on the Guide’s organizers and contributors as well as on SPEP and its membership despite the latter's independence from the construction of the Guide. We are grateful to the authors of and contributors to the Pluralist’s Guide for their work. Philosophy currently faces unprecedented marginalization within the academy; we support efforts to move past archaic divisions and find common ground.
Comments welcome; same groundrules as before.
Posted by Rkukla on October 18, 2011 at 11:40 PM in Guest Blogger: Rebecca Kukla | Permalink | Comments (26)
A few months back, pretty much every philosophy blog was ablaze with discussion of how and whether to evaluate and compare the climate for female students in different philosophy departments. The issue was discussed ad nauseum (and yes, I realize I was surely a major contributor to the nausea). Lately I’ve been reflecting on a slightly different issue, namely the climate for women in different subdisciplines within philosophy. After all, departments are not the only ‘natural’ social groupings in the discipline.
Posted by Rkukla on October 18, 2011 at 02:03 PM in Guest Blogger: Rebecca Kukla | Permalink | Comments (56)
A few days ago I blogged about the potential assault on tenure and liberal arts funding in Florida, and mentioned that Florida is looking to Texas, where proposed changes to the tenure system are also afoot. I've now done some looking into the Texas situation, which strikes me as quite chilling. (Brian pointed out several months ago that these changes were afoot in this post.) As in the Florida case, I don't feel qualified to judge how likely it is that the proposed reforms will go through or what exactly their long-term effect will be, but (1) it is worrisome that Republican legislators are becoming so interested in micromanaging academia, and (2) the general tenor of the assault is telling.
The Texas Public Policy Foundation has put together a '7-step plan' for 'strengthening' higher education in the state, at governor Rick Perry's request. Perry has urged the regents of the state universities - all of whom have been appointed by him - to adopt the plan. This plan urges adopting a 'business model' for running universities, in which students are the 'customers'.
Part of the plan is to make 75% of tenure decisions depend pretty much entirely on teaching, evaluated by objective, state-defined measures, while 25% of the faculty positions would be set aside as pure research positions. Along with the obvious downsides to judging most faculty solely by their teaching, I am deeply disturbed by the assumption that there is no symbiotic relationship between teaching and research - that students need no access to strong researchers, that being a researcher is in no way an important condition for certain kinds of high-quality teaching, and that our teaching does not enhance or help develop or direct our research. Indeed, somewhat ironically, the report refers to teaching as a 'burden' from which researchers could be freed according to the plan. (I couldn't find anything about how graduate advising would fit into this - does anyone know?) The details of how teaching would be evaluated are particularly troubling: Teaching professors could only receive tenure "by having taught an average of three classes per semester and thirty students per class for ... seven or more years" and "average teaching ratings must be a minimum of 4.5 on a 5.0 scale" (my emphasis - see here). I think it would be condescending of me to spell out on this blog why these are terrible ideas, in light of the effect on the kind of topics that could be taught, the need to pander to students, and so on. The writers of the report do have the chutzpah to claim that this would not turn tenure into a 'popularity contest'. This has been brewing for a while, and the Chronicle of Higher Education did a story on the Texas situation a year ago; here is the link, although you'll need access to the Chronicle to read it.
I am curious how worried philosophers at state universities in Texas and Florida actually are about all of this; although I have some Florida ties, I don't really know how things feel on the ground. I am opening comments, and particularly encourage signed comments from folks who are working in one of those two states. I'm also curious if anyone knows if there are other states jumping on this bandwagon.
Posted by Rkukla on October 17, 2011 at 11:29 AM in Guest Blogger: Rebecca Kukla | Permalink | Comments (9)
We're a little more than half way through the survey period; evaluators have another eight day to complete the surveys. Many thanks to the 150+ who already have submitted their evaluations! I hope the remaining evaluators will make time to participate during the next week.
Posted by Brian Leiter on October 17, 2011 at 05:34 AM in Philosophical Gourmet Report | Permalink
Can apparent superluminal neutrino speeds be explained as a quantum weak measurement?
H/t to Luca Baptista by way of Bryce Huebner.
Posted by Rkukla on October 15, 2011 at 06:41 AM in Guest Blogger: Rebecca Kukla | Permalink
A place for philosophers to get involved with ideas and philosophical perspectives on the growing populist movement against the plutocracy.
Posted by Brian Leiter on October 14, 2011 at 08:25 AM in Of Cultural Interest, Philosophy in the News | Permalink
Details here.
(Thanks to Ben Schewel for the pointer.)
Posted by Brian Leiter on October 14, 2011 at 06:43 AM in Academic Freedom, Of Cultural Interest, Philosophy in the News | Permalink
Posted by Rkukla on October 14, 2011 at 06:31 AM in Guest Blogger: Rebecca Kukla, The Academy | Permalink
Posted by Brian Leiter on October 13, 2011 at 08:13 AM in Issues in the Profession, Philosophy in the News | Permalink
I get asked this at various intervals, and while it's been covered in some news stories over the years, I think I've never posted the explanation here, so I might as well to satisfy the curiosity of anyone who is curious.
I first produced a short version of the PGR in 1989, when I was a PhD student at Michigan. It was for undergrads at Michigan thinking about grad school in philosophy, and it was based on the research I had done on PhD programs in philosophy prior to coming to Michigan. In the 1980s, one of the best-known rankings was the "Gourman Report," by Jack Gourman, a Cal State poli sci professor, who ranked all fields (and assigned minute numerical differences: e.g., Princeton was 4.89 in philosophy, but Pitt was 4.82), but never disclosed the methodology. My suspicion was that Gourman simply adjusted his rankings every few years based on the most recent National Research Council ranking (this was when the NRC actually did useful reputational surveys)--so, in the 1980s, the last one was 1982. And it was already becoming out-of-date when I was a senior in college in 1983-84. Anyway, I called my type-written report on philosophy PhD programs in 1989 the "Anti-Gourman Report."
To my surprise, it was popular not just with the undergrads at Michigan, but with my fellow students, who asked if they could photocopy it and send it to friends at their undergrad schools. And so it began. I updated it each year, giving my 'gestalt' sense of programs, listing major faculty moves, and so on. As it grew more and more popular via the informal photocopy method of distribution, I decided I better change the name, lest Jack Gourman get cranky! Since Gourman was close to Gourmand, and since I wasn't catering to Gourmands, but Gourmets, I settled on....
Posted by Brian Leiter on October 13, 2011 at 07:30 AM in Philosophical Gourmet Report | Permalink
They are Russell by Gregory Landini (Iowa) and Wittgenstein by William Child (Oxford). These new introductions to two of the major philosophers of the twentieth-century will be invaluable both to students and scholars.
Still to come in the Routledge Philosophers series: John Richardson (NYU) on Heidegger, Don Garrett (NYU) on Hume, and Constance Meinwald (Illinois/Chicago) on Plato, among many others.
Posted by Brian Leiter on October 13, 2011 at 06:47 AM in Philosophy in the News | Permalink
Leading politicians are now calling for cuts to specific disciplines (not philosophy, at least not yet). Anthropologists respond to the brain-dead governor.
Posted by Brian Leiter on October 12, 2011 at 09:01 AM in "The less they know, the less they know it", Academic Freedom, Authoritarianism and Fascism Alerts, The Academy | Permalink
...this place is a really good French Bistro. C'est vrai!
Posted by Brian Leiter on October 12, 2011 at 07:22 AM in Restaurants | Permalink
(Thanks to Rob Sica for the pointer.)
Posted by Brian Leiter on October 12, 2011 at 06:28 AM in Philosophy in the News, What is Philosophy? | Permalink
The several dozen e-mail errors from last week have been fixed, and evaluators should have received their invitations today. If you've been an evaluator in the past, and did not receive the invitation today or last week, please contact me.
Posted by Brian Leiter on October 11, 2011 at 07:15 PM in Philosophical Gourmet Report | Permalink
Putting to one side the mistaken use of "guarantee" in the headline, this is a revealing list.
Posted by Brian Leiter on October 11, 2011 at 11:39 AM in Of Cultural Interest, The Academy | Permalink
Eric Schliesser (Ghent) has interesting comments (and a link) regarding the latest winner of the fake Nobel Prize in Economics.
Posted by Brian Leiter on October 11, 2011 at 10:38 AM in Hermeneutics of Suspicion, Of Cultural Interest, The Academy, What is Philosophy? | Permalink
...here.
Posted by Brian Leiter on October 11, 2011 at 06:30 AM in Philosophy in the News | Permalink
I am very pleased to announce that philosopher Rebecca Kukla will be guest-blogging here starting October 14 and continuing through October 23. Professor Kukla has wide-ranging philosophical interests ranging across bioethics, epistemology, philosophy of language, feminist philosophy, and the history of eighteenth-century philosophy. I will be doing some posting during that time period as well, but mainly I'll be reading Professor Kukla!
Posted by Brian Leiter on October 10, 2011 at 12:47 PM in Guest Blogger: Rebecca Kukla | Permalink
Posted by Brian Leiter on October 10, 2011 at 12:09 PM in Authoritarianism and Fascism Alerts, Of Cultural Interest | Permalink
Courtesy of David Bourget and David Chalmers--details and links here.
[Moving to front from Saturday, Oct. 8, to make sure interested readers don't miss it]
Posted by Brian Leiter on October 10, 2011 at 07:09 AM in Issues in the Profession, Philosophy in the News | Permalink
A young philosopher writes:
I’m the newly-appointed placement officer for my department, and I was hoping to get some feedback on a couple of questions.
(1) I know well enough what our students need to do in order to look attractive to ranked research universities, but I’m wondering what I can do to help our students look attractive to “teaching schools”: small liberal arts colleges and universities with large teaching loads. I’d be grateful for feedback both about “do’s” and “don’ts” in their job applications, as well as anything I could be doing earlier on, with our first- and second-year grads, to help prepare them for such jobs.
(2) What, if anything, should I be doing on behalf of my students at the Eastern APA? My fear is that if I approach the schools that interviewed them at the smoker, it may do more harm than good (by annoying them!).
Comments are open.
Posted by Brian Leiter on October 10, 2011 at 05:43 AM in Issues in the Profession | Permalink | Comments (17)
MOVING TO FRONT FROM OCTOBER 4 TO ENCOURAGE MORE DISCUSSION.
Everything you need to know here.
ADDENDUM: And Chicago too!
ANOTHER: Roy Blumenfeld, a former philosophy PhD student at CUNY and now a documentary filmmaker in NYC, writes:
Thank you for posting about the Wall Street protests. If you'd like to link to a video, consider the following inside look I've uploaded covering the lead-up to the bridge arrests: http://vimeo.com/29943384 . I couldn't film the arrests because I was one of the first to be arrested, and didn't want to risk dropping my camera while getting cuffed.
Also, I think it's worth mentioning to your readers that journalists were arrested along with protesters (most prominently Natasha Lennard of the NYTimes). In New York, journalists are required to obtain official press passes from the police, not their employers (a phenomenon unique among democracies, as far as I know). As freelancers, neither Ms. Lennard nor I qualified, and were thus kettled along with protesters.Finally, you might want to consider an endeavor like the one pursued by Nicholas Kristof on Sunday, or Richard D. Wolff here which is to offer some education and guidance to the protesters. One way to do this is to solicit specific, intelligent talking points from your readership to submit to the protesters. An even better way is to solicit suggestions for good sources of information protesters could read and share. Despite attracting a lot of attention, this movement still has a serious image problem. In part this is natural -- protesters have a wide variety of concerns, which may or may not coalesce as the movement progresses. But often one gets the feeling that these young men and women just aren't sure what exactly to advocate for, and could use intelligent voices on the left offering policy guidance. Robert Paul Wolff writes "aside from saying 'Amen,' there doesn't seem to be much I can do to support it." This is one thing you could all do.
Per Mr. Blumenfeld's suggestion, I'm opening comments for input and advice from readers.
Posted by Brian Leiter on October 09, 2011 at 07:27 AM in Of Cultural Interest | Permalink | Comments (18)
They are: Ned Block (NYU) and Patricia Smith Churchland (emerita, UC San Diego).
Posted by Brian Leiter on October 07, 2011 at 06:39 AM in Philosophy in the News | Permalink
Here.
Posted by Brian Leiter on October 06, 2011 at 08:45 PM in Philosophy in the News | Permalink
Posted by Brian Leiter on October 06, 2011 at 08:44 AM in Of Cultural Interest | Permalink
...this time at Stanford, which recently added Alan Code from Rutgers to an already strong cluster of faculty in philosophy and classics.
It's striking how many top programs have recently been making investments in ancient philosophy (Berkeley, North Carolina, Michigan, Yale all come to mind). It's an interesting question when the profession will come to realize that the kind of revolution in scholarship on ancient philosophy wrought by Owen and Vlastos fifty years ago has been going on in scholarship on 19th-century European philosophy for a generation now, and that the fruitful philosophical connections with many areas of contemporary interest are at least as plentiful there.
Posted by Brian Leiter on October 06, 2011 at 07:35 AM in Philosophical Gourmet Report, Philosophy in the News | Permalink
This is a fabulous bit of writing by Stefan Collini (Cambridge), both in content and style; an excerpt follows, but really take the time to read the whole thing (whether you are in Britain or not, the mindlessness Collini describes is spreading everywhere and, in any case, the essay is a pleasure to read):
One of the most fascinating yet elusive aspects of cultural change is the way certain ideals and arguments acquire an almost self-evident power at particular times, just as others come to seem irrelevant or antiquated and largely disappear from public debate. In the middle of the 18th century, to describe a measure as ‘displaying the respect that is due to rank’ was a commonplace commendation; in the middle of the 19th, affirming that a proposal contributed to ‘the building of character’ would have been part of the mood music of public discourse; in the middle of the 20th, ‘a decent standard of life’ was the goal of all parties and almost all policies. As with changes in the use of language generally, readers and listeners become inured to what were once jarring neologisms or solecisms, while phrases that were once so common as to escape notice become in time unusable.
It will be a long time before historians can adequately chart, let alone explain, the changes in public discourse in Britain in the past half-century, but when that task is attempted, official publications will have a special evidential value. They tend not to bear the marks of an individual sensibility, but rather to deploy the idioms and arguments thought to command the widest acceptance, even when – perhaps especially when – the proposals they contain are novel and controversial. Since perhaps the 1970s, certainly the 1980s, official discourse has become increasingly colonised by an economistic idiom, which is derived not strictly from economic theory proper, but rather from the language of management schools, business consultants and financial journalism. British society has been subject to a deliberate campaign, initiated in free-market think tanks in the 1960s and 1970s and pushed strongly by business leaders and right-wing commentators ever since, to elevate the status of business and commerce and to make ‘contributing to economic growth’ the overriding goal of a whole swathe of social, cultural and intellectual activities which had previously been understood and valued in other terms. Such a campaign would not have been successful, of course, had it not been working with the grain of other changes in British society and the wider world. Very broadly speaking, the extension of democratic and egalitarian social attitudes has been accompanied by the growth of a kind of consumerist relativism. The claim that one activity is inherently of greater value or importance than another comes to be pilloried as ‘elitism’. Arguments are downgraded to ‘opinions’: all opinions are equally valuable (or valueless), so the only agreed criterion is what people say they think they want, and the only value with any indefeasible standing is ‘value for money’. Government documents issued in the last 20 years or so are immediately identifiable by the presence of such buzz phrases as ‘it is essential to sustain economic growth and maintain Britain’s global competitiveness,’ ‘consumers must have a choice of services,’ ‘competition will drive up quality’ and so on.
Posted by Brian Leiter on October 05, 2011 at 07:14 AM in Hermeneutics of Suspicion, Issues in the Profession, Of Cultural Interest, The Academy | Permalink
More than 500 e-mail invitations went out yesterday--though about three dozen have bounced back due to e-mail problems, which we're now fixing. All invitations should be out by next Monday. I hope all those nominated will participate. Remember that everyone has partial information, and the point of a survey is to aggregate all the partial information to produce a more complete portrait of professional opinion.
Posted by Brian Leiter on October 05, 2011 at 06:01 AM in Philosophical Gourmet Report | Permalink
Here.
(Thanks to Mark Lovas for the pointer to this remarkable site.)
Posted by Brian Leiter on October 04, 2011 at 07:45 PM in Of Cultural Interest | Permalink
Jonathan Wolff (UCL) comments on economics and higher education.
Posted by Brian Leiter on October 04, 2011 at 07:18 AM in Of Cultural Interest, Philosophy in the News, The Academy | Permalink
Details and contact information here.
Posted by Brian Leiter on October 04, 2011 at 06:52 AM in Issues in the Profession | Permalink
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