Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

Hoefer and Marti from Barcelona to Western Ontario (updated)

MOVING TO FRONT FROM YESTERDAY--UPDATED

Carl Hoefer (philosophy of science and physics), currently ICREA Research Professor of Philosophy at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, has accepted a full professorship and Directorship of the Rotman Institute at the University of Western Ontario, effective summer 2013.  That's the second major, senior hire for UWO and Rotman this year.  In addition, UWO has appointed Genoveva Marti (philosophy of language), also an ICREA Research Professor at Barcelona, to a full professorship effective July 1, 2014.

"the sharp-shooting killer-app in the philosophy of mind"

Jerry Fodor at 3AM.

The Not-so-High Standards at (at least some) "Open Access" Journals

Not a great advertisement for the genre.

(Thanks to Lucas Miotto for the pointer.)

UPDATE:  Philosopher P.D. Magnus (SUNY-Albany) writes with several important points:

Your recent blog post rightly decries "The Not-so-High Standards at (at least some) "Open Access" Journals" and describes the case as "Not a great advertisement for the genre".

Importantly, the genre in question is not Open Access journals tout court. The real problem here is OA journals that use an author-pays model. Lots of them are straight forwardly scams to chisel money out of institutions that cover that kind of publishing and out of authors who need a line on their CV.

There are other models of OA. Quality OA journals don't charge author fees. I'm thinking here especially of Philosophers' Imprint, but also of less well-known and less prestigious ones like Logos&Episteme.  We can argue about their stature in the field, but their being OA is not a demerit.

There is also the model which is sometimes called "green OA", in which authors' papers are systematically hosted in institutional or disciplinary archives. Although this does not result in OA journals as such, traditional journals can facilitate or thwart the practice depending on how they handle rights.

Qualifying your post with the caveat "at least some" is importantly not enough, because we can state precisely what's wrong here. For-profit publishers have an interest in suspicion being raised about OA in general, when really it's a specific business model that leads to egregious abuses like the one that you point to.

 

Bankruptcy in New Orleans?

The blog and the offices of Thomas J. Bell.  Now why am I posting this here?  Because Tom had an earlier career as a philosopher, and then I had the privilege of teaching him when I visited at the University of Chicago Law School back in 2006.  After practicing in Chicago, he moved back to New Orleans, where he went to college, and started his current practice.  He's a smart guy and a good guy, so if you know anyone who needs help with bankruptcy issues, give him a call!

The Onion Covers the Most Recent Presidential Debate

Amusing and basically right!

(Thanks to Dennis Kavlakoglu for the pointer.) 

 

Fall 2012 Update to the Philosophical Gourmet Report for 2011-12

MOVING TO FRONT FOR LAST TIME (originally posted Sept. 19):  A LINK WILL BE ADDED TO THIS FROM THE PGR

These are the major changes at the senior faculty level since last fall's surveys; all these changes can be expected to affect the specialty rankings, and some, due to their significance and/or number, might affect the overall results (e.g., an upward bump for Berkeley; King's College, London; Manchester; Brown; Durham; York; Texas; Otago, among others; a downward bump for Yale, Indiana, Penn, Reading, among others):

Andrew Arana (logic, philosophy of mathematics) left Kansas State University for the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Marcia Baron (ethics, Kant, philosophy of law) at Indiana University at Bloomington has accepted appointment as Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of St. Andrews, part-time to start, and full-time from January 2014.

Tim Bayne (philosophy of mind) left Oxford University for the University of Manchester.

George Bealer (metaphysics) will retire from Yale University in 2014 (though his last year of graduating teaching is this academic year), and Jules Coleman (philosophy of law) has left Yale Law School (and a secondary appointment in Philosophy) to take up a senior administrative post at New York University.  In addition, Susanne Bobzien (ancient philosophy, philosophy of language) will leave Yale for a Senior Research Fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford University in 2013.

Helen Beebee (metaphysics) left the University of Birmingham for the University of Manchester.

Bill Brewer (metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind) left the University of Warwick for King's College, London.

Nancy Cartwright (philosophy of science, physics, and social science) left her part-time appointment at the London School of Economics for a part-time appointment at the University of Durham.  (She continues to teach each Winter Quarter at the University of California at San Diego.)

David Chalmers (philosophy of mind, language, and cognitive science) has been a regular Visiting Professor at New York University and has now accepted a tenured appointment there.  For at least the next two years, he will spend falls at NYU and the rest of the year at thee Australian National University.  It is expected he will eventually be full-time at NYU, perhaps retaining some connection to ANU, though that has not yet been determined.

Tony Chemero (philosophy of cognitive science, mind & science) left Franklin & Marshall College for the University of Cincinnati.

Robert Cummins (philosophy of mind and cognitive science) has retired from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Marian David (philosophy of language, epistemology, history of analytic philosophy) left the University of Notre Dame for the University of Graz.

Michael Forster (18th-, 19th- and 20th-century German philosophy, philosophy of language, epistemology, ancient philosophy) will leave his full-time position at the University of Chicago for a Humboldt Professorship at the University of Bonn in February 2013, though he will continue to be roughly one-third time at Chicago, teaching most of each Winter Quarter.

Miranda Fricker (epistemology, ethics, feminist philosophy) has left Birkbeck College, University of London for the University of Sheffield.

Paul Guyer (Kant, aesthetics) left the University of Pennsylvania for Brown University.  In addition, Charles Kahn (ancient philosophy) is retiring this year at Penn.

Alex Miller (philosophy of language, metaethics) left the University of Birmingham for the University of Otago.

Why Tolerate Religion?

The book is finally out.  Thanks to all those who had expressed interest in the project.

Sartre's Long-Lost Blog Discovered!

Excerpts here.

(Thanks to Steven Hales for the pointer.)

Where are the top assistant professors of 1990-91?

MOVING TO FRONT WITH SOME CORRECTIONS/ADDITIONS--BEAR IN MIND THAT THE DIRECTORY LISTING MAY NOT HAVE CORRESPONDED PERFECTLY TO THE ACTUAL FACULTY ROSTERS FOR 1990-91

We did this once before, but I recently found my old Directory of American Philosophers for 1990-91.  Here are the assistant professors at roughly "the top 15" programs 20-odd years ago, and where they are now.  In parentheses following the school name I list five representative senior faculty there at the time.   Perhaps this will be instructive about the many professional trajectories that philosophers follow.  Bear in mind, of course, that the junior faculty here moved for all kinds of reasons--some were denied tenure, some left before tenure for personal or professional reasons, some left after tenure for personal or professional reasons, and so on.

University of Arizona (J Annas, J Feinberg, A Goldman, K Lehrer, J Pollock)

Vann McGee (PhD, Berkeley):  Professor, MIT

David W D Owen (DPhil, Oxford):  Associate Professor, Arizona

Stanford University (J Barwise, N Cartwright, D Follesdal, J Perry, P Suppes)

Rachel Cohon (PhD, UCLA):  Professor, SUNY-Albany

Eckart Forster (DPhil, Oxford):  Professor, Johns Hopkins

Marleen Rozemond (PhD, UCLA):  Professor, Toronto

Debra Satz (PhD, MIT):  Professor, Stanford

University of California, Berkeley (D Davidson, J Searle, B Stroud, B Williams, R Wollheim)

Hannah Ginsborg (PhD, Harvard):  Professor, Berkeley

Elisabeth Lloyd (PhD, Princeton):  Professor, Indiana/Bloomington

Kwong-Loi Shun (PhD, Stanford):  Professor, Chinese University of Hong Kong

University of California, Los Angeles (R Adams, R Albritton, T Burge, P Foot, D Kaplan)

Joseph Almog (DPhil, Oxford):  Professor, UCLA

Gavin Lawrence (DPhil, Oxford):  Professor, UCLA

University of Southern California (M Cohen, H Field, B Herman, B Loar, E McCann)

Frank Arntzenius (PhD, London):  Professor, Oxford

Zlatan Damnjanovic (PhD, Princeton):  Associate Professor, USC

Sharon Lloyd (PhD, Harvard):  Professor, USC

Yale University (R Bittner, SW Broadie, H Frankfurt, J Lear, RB Marcus)

Phillip Bricker (PhD, Princeton):  Professor, U Mass/Amherst

Ivan Fox (PhD, Harvard):   left philosophy (worked for ETS), now deceased

Ken Gemes (PhD, Pittsburgh):  Professor, Birkbeck, London

Randall Havas (PhD, Harvard):  Professor, Willamette

Susan Neiman (PhD, Harvard):  Director, Einstein Forum, Germany

Carol Rovane (PhD, Chicago):  Professor, Columbia

David Schmidtz (PhD, Arizona):  Professor, Arizona

Nancy Sherman (PhD, Harvard):  Professor, Georgetown

Georgia Warnke (PhD, BU):  Professor, UC Riverside

University of Chicago (D Garber, C Korsgaard, D Malament, I Mueller, H Stein)

Daniel Brudney (PhD, Harvard):  Professor, U of Chicago

Michael Forster (PhD, Princeton):  Professor, U of Chicago

Ronald McClamrock (PhD, MIT):  Professor, SUNY-Albany

Josef Stern (PhD, Columbia):  Professor, U of Chicago

Saul on the Dearth of Women in Philosophy

This is a fairly compact summary on themes covered by Professor Saul and others at the Feminist Philosophers blog and in other writings.  My sense is that sexual harassment, which seems to still be far more common in philosophy than, say, academic law, has a lot to do with it.  The APA really ought to take a leadership role on this issue and there are some indications that it may before too long.

(Thanks to Jean Kazez for the pointer.)

On Wikipedia and Anonymity

A rather scathing assessment from Wikipedia co-founder (and philosophy PhD) Larry Sanger.

Plutocracy Watch: Election Edition

Political philosopher Andrew Levine (Wisconsin/Maryland) comments.

(Thanks to Phil Gasper for the pointer.)

Do journal editors have an obligation to disclose referee reports?

Philosopher Laura Schroeter (Melbourne) writes:

In September last year, I submitted a paper to Mind. In March, I discovered by chance that a senior colleague had written a referee report on the paper recommending conditional acceptance but had raised one main concern he thought should be addressed before publication. After many promptings, Mind finally made a decision to reject the paper this September. The editorial administrator attached comments from the editor (who is not a specialist in this area) and comments from one referee (which appear to be redacted). The comments from the colleague I’d spoken to earlier were not included; when I contacted him directly, he sent me a detailed 5pp report. Mind has not responded to an inquiry about whether they have a policy about not forwarding referee reports to authors. Moreover, the official rejection letter included the following proviso:

"Please note that referees' comments are supplied in confidence for the Mind editorial board.  They are forwarded to you as confidential reports, in order to provide you with feedback concerning your submission.  The Editor asks that you respect the confidentiality of this advice."

To be clear: I respect the right of editors to make the final call on a paper, and to override referees’ verdicts. But it seems to me that a policy of not forwarding reports is a real betrayal of the crucial role journals play in the discipline as intermediaries between authors and critics. When I spend time writing detailed feedback on an argument, I expect my report to be forwarded to the author – I wouldn’t go to all that trouble if it were simply advice to an editor. Personally, I won’t be refereeing for Mind in the future now that I know that they consider reports the confidential property of the editor alone.

I had not heard of a case like this previously; I thought referee reports, unless content-free, were always sent to authors.  What do readers think?  What experiences have they had?  If you name a particular journal, you'll need to sign your name to the comment; other comments must include a valid e-mail address at least.

Sober on Nagel's "Mind and Cosmos"

He reaches the same conclusions Michael Weisberg and I did, but also adds some useful criticisms we didn't have space to explore.

And now Cambridge's Arif Ahmed...

...at 3AM.

Changing Pedagogy in Response to the "Koons Report" on Universities

Tad Brennan (Cornell), noting Professor Koons's claim that "each professor of the humanities is free to make the classroom into a laboratory of untrammeled fantasy," writes:  "Man, have I been doing it wrong...."

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Now Hosting Intelligent Design Propaganda

Via Eric Schliesser (Ghent), I learn that the recent entry on science and religion by Alvin Plantinga at SEP presents Michael Behe's ID apologetics as serious and important, and gives no sense of the actual scientific and philosophical reception of the work. Ugh.

Glasgow's Gary Kemp...

...talks to Richard Marshall at 3AM.

More Hobbes in The Economist

Anthony Gottlieb talks to Noel Malcolm.

Not a fan of higher education in America today

Rob Koons, Professor of Philosophy at that Dark Satanic Mill of Mis-Education known as UT Austin, offers his take on what ails the academy. 

More on teaching philosophy at community colleges

Here.

Discovery [sic] Institute Fires Back at Our Review of Nagel

Even by their usual standards, this is remarkably feeble.  I guess they're counting on their readers not reading the review or being sufficiently stupid that, if they did, they wouldn't understand the actual argument.

(For those new to these sordid debates, the Discovery [sic] Institute is the public relations arm of the new creationist movement.)

ADDENDUM:  Since several readers asked:  the title of our review was given by the editors, not us.  It's not terrible, not ideal.

Some reasons to be cautious about opinion polls on moral issues!

Peter Carruthers (Maryland) points me to this interesting paper; the key finding:

We created a self-transforming paper survey of moral opinions, covering both foundational principles, and current dilemmas hotly debated in the media. This survey used a magic trick to expose participants to a reversal of their previously stated attitudes, allowing us to record whether they were prepared to endorse and argue for the opposite view of what they had stated only moments ago. The result showed that the majority of the reversals remained undetected, and a full 69% of the participants failed to detect at least one of two changes. In addition, participants often constructed coherent and unequivocal arguments supporting the opposite of their original position. These results suggest a dramatic potential for flexibility in our moral attitudes, and indicates a clear role for self-attribution and post-hoc rationalization in attitude formation and change.

British academics least satisfied in Europe, Swiss the happiest

Story here.  The Swiss are helped by very high salaries, and the British probably plagued by too much mindless bureaucracy.

AAP Page for Remembrances of Jack Smart

Here.

(Thanks to Eliza Goddard for the pointer.)

Memorial for Jack Smart at Monash

Dirk Baltzly (Monash) sends along this announcement:

The Philosophy Department of Monash University welcomes you to a celebration of the life of our friend Jack Smart. A memorial service will take place in the (not-too-religious) Religious Centre at the Monash Clayton campus on Tuesday the 30th of October at 3.00. The service will be followed by a social occasion at the Monash Staff Club where Jack and the other 'knights of the round table' regularly convened for lunch. 

This event is being organised by John Bigelow (John.Bigelow@monash.edu) and inquires should go to him. 

Australian Prime Minister Calls Out Sexist Politician

Here's what actual democracy looks like.  No witless chatter about bipartisanship, but an actual defense of a moral and political position and an attack on its opponents.

Philosophers, Eating, Ethics--a Discussion of the Poll Results

So with over 2,000 votes cast, we know something about the eating habits of philosophers and their views about the ethics of those habits.  8% of respondents were vegans (a rate 10-20 times higher than in the population at large), 25% are vegetarians (a rate about 8 times higher than in the population at large), and 67% are carnivores.  Not quite a quarter of the vegetarians, however, had ethical doubts about their eating practices--I assume many of those thought they really ought to be vegans.  (Matthew Hernandez, a philosophy student at Portland State, wrote with a question for those folks:  "I've never heard a reason for being Vegetarian that did not extend further to Veganism. That is, every reason I've heard for being Vegetarian, is a reason to be Vegan and say if we rated the level of ethical outcome of the acts, the Vegan would rank higher than the Vegetarian (solely based on my knowledge of the arguments and relevant scientific and statistical data as well as knowledge of factory farm practices)."  I hope some readers will take that up in the comments.)

More than half of the carnivores professed ethical doubts about their eating practices.  (That might be consistent with a recent finding by Eric Schwitzgebel and Joshua Rust that moral philosophers "were...substantially more likely [than other philosophers] to self-report vegetarianism. However, when asked about their last evening meal, ethicists reported eating meat at approximately the same rate as did the other groups.")  It would be interesting to hear from carnivores on this subject.  Are moral considerations in fact not overriding in their practical reasoning?  Is it that they think the ethical arguments against meat-eating are not wholly persuasive, and they are still undecided?

Finally, 5% of carnivores identified ethical reasons as central to why they do eat meat.  What did readers have in mind?  Is it that that they are Kantians or contractarians who think that non-human animals have no intrinsic moral standing or worth, such that it would be a moral mistake to refrain from eating meat for allegedly ethical reasons?  Or do they share the view widespread, for example, in the disability rights community, that Singer-style reasoning in support of vegetarianism entails morally reprehensible conclusions in other domains, constituting a reductio of the premises?  Or something else altogether?

I'll consider unsigned comments, IF they include a valid e-mail address and they are substantive and on point.  I would prefer signed comments.  Readers may comment on any aspects of the results that are of interest.

In Memoriam: J.J.C. Smart (1920-2012)

MOVING TO FRONT FROM OCTOBER 6

The distinguished philosopher was emeritus at the Australian National University, and spent almost his entire career in Australia from 1950 onwards.  He was perhaps best-known for his defense of physicalism in the philosophy of mind and of utlitarianism in ethics.  I will link to memorial notices as they appear.

UPDATE:  Remembrances from former colleagues at Monash.  (Thanks to Josh May for the pointer.)

ANOTHER:  An obituary in The Scotsman.

Which philosophical classics have you read in their entirety?

Discussion and survey here.

(Thanks to Jean Kazez for the pointer.)

Lord from Dundee to Aberdeen

Beth Lord (history of modern philosophy, esp. Spinoza, Kant, Deleuze), Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Dundee, has accepted appointment as Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen.

Brushing your dog's teeth...

...with Valerie Tiberius (Minnesota) at 3AM.  (Even though she doesn't like Nietzsche, it's still pretty interesting!)

Which PhD Programs Do Not Require the GRE--or will waive it in certain circumstances?

A philosophy student with an MA/MPhil degree from a university in Europe writes:

Are there PhD programs in the US that wave the GRE requirement for people with a MA or MPhil (apart from MIT)? 

After a philosophy-only BA and a two-year MPhil in philosophy, can't conferences, publications and the like be better evidence than the GRE for graduate-level work in philosophy??

Apart from the cost, I think the time spent "studying" for the GRE (i) could be better used studying and doing philosophy or related matters; (b) could discourage (at least some) European applicants. 

So there's two issues here:  are their PhD programs that do not require the GRE?  And are there PhD programs that waive the GRE requirement in special circumstances?  Readers?   Posts can be unsigned if they link to an official website with information, otherwise they should be signed.

"The Boundaries of the Moral (and Legal) Community"

The penultimate version (pending some publication editing) of my 2011 Meador Lecture at the University of Alabama, forthcoming in Alabam Law Review in 2013.  (Not unrelated to some of the issues in our recent [aborted] poll.)

Scandalous Attack on Academic Freedom in Israel

MOVING TO FRONT FROM EARLIER TODAY

The Department of Political Science at Ben-Gurion University, home to some fierce critics of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians, now faces threat of closure.   There is a petition against the move here, though it is unfortunately written:  one needn't believe that the views of members of the Department are "brave" or even intelligent or commendable, to nonetheless recognize that to close a department as political retribution is a horrible precedent and a complete betrayal of the premises of a university.  Joseph Raz, Hartry Field, and others from our part of the academic community have already signed.  Please do the same.

(Thanks to Jim Pryor for the pointer.)

UPDATE:  Not a bad letter of protest from Michael Walzer, whose political positions have been mostly reprehensible for quite some time now, but this time he gets it right.

 

Ann Arbor Conference Tweeting Alert

Philosopher James Doyle (Bristol) wants to be thrown out!  (For some context, go here, and see the last link.)

Most of the responses to the earlier tempest in a teapot were pretty feeble (or maybe it's just that tweeting wrecks your mind?  more than blogging even?), but the funniest comment is due to Tim O'Keefe (Georgia State):

I don't get why a philosophy talk would be the sort of thing people would want insta-updates and immediate reactions to anyway. Can't it wait a little while, at least an hour or two after the presentation? I can see why for something like the presidential debates folks might be anxious for it immediately, but a colloquium? "Bombshell time! OMG BL says Niet epiphenomist about consciousness! lol!!!  WHat's arg 4 that? Can't wait"

Philosophers, Eating, Ethics

At the recent Metaetahics Workshop in Madison, a philosopher remarked to me that he'd had lunch with six other people, and, to his amazement, there was only one vegetarian at the table!  This led me to wonder what the real breakdown of eating practices, and views about those practices, are among philosophers.  Hence this poll.  Please only answer if you are a philosophy student or teacher.  Someone who, e.g., is a vegetarian mainly for health reasons, but also think it is ethically right to be a vegetarian should choose the middle option, since a practice that is ethically right is also "ethically unproblematic."  Someone can also choose the middle option if he or she thinks the practice is ethically neutral.

 

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UPDATE:  This poll has been remarkably popular; even though it's a Saturday, there have been more than 550 responses in just a few hours.  So far, 6% of respondents are vegans, 25% vegetarians, and 69% carnivores--but more than half of carnivores (205, or 37% of all respondents) are concerned that their eating practices might be ethically problematic.  Only 33% of all respondents are carnivores with a clean conscience!  We'll open this up for discussion on Monday.  Just to put those numbrers in perspectives, here are some numbers about the population in general courtesy of Vegetarian Times.

FINAL UPDATE:   So with over 2,000 votes, here are the results; I'll open a discussion later today or tomorrow:

How would you describe your eating habits and their ethical status?

I am a vegan for what I take to be ethical reasons.   7%145 I am a vegan for self-interested reasons (health, enjoyment etc.) and think that is ethically unproblematic   1%11 I am a vegan, but think it is ethically dubious (e.g., because I think I ought to be a vegetarian or carnivore)   0%1 I am a vegetarian for what I take to be ethical reasons   18%370 I am a vegetarian for self-interested reasons (health, enjoyment etc.) and think that is ethically unproblematic   3%62 I am a vegetarian, but think it is ethically dubious (e.g., because I worry I ought to be a carnivore or a vegan)   4%84 I am a carnivore for what I take to be ethical reasons.   5%98 I am a carnivore for self-interested reasons (e.g., health, enjoyment, etc.) and think that is ethically unproblematic.   27%547 I am a carnivore, but think it is ethically dubious (e.g., because I think I ought to be a vegetarian or vegan)   34%689

Total Votes : 2007

 

Hobbes in "The Economist"

Here, and do see the sixth paragraph for a surprising convergence between Hobbes and Mitt Romney!

(Thanks to Anthony Gottlieb for the pointer.)

Forster from Chicago to Bonn (but with some continuing ties to Chicago happily)

Michael Forster (Kant, 18th-, 19th-century and 20th-century German philosophy, ancient philosophy, Wittgenstein, philosophy of language, epistemology) at the University of Chicago has accepted the Humboldt Professorship and the Chair in Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Bonn, effective February 2013.  That's a major coup for Bonn, needless to say.  The good news for those of us here in Chicago is that Forster will continue to be here as a regular Visiting Professor of Philosophy for most of the Winter Quarter each year (he and I will also offer a joint seminar each Winter).

John Martin Fischer is back...

...in the blogosphere.

Thomas Nagel's new book "Mind and Cosmos"

Michael Weisberg (Penn) and I review it for The Nation.  We were fortunate to get some 3,500 words for the review, which allowed us to go into more detail than is typical in most reviews in non-academic journals that reach a wide, educated readership.   From the conclusion of our review:

We conclude with a comment about truth in advertising. Nagel’s arguments against reductionism are quixotic, and his arguments against naturalism are unconvincing. He aspires to develop “rival alternative conceptions” to what he calls the materialist neo-Darwinian worldview, yet he never clearly articulates this rival conception, nor does he give us any reason to think that “the present right-thinking consensus will come to seem laughable in a generation or two.” Mind and Cosmos is certainly an apt title for Nagel’s philosophical meditations, but his subtitle—”Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False”—is highly misleading. Nagel, by his own admission, relies only on popular science writing and brings to bear idiosyncratic and often outdated views about a whole host of issues, from the objectivity of moral truth to the nature of explanation. No one could possibly think he has shown that a massively successful scientific research program like the one inspired by Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection “is almost certainly false.” The subtitle seems intended to market the book to evolution deniers, intelligent-design acolytes, religious fanatics and others who are not really interested in the substantive scientific and philosophical issues. Even a philosopher sympathetic to Nagel’s worries about the naturalistic worldview would not claim this volume comes close to living up to that subtitle. Its only effect will be to make the book an instrument of mischief.

I believe the rest of the review makes the case for this conclusion. 

Michael Tye's Philosophy of Mind...

...at 3AM.  Detailed and informative.

More JFP Discussion

At Philosophy Smoker.

GCC Petition Hits the One Thousand Mark

Well-done, and feel free to add your name if you haven't already.

Daniel Kahneman: Social Psychologists Need to Clean Up Their Act

MOVING TO FRONT--SURELY MORE PHILOSOPHERS HAVE SOMETHIGN TO SAY ABOUT THIS?

Interesting development.  Since much of this work has been influential in philosophy, I'm curious what philosophers make of this?  Signed comments only.

More debate post-mortem

From Andrew Sullivan, with whom I don't often agree, but he watched the whole thing!

UPDATE:  And Krugman, who mistakenly says it isn't all about the theater (it shouldn't be, but...).

U.S. Presidential Debate--an Observation on about 15 Minutes

Jim Lehrer, the moderator, seems to be on life-support.  Someone should turn it off.

Mitt Romney, despite being a threat to humanity and a sociopath, is articulate and gives off all the aural, facial, and physical cues of someone who is reasonable. 

Obama should stop nodding and smiling while Romney tells lies and half-truths.

Obama is not very articulate or persuasive, even when he says something sort of true.

America is doomed.

Good night!

Philosopher Onora O'Neill Put Forward to Lead UK's Equality & Human Rights Commission

More here.

Schneider from Penn to U Conn

Susan Schneider (philosophy of mind, metaphysics, philosophy of cognitive science), currently at the University of Pennsylvania, has accepted a senior offer from the Department of Philosophy at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, where she will start in January 2013.

Three Cheers for James Heckman

"Chicago School" economics has a deservedly bad reputation in the broader intellectual world, but let's remember that Chicago isn't a monolith, and that James Heckman has been doing his important work here for decades--here's a nice overview.