Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

2017 in review, fourth quarter: October, November, December

Here were some of the most popular posts in the final quarter of the year (not quite up to the present):

Jobs limiting applicants to just three letters (October)

Huemer's polemic against letters of recommendation (October)

Placement in PhD-granting Programs in the New Academic Job Placement Report (October)

The Internet and the crisis of epistemic authority (October)

Leon Wieseltier eviscerated (November)

Journals that publish the best quality articles on the post-Kantian Continental traditions in philosophy (November)

"Career lowlights" (November)

U of British Columbia drafts statement on free speech principles... (November)

Various PGR results posted by Christopher Pynes (December)

What really happened three years ago (fall 2014), a recap (December)

DeGruyter's new "Open Philosophy" journal is officially a joke (December)

Authors and philosophers name their favorite living philosophers (December)

On teaching English (and especially reading) at an Australian "university" (a business whose customers are students, that is)

MOVING TO FRONT FROM YESTERDAY--UPDATED

This is worth reading; an excerpt:

Fisher says that many of his students are in a state that he calls “depressive hedonia … an inability to do anything else except pursue pleasure”. I’m not trying to give my students pleasure, or make them enjoy themselves. I’m trying to show them how critical engagement with literature enables critical engagement with living. I’m trying to interrupt what Fisher calls “the constant flow of sugary gratification on demand”. And finally, I’m trying to help them pass that literacy test.

UPDATE:  Philosopher Nick Smith (Sydney) calls to my attention the rather unfortunate choice of photograph accompanying the article linked above; he shared with me the letter he sent to The Guardian:

I am writing to complain about the picture you used in conjunction with this article:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/dec/24/the-difficulty-is-the-point-teaching-spoon-fed-students-how-to-really-read

The picture shows the Department of Philosophy at the University of Sydney (of which I am the Chair). The article is not about Philosophy students and not, as far as I can see, about students at the University of Sydney at all.

The article makes claims such as the following:

"I have two burning concerns: one is to give readers an insight into what it is currently like to teach at an Australian university. To satisfy this concern I want to tell you about semesters and classes shortened to save money on teaching; on passing incapable students simply to keep quotas up; on teaching students for whom attendance at university is no longer a necessary part of gaining a degree."

None of these comments has any applicability to Philosophy at Sydney. The association of such comments with a photograph of our Department is offensive to Philosophy staff and to our students, who are dedicated, interested, engaged, talented and hard working, and are among the best I have taught anywhere in the world. My colleagues and I consider it a privilege and a pleasure to teach these students and I am saddened to think that they might read this article, under a picture of their department, and in any way associate its negative content with their own situation.

Sincerely,

Nicholas Smith

---

Nicholas J.J. Smith FAHA
Professor of Philosophy
Chair of Department
Department of Philosophy, Main Quadrangle A14, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia

PhilSkills

A reminder about this interesting site featuring interviews with philosophers with careers outside academia.

You can help Esmat Zeerak, lover of philosophy from Afghanistan, go to the "great books" school, St. John's College in Santa Fe

We met Mr. Zeerak in the summer of 2016, when he was a high school student seeking guidance on studying philosophy; a number of readers were kind enough to correspond with him.  He has since gotten a scholarship to a private high school in Utah, and has now been admitted to St. John's College, the "great books" school, in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  I have confirmed with the admissions director at St. John's that he has, indeed, been admitted and received the financial aid that he describes here, but he still needs to some additional financial support to make ends meet.   He would be grateful for any support from readers!

 

 

In Memoriam: Lynne Rudder Baker (1944-2017)

Professor Baker, emerita at the University of Massachussetts at Amherst, was well-known for important contributions in metaphysics, philosophy of mind and philosophy of religion.  Philosopher Hilary Kornblith at U Mass kindly shared with me the department's memorial notice, which will also appear on its homepage:

In Memoriam: Lynne Rudder Baker (1944-2017)

It is with great sadness that we report the death of Lynne Rudder Baker, Distinguished Professor Emerita in Philosophy. Lynne received her Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University in 1972.  She began teaching at Mary Baldwin College immediately thereafter, and she held an Andrew Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh during the 1974-75 academic year.  In 1976 she moved to Middlebury College, and then, in 1989, she arrived here at UMass as Professor of Philosophy, achieving the rank of Distinguished Professor in 2005.

Lynne’s first book, Saving Belief: A Critique of Physicalism, presented a defense of the importance of intentional notions against eliminitivists, such as the Churchlands, whose stark metaphysics would rob the world of intentionality, but, at the same time, argued that the legitimacy of intentional notions does not depend on their finding a place in some successful cognitive science, as many then, and now, would have it.  The pragmatic metaphilosophy which underlay this view was brought into sharp focus in Lynne’s second book, Explaining Attitudes: A Practical Approach to the Mind.   In Persons and Bodies: A Constitution View, Lynne made explicit her distinctive metaphysical views about the intimate relationship between a person and that person’s body, avoiding both the perils of various forms of reductionism, and the excesses of an extravagant dualism.  The Metaphysics of Everyday Life: An Essay in Practical Realism extended Lynne’s pragmatism to questions about the metaphysics of ordinary objects.  And Lynne’s latest book, Naturalism and the First-Person Perspective, presents a striking challenge to naturalism, arguing that the very fact that we are capable of thinking of ourselves from a first-person point of view cannot be captured within a naturalistic worldview.  This is an extraordinary body of work, presenting an utterly distinctive set of views on topics of the first importance.

Ryerson on Delia Graff Fara in the New York Times

James Ryerson, who is probably the best journalist writing about philosophy out there, has done a very informative short piece on Graff Fara for the NYT's annual "the lives they lived" feature.

2017-18 PGR Australasia Top 5

Professor Brogaard and I released the U.S. Top 50 results of the PRG survey, the top 25 programs in the Anglophone word, and the top 15 programs in the U.K.  Below the fold we offer the top 5 programs in Australasia. Like before, the overall mean is listed while the median, mode, and confidence intervals, along with the full results, will be provided on the new Philosophical Gourmet Report site hosted by Wiley-Blackwell.

Professor Brogaard and I released the U.S. Top 50 results of the PRG survey, the top 25 programs in the Anglophone word, and the top 15 programs in the U.K.  Below the fold we offer the top 5 programs in Australasia. Like before, the overall mean is listed while the median, mode, and confidence intervals, along with the full results, will be provided on the new Philosophical Gourmet Report site hosted by Wiley-Blackwell.

2017 in review: articles posted on SSRN

Over the course of the year, I posted the following articles on SSRN:

"Legal Positivism about the Artifact Law:  A Retrospective Assessment"

"The Roles of Judges in Democracies:  A Realistic View"

"Justifying Academic Freedom:  Mill and Marcuse Revisited"

"Nietzsche and Aestheticism" (originally published in 1992, my first peer-refereed publication)

"Knowledge and Affect:  Perspectivism Revisited"

"Introduction:  Nietzsche's Naturalistic Moral Psychology"

"Why Academic Freedom?"

2017 in review, third quarter: July, August, September

Here were some of the most popular posts in the third quarter of the year:

Philosophy and standardized test scores:  causation or correlation? (July)

Is Thomas Friedman the biggest idiot in America? (July)

The suspended Associate Editors of Hypatia have apparently learned nothing from their defamatory attack on Rebecca Tuvel (July)

On the narcissism of "considering the relevant literature" (July)

Bizarrely careless scholarship watch:  Carrie Jenkins edition (July)

Tuvel more dangerous than a Klansman? (August)

14th Anniversary Post (and a review of some blogging accomplishments) (August)

Top Metaethics and Moral Psychology Programs 2017-18 PGR

The full results for the 2017-18 Philosophical Gourmet Report, will appear online soon. Here is a preview of the top eight programs for Metaethics and Moral Psychology.

Metaethics and Moral Psychology

Group 1 (1-3) (rounded mean of 4.5) (median, mode)

Princeton University (4.5, 4.5 & 5)
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (4.5, 4.5)
University of Southern California (4.5, 5)

How to wrap a cat for Xmas

I'm sorry I didn't come across this useful video in time for this year's holiday, but perhaps it will come in handy for some readers next year.  (Although the narrator doesn't say so, I suspect it's very important to use a very tolerant and good-natured cat for this exercise.)

 

2017 in review, second quarter: April, May, June

Here were some of the most popular posts from the second quarter of the year:

Singer and McMahan on the Stubblefield case (April)

Disability Studies appears to be an advocacy field, not a scholarly one:  the case of Anna Stubblefield (April)

Kipnis on the David Barnett case at Colorado (April)

Hellie on the "atmosphere of fear" in academic philosophy (April)

The most important Western philosophers of all time? (April)

Top U.S. Research Universities, 2017 (April)

Thought crimes watch:  comparing trans-racialism to transgenderism verboten (May)

The defamation of Rebecca Tuvel by the Associate Editors of Hypatia and the authors of the Open Letter (May)

Philosophers and others speak out about the unprofessional conduct of the Hypatia Associate Editors and the defamation of Rebecca Tuvel (May)

A Facebook comment sums up perfectly what normal people are up against in the philosophy profession these days (May)

Haslanger's comment on the Hypatia affair (May)

2017-18 PGR Canadian Top 5

Professor Brogaard and I released the U.S. Top 50 results of the PRG survey, the top 25 programs in the Anglophone word, and the top 15 programs in the U.K.  Below the fold we offer the top 5 programs in Canada. Like before, the overall mean is listed while the median, mode, and confidence intervals, along with the full results, will be provided on the new Philosophical Gourmet Report site hosted by Wiley-Blackwell.

Professor Brogaard and I released the U.S. Top 50 results of the PRG survey, the top 25 programs in the Anglophone word, and the top 15 programs in the U.K.  Below the fold we offer the top 5 programs in Canada. Like before, the overall mean is listed while the median, mode, and confidence intervals, along with the full results, will be provided on the new Philosophical Gourmet Report site hosted by Wiley-Blackwell.

Bristol's Richard Pettigrew interviewed...

...at 3AM.

2017 in review, first quarter: January, February March

Here were some of the most popular posts from the first quarter of the year:

Parfit's last public lecture (January)

Most cited Anglophone philosophy books published since WWII (according to Google Scholar) (January)

What is up with the University of California's "personal history" statement for PhD admissions (January)

Tenured moral grandstander attacks vulnerable junior faculty on his blog (January)

Observations on philosophy by a journalist at Scientific American (January)

Philosophical parochialism on display while protesting philosophical parochialism (February)

 How Bannon Thinks (February)

 "Contempt," and Trump (February)

The shadow of the Reichstag fire and the manipulation of the threat of terrorism to undermine democracy (February)

Plutocracy watch: inherited fortunes should be confiscated to maximize utlity

A case study.

Happy Xmas to Xmas-celebrators.  And to the non-Xmas celebrators, God bless you!

Great moments in obscure rock 'n' roll: Livin' Blues, "L.B. Boogie," 1972

This Dutch blues-rock band was formed in 1967, and enjoyed their heyday (in Europe) in the late 1960s through the early 1970s, though a much different line-up continues to the present (they never broke through on this side of the Atlantic).  Here's their trademark "boogie" (great use of the harp!):

Leftow from Oxford to Rutgers

Brian Leftow, a leading philosopher of religion and scholar of medieval philosophy, who is currently Nolloth Professor of the Philosophy of the Christian Religion at Oxford University, will become the inaugural holder of the William P. Alston Chair in Philosophy of Religion at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, effective fall 2018.  He will also be Director of Rutgers's Center for Philosophy of Religion.

In Memoriam: István Mészáros (1930-2017)

This is a bit belated:  Professor Mészáros, a leading Marxist philosopher who was forced to leave Hungary after the Soviet crackdown and later taught for some thirty years at the University of Sussex, died October 1.  There is an informative obituary here.

(Thanks to Cora Diamond for the pointer.)

Top Ancient Philosophy Programs 2017-18 PGR

The full results for the 2017-18 Philosophical Gourmet Report, will appear online soon. Here is a preview of the “top ten” for Ancient Philosophy.

Ancient Philosophy

Group 1 (1-4) (rounded mean of 4.5) (median, mode)

Oxford University (4.75, 5)
Princeton University (4.5, 4)
University of Toronto (4.5, 5)
Yale University (4.5, 5)

Summer seminar in philosophy at U of Colorado/Boulder...

...for undergraduates thinking about graduate school is now accepting applications.

What is your opinion of abortion?

So let's see if other moral issues produce a high level of convergence among philosophical readers.

 

What is your opinion of abortion in the first two trimesters?

It is a moral abomination, a "Holocaust" of unborn humans.

 

It is morally wrong

 

It is morally neutral

 

It is morally justifiable (or permissible) in many or most circumstances.

 

It is morally commendable as a way of securing the autonomy of women over their lives and bodies

 

 

pollcode.com free polls

UPDATE: Alas, some anti-abortion crazies in cyberspace ruined the poll, sending lots of non-readers to screw up the survey--they were obviously too stupid or ignorant to realize that the point was to see what kind of consensus, if any, exists among philosophcially-minded readers of this blog on this issue (especially compared to this one), not among random nobodies in the population at large.  But the dumb-dumbs responsible for this did post the results prior to their meddling, so we can see that the consensus on abortion is less robust, and tilting in a different direction than the poll on factory farming:

The point of these surveys is to find out something about the sociology of the academic profession of philosophy and the moral beliefs characteristic of its members.  It's a shame this one got ruined.

Reader opinions of "factory farming"

This morning's poll got over 600 votes in only a few hours, which may mean it's a bit skewed towards those with the strongest opinions about this.  But here are the results:

What is your opinion of so-called "factory farming"?
Selection		Votes
It is a moral abomination, an animal "Holocaust"	27%	167
It is morally wrong	54%	332
It is morally neutral	5%	31
It is a morally justifiable way of providing low-cost food products to people	13%	82
It is morally commendable by bringing into existence animals who otherwise would not have existed	1%	5
617 total

This is a quite remarkable consensus among philosophically-minded folks.  I will be interested to see whether it holds for other issues.  (By the way, a version of the last choice has been defended by Loren Lomasky [Virginia].  In general, it's clear that many philosophers are quite ready to dismiss the cultural and culinary traditions of hundreds of millions of people as having no moral weight.  In this paper, I speculate about the likely practical limits of these moral arguments for vegetarianism.)

2017-18 PGR U.K. Top 15

Professor Brogaard and I released the U.S. Top 50 results of the PRG survey and the top 25 programs in the Anglophone word.  Below the fold we offer the top 15 programs in the U.K. Like before, the overall mean is listed while the median, mode, and confidence intervals, along with the full results, will be provided on the new Philosophical Gourmet Report site hosted by Wiley-Blackwell.

Garbage social science watch: racial resentment drives economic anxiety, not the reverse

This popular article summarizes a number of articles purporting to support the finding in the title of this post.  The problem is that none of them have a sensible measure of "economic anxiety."  That people are employed or currently making a good income does not mean they do not suffer from economic anxiety.  Most people are in jobs that involve at-will employment, meaning they can lose their jobs at anytime and for almost any reason (apart from the legally prohibited ones, like one's race or gender or age).   Given that fact, one would suspect almost everyone is some state of economic anxiety some or all of the time.  But as far as I can see none of the studies control for this or take serious this possibility.

It is of course plausible that Trump appealed greatly to voters with racial resentment.  We still don't know the cause, alas, of that resentment, and whether it is connected to the life-and-death struggle that is life under neoliberal capitalism, especially in this country.  We also know that voters who supported Obama in 2012 and Trump in 2016 were influenced by the perception that the Democrats were beholden to economic elites (which is true, though somehow they didn't understand the same was true of Trump, if not quite for the same reason).   Remember, the election was one by a slim margin in three states--Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, where many former Obama voters (especially in union households) flipped to Trump in 2016.   Were they motivated by "racial resentment"?  Maybe, though there weren't racist enough to have been unwilling to vote for an African-American previously.

What is your opinion of "factory farming"?

With news that philosophers have recently raised thousands of dollars to end factory farming--this at a time when right-wing authoritarian movements are on the rise throughout the Western democracies and, even closer to home, the Republicans have just enacted a massive tax fraud as a preliminary to an assault on the social welfare state--I wondered what the range of views about factory farming really is out there.  (Among academic philosophers, an admittedly weird sub-group, this has become a topic on which the "thought control" police are particularly aggressive, so perhaps a poll might be illuminating.)

 

What is your opinion of so-called "factory farming"?

It is a moral abomination, an animal "Holocaust"

 

It is morally wrong

 

It is morally neutral

 

It is a morally justifiable way of providing low-cost food products to people

 

It is morally commendable by bringing into existence animals who otherwise would not have existed

 

 

pollcode.com free polls

What tax "reform" in a plutocracy looks like

This sums it up quite well and methodically.  And, one of the real goals, namely, to justify cuts to social welfare programs, is already rearing its head.   Although Trump hasn't killed us all (yet anyway), he has emboldened the imprudent wing of the ruling class in ways that promise either the ruin of the country or secession by the remaining civilized states.

Five philosophers win NEH Fellowships in most recent competition (UPDATED AND CORRECTED)

They are:  Paula Gottlieb (Wisconsin/Madison), Etienne Helmer (Puerto Rico/Rio Piedros), Jeremy Hyman (Arkansas/Fayetteville); Eric Mandelbaum (Baruch College/CUNY); and Lydia Moland (Colby).  Four of the five are pursuing historical projects.

Top Philosophy of Physics Programs 2017-18 PGR

The full results for the 2017-18 Philosophical Gourmet Report, will appear online soon. Here is a preview of the “top ten” for Philosophy of Physics.

Philosophy of Physics

Group 1 (1-2) (rounded mean of 5.0) (median, mode)

Oxford University (5, 5)
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (5, 5)

Group 2 (3-6) (rounded mean of 4.5) (median, mode)

New York University (4.5, 4.5)
University of California, Irvine (5, 5)
University of California, San Diego (4.5, 4.5)
University of Southern California (4, 4)

In Memoriam: William H. Gass (1924-2017)

Emeritus in the Philosophy Department at Washington University, St. Louis, where he taught for thirty years, Gass earned his PhD in philosophy at Cornell University, where he studied under Max Black.  He was best-known nationally and internationally for his many award-winning works of fiction.  The Guardian obituary is here.

(Thanks to Curtis Franks for calling Professor Gass's death to my attention.)

Blast from the past: "Police killings in America: a different perspective"

Last year, still relevant, given the mindless blather on the subject.   Remember Professor Reed's commentary too.

Jerry Dworkin's "Philosophy: A Commonplace Book," volume II...

...is now available via Amazon.

PGR Overall Rankings: from 2006 to 2017 (REVISED AND CORRECTED)

The (revised) chart belows shows the movement in the overall rankings over the last decade (from the 2006 Report), to the new 2017 results that Christopher Pynes revised yesterday last week.

There are hardworking people who clean toilets, thank goodness

Another gem from Robert Paul Wolff, a true man of the old left.   The list of "liberal" academics who treat people doing manual labor as invisible is long.

In Memoriam: Bob Hale (1945-2017)

MOVING TO FRONT FROM DECEMBER 16--UPDATED

A leading contributor to the philosophy of mathematics and metaphysics, he was Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield.  There is an informative memorial notice at 3AM.  I will add links to others as they appear.

UPDATE:  Sheffield's memorial notice.  (Thanks to Jimmy Lenman for the pointer.)

Al Kindi on coping with sorrow and loss

Philosopher and scholar Peter Adamson (Munich & KCL) discusses (many resonances with Stoicism).

2017-18 PGR U.S. Top 50 Results

Moving to the front from December 7th with an update and corrections due to a transcription error.

Professor Brogaard and I are in the process of cleaning and calculating the results of the PGR survey, the final results of which will be appear at a redesigned PGR site hosted, as before, by Wiley-Blackwell. Since application season is at hand in the U.S., however, we thought it would be useful to share some initial results here: the top 50 programs overall in the U.S. The overall mean is listed while the median, mode, and confidence intervals will be provided on the new PGR site. Additional glimpses of the results will be shared here while Wiley-Blackwell produces the full results. Finally, thank you to the 300 philosophers who participated in this year’s survey.

2017-18 PGR Top 25 Programs in the Anglophone World

Moving to the front from December 14th with an update and correction due to a transcription error.

Professor Brogaard and I released the U.S. Top 50 results of the PRG survey last week. The top 25 programs in the Anglophone word are listed below the fold. Like before the overall mean is listed while the median, mode, and confidence intervals, along with the full results, will be provided on the new PGR site hosted by Wiley-Blackwell.

Independent philosopher Skye Cleary interivewed...

...at 3AM.

Ta-Nehisi Coates, neoliberal

This seems right to me.  To his credit, Cornel West has become more not less radical with age and correctly sees that the race issue is inseparable from the capitalism issue.

Great moments in obscure rock 'n' roll: Small Faces, "Red Balloon," 1969

Before Humble Pie, Steve Marriott rode to fame, especially in Britain (less so in the U.S.), with the Small Faces, though by 1969 their star was fading even in the U.K.  This great cover of the Tim Hardin tune comes from their last album (released after the band's official dissolution):

The tax bill and higher ed

The full text is here.  I've been scrolling through it, and reading portions of it, this morning.  (There's a summary here, but it leaves out a lot of interest to folks in higher education; this summary is a bit better.  UPDATE:  The IHE account is quite useful in terms of the higher ed impact.)  A few takeaways:

1.  Section 117 of the existing tax code is untouched.  Section 117 makes tuition waivers for grad students tax-exempt; it also makes tax exempt tuition benefits for faculty and staff, a huge benefit for a small number of university employees (including this one).  So it looks like those tax exemptions remain in place, and PhD students can breathe a sigh of relief.

2.  The bill does impose an excise tax on university endowments with a per capita value of $500,000 or more.  This is a weird tax that reaches only a very small number of schools, including Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Rice, Notre Dame, MIT, Cal Tech, Amherst, Pomona, Williams and others (see here for 2015 figures--my institution is probably now in the taxable group due to the surging stock markets in 2016 and 2017--I wouldn't be surprised if Chicago increases enrollments, in order to get back under!)

The academic freedom crisis in Turkey

A useful overview, including suggestions about how academics internationally can help.  Turkey is now ruled by a fascist.

Chakravartty from Notre Dame to Miami

Anjan Chakravartty, a leading philosopher of science currently at the University of Notre Dame, has accepted the Appignani Foundation Chair in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Miami, effective next fall (this Chair was established to support the study of atheism.)  That's a big catch for Miami (and for atheism)!

Nepotism, a glorious tradition at the New York Times

It continues.

The decline in philosophy (and other humanities) majors since 2010

Schwitzgebel collects the data, and it is alarming.  The trend will continue, I expect, and it is surely attributable to the cost of higher education and the increasing pressure this puts on students (sometimes through their families) to study subjects with immediate economic returns.

Tax on graduate student tuition waivers dropped from House-Senate revised tax plan

IHE has the details.   On the other hand, the whole thing is still a monstrous wealth transfer to the rich!

Authors and philosophers name their favorite living philosophers

MOVING TO FRONT FROM 2 DAYS AGO--LOTS OF INTERESTING CONTRIBUTIONS, MORE WELCOME

Reader Kenneth Lakritz calls my attention to this item from Prospect Magazine in which various philosophers and authors choose their favorite living philosopher.   (Of course, we settled the question of the greatest living philosopher "scientifically" with a poll awhile back about who should get a Nobel Prize in philosophy.)  Some pick themselves, i.e., they pick philosophers whose views are similar to their own.  Other choices are more eclectic:  Anthony Gottlieb, for example, names Simon Blackburn.  So who is your favorite living philosopher and why?  I'll only post responses that come with a full name and valid e-mail address attached, no anonymous comments!  Submit your comment only once, it may take awhile to appear.

Alabama Special Election for Senate: What We Learned from the Democratic victory

My friend Scott Shapiro summed it up on Twitter:  "Last night proved that the Democrats can win anywhere provided they run against a child molester abandoned by his party and endorsed only by a sexually predatory president."

The attack on tenure at the University of Arkansas redux

IHE has the latest.