September 2014
Alfred Mele’s New Blog
Alfred Mele has announced a new blog project called Free Will for All. He explained on Flickers of Freedom the other day one of its distinctive features: it is dedicated to interaction with any undergraduates who are using either of his two latest books in a course, A Dialogue on Free Will and Science and Free: Why Science Hasn’t Disproved Free Will.
“It’s part o..
Top Ten Ways Daily Nous Should Respond to the Current Fracas
11. Learn to count.
10. Take a poll.
9. Do some work around the house, such as tighten hinges, remove all fans.
8. Finally figure out exactly what makes something an “implosion” rather than an “explosion.”
7. Threaten to leave the playground and take my ball.
6. Replace old poll with new poll.
5. Take the opportunity to expand my ignorance of continental philo..
What if a Metaphysician Had Written This?
Cass Sunstein (Harvard) delves into the philosophy of history, particularly counterfactuals and causation, with his review in The New Republic of Altered Pasts: Counterfactuals in History by Richard J. Evans. (via Philosophy Matters)
Historians cannot conduct randomized controlled trials, because history is run only once. Yet they nonetheless develop hypotheses, and..
An Undergraduate’s Perspective on Colorado
Allison Blakeney, an alumna of the philosophy department at the University of Colorado, has penned a column for The Daily Camera on her reaction to the recent allegations of sexual misconduct there and her view of what should be done.
AAAS Philosophy Report
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences has released a second version of its Humanities Departmental Survey, the aim of which is to “fill critical gaps in our knowledge about the state of the humanities in higher education; specifically, about the number of faculty and students in the field and the role of humanities departments in their institutions and society” ..
Heap of Links
1. A defense of majoring in philosophy, by Joseph Tinguely (South Dakota).
2. Artist Tino Seghal’s latest installation places philosophers in the Roman agora in Athens to engage people in dialogue.
3. Don’t think for yourself, says Caleb Cohoe (Metropolitan State University of Denver).
4. Aristotle, the biologist. (via Johann A. Klaassen)
5. How to get your students..
Who Is Submitting to Top Journals?
Helen De Cruz conducted a survey about submitting articles to the “top-5” philosophy journals and now has a post up analyzing the results.
Alain Locke Given Place in Congressional Cemetary
This weekend, 60 years after his death, Locke is finally being given a permanent resting place in Capitol Hill’s Congressional Cemetery, where a polished-granite gravestone will sit across from the sandstone cenotaphs honoring early members of Congress and adjacent to the first director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art, Warren Robbins.
Heap of Links
1. Has a time travel simulation resolved the grandfather paradox? Philosophers of science, let us know (via Ben Stein, Manolo Martinez).
2. A philosopher defends Zionism.
3. Meanwhile, the rabbinical ruling refusing to reverse Spinoza’s excommunication from Judaism has been made public.
4. PBS Newshour discusses philosophy and athletics with Mark Edmundson (Virginia..
The Chronicle on this Week’s Controversies
The Chronicle of Higher Education has a story on the recent events involving Brian Leiter’s emails to certain members of the profession and the future of the Philosophical Gourmet Report. According to the article, Leiter has appointed Berit Brogaard (Miami) as “co-editor” of the report.
The History of Racism in Philosophy
Christoph Meiners (1747-1810), a philosophy professor at the University of Göttingen and prolific scholar, initiated “a successful campaign to exclude Africa and Asia from the history of philosophy.” In turn, Wilhelm Tennemann (1761-1819), the most important Kantian historian at the turn of the 19th century, and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (who observed that “real..
Colorado Faculty in “Fear” of Administration?
A group of faculty members believes the University of Colorado administration has created a sense of fear on the Boulder campus with recent cases in the sociology and philosophy departments. The five-person faculty affairs committee within the Boulder Faculty Assembly condemned the university administration for its handling of cases involving now-retired sociology p..
Philosophy Tag
In our last game of Philosophy Tag, Valerie Tiberius (Minnesota) tagged Dan Haybron (St. Louis University). Dan has been thinking about well-being lately (haven’t we all?) and that informs his move.
Most theories of well-being are defended entirely by good old-fashioned philosophical reflection. Michael Bishop (Florida State) defends his “network theory” of w..
Experimental Philosophy Advances
Experimental philosophy is a young (and controversial) subdiscipline of philosophy, but enough of it has been conducted that potentially informative meta-analyses are now possible. The first ever x-phi meta-analysis to be published will soon be appearing in Consciousness and Cognition. It is by Adam Feltz (Michigan Tech) and Florian Cova (University of Geneva) and i..
Heap of Links
1. Human civilization is over, says Noam Chomsky.
2. But in case it’s not: a forum on parenthood and academia, at Times Higher Education.
3. Using statistics in your philosophical work? Need help? You can get free one-on-one stats consulting.
4. “Philosophy emerges in society when it loses meaning and fails to provide a unified and coherent picture of reality” — fr..
Salaita’s Contract to be Forwarded to Board – UPDATED
UPDATE : Ted Underwood, a professor of English at UIUC, tweets: “Regret to say that last night’s report from students appears premature. Faculty have since met with Wise, & report no change in position.” (via John Protevi, in the comments)
According to undergraduates who met with her today, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Chancellor Phyllis Wise “has f..
Can We Know Whether God Exists?
I don’t think the arguments for either theism or atheism lead to knowledge of their conclusions. But there are arguments on both sides from premises that someone might reasonably judge to be plausible. If you find it quite probable that God does not exist, I think it’s perfectly possible that you are reasonable to think as you do. But this doesn’t mean that someone ..
Philosopher-Celebrity Lookalikes
Brian Talbot (Washington University in St. Louis) has been pairing up well-known philosophers with the celebrities who look like them. He kindly agreed to let me share the idea with you. Here’s my favorite so far:
That’s David Hume and Jon Lovitz.
This match, owed to Julia Staffel, is also quite good:
Descartes and Richie Sambora, of course.
You..
Heap of Links
1. Why study paradoxes? Roy Cook (Minnesota) answers.
2. An argument for the following: “The maxim ‘my country must fight a war to end this episode of political violence and politically-induced suffering’ is approximately equivalent to the maxim ‘the political elites of my country may fight wars at the times and places of their choosing, for the reasons of their cho..
The Purpose of Philosophy Class
It is not the purpose of a Philosophy class to transmit information or inculcate skills, however useful that may be. It is to introduce students to the life of the mind, with all the characterological as well as intellectual changes that requires. It is to welcome the young man or woman into a moral sphere in which argument, honesty, and a passion for ideas reign…
What Can I Get for a Counterexample and a Jar of Homemade Pickles?
The American Philosophical Association has created “marketplace forums” for its members, in which they can barter with one another for various items (or simply sell or buy them, if they want to be boring). If you need something in particular, you can post a request in the “wanted” forum.
The only limitation on the goods sought or offered is that they be “of interes..
Heap of Links
1. Greasy spoons and Gricean maxims. (via Gerald Dworkin)
2. The regress problem for consequentialism, robot version.
3. “In a deeper and more troubling way, it is canny and subversive artifice, spiced with a moralistic claim to personal liberation. A tattoo is a personal statement but also an anthropological position that accords with the prevailing transvaluations..
UIUC Board Votes Down Salaita Offer
The University of Illinois’s Board of Trustees voted on Thursday to deny the appointment of Steven G. Salaita to a professorship on the Urbana-Champaign campus, in the latest chapter of a month-old saga that has inflamed academe.
The Chronicle of Higher Education has the story.
UPDATE: Salaita and his attorneys release a statement.
Philosophy that’s a Pleasure to Read
“People have been asking me: what will you acquire? In most cases I gave the obvious response about seeking new directions in these fields and at the same time furthering established dialogues scholars are already engaged in. And that answer is true, but it’s not the full story. What I’m actually looking for is clear, vivid thought.” That’s Jenny Gavacs, the new soc..
1st Round Interview Data
Jaded, Ph.D. one of the hosts of the Philosophy Smoker, is gathering data about first-round interviews in the philosophy job market. There is a short, two-question form here that job candidates and people on search committees can complete.
Heap of Links
1. Martha Nussbaum (Chicago) is interviewed by Russ Roberts at EconTalk.
2. Chris LeBron (Yale) is interviewed at 3am Magazine on philosophy of race and “the struggle of humanity vs. humankind.”
3. Was Sartre indifferent to the slaughter of Jews?
3a. Composer Scott Johnson’s latest work, “Mind Out of Matter,” features the words and voice of Daniel Dennett (Tufts..
Scam Journals and Publishers
Scholarly Open Access is a website run by Jeffrey Beall, a librarian at Auraria Library at the University of Colorado Denver, that provides “critical analysis of scholarly open-access publishing.” In other words, it lists and discusses journals and publishers that look highly suspect, some of which may just be scams. (via David Boonin)
Asking some basic questions a..
Thoughts About the Analytic/Continental Distinction
The so-called Continental-analytic division within philosophy is not a philosophical distinction; it’s a sociological one. It is the product of historical accident. It is unreasonable to cleave to it, and the insistence on remaining closed to work that is either presumptively “analytic” or presumptively “Continental” is irrational and unphilosophical. Further, rejec..