A Case of Extensive Plagiarism (guest post) (updated)
The following guest post* provides evidence that Mahmoud Khatami, a professor of philosophy at the University of Tehran who is well-known and widely-celebrated in Iran, plagiarized parts of his dissertation, which he wrote for his 1996 Ph.D. degree from Durham University. It also provides evidence that a book about Khatami’s work was plagiarized (and notes that the ..
Group Work in Philosophy Class
Here are problems with group-work that I have observed or heard about multiple times from students:
- the members of the group (unless the group is the whole class) do not include an expert on either the topic for discussion or the assigned reading on it, so mistakes can go uncorrected and misunderstanding can be increased (if plausibly, confidently, or charisma..
Barnett Sues CU-Boulder for $2m (updated)
David Barnett, whom the University of Colorado is moving to fire (previously), is suing the university for $2 million, claiming that university Chancellor Phil DiStefano and philosophy professor Alison Jaggar made defamatory statements about him. From The Daily Camera:
In his notice of claim, Barnett says the statements made by CU officials have damaged his reput..
More on Funding & Philosophy
A couple of weeks back we discussed questions related to funding and philosophy in the context of Daniel Dennett’s review of a recent book by Alfred Mele (original post; Mele’s reply). Matthew Brown, a philosopher of science (UT Dallas), thinks that one of the central questions raised there should get more attention. He wants us to “think past the specific details o..
Science, Humanities, and the Mind
Last week, Susanna Siegel and Steven Pinker (both of Harvard) participated in a debate about the role of the humanities and the sciences in the study of the mind. The debate was videotaped and can be watched here (update: link fixed). Below is Professor Siegel’s summary of the event, the topic of which raises questions about the value of the humanities more general..
Philosophy Family Tree
The Philosophy Family Tree is a collectively edited “genealogy” of philosophers that maps the dissertation advisor – advisee relationship (the “parent” is the dissertation advisor). It was started about a decade ago by Josh Dever, and has grown quite a bit since then. It’s a fun and useful resource, and would be even better if you took a moment to enter in your in..
Leslie Armour (1931-2014)
Leslie Armour, professor emeritus at the University of Ottawa and research professor at Dominican University College, has died. Professor Armour worked in metaphysics, philosophy of religion, history of early modern philosophy, 19th Century philosophy, Canadian philosophy, and the philosophy of economics. He began his academic career at the University of Montana, an..
Philosopher Named “MVP”
Chris Surprenant, assistant professor of philosophy at the University of New Orleans, is one of three winners in a nationwide “Most Valuable Professor” competition put on by Questia (a branch of Cengage Learning). As part of the prize, Surprenant will get to select five of his students as recipients of $500 academic scholarships. Surprenant works on moral and politi..
Causes of Deaths of Philosophers
Maintained by Hugh Mellor but apparently last updated in 2005, the Causes of Deaths of Philosophers website humorously speculates about, well, the causes and descriptions of deaths of philosophers. To wit:
Husserl: Phenomenally bad luck
Ryle: Gave up the ghost
Dancy: No particular reason
Sellars: Not given
Benacerraf: Number was up
Wittgenstein: Became the l..
Brilliant Combination of Teaching and Outreach (updated)
Mount Holyoke philosophy professor Thomas Wartenberg and College President Lynn Pasquerella co-teach a course called “Philosophy for Children.” An article at masslive.com describes it:
As part of the course, college students are teaching second graders at the Martin Luther King Jr. Charter School of Excellence in Springfield to question their own assumptions, lis..
Reference Management Apps
Philosophers, I have been asked to ask you all about reference manager / bibliographic software, such as Endnote, Qiqqa, Mendeley, Zotero, etc. Do you use any of these? Is there one in particular you would recommend?
DesAutels is 2014 Distinguished Woman in Philosophy
The Eastern Division of the Society for Women in Philosophy (SWIP) has announced that it has named Peggy DesAutels, professor of philosophy at the University of Dayton, as its Distinguished Woman in Philosophy for 2014. DesAutels works in ethics, moral psychology, feminist philosophy, cognitive science, and biomedical ethics. According to the nomination, DesAutels “..
Ludlow Sues Undergraduate (updated)
Peter Ludlow (Northwestern) is suing the undergraduate who accused him of sexually assaulting her. The lawsuit “alleges that the student knowingly made false statements to news media and Northwestern professors after he rebuffed her sexual advances.” Ludlow had previously launched a defamation lawsuit against Northwestern University officials, fellow philosophy prof..
What Do PGR Evaluators Need to Know?
I very much doubt that I would be able to provide anything like reliable judgments of philosophical quality based on the names of individuals in faculties, without spending an enormous amount of time reading people’s work. Although I’ve been in professional philosophy for nearly ten years, and have gained at least some familiarity with a large number of philosopher..
Mathematical Logic & Foundations Chart (w/ further updates)
The above photo is a detail from a large, hand drawn chart entitled “Mathematical Logic and Foundations, 1847-1947.” It was made in 1976 by Joel Friedman (I believe this Joel Friedman, emeritus at UC Davis). A print of it has been hanging up in the University of South Carolina Department of Philosophy for as long as anyone here can remember. I do not know whether it..
Pre-PhD Program Coursework
A student writes in with a question:
I’m a student in my first semester at a terminal masters program, and as an undergraduate I mostly took courses outside of value theory. Would it help my application to a PhD program if I branched out and took a wide range of classes or should I double down and stick with the fields I enjoy?
More generally, to what extent d..
Drunk Utilitarians
Laboratory assistants have to do all sorts of terrible, embarrassing things, but surely this is among the silliest: Enter a bar in Grenoble, France. Identify people who look moderately drunk. Walk up to them, tap them on the shoulder, and say something along the lines of, “Uh, hey, this is awkward, but, would you be interested in answering some questions about philo..
Famous Papers First Rejected
“The Strength of Weak Ties” (1973) by sociologist Mark Granovetter is an extraordinarily influential paper, one of the most cited in sociology (with nearly 30,000 citations, according to Google Scholar). Yet it was initially rejected. You can read the rejection letter via a link from here. It is an interesting case of peer reviewers dismissing an idea because they w..
Assessment and Philosophy Courses
Most of the discussions regarding “assessment” are fine examples of exactly what we do not want to see college producing: vague and uniform truisms, hooked up with measures so meaningless as to guarantee that nothing will ever change. It is the deadened life of the bureaucratic mind. But imagine, as an alternative, academics charting the careers of students who have..
Dudley Knowles (1947 – 2014) (updated)
Dudley Knowles, professor of philosophy at the University of Glasgow, has died. Professor Knowles worked in political philosophy and on Hegel. The department has added some memorial remarks to his web page. (Thanks to Fiona Macpherson and Alan Weir for this information.)
UPDATE (11/5/14): The Herald has published an obituary of Knowles.
UPDATE (11/5/14): Anoth..
Martin Tamny (1941-2014)
Martin Tamny, Professor of Philosophy at CCNY and the CUNY Graduate Center, has died. Professor Tamny worked in the philosophy and history of science. Saul Fisher (Mercy College) sends along the following remembrance:
It is with great sadness that I report the passing of Martin Tamny on October 18, 2014, at the age of 73.
Martin was born in the Bronx, New York..
Philosophy Summaries
Alexander Dietz, a graduate student at the University of Southern California, has been working on a project called Philosophy Summaries. It features “hierarchical summaries” of philosophy texts with an interface that allows you to drill down into the summaries of each section. Here’s how he describes it:
Philosophy books are usually divided into chapters, which a..
Hobbies of Philosophers: Lauren Ashwell
Lauren Ashwell is assistant professor of philosophy at Bates College. She works in metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and feminist ethics, and her work has been published in Philosophical Studies, Philosophy Compass, Australasian Journal of Philosophy and elsewhere. So she’s good at her day job. But that is just a necessary, not sufficient, reason for being featured i..
Andrei Marmor (USC) to Cornell (official)
It’s now official: Andrei Marmor, currently Professor of Philosophy and Maurice Jones Jr. Professor of Law at the University of Southern California, will be moving to Cornell, taking up joint appointments in the university’s Sage School of Philosophy and Law School over the summer of 2015. Marmor works in legal and moral philosophy. His wife, Elizabeth Garrett, ..
Another Explanation for Philosophy’s Whiteness
In most philosophy classes the religious traditions of the Middle East and Asia are in the periphery as the other to philosophy – the impulses to conformism and irrationality which are to overcome by the self-reflection and rationality of philosophy. But regarding philosophy Africa is treated as the other to the other, as being the birthplace of human beings but not..
Philosophy Professor Implicated in UNC Academic Fraud Investigation (several updates)
Philosophy professor Jan Boxill was named as an active participant in an academic fraud scheme in a 136-page report issued earlier today by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill entitled “Investigation of Irregular Classes in the Department of African and Afro-American Studies.” The report details the existence of a number of phony “paper classes.” Accordi..
Open Letter from the Northwestern Philosophy Graduate Students (Guest Post)
In June it was reported that Peter Ludlow was suing officials, a professor, and a graduate student at Northwestern University for defamation, gender discrimination and invasion of privacy. The following guest post* is an open letter to the philosophical community adopted by the Northwestern University Philosophy Graduate Students by way of a vote.
Open Letter from..
Open Access and Journal-less Publishing
Recently I was asked by the editors of a journal whose mission and scholarship I support and respect to review a book by a scholar I very much admire. In the past, I would have accepted the invitation without a second thought and proceeded to read the book and develop a review. Over the past few years, however, as my work has focused on questions of public scholarsh..