Blogs

A non-academic named Interim President? Odd. Brian Leiter

...here. Last year, they wisely ignored some of the vote results in selecting the finalists for review, and I assume they will do the same this year, though it looks to be a pretty good group of posts this year,... Brian Leiter

Modelled on Bloggingheads, the aim here is for higher level philosophical discussion, which the current line-up of discussants (including Tamar Gendler, Eric Schwitzgebel, Craig Callender, Jonathan Schaffer, Joshua Knobe, and others) will certainly provide. Brian Leiter

Details here. Thankfully, Newcastle remains safe . . .

MOVING TO FRONT FROM JULY 20, IN CASE ANYONE WHO (SENSIBLY!) DOESN'T READ BLOGS IN THE SUMMER MIGHT BE INTERESTED I have posted on SSRN a review essay of Brian Tamanaha's interesting recent book Beyond the Formalist-Realist Divide: The Role... Brian Leiter

One can only hope this is a joke, or that the data will be ignored once collected. (We've noted this fiasco-in-the-making previously.) Brian Leiter

...here. Brian Leiter

. . . is here.

Details here, and I'd agree.

Here. This being a high-minded, academic kind of place, let us also pause to remember some of the juvenile reasoning offered by putative intellectuals for the war of aggression against Iraq. Brian Leiter

...you'll want to be aware of this effort to stop Fox-style lies and hate propaganda from migrating north. Brian Leiter

Study Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford! (Thanks to Jonathan Wolff for the pointer.) Brian Leiter

Not all in philosophy, obviously, but that's still a frightening number of careers and perhaps lives ruined. At a time when frivolous people are attacking tenure, and claiming that tenure means "lifetime jobs," terrible developments like this deserve notice. UPDATE:... Brian Leiter

Even if this is a fluke (most generic ballot polls show the Democrats trailing the Republicans by 5-6% percentage points), and even allowing for the fact that many of the Democrats are craven cowards and closet Republicans (or would have... Brian Leiter

See here. If only more universities had the degree . . .

First, we were told to reject US President Barack Obama's policies as stemming from "socialism" --- such as his desire for health care reform -- and wider extreme leftwing beliefs.

Now we learn that a majority of US Republicans actually believe that Obama wants to impose Sharia Law on the US and abroad(!) (Note: seriously, readers, I wish I were making this up!)

I don't know anyone who thinks that somebody who has sympathies with leftwing politics (and not necessarily socialist politics) would want to impose Sharia Law. So last year Obama is a dangerous socialist and now a majority believe he holds perhaps more extreme conservative views than they do? Bizarre. Of course, it's even more bizarre given Obama's views on any number of social policies....and even more bizarre than that given he is instead a devout Christian.

So what explains why Republican Party members go from one extreme (and ill-informed) view of Barack Obama to the next without any sense of contradiction and completely ill-informed? Well, one reason might be that members want to scaremonger, but I suspect the reason is something worse . . .

Story here. The University of California has long offered the best pension benefits of any university system in the country. UPDATE: A different view on the pension situation, from a group of faculty. (Thanks to Aldo Antonelli for the pointer.) Brian Leiter

Two days ago, the crytpo-fascist entertainers Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin staged a "rally" about nothing in Washington, DC. Here's what those in attendance had to say. Brian Leiter

Cora Diamond's work in ethics will be the focus of an upcoming conference, "Ethics, Imagination, Forms of Life," to be held September 13-15, 2010 at the Université de Picardie, Aiens, in the North of Paris. Professor Diamond will be commenting... Dan Boisvert

A commentator notes that I never posted my Kant song here. Let me rectify (or wrongify) that now.

I wrote this song as an entry for the Nottingham philosophy department’s 2010 contest for the Matheson-Smart Cup for Total Bull. To compete for the cup, you pick as implausible a thesis as you can think of and mount such defence of it as you can muster. Most people do not sing. I came third, securing a respectable number of votes purely by threatening to sing again (louder) in the event of my not winning. This totally unplugged live performance is intended to enable viewers to experience something as close as possible to the actual event, with respect to sound quality among other things. I have blurred the image as I was the last entrant to perform and beer and wine had been available for three hours by that time.