tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355563160992600607.post6671453657538924455..comments2023-06-09T14:31:42.016+01:00Comments on Philosophy Metametablog: October BarberPhilosophy Metametabloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04323470189556733345noreply@blogger.comBlogger240125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355563160992600607.post-49551073904412005282015-10-23T04:33:40.919+01:002015-10-23T04:33:40.919+01:00Hi Richard Dawkins!Hi Richard Dawkins!notedscholarhttp://sciencedefeated.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355563160992600607.post-8623997932133704022015-10-18T21:57:44.590+01:002015-10-18T21:57:44.590+01:00Note that recording a conversation without consent...Note that recording a conversation without consent of all parties is very illegal in some states (including FL) and you will get sued to the moon if someone loses their job or is otherwise sanctioned because of something you illegally recorded. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355563160992600607.post-73185368512811022502015-10-16T19:46:11.602+01:002015-10-16T19:46:11.602+01:0011:26, are you suggesting I'm McKinnon? I don&...11:26, are you suggesting I'm McKinnon? I don't follow the pet peeves of this blog that closely, so I don't know that much about RM. But my rough (and maybe wrong?) impression is that she represents some of the same problematic tendencies of contemporary feminism that Fraser is critiquing. <br /><br />Did you read it, or did you just assume it follows some particular program? Give it a shot. I really think its criticisms apply to lots of the usual suspects at FP and DN.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355563160992600607.post-50704443118884846832015-10-16T19:26:18.978+01:002015-10-16T19:26:18.978+01:00Hi Rachel!Hi Rachel!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355563160992600607.post-81422783073863347982015-10-16T19:12:45.273+01:002015-10-16T19:12:45.273+01:00Probably the single most vicious thing about this ...Probably the single most vicious thing about this article is the title chosen by the editors: Pond Scum.<br /><br />What kind of evil piece of shit would think that that is a fair way to talk about Thoreau or his thinking? Could their animus toward him, and their hackery, be more obvious?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355563160992600607.post-34712155004647134922015-10-16T18:33:16.766+01:002015-10-16T18:33:16.766+01:00I'm 9:41, are you suggesting I'm Leiter? T...I'm 9:41, are you suggesting I'm Leiter? Thankfully, no. And I don't know Critchley's work, but I doubt he's a charlatan.<br /><br />Anyway, read the article, it's good!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355563160992600607.post-55621786985392710452015-10-16T18:02:32.268+01:002015-10-16T18:02:32.268+01:00Don't forget to call Critchley a charlatan.Don't forget to call Critchley a charlatan. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355563160992600607.post-89041732637357038052015-10-16T17:41:06.712+01:002015-10-16T17:41:06.712+01:00The New York Times' philosophy column is often...The New York Times' philosophy column is often pretty terrible, but I think this interview with Nancy Fraser is really refreshing and intelligent. I suspect some here may appreciate it, since it's a critique of contemporary feminism from the perspective of class politics:<br /><br />http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/category/the-stone/Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355563160992600607.post-40690582206207965812015-10-16T17:37:03.759+01:002015-10-16T17:37:03.759+01:00More than anything else Kathryn Shulz has missed T...More than anything else Kathryn Shulz has missed Thoreau's sense of humor! Judging from her article, it's probably because she's so humorless. People who hate Thoreau are often ironically just as humorless and preachy as they take him to be, he's a mirror in which they see their own ugliness.<br /><br />And, yeah, the lack of any attention to the literary merit of his work is also pretty pathetic, especially since the New Yorker's a lit mag. I can appreciate the value of Lucretius's De rerum natura without agreeing with Epicureanism, for example. <br /><br />I don't think it's entirely invalid to critically assess views expressd in non-argumentative prose, but I don't think the author's interpretation is very accurate, and the arguments are quite poor.<br /><br />An example of terrible reading, she complains that he "denounces" salt as "the grossest of groceries," failing to notice that he's not a 20th-21st century teenager using it to mean "yucky," but as he explains earlier, "what it was that men most commonly bought at the stores, what they stored, that is, what are the grossest groceries." <br /><br />Another outrageous example: she treats his claim that the worst kind of slavery is "when you are the slave-driver of yourself” as proof that he thinks "rugged individualism" a higher priority than abolition of slavery! But of course he's only pointing out that negative freedom is not a sufficient condition of full fledged human freedom. And of course, the entire philosophical ethical tradition from Socrates to Kant says the same, connecting real freedom with self-command and self-determination. <br /><br />And of course, it's worth noting that "rugged individualism" is an anachronism here, coined by Hoover and used as a cheap dismissive rhetoric, and completely inaccurate as a description. Thoreau is absolutely clear in the text that his life at Walden Pond is a temporary experiment to see how little is necessary to live and bring out what's most essential and important. It is not meant as a moral life program for him, much less for anyone else.<br /><br />As for the "misanthropy", he emphasizes in the text that three miles from Concord was perfect because he could still easily visit town and devotes an entire chapter to how much he enjoyed getting visitors.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355563160992600607.post-64089817352906842562015-10-16T15:27:52.844+01:002015-10-16T15:27:52.844+01:00Weak.Weak.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355563160992600607.post-59674796903172851492015-10-16T13:04:48.557+01:002015-10-16T13:04:48.557+01:00Personally, I'm glad to see these posts from W...Personally, I'm glad to see these posts from Weinberg and Louis Genitals fighting the hidden Zombie Patriarchs. Without this struggle, the teeny girls will suffer horrible irreparable horror. For too long the profession has struggled under Zombie Occupied Patriarchy, and a popular resistance front is needed. It's time for the tenured to speak out against the zombies.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355563160992600607.post-48018943160518849782015-10-16T06:50:08.687+01:002015-10-16T06:50:08.687+01:00I read that thing on Thoreau and I don't think...I read that thing on Thoreau and I don't think it's very good. It is not responsive to the quality of his writing. The author doesn't get the moodiness of it. She's trying to argue with it as if it were argumentative prose. It is not. And her criticism that in his seeking of solitude he is too much of a misanthrope is silly. She's missing the point as well as missing the poetry.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355563160992600607.post-89697530506986345152015-10-16T06:17:05.249+01:002015-10-16T06:17:05.249+01:00I think a lot more people are reading Thoreau thes...I think a lot more people are reading Thoreau these days than say 10 or 20 years ago. He has to be shut down, because of his pacifist tendencies and his claim that Disconnect has value. On the contrary, we, the complicit, the "political class", have a duty to ensure everyone stays connected all the time. No doing anything offline allowed.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355563160992600607.post-44305338128172360632015-10-16T05:55:02.976+01:002015-10-16T05:55:02.976+01:00From the UK Guardian:
Women in their 20s earn mor...From the UK Guardian:<br /><br />Women in their 20s earn more than men of same age, study finds<br />When aged 22-29, women earn an average of £1,111 more than men – but the roles are reversed with a vengeance once 30 is hitAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355563160992600607.post-72944333556985737002015-10-16T05:54:38.351+01:002015-10-16T05:54:38.351+01:00You really think it's a coincidence that, read...You really think it's a coincidence that, reading top to bottom rather than chronologically, letters in that list spell out "kill all male philosophers"? Wake up sheeple.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355563160992600607.post-47215856197815672732015-10-16T01:02:47.179+01:002015-10-16T01:02:47.179+01:0011:36, here is a list of the headlines for the DN ...11:36, here is a list of the headlines for the DN posts from today back to 10/4 or so<br /><br />The Future of Online Conferences in Philosophy<br />Mistaking Criticism for Discrimination (Ought Experiment)<br />18 “Hope & Optimism” Projects Receive $2m Funding<br />Do the Tenured Speak Up Enough?<br />Aldo Antonelli (1962 – 2015) (updated)<br /><br />How to Encourage Service to the Profession?<br />SEP, IEP, NDPR, Wi-Phi Weekly Update<br /><br />Meet the Daily Nous Cartoonists!<br />Pre-Grad School Logic Preparation<br /><br />The Tricky Truth about Tractatus Trees (updated)<br />Philosophy in Verse, from A to Z<br />Philosopher Poets<br /><br />READ MORE<br /><br />A Nobel Prize for Philosophy? (updated)<br />Philosophers by Subject Area (updated)<br /><br />Cognitive Biases and Limitations of Search Committees<br />Live From 2003: BEARS Is Back Online<br /><br />Should Professional Philosophy Be More Like Grad School?<br />Writers: Love Your Ideas, But Love Your Readers, Too<br /><br />Guide to Online Self-Promotion<br />Projects Funded by New Directions in the Study of Mind<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355563160992600607.post-5530873223090225572015-10-15T23:00:44.388+01:002015-10-15T23:00:44.388+01:00Come back Brian - the guest bloggers are very very...Come back Brian - the guest bloggers are very very boringAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355563160992600607.post-49667139910995082202015-10-15T20:48:24.327+01:002015-10-15T20:48:24.327+01:00The New Yorker article hardly tells any halfway in...The New Yorker article hardly tells any halfway informed person anything they didn't already know about the deficiencies in Thoreau as a character. Yeah, he was quite the misanthrope -- so was Schopenhauer -- who's ignorant enough to be surprised at either fact?<br /><br />And of course its real target is surely the old dead white dude who presumes to know things "others" don't.<br /><br />Imagine if you will a similar article about MLK, focusing on his plagiarism, on his philandering, on his deficiencies as a father. And you'll have to imagine it, because there's not a chance in hell one would ever find between the covers of the New Yorker a hatchet job on MLK like the current one on Thoreau.<br /><br />It's all about what the New Yorker sacralizes. A hit piece on Thoreau, even a century and half after his death, makes their nerves jangle. A criticism of MLK would make them vomit from outrage.<br /><br />I'm not sure there's another publication more predictable than the New Yorker in its objects of adoration and revulsion.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355563160992600607.post-76068241409544430482015-10-15T20:30:21.653+01:002015-10-15T20:30:21.653+01:00'failing to establish consent before each step...'failing to establish consent before each step', getting informed later it wa non-consensual...does the sexual partner have ANY responsibilities to actually make clear at the time that they don't want something under this new orthodoxy?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355563160992600607.post-83681933846281939122015-10-15T19:58:36.460+01:002015-10-15T19:58:36.460+01:00The last 25 main posts at DN:
1. the future of on...The last 25 main posts at DN: <br />1. the future of online philosophy conferences<br />2. advice for dealing with a student who thinks all criticism is gender discrimination<br />3. Hope & Optimism fund winners<br />4. death of Antonelli<br />5. excerpt from Schliesser on "speaking up"<br />6. how to encourage service to the profession<br />7. SEP etc update<br />8. DN cartoonists intro<br />9. pre-grad school logic prep tips<br />10. philosophy poems<br />11. interactive versions of the Tractatus<br />12. philosopher poets<br />13. Nobel and other prizes in philosophy<br />14. list of philosophers by subject area <br />15. search committee biases and heuristics<br />16. how profession might benefit from being more like grad school<br />17. old electronic philosophy journal back online<br />18. writing advice<br />19. discussion of self-promotion online<br />20. earnings and occupations of humanities grads<br />21. New Directions in the Study of Mind fund winners<br />22. SEP etc updates<br />23. Stubblefield conviction<br />24. philosophers honored by Royal Society of Canada<br />25. advice for undergrad on area of specialization<br /><br />Last 25 items in DN Heap of Links:<br />1. Did you or someone you know publish something 35 years ago? If so, you can now reclaim your copyright to it. Spread the word. (via Sally Haslanger)<br />2. A video of Derek Parfit giving some "random remarks" on altruism this past summer at the Oxford Union<br />3. The questions of medical epistemology -- Miriam Solomon (Temple) in conversation with Carrie Figdor (Iowa)<br />4. The politically persuasive power of the overlapping consensus (via Tyler Hamrick)<br />5. Carnap's previously inaccessible journals, written in custom shorthand, have been transcribed (via Richard Zach)<br />6. Thoreau: a "self obsessed" "thoroughgoing misanthrope" -- and even worse: opposed to coffee!<br />7. Philosophers vie with others: which was the most influential academic book of all time?<br />8. Russell: "I don't like this beard. It makes me look like Frege" -- there are some good philosophy comics at The Psychophilosopher<br />9. 26% of faculty report that "recent attacks [by bloggers and university administrators] have led them to change how they communicate on social media"<br />10. Experimental philosophy bonanza at Bookforum's Omnivore Blog<br />11. The APA's 2015 Barwise Prize goes to William Rapaport (Buffalo) for significant work on philosophy and computing<br />12. How would Plato answer Louis CK? How should you? -- Mark Edmundson (Virginia) gives it some thought<br />13. What is the purpose of life? Two psychologists are running a survey to learn what people think about it, and how it affects them<br />14. Regina Rini (NYU) issues a corrective to the trendy "culture of victimhood" idea -- in the LA Times<br />15. Wiley is putting on a free webinar on immigration and the global refugee crisis featuring Serena Parekh (Northeastern) and others<br />16. Irresistible<br />17. "Standing for division and conflict without apology" signals honesty and explains the appeal of certain political candidates, argues Jason Stanley (Yale)<br />18. Just how much do we need to know in order to even seriously think about "uploading" a brain? A lot more than you might have thought<br />19. Duck rabbit romance<br />20. "Nothing nothings" is true, argues Roy Cook (Minnesota)<br />21. The 10 Most Controversial Professors in the U.S. -- several philosophers make the list (via Justin Caouette)<br />22. Continental Thought & Theory is a new philosophy journal<br />23. The best kind of life is life as a game -- a reinterpretation and defense of Bernard Suits' The Grasshopper by Avery Kolers (Louisville)<br />24. A decent article in The Atlantic about the rise and fall and rise of the trolley problem -- except it never actually explains what philosophers have typically taken the trolley *problem* to be<br />25. The annoying habits of alpha philosophers<br /><br />This is not the stuff of a philosophy news blog?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355563160992600607.post-80419915825372172422015-10-15T19:36:14.990+01:002015-10-15T19:36:14.990+01:00DN is not a philosophy blog or philosophy news blo...DN is not a philosophy blog or philosophy news blog. It's a political blog, where one view - i.e., fringe SJW identity politics - is treated as sacrosanct. The "tenured" should speak out "against" <i>what</i>, exactly? The secret zombie invasion that Schliesser keeps talking about? The secret control of the White House by a cabal of Illuminati Patriarchs? Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355563160992600607.post-26129354034179236252015-10-15T18:31:26.382+01:002015-10-15T18:31:26.382+01:00I see -- you're right, I misunderstood that oc...I see -- you're right, I misunderstood that occurrence of 'school'.<br />I don't believe rankings have much to do with it, though. I gave a couple of examples of intellectually distinctive departments that appear to be doing just fine under current conditions.<br />I do think some departments 'plundering' has some negative effects, but I doubt this has much to do with rankings either. (That's what I had in mind by mentioning Harvard.) And keep in mind that when ambitious departments grow fast, they are creating new jobs. The philosophers they plunder vacate some reasonably well funded slots, too which then must be filled, so it's plausible that in fact there is some 'trickle-down'.<br /><br />In short, it seems to me to be a mixed bag.7:37noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355563160992600607.post-36316288396708775932015-10-15T18:02:05.700+01:002015-10-15T18:02:05.700+01:00From the Heap of Link at DN: a cheap, self-righteo...From the Heap of Link at DN: a cheap, self-righteous, whiny takedown of Henry David Thoreau: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/19/pond-scum<br /><br />I get it, Thoreau's prose style and personality rubs a lot of people the wrong way, and there are plenty of reasonable criticisms that can be made of his views and life. And, sure, he's not a "real" philosopher on many people's narrow definition of the term.<br /><br />But:<br /><br />1. He's hardly a sacred cow, was never one, and is hardly mentioned anymore, so why viciously beat up on the old dead dude now?<br /><br />2. Most negative reactions to Thoreau aren't based in the reasonable criticisms that can be made, they're based in anger than someone has the audacity to morally criticize the American lifestyle and in the good old American tradition of anti-intellectualism. Where does this New England Harvard boy get off telling us about morality or nature?<br /><br />3. A major American philosophical blog should try to promote curiosity and charitable critical interest in major historical thinkers, especially ones that have played an important role in American and world culture (e.g., Gandhi and MLK), not take cheap pot shots at them and encourage people to think of philosophers (whether professional or not) as grumpy old irrelevant cranks.<br /><br />4. This is part of Justice Weinberg's general New Infantilist tendency toward the millennial's view that "everything and everyone in the past is bad and everything contemporary is good" so let's always praise any negative depiction of historical thought and views.<br /><br />I really liked DN at the start, but it just gets more dogmatic, more self-righteous, and less philosophical every damn day. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355563160992600607.post-91263226946085207452015-10-15T16:40:19.373+01:002015-10-15T16:40:19.373+01:007:37,
I'm guessing that your response may hav...7:37,<br /><br />I'm guessing that your response may have been in part due to an understandable misinterpretation of what I meant by "school" in that context -- I had in mind a school of thought, not a school in the sense of a university. The rise of Rutgers and NYU may be examples of the dominance of universities changing under the PGR regime, but not of a school of thought doing so.<br /><br />To make a further, related, point, it does strike me that ranking regimes like that of PGR likely have the effect of introducing still further inequalities between the haves and have-nots in philosophy. They seem to encourage a star, free agent system in philosophy very much akin to that of sports and in the executive ranks of corporations. NYU and Rutgers (and, it looks like, USC) are like new teams created by enticing a bunch of stars with money and fine perks to come together in one location. But, again, it's not philosophy (or in the analogy, the sport or the stockholders) that profits, but only the individuals themselves. Explicit, "scientific" rankings only smooth and further enable this process, because they allow those creating the new departments to justify to their superiors the new hires got by plundering already highly ranked programs, and to demonstrate their own rise in consequence.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355563160992600607.post-27372376156193465062015-10-15T10:48:34.424+01:002015-10-15T10:48:34.424+01:007:12,
I didn’t mean Rutgers and NYU to be examples...7:12,<br />I didn’t mean Rutgers and NYU to be examples of programs that increased the diversity of philosophy. I gave other examples of that. Rutgers and NYU were just my examples to illustrate why I doubt that “rank ordering will have the long run effect of allowing any currently dominant school to preserve its dominance simply because it attracts the most able students and faculty”. <br />And after all, Harvard was already buying up the most successful and prestigious philosophers long before Leiter was ranking anyone, so I doubt ranking has much of anything to do with that aspect of the profession. (I also think you are overestimating the draw of prestige and underestimating the draw of money and location.)<br /><br />-6:37Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com