Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Academia

  • How Liberals Ruined College

    Kirsten Powers.  And here is a good one (can he write a bad one?) by Peter Berkowitz: The Left's Crusade Against Free Speech. So much incisive and intelligent writing by people of good sense.  But it is not enough.  What is to be done?

  • College Encourages Lively Exchange of One Idea

    Is this a freaking joke?  (HT: Spencer Case who tells me the piece is "accurate.") The only kind of diversity liberals care about is politically correct diversity, diversity in respect of skin color and reproductive plumbing, not a diversity of ideas.  I've been pinching myself a lot recently.  Am I awake?  Is this stuff really…

  • PhilPapers has Incorporated Phil Research Index

    This from the PhilPapers team: The merger of Philosophy Research Index into PhilPapers has now been completed. More than half a million items have been added to the PhilPapers index, greatly improving our coverage of older publications and print publications not available online. At 1.75 M items, our index is now three times the size…

  • Atheist Ireland Outfit Dissociates Itself from PZ Myers

    This is good news.  (HT: Mike Valle) People on one's side will tolerate a little scumbaggery,  but not a lot, as both Brian Leiter and PZ Myers are learning the hard way.  Here is one of the articles in which Michael Nugent of Atheist Ireland documents Myers' viciousness. After reading through the examples Nugent adduces,…

  • Philosophy and Livelihood

    Recently over the transom: I'm wondering, as a 17 year old early entrant to university who's looking for a direction in his life: how do you manage to make a living from what you do? Also, keep up the great work! I have been asked this question many times and have written several posts in…

  • Petition to Save the Husserl-Heidegger Chair at Freiburg im Breisgau

    Here.

  • Tenured Professor Loses Job over Blog Post

    "Professor John McAdams is being stripped of tenure by Marquette University for writing a blog post that administrators characterize as inaccurate and irresponsible." More evidence, as if more evidence is needed, that the universities of the land are increasingly becoming leftist seminaries, hothouses of political correctness.  Story here in The Atlantic. Hat tip: Tully Borland

  • The Wages of Political Correctness: A Climate of Fear

    This from a graduate student whose paper I posted: Shortly after you posted my paper, I got an email from a friend who also reads your blog. My friend wondered if this was, all things considered, bad for my chances on the job market. He thinks in this age of Google searches, having my name…

  • The Low Intellectual and Moral Level at Oxford and Other Universities

    The piece ends with good advice: . . . if you do not share the universities' values, it could be a big mistake to send your children to college before they are intellectually and morally prepared for the indoctrination-rather-than-education they will receive there. Therefore, prepare them morally and intellectually and, if possible, do not send…

  • Brian Leiter’s Christmas Present to Carrie Ichikawa Jenkins

    He's baaack, bearing 'gifts.' Professor Christian Munthe has the story: Remember The September Statement from earlier this year, signed by 648 academic philosophers in North America and elsewhere against Chicago philosopher and law professor Brian Leiter's unacceptable treatment of his UBC colleague Carrie Ichikawa-Jenkins, ending in Leiter's statement of resignation from the institutional ranking operation…

  • Conservative Marquette Poly Sci Prof Suspended for Blogging

    Via John Pepple, I just learned that John McAdams, a tenured associate professor of political science at Marquette University, has been suspended with pay and barred from campus for criticizing a graduate student philosophy teacher who shut down a classroom conversation on gay marriage.  As McAdams puts it at his weblog Marquette Warrior: It created…

  • Jonathan Haidt on Liberal Bias in the Social Sciences

    Here.  Follow the internal link to the article by Haidt et al. to appear in Behavioral and Brain Sciences. Haidt is good.  My Haidt posts here.

  • On Relevance in Education

    From the mail bag:   I have taught high school and college-aged kids for many years, and am very often lobbed the relevance question. The logical coherence of the concept of God. Theories of space and time. Classic questions in epistemology and metaphysics. "How is this relevant," they ask. It annoys me. I make an…

  • Brian Leiter to Step Down as Editor of PGR in 2014-15

    In effect, Leiter ignored my warning: Do not multiply enemies beyond necessity. He finally went too far.  For years he got away with vicious out-of-the-blue personal attacks on conservatives and white males, but when he turned on females, such as Prof. Carrie Ichikawa Jenkins, the Left turned on one of its own. (Be sure and…

  • Susan Haack: Philosophy Profession in Thrall of Dreadful Rankings

    The following portion of an interview by Richard Carrier of Susan Haack puts one in mind of Brian Leiter whose main disservice to academic philosophy has been his contribution to its hyperprofessionalization. S.H.: I had begun to express concern about the condition of professional philosophy well before 2001;[37] and Iā€™m sorry to say that our profession…