Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Academia

  • Philosopher of Religion Complains, “I Don’t Get No Respect”

    Like Rodney Dangerfield, we philosophers of religion get no respect. As philosopher of religion Nelson Pike puts it, If you are in a company of people of mixed occupations, and somebody asks what you do, and you say you are a college professor, a glazed look comes into his eye. If you are in a…

  • Once Again on Liberal Bias in Academe with Some Remarks on Indoctrination

    A reader e-mails (my responses in blue): I had a question regarding your blog post, From the Mail Pouch: Of Comments and Liberal Bias.  Does the intention to indoctrinate follow from the fact that academia has more registered Democrats than Republicans?  No, it doesn't follow, but neither did I say that it followed. Obviously, group…

  • Amateur and Professional

    Amod Lele e-mails:  I've been enjoying your blog for some time now, and particularly appreciated your post Philosophy as Hobby, as Career, as Vocation. I recently mused on this topic at my own philosophy blog - http://loveofallwisdom.com/2009/06/neither-career-nor-hobby/ – and you might find my remarks there of some interest. I'm intrigued, though, by your distinction between professionals and…

  • Philosophy as Hobby, as Career, as Vocation

    An e-mail from a few years back with no name attached: Leiter fancies himself a gatekeeper to the realm of academic philosophy. You gotta love the professional gossip that seeps through his blog – Ned Block got an offer from Harvard but turned it down, here's the latest coming out of the Eastern APA, or…

  • If Obituaries Were Objective . . . II

    I found the following in this morning's mail bag.  From a philosophy professor who enjoyed my  If Obituaries Were Objective . . . : Perhaps a more realistic, and to my mind a more depressing objective obit would read as follows: Philosophy professor x showed great academic promise from early in his career. He published a revised version…

  • Advice on Publishing From the 17th Century

    Suppose you are working on an article that you plan on sending to some good journal with a high rejection rate. You know that what you have written still needs some work, but you submit it anyway in the hope of a conditional acceptance and comments with the help of which you will perfect your…

  • If Obituaries Were Objective . . .

    . . . some of them might read like this.

  • Antioch College: Death by Political Correctness

    I have a sentimental connection to Antioch College. An inamorata from the '70's graduated from there, as did my old friend, the philosopher Quentin Smith. During my tenure at the University of Dayton in the late '70s and '80s I would often make the pleasant drive over country roads to the sleepy little town of…

  • Five Kinds of Reviewer

    Five Kinds of Reviewer (adapted by Roger Shiner from Susan Swan, ‘Nine ways of looking at a critic’, Toronto Globe and Mail 30th November 1996. E23) 1.      The Spankers are out to administer discipline over anything from ill-conceived plot-lines to misplaced commas. 2.      The Young (and Old) Turk sees the review solely as an opportunity…

  • More on Texts and Translations

    A regular reader responds to  On Reading Philosophical Texts in Their Original Languages:    Nice piece on the necessity of studying texts in their original languages. The very question puzzles me. Why would someone assume he knows what Kant said and meant by reading Kemp Smith? I don't know what shape the Kant MSS are in—are there…

  • On Reading Philosophical Texts in Their Original Languages

    From the mailbag:   What are your thoughts on reading philosophical texts in the original language?  Do you think it's preferable — or do you suppose it even makes a difference?  The idea of reading philosophy in the original is very interesting to me, because I've found that when you study texts in the history of…

  • Thinking of Graduate School in the Humanities? Part II

    On February 9th I linked to Thomas H. Benton's Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don't Go.  Today I discovered his Just Don't Go Part II.  Prospective graduate students should digest it thoroughly albeit cum grano salis.  I don't recommend Benton's piece in order to discourage anyone but to apprise them of what they are up against…

  • Academic Credentials

    The Ph.D. is a trapping that means something, but not that much. There are fools with doctorates, and sages without them. Should Kierkegaard go unread because he is a mere Magister? Does anyone prefer his brother Peter over Søren because the fomer was called Doktor? Should we turn a blind eye to Eric Hoffer's True…

  • In Praise of a Lowly Adjunct

    The best undergraduate philosophy teacher I had was a lowly adjunct, one Richard Morris, M.A. (Glasgow).  I thought of him the other day in connection with John Hospers whose An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis (2nd ed.) he had assigned for a course entitled "Linguistic Philosophy."  I also took a course in logic from him.  The…

  • The Politicization of the American Philosophical Association

    Several people have asked me my opinion on the recent petition to the American Philosophical Association regarding alleged discrimination by certain colleges and universities against homosexuals.  At the moment I have nothing to say about either the petition or the counterpetition.  I want to point out that the politicization of the A. P. A. is…