Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog
Brian Leiter
News and views about philosophy, the academic profession, academic freedom, intellectual culture, and other topics. The world’s most popular philosophy blog, since 2003.
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All posts (173)
Philosopher Steven Hales makes the point effectively.
Following up on this, philosopher Dan Kaufman, who taught for a quarter-century at Missouri State University, shares a draft of his provocative remarks being presented today at Florida Gulf Coast University. Some of this seems to me right, some debatable, all interesting. Comments are open, and signed comments will...
…and stand out even in a field dominated by nonsense. For example: It’s true that Chinese universities have made remarkable strides, and some of them host superb centers of research and education. However, they aren’t nearly as dominant as those rankings suggest. To borrow a phrase from Mao Zedong, many Chinese...
He’s now threatening to cut off trade with any country that maintains a trade imbalance, unless he gets his way on interest rates. He doesn’t understand the causes of trade imbalances. Trump’s extraordinary ignorance, his extraordinary narcissism, and his Mafia mentality explain almost everything he does. Even the...
Via Alex Guerrero on FB, I came across this well-done “welcome” address by Rutgers President William Tate (it’s called “My Hopes for You,” September 8, in case it gets displaced by other “community messages” on the linked page). He even works in Dolly Parton, and in a nice way. Anyone starting college should read it.
Reader Howard Berman called my attention awhile ago to this fascinating essay by sociologist Randall Collins, which I recommend to everyone looking for some informed “big picture” analyses of what we face. He makes many astute observations: for example, that LLMs produce “not a human-like intelligence at all but a...
Karen Nisenbaum (Kant, German Idealism, Jewish philosophy), Associate Professor of Philosophy at Syracuse University, has accepted appointment at the University of California at Berkeley, effective January 1, 2027, as an Associate Professor in the Philosophy Department and the Eda Pell and Moses David Kuflik...
Linguist Geoffrey Pullum (Edinburgh) shares another: The WAMC scam is aimed at tempting authors to think they have a publicity opportunity. A recent novel version of it involves an independently established website rather than one filched from some other organization. Yet it is just as much of a fraud. I recently...
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