An anonymous author comments (on Gabriele Contessa's proposal to end subscriptions to Synthese), "Why is outrage over editorial misconduct so selective? The Synthese editors get pilloried, but there has been little or no outrage directed at the editorial misconduct of those philosophy editors who have failed to retract publicly the many plagiarized articles by Martin Stone. If the “40 Cases of Plagiarism” exposé is to be trusted, there are are plagiarized articles in the Aristotelian Society Proceedings, Traditio, and a slew of volumes from Routledge, Leuven University Press, Cambridge UP, Oxford UP, not to mention others. Somehow the editors of Synthese get all the outrage from the philosophical community, while Stone’s editors across the board get a free pass when failing to issue public retractions." Just for the record: at this blog we reported and discussed the plagiarism case extensively, and called attention to the significant import to the profession (see here, here, here), here, here, and [linking up Synthese to this discussion, here). Now anonymous thinks the whole difference by the profession's response can be explained by the presence of "the politics of ID/creation." But this seems mistaken. First, nobody is defending plagiarism, while lots of folk are defending either Synthese's editors or Plantinga's actions. Second, much as I hate to admit it, history (especially medieval/renaissance history) is not central to discipline's self-conception in the way that epistemology, philosophy of science, metaphysics, and debates over design arguments are. In addition, there is, as anonymous notes, a further political dimension. But to reduce the situation to the final point does not seem quite right to me.
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