New APPS: Art, Politics, Philosophy, Science

Improving the Climate in Philosophy

It's always nice when you hear about people doing positive things to improve the climate in philosophy for women and other underrepresented minorities.  Feminist Philosophers has details about a new blog that aims to do just that.  You can ask questions and get advice, or see what issues are arising in for others and how they might be dealt with.

On leaving academia, interdisciplinarity, co-authorship, and other things

Zachary Ernst, we're sorry to see you go.  But you've left us with some important issues to mull over, here.

These even includes some issues that are under faculty control, like the following:

Furthermore, my department also considers single-authored work to be more significant than co-authored work. Frankly, I find this policy totally absurd, but it's not that uncommon. Because a lot of interdisciplinary work will appear in unfamiliar (to one's colleagues) venues, and be co-authored, that work is downgraded, not once but twice. The effect is that when it comes time to decide on salary raises, a faculty member with broad, interdisciplinary research interests is at a severe disadvantage. To put the point bluntly, interdisciplinary researchers get paid less.

Is philosophy really so insular that we can't respect interdisciplinary work?  That we can't recognize the extra effort (not less effort) that it takes to collaborate?  I am afraid that I know the answers.

Against The Schock!

Leiter is encouraging discussion of nominations for the The Schock Prize. I hope our readers chime in for an enjoyable and enlightening conversation. (I vote for Nussbaum.) 

All nine of the Schock winners thus far were or are eminent philosophers, and most of us can only aspire to emulate the quality of their work as best we can. Even if one allows that "The Schock" only seems to go to male, analytical philosophers, each winner is an important and interesting philosopher, deserving of significant honor. Having said that, The Schock Prize judges had four or five chances to honor David Lewis, and failed to do so. (Lewis died in the Fall of 2001.) Lewis is arguably the most significant and influential (analytical) philosopher of the last quarter of the 20th century. (Perhaps, Deleuze is the only contemporary that will match his enduring significance, but he and Foucault died before the Schock got up and running.) So, while one can excuse the members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (RSAS) to play it safe and not award the prize to, say, Derrida (and,  thus, avoid the predictable outcry), not giving it to Lewis means they failed to grasp the nature of analytical philosophy in their own time. That in addition, they passed on Gadamer, Ricœur, Goodman, and, thus far, Habermas suggests that the Schock has a long way to go before it can establish itself as the ultimate arbiter of general philosophical excellence.

On trusting placement data

Michael Kremer has expressed justified concern that prospective graduate students might use the data compiled by Andy Carson to guide their choice in graduate programs. Even if the data were perfect, one should be cautious in using them; the data are backward-looking and reflect circumstances that might well have changed significantly by the time one shows up at the school of one's choice. Even when Andy Carson removes all the current (serious) problems with his data, placement data absent attrition rates are of limited use.  Moreover, given the incentives involved we should not expect to get fully reliable data easily.  Ideally, once Carson has worked out the obvious snafus with his data people can use his data and measures and compare them with old and more recent Gourmet reports and figure out ways to use them in light of each other given their individual needs.

But for now, nobody should let these data play a decisive role in their decision-making.

An interview with the author behind the placement data post

Yesterday, I linked to a blog post that claims to offer detailed data and analysis on "approximately 3,200 placement records since the year 2000."  While (as subsequent commentary on my post revealed) there are obvious problems with the material outside North America and more subtle ones with the ones inside, the proposed approach can give an important perspective on recent hiring. The author is calling for the right sort of assistance: "if you believe my data is mistaken, please send me the appropriate and complete data for your school, so that I can update the data." Once the data have been improved one might be able to do some interesting comparison with past Philosophical Gourmet reports.

Because I was utterly unfamiliar with the author, Andrew Carson, I also expressed concern about his/her identity in my post. A friendly reader pointed to a linkedin page, and I contacted the person via email. Carson agreed to do a brief interview, which I have reprinted (and slightly edited) below. Obviously, this does not settle any concerns about the author and his methods, I now believe we are dealing with a good faith effort to help improve the profession. Obviously, how Carson deals with the new data that people sent him will be most illuminating. Here's the interview:

Yes, I am a real person.  I received my MA in philosophy from Northern Illinois University in 2012.  I have since left academia and am working in Data Science (hence my interest in the intersection of philosophy and data)...

I did the post because I like philosophy and I like data, and I figured I could bring the two together.  I know lots of friends recently in grad school and they are all concerned about getting a job after they graduate.  I’ve also had friends get stuck in adjunct positions.  I wanted to let others thinking about graduate school know what they were up against and to go into it with eyes wide open, especially since I hadn’t seen anything like this before.  I hope to just get this info out there and get people less focused on the Leiter rankings (I know people were obsessed with those in applications).

 

If you want a tt/permanent job in philosophy

[UPDATE: I have been unable to find any information on Andrew Carson, so I wonder if this is a real person or a pseudonym. I also hope that at one point the data will be released to interested parties, so we can check for accuracy; for all I know this is a hoax.--ES]

The numbers say....go to Yale, UMass, Amherst, or Northwestern! Andrew Carson (the person who crunched the numbers), explans the method here.

I haven't had a chance to look at his approach, so I will just report his bottom line:

If you are applying to graduate schools in philosophy and are trying to decide which schools you want to apply to or attend, and if you are concerned about your placement prospects after graduation, you need to consider (1) how a school ranks in your chosen specialty and (2) how well that school places students overall.  You cannot just rely on overall faculty rankings, for these bear no relationship to how well a school places, although many will find these rankings important for other reasons.  What does appear to matter as far as placement is concerned is the school's ranking in your area of specialty.  If it ranks well, then you have a much higher chance of getting a tenure track or permanent position in academic philosophy.  And some schools just appear to have better placement rankings than others.  For example, both Northwestern University and University of Massachusetts, Amherst are not ranked above a 3 in any category (except Continental philosophy and Social and Political Philosophy, respectively), but they have some of the best placement records.

Why is that?  I wish I knew. That is a question worthy of further exploration...[Emphasis in original--ES.]

Another ranking of journals

With interesting results. (It will give cheer to the logicians.) It's based on the so-called SJR indicator. [HT: Jean-Yves Beziau, who is the Editor-in-Chief at Logica Universalis]

The APA responds to Penn State's discriminatory violations of privacy rights

TO: David Gray, Senior Vice President for Finance and Busines

Susan Basso, Vice President for Human Resources

Penn State University, University Park, Pennsylvania

Dear Mr. Gray and Ms. Basso: 

According to an article in the 10 September Centre Daily Times and the 15 September New York Times, a health risk assessment questionnaire that is part of Penn State’s new employee wellness program asks women employees whether they plan to get pregnant in the next year. If the employee refuses to disclose this she is penalized $100 for every month she fails to yield up the information.

By requiring women employees to disclose information about their sex lives, Penn State violates their privacy rights and likely violates their rights under federal law (Title VII and The Pregnancy Discrimination Act, Title IX, privacy law, and equal protection). Highmark, Penn State’s health care provider, targets women employees by imposing on them a special burden of disclosure about their sexual intent. Are male employees required to disclose their intended sexual activity over the year? To avoid paying a fine, is a woman employee forced to lie? And if she has no plans but becomes pregnant accidentally, does that increase her insurance premiums?

On the so-called "The Stanford School of Philosophy of Science."

Last week I received a widely distributed announcement on a conference celebrating "The 'Stanford School' of Philosophy of Science." The 'core' members of this school are taken to be: Nancy Cartwright (Durham), John Dupré (Exeter), Peter Galison (Harvard), Peter Godfrey-Smith (CUNY), Patrick Suppes (Stanford). The parenthesis are the current affiliation of the 'core' members; this immediately suggests that if there is a 'school' at all we are either dealing with a historical phenomenon or very distributed one. Scanning the list of the 'next generation' confirms that Stanford is not the current base of the purported school.

First, I adore much of the work done by many in the 'core,' but the idea that this group is a 'school' is deeply flawed. For, Suppes is far better understood (as he does himself) as belonging to the first generation (including Kyburg, Pap, Isaac Levi) intellectual off-spring of Ernest Nagel, who successfully created American analytical philosophy by combining the Scientific wing of Pragmatism with the new approaches emanating from Vienna, especially, and Cambridge (recall and here). In his autobiography, Suppes describes how assimilated from Nagel the significance of history of science. 

A New Album (*Interlocuter*) for Charity by The Monads!

Our friends, The 21_st Century Monads, write:

So what we are going to do is this. You can purchase the uncompressed .wav files by taking the following steps. First, make a donation to the charity of your choice in the amount that you think is appropriate.  There is no minimum donation, but we of course recommend that you be generous!  

Second, send an email to the following email address:

21stcenturymonads@gmail.com

In this email, simply tell us that you have made a charitable donation; you don’t need to tell us where if you don’t want to.  We’d appreciate if you’d tell us the amount donated since we would like to know how much money has been raised in this fashion. However, we won’t require that you do this.  There is no minimum amount you must donate (and obviously no maximum amount either).  We are simply going to take your word that you have made a donation.

After you have sent the email, you will receive an email in response that will contain a link directing you where to download a .zip file that contains all the songs.   Also included in this package will be liner notes, a .pdf with a printable cd-booklet, and bonus remixes of four of the songs.

No money needs to go into our pockets even temporarily and there are no overhead costs.   Every cent of every dollar you donate will go straight to the charity of your choice, and in return you get the full album immediately in a higher-resolution format.   We aren't trying to make money with this endeavor -- we are trying to do a little good for others.

Crowd-funding €25,000,000 for Philosophy?

A group is trying to raise €25,000,000 for philosophy: 

Different institutions are participating in this project, they already are part of the project: Various professors and students from the Humboldt University in Berlin, Eindhoven University of Technology, Radboud University Nijmegen, Utrecht University, University of Bern, Georg Simmel Centre for Metropolitan Studies, University of Luxembourg... and many more. [Emphasis in original--ES.]

Almost no names are mentioned except a certain "Sandra A.V. Vos", who seems hard to track down to a particular philosophy program; it seems a bit...opportunistic.

Do Descriptivists and Kripkeans differ on love?

The Experimental Philosophy blog reports on a paper by Christopher Grau and Cynthia Pury that purports to show that people's attitudes toward love correlates with their intuitions about reference.

People's attitude toward love correlates with their intuitions about reference!

Read the paper there.

- See more at: http://philosophycommons.typepad.com/xphi/2013/08/reference-love-and-kripke.html#sthash.QzvG4bgg.dpuf

Kripkeans could be more likely to feel that love is about a specific individual and that the loved one could not be replaced by another individual with relevantly similar characteristics. In contrast, descriptivists could be more likely to feel that love is about an individual with specific characteristics, and that the loved one could be replaced with a relevantly similar individual.

In fact, this is exactly what Christopher Grau and Cynthia Pury report in an exciting new paper (forthcoming in the Review of Philosophy and Psychology)! People's attitude toward love correlates with their intuitions about reference!

Read the paper there.

- See more at: http://philosophycommons.typepad.com/xphi/2013/08/reference-love-and-kripke.html#sthash.QzvG4bgg.dpuf

Kripkeans could be more likely to feel that love is about a specific individual and that the loved one could not be replaced by another individual with relevantly similar characteristics. In contrast, descriptivists could be more likely to feel that love is about an individual with specific characteristics, and that the loved one could be replaced with a relevantly similar individual.

In fact, this is exactly what Christopher Grau and Cynthia Pury report in an exciting new paper (forthcoming in the Review of Philosophy and Psychology)! People's attitude toward love correlates with their intuitions about reference!

Read the paper there.

- See more at: http://philosophycommons.typepad.com/xphi/2013/08/reference-love-and-kripke.html#sthash.QzvG4bgg.dpuf

Kripkeans could be more likely to feel that love is about a specific individual and that the loved one could not be replaced by another individual with relevantly similar characteristics. In contrast, descriptivists could be more likely to feel that love is about an individual with specific characteristics, and that the loved one could be replaced with a relevantly similar individual.

In fact, this is exactly what Christopher Grau and Cynthia Pury report in an exciting new paper (forthcoming in the Review of Philosophy and Psychology)! People's attitude toward love correlates with their intuitions about reference!

Read the paper there.

- See more at: http://philosophycommons.typepad.com/xphi/2013/08/reference-love-and-kripke.html#sthash.QzvG4bgg.dpuf

Kripkeans could be more likely to feel that love is about a specific individual and that the loved one could not be replaced by another individual with relevantly similar characteristics. In contrast, descriptivists could be more likely to feel that love is about an individual with specific characteristics, and that the loved one could be replaced with a relevantly similar individual.

In fact, this is exactly what Christopher Grau and Cynthia Pury report in an exciting new paper (forthcoming in the Review of Philosophy and Psychology)! People's attitude toward love correlates with their intuitions about reference!

Read the paper there.

- See more at: http://philosophycommons.typepad.com/xphi/2013/08/reference-love-and-kripke.html#sthash.QzvG4bgg.dpuf

Kripkeans could be more likely to feel that love is about a specific individual and that the loved one could not be replaced by another individual with relevantly similar characteristics. In contrast, descriptivists could be more likely to feel that love is about an individual with specific characteristics, and that the loved one could be replaced with a relevantly similar individual.

In fact, this is exactly what Christopher Grau and Cynthia Pury report in an exciting new paper (forthcoming in the Review of Philosophy and Psychology)! People's attitude toward love correlates with their intuitions about reference!

Read the paper there.

- See more at: http://philosophycommons.typepad.com/xphi/2013/08/reference-love-and-kripke.html#sthash.QzvG4bgg.dpuf

Kripkeans could be more likely to feel that love is about a specific individual and that the loved one could not be replaced by another individual with relevantly similar characteristics. In contrast, descriptivists could be more likely to feel that love is about an individual with specific characteristics, and that the loved one could be replaced with a relevantly similar individual.

In fact, this is exactly what Christopher Grau and Cynthia Pury report in an exciting new paper (forthcoming in the Review of Philosophy and Psychology)! People's attitude toward love correlates with their intuitions about reference!

Read the paper there.

- See more at: http://philosophycommons.typepad.com/xphi/2013/08/reference-love-and-kripke.html#sthash.QzvG4bgg.dpuf

Kripkeans could be more likely to feel that love is about a specific individual and that the loved one could not be replaced by another individual with relevantly similar characteristics. In contrast, descriptivists could be more likely to feel that love is about an individual with specific characteristics, and that the loved one could be replaced with a relevantly similar individual.

In fact, this is exactly what Christopher Grau and Cynthia Pury report in an exciting new paper (forthcoming in the Review of Philosophy and Psychology)! People's attitude toward love correlates with their intuitions about reference!

Read the paper there.

- See more at: http://philosophycommons.typepad.com/xphi/2013/08/reference-love-and-kripke.html#sthash.QzvG4bgg.dpuf

Kripkeans could be more likely to feel that love is about a specific individual and that the loved one could not be replaced by another individual with relevantly similar characteristics. In contrast, descriptivists could be more likely to feel that love is about an individual with specific characteristics, and that the loved one could be replaced with a relevantly similar individual.

In fact, this is exactly what Christopher Grau and Cynthia Pury report in an exciting new paper (forthcoming in the Review of Philosophy and Psychology)! People's attitude toward love correlates with their intuitions about reference!

Read the paper there.

- See more at: http://philosophycommons.typepad.com/xphi/2013/08/reference-love-and-kripke.html#sthash.QzvG4bgg.dpuf

Kripkeans could be more likely to feel that love is about a specific individual and that the loved one could not be replaced by another individual with relevantly similar characteristics. In contrast, descriptivists could be more likely to feel that love is about an individual with specific characteristics, and that the loved one could be replaced with a relevantly similar individual.

In fact, this is exactly what Christopher Grau and Cynthia Pury report in an exciting new paper (forthcoming in the Review of Philosophy and Psychology)! People's attitude toward love correlates with their intuitions about reference!

Read the paper there.

- See more at: http://philosophycommons.typepad.com/xphi/2013/08/reference-love-and-kripke.html#sthash.QzvG4bgg.dpuf

People's attitude toward love correlates with their intuitions about reference!

Read the paper there.

- See more at: http://philosophycommons.typepad.com/xphi/2013/08/reference-love-and-kripke.html#sthash.QzvG4bgg.dpuf

Ancient, Early Modern, and Philosophy of Physics are the Specialist areas of Philosophy

The following three sub-fields are highly specialized: Ancient philosophy, seventeenth/eighteenth century philosophy, and philosophy of physics. The following sub-fields have a low level of specialization: metaphilosophy, philosophy of religion, philosophy of probability, philosophy of the social sciences, decision theory, and philosophy of race and gender. Highly specialized sub-fields tend to require extensive knowledge in some area beyond the typical training of a philosopher, and outside of philosophy proper.--Brad Wray.

Brad Wray, a Kuhnian-naturalistic philosopher of science,  has mined the PhilPapers data with an eye toward "the degree of specialization in each area of specialization" in the discipline. (Wray is a bit too confident that this is a "representative sample of the profession;" I worry about selection and, especially, geographical effects; even so the numbers are pretty large (3,226 people in total and 1,803 'philosophy faculty or PhD') so that the results can be illuminating if used with caution.)

Wray: "The degree of specialization of an area is a relative measure of how specialized a particular area is" and is calculated as follows: "The number of people who claim the area as their primary area of specialization/The number of people who claim the area as an area of specialization." I have posted a chunk of the abstract, which contains the core results, in the epigraph above. One of Wray's finding would not have surprised Adam Smith: "an analysis of the data suggests that the size of a specialization is correlated with the degree of specialization."

Wray's crucial result (which seems to have been explored at the prompting of a referee) is this one: "a high degree of specialization is the exception, not the norm in philosophical specialties. Many specialties seem to depend, to a significant degree, on the involvement of many who work in the area but who do not identify the area as their primary area of specialization." Of course, this says nothing about the way in which specialists set the agenda with a specialization.

Either way, this data suggests that there are still quite a few generalists in philosophy (it is amusing to me that I work in a 'specialist' area because us 'early modernists' cover two hundred years of systematic philosophy with ongoing discussions pertaining to M&E, value, science, and increasingly philosophy of religion). The question as to what degree Wray's pattern is born out by publication and citation-data is worth exploring in the future.

JHAP: Journal for the History of Analytical Philosophy (Open Access)

Here:

JHAP aims to promote research in and provide a forum for discussion of the history of analytic philosophy. ‘History’ and ‘analytic’ are understood broadly. JHAP takes the history of analytic philosophy to be part of analytic philosophy. Accordingly, it publishes historical research that interacts with the ongoing concerns of analytic philosophy and with the history of other twentieth century philosophical traditions. In addition to research articles, JHAP publishes discussion notes and reviews.

"and with the history of other twentieth century philosophical traditions" is a very important clause! Two [update: now three] notes which concern that clause:

Quicksand arguments

A very nice piece on quicksand arguments by Timothy Brown, a PhD student in philosophy at UW-Seattle (who has  blogging talent):

At some point in the conversation, a line gets crossed and they’ll argue: “you think too much,” or “you just have to be right about everything,” or “you’re so argumentative,” and so on. Sometimes people say these things in earnest (as if they’re identifying some problem in me) while other people say them in anger (as if they’re getting back at me for some damage I’ve done). In either case, once a person tells me I think too hard or I try to know too much (or think I already know everything), I know the conversation is over. The game is over—there are no other moves I can make.

If you want to be cited in a top journal, publish there...

[UPDATE: I CLOSED DISCUSSION AND REMOVED SOME COMMENTS.--ES]

Brian Weatherson has been doing more terrific citation data-analysis. (Recall also this.) It seems that papers published in JPhil, Mind, and Phil Review, primarily cite other papers from JPhil, Mind, and Phil Review (and within that select group, of course, the host journal most)--Philosophical Studies (and, perhaps, Nous [omitted from the data-set]) is the exception that proves the rule. Brian does not offer any interpretation of the data. So, what's going? Here are some speculative hypotheses in order to generate discussion:

a) Even the generalist journals are becoming extremely specialized.

b) Folk that publish in what are thought to be the best journals do not need to  read anybody else.

c) People are gaming the referee-process. [(c*) Referees are not doing their jobs.]

d) Philosophy has radically segregated philosophical cultures. (Cf. b.)

e) The stuff published outside the top journals is read and not deemed worthy to be cited by folk that publish  publish in what are thought to be the best journals.  (Cf. b.)

On the Wright Method

"My one complaint with the volume is that several of the contributors seem to have recycled earlier work, rather than coming up with anything new. This issue is hardly particular to the present volume, of course, and in general editors and referees acting on behalf of presses should be doing more to ensure that contributors are offering genuinely new material to volumes that aren't anthologies of previously published work."--Aidan McGlynn.

I would add reviewers to McGlynn's list of folk that need to do more to ensure that "contributors are offering genuinely new material to volumes."

Anyway, the lines above are the conclusion of McGlynn's excellent review. It's never easy to review edited volumes, especially Festvolumes. But McGlynn manages to offer a nice balance of useful summary and critical commentary. Moreover, at various places the review manages to convey a personal appreciation of Crispin Wright and an insider's look behind the scences at the way Wright does philosophy:

"As for Wright's replies, their format allows them to capture something of his present modus operandi, which involves collaborative engagement with a number of seemingly disparate topics, looking for unexpected points of overlap between them. The distinctiveness of this approach is often largely lost by the time its outputs make it into print, but interestingly that hasn't happened here."

Aesthetics is a very small niche in the Leiter-top-50

Brian Leiter calls attention to a sobering survey on the role of aesthetics in the Leiter top-50. I quote the concluding remarks:

•  Less than one fourth of programs in The Leiter Top 50 have any Primary faculty in Aesthetics, and only one of those programs boasts more than one.

•  There is currently exactly one program in the Leiter Top 50 that has a junior Primary faculty in Aesthetics.

What these numbers suggest is that the very best philosophy PhD programs in the United States currently have little to no research interest in Aesthetics and as such, also that quite likely neither shall their future graduates.

Of course, there have been recent signs of hope: NYU has an outstanding offer to Rob Hopkins and Rutgers has hired Elisabeth Camp, both of whom are unquestioably top notch philosophers with truly stellar bodies work in Aesthetics (primarily on depiction and metaphor respectively). Perhaps other U.S. programs will take notice of this commitment to Aesthetics and at least consider following suit-- Christy Mag Uidhir.

On the Contrast between post-Lewisian M&E and Philosophy of Scientific Practice

Brian Weatherson has done some nice data crunching of his own inspired by the Healy-data (eliciting an important comment by Jennifer Nagel), especially here. In particular, he looked at citations in a broader range of journals than the H4. Now Brian's crucial point is: "Lesson 1: It’s easy to be wrong about what people are talking about, if you try to generalise from personal experience." This is important to keep in mind for all of us that need to make decisions about the future of the field (i.e., future job candidates and those that supervise them.) Brian is a privileged observer having helped shape cutting-edge M&E as a presence at a variety of top departments. (I made a similar observation last week in light of converging evidence.) His data also show that the recent debate over philosophical intuitions (see Catarina [and Mohan and here]) is generating a lot of discussion outside of the H4. This is part of a larger phenomenon: while H4 articles are cutting edge (by stipulation), their citations are a lagging indicator of current trends (see also here and here). This may be due, in part, to their relatively slow refereeing process (thus, building in delay from submission to acceptance), or it may be due to in-crowd refereeing (so that in effect citations of high status males are privileged).

Here I focus on Brian's surprise about "336 citations for a paper about mechanisms!" This is a reference to "Thinking about mechanisms" by P Machamer, L. Darden, CF Craver in Philosophy of science (2000) [here for direct access]. (Hereafter MDC) There is no evidence that Brian thinks MDC does not merit attention. Brian's lack of awareness of the importance of this paper is indicative of a genuine split between: (a) post-Lewisian folk that take the metaphysics and epistemology of science, especially inspired by text-book physics, seriously and (b) those of us that focus more on scientific practice, past and present, in our philosophy of science, epistemology, and even metaphysics. Moreover, Brian's tendency to suggest that the high citation-rate for MDC must be due to a non-philosophical audience suggests (with N=1) that folk in (a) tend to underestimate how large the community of (b) is within philosophy.

Placement Data and Trends, 2011-2013

By clicking the link posted below you can download an Excel spreadsheet with placement data from the last two years, 2011-2012 and 2012-2013, together with a “how-to” guide for future years of data gathering and analysis. The data is sourced from ProPhilosophy, the link for which you can find here. 

Here are some of the findings:

The ethically wealthy invite who they like and feel good about it.:)

The Journal of Practical Ethics is a new open access (hurray!) journal hosted by the "Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics;" the Centre "was established in 2003 with the generous support of the Uehiro Foundation on Ethics and Education of Japan." So generous, in fact, that "Authors and reviewers are offered an honorarium." (Wow!) Of course, our moral experts like to keep it clubby: it is "an invitation only, blind-peer-reviewed journal." That puts a different spin on its desire to "promote informed, rational debate, and is not tied to any one particular viewpoint." Subtext: we will reward our friends and approved opinions handsomely; prudent folk are encouraged to keep quiet. [HT Matt Lister, who raised the issue in comments at Crookedtimber.]

Sexual harassment and a hostile or offensive work environment

In dicussions of the McGinn case, it's important to remember the legal background.  Sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination that violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (see http://www.eeoc.gov/facts/fs-sex.html). 

Furthermore:

Although the law doesn’t prohibit simple teasing, offhand comments, or isolated incidents that are not very serious, harassment is illegal when it is so frequent or severe that it creates a hostile or offensive work environment or when it results in an adverse employment decision (such as the victim being fired or demoted). [emphasis mine].

Those who think that McGinn's alleged emails are "mild" or "not severe" would do well to remember that many seemingly small actions over a long period of time can produce a hostile or offensive work environment. Sexual harassment does not require that there be an obvious, severe offense in order to be in violation of Title VII -- or to be problematic and painful for the victim.

Due Process in Miami

Writing on the McGinn case at Miami, Brian Leiter reports that "A senior philosopher elsewhere wrote to me suggesting that what happened to McGinn seemed to be a serious violation of due process." Since people do make this kind of remark quite frequently, it's worth stating some of the facts, and a principle or two.

McGinn's resignation is a negotiated settlement. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, 

After the university's Office of Equality Administration and the vice provost for faculty affairs conducted an investigation, Mr. McGinn was given the option of agreeing to resign or having an investigation into the allegations against him continue in a public setting, several of [McGinn's] colleagues said.

In Miami, Professor Edward Erwin's gloss on this is:

Colin chose to resign after he learned, or had very good reason to believe, that his tenure was going to be revoked regardless of what he did. It's been an unfortunate situation.

Surely this contradicts what we are told above! 

McGinn leaving Miami under a cloud.

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that Colin McGinn is leaving Miami "amid allegations that he sent improper messages to a graduate student." (The story is behind a pay-wall.)

"Mr. McGinn...denies allegations that he behaved improperly. Those allegations were lodged by a female graduate student who has said that the professor sent her a series of sexually explicit e-mail and text messages, starting in the spring-2012 semester."

"one message in which they said Mr. McGinn wrote that he had been thinking about the student while masturbating."

There are two important features of the Chronicle's report that I wish to highlight here: (i) apparently there are still quite a few men within philosophy that simply do not 'get it:' "In addition to Mr. Erwin's support, Mr. McGinn has won backing from some philosophers at other universities who have written to the University of Miami on his behalf, according to faculty members at Miami." (The Chronicle also reports a (named) male philosophy graduate student as follows: "I can't understand why the university forced him to stop working with graduate students who have nothing to do with this case...There's no reason for the university to have taken these drastic steps when this particular situation involves just one student.") Luckily, one important person, Professor Donna E. Shalala, president of the University of Miami, had a "strong" personal reaction to the allegations.

(ii) From the Chronicle's report it appears that the victim's boyfriend (a graduate student in the department) and Amie L. Thomasson, were very supportive of her. As a discipline we need more such 'advocates.'

Call for comments on Google Scholar's - Top Publications in Philosophy

There seems to be a strong societal push for "metrics" which means, as best as I can tell, limiting our reasons to ones that can be uncontroversially translated into something numerical, ignoring other facotrs, and then drawing conclusions.  OK.  That is probably a caricature, but I suspect not much.  

In any event, here, by GS, is another metric-driven ranking of philosophy journals.  It has some rankings that strike me, at least, as rather different from how an expert in the field would rank on the basis of quality, prestige, significance, etc.  So, for example, Synthese and Phil Studies are 1 and 2 (certainly both good journals, but I suspect few philosophers would rank them 1 and 2.)  Or consider that Journal of Consciousness Studies is 7 and Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences is 10.  By contrast, we have Ethics 14, Phil Review 17, and Journal of Philosophical Logic 20.  

Plagiarism in business ethics (at University of Virginia)

The University of Virginia has a famous honor code. So I was surprised to learn through one of my favorite blogs, Retractionwatch, that one of UVA’s advanced graduate students  in business ethics (in the business school) had to retract a paper from the Journal of Business Ethics (a Springer journal). Retractionwatch quoted the Director of the Olsson Center for Applied Ethics, Andy Wicks, as follows: “we opted to take no additional action beyond extensive internal conversations…it is an isolated incident that was a mistake rather than a calculated effort to plagiarize.” Yet, according to the retraction notice 16% of the paper was plagiarized; this is not a case of a few missing quotation marks. I contacted Professor Wicks, and he wrote me that, “a thorough review of the case was conducted according to school policy. The review process included a panel committee and a forensic review of the student’s work. We cannot discuss individual student matters due to confidentiality and privacy policies.” Fair enough, privacy is important. (I also contacted the graduate student, but received no answer.) In effect, outsiders are being asked to trust the school's judgment.

I was also surprised that in addition to the retraction, the journal did not take further steps against the UVA graduate student. For, in January, Retractionwatch, reported on a case of self-plagiarism that led to a five year ban from Journal of Business Ethics. This involved a case of a scholar re-publishing his own previously published work without acknowledging this. I am no ethicist, but plagiarizing another would seem a far worse offense than plagiarizing oneself--this is why, I think, Retractionwatch tends to use the term "duplication" to refer to the lesser offense. Turns out, alas, that the self-plagiarist teaches at a school in Thailand, while one of the supervisors of the UVA graduate student, is on the editorial board of the journal. As they say in the business world, it can’t hurt to have friends in the right places. (The editor of the Journal of Business Ethics also did not respond to my email.) 

Lund Philosophy and Cog Sci department is worried about its future--you can help

[The following letter has been circulating on the web.--ES]

Dear Colleagues,

We urgently need your help. The Department of Philosophy in Lund, which is located in Kungshuset - a beautiful  16th century house in the centre of the town which originally was home to the University as a whole - is now  on its way to being relocated. In the Spring of 2014, we are supposed to move to a new building, together with other departments in the Joint Faculty of Humanities and Theology.  Judging by past experience, the next step after the relocation might well be an administrative merger of the different departments into a huge megadepartment. Such mergers have taken place at other universities and at our university as well.

Call for Nominations: Distinguished Woman Philosopher 2013

Each year the Eastern Division of the Society for Women in Philosophy comes together to honor a  woman  philosopher whose contributions to the support of women in philosophy and to philosophy itself are outstanding and merit special recognition. A panel and reception celebrating the honoree's accomplishments will be organized for the Eastern Division meeting of the American Philosophical Association, December 27-30, 2013.

Nominations should include a copy of the nominee's curriculum vitae and a minimum of two supporting letters, which summarize the nominee's contributions to philosophy and support of women in philosophy.

NOTE: Two-thirds of letter writers for any given nomination must be members of the society for women in philosophy, in good standing.

Please e-mail all nominations to Rochelle Green, ESWIP Distinguished Woman Philosopher Award Secretary (rmgreen1@ualr.edu) no later than April 1, 2013.

An interview with our very own Catarina!

Here. (It reveals secrets about the blogging life and NewAPPS.)

"This book should not have been published."

This review by Jill Vance Buroker concludes with: "This book should not have been published because it adds nothing to the literature. It is difficult to imagine a Kant specialist recommending its publication."

The review looks fair to me because it offers a whole number of arguments for the conclusion. (I have some minor quibbles, but I am no Kant expert.) While I might not have used those exact words, I believe that critical book-reviewing plays an essential role in the discipline's quality control. What do readers think? I prefer signed comments on this one.