New APPS

Art, Politics, Philosophy, Science. Mostly Philosophy.

recent posts

about

    • Raising college tuition in the interests of fairness and access

      There was a story in today's NYT about a number of colleges that are lowering tuition, sometimes drastically. The argument is that they can do this without loss of revenue, since so few pay full tuition anyway. Thus, they are lowering tuition and cutting financial aid and making a splash vis a vis the current concern over high tuition. 

      The article makes a number of useful points: that colleges have done a terrible job at advertising how few people actually pay the official tuition amounts that sound so scary, or that there is a significant phenomenon of high tuition causing a perception of quality.  But one obvious point goes utterly unmentioned in the NYT coverage: that cutting both tuition and aid hurts the most economically vulnerable and benefits the less vulnerable.  (The NYT mentions that the college it most focuses on will retain mert-based scholarships, but fails to discuss the effects of cutting need-based.)

      All of which leads me to float a suggestion for discussion – one that I once raised with our university president at a party, predictably being responded to with a chuckle and a raised eyebrow: let's raise tuition.  A lot.  

      (more…)

    • Why do the inauthentic features of forgeries escape us, whereas it seems so easy to see they were forgeries afterwards?

      I was looking for the source of the following picture (see below), to find out more about it.  The picture seems, to the casual observer, to be an early modern engraving, perhaps from Germany or the Low Countries. It shows a man who looks out of the confines of his world (the edge of the firmament), to look beyond, a nice illustration of the work of the metaphysician, theologian or scientist. However, a bit of poking around on the internet reveals that the engraving is probably a forgery – i.e., a late 19th century wood engraving that is deliberately made to resemble an early modern drawing. It appears first in Camille Flammarion’s L'atmosphère: météorologie populaire. The engraving was probably made on commission or by Flammarion himself to accompany the following text “A missionary of the Middle Ages tells that he had found the point where the sky and the Earth touch…” This text appears in the first edition of L’atmosphère but the engraving only appeared in the second edition.

      Now that I look at it again, I wonder how I could ever have believed this to be an authentic early modern illustration. The borders, for instance, do not look authentic. The anatomy and pose of the man are unusual for 16th century iconography. It seems that artistic forgeries, when they are believed to be genuine, look genuine. Once we know, however, that they are forgeries, the many inauthentic elements seem pretty obvious: how could past art critics have been fooled? 

      Flammarion
       

      (more…)

    • Notes on conference and essay volume organizing

      [UPDATE, 1 Jan 2014, 12:10 pm CST: Here is the narrative form of the talk.]

      I've been invited to take part in a panel on inclusivity in conference and essay collection organizing, to be held at the 2013 APA Eastern. Session GVIII-1, Sunday 11:15 am. Here are my notes. (Comments welcome to me by email too.)

      I propose organizers take three steps: 1) reflect; 2) clarify audiences and goals; 3) make invitations.

      STEP I. REFLECT. The first thing we need to do is reflect on our normal practices. Unfortunately, it seems many organizers just say to themselves, "let's get the best folks we can on topic X." I think this is so from a common response to a question about a poor inclusivity roster: "well, we tried to invite world-famous Professor X but he / she was busy."

      To me this implies that the organizers used some sort of one-dimensional "merit"[1] measure and then rank-ordered the people who come to mind on that axis, starting at the top [of whatever section of the list they thought they could conceivably afford / interest][2] and working their way down.

      Here, I think, is where the implicit bias claim explains just how and why these names "come to mind," thereby perpetuating a positive feedback loop locking in historically over-represented groups across generations. 

      But this rank-ordering by "merit" also has a questionable metaphysics: it looks to me like "merit" is seen as a property inherent in individuals that can be discerned, extracted, and then compared to others on a single scale.

      (more…)

    • Brazilian music on Fridays: Roberto/Erasmo Carlos

      A few weeks ago I posted ‘Sua estupidez’, sung by Gal Costa but composed by Roberto Carlos and Erasmo Carlos. Roberto Carlos is known in Brazil as ‘The King’, that is the king of folk music, and is immensely popular especially among the less economically favored segments of the population. He is known in particular for his ultra-romantic, ultra-mellow songs – yes, ‘tacky’ would be an appropriate description for lots of it…

      But the duo Roberto/Erasmo Carlos has also produced some real gems, such as ‘Sua estupidez’ of a few weeks ago, ‘Debaixo dos caracóis dos seus cabelos’, ‘Fera ferida’, and ‘Cachaça mecânica’, which I am posting below: the first two sung by Caetano Veloso, and the third by Erasmo Carlos. (It turns out that Roberto Carlos’ versions themselves are usually not that good, not because he is not a good singer, but because of tacky arrangements…) The first two are real classics known by everyone; the third one is much less known, but possibly the best among the three: a wonderful, sad samba. So start with the third!

      (BMoF will be on a break next week.)

      (more…)

    • It’s not the supply, it’s the demand

      This Slate article* about the recent Johns Hopkins plan** is symptomatic of a seriously — and unfortunately widespread — mistaken approach to the political economy of higher education, namely, a short-term and ahistorical focus on the TT section of the entire labor system, mislabeled as "the job market." 

      Abstracting for the moment from the details of the Hopkins plan, the article's premise that "there aren't enough [tenure-track] jobs for PhDs" is an unfortunate reification of the multiple decisions of university administrators to produce the current situation by their hiring decisions. The endorsed conclusion "therefore we should restrict the number of PhD students," by unquestionly accepting the premise, just reinforces the dynamic that produces the current situation.*** 

      (more…)

    • Has Elsevier jumped the shark?

      As many of you will have seen by now, it looks like Elsevier — not content with taking down papers from academia.edu — is now also issuing takedown notices to individual universities. Nicole Wyatt, chair of the Philosophy Department at the University of Calgary, reported on having received such a notice in comments here. The Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week blog, from which I had learned about the academia.edu takedown, also reported on the note received by the University of Calgary and passed on to all their staff. (Btw, did they go after other universities as well? Or is it a case of ‘pilot harassment’, as well described by the SV-POW site? So far I only know of occurrences with Calgary.)

      If anyone was still looking for reasons to boycott Elsevier, this is clearly a good one. Of course, it is not too difficult for most philosophers to boycott Elsevier, who does not publish major philosophy journals. But Elsevier is very strong in some adjacent areas, psychology in particular; it publishes for example the flagship journal Cognition, where a number of philosophers have published.

      (more…)

    • Eileen Joy on uncharitable reading

      Very nice meditation on the "necessary of generous reading" by Joy HERE. I'm happy to let Joy have the last word* on the latest imbroglio over Nathan Brown's attempted polemic.** I found Joy's post to manifest what it preaches, but to be helpful to people like me who so often fall short of the explicated norms, and to be intellectually interesting in in its own right (especially given that many of the citations will be new to philosophy professors).

      *Along with David Wallace.

      **Which as a genre is generally imbecilic independent of Brown's attempt at engaging in it. I should say that my greatest professional regret involves the overly polemical nature of a couple of my earliest publications, and that I have friends with much better CVs than me that have the same feeling with respect to earlier pieces of their own. In a future blog post I'll expand on the imbecility of all polemic without mentioning any of the examples under current consideration.

    • If I worked at The University of Kansas, this post might get me fired

      Why? Well, because this post is about the Kansas Regents' decision to pass a new social media policy, which states that:

      the chief executive officer of a state university has the authority to suspend, dismiss or terminate any faculty or staff member who makes improper use of social media.

      Improper use means making a communication that:

      — Directly incites violence or other immediate breach of the peace;

      — Is made pursuant to the employee’s official duties and is contrary to the best interests of the university;

      — Discloses confidential student information, protected health care information, personnel records, personal financial information, or confidential research data; or

      — Impairs discipline by superiors or harmony among co-workers, has a detrimental impact on close working relationships, impedes the performance of the speaker’s official duties, interferes with the regular operation of the university, or otherwise adversely affects the university’s ability to efficiently provide services.

      Reading this, I'd feel compelled to say that it 1) seemed like an effort to stifle criticism of the University, 2) veered periliously close to making it impossible for colleagues to disagree publicly, especially over matters of instiutional practice, policy, or pedagogy, and 3) similarly put anyone considering discussing his or her experience with, say, discrimination or harassment on notice that doing so could be harmful to his or her carreer.  Even better, this transparent attempt to initmidate and constrain faculty speech in public fora was imposed by fiat without prior consultation with the faculty, though–in a clear effort to satisfy some of Protevi's likely objections–faculty were told that "the board would welcome input over the next several months."

      Presumably, this input shouldn't be on social media, however, especially if it were critical or the process by which this policy were imposed, or its content.

      Update: Scott Jaschik now has a story up at Inside Higher Ed that adds a few new details, including comments from the chair of the AAUP's Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure. 

      Update 2: KU Law and Economics Professor Bill Black has written an analysis of the policy here, and been interviewed by the Kansas City Pitch here [h/t William Pannapacker]. Black pretty much confirms (and even extends) the worst case scenario interpretations of this policy that have been floating around. 

    • Should I Try to Fly, Just on the Off-Chance That This Might Be a Dreambody?

      I don’t often attempt to fly when walking across campus, but yesterday I gave it a try. I was going to the science library to retrieve some books on dreaming. About halfway there, in the wide-open mostly-empty quad, I spread my arms, looked at the sky, and added a leap to one of my steps.

      My thinking was this: I was almost certainly awake — but only almost certainly! As I’ve argued, I think it’s hard to justify much more than 99.9% confidence that one is awake, once one considers the dubitability of all the empirical theories and philosophical arguments against dream doubt. And when one’s confidence is imperfect, it will sometimes be reasonable to act on the off-chance that one is mistaken — whenever the benefits of acting on that off-chance are sufficiently high and the costs sufficiently low.

      (more…)

    • My Dad went to LSU, and all I got was this lousy pee-cup

      Marijuana-mexico-posterA few days ago, while trying to open the interwebs thingy to allow me to start entering my grades, I was prevented from doing so by a pop-up menu that referenced LSU's Policy Statement 67. The text included unsubstantiated and highly dubious claims such as that most workplace problems are the result of drugs and alcohol abuse by workers. And this was only a few weeks after all of the chairs at LSU had to provide verification that every single faculty member had read a hysterical message from our staff and administrative overlords that justified expanding the extension of pee-tested employees at LSU to now include faculty. The wretched communiqué justified pee-testing faculty because of new evidence showing that marijuana is harmful to 13 year olds.*

      Anyhow, when I scrolled to the bottom of the popup, I had to click a button saying not only that I read the document but also that I "agreed" with it. 

      I honestly don't get this. Are my beliefs a condition of employment at LSU? There was no button that said I read it but didn't agree with it.

      (more…)