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    • Sponsoring ‘Steven Salaita At Brooklyn College’

      By: Samir Chopra

      Last Tuesday, the philosophy department of Brooklyn College voted to co-sponsor 'Silencing Dissent: A Conversation with Steven Salaita, Katherine Franke and Corey Robin', an event organized by the Students for Justice in Palestine and scheduled for Thursday, November 20th. (In so doing, we joined the ranks of the departments of political science and sociology, as well as the Shirley Chisholm Project, Brooklyn for Peace, Jewish Voice for Peace – New York Chapter, and the International Socialist Organization.)

      Because I had suggested–during the 'new business' section of our department meeting–that the department sponsor the event, and because the BDS controversy at Brooklyn College focused so much attention on the business of academic departments 'sponsoring' supposedly 'political' and 'one-sided' events, I offered some arguments about the desirability of the philosophy department signing on as a co-sponsor, even if our vote to do so would attract some of the same hostility the political science department at Brooklyn College had during the BDS event.

      Those arguments can be summed up quite easily. Steven Salaita will soon be claiming, in a court of law, that: he lost his job because his constitutional right to free speech was infringed by a state actor; his speech was found offensive on political grounds; his academic freedom was violated; he lost his livelihood because he espoused his political opinions in a manner offensive to some. A debate about these issues, conducted with a law professor and moderated by a political theorist (who also teaches Constitutional Law), would offer to our students–even if they disagreed vehemently with Salaita's political viewpoints–a chance to engage with many philosophical, political and legal problems, all of which they are exposed to, in theoretical form, in their many readings across our curriculum.

      Most broadly, philosophy students would see philosophy in action: they would see arguments presented and analyzed and applied to an issue of contemporary political and moral significance. (One of my colleagues pointed out that our department offers a popular Philosophy and Law major, which ostensibly prepares them for law school admission and careers in the law; this demographic would be an ideal audience for the discussion.)

      As might be imagined, given the furore generated by the BDS event last year, there was some trepidation over whether such a departmental vote, or the use of the language of 'sponsorship' was a good idea. In response, I analogized our sponsorship decision as akin to the inclusion  of a reading on a class syllabus (During the BDS controversy, I had made a similar argument in response to the claim that sponsoring an event entailed 'endorsement' of the speakers' opinions.) When a philosophy professor does so, she says no more than that she thinks her students should read the reading and engage with it critically; it is worth reading, even if only to criticize it. (This semester, I had included Gobineau in my Social Philosophy reading list; I certainly did not intend to promulgate a theory of the Aryan master race by doing so.)

      Lastly, I suggested issues of academic freedom are of utmost relevance and importance for all academic disciplines today. Every department on campus should be interested in a discussion centering on them.

      We voted; the motion carried.

      Note: This post was originally  published–under the same title–at samirchopra.com.

    • In memoriam: Alexander Grothendieck

      By Catarina Dutilh Novaes

      Alexander Grothendieck, who is viewed by many as the greatest mathematician of the 20th century, has passed away yesterday after years of living in total reclusion. (To be honest, I did not even know he was still alive!) He was a key figure in the development of the modern theory of algebraic geometry, among others, but to philosophers and logicians he is perhaps best known as one of the major forces behind the establishment of category theory as a new foundational framework for mathematics. 

      So far, I’ve only seen obituaries in French (Libération and Le Monde), as Grothendieck (of German origin) lived almost all of his life in France (I expect that soon obituaries in English will be available too). His life story is almost as remarkable as his mathematical achievements: his father died in Auschwitz in 1942, while he was sent to a concentration camp in France with his mother. In all of his adult life, he was as passionate about pacifism as he was about mathematics (and perhaps even more), and continuously engaged in a number of activist initiatives like lecturing on category theory in a forrest of bombed Vietnam to protest against the war. He seems to have basically stopped doing any mathematics in the 1970s, but the influence of his work in the field is bound to remain colossal in many years or even centuries to come.

    • How to Stop Policing the Borders of Philosophy

      by Ed Kazarian

      I've written before about the question of boundary policing in philosophy, occasioned at the time by a remarkable essay of Nathaniel Adam Tobias Coleman's. It's a question, and a habitual tendency within the discipline, that certainly continues to deserve our attention.

      In the same spirit, I want to call readers' attention to an essay that Adriel Trott has published today on her blog.  The piece is subtle and quite complex, beginning with four anecdotes and developing from there into a meditation on what it would mean to stop policing the borders of philosophy—but also engaging a series of related—and urgent—questions.  How can philosophy remain attentive to the singularity of different sorts of experiences? How can philosophy embrace the insights of intersectionality? What, especially in light of these first two questions, might it mean to do philosophy while resisting the drive to universalize or ontologize? And how do we deal with the ever present danger of appropriation or colonization involved in our attempts to theorize or conceptualize what is at stake in lives at the border, even if we have given up attempting to police those borders? 

      The essay is carefully composed and deserves to be read on its own terms. But as a teaser, I will leave readers with this short section from Trott's conclusion, about which I will add a few remarks below the fold.

      I am only just now coming to see that changing the way we think about philosophy in order to make it more inclusive means making those of us who are happy with the way the thinking in philosophy currently operates uncomfortable and not-quite-at-home with philosophy.

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    • The Surveillance State at the Intersection of Bio, Juridical and Sovereign Power

      By Gordon Hull

      As I’ve suggested here before, one of the undertheorized aspects of biopower is the relation between biopower and the juridical power it supposedly supplants.  Now, I think it’s a mistake to think that biopower simply replaces juridical power, at least not on Foucault’s considered view (for the sorts of reasons given in papers such as this one; nor do I think the relation should be read that way, whatever Foucault thought), but to say that is to then pose a problem concerning their interrelations.

      This paper by Jack Balkin (law, Yale) offers some help in disentangling the various threads.  Balkin’s concern is to outline the features of what he calls the “national surveillance state,” which he proposes is our current mode of governance, having taken over and transformed the governmental apparatus from the mid-century Welfare and National Security states.  The former developed through the implementation of New Deal programs, and the latter through the Cold War.  The two of them together, plus developments in computing power, enable the surveillance state, which is a “way of governing” that has developed over the last half of the twentieth-century (and thus long predates 9/11 and its aftermath):

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    • Republicanism and Nostalgia

      The idea of a republic has been very tied up from the beginning with the idea of loss, even when linked with the hope for a new beginning. The first great political text of republican political theory may be the Funeral Oration of Pericles as reported (invented?) by Thucydides in The Peloponnesian War, where the defence of the Athenian form of self-government as tolerant and cultured, as well as heroic in war, is articulated in a speech of mourning. It is the loss of the lives of the citizen soldiers of Athens that provides an opportunity for putting foward the general greatness of Athens. So a rather immediate sense of loss is the moment for an imformal pit of republican theory. The speech itself is a model for later commentary on republics and democracy, including Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, which echoes some phrases from Thucydides and is again a celebration of a republic driven in its rhetoric of passion but the immediacy of loss. 

      The model that Pericles, Thucydides, and other writers of Classical Greece, have for courage in war as a civic virtue, does not come from a republic though. It comes from the Homeric epics of the Mycenaean monarchs at war, kings and heroes from societies where those who rule states and command armies are close to the gods, and those commanded are from some lower order of life. Nevertheless Homer permeates the culture of classical Greece. Pottery surviving from Athens of that era suggests a fascination with the martial courage of Achilles, Ajax, and Odysseus, though many of Odysseus' fights are wit mythical dangers rather than war in the most organised and politically defined sense. The broader nature of Odysseus' struggles maybe give us an idea of a culture in which war seems to be part of a constant struggle with divine and natural dangers including fate and chance, along with the inevitability of death. 

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    • Support, Indemnification, and Addressing Retaliation

      by Ed Kazarian

      There are two important posts up today elsewhere in the philosophical blogopshere that deserve your attention—both of which raise the question of how those of us in the profession at large can support those members who, because of activism or simply their social position, are vulnerable to various official and non-official forms of retaliation. 

      Above the fold, I will simply point readers to the Open Letter of Support for "for people in our profession who are suffering various trials either as victims of harassment or as supporters of victims" published on DailyNous by John Greco, Don Howard, Michael Rea, Jonathan Kvanvig, and Mark Murphy: and to NewAPPS emeritus blogger Eric Schliesser's more concrete suggestion about how to address the retaliatory deployment of legal means against complainants.  Both pieces deserve to be read and reflected upon.

      In what follows, I'll say a bit more about my sense of the importance of both pieces, and the larger phenomenon of retaliation against those contesting the inequitable state of the profession.

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    • Eighty-three people show up for the PSA Women’s Caucus Breakfast – and other news from the PSA

      By  Roberta Millstein

      I just got back from the Philosophy of Science Association meeting in Chicago, held in conjunction with the History of Science Society.  My co-chair Holly Andersen and I knew we had better-than-ever attendance for the 5th PSA Women's Caucus Breakfast, but after counting the names on the sign-in sheet, I can report that we had 83 attendees! (mostly women, plus a few welcome supporters).  We didn't get to all of the items on our packed agenda, but there was some serious energy in the room, and hopefully we can really get things done in the next two years.  Thanks again to the Minnesota Center for the Philosophy of Science and individual donors for sponsoring.

      I don't know if anyone else noticed (and maybe I shouldn't point it out), but Saturday was a good day for philosophy of biology.  Helen Longino is finishing her term as PSA President, to be succeeded by Ken Waters; Helen also won the PSA Women's Caucus Prize for Feminist Philosophy for her recent book, Studying Human Behavior: How Scientists Investigate Aggression and Sexuality, while Elliott Sober won the Hempel Award.  Congrats to all.

      My own session, "Beyond the Lab Experiment," with Sharon Crasnow, Eric Desjardins, and Emily Parke (ably chaired by Chris Eliot) was one of the best I've ever participated in.  At the end of it, I realized that all four papers sought to make positive contributions; none was a critique (not that I am against critique — I think critique is important and have done it myself — but sometimes it's nice to make forward progress without having to trash what came before).  We had a half hour at the end for general discussion, and the audience used it appropriately, probing connections between the four talks that I was certainly too bleary-eyed to see.  And speakers responded thoughtfully and openly to suggestions.  It was a really positive experience and I got a lot out of it.

      It was also announced that this was the largest PSA meeting ever.  I think we still have work to do to increase the diversity of topics and attendees, but I know that work has been done in that area and that more is planned.  The PSA is looking healthy.

    • My favorite moment of the PSA

      Leo Kadanoff making an argument directed at Bob Wald using the example of Dumb Holes that Radin Dardashti, Karim Thebault and I had just presented on. I wonder if Wald and Kadanoff have such rich conversations very often in the hallways of their own department. Who says philosophers and scientists can't engage with each other? (And PSA in Chicago FTW!)

       

    • A Reminder to Search Committees (from Shelley Tremain)

      The following is a guest post by Shelley Tremain:
       
      As deadlines for philosophy faculty positions approach and pass, members of search committees should bear in mind how structural, institutional, disciplinary, material, and other factors have marginalized many philosophers, reproducing the profession and discipline as homogeneous and conformist along axes of power such as disability, race, sexuality, nationality, language, and gender; in short, a hostile environment for many of us. Disabled philosophers have been virtually excluded from the profession and discipline. In my introduction to the Fall 2013 issue of Disability Studies Quarterly (DSQ, vol. 33, no. 4 http://dsq-sds.org/issue/view/108) whose theme was Improving Feminist Philosophy and Theory by Taking Account of Disability, I estimated that 4% of philosophy faculty in North America are disabled. This figure was based upon past surveys conducted at a couple of APA conferences. Clearly, that estimate was too generous: according to recent membership surveys conducted by the APA and CPA, less than 2% and 1% (respectively) of philosophy faculty (any rank) are disabled.  
       
      In the DSQ intro, I identify many of the factors that have shaped the ableism of the discipline and profession. Entitled "Introducing Feminist Philosophy of Disability," that article can be accessed from the link above or read here: https://www.academia.edu/5812065/Introducing_Feminist_Philosophy_of_Disability. I also discuss the marginalization and exclusion of disabled philosophers from the profession in "Disabling Philosophy" which appeared in the April issue of The Philosopher's Magazine. That article can be read here: https://www.academia.edu/6651947/Disabling_Philosophy.

    • Universities Should Indemnify Student Complainants

      by Ed Kazarian
       
      There’s an important piece up at Inside Higher Ed today about a developing debate concerning whether universities should offer blanket indemnity to students who file internal harassment and assault complaints, as they regularly do for faculty and other employees. While the IHE piece is a news story, and so doesn’t take a  position on the matter, it seems to me that the arguments in favor of extending automatic indemnification to student complainants are very strong.
       
      In what follows, I'll explain why I think so.

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