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!)
By: Samir Chopra
A couple of years ago, after reading Neil Gross' excellent biography of Richard Rorty, I sent him a short note of appreciation, telling him how much I enjoyed his book. Gross wrote back; he was clearly pleasantly surprised to have received my email.
I mention this correspondence because it is an instance of an act that I ought to indulge in far more often but almost never do: writing to let an author–especially an academic one!–know you enjoyed his or her work.
Most academic writing is read by only a few readers: some co-workers in a related field of research, some diligent graduate students, perhaps the odd deluded, excessively indulgent family member. (I am not counting those unfortunate spouses, like mine, who have been pressed into extensive editorial service for unfinished work. These worthies deserve our unstinting praise and are rightfully generously acknowledged in our works.) Many, many academic trees fall in the forest with no one to hear them.
This state of affairs holds for many other kinds of writers, of course. Online, even if we know someone is reading our writing we might not know whether they thought it was any good; we might note the number of hits on our blogs but remain unaware of whether our words resonated with any of our readers. The unfortunate converse is true; comments spaces tell us, loudly and rudely, just how poor our arguments are, how pointless our analysis, how ineffective our polemicizing. There is no shortage of critique, not at all.
It is a commonplace point to direct at academic writers that their work needs to be made relevant and accessible. Fair enough. I think though, that our tribe would greatly benefit from some positive reader feedback when these standards–besides the usual scholarly ones–are met. Academics often write to one another, indicating their interest in a common field of study, the value of their correspondent's writing, and sometimes asking for copies of papers. To these existent epistolary relationships I suggest we add the merely appreciative note: I enjoyed your writing and here is why.
These notes are not mere acts of kindness, a dispensing of charity as it were. They encourage and sustain a useful species of human activity. They create an atmosphere, I think, conducive to scholarship and to further striving toward excellence. They make a writer want more of the same.
I know we're all busy, but the next time you read something you like, see if you can send the writer a little thank-you note. You don't have to do it all the time, but sometimes wouldn't hurt.
Go ahead: reach out and touch someone.
Note: This post was originally published–under the same title–at samirchopra.com. As I noted then, I was prompted to write it by receiving an email from a doctoral student at Cambridge who had read some of my work and found it useful. As I said then, "The almost absurd pleasure I received on reading his email was a wistful reminder of just how much we crave this sort of contact."
by Eric Schwitzgebel
… here!
This mega-list of about 360 recommendations is compiled from the lists I’ve been rolling out on The Splintered Mind over the past several weeks. Thirty-four professional philosophers and two prominent science fiction / speculative fiction (SF) authors with graduate training in philosophy each contributed a list of ten personal favorite “philosophically interesting” SF works, with brief “pitches” for each recommended work.
I have compiled two mega-lists, organized differently. One mega-list is organized by contributor, so that you can see all of Scott Bakker’s recommendations, then all of Sara Bernstein’s recommendations, etc. It might be useful to skim through to see whose tastes you seem to share and then look at what other works that person recommends.
The other mega-list is organized by author (or director or TV series), to highlight authors (directors / TV shows) who were most often recommended by the list contributors.
The most recommended authors were:
Recommended by 11 contributors:
Recommended by 8:
Discussions of European identity, and the history mostly revolve round two points of reference. One goes back to the origin of modern usage of Europe and European in the eight century around the struggle between Christian Franks and Muslim Moors, and then round the Frankish king Charlemagne who received the title of Emperor of the Romans, an event which questions the claim of the eastern and Greek Roman Empire, Byzantium, to continue the legacy of Rome there is an obvious religious focus here, which is Catholic Roman Christians as against Orthodox Greek Christians, and a Christian struggle against Islam. In Charlemagne's reign the struggle to Christianise pagans is still very much an issue in northern Europe. So this is the Europe which is Catholic Christian, Frankish, and western Roman.
The other point of reference, one thousand years later, is the Enlightenment, so an origin in cosmopolitanism, rationalism, ethical universalism, secularism, and science is suggested. The Enlightenment does have a historical and geographical location in Europe, and particular concentrations within Europe. The most important focus for the cosmopolitan rationalist understanding of Europe is Königsberg, though purely Königsberg as the city of Kant. Kant is generally understood through his links to the west, to Scottish Enlightenment, the Enlightened despotism of Frederick the Great in Berlin, the Swiss-French Rousseau, and so on. Frederick II, King of Prussia was ruing over Kant's location in East Prussia, but from Brandenburg and within the boundaries of the new Rome (in practice the German Empire) of Charlemagne.
This is a guest post by Mitchell Aboulafia. It's a bit long, but it's worth reading in its entirety. I don't necessarily endorse any particular part of it, but I think it makes some excellent points, especially about lack of transparency. This feature in particular is, in my view, not tolerable given the enormous influence the report has; an influence that is aided, in no small part, by the very cooperation of the group of evaluators that the letter is addressed to.
Mtichell's post comes, in its entirety, after the break:
By: Samir Chopra
This is a story about rankings. Not of philosophy departments but of law schools. It is only tangentially relevant to the current, ongoing debate in the discipline about the Philosophical Gourmet Report. Still, some might find it of interest. So, without further ado, here goes.
By Catarina Dutilh Novaes
You have to be a full professor, that’s what it takes. This is an entirely absurd, obsolete system – in particular in view of the fact that many PhD studentships are financed by external funding obtained by researchers who cannot be the official supervisors of these students (and who in practice do all the supervising work). The system is not only unfair; it is also nefarious for the functioning of academia in the Netherlands as a whole. (See a statement (in Dutch) by three philosophers and members of the Young Academy of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences – Ingrid Robeyns, Arianna Betti and Peter-Paul Verbeek – with nine objections to the current system.)
Reinhard Muskens, a very distinguished logician-linguist-philosopher at the University of Tilburg, has started a petition asking the board of his university to revise this policy and extend the rights to be the official supervisor of a PhD thesis to non-full professors. Muskens himself has attracted very large amounts of external funding in his long and fruitful career as a researcher, has de facto supervised a number of PhD students, but still does not have what is referred to as ‘promotion rights’ around here.
New APPS 