Zach Ernst writes about unprincipled denial of tenure

Philosopher Zach Ernst writes about his female colleague and wife who was just denied tenure by her department:

She was also specifically faulted for failing to design new courses for the department. If this strikes you as odd, it should – after all, I have also never designed a new course for the department. Nor was I ever asked to do so. But in my case, this issue never arose. Finally, with respect to her teaching, she was faulted for not teaching a wide enough variety of courses. But as I’ve already mentioned, our courses are assigned by fiat by the chair of the department, without our input or approval. And as you might expect by now, this issue never arose during my tenure process, despite the fact that both she and I taught exactly what we were assigned. Regarding her research, she was faulted because several of her papers were co authored – and as I’ve mentioned already, co-authored work and collaboration of any kind is discouraged in our department. However, a much larger percentage of my own publications were co-authored, often with three other colleagues. And predictably, this issue about co-authored publications was never raised during my tenure review. In fact, our department had recently adopted a policy about credit for co-authored work, which was scrupulously followed by both of us. If anyone should have come under criticism for this issue, it should have been me. I could go on. She had a vastly greater number of more prestigious presentations than I have ever had, many of which were in international forums (none of mine were). She had a larger number of invited articles to the most prestigious presses in her field, many more than I have ever had, despite the fact that I am two years senior to her. And despite all of this, my tenure case was a breeze, and hers has been a failure. When a man and a woman are being evaluated in a male-dominated field such as ours, it’s easy to spot hypocrisy and sexism. I would submit that this is one such case.

Here is the link to the full article. I have seen this happen repeatedly in recent times. Women are held to much higher standards than men in tenure and promotion cases.

Dan Ariely on our buggy moral code

This is not a new video but I think it's pretty interesting.

Seeing as a Non-Sensory Relation: The Case from Synesthesia and Visual Imagery

A friend of mine recently asked me whether I thought synesthesia has any philosophical consequences or is just an independently interesting phenomenon. I think it has numerous philosophical consequences. In this paper I outline some consequences of synesthesia for the analysis of the concept of seeing. This is still just a rough draft. Comments are welcome.

Center for Neurodynamics

I just accepted an appointment at the Center for Neurodynamics, directed by physicist Sonya Barhar, at University of Missouri, St. Louis. So my time will be split among my current two departments and the center. I am really looking forward to collaborating with these people. I have also joined the Network for Sensory Research as a research associate. That should be really fun, too.

Non-Visual Consciousness and Visual Images in Blindsight

Consciousness and Cognition recently published this response paper to my paper "Are there unconscious perceptual processes?". They have invited me to write a 1000 word reply. Here is a rough draft of my reply: Non-Visual Consciousness and Visual Images in Blindsight. Comments are welcome.

Interesting very short video of famous people's failures

Free Access to Erkenntnis Articles

As Hannes Leitgeb just pointed out on PHILOS-L, all articles in Erkenntnis will be freely available from now until December 31st, 2011. Here is the link.

St. Louis Graduate Conference CFP

University of Missouri-St. Louis
March 9-11, 2012 Gateway Graduate Conference in Philosophy

Keynote Speakers:

Amie L. Thomasson, University of Miami
Gillian Russell, Washington University
Berit Brogaard, University of Missouri-Saint Louis

Call For Papers

The graduate students of the University of Missouri-St. Louis invite high quality paper submissions in the areas of metaphysics, ontology, ethics and related subjects in the philosophy of art.

Submission guidelines

● Presenters must be college/university students or postgraduate students.

● Papers must be suitable for a 25 to 30 minute presentation (not to exceed 3500 words or roughly 10–12 pages).

● Papers must be prepared for blind review. All identifying information, including paper title, name, email and 300 words (or less) abstract, must be placed on a separate cover page.

● Email submissions, in either *.pdf, *.docx, *.doc, or *.rft format, and all inquiries to Hannah Bondurant at habkvf@mail.umsl.edu or John Camacho at jac68d@mail.umsl.edu by January 2nd 2012.

The Epistemology of Perception

I recently guest-edited a volume of Philosophical Issues on the epistemology of perception. It just came out in print. Contributors include: Roger Albritton (hitherto unpublished paper), Louise Antony, Berit Brogaard, Tony Brueckner, Benj Hellie, Mark Johnston, Mark Kalderon, Uriah Kriegel, Heather Logue, Jack Lyons, Farid Masrour, Alan Millar, Martine Nida-Ruemelin, Adam Pautz, Duncan Pritchard, Roy Sorensen, David Sosa, Matthew Soteriou, Charles Travis, Brian Cutter and Michael Tye.

The Ethics of Sex and Love

For those of you in the St. Louis area: I am on a panel with my colleagues John Brunero and Eric Wiland on the topic "The Ethics of Sex and Love". It will take place in Century Room C, University of Missouri, St. Louis, Tuesday, November 15, 2011, 12:30 to 2 pm. The public advertisement promises a bit more than we can deliver: "Come to a Q&A with John Brunero, Brit Brogaard, and Eric Wiland to figure out what is naughty and nice in life".