DISQUS

Alex · 1 year ago

I hope that Professor Leiter accepts your apology, although someone of his stature has no such obligation. By the way, your post makes it sound like Professor Leiter's fame derives from his rankings and his blog rather than from his philosophical contributions.

Ben A · 1 year ago

1. Apology? There is no apology here.
2. Nor should there be, Leiter is the offender, not the offended.
3. Alex, you do understand that "stature" is not in this case a relevant moral category, right?
4. Leiter's fame does derive from his rankings. That's not a knock. His work may be stellar for all I know, but plenty of very fine philosophers aren't as well known as Leiter. I can assure you that no one in my grad class (high Leiter rank, by the way) sat around saying "when will Leiter's next paper be published." But everyone wanted to hear about the rankings...

Bobcat · 1 year ago

Leiter's work is well-regarded enough to have made an appearance (twice, I think) in Philosopher's Annual, the collection of the top 10 philosophy articles of the year.

Kerry · 1 year ago

Alex,

Can you point out the apology part? Much obliged.

Oxonian · 1 year ago

Folks, you are missing Alex's sarcasm.

Micha Ghertner · 1 year ago

Subtle, All Too Subtle

webgrrl · 1 year ago

Will, don't let Leiter get to you.

Because he knows you care about the philosophical community, he aims low and diagonally up to your heart with his crack. This is displays his canny instinct of how to really hurt you by getting you where your truth is.

Don't be manipulated by it. Stand your ground, man!

A philosopher · 1 year ago

As a professional philosopher, I will add that Leiter's fame derives from the rankings.

My sense is that he is very very good at the areas of philosophy he studies. However, he also works in unpopular subfields. I don't know anyone who reads his stuff. I think Leiter knows this, and it makes him mad. Gerry Dworkin's work is more widely read, I think.

People in philosophy think Leiter acts like a jerk on his blog, but they don't dare say it in public, because they don't want to invoke his wrath. When people question him for acting like an asshole, he writes defenses of why he should act like an asshole, which is of course an asshole thing to do.

Did you email Leiter and Dworkin to ask them to do your show? If Geoff Sayre-McCord (who is by far a better philosopher than either of them) is willing to do it, shouldn't they?

Jud Dorvits · 1 year ago

Cheer up, Will --- Leiter's ad hominem dismissal of you is far less contemptible than the time that Steve Burton on the "Right Reason" blog wrote a post that was entirely a pastiche of rude things Leiter had said, and Leiter's immediate comment was to 1) attempt to "out" Burton as a homosexual, and 2) pretend to be upset that Burton (apparently an old classmate of Leiter's) had never gotten an academic position. Now THAT was a classic example of Leiter snottiness.

Oxonian · 1 year ago

Burton's blog is now defunct, but you'll find the exchange here.

Jen · 1 year ago

Brian Leiter is notoriously cranky and has gotten into it on the internets with several notables (at least on the legal blogs I read) so....congratulations? You're in good company.

Micha Ghertner · 1 year ago

When playing pin the blame on the deregulators, one should start not with Ayn Rand, but with Brian Leiter, for offering this passionate critique of government regulation:

[T]here is no reason to have confidence that the agents of the state in America will excerise their regulatory powers in the service of human well-being and enlightenment.

Brian Leiter, meet Ronald Coase.

Oxonian · 1 year ago

Brilliant.

Unit · 1 year ago

Go Will!

And I hope you'll keep your show accessible to us ignoramuses.

none · 1 year ago

It's not credible to claim that Leiter's work is marginal in philosophy (check google scholar--those are better than average numbers for a top philosophy program, especially for a historian).

However, his public persona is that of an absolute asshole. He is also rather incompetent as a political commentator, as nicely illustrated by his student Neil Sinhababu. For all of his philosophical training, he resembles nothing so much as Michael Moore, unleashing his rhetorical fury on anything that moves.

The world would be a much better place if he kept to work on legal philosophy, Nietzsche, and the Gourmet Report.

wcyee · 1 year ago

You throw the word "hackery" out there and then get miffed when an insult is returned. I don't get it. I'm not saying you're wrong, just that you need to get tougher skin or be excessively polite in your critiques. At any rate, this is all silly. Free Will and Science Saturdays are the only BHTV bits I watch and they are good.

John Meredith · 1 year ago

"It’s certainly true that I decided I did not want a career as a philosophy professor. But I do think of myself as a practicing philosopher"

Wittgenstein would have approved.

razib · 1 year ago

it's in the scorpion's nature to sting, no? plenty of people have complained about leiter's blog-thuggishness, but does he behave like this in real life? some people at UT told me he was very different in person.

Tim · 1 year ago

You describe Free Will as a "fairly intellectually high-brow show, yet relatively accessible to non-experts." Right on, my friend. The fact that no one would be talking to these folks - or at least not at this level, for this audience - can't be overlooked. If Leiter, whatever his stature, would rather go talk only to philosophers and thinks others should do the same, so be it.

Jud Dorvits · 1 year ago

Your program on BHTV is much more intellectual than anything on Leiter's blog, which is consists almost entirely of academic gossip and political rants (and occasionally amateurish poems). It's not surprising that Leiter is too cowardly to agree to an interview.

DWAnderson · 1 year ago

I don't know what Brian Leiter said (and am not really that interested in finding out), but I wanted to add that one of the great things about the Free Will segments on BloggingHeads.tv is not just the accessability of the diavlogs but more importantly that (i) you cover a lot of ground with your guests in a relatively short period of time, and (ii) the interactive nature of the discussion does a nice job of bringing out the strengths and weaknesses of various positions.

John Meredith · 1 year ago

I have finally strolled over to check out the Leiter blog and it is a peculiar piece of foot stamping, isn't it? Too much time in the Senior Common Room seems to have an infantalising effect on some people. But not even an attempt to address any of the points you raise? I think that is a pretty clear capitulation.

stuart · 1 year ago

I agree with the fans of Free Will. I didn't study any philosophy at college but I've tracked down several books written by guests on the show, which I would not have done otherwise.

I'm guessing I'm not the only one. Since Leiter seems to like Will's guests, he really should be pleased by their increased exposure. And like Will says, it's not like each of them would have spontaneously appeared on Blogginheads, I imagine it takes some organising.

GilM · 1 year ago

Man, I just saw the update A FINAL THOUGHT at Leiter's blog.

I'm afraid he had his final good thought long before he wrote that.

He's not worth any emotional energy. Seems like a jerk who's jealous of Will's popularity and was offended by "professional philosopher." I'd be offended too, if it leads people think of behavior like his.

Michael Drake · 1 year ago

Will, I think you pointlessly dissed Leiter and Dworkin (and they you), but your Bh show is great. Fugedaboudit.

Usyless · 1 year ago

It seems Leiter wants Will to "take responsibility for the comments section of his blog" before he can talk with "grown-ups" like himself or Jerry Dworkin. Execrable condescension aside, can someone explain why Will is responsible for the comments of other people on an essentially open forum?

Bobcat · 1 year ago

If anyone should be held responsible for the comments section on something, perhaps it is Leiter when writes on his blog, in response to an (admittedly silly) article by Ross Douthat: "I invite my many knowledgeable philosophical readers to give this silly man the intellectual drubbing he needs on this subject." See http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2005/02/n....

The Drunken Priest · 1 year ago

Leiter! Well...what a tarantula, in Nietzsche's phrase, always resentful of the superior. In a word, Leiter's piss-poor reasoning powers are the outcome of years and years of peer-reviewed servility, chasing credentialist pats on the head.

What a hypocrite! Nietzchean neither in philosophy nor wit.

daniel1 · 1 year ago

Enough of this. Let it roll off. Some people have a talent for sucking you into their own morass of insecurity.

GilM · 11 months ago

So, it seems like Leiter has done a BloggingHeads.tv diavlog, but with Scott Shapiro on the Hart-Dworkin debate, rather than on Free Will.

---------- · 5 months ago

Brian Leiter is a sad little man with serious psychological problems. This doesn't make his arguments bad (all the time), but it certainly makes him a petty, sniveling whiner---and an asshole. He allows his resentment of anyone with a different opinion than him to force him to act like a total baby (who is the Nietzschean here? Aren't we supposed to be Yes-sayers!?). No one...no one has ever read anything he's ever written other than his bullshit blog which is the only reason he is of the mistaken opinion that he is a 'serious' scholar. His interpretation of Nietzsche is third rate---at best. And unimaginative. It is motivated by the kind of stupidity that only a pernicious ideologue who was neglected as a child can muster. Don't take it too hard that he's attacked you for trying to do something interesting and important. He is the worst kind of philistine--that is, one who does not know that he is tasteless, uninteresting and--overall--a schmuck.