“Philosophy is everybody’s business” – C.I. Lewis

Here is a simple argument: If philosophy is everybody’s business, then the view that it be left to experts is incorrect.  Numerous problems in philosophy seemingly have practical application.  Those problems that have practical application should be of concern to anyone who may encounter them, and they should be problems with which ordinary people can engage. So, philosophy is everybody’s business. Therefore, the view that philosophical problems be addressed only by experts is incorrect. This seems to be the argument of C.I. Lewis in two of his works. I explain below the fold.

Flying Fridays: Is that a drone in my airspace or are you just happy to see me?

Airspace over Denver, CO was a bit more crowded than usual Monday evening (here). A military or law-enforcement drone or remote control model aircraft apparently breached controlled airspace above the mile-high city prompting an investigation by FAA and NTSB officials.  The drone came dangerously close to a Cessna Citation aircraft nearly causing a mid-air collision. The Citation pilot reported the incident to local air traffic controllers but nothing appeared on radar. According to the FAA, there will be over 30,000 unmanned drone aircraft flying over the United States by 2020. Given this recent incident, FAA should rethink its policy on unmanned aircraft working in controlled airspace. There are two reasons for this. First, the skies are crowded enough by manned private, experimental, and commercial aircraft. The addition of more aircraft (unmanned or manned) will push the deficient air traffic control system to a breaking point. Second, unmanned drones are usually piloted by uncertified or novice pilots. Uncertified and novice pilots do not have the air traffic experience necessary to navigate crowded airspaces.  There is no need for the military or law-enforcement to be flying drones over populated areas. Keep them on the military base or away from areas where the unmanned aircraft may cause a lethal accident.

 

Flying Fridays: of underwear bombs and United Flight #232

Everyone has probably heard that the intelligence community has foiled yet another terrorist plot to detonate a bomb on a U.S. bound jet airliner using a device that resembles the “underwear bomb” that was discovered on a Detroit-bound flight a few years ago. Members of the intelligence community and T.S.A. have taken this opportunity to show how the new security measures, though they may be intrusive, are working. I believe that is a bit of a stretch.

One of the most talented aviators, Denny Fitch, lost his battle with cancer on Monday (here). Denny Fitch was a passenger aboard the July 19, 1989 United Flight #232 when the DC-10 lost all hydraulic power after a turbine blade in engine #2 came apart at 37,000 feet. Fitch was a skilled pilot and instructor. When Fitch noticed a problem, he told the flight attendant he was an instructor and volunteered to assist the flight crew. The crew accepted his offer. He entered the cockpit and helped to control the aircraft. The aircraft was diverted to Sioux City, Iowa where it attempted to land cruising at a speed of 250 mph (far exceeding standard landing speed) without elevator, rudder, or flap control. The aircraft veered off the runway, the flight deck was severed on impact, and the fuselage spun into a nearby cornfield. Of the 292 people on board, miraculously, 184 people survived the crash.  The story of the crash has been the subject of a documentary (here), and the last few seconds of the flights voice recorder have been posted to youtube.com (here). The landing was broadcast on television (here; the clip includes the last few seconds of the flight voice recorder).

Schafer Riley redux

A few days ago I blogged about Naomi Schafer Riley’s sloppy blog post concerning the elimination “Black” studies programs in light of what she thought was sub-standard dissertation work (here). Since my blog post, Shafer Riley has been dismissed from her post at The Chronicle of Higher Education (here). She has defended her views in the Wall Street Journal, and the right-wing rag has published an editorial defending Schafer Riley from the “craven” higher education community (I would post a link to both WSJ editorials, but, as you might have guessed it, the rag is too cowardly to post their content online; they have to hide it behind a firewall).  A group called the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (“F.I.R.E.”) has reported on her so-called “critique” of doctoral dissertations in “Black” studies (here). There are some things I don’t understand about this debate.

Who was the smartest person ever?

Who was the smartest person to have ever lived? There have been a lot of intelligent people who have lived and died.  There are probably some really smart people alive today.  There will likely be a lot of smart people who have not even been born yet.  All of this is true.  But, whenever someone poses the question, people inevitably respond with one of the following answers: Einstein. Newton. Plato. Socrates. Columbus (really? really!). Euclid. Copernicus. Galileo.  All of the answers cite famous people.  Famous people, or at least the people one reads in textbooks, they say, are the most intelligent people to have ever lived. Is that really the case? I don’t trust the assumption that famous people are the smartest people to have ever lived.

Johann von Herder, on race and evolution

Herder maintained in Ideas on the Philosophy of the History of Humankind (1784) that every nation contributed to humanity, whatever the so-called differences we may visually perceive between them.  Given such a strong, unifying belief Herder employed, no law that abridged the rights of any people is morally permissible. His views, albeit tremendously admirable given the time in which he lived, seem to impose an overly anti-evolutionary view.

On Schafer Riley’s commentary concerning “Black” studies and her subsequent reply to critics

Naomi Schafer Riley, author of The Faculty Lounges and God on the Quad, has been under fire recently for a blog post she wrote for the Chronicle of Higher Education. Riley has argued (here) that we should eliminate “Black” studies program because the dissertations that have been written in the area are nothing but “political partisanship and liberal hackery.” She supports her argument by citing several titles of recent dissertations written at Northwestern University’s program. Critics of Riley’s arguments have responded in kind by pointing out that she doesn’t have a Ph.D., that she doesn’t respect minorities experiences, or that she hasn’t read the dissertations to know enough about the contributions the dissertations make to the discipline.  Although I agree with the last criticism, I believe that there is a far greater worry we should have about Riley’s claim that hasn’t been pointed out. Ultimately, I believe that her argument should extend to other disciplines she may find worthwhile. There are plenty of dissertations written for business D.B.A.s, e.g., that have little to no value, and so, by her own lights, we should eliminate business departments too.

Flying Fridays: distracted pilots

A JetStar captain distracted by his cell phone forgot to deploy the A320′s landing gear while on final approach at Changi International Airport in Singapore.  The first officer felt “something was not quite right,” but neither crew member discovered the oversight until an automated warning sounded. The landing was aborted after a second warning sounded around 400 feet.  According to the captain, other factors played a role in the accident than just the cell phone. (story here)

Cell phones are great devices, but there are some places where they ought not be allowed. Commercial airplane cockpits are one place where cell phones ought to be prohibited. Commercial airline pilots are responsible for the lives of the plane’s crew and passengers. Anything that distracts the pilot from discharging his duty jeopardizes the lives of passengers and crew members. Thus, airline pilots ought not carry cell phones into the cockpit.

A critic might argue that cell phones don’t cause the pilot to be distracted. The pilot is not paying attention, and this incident could have occurred even if the cell phone wasn’t present. I don’t see how this argument is relevant against the view I have favored in this post. The captain was distracted by the cell phone. Although the captain certainly could have ignored the cell phone, the captain chose to fiddle with it in flight.  Because doing so compromised the safety of passengers and crew, the cell phone was part of the captain’s failing to deploy the landing gear.

Cell phones distract their owners, whether it’s in an automobile or in a cockpit. People need to put cell phones away while driving or flying.

Emigration, a pragmatic perspective

Gratiaetnatura posted a few days ago on a person’s motivation to emigrate from the United States (here). I did not comment on his post because I wanted to talk about reasons for emigrating in my own blog. Only recently have I begun applying to academic positions outside the United States. This is the first year I have considered doing so, and, if offered a position (particularly ones that are equivalent to tenure-track positions in the United States) elsewhere in the world, I would likely accept it unconditionally.  By “unconditionally” I mean that I would accept the position with the view in mind that I would stay there as long as they (the university and the country) will have me. I explain my reasons for this here.

Research Professors

Numerous categories of academic jobs exist. The most common job in academics, e.g., lecturers or assistant professors, divide time roughly equally between three areas of responsibility: research, teaching, and service.  Depending on the kind of institution matters for how the professor is expected to divide their time.  Research institutions, particularly R-1 state universities emphasize research over teaching and service.  Teaching institutions believe teaching is paramount to research and service.  Private liberal arts colleges, such as Davidson College (NC) or William and Mary (VA), reflect the importance of both research and teaching.

Research involves publishing works in refereed academic journals and books. The teaching portion calls for the person to teach a number of classes.  The usual teaching load is three classes per semester, but the university may call for the person to teach as many as four classes per semester or as few as two classes per semester. (When an academic professional says they have a “x/x teaching load”, they mean that x corresponds with the number of courses they are required to teach per semester.) Finally, service includes the work the person performs for the university and for the profession. Serving on university-wide or college-wide (within the university) committees satisfies the service component. Refereeing articles or books for conferences or for academic publishers satisfies service component for the profession. Some positions, however, do not require the person to divide time between these three areas. The one I would like to discuss in this post is the person hired as a research professor.

I am discussing this position because of a discussion I witnessed on Facebook recently. In that discussion, a person (who will, of course, remain anonymous) claimed that if a university hires a research professor, then the person needs only to do his/her own research to perform the job well.  I believe this is a serious misunderstanding.