Debating debates, with men (just men)

From Philos-l:

The Philosophy Faculty at the New College of the Humanities (NCH) and the Duesseldorf Centre for Logic and Philosophy of Science (DCLPS) are pleased to announced the one-day workshop: Debating Debates.

The workshop aims to bring together scholars engaged in debating the conditions under which object-level debates are worth having and hence in the corresponding meta-level debates. Two specific areas are used as case studies: meta-ontology and the debate surrounding the scientific realism debate. We hope that by transcending the particularities of their areas, scholars can find out whether anything general can be said about when and why object-level debates are worthwhile.

Date: 10 November 2017
Location:
New College of the Humanities, 19 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3HH

Speakers and Provisional Programme:

09:15 – 09:30 Welcome Note
09:30 – 10:30 Matti Eklund (Uppsala)
10:30 – 10:45 Coffee Break
10:45 – 11:45 Brian Ball (NCH)
11:45 – 12:00 Coffee Break
12:00 – 13:00 Simon Blackburn (Cambridge)
13:00 – 14:30 Lunch Break
14:30 – 15:30 Ioannis Votsis (NCH)
15:30 – 16:30 Juha Saatsi (Leeds)
16:30 – 16:45 Coffee Break
16:45 – 17:45 Gerhard Schurz (Duesseldorf)

Sexual harassment as scientific misconduct

The American Geophysical Union (AGU) Board of Directors has approved changes to the AGU Scientific Integrity and Professional Ethics Policy. The revisions adopted on 14 September were made in response to a June 2016 decision by AGU leadership, under then AGU President Margaret Leinen, to form a task force to review the organization’s ethics policy and practices in the wake of high-profile cases alleging sexual harassment in science…

Changes to the policy include identifying as scientific misconduct harassment, discrimination, and bullying in scientific endeavors.

Most notably, changes to the policy include identifying as scientific misconduct harassment, discrimination, and bullying in scientific endeavors.

 

More here.

 

Mercer on the invention of the “modern era”

Christia Mercer, in The Stone, on the way that the history of philosophy was rewritten, with the effect of making the women invisible.

This 19th-century invention of the “modern era” excised 17th- and 18th-century philosophy of its theological and religious underpinnings — and its women, whether they were overtly theological or not. Even influential Enlightenment figures like the natural philosopher, Émilie Du Châtelet, were ignored, not to mention the contributions of significant 17th-century radical thinkers like Margaret Cavendish and Anne Conway, a favorite of Leibniz.

UK to crack down on sexist ads

I was travelling when this happened, so just hear about it today.

One ad for baby formula showed a little girl growing up to be a ballerina and a little boy becoming a mathematician.

Another ad, for a weight-loss drink, asked if viewers were “beach body ready” and showed a bikini-wearing woman whose bronzed image, critics said, promoted an unrealistic standard of beauty.

A third ad, for the video game “Game of War,” showed the American actress Kate Upton scantily dressed on a horse, making it seem as though sexual desirability were a prerequisite for leadership.

Britain’s advertising regulator, reacting to these ads and similar ones, announced Tuesday that new rules would be developed to ban advertising that promotes gender stereotypes or denigrates people who do not conform to them; sexually objectifies women; or promotes unhealthy body images.