Matthew Braham

Professor of Practical Philosophy, University of Hamburg
Decision and Game Theory, Social Choice, Moral and Political Philosophy

[Matthew Braham @MatthewBraham1]

@BachAndRabelais By all normal standards I know of and apply: unequivocal yes.
Is it punishable by all known standards I apply: unequivocal yes.
Should plagiarism be punished? Please bear with me: this is a question about grounding an obligation that I have not thought much about. I abstain.

[Matthew Braham @MatthewBraham1]

Cofnas Affair: I am reposting this letter because it gives a useful Ghent view to the situation. I do so without endorsing it. I am not a signatory.

[Gillian Mathys @MathysGill18843]

We have written a statement in support of Ghent Uni's decision to suspend Nathan Cofnas. We resist attempts to frame this as a punishment for "whistleblowing" or censorship of "controversial research". Please sign if you support our message.

https://t.co/oPj5FAm57I

[Matthew Braham @MatthewBraham1]

@InsurgentMemory Please list these topics that are controversial. I am tired of the constant contrarianism. Maybe they are not controversial at all. Just made so to stir up the base. For heavens sake, we need a quiet, reflective, analytic culture. Not constant culture wars.

[Matthew Braham @MatthewBraham1]

@epkaufm @spikedonline Wait. Suppose that a majority of the population harboured racist values as given by an opinion survey ( ah hypothetical). What would you say then?

[Matthew Braham @MatthewBraham1]

@aryehazan @kevinnbass Gentlemen, I am truly perplexed or just dumb. Why this fascination with this topic? Push this a bit further and we will indeed have blond aryanism running over my country again. It'll be discovered I'm only half goyim and then destined for expulsion from my civil service status.

[Matthew Braham @MatthewBraham1]

@ObhishekSaha John Locke in Letters on Toleration would beg to differ. Viewpoint diversity is theoretical. The moment it becomes a call to arms to overthrow the order, toleration has had its limit. But this does present a problem: Marxists also want to overthrow the status quo. Troubled times.

[Matthew Braham @MatthewBraham1]

@chromotorque @aryehazan And here Cofnas just does not get it. He is philosophically unsophisticated and is indeed allied with some very strange alt-right shakers and thinkers.

[Matthew Braham @MatthewBraham1]

Arday/Cofnas: Set the plagiarism aside. Assume it true. If we are honest, with regard to academic freedom, we have to ask, why is Cofnas's pseudoscience hereditarianism accepted under academic freedom, but Arday's sociology not? And surely that freedom also includes his fabulism?

[Matthew Braham @MatthewBraham1]

@chromotorque @aryehazan I never disputed the the fact of inheritance of intelligence. Not once. It is far more subtle than that. I said that we have no mechanism to explain variations among populations.

[Matthew Braham @MatthewBraham1]

@chromotorque @aryehazan Where I say: "Halt! Who goes there?" is when we move on to the policy implications ... then all bets are off and it gets toxic almost immediately for a reason. Deep inset and almost genetic beliefs that drive our reactions to "otherness".

[Matthew Braham @MatthewBraham1]

@chromotorque @aryehazan And my mother was an artist ... but now suppose we have two populations with these differences. It is just lazy to say: all in the genes. That becomes almost unfalsifiable. We need specific propositions. Its interesting and I would never deny anyone wanting to research it.

[Matthew Braham @MatthewBraham1]

@chromotorque @aryehazan On the heredity. My father was a prof of philosophy ... my other son is an architecht, their mother was a budding artist. Of course we noticed the traits before environmental influence.

[Matthew Braham @MatthewBraham1]

@chromotorque @aryehazan Its a bit like the problem in growth theory in economics. We have two different levels of growth and an enexplained residual that economists do not know how to fill in

[Matthew Braham @MatthewBraham1]

@BachAndRabelais @enzoreds What was the exact question? I can't find it in the thread.

[Matthew Braham @MatthewBraham1]

@aryehazan Here's a suggestion. Read his paper in Psych & Phil. Decide for yourself if it standup to the rigour of our discussion. Check the last section on justice. I like your curt style. Short but substantial. Your students are fortunate.

[Matthew Braham @MatthewBraham1]

@chromotorque @aryehazan Things are are not true or false. Things exist or not. Propositions are true or false. And it gets messy. All the benefits of science that you experience have been achieved exactly through this kind of reasoning. Strictly speaking "observationally true" is meaningless phrase.

[Matthew Braham @MatthewBraham1]

@chromotorque @aryehazan Have you seen an electron?

[Matthew Braham @MatthewBraham1]

@Bumbled0re_ @JP_Blou @Jaccusepaper Interesting, making a considered judgement based on fact is a normie? Fine by me. Few around. I took normies to be unreflective gut based decision-makers.

[Matthew Braham @MatthewBraham1]

@KorbinianRueger The problem: its indefensible. In the post-Arday era utter madness. What you are saying is: dam I have to agree with such an A_____ for once. Horrible, I know. But many things can be true at once. This appointment is dumb, the AfD insufferable, an insufferable says something true

[Matthew Braham @MatthewBraham1]

@Bumbled0re_ @JP_Blou @Jaccusepaper I made a judgement on the basis of what you said and its correspodence to the political ideas found in Cofnas. I do not have any such information on anyone else.

[Matthew Braham @MatthewBraham1]

@sabinedoering @ArndPollmann I said, down and sideways. But could not happen here as she does not even have a Dr. And the conversion you mention is a problem. It does a huge amount of damage.