Newshound Issue 23 [柏拉图的真面目？][英国哲学系排名风波][Amazon热卖的5部哲学书][哲学家Rolston获百万美元大奖][尼采发疯的迷思]…… The true face of Plato? An archaeologist at the University of California at Berkeley claims that a marble bust of Plato, long believed to be a fake, is not only genuine but may also be an accurate representation of the great philosopher’s face. Stephen G Miller conducted tests on the herm (a bust and square pedestal) and concluded that it dates back to approximately 125 AD. Although this is several centuries after Plato’s death, Miller claims it is a replica of a Greek original from about 360 BCE, when Plato was still alive. The herm was first acquired for the UC Berkeley Hearst Museum a hundred years ago, when it was purchased on behalf of Phoebe Hearst, a benefactress of the museum. The provenance of the herm was always considered dubious, and confirmation of its inauthenticity seemed to come in 1966 when graduate student R J Smutney declared it a fake. Miller’s claim that the bust may provide an accurate depiction of the philosopher is based partly on the fact that the visage does not conform to the stereotypical form of "the philosopher" to which later depictions conformed. What initially fascinated Miller was the ribbon which was draped over Plato’s head and onto his shoulders, a type of award given to ancient Olympic athletes, the subject of Miller’s research. Later depictions showed Plato with long tresses rather than ribbons. Plato is known to have been an enthusiast of athletic competition and visited the Olympic games and trained as a wrestler. Laboratory tests also show that the bust and pedestal are both made from Parian marble, the stone of choice for ancient sculptors.   Times tables don’t add up British philosophers have been by turns baffled and outraged by a new ranking of their departments published in The Times Good University Guide, which has also featured prominently in both The Times and the Times Higher Education Supplement. The rankings are based on an overall score out of 100 which is calculated by a combination of Teaching Quality Assurance (TQA) and Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) scores, and the grades achieved by students in their A-levels – the examinations that are generally used to determine university entry. The resulting league table puts Cambridge in first place, ahead of Oxford, with Warwick in third. But this is not where the surprises end. Brighton is ranked fifth equal, while Reading languishes in 19th place, followed by University College London. Indeed, the rankings bear little relation to either general reputation or the other main ranking methods. Reading, for example, ranks fourth equal in the Philosophical Gourmet report (See News, TPM 21) where UCL is ranked seventh, while Warwick and Brighton don’t even make the top fifteen. In the RAE rankings, top marks went to only five institutions, among them the London School of Economics – which is 14th in The Times’ rankings – and Edinburgh, which is 22nd. The guide’s editor, John O’Leary, acknowledges the rankings "still have their critics" but adds, "like them or loathe them, few universities can afford to ignore them." But this is just what worries philosophers. O’Leary’s claim that "prospective students and their mentors … take increasing notice of the results" may be seen by him as evidence of their importance, but will be taken by many as evidence of their perniciousness. Even the main beneficiary – Brighton – issued a statement rejecting the rankings. "We are not simply without respect for such rankings; we regard the manner in which they are contrived with contempt," said the eleven staff involved in teaching philosophy at the university. How the top fives compare The Times 1 Cambridge 2 Oxford 3 Warwick 4 King’s College London (KCL) 5=Brighton 5=Sheffield Gourmet report 1 Oxford 2 Cambridge 3 St Andrews 4=Birkbeck 4=KCL 4=Reading RAE 5* departments Cambridge Edinburgh KCL London School of Economics Oxford   Open Court cleans up Take the Amazon.com top 25 philosophy bestsellers on 12 May 2003, remove the classics, reprints, new age and self-help books that all get thrown into the mix, and what are you left with in the top five? The answer is a list dominated by Open Court’s phenomenally successful Philosophy and Popular Culture series (see Reporter, TPM 22). The Matrix effect also sees Jean Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation at number two in the equivalent Amazon.co.uk rankings. A hollowed-out edition of the book (clever twist, eh?) is used by Keanu Reeves’s character to store his illicit virtual reality chips. What else could explain the sudden popularity in America of a ten-year old postmodernist work from the land of the "cheese-eating surrender monkeys"? (Talking of which, we would like to reassure enemies of President Chirac that the title of Dan Dennett’s book has not, like fries, been patriotically changed, and hence has never been known as French Evolves.) 1 Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy: Fear and Trembling in Sunnydale, Ed. James B South (Open Court) 2 Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain, Antonio Damasio (Harcourt) 3 The Matrix and Philosophy: Welcome to the Desert of the Real, Ed. William Irwin (Open Court) 4 The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D’oh! of Homer, Ed. William Irwin (Open Court) 5 Freedom Evolves, Daniel C Dennett (Viking) Source: Amazon.com   Rolston’s million Philosopher Holmes Rolston III has been awarded the 2003 Templeton Prize, worth over $1 million. The Templeton Prize is awarded for "progress toward research or discoveries about spiritual realities". It is one of the world’s most prestigious awards for religious learning and has been won by Mother Teresa of Calcutta, mathematical physicist Paul Davies, and John Polkinghorne, a reconciler of the Big Bang and religion. The prize’s cash value is always more than that of the Nobels, because its founder, Sir John Templeton, thought spiritual advancement should be seen as more important than advancement in the sciences. Professor Rolston’s work has been in the field of environmental ethics. He has argued that there is a religious imperative to respect nature and that the natural world has intrinsic value. He has also previously given the Univeristy of Edinburgh’s prestigious Gifford Lectures in 1997/98. If he is not as well-known a figure in philosophy as his latest accolade might suggest, that is probably because his religious perspective is so central to his thought, which lends it more of a theological than philosophical character. Rolston received his prize from The Duke of Edinburgh in a private ceremony at Buckingham Palace. He told BBC Online that he plans to give the prize money to fund a new professorship in science and religion at his alma mater Davidson College in North Carolina, where he studied physics 50 years ago. "That is where I got my start," he said, "and in the future I want the same possibilities for others to think about science and religion."   Nietzsche’s mad myth A doctor has cast severe doubt on the received wisdom that Nietzsche’s dementia was caused by a form of syphilis. In an article published in the Royal Society of Medicine’s Journal of Medical Biography, Leonard Sax argues that his madness was rather the result of a kind of usually benign brain tumour: a meningioma. Sax, executive director of the Montgomery Center for Research in Child and Adolescent Development, argues that there is no record of Nietzsche suffering any of the symptoms associated with paretic syphilis, the diagnosis at the time of his admission to a psychiatric asylum in Basel in January 1889. Even a psychiatrist who analysed Nietzsche’s journal shortly after his death from pneumonia at an asylum in Jena in August 1900 thought its contents alone provided sufficient evidence that Nietzsche had not succumbed to the dementia associated with syphilis. Sax argues that Nietzsche’s final breakdown was the culmination of a far longer process more consistent with a meningioma. Syphilis takes hold faster and patients do not survive as long as Nietzsche did after his breakdown. Sax also points out that bizarre-sounding and grandiose claims were not confined to the last years of Nietzsche’s life, suggesting they were not caused by the sudden onset of syphilis. A meningioma, on the other hand, develops over years and could have been the cause of Nietzsche’s long history of bad headaches – usually assumed to be migraines – and visual disturbances. Sax explains the persistence of the syphilis myth for historic and contemporary reasons. At the time of his death Nietzsche was not well known, and when he was transferred to the Jena asylum he was lodged in a second rather than first class ward, since that was all his mother could afford. The diagnosis of paretic syphilis was therefore made rather casually, on the basis that it was the default diagnosis for middle aged men with dementia. The myth persisted, according to Sacks, because it fitted the picture people wanted to paint of this controversial figure, especially after he was appropriated by the Nazis. The authority for the claim snowballed, in that once it became a matter of record that he contracted syphilis, the record simply went on reasserting itself. Journal of Medical Biography: www.rsmpress.co.uk/jmb.htm   New RAE row The integrity of the cornerstone of funding for philosophy in higher education has been called into question by a philosopher who has expressed concern about details of the last Research Assessment Exercise. The RAE is designed to assess the quality of research in UK higher education, and its results are crucial in determining the amount of funding philosophy departments receive. Many philosophers despise the system but until now its rigour has rarely been called into question. But Alex Miller, formerly a senior research fellow at Cardiff University and now at Macquarie University in Sydney, has raised questions about Bradford University’s RAE submission. Although he is not claiming that anyone has broken any rules or behaved inappropriately, he does think that the submission calls into question the thoroughness of the RAE. The panel which judges the RAE submissions is supposed to "view the degree to which cited works have been subject to rigorous editorial or refereeing processes as an indicator of quality." In the case of Bradford, however, several of the works submitted by three out of the four philosophers there were refereed by fellow members of the department. Of Robin Fellows’ four submissions, one was for the journal edited by his head of department Anthony O’Hear, and another in a book edited by O’Hear. One of O’Hear’s submissions is also a chapter in a book edited by Fellows, while another is a chapter in a book which is a supplement for the Royal Institute of Philosophy, of which O’Hear is the director. Finally, one of Friedel Weinert’s submissions is also a chapter of a book edited by O’Hear. Miller posted his concerns to the email list of the UK philosophical community, Philos-L, and to O’Hear and David Evans, the chair of the philosophy RAE research panel, inviting them to reply to the list. At the time of going to press, neither had done so. Others have, however, and both Robin Cameron and Dan Hutto have pointed out that the RAE panel actually has to read and judge the quality of the submitted work for itself. And RAE guidelines say "outputs not already subject to a review or refereeing process will not automatically be regarded as of lesser quality." Hutto concludes, "Unless one has actually read all of the research output submitted by researchers at Bradford and put it through a similar process of intersubjective assessment, on what basis can one justifiably second guess the judgement of the panel?" Miller is not accusing any of the philosophers involved of cheating, collusion or breaking any rules. He is, however, concerned that the integrity of the RAE ratings is weakened if it is possible for a department to be awarded a good 4 rating in the RAE, as Bradford was, when such a large proportion of its submissions come from, in effect, internally assessed publications.   History in verse Prof. Timothy Sprigge’s unique history of western philosophy is now available online. It comprises 25 limericks and contains, among other gems, the rhyming of "Hegel" with "inveigle". It is available on a new site dedicated to Prof. Sprigge’s work, www.channel1.com/users/srbayne/Sprigge3.htm.   Grayling on Booker panel Philosopher A C Grayling is one of the five judges for this year’s Man Booker Prize, the most prestigious award for fiction in the British Commonwealth and Ireland. The winner will be announced in October. Last year’s winner was Yann Martel’s Life of Pi.   Class of 2003 Half a dozen philosophers have been elected to join the United States’ elite learned society, The American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Fellowships have been awarded to Fred Dretske (Stanford University); Hartry Field (New York Univeristy); Thomas E Hill, Jr (University of North Carolina), Mary Mothersill (Barnard College) and Philip L Quinn (University of Notre Dame). In addition, Anthony Kenny (Oxford University) was elected a Foreign Honorary Member, the class of membership open to non-US citizens.   New journal Enterprising graduates at University College London have launched a new student philosophy journal, The London Journal of Philosophy. Edited by Alex Voorhoeve, the first issue contains articles from the 2002 UCL undergraduate conference, along with one new paper. It can be read online www.ucl.ac.uk/philosophy/main.htm. Click on the "journals" link. http://www.philosophersmag.com/article.php?id=710