I read Leiter Reports for the professional philosophy news, but am really glad he doesn’t do nearly as much political blogging as he used to. Recently, he put up a post quoting something Jerry Dworkin had said about Greenspan, and Leiter followed this up with a non-blockquoted “Put this together with Keynes:… and we get Ayn Rand as an important cause of the catastrophe we are in.”
Will Wilkinson found this, and posted a reply that began, “In a frankly embarrassing Naomi Klein/J. Edgar Hoover-like wishful ideological free association, Brian Leiter, a professional philosopher, suggests we pin the financial crisis on Ayn Rand.” In response, both Leiter and Dworkin were shocked at the suggestion that Leiter said what he plainly did say.
Oddly, Wilkinson has expressed a willingness to kinda-sorta go along with the idea that Leiter didn’t say what he plainly said. I posted a comment there referencing this fact, maybe Wilkinson will reply.
Incidentally, Dworkin’s rather insubstantial reply to Will has some nice bit for doing philosophy of language on–I’ll will try to remember to do that, some day.
Except that Leiter didn’t “plainly say it”. He was discussing Dworkin’s view. He never specifically endorses the idea, he’s presenting what someone else has said.
Of course those sections aren’t blockquoted, they aren’t direct quotes, but Leiter’s own paraphrasing of Dworkin’s point. That’s fairly obvious to me.
But he was throwing in other sources, doing his own analysis.