James Fetzer Ph.D Original Air date 11-05-18 (Videotaped 10-30-18 )

James H. Fetzer was born in Pasadena, California, on 6 December 1940. At graduation from South Pasadena High School in 1958, he was presented The Carver Award for leadership. He was magna cum laude in philosophy at Princeton University in 1962, where his senior thesis for Carl G. Hempel on the logical structure of explanations of human behavior won The Dickinson Prize. After being commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in the Marine Corps, he became an artillery officer and served in the Far East. After a tour supervising recruit training in San Diego, he resigned his commission as a Captain to begin graduate work in the history and philosophy of science at Indiana in 1966. He completed his Ph.D. with a dissertation on probability and explanation for Wesley C. Salmon in 1970.
His initial faculty appointment was at the University of Kentucky, where he received the first Distinguished Teaching Award presented by the Student Government to 1 of 135 assistant professors. Since 1977, he has taught at a wide range of institutions of higher learning, including the Universities of Virginia (twice), Cincinnati, North Carolina at Chapel Hill, New College of the University of South Florida, and now the Duluth campus of the University of Minnesota, where he served from 1987 until his retirement in 2006. His honors include a research fellowship from the National Science Foundation and The Medal of the University of Helsinki. In 1996, he became one of the first ten faculty at the University of Minnesota to be appointed a Distinguished McKnight University Professor.
He has published more than 100 articles and reviews and 20 books in the philosophy of science and on the theoretical foundations of computer science, artificial intelligence, and cognitive science. On this web page, his publications have been divided by area, including special vitae for computer science, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, evolution and cognition, and his applied philosophical research on the death of JFK. His biographical sketch has appeared in many reference works, including the DIRECTORY OF AMERICAN SCHOLARS, WHO'S WHO IN THE MIDWEST, WHO'S WHO IN AMERICA, and WHO'S WHO IN THE WORLD. It may be found, for example, in the DIRECTORY OF AMERICAN SCHOLARS, 10th edition, WHO'S WHO IN AMERICA, 55th edition (2001), and WHO'S WHO IN THE WORLD, 18th edition (2001).

[davedavis]

Wanted to say, one of the best Jim Fetzer interviews .

[Bikercliff]

Jim Fetzer is a fucking Bad ass . American Hero

[normal]

Harold has been interrupting with verbose irrelevancies for 200, 000 years. Call the local senior centers to check if someone is missing. Fetzer is a Spartan!

[ResistEvolve]

"Larry Silverstein, he's a great guy, a good guy. He's a friend of mine.". - Herr Drumpf

[flashted]

When Jesus Christ stood before Pontius Pilate, and asked what is truth? The truth stood right in front of him...

[robertwoods]

Harold should be playing dominoes at the home, likable old man, but he won't be able to get a word in edge wise with feltzer . wish i guess is just as well .

[davidrickett]

I have a tremendous amount of like for Fetzer, unfortunately his defense and obvious like from Trump blows it all to shit. C'mon Jim you're fucking better than that.

[breedlife]

Play, I quit. Im getting a headache with this interviewer. I wish he would lay down and take a nap 😴

[SA-ceyz]

Fetzer's unhinged and ignorant defense of Trump is alarming.

[jamesfetzer]

Harold suggested we might have another conversation, which, I would propose, might focus on an evaluation of the political leadership of our most recent presidents--Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump--which requires a whole conversation to sort out. What I said here about Trump does not do justice to the complexity of the situation, where my comments about him here are not equal to the task, especially given that the foreign policy he has been practicing--especially with regard to Russia and the Middle East--has been far removed from what he promised to pursue as a candidate, which I endorsed at the time. I understand why "Completely Anonymous" cited the truthdig.com article trashing Trump, but, on count after count, he has not been given a fair shake. On the basis of my own and collaborative research, he has been right time after time but savaged in the press over Obama's birth certificate (he was born in Kenya and I have a copy of the birth certificate, where there are two from Kenya to dismiss the very idea on the basis of the retort, "That's been shown to be a forgery!", which is true of one but not the other); on the involvement of Rafael Cruz in the JFK assassination (on the fringe, to be sure, he was a minor player; but he was in front of the Trade Mart with Lee Oswald handing out "Fair Play for Cuba" fliers and, rather to my astonishment, can be seen with Antonio Veciana on Main Street before the limo takes the turn onto Houston in a very famous photograph that appears on the cover of my first collection of expert studies about his death, ASSASSINATION SCIENCE (1998), where the improbability of his having been at both of those locations at those specific times and not having been involved is minuscule), as two examples. But I am appalled at the foreign policy he has been pursuing of late, with Mike Pompeo and John Bolton and Nikki Haley playing key roles, which dumbfounds me. As an antidote to that piece, let me recommend Paul Craig Roberts, "Is America Finished?", which delineates how the Democrats have forced him to abandon his original agenda and may now be leading the nation to a nuclear armageddon. I hope that Harold will invite me back to address precisely such a comparison, because I agree my statements here do not do justice to the issue. The intricacies of sorting out Trump demand far more extensive discussion than it received.