On Servility in Professional Philosophy

[Typepad was experiencing technical difficulties during the last few days.--ES]

Prima facie, there appears to be a great deal of similarity between metaaesthetics and the much more developed field of metaethics. Just as metaethics addresses questions about the objectivity of moral judgements, the existence of moral properties, and the semantics of moral claims, metaaesthetics addresses these kinds of question concerning aesthetic judgements, properties and claims. Further, these kinds of questions also arise with respect to other subject matter, such as epistemic modals, future contingent propositions and knowledge ascriptions.

Work in these different fields would benefit from increased dialogue. First, some of the most sophisticated forms of realism and antirealism have been developed outside of aesthetics; most notably in metaethics, but also in the context of other philosophical issues, such as modal discourse and propositions about the future. Second, there is a tendency among philosophers who develop antirealist theories with respect to other kinds of discourse to take aesthetics to be susceptible to a similar treatment. Aestheticians could benefit from exchanges with philosophers working on realism and antirealism in other domains, while philosophers in these other domains could benefit from a more detailed understanding of the data in aesthetics.-- A British Society of Aesthetics Connections Conference, (Cambridge).

Shared prejudices that are not (yet) contested reveal themselves in apparently innocent ways; they can be discerned in omissions or casual evaluative judgments, and they may appear in the stories we tell ourselves. The consequences of such prejudices can be small or they can generate systematic patterns of exclusion. They tend to facilitate informal hierarchies in which patterns of evaluations track, say, friendships, status, and jobs. One such prejudice is sometimes visible in the ways in which professional philosophers have come to talk about what is ‘core’ in recent analytical philosophy [HT Marcus Arvan]: this 'core' is often identified with philosophy of language, metaphysics & epistemology, and philosophy of mind [see Cogburn on LEMM].*

Given the near-impossibility of establishing doctrinal and methodological commonalities in analytical philosophy, the very idea of a ‘core’ is itself a means to facilitate the operation of shared prejudice.+ This is why the exclusion of other traditional areas of philosophy – e.g., logic, ethics, political philosophy, and aesthetics, etc. -- from the ‘core’ is impossible to justify on substantive grounds;** the implicit and sometimes complex hierarchies between the core and the non-core fields form the silent ideology/ideologies that operate at the margins of our consciousness when we make routine judgments of merit among professional philosophers. The idea of a ‘core’ operates within the context of an intellectual division of labor, in which professional philosophers understand themselves and their discipline in terms of areas of specialization. In effect, the idea of a ‘core’ privileges some such areas and particular philosophers over others without having to offer an argument to do so.

Ideologies work most perniciously at the edges and the bottom of social hierarchy, especially when the lesser privileged use it to dominate the lowest castes. Meta-ethics is not in the official ‘core,’ even though its practitioners often speak of ‘value theory,’ but the way it is practiced makes it feel familiar to those trained within the ‘core’ and familiar with its themes and methods (for example, realism/anti-realism is an evergreen within the ‘core’). The conference announcement quoted above helps the reader to draw the relevant analogies between metaethics and ‘core’ topics (i.e., “in metaethics, but also in the context of other philosophical issues, such as modal discourse and propositions about the future”).  

The conference announcement quoted above is especially notable for the different ways in which it expresses tacit, evaluative judgments of hierarchy. For example it reports that “there is a tendency among philosophers who develop antirealist theories with respect to other kinds of discourse to take aesthetics to be susceptible to a similar treatment.” No symmetry is assumed here; the ways in which theories within aesthetics are developed are not reported as susceptible to such intellectual trade and export. This is odd because it means that one tacitly assumes away a possible metaphysics (that is, 'it's value all the way down', say, because truth and beauty are one, etc.) or a possible epistemology (that is, that all judgments are ultimately judgments of value, etc.).

Moreover, the lack of symmetry and implied hierarchy of philosophical specialties are revealed most starkly in this proposed trade of expertise: “Aestheticians could benefit from exchanges with philosophers working on realism and antirealism in other domains, while philosophers in these other domains could benefit from a more detailed understanding of the data in aesthetics.” Leaving aside the weirdness of talking about “the data in aesthetics,” note that aestheticians are not expected to contribute theories, concepts, argumentative strategies, or clever thought experiments—the things we philosophers routinely take pride in sharing. The aestheticians are treated like research assistants who can learn from the theorists while contributing their research to the grand project.

Undoubtedly, no harm was intended by the conference announcement. After all, it would be amazing if the British Society of Aesthetics (BSA) intended to insult its own members. That’s why I speak of ‘ideology’ here; in its attempts to connect aesthetics, which has a tenuous position within the profession, to other parts of philosophy, the BSA (or one of its partners) has adopted a perspective on philosophy that consigns it to the margins. In this announcement, the BSA here has adopted an ugly assimilationist path toward ‘mainstream’ acceptance, namely, if you want to talk with more important philosophers adopt their theories and distinctions, and pretend you have nothing to offer of genuine value.

 

 

* Of course, the fields excluded from the ‘core’ are treated differently within professional philosophy. (Logic still has considerable prestige.) The excluded areas also have different trajectories in analytical philosophy. For example, that ethics and political philosophy are excluded from the analytic ‘core’ is a consequence of decisions in the first half of the twentieth century.

+In my terminology, it is a false philosophical prophecy!

**There are more traditional areas of philosophy excluded from the ‘core’, of course. Philosophy of education was deliberately excluded in the post WW2 power-struggle between the two wings of American Pragmatism: those that followed Nagel, turned themselves into scientific philosophers within analytical philosophy; those that followed Dewey became relatively marginalized in education programs.

Comments

[Kris Goffin]

Have you read this:
http://www.aestheticsforbirds.com/2014/03/the-philosophical-importance-of_22.html#more

[Eric Schliesser]

Kris, I offered a link to the same piece by Anna Christina Ribeiro in the final paragraph of the original post!

[Kris Goffin]

Whoops... Didn't see it.
Anyway, I think that we, aestheticians, should work on our inferiority complex. Many questions in aesthetics are related to "core" topics in philosophical psychology, since both aesthetics and philosophical psychology investigate the nature of (perceptual/emotional/...) experience. So aesthetics is in a way already doing "mainstream" philosophy. Aesthetics does not need to assimilate; it is in need of recognition.

[Bence Nanay]

Eric, just to clarify, this conference is not organized by the BSA. It is supported (mainly) by the BSA - so I think it would be good to express your dissatisfaction with the conference organizers and not the BSA (that in no ways endorses all the objectives of all the conferences it supports). (Grandiose analogy: the EU does not endorse all the objectives of all ERC or Marie Curie funded conferences)...

[Eric Schliesser]

Bence, I think the BSA and the conference organizers share in all too common prejudices. I couldn't care less about blaming particular individuals, or expressing dissatisfaction with them over this.

[Bence Nanay]

Eric, you say things like "In this announcement, the BSA here has adopted an ugly..." No, it hasn't. The BSA has nothing to do with the announcement. So I really think you should change this. (again, analogy: "in this ERC or FP7 funded conference announcement, the European Union has adopted...")

[Eric Schliesser]

Bence, you are changing the subject, which is extremely common when we discuss our shared prejudices in the profession. So I am happily going to ignore what you think I should do. (If you think that I intend to hold the BSA accountable in the final sentence you are mistaken.)

[Bence Nanay]

Eric, I don't think I was trying to change the subject: I am in full and complete agreement about everything you say in this blog entry. In my own work on the borderline between aesthetics and philosophy of perception, I am trying to do an equal bidirectional interaction. So I share all your worries about the quote. But this makes it even more important to see just where the quote comes from. And you are also right (alas) that the shared prejudice you've identified is indeed shared quite widely. But, as it happens, the BSA is aware of this and is trying to fight against it. It is trying to encourage the line of connection between aesthetics and the other disciplines that you or I are in favor of and not the one that, as you rightly pointed out, is salient in the quote you begin your blog entry with. The very reason why the BSA established this 'Connection Conference' funding scheme was to encourage an explicit bidirectional interaction between equals. So it seems wrong to accuse the BSA of something that is the exact opposite of what it's doing.

[Eric Schliesser]

Bence, I hereby stipulate that I am not accusing the BSA of anything. The closing paragraph is not intended to be critical of any individual or any institution--rather, it's meant as an exemplar of how ideology functions. (As you may note, in the original post, I did allow *en passant* that "one of its partners" may have written the actual text; so signalling that I am aware of the facts that you repeatedly wish to stress and that I am going to ignore the temptation to connect the words to any particular author to be held responsible for them.)

[Bence Nanay]

Thanks, Eric.

[M. Suárez]

Totally in agreement with Eric. Just for the record, philosophy of science is perhaps not thought of as 'core' nowadays (remarkably since it certainly was in the US during the heyday of analytical philosophy in the 60's and 70's), but philosophers of science have learnt a great deal recently from philosophers of art on the topic of representation. Or at least I have, from the likes of Nelson Goodman, Ernst Gombrich, Richard Wollheim, and more recently Dom Lopes, Catherine Elgin, John Kulvicki. For more on how aesthetics informs or should inform discussions of representation in 'core' areas, see my Oxford bibliographies online article: http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195396577/obo-9780195396577-0219.xml

[Christy Mag Uidhir]

I discuss similar issues (with a special focus on the relationship between the fields of Philosophy of Art and Contemporary Metaphysics) in the introduction to my anthology Art & Abstract Objects (Oxford University Press, 2013).

I applaud the BSA's Connections Initiative and think such things are vital for the health and continued survival of the field. However, I also understand that such efforts can at times feel very one-sided--that it's seen to be the responsibility of Aestheticians to make overtures to the "core" but not also the responsibility of those operating within said "core" to seriously engage with Aestheticians in areas of potential overlap (and in some cases seriously reconsider their views about such overlap itself).

[M. Suárez]

I recently had reason to want to find the comment I made above, and indeed how very nice to notice both the date and the mention of Elgin and Kulvicki. It is not always easy to predict, but there is by now a history of brief imperceptible comments of mine here and there inducing whole papers and conferences on particular topics. It also reveals that people follow this blog (or Eric's Facebook entries) more attentively than they show.