Let us call a philosophy a discursive philosophy, following Hume, if it seeks to resolve controversies and problems by coming to a clearer explanation of the terms that are being used. Much of Anglo-American philosophy can be understood to be a form of discursive philosophy in that it seeks to use various discursive tools (logical analysis, set theory, etc.) to clarify terms and resolve problems and controversies. Hume, however, points out the limitations of a discursive approach when it comes to understanding taste. What may be necessary at this point, therefore, would be a non-discursive philosophy, or a philosophy that prioritizes the non-discursive as the condition or principle of sufficient reason for the discursive.--Jeff Bell responding to my response to his post that got us started.
While I, too, am thrilled to explore with Jeff's guidance, Deleuze's non-discursive philosophy as an alternative to and framework for the discursive approach (see this on Tarski & Explication, and this on Deleuze as a historian of philosophy), it is worth pausing and dwell a bit more on Hume's account of the discursive approach. Jeff's focus on "Of The Standard of Taste" is welcome here. Jeff's summary above of Hume's position is fine for Jeff's purposes, but it des not quite capture what Hume means for what it is to "resolve problems and controversies." For, Hume is after "unanimity"--a word he uses three times in the first three paragraphs. Throughout the brief essay, Hume uses 'uniform consent' (and its cognates) to capture what he has in mind. For Hume, "science" and what Jeff Bell calls "discursive philosophy" are oriented toward such agreement.
Hume's idea resonates with the popular image of science, which sees it as providing decisive and uniform answers, as a controversy-free place, where on the fundamental issues everybody speaks with one voice about the...shared paradigm, codified by textbooks and well functioning peer review (etc.). Hume himself applies this image rather widely. For, his own positive project is a "science of man," but "Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, and Natural Religion," are also "sciences." In fact, Hume's Treatise is introduced as a response to "the present imperfect condition of the sciences" (note the plural), that is, widespread disagreement: "There is nothing which is not the subject of debate, and in which men of learning are not of contrary opinions."
Now, Hume's (a) -- and by implication the now dominant image of science within philosophy and lots of sciences*** -- is still infected with the Calvinist religiosity that Hume detested. It is also surprising that Hume embraced it; the consensus, ruling-paradigm view of science is not the only one that is available to Hume. Aiming at a uniform consensus is not the only such aim in conformity with the demands of reason. For, "In Of the Standard of Taste," Hume mentions an approach that is more at ease with disagreement:
Where these doubts occur, men can do no more than in other disputable questions, which are submitted to the understanding: They must produce the best arguments, that their invention suggests to them.
Hume goes on to say that we "must acknowledge a true and decisive standard to exist somewhere." But this acknowledgment is not entailed by the passage I just quoted. There are more alternatives to consensus than anarchy or anything goes. Offering one's "best arguments" is still possible even if one does not expect consensus to result. One can participate in reasonable, rational enterprises without the expectation of agreement. That is to say, it is not intrinsic to science that it is also a conflict-resolution mechanism among enemies. Obviously, it is great when science can generate consensus, but we need not build it into our conception of the science(s)--not to mention that in lots of areas of inquiry it may well be unreasonable to expect consensus to emerge.
Some readers may find this ideal worrisome and smacking of pluralism, relativism, or (worse yet) skepticism. But rather than respond to that concern, here I close by observing that it is Hume that promotes the image of 'science as reasonable disagreement view' in his dedication to his (1757) Four Dissertations:
true liberty, of which antient times can alone afford us an example, is the liberty of thought, which engaged men of letters, however different in their abstract opinions, to maintain a mutual friendship and regard; and never to quarrel about principles, while they agreed in inclinations and manners. Science was often the subject of disputation, never of animosity.****[Interestingly enough, Hume's "Of the Standard of Taste" was first published in Four Dissertations!]
This image of science does not require that science ends in unanimity; it also does not require that no consensus is possible. In context Hume makes clear that disagreement among equals may also be a means toward friendship. That is to say, building the expectation of possible disagreement into our conception of science may also have unexpected benefits.
*Note that this has some overlap with features of the positive 'naturalistic' project that recent commentators like Don Garrett have attributed to Hume.
**This list is not exhaustive.
*** While in the wake of Kunt economics has fully embraced the consensus image of science (as Stigler frankly acknowledged a means to suppress dissent), not all sciences have accepted this image if themselves. [Full disclosure: my wife is the host of the "Amsterdam Retina debate," which allows medical researchers to exhibit their sometimes surprisingly robust disagreements about, say, surgical procedures.]
****Catarina Dutilh Novaes seems to endorse something akin to Humean 'true liberty.' Now, obviously presupposing agreement over "inclinations and manners" may itself be cause for concern--for often tone-policing and calls for civility devolve into suppression of substantive disagreement (see this post by Johnson & Kazarian). [See my Humean reflections.] It is worth asking what institutions of science might permit disagreement over inclinations and matters as well as allow that one's intellectual enterprise does not generate consensus, and remain more inclusive than Hume's focus on 'men.'
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