Digressions&Impressions

When Professors are in Glass Houses...

To do their job, universities rely on the public's trust. The expectation that they will be left alone to pursue the the truth, and to promote the impartial search for the truth, and to inspire their students to be incorruptible in the face of temptations to twist the truth for private benefit, places an enormous moral burden on universities, much greater than that on any other kind of corporation. To the extent they are seen as just as venal and corruptible as the political and corporate institutions of society, they will be treated with the same cynicism and contempt as are currently reserved for the likes of the U.S. Congress and Exxon.--Harry Lewis. "Why NYU in Abu Dhabi Matters"

The general contractor that helped oversee the construction of the campus isn’t some fly-by-night firm outside N.Y.U.’s purview. Quite the opposite. The contractor is run by a trustee of N.Y.U.’s board: Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak, the chief executive of the Mubadala Development Company. It was Mr. Mubarak and others who helped persuade Mr. Sexton and the rest of the university’s board to build the campus in the first place, with a $50 million donation from the government of Abu Dhabi.---New York Times.

Some NYU faculty have aggressively defended their institution on the philosophy blog NewAPPS (see this exchange). I have learned a lot from their local knowledge, and I respect their dedication to education. At the crucial juncture in this letter in the Chronicle, they write: "The issue of the construction workers has been more complicated, falling outside of NYUAD’s direct purview: it is managed by Mubadala, who contracted al-Futtaim Carillon to oversee the construction of the Sa’adiyat campus." Yet, they do not mention that Mubadala is run by NYU's Trustee Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak (a fellow Tufts graduate, but I think we just missed each other in Medford).

I do not doubt for a moment that the NYU faculty are sincere and that like the rest of us, they act from noble intentions. I stipulate that their role has, in fact, ameliorated and improved the local labor situation. But it is a bit rich for them to accuse others of painting at "best only part of the picture," while not addressing the political economy and crony capitalism of their own institution. In such a context, it obfuscates when one talks of 'partners,' and their 'compliance monitoring.' I understand not biting the hand that feeds you, but you don't occupy the high ground, when, in fact, you omit mention of the folk that (indirectly) fund your salary from criticism.+

Piketty, Ray, and Economic Explanation

Inequality has been rising, and to see it well, one should study “top incomes,”: those of the top 1% or even, in a variant which we might call SuperOccupy, the top 0.1% or 0.01%. This is an extremely important observation. There are lots of people in the top 1% (more in India, for instance, than in a good-sized European country), and they cast a long and enviable shadow...Even a large sample survey will often fail to pick these people up, so Piketty’s meticulous examination of tax records (along with co-authors) in different countries is to be applauded. This is data work at its best, with a well-defined reason for doing it, and when I read the papers with Emmanuel Saez and Tony Atkinson that put these findings together, I felt I had learnt something.--D. Ray, on Piketty's Capital. [HT Hülya Eraslan]

One of the most important economists today that you probably have never heard of, Debraj Ray,* wrote a careful, amusing, and -- as one ought to expect -- very insightful response to Piketty's Capital. Ray matters in economics: he is the co-editor of the leading journal. Ray is one of the intellectual leaders of the new generation of 'theorists' that combine mathematical sophistication and data with a focus on policy relevance.* Ray is also an important figure in development economics, which he has helped move to the center of the discipline. You might think such sociology is irrelevant, but as Ray notes, Piketty's Capital has a self-presentation and narrative which is a form of "positioning" that appeals to his once-inside now purported outside-status in the profession. Part of Piketty's rhetoric is to rail against "simplistic mathematical models" (16; 574, and, especially, the autobiography on p. 31-2 culminating in an indictment against "petty mathematical problems.") This is not just a matter of mere positioning within economics; for, -- and Ray does not comment on this -- at crucial junctures, Piketty relies on a contrast between the esoteric mathematical models of the experts and democratic decision-making under conditions of transparency (e.g., 480, 513; recall also this post; Vallier also picks up on this [3E/3P] and will blog about in the future). But it is also a matter of positioning oneself as being the privileged expert with the public. Even if Ray's irritation were wholly self-interested, he has put his finger on on a non-trivial feature of Piketty's rhetorical strategy. (Don't get me wrong lots of economists become such privileged experts with worse strategies: i.e., they are bought by some interested party, or they get chosen by a politician who likes what s/he hears, etc.)

That Piketty's is, in part, a rhetorical strategy is clear from two facts: first, when it suits him he, too, relies on fairly simple mathematical models (often he is disarmingly upfront about this, e.g. 364). Second, he relies in non-trivial ways on existing economics. I had pointed to this in my second post on Piketty, but I am really an amateur and Ray's post adds a lot more detail, insight, and depth to what I had said. In particular, what becomes clear is that in some non-trivial respects Piketty is working with commitments that are found in the old economics work-horses (that is, the descendants of the "models of Harrod and Domar") and some so-called "dynamic efficiency" assumptions (see Ray's slightly more technical appendix here.)  Piketty is a world-class economist, so this should not surprise. But as I pointed out before, it is unclear what constraints are driving his partial appropriation of existing economic theory.

Now, the core of Ray's piece is actually applied philosophy of science:

On Parochial Philosophy

Our 2,200 articles and 34,000 citations works out to an average of about 15 citations per paper. To academics outside of philosophy this will seem like a very low number.--K. Healy

[T]he young Parsons began a run of intellectual luck that would carry him over the course of the next decade--and with relatively little design on his own part--to some of the great academic centers of the interwar period...it stamped his thinking with a peculiarly self-referential quality, or tendency to regard the ideas he personally encountered in local surroundings as those ideas most worth engaging and vesting with epochal import."--Charles Camic on Talcott Parsons.*

We philosophers tend to claim that we work on eternal problems with topic neutral tools that allow us to capture the most fundamental features of reality. Yet because it appears that most of us prefer thinking over reading, the range of influences we expose ourselves to is, by necessity, going to be fairly limited. (Time is scarce, after all.) This entails that we will tend to engage with those ideas which we have encountered locally in our teachers (and their assignments) as well as our friends, colleagues, and those we meet at conferences. Undoubtedly we will take note of folk we suspect may be prospective referees of our work or those we imagine highly valued by such referees. It's possible, of course, that scholar.google encourages us sometimes to cast our net more widely, but given that our discipline has a tendency to discourage citation, in practice this probably does not happen much.

It also happens to be the case that a very large proportion of the English language philosophy professoriate is trained in a fairly limited number of PhD programs (for evidence see here).+ Most such programs are, in fact, in great academic centers populated with distinguished and eminent thinkers. These have, in fact, incentives to encourage the idea that it's folk like them that are worth taking seriously. So, it's very likely that lots of us share in this peculiarly self-referential quality that Camic ascribed to Parsons above. 

I had never before noticed such peculiarly self-referential quality in the professional philosophers that I admire until I was struck in a short sequence of events by: the exceedingly narrow range of privileged interlocutors that Thomas Nagel engages with in his Mind and Cosmos;  the oddity to me that Elliott Sober was one of OUP's referees of Nagel's book in light of his subsequent review;** the generous reviewing of Nagel by Plantinga and Plantinga by Nagel (recall and here).

Žižek and Teaching

“I did teach a class here [at the University of Cincinnati] and all of the grading was pure bluff,” he continues. “I even told students at the New School for example… if you don’t give me any of your shitty papers, you get an A. If you give me a paper I may read it and not like it and you can get a lower grade.” He received no papers that semester."--Eugene Wolters quoting Slavoj Žižek at Critical Theory. [HT John Protevi on Facebook]

What I find most dispiriting about this annecdote, if true, is that the students at even the New School are so lacking in spirit that they opted for the (relatively) easy A* rather than have Žižek, who can be a very careful and insightful reader of others, read their stuff. I have learned much from reading his writings on others, and would be thrilled to have his considered judgment on mine--even if I probably would not like much about what he would have to say about me or my writing/views.

Perhaps, Žižek is really as irresponsible at his professional duties as he wishes to convey. (We all know that there are some philosophers who think they can enhance their status by transgressing norms of propriety and professional-ness.) So, perhaps the students were right to shy away from submitting papers. But there is also a sense in which his offer taught his students to scrutinize themselves and they discovered their inner-careerism, which values security, rather than (modest) courage to face the unknown and uncertain.

It does not follow that I am inclined to give Žižek a pass on his behavior (as if he cares). Even if he secretly thinks that he is acting like a great teacher and educator, perceptions matter--and the message that he is conveying is that there is no nobility in the classroom. It's swell that he has discovered that teaching is not for him (other professional philosophers also see it is as a necessary evil); but why make teaching seem like something ridiculous (grading as bluff, etc.)? I am not against flaunting elitism, but if that elitism becomes an excuse for a crass lack of humanity ('some idiot'/'stupid' etc.) and a disdain for the fragility and vulnerability of others, then why not follow Nietzsche and retire to a quiet spot in the mountains? The answer, of course, is that Žižek cannot do without the system he despises.

 

*Maybe class participation was so demanding (or terrifying) that only As is justified.

Isn't that something?!

So, Ergo published its first issue: all the major philosophy blogs (Leiter, NewAPPS, Daily Nous) mentioned it. The launch was designed to coincide with informative, detailed blog posts on each of the four articles in specialist philosophy blogs (The Mod Squad; M-phi; Experimental Philosophy; Philosomama). All four blog posts do a great job of conveying what is at stake in the papers discussed. (I hope I am right about this--have not read the papers yet.) So, each of these papers have been given a chance to reach the attention of specialists and wider philosophical audiences!

All of this is remarkable enough, but the accompanying editorial is full of interesting statistics relevant to prospective authors, the editors sense of what they got right and what they got wrong,  and it contains very important observations on the state of the discipline. Below the fold, I quote a whole section in full because of the many significant claims that deserve reflection (and, perhaps, prompt comment from readers). A key line in it is this: "It seems philosophy’s most visible venues offer a skewed view of what philosophers are interested in and thinking about." (Recall my post.) Throughout their editorial, they connect this skew to a "lack of transparency" in the way our most important journals are run. 

A Moral Understanding of Philosophy

This is an age of so-called meta-philosophical reflections on the methods and aims of philosophy.* Yet, most of the accounts in circulation among the professional elite are offered in a distinctly a-moral register.+ This is odd because most of these accounts are offered as tasks for the profession; the very idea of a profession presupposes in addition to specialized training, a shared ethic and shared autonomy. Such autonomy and privilege comes with responsibilities and duties. In the profession there is an intellectual division of labor, which, too, generates a demand for a moral outlook. The position advocated below is meant to start meeting such a demand. While I do not deny that there may be a genuine need for transgressive immoral philosophies, such philosophies are irreconcilable with a professional ethic. 

One of the key tasks for philosophy is to generate concepts (words, terms, etc.) that make something that was previously (thought) improbable, if not inconceivable, ‘available.'** The moral benefit of this is that once a situation or an option is available (or 'visible'), we can talk about it, examine it, and, if necessary, do something about it. Not everything needs to be made so visible, but the need for our philosophical activity is especially important if something is made or remains overlooked because of existing injustice or oppression, ruling ideology, existing scientific commitments, bureaucratic practices, or even our ordinary psychological functioning (etc.). So, while I do not want to overvalue what words and concepts can do in the face of oppression (and certainly do not mean to imply that freedom of expression resolves all problems or may not generate its own problems), words and concepts allow us to name problems or celebrate features of our lives that deserve attention. (We also ought not to underestimate the significance of this task; even the most powerful tyrants never feel so secure as to remove all censorship (explicit or tacit).)

This way of understanding philosophy is compatible with a host of existing philosophical practices (but not always the self-understandings presupposed by them) within a variety of traditions (analytic, continental, pragmatist, etc.). In fact, much ongoing work in conceptual analysis, formal philosophy, practices of articulation, consciousness raising, X-PHI, phenomenology, history of philosophy, and even deconstruction already fit such a task of available-making neatly. The proposed task is also compatible with differing substantive accounts of the right and the good.   

Now, to be clear, the approach on offer is meant, in part, as an antidote to philosophy's generalizing and totalizing impulses; we often capture these impulses when we stress ‘unification’ or ‘systematization.’ Philosophers of science (like me) adore the universal quantifier and law-like statements; even the more austere logicians prefer exception-less axioma’s than a list of particulars.  Now, in our practice, we arm ourselves against the dangers of this commitment by allowing a seeming endless cycle of purported counter-examples and objections (this is sometimes ridiculed as intuition mongering).

But what we do not allow enough, is to let the machinery of the give and take come to a halt when we are faced with a stutter or a mere expression of discomfort. Sometimes we do so in the class-room or when we really admire our interlocutor, but on the whole you’re not in the game if you cannot put forward or assert a claim. As is well known, this privileges the articulate, and those (and I say this with irony) with a surplus of human capital, that is, professional training (see Iris Marion Young). This assertoric focus also biases us toward what is already conceptualized and available as 'datum'. It makes us too permissive of validity and process, and complicit in accepting the ways in which the rules and institutions of professional philosophy keep out the so-called deviant,  abnormal, angry, and confused.

We ought not permit, 'you're confused' as a silencing mechanism or the start of an objection; philosophy starts in the vacillation that is characteristic of confusion (and wonder).

Taxation, Transparency, and Technocracy (Piketty)

Note that I do not believe at all in technological determinism. My point is simply that we cannot bet everything on the caprices of technology and market forces, and that we ought to develop democratic transparency and fiscal institutions that allow us to adapt our policies to the speed at which the various income and wealth groups are rising.--Piketty to Schliesser, Personal Correspondence, May 2014 (quoted with permission).

It's clear from Piketty's reacton above (and Kervick's reactions here and here) that one of my earlier posts about Piketty's book was taken to imply that I attribute to Piketty the idea [1] (a) that technological developments necessitate economic outcomes, and that this entails (a') that governments are impotent in the face of this. I understand why they read me like this, although I had explicitly allowed that governments "can impact the distribution of wealth," and can generate policies that ensure (or prevent) that a country is at, or catches up with, the so-called "technological frontier." (So, I deny (a1).) My concern was really with the very idea of a 'technological frontier,' which fits uneasilly with the empirical methodology of Capital (and which I think embraces "a form of technological determinism," such that [2] if one (say, a country) is on the frontier, then one's growth potential is limited in a determinate way regardless of one's macro-economic policy).+ Some other time I return to this, but let me grant, at once, that Piketty's book advocates both 'democratic transparancy' and active government policies to combat the consequences of "the speed at which the various income and wealth groups are rising."* In fact, these two points are introduced early in the book in a remarkable passage that so far seems to have escaped commentary:

Taxation is not only a way of requiring all citizens to contribute to the financing of public expenditures and projects and to distribute the tax burden as fairly as possible; it is also [A] useful for establishing classifications and [B] promoting knowledge as well as [C] democratic transparency. (Piketty, Capital,  12 [letters added to faciliate discussion--ES)

Here I largely ignore [A] and the issues of reflexity, social control, and social fact generation (until the last sentence). Rather, I focus on [B] and [C]. The idea that taxation promotes knowledge might seem odd, but what he has in mind becomes clear throughout the book.

The basic ideas is  this: absent efforts to tax some X (say, wealth) a lot of information about X remains private and unavailable to the public and researchers alike. One very significant aspect of this is that information about X remains so widely distributed and dispersed that nobody has any accurate information about X. Now, as Hayek taught, ordinarily, markets are epistemic machines and might generate some such information in the neighborhood of X (such that 'market prices' might give us some proxy about features of X, i.e., relative supply and demand, scarcity, etc.); but even though wealth management is a huge market, the agents in THAT market are actively concealing socially relevant facts (including from each other), such that one must rely on very bad 'unofficial sources' about X (Piketty discusses the limitations of such sources in Part 3). But as Piketty notes (518) once X is taxed everywhere, then governments and other institutions create circumstances in which a lot of information about X gets collected such that the very possibility of knowledge of X is, in principle, available to researchers and a wider public (put nods to Bentham and Foucault here). This is an epistemic point about the role of state bureaucracy.** But it is connected  to a normative point.

On Being a PhD Supervisor

You do indeed grasp the all important thing, the great benefit which philosophy confers, but you do not yet discern accurately its various functions, nor do you yet know how great is the help we receive from philosophy in everything, everywhere, - how, (to use Cicero's language), it not only aids us ['opituletur'] in the greatest matters but also descends to the smallest… After you have come to possess all other things, shall you then wish to possess wisdom also?  Is philosophy to be the last requisite in life, - a sort of supplement?  Nay, your plan should be this: be a philosopher now.--Seneca, Letter 17.

I am in my fourth year as PhD supervisor; my 'first' will defend in September. Because I live in Amsterdam and my job is in Ghent, I also offer much of my guidance via letters. So, I can easily identify with Seneca's hectoring. Epistolary mentorship makes PhD supervision, which is tricky even in the best circumstances, more complicated yet. The needs of the PhD student and the interests of the tax-payers, which fund their generous grants, as well as the university and department (which desire too much publication), not to mention the vanity of the supervisor are not identical. Should we focus on developing students' philosophical or professional skills; help them develop personally, focus on how to get papers past referees, or prepare them for a life-time of learning and intellectual development? Time is scarce, and the pressures – even with the most generous and gentle supervisors (as, I fear, am not) -- can be immense, especially if the aim is to succeed in an uncertain and unforgiving job-market.

From Hume to Piketty

Mankind are, in all ages, caught by the same baits: The same tricks, plated over and over again, still trepan them. The fear of an everlasting destruction of credit [due to government default—ES], allowing it to be an evil, is a needless bugbear." David Hume "Of Public Credit," [hereafter OPC]) Essays, 2.IX.31

There has been an attempt in ENGLAND, to dive the landed and trading part of the nation; but without success. The interests of these two bodies are not really distinct, and never will be so, till our public debts encrease [sic] to such a degree, as to become altogether oppressive and intolerable.—David Hume "Of Parties in General," Essays, 1.VIII.10

As the second quoted passage reveals, David Hume views economic life as a non-zero sum-game. Even if agents often perceive there to be irreconcilable conflicts, on his view of political economy all groups can all gain under certain institutional regimes, which we now tend to associate with classical Liberalism (free trade, impartial law, competitive elections, etc.).* This is not to deny that according to Hume some groups may gain more rapidly than others, so relative gains may well be non-uniform.

Hume recognizes only one major exception to his generalization: when government debt goes beyond a certain point that repaying them off turns out to be "altogether oppressive and intolerable." Now, he does not specify such circumstances, but we can imagine cases where just paying interest on the debt leads to very high taxes. Here, we do not need to worry about the meaning of 'oppressive and intolerable,' which Hume recognized may be a matter of habit and existing expectations. What matters for present purposes, is high taxes is not the main issue here; for if these fall uniformly on groups say in proportion to ability to pay, or some equitable maxim, then even under a-high-taxes-regime, there need not be conflicting interests by itself.

Rather, Hume makes two extra, unstated assumptions. He tacitly rules out a scenario where [I] the majority of debt is held by non-nationals. For, in that case, too, the interest of the country is united against the foreign creditors of government debt.+ But a moment's reflection on this ruled out scenario suggests that Hume is envisioning a situation when [II][A] the vast majority of government debt is held by citizens (not foreigners) and that [B] among the citizens some are more willing or more capable of lending to the government.** When [II][A-B] obtains, then even though there may be some shared interest in national survival, the general presupposition that 'wise' economic decisions benefits all falls apart. For, once economic and tax-policies are designed to benefit government creditors, then we're turning a potentially expanding pie, to a zero-sum universe. In a crucial way it is unlike "transferring money from the right hand to the left; which leaves the person neither richer nor poorer than before." (OPC, 2.IX.17)

Why Analytical Existentialism Matters

[Due to technical issues with Typepad yesterday, I am running this for another day.--ES]

Analytical Existentialism is the use of an analytical style to investigate topics that matter to us as human beings capable of feelings and anxieties or joys while doing justice to our first-personal (even phenomological) perspective on these topics (recall this post on Laurie Paul; and this post on Ruth Chang). While Laurie Paul's work has revealed the potential and thrill of analytical existentialism in our times, I was introduced to analytical existentialism around 1991 or 1992 by Jeff McConnell, an instructor at Tufts. If you get a BA from Harvard, a PhD from MIT, and teach at Tufts you are not exactly obscure, but Jeff has published little (this is the only article I am familiar with). I took 'intro to philosophy' and 'existentialism' with Jeff. The 'intro to philosophy' course included Plato's Meno, Descartes's Meditations, Kant's Prolegomena (I think), and a lot of readings from Ammerman's Classics of Analytical Philosophy volume. (We may have also read from the Rorty volume.) In the course on 'existentialism' we read Kierkegaard and Heidegger and such figures, as well as some readings from analytical authors (e.g., Munitz, Nagel, etc.) on topics like 'death,' but the course was really an excuse for Jeff to try out ways to develop the most precise and rigorous was of asking the question 'why do I exist,' (as asked from the first person-perspective). 

I learned that Jeff was working on a manuscript on the topic -- why do I exist? -- by accident; once, I was accompanying John Rawls to his car in the company of Jeff after a key-note that Rawls had given at Tufts. We got lost in the College-Avenue car-park looking for Rawls' car. It was a grey and drizzly day, and I was burning to ask Rawls some questions. (The key one for me was how Rawls would answer the Nietzschean that claimed all value is will to power.) But by the time we had found the car, we were running late for dinner, and all three of us were a mixture of embarrassed, hungry, tired, and contemplative. As we were driving on Mass Ave, Rawls turned to Jeff. (They were both sitting in the front seats, so I was straining to lean forward.) 'Are you still working on why you exist?' 'Yes, Jack," Jeff said, and he added something about how he had made progress on his manuscript. I wouldn't say that Rawls snickered, but I had the distinct impression he chuckled. Quite possibly, it was a warm and generous laugh, but the conversation seems to have ended there (in my memory--for all I know Jeff said a lot more).