Digressions&Impressions

On Intellectual Decline

In Mach, of course. we have a classic case of this abusive empiricism. It is a case that also exemplifies a characteristic tendency. a kind of Nemesis, of what we might call "hypercritical" philosophic theories-theories that lay down methodological standards or criteria which are actually impossible to practice. The tendency is to lose, at crucial junctures. basic critical control of the conceptual process.--Howard Stein (1977) "Some Philosophical Pre-History of Relativity," 14.

This time I quote Stein's judgment on Mach not to discuss the varieties of empiricism (recall), despite Stein's tempting characterization of 'abusive empiricism.' (Stein's searching, critical treatment of Mach's famous criticism of the bucket experiment is deservedly legendary.) Rather, in Stein Mach is exemplarary of a certain kind of philosophical (and scientific) vice. Amusingly, Stein diagnosis an analogous vice in historiographic practice: 

For the avoidance of anachronism, it is neither necessary nor sufficient to restrict one's conceptual vocabulary to that of the period under discussion. To impose such a restriction is to inhibit flexibility of thought without any important compensating guarantee against error. It is an intellectual stratagem analogous to that of the shallow empiricism in science, that seeks security in rules for the construction of concepts, and achieves only a hobbling of theory. Stein, 14.

It is hard to read (or re-read) Stein's paper and not be struck by the live possibility of intellectual decline even in a topic -- discerning the structure of nature guided by developments in physics -- where the underlying science is advancing. (Thus, reminding us, that philosophy is not easy.) Despite lacking an adequate mathematical vocabulary,* Huygens and Newton are exhibited as having surer footing in their conceptual analysis than many that have followed them (through the nineteenth century) as well as those with a higher philosophical reputation (e.g., Leibniz). Stein's historical account is not exhaustive, but the point about the decline in insight can be defended. 

Stein is not a declinist; he makes no claim that intellectual decline is necessary, or to be expected. Moreover, decline is not inevitable (in Stein's account Riemann and Einstein recover lost insights).  Stein's diagnosis of the source of decline is what may be call ideological; later thinkers lose the secure path because they end up in the grip of intellectual commitments that block insight.* In addition to Newton's tendency at terseness in expression, we can add lack of transparency as a further reason in the case that Stein describes; not all of Huygens most insightful observations were fully available to later thinkers buried as they were in notebooks and correspondence. 

Of course, if absent, say, the inquisition, general economic depression, warfare, inadequate scientific education, one age can decline on a certain metaphysical reflection (and the generations after Newton and Huygens included brilliant minds -- a string of Bernoullis, Diderot, Euler, D'Alembert, Wolff, Du Châtelet, Maupertuis, etc.  --), then other ages of philosophical decline on some dimension or another are also possible. For example, Harry Frankfurt is convinced that the age of giants is over, and we have entered an age of decline ("the field is quiet. We seem, more or less, to be marking time.") 

By contrast (to Frankfurt), regular readers of my musings know that I broke with my own (lazy naturalist) education in the philosophy of science, and have come to think that until David Lewis reintroduced quite modest [modest because largely modular] systematic considerations, much twentieth century analytical philosophy is a philosophical waste-land despite the brilliant distinctions and the non-trivial conceptual (and formal) innovations of the period (which turned out to be fertile for other sciences); the reputations of many third and fourth generation analytical philosophers are overblown, despite often endless praise ("eminent," "distinguished," "brilliant," etc.), their work exhibiting lack of durability and systematic robustness (recall). 

In a puzzle-solving, abductive regime, results are -- at regular pace with lots of hard labor -- cheap. (Of course, they can generate quite a number of success goods to the puzzler who gets there first or most elegantly; or has enough students to keep citing him, etc.) But in such a regime the concepts are not really stress-tested until they are taken up in empirical or technological sciences (as happened with formal semantics, computing theory, game theory, and a wide variety of philosophical concepts in psychology and linguistics etc.). That is to say, and to reiterate, puzzle-solving regimes can be extremely fertile for the special sciences; that's compatible with decline in other respects, especially absent systematic, durable background theory. Lewis re-opened the search for that elusive prey. (Sadly, many Lewisians are far narrower in range than he was.) Stein reminds us that this search must be tempered with ongoing sensitivity to how scientifically stress-tested-concepts (see this paper by Stone) bear on experience.

Christ Among the Scholars, Revisited; or Rembrandt on Parental Authority

⁴¹ Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the passover. ⁴² And when he was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast. ⁴³ And when they had fulfilled the days, as they returned, the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem; and Joseph and his mother knew not of it. ⁴⁴ But they, supposing him to have been in the company, went a day’s journey; and they sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance. ⁴⁵ And when they found him not, they turned back again to Jerusalem, seeking him. ⁴⁶ And it came to pass, that after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions. ⁴⁷ And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers. ⁴⁸ And when they saw him, they were amazed: and his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing. ⁴⁹ And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business? ⁵⁰ And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them. ⁵¹ And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them: but his mother kept all these sayings in her heart. ⁵² And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man. Luke 2:40--52

On Saturday, I visited an exhibit on Rembrandt's late works. (It was also my first return to the renovated Rijksmuseum.) I encountered quite a few old favorites, but had never seen Rembrandt's last incomplete work, Simeon with the Christ Child in the Temple, before.  I intend to do a distinct post on it before long. In reflecting on it, I realized that the story is only mentioned in the Gospel according to Luke 2. In re-reading that Gospel my eye fell on the very next episode, Jesus among the scholars (which also can be found only in Luke) quoted above. Rembrandt etched it a number of times (see here), including (unusually) the return trip to Nazareth (with boy Jesus looking up at his mom).

It's an odd episode with the parents not noticing the absence of their son while they were on the road. Once they noticed it, it seems they mistakenly thought he had moved ahead of them back to their friends and family. At this point, modern folk would initiate an Amber Alert (Child Abduction Emergency), -- what do you mean, you didn't notice his absence for a day? -- but Joseph and Mary backtracked instead. By the time they found Jesus they would have been very anxious. It's no surprise, then, that his mother has no room for relief (at finding him alive) nor pride (at his intellectual understanding) and is rather upset (and clearly takes the situation personally). It's a nice narrative touch. (Joseph's response is unrecorded.)  

I was a bit sad to note that Spinoza does not discuss the episode (Christ among the scholars) because it might have offered a clue to his understanding of his autobiography (not to mention round out his complex Christology--the topic of Jo Van Cauter's dissertation [my student]). In fact, Spinoza is entirely silent on Luke; I am not sure what to make of this.

The episode has two core, interwoven themes in Luke: first, the complex interactions among parental, godly, and intellectual authority.* Second, the mutual incomprehension and misperceptions of family members.  The connection between the two themes is, I suspect, that our expectations of each other's behavior are guided by our perceptions of authority of others and self. Jesus is surprised that his parents didn't know where to find him because he falsely assumes they already understand him. We might say that Mary and Joseph project their concerns (family and friends) onto their expectations of their child, while the boy falsely assumes that his commitments are part of the expectations of his parents's view of him.

Before he has reached manhood (at age thirteen), precocious Jesus is already capable of engaging the scholars on equal, intellectual level. But he has not quite mastered the complexity of human life. There is no guarantee that with age one does master it--after all, the episode exhibits the parents' lack of wisdom in such matters. But the Gospel of Luke is right to insist that one can grow in wisdom despite excelling at intellectual matters. Our intellectual cultivation is only a part of human wisdom.

There is, of course, a third theme in the episode, that occurred to me after my lunch with my father today: Mary's eventual acceptance of her child's nature despite her lack of understanding of his choices. And here I was struck that the father's perception is left out of the matter altogether. (This is, in fact, a recurring theme in Luke 2.) It's as if such treasuring is too much to be hoped for among fathers (the carriers of traditional authority); alternative, what's it's like to be a father is taken as uninteresting to metaphysicians and theologians, that is, lovers of god (Theophilus; see Luke 1:3 [recall here and here]).

And here my mind returns to Rembrandt's gaze at his son Titus. The son's mind's eye is preoccupied with his studies (or, perhaps, something more fascinating). He does not see his father's gaze (which would be a miracle, of course, once you imagine the implied perspective of where the father-the-artist-is-at-work). In his painting, Rembrandt accepts this invisibility and thereby, without showing himself, shows what it ought to be like without allowing us to question what it's really like.

On Being Second Choice

There might be — if the first-choice candidate already chose to publicize the rejected offer, and a professional news blog chose to carry the story. Trumpeting senior offers that are rejected is a way of very publicly revealing subsequent appointments as having been second-or-later choice candidates, with optics unlikely to reflect the completeness of the welcome that a department is offering their eventual appointment. This risks tarnishing a relationship between new colleagues; it interferes in a professional relationship that is (starting the moment the first candidate decides to reject the offer) none of the first candidate’s business; and these, I think, are sufficiently uncollegial outcomes to be worth carefully avoiding unless some unusually strong professional interest is served by making the announcement.---"Job Offers: Are They Professional News?" Feminist philosophers.

It is generally unwise to talk about past relationships (or marriage(s)) on a first date. It is also imprudent to mention other people that you are dating on a date; it is awkward to be told that you are one of several prospective candidate mates. (Of course, if you are at a speed dating event or on Tinder you got to assume it.) But once you decide you are a good fit with somebody and, miraculously, they decide the same about you and things are (ahh) clicking, then you might enjoy learning the broader story of that first date. Inquiring minds notice gaps in the narrative, after all, and sometimes comments/allusions by well-meaning friends require informed interpretation and reinterpretation. Even when one discovers that in a certain sense one was a second choice that does not undermine one's happiness (contentment, sexual bliss, whatever). Of course, if one is regularly told one was second choice, one might reasonably plot an exit strategy.

Perhaps because the post I am responding to appeared on the same day in which one of my job offers got considerable blog (here and here) and facebook publicity, I hesitated about responding to it. (I have no idea if the timing is coincidence or not.) While here I do not wish to discuss the merits of the post's main point, information about job offers is best not treated as professional news, I do wish to offer some experience on what it's like being second choice and then obtaining the position. (Like many others, I have also been Nth choice and never offered a position; in addition, I have been the last-man-standing and not offered the position (that is, a so-called failed search); and I have been second choice, then offered the position which I declined because of alternative options.) 

A decade ago (wow!) I was on the shortlist for a junior early modern tenure-track position in philosophy at Syracuse. At the time I had spent three years in non-tenure-track positions (Wesleyan and WashU, don't cry for me) and so it was the fourth year on the market (recall here). I had already applied to many hundred jobs and had landed under a dozen job interviews, and maybe a handful of on-campus visits.* As it happens it was a 'good year' for early modern (with in addition to Syracuse excellent openings at Harvard, Chicago, McGill, WashU [recall], Western Ontario, and at least half a dozen other very fine institutions). I, too, had a few interviews (aided, perhaps, by an improved publication record).

Syracuse was the only major research-focused department that invited me for an on-campus interview. I had the time of the life; despite extremely grim weather, I I adored my visit not the least because I was wowed by the folk there. I was impressed by the philosophical excitement in the air. (The fifth floor of Hall of Languages also fit my Romantic image of where a philosophy faculty should be housed.) If I remember correctly, there was a distinct seminar on a writing sample and also a standard job-talk. It's always hard to judge how one is perceived, but for the first time in four years on the market I felt 'it all had come together.' I had been as good and personable as I could imagine being.

Even so, it was not good enough to be ranked first.

As it happens I knew the names of some of the other finalists ('early modern' is very small). There was no shame in this; my competitors were all impressive people that I was already reading and whom I admired. When I was told by the Chair at Syracuse that I was ranked second, I was, of course, disappointed, and started to contemplate a life outside professional philosophy. (I had a few other leads still, but nothing concrete.) He told me that the lead candidate had two weeks to respond to the offer, and that I should keep him up-to-date. As it happens, I had just learned that my only other realistic shot at a job (a fine college) had also placed me second, so I had nothing to inform him of.

Within a week of the decision, he contacted me to ask me if I was still available because he was about to approach the Dean if he could extend a second position to me. Yes, I was still available. The number one candidate had received another offer and Syracuse was worried he would prefer another department and that I might not be available by the time they would go down the list. Swell!

Moreover, by offering me a position before the other candidate had rejected it, Syracuse made me feel extremely welcome. (In fact I spent the next week lobbying the number 1 candidate to join us in Syracuse--alas to no avail.) But even if they hadn't done so I would have been thrilled with the position as runner-up. I was ecstatic to have exceeded my professional aspirations and to have landed at a well-respected place. (Once there I was inducted into post-Lewisian analytical philosophy and my view of the intellectual side of the profession was transformed.)

Of course, I had some hurt pride that I was not ranked first. But I felt that very same pain at all the early modern job hiring decisions that passed me over. But I don't think these decisions were obviously mistaken or flawed; amazingly good scholars (male and female) landed in jobs ahead of me that year. (Of course, I feel that they didn't always get the best person; but the best wouldn't always be me.) While any individual hiring decision is full of unfair biases, it is very rare that unqualified and incompetent folk land permanent jobs--there are just too many fine people out there. (So that the job market is a rigged lottery does not mean that unworthy candidates regularly sneak into jobs ahead of others.) Having been on the hiring side of a number of searches, my general feeling is always, "I wish I could offer more jobs because there are so many fascinating/interesting people out there." (I never think, "we got that special somebody obviously superior to the rest.")

The difference between a decent tenure track job and no tenure track job is existential. This is why it is really important to remove biases from the process. This is even more so true now with the more widespread exploitation and job-insecurity of adjuncts than it was a decade ago. So, to be on the right side of that existential divide was a huge relief and sense of accomplishment. Obviously, other people with different psychological dispositions might never recover from the thought of being ranked second. But frankly I don't quite understand how such people handle the constant stream of rejections (not just of jobs, but also publications, awards, etc.) that are a feature (not a bug) of being part of a profession. So, whatever the merits of the general conclusion (recall that "information about job offers is best not treated as professional news"), I find the particular argument on offer unconvincing.

On the fate of Small Languages (in Dutch Higher academy)

In the Netherlands, long term trends in student demand are -- given budgetary rules -- driving foreign language & literature studies at university level into extinction. Of course, the previous sentence glosses over lots of local variance at the local university level, including bureaucratic rent-seeking of a technocratic management class, and other complexity, including the fact that the government is willing to apply different budgetary rules for different disciplines. This trend does not reflect a general crisis in the Humanities because history and philosophy departments have maintained solid enrollments (but theology has not). But it has put pressure on philosophy departments that are part of integrated Humanities faculties or are threatened to be put in such faculties (again allowing for local variance).

The defenders of language & literature disciplines have had little political/public success appealing to the intrinsic worth of their subject matter; nor has their fate fared better by appealing to economic arguments centering on the commercial benefits of language education. So, without political will to counter demand side economics, the situation is very bleak despite student and faculty protests.

Even so, it is worth noting that the current approach will destroy the intellectual infrastructure in the Netherlands that secures a deep cultural knowledge and understanding of its purported political partners in the European Union (not to mention lots of other countries that are important in the world at large) and NATO. The exceptions to the previous sentence are Germany and France (which generously fund their own intellectual presence in the Netherlands) and the Anglophone world (which students are still seeking out to learn about at the university level). While one can acquire understanding of foreign cultures outside a university environment -- in part by going abroad and immersing oneself in that culture --, it is striking that the Dutch don't seem to realize that if they show little interest in others, others may return the favor down the road.

Or, perhaps, my compatriots just don't care.

When the Experts will be Ignored in Politics (Thomas More's Utopia on Teaching Virtue)

The [foreign] seamen were not unskilled in managing wind and water; but they were most grateful to him, Raphael said, for showing them the use of the compass, of which they had been entirely ignorant. For that reason they had formerly sailed with great timidity, and only in summer. Now they have such trust in that loadstone that no longer fear winter at all, and to be careless rather than safe. There is some danger that through their imprudence this device, which the thought would be so advantageous to them, may become the cause of such mischief.—in Utopia (by Thomas More), Part I. (Edited by George M. Logan and Robert M. Adams; Cambridge)

Centuries before social scientists started to worry about so-called risk compensation, More has one of his characters recognize that acquiring novel technology can generate overconfidence (from timidity to imprudence) and move agents’ so-called risk-appetites (perceived advantageousness). If the accompanying harms are social/political then the introduction (or teaching) of new technologies has to be managed carefully (for more on law & economics style reasoning in Utopia, recall). One attentive reader of More, Francis Bacon,[1] makes this issue an important theme in his New Atlantis, where even very useful technologies are regularly shielded from government and population by a secretive scientific elite.

More returns to the issue of technological transmission in Part II when he shows the reader how Utopians acquire foreign technologies and learning from Raphael. So, in what follows I do not wish to pretend that I have dealt sufficiently with More’s perspective on the topic. But it’s also possible to read the compass episode as an parable on the nature of teaching (of philosophy, broadly conceived), responsible speech, and expert guidance.[2] For one of the main set-pieces of Part I of Utopia is an exchange over what to do when expert advice is unwelcome:

“Now don’t you suppose if I set these ideas and others like them before men strongly inclined to the contrary, they would turn deaf ears to me?”--Raphael

“Stone deaf, indeed, there’s no doubt about it’, I said, ‘and by heaven it’s no wonder! To tell you the truth, I don’t think you should thrust forward ideas of this sort, or offer advice [to kings] that you know for certain not be listened to. What good can it do? When your listeners are already prepossessed against you and firmly convinced of opposite opinions, how can you win over their mind with such out-of-the-way-speeches? This academic philosophy is pleasant enough in the private conversation of close friends, but in the councils of kings where great matters are debated with great authority, there is no room for it.”[--More]

“That is just what I was saying’, Raphael replied. ‘There is no place for philosophy in the councils of kings.’

‘Yes, it is true’, I said, “that there is no place for this school philosophy which supposes ever topic suitable for every occasion. But there is another philosophy, better suited for the role of a citizen, that takes its cue, adapts itself to the drama in hand and acts its part neatly and appropriately. This is the philosophy for you to use…If you cannot pluck up bad ideas by the root, or cure longstanding evils to your heart’s content, you must not therefore abandon the commonwealth….Instead, by an indirect approach, you must strive and struggle as best you can to handle everything tactfully – and thus what you cannot turn to good, you may at least make as little bad as possible. For it is impossible to make everything good unless all men are good, and that I don’t quite expect to see for quite a few years yet.’[--More]

‘The only result of this,’ he said, ‘will be that while I try to cure the madness of others, I’ll be raving along with them myself….You wouldn’t stand a chance of changing anything for the better by that “indirect approach”. This is why Plato in a very fine comparison declares that wise men are right in keeping from public business.’[—Raphael.]

More distinguishes between academic philosophy, which speaks truth directly without regard to context. This would be prudential only in public circumstances where much of such advices would be dispensable anyway, that is, in context of well-ordered public institutions (or with philosopher-kings). Direct truth speaking is only appropriate for the ivory tower and among private friends. As an aside, a few centuries later Hume would bemoan the rarity of such intellectual friendship, wistfully looking back at Cicero’s circle; and Adam Smith would commemorate Hume as having such intimate friendships (see here and here). Either way, More implies that sticking to such a theoretical approach to philosophy is uncivilized.  

As More’s characters recognize the demand side for expert guidance structures the content of speech among prudential experts. And only experts that are willing to play the game will be heard. This means that in non-well-ordered societies, the available (that is spoken) public council will be sup-optimal from the point of view of truth and general social utility. Note that More’s insight holds even if there is no explicit censorship. More points to a whole range of mechanisms (from group-think, to status seeking, to misaligned incentives) that will be prevent explicit truth from having a seat at the decision-making table.

The character More suggests that civilized philosophers (so-called theoreticians) lower their standards not just in terms of truth speaking – he clearly implies they need to adopt the art of flattery and Raphael is explicitly concerned it also entails practicing Noble lies --, but also in terms of ends sought: now she aims to ameliorate the bad rather than seeking the good. (It could be worse, of course; the expert could just be optimizing her own position.)

Rather than resolving the debate between academic and civilized philosophy, it is worth noting that in the compass example, Raphael learns that his intellectual philanthropy is not sensitive to the unexpected consequences of his education on his students. It is not obvious that transferring technology has made the recipients better off (if they become more accident prone). So, we can say, that Part I of Utopia raises two kinds of concerns about context-insensitive forms of education: in one (e.g., the compass) case it can make the recipient worse off—we are not told if this makes Raphael more cautious in the future. In the other (that is, speaking truth to corrupt power) it is self-undermining and Raphael has learned from experience to avoid supplying it.[3] At the close of part I of Utopia, More leaves his reader with the question if truth-telling, or philosophocal education, can ever be appropriate in public. But he does so in a format -- what I would call philosophical prophecy -- that is far removed from the academic and not wholly the civilized philosophy.

 [UPDATE: this version is slightly modified from the original post thanks to Ed Kazarian's comments.]

Non Autonomous philosophy; Dotson on philosophy as service

I use philosophy to help support, generate and defend research, advocacy and activism that might change the current plight of Black people in the US, particularly promoting better conditions for Black cis- and trans* women, girls and gender non-conforming people. In other words, I am a Black feminist professional philosopher working in the service of Black feminist agendas.

For me, examining the discipline of philosophy itself could not answer the question, “why philosophy.” Not particularly surprising. The “why” of literary criticism is related to the existence of creative writing, even if it is not only or even primarily about its more pervasive cousin. The same might be said of art criticism and art.

The discipline of philosophy does not have this structure and, quite possibly, rightfully so. It is possible that philosophy is always in the service of something other than itself.

So the answer I have stumbled upon to “why philosophy?” is simple really.

I do philosophy because it can be engaged in and created from the position of service.--Kristie Dotson at Philosoph-her

By learning which philosophical tools (e.g., logic, feminist critique) are pertinent to which aims, we avoid reifying our philosophical culture, and are then precisely able to “speak properly and concretely on a subject of universal significance and appeal.” Multiculturalism thus shatters monoculture’s arrogance, via estrangement and self-examination. It makes us stronger.

Once we become stronger, what shall we do in a multicultural world? Circumstances (and desire?) urge us, as philosophers, to become public diplomats. Diplomacy is a worthy task for reason (Western or otherwise), as Bruno Latour (2002) argues. Reason may yet lose in the ongoing “wars of the world” conflict once the dust settles (and when will that be?), but it is only by directly facing the momentous task and violence ahead of us, that multinaturalism (many alternative ontologies, multiple philosophies of nature; Viveiros de Castro 2004) as well as multiculturalism can be negotiated, and a true peace achieved. The view here advocated on philosophy’s function as public diplomacy is perhaps less cynical, and more optimistic, than seeing philosophy as a foundational general or judge, imposing its will to power and adjudicating knowledge and morals, either through (implicit) combat or through detached and abstract rulings (e.g., interpreting philosophical political liberalism as the handmaiden of neo-liberal Western imperialism). The stakes are certainly high. Philosophy could be a commendable diplomat in the public endeavor of learning to live courageously and ethically, perhaps even peacefully, in a multicultural world.---Rasmus Grønfeldt Winther at Scientia Salon.

Dotson observes that the professional philosophy she encountered is incapable of being self-justifying. This is no surprise because the dominant traditions (e.g., analytical philosophy, scientific philosophy, etc.) rest on broadly consequentialist foundations that presuppose shared values. The tacit elitism that could be counted on to do the real work -- that a life of philosophy is best -- does not sit well rhetorically in a democratic culture. Genuine and secure axiological foundations are not easy to come by in an intellectual culture that is scientistic. Dotson's attractive vision turns the weakness of the recent tradition around and turns it into a virtue: philosophy is not self-justifying or autonomous, but a good tool in the service of other ends. So despite many differences in sensibility, she is, thus, not far removed from the spirit of, say, Left Vienna.

Even so, I would expect some readers of Dotson to recoil at her stance. Philosophy, they may think, is oriented toward and expresses the truth. If it serves anything it serves truth. This kind of  sentiment is often muttered by folk who have studied a smattering of physics or math and end up in professional philosophy. (They may even think that this is a value-neutral fact about the essence of philosophy.) They view politics as somehow exogenous to philosophy, and they look with suspicion on, say, philosophical feminism. That is, the value of truth and philosophical self-sufficiency even autonomy is taken for granted.* One knows that such folk devoured Gödel, Escher, Bach, but somehow failed to assimilate the worthy bits of Nietzsche as a teenager.

As I was mulling the implications of Dotson's position I encountered Grønfeldt Winther's "post. I am not sure who exactly is included in his repeated 'us,' but from context it seems to be philosophy and philosophers. He, too, offers a service oriented understanding of philosophy and its "tools," one that facilitates peaceful cohabitation. It is unclear what he has in mind exactly--if he (not unlike later Rawls) thinks that philosophy should engineer concepts that that make such living together possible or, more likely, if he thinks that philosophers should be messengers between cultures/civilizations/countries/peoples (etc.).

That philosophers can be useful to others is an idea as old as recorded (Western) philosophy. It is useful to see it re-imagined and re-activated in an age where lots of professional philosophers want to imagine philosophy as an explanatory or foundational (these need not be identical) enterprise, and lots of (other) public philosophers emphasize the therapeutic, self-help features of the tradition(s). Even so, if the ends of (service oriented) philosophy are given to it from without, its "agenda" is set by others. To be sure, service-oriented philosophy can and will scrutinize these ends dispassionately, so there need not be worry that some values or ends will get an uncritical, free pass. However, if philosophy is intrinsically meant to result, not just in a facilitating role of mutual coping and ongoing conversations, but in action, then it follows that there may be occasions where ongoing questioning will be untimely or a discrete, even diplomatic silence will be embraced.

Precis of: Space and Sound, a two-factor approach to pitch perception

This is an invited guest-post by Adam Morton--ES.]

Perception, consciousness, language, and memory interact in our awareness of musical pitches and keys differently than in visual perception. For example there is good evidence that we remember pitches more accurately than we are aware of, even when we are vividly conscious of them in our experience. It would be good to understand this better, partly as an antidote to the way vision dominates the discussion of perceptual appearances. The topic has a practical side, too, as anyone interested in music will wish they were better at recognizing notes, intervals, keys. The essay this summarizes reports on my experiments with pitch during the past year, their degree of success, and some speculative conclusions. It is definitely unorthodox, though it connects with some data in(For the full details see my essay here; it has a bibliography [see also these papers--ES].

History, aims. My aim was to separate access from accuracy. People with absolute pitch vary in how precisely they can discriminate notes, so as a limiting case imagine someone who can verbalize whether a note is within a half-octave of some tone. They would be able to access information that most people cannot, but they would not have a very accurate pitch sense. I wanted to see if I could develop access, letting accuracy fall however it might. This would be like our grasp of colour, where we have a rough approximate vocabulary that almost everyone can apply, but few can use with great precision. Working towards this, I stumbled on the spread/wobble distinction (to be explained below). Now I can verbally classify pitches, independently of their register, into several rough overlapping classes. I often have intuitions now about keys. I make mistakes but I am usually within a tone or so. I can now do very simple sight-singing from written music.

spread/wobble 

The central move is to split the hard-to-remember pitch qualia into two components. They both present as spatial extents, though these are unconnected with where the sources are really located. This can be done in two ways: the training described in the essay, and by accepting the graph below of my hard-earned classifications and insisting that notes have the required spatial qualities, until they take them on spontaneously. They are best combined.

The first component is wobble. When you hear a note you can encourage it to wander or oscillate from one location to another, wandering in space before you or oscillating from side to side. The pattern of wandering is characteristic of a given pitch, independently of its octave. The location alternates between locations, stopping at one before you hear it at another. One technique here is to hear notes as beginning at a definite point in time but having two endings. The note begins with a percussive or consonantal onset sound, which soon ends, and the end of this onset has a sound quality itself. The on-sound and the off-sound occupy different apparent locations.

The other component is spread. Simultaneous with wobble, or beginning an instant later, there is a continuous spread or slide, to fill an extent that can end either within or beyond the wobble. It seems to occupy all of this horizontal interval. It is simultaneous, occupying the whole angle between its limits, and moving smoothly between them.

It is far from obvious that pitches should have these features. The only way to convince yourself they do is to make them appear in the sounds of the notes. Separating them is the hardest part.

Rough graph  Here are the wobbles and spreads that the twelve semitones present to me.

On Renewing Zionism

At a discussion I ran at UIC [University of Illinois at Chicago] about 10 days ago, I asked the liberal Zionist participants what might be the point at which they would give up on the possibility of a Jewish and democratic state in Israel. For me, we have just passed that point. I have friends I respect deeply who think differently, but to me it is as clear as it is ever likely to be that the election on Tuesday marks the end of liberal Zionism. Consider: Netanyahu calls out just before the election that he will make sure there is no Palestinian state and the response – far from the utter rejection of this suggestion for which I and many others had hoped – was an overwhelming endorsement of him by the Jewish voters of Israel: and certainly by its Zionist voters. Set aside the Joint List, for which very few Jews (and virtually no Zionist Jews), voted. Of the remaining 106 Knesset seats, 67 went to parties that either actively agree with Netanyahu or are indifferent enough to his views on this issue that they are willing to sit in coalition with him. Which is to say: about TWO-THIRDS of the Jewish vote essentially said, “We are happy to end the peace process and instead rule over millions of Palestinians indefinitely; we are happy to have them have no vote, ever, either in their own state or in ours.” Which is to say, in what turned out to be as close to a referendum on the peace process and the two-state solution as we are ever likely to get, two-thirds of Israel’s Jews have just voted for the undemocratic version of the one-state solution: Israel has become, this week, the Herrenvolk ethnocracy its detractors have accused it of long being. We have long faced the possibility that we will have to choose between a Jewish but undemocratic Israel and a democratic Israel that is no longer a Jewish state. The choice is here now and I favor democracy. The thing to work for now is one person, one vote, from the river to the sea: voting rights for all Palestinians under Israeli rule. And if BDS will help bring that about – not sure that it is, but that’s a strategic matter, not a moral one – then BDS is a good thing. It breaks my heart to say this, but today I don’t feel I can call myself a Zionist any longer.--Samuel Fleischacker quoted at Corey Robin. [HT Brian Leiter]

I have known Sam for almost two decades. He is a world class, philosophical Adam Smith scholar, and I participated in a memorable graduate seminar with him at Circle. I am still very pleased and honored to have had him as one of the outside readers on my PhD dissertation. In addition, Sam introduced me to the significance of not overlooking the moral dimensions to the practice(s) of professional philosophy (and philosophers). He is also a distinguished philosopher of religion (recall). So, when he speaks I pay attention. Furthermore, Tyler Cowen reports that the prominent young economist, Glen Weyl (recall and here), announced that he would join BDS (that is, the Boycott of Israel). Cowen's piece is worth reading in full (e.g., "Western commentators don’t know where to turn, because the prevailing progressive narrative is one, not surprisingly, of progress.") [Update: see also this smart piece by Jonathan Marks (which is considerably more hostile toward BDS). (HT Daniel Doneson).]

While I am not inclined to join it (recall), I respect the BDS movement. While I have come to prefer keeping conversations going (recall this post), especially in the contexts where there are so few anyway, boycotts are legitimate forms of moral sanction and there are plenty of solid reasons to offer moral sanction of Israel and (the long list of) those complicit in its dehumanizing and cruel policies toward Palestinians.

Moreover, during the election campaign, prime-minister Netanyahu did not just reject the two-state solution, but he also made remarks that were extremely derogatory toward Israeli Arabs. Much of Netanyahu's behavior is not a bug of Zionism, but a now-near-permanent-feature. (More astonishing is that also took a bet on the future of Israel's political relationship with its most important military and political patron, by aligning Israel with the Republican Congress against the Obama Administration. Even if a Republican were to win the next Presidential election, s/he will be wary of betting on a politician from a client state that assumes s/he can be truly independent of American foreign policy.)

This election changes little about the character of Zionism. Zionism is a political and ideological response to the past and ongoing failures and limitations of Liberalism as it exists (recall); Zionism reminds all true Liberals of Liberal Democracies' shortcomings (no open borders, inability to protect minorities in need, a lack of true respect for cultural difference, etc.). This is not to deny that one could make Israeli policies and ideologies more Liberal (and as Finance minister Netanyahu did so a bit on the economic side). But a fully Liberal Zionism is only possible in a world in which it would not really be needed. (This is also not to deny it is an ideal worth striving for.) So, I reject Liberal Zionism as a viable option. 

Even so, there is no reason for permanent despair for those of us who wish for more humane, Israeli policies. There are no signs at all that the Israeli government will abolish elections; and the beauty of regular elections is that they allow one to regroup, rethink, and return to the electorate at some later date. For those of us that recognize the enduring need of Zionism, it is an important task to help renew it such that it will become more humane and wise.  

Where might a renewal of a more humane Zionism start?

The first aim is to offer a strategic (yes!) alternative to the Schmittian logic of open-ended war and war-preparation that has become a core commitment of political Zionism and Israeli strategic thinking. Most Israelis I know think of this as simple prudence. But it is not: if you place all your bets on winning wars, then a single lost war will be catastrophic (it is no surprise that the memory of 1973 is now suppressed). As Hobbes teaches, if you are constantly preparing for war, you have not escaped the state of nature but you are generating it. So, what we desperately need are articulations of Zionism that offer a trajectory out of open-ended war. It is also imprudent to farm out a considerable amount of one's security needs to the dictatorships that rule Israel's neighbors (including Gaza and the West Bank). It is also unnecessary: there are plenty of real-world examples of former, mortal enemies sharing utterly peaceful borders (e.g., France/Germany), including ones (e.g., Ireland/England) that have a colonial/imperial past.

For, as I have noted before the Schmittian logic is inscribed in two (out of three) failures of Zionism as a political project: (i) its failure to establish and project permanent borders for the state of Israel and, in conjunction with this, (ii) to settle what kind of political entity Israel should be so that it can end its near-permanent war-footing and occupation of hostile populations. Even if it is true that possible solutions to (i) or (ii) cannot be imposed at will, there is no unambiguous Zionist position on either issue.

Fleischacker's advocacy of "from the river to the sea: voting rights for all Palestinians under Israeli rule" offers an unambiguous stance on (i-ii), and so addresses the most important existing problems of Zionism. Even so, given that gaining voting rights for all would have to rely on the very same electoral process that is now written off, it is hard to see how such an eloctorate will be persuaded if it is understood and approached in the terms of Fleischacker's analysis. Moreover, while Fleischacker's democratic single state is compatible with maintaining a Jewish right of return, it does not seem to be its aim; it (the Jewish right of return) would become hostage to the wishes of future voters that have excellent reasons to be hostile to it.

Above I already noted the folly of relying on the interests of (petty) military dictatorships to secure one's borders. But, as an aside, the current status quo has another obvious economic consequence: ordinary goods and services are much more expensive in Israel than they ought to be thereby contributing to considerable economic hardship for quite a large part of Israel's population (not to mention that recent Israeli policy has deliberately impoverished Palestinian neighbors). One reason to aim for a Zionism that rejects the Schmittian logic is that, then, Israel's neighbors could supply it with cheaper goods (and workforces that do not increase Israel's population density).

The second starting point is the recognition that Israel's strategic position will never become better than it is now. Local terrorism is now no more than a relatively minor nuisance to Israeli daily life. All of its neighbors are militarily and economically weak if not consumed by outright civil war; Israel has considerable technological superiority. Many Sunni Arab governments are eager to enlist it in blocking Iran's sphere of influence. Israel could well have new Kurdish allies in the region. (This is not to deny that Israel has genuine, lethal enemies. But these have plenty to fear from Israel, too.) Israel is a success story in many ways. It should finally capitalize on its strength to make its advantages more robust.

I conclude this post (there is a lot more to be said, of course): the renewal of Zionism starts with an aspirational map (not facts on the ground) and with an unambiguous rejection of the logic of open-ended war. To say and conclude that one has no 'peace-partner' becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that only facilitates open-ended war. (If it is wholly true there is no need to say it; for more on responsible speech & zionism see here.) All attempts at ending the state of open-ended-war by negotiations have always postponed the difficult issues (Jerusalem, mutual compensation, etc.) to a later day. Supposedly that makes good bargaining sense, but experience has taught us otherwise.

More on NYU Abu Dhabi

Brian Leiter calls attention to this important story at Inside Higer Ed:

Andrew Ross, a professor of social and cultural analysis at the New York City campus and president of N.Y.U.’s American Association of University Professors chapter, was prohibited by U.A.E. authorities from boarding an Abu Dhabi-bound plane at New York’s Kennedy International Airport on Saturday due to stated “security reasons” (the media relations office at the U.A.E. embassy declined to comment on the incident). Ross had been planning to continue his research on migrant labor issues in the Emirates over his spring vacation. He was not planning to stop by the N.Y.U. Abu Dhabi campus while there.

I'll follow the story as it unfolds with a great deal of interest. (I have written on NYUAD before [here].) I hope the NYU faculty Stateside and in Abu Dhabi will find a way to protest this effectively. I conclude by repeating parts of what I have said before (with modest edits):

Universities frequently recycle other people's dirty money to noble ends.  College campuses everywhere have buildings and prizes named after colonial plunderers, slave-traders, etc. But it does make a difference when universities themselves become actively involved in the network of shady business practices of others. It's not just because one might actually facilitate and entrench a system of crony capitalism (and political exploitation), but such involvement has a tendency to pollute all that are involved. Incentives matter, and participating in crony capitalism in dictatorships generates a pattern of small acts of self-censorship that eventually we often do not even notice about ourselves. Universities should be cautious about generating situations in which they put their faculty at risk of such circumstances.

Even so, I disagree with those that claim that universities ought not opening "campuses in countries that lack the civic foundation of liberal education, the right to speak freely and to protest peaceably the actions of authorities." This has the causal nexus in the wrong direction; universities can sometimes help generate the proper civic foundations. Even if their causal power is limited, they can provide some hope and shelter in dark surroundings. Leaving aside the order of explanation, it just seems perverse to deny citizens access to a fine education because they live under (soft-)dictatorship. But part of a true education involves being an institutional exemplar of integrity and this also requires some courage.

On Teaching (and Meeting Former Students)

I do not blog as much about my teaching experiences in relation to their significance in my life (but see here), in part, because I want to protect the privacy and, more subtly, the intimacy of my experiences with my students (recall). But the main reason I tend to avoid it is that I am alert to some of the romanticizing dangers inherent to the self-actualization (or self-fashioning) of these Digressions; I find teaching a difficult craft, and it is tempting to craft an image of how I prefer to see myself as a teacher. While authenticity is overrated, such an image would merely reveal my desires and insecurities.

Yesterday evening I was a solitary walker in Ghent, debating internally to catch a bite at a place with free wifi, so I could write yesterday’s post and get to bed early, or go to a place with better and more slowly served food. I was mildly concerned about a guest-speaker, who had to cancel a talk due to illness. I stopped in front of an Indian place with an excellent buffet; they had no wifi, but I could be done fairly quickly while not sacrificing quality. Yet, I hesitated; through the window I saw an empty restaurant except for a familiar face talking animatedly with her table-partner. I knew if I went in I would have to make some small talk. At first, I thought it was a fellow coffee-aficionado from Amsterdam who had moved to Ghent, but as I decided to step into the place, I realized it was a former student who greeted me with great enthusiasm and warmth, including (as Dutch adults greet each other) three pecks on my astonished cheeks, immediately invited me to join them for dinner, and launched into a narrative of her exciting projects as a street-artist, magazine editor, play-wright, and cultivator of poets and other noble souls. I was introduced to part of the magazine's editorial team, and was enthusiastically inducted into their secret plans to transform Dutch letters and aesthetics (and, in turn, I revealed some of the trade secrets I have learned from Nabokov); the evening left me little spare time for my daily Digression.

My first taste of academic teaching occurred when I was asked to lead a section of Professor Eichenberg’s ‘Introduction to International Relations’ at my Alma Mater a year after graduation.  After a few weeks I realized I wanted to do this with the rest of my life. Now, ‘Ike’ was a very gifted teacher—he had an amazing capacity to remember students’ names and faces, and could make a capacity filled, giant lecture hall seem like an intimate seminar. He was also very smooth; when I brought my dad to the lecture during my first semester of college, he called on me by name (to my dad’s delight and my astonishment) and made sure to have himself introduced to my dad after class.

Yet, as I started to develop my inchoate, personal ‘philosophy of education’ in graduate school – my head filled with reflections on many noble, but contradictory exemplars (in addition to the portraits of Socrates and Thoreau, the stories about Anscombe and Wittgenstein, as well as my teachers of flesh-and-blood ) --, I grew suspicious of teachers that want to be loved and adored by their students. I rejected, especially, the professors that loved to hear themselves talk (an occupational hazard) to rapt, admiring audiences. Our calling as educators should not be about full-filling our own needs even if we, thereby, meet some of the revealed preferences of our students, I decided, and thereby exhibiting the Protestant roots of my Dutch childhood.

To be clear, then, as now, I do not reject the image of ‘professor as performance-artist.’ I forget who taught me this (if you are reading this: sorry!), but all great philosophical teaching is about taking some features of one’s character, magnifying and using them to generate interactions that serve one’s varied (and variable) pedagogical aims (which may also include generating space for surprise, of course), but which, for me, always includes the idea that if teaching fills any of the teacher’s needs then it should be in virtue of learning from my students (recall my remarks above about dangers of self-fashioning). One reason I am so fruitfully frustrated and fascinated by Seneca's style of teaching in his Letters, is that he seems not very interested in learning from his official protégé.

After a professional decade in the class-room, I know I am not uniformly loved by my students; the evaluations are always polarized with a group of students always strongly disliking my class-room persona. (I am against using evaluations in promotions/pay, but I find them very informative in lots of ways.) While I would behave differently if I could have stayed at Wesleyan – where teachers often really are in loco parentis --, these days if I socialize with students at all then only after I have turned in my grades.

Former students keep in touch with unsolicited letters and, more recently facebook updates: some of the more academically interested of these have become, or are struggling to be, professional academics in turn. Quite a few of my undergraduate teachers were -- and continue to be -- mentors (recall), and I very much enjoy passing on, when possible, the good karma (or is it dharma?), comradery, and the joys of shared intellectual inquiry to the youngsters.

But I am more touched when former students give me their, as it were, postmortem perspective years later and, thereby, reveal that they were inspired by their interactions with my class-room persona and, by that mysterious creative alchemy, transform these into unanticipated sparks that help animate their activities. While it may be a necessary act of vain self-deception, I tell myself that this is what my calling is about.