Digressions&Impressions

Midterm review (after Half a Million life-time Page views)

Sometime in the last few weeks, this blog passed the half millionth page-view. As I am writing this post it stands at 511,058. (I started second week of January 2014.) I am very pleased and not a little bit awed by the ongoing interest people have in my daily musings. Each post averages just under 800 page views, but the variance is pretty high. (Whenever I blog about the sociology of the profession and the sexual scandals the number of visitors increases.) I want to think you, my dear reader, as well as my guest-post contributors for your ongoing interest.

I find it especially pleasing when students write me to tell me about their experience discovering one of my on-line essays and, as they click through, enter the network (or labyrinth) of my unsystematic (but architectonic) system. In addition, I am very grateful for all the encouragement from my professional peers.

This past year, of the top 20 posts, 4 were on the Thomas Pogge scandal.  Six other posts where my musings about analytical triumphalism and our relationship to continental philosophy as seen by somebody (me) who is working, well, on the continent and now in a political science department (my personal favorite is the one on continental philosophy as cultural capital). Seven other posts are on the sociology of the profession  in various ways (including this one on living in the age of David Lewis), including our relationship to non-Western philosophy. The top 20 is rounded out by my obituary of Putnam, this guest post by Audrey Yap, although I liked her follow up piece better, and my post on a fake-Spinoza portrait (see also this post).

Anyway, this year D&I will I be on a relatively long Summer hiatus (until end of August). I hope you come back in the Fall!

On Arendt on Socratic Persuasion

The Socratic proposition “It is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong” is not an opinion but claims to be truth, and though one may doubt that it ever had a direct political consequence, its impact upon practical conduct as an ethical precept is undeniable; only religious commandments, which are absolutely binding for the community of believers, can claim greater recognition. Does this fact not stand in clear contradiction to the generally accepted impotence of philosophical truth? And since we know from the Platonic dialogues how unpersuasive Socrates’ statement remained for friend and foe alike whenever he tried to prove it, we must ask ourselves how it could ever have obtained its high degree of validity. Obviously, this has been due to a rather unusual kind of persuasion; Socrates decided to stake his life on this truth – to set an example, not when he appeared before the Athenian tribunal but when he refused to escape the death sentence. And this teaching by example is, indeed, the only form of “persuasion” that philosophical truth is capable of without perversion or distortion; by the same token, philosophical truth can become “practical” and inspire action without violating the rules of the political realm only when it manages to become manifest in the guise of an example. This is the only chance for an ethical principle to be verified as well as validated.--Hanna Arendt (1968) "Truth in Politics," (p. 243 in Between Past and Present).

I do not understand the last sentence of the quoted passage.

In "Truth in Politics," while relying on a distinction between ethics and politics which she grafts on a Platonizing distinction between truth (which she connects with philosophy) and opinion (which she connects with politics), Arendt claims to writes from the truthful perspective outside of the "political realm" (258). [To be sure, factual truth matters to politics because it is an obstacle to lots of forms of persuasion; Arendt notes that (229) Madison (who got it from Adam Smith) teaches that government rests on opinion, but the truth can undermine it.]  Her claim is a bit odd because she is manifestly instructing the public in her essay (which first appeared in the New Yorker) in order to recognize the social, if not political utility of a distinct realm in which truth rules within and protected by the polity. The agents that occupy that realm (the institution of justice, and research in the modern university) are supposed to be motivated by impartiality, love of truth, and free from "self-interest in thought and judgment." I like that phrase, but we saw recently that Arendt recognized that influence and power would corrode this ethos. 

That is  to say, Arendt is using a form of rhetoric, or persuasion, in the service of a kind of advocacy on behalf of the institutions that promote truth (which people think is impotent). One wonders if this kind of persuasion is also part of "the rules of the political realm," or if Arendt is cheating. Either way, given that hers is different from the less subtle, Socratic form of persuasion -- in staking his life as an exemplar of both the Socratic proposition and as evidence that, thereby (?), truth can be, well, potent in motivating action* --, we can conclude that hers does distort (at least somewhat) "philosophical truth" in the process. I suspect the distortion is the fact philosophers do not want to be (justified as) instrumental to political life (but prefer being oriented toward their a-political truth).

I mentioned above that Arendt recognizes the great significance of truth in political life, but not as a source of action. As she writes in a famous passage (she recycled it for somewhat different ends in 'Lying in Politics'):

The mere telling of facts, leads to no actions whatever; even tends under normal circumstances, toward acceptance of things as they are....Truthfulness has never been counted among the political virtues, because it has little indeed to contribute to that change of the world and of circumstances which is among the most legitimate political activities. Only when a community has embarked upon organized lying on principle, and not only with respect to particulars, can truthfulness as such, unsupported by the distorting forces of power and interest, become a political factor of the first order. Where everybody lies about everything of importance, the truthteller, whether he knows it or not, has begun to act; he, too, has engaged in political business, for, in the unlikely event that he survives, he has made a start toward changing the world. (246-7)

She seems committed to the view that reporting of the facts ordinarily entrenches a status quo bias (that's compatible as she notes with it sometimes undermining it). So most governments would have nothing to fear from (say) public exposure of their activities. As her own essay goes on to remind us, most governments -- including liberal democracies -- act otherwise and, by their cover-ups, create the scandals that undermine them suggesting, if Arendt is right, that they lack practical wisdom.

One final thought, by staking his life, Socrates acted in a way that is political. Arendt does not quite claim why this is so, but presumably this is because (one can agree this much with Hobbes) the political exists at least in part to preserve life and postpone death. Truth compels those that grasp it, but does that do not, she seems to be saying, require an exemplar of what I have called philosophical integrity' the intimate relationship (perhaps one of partial identity or accountability) between our words and our character as revealed by our habitual deeds.. And perhaps, what Arendt is saying, is that such integrity is a matter of public record, or validation.

 

 

On David Hume, Stereotype threat and Anti-Semitism (and also his racism)

A small sect or society amidst a greater are commonly most regular in their morals; because they are more remarked, and the faults of individuals draw dishonour on the whole. The only exception to this rule is, when the superstition and prejudices of the large society are so strong as to throw an infamy on the smaller society, independent of their morals. For in that case, having no character either to save or gain, they become careless of their behaviour, except among themselves.--David Hume "Of National Characters," note 7.

David Hume's "Of National Characters" is notorious for dividing the human species into two: "I am apt to suspect the negroes to be naturally inferior to the whites." In Hume's hand's natural inferiority entails a kind of inherent limit to the (to adopt an Aristotelian phrase) second-nature produced by social (Hume calls them "moral") causes such as institutions, norms, trade(s), and other cultural practices that fix and stabilize individual habits and thereby the collections composed of these individuals. This limit is purportedly characterized by an absence of cognitive or intellectual excellence not just at the collective level but even among the individuals that are part of the naturally inferior race(s). [I am using 'race' here in its nineteenth century sense, but Hume is clearly one of the sources of the later use. (See also this post on Berkeley.)] This means that Hume's racial theory is untenable empirically on its own terms the moment it is confronted with evidence of African civilization and learning. As it happens, and to his eternal discredit, Hume also has a further tendency to discount such evidence that goes against his theory: "In JAMAICA, indeed, they talk of one negroe as a man of parts and learning; but it is likely he is admired for slender accomplishments, like a parrot, who speaks a few words plainly." Hume's stance is especially remarkable because as I first learned from Justin Smith, Anthony William Amo, at one point a professor in Halle and Jena, was already famous among the educated in Europe.

As an aside, Hume is a critic of slavery, so Hume is not following Aristotle in thinking that natural inferiority entails natural slavery. (It's likely he does so not on grounds of justice, but rather on grounds of humanity.) But Hume probably thinks that civilization -- that is being law-governed and obtaining the fruits thereof -- is not indigenous among the naturally inferior and this almost certainly explains his favorable attitude toward the martial exportation of civilization to the Welsh, Irish, and further colonies. This much is well known among careful students of Hume.

By contrast, on Hume's account, natural superiority merely entails that intellectual and cognitive excellence is possible among the race and also that once attained it can be lost in the next generation (due to lack of education or changing cultural or political circumstances): As he writes "The races of animals never degenerate when carefully tended; and horses, in particular, always show their blood in their shape, spirit, and swiftness: But a coxcomb° may beget a philosopher; as a man of virtue may leave a worthless progeny." The previous sentence also entails that the human species is different from other animals on Hume's account: external character traits are more fixed in animals through inheritance than in humans. (This reminds us that one should be cautious in seeing in Hume too much of an anticipation of Darwin.)

Among the naturally superior Hume makes a further demographic assumption: "though nature produces all kinds of temper and understanding in great abundance, it does not follow, that she always produces them in like proportions, and that in every society the ingredients of industry and indolence, valour and cowardice, humanity and brutality, wisdom and folly, will be mixed after the same manner." So, while Hume is pretty clear that  social (so-called "moral") causes -- recall,  institutions, norms, trade(s), and other cultural practices that fix and stabilize individual habits -- predominate in explaining average, national character-traits, individual variation is at least in part due to further innate talents. Moreover, different communities (or populations) may have a different distribution of such innate talents between each other and within each other in different generations.

Only "negroes" are classed among the "naturally inferior" in Hume. So "white" is not isomorphic to naturally superior because there is no doubt that for Hume the Chinese (a civilized nation) also belong among the superior. But it does not follow that natural superiority exempts one from negative stereotype in Hume's hands. His  attitude toward Jews, who as an educated and commercial people belong to the superior kind, is, in fact, illustrative of this. To be clear Hume does not condone violence toward the Jews (as is clear from his treatment of the London massacre of them in his History). But as Langmuir noted, it's not like Hume is especially warm toward the Jews.

About the Jews of his own time "JEWS in EUROPE," Hume reports in "Of National Character" that they are "noted for fraud." Now, Hume's phrasing is compatible with him not agreeing in the judgment. (He may just be reporting other people's views.) But while Hume acknowleges that the uneducated ("the vulgar") "are apt to carry all [judgments of] national characters to extremes; and having once established it as a principle, that any people are knavish, or cowardly, or ignorant, they will admit of no exception, but comprehend every individual under the same censure." It turns out that the more educated, who "condemn these undistinguishing judgments," still maintain that national stereotypes are on average true: ",they allow, that each nation has a peculiar set of manners, and that some particular qualities are more frequently to be met with among one people than among their neighbours." [This is not the place to discuss how Hume treats generalizations that allow for exceptions, but I will note that such generalizations are central to Hume's explanatory enterprise--something that is missed if one comes to Hume through the treatment of miracles or causation in the first Enquiry.]

And, in fact, Hume adds a footnote to explain the causes of how Jews became correctly noted for fraud (among gentiles):

A small sect or society amidst a greater are commonly most regular in their morals; because they are more remarked, and the faults of individuals draw dishonour on the whole. The only exception to this rule is, when the superstition and prejudices of the large society are so strong as to throw an infamy on the smaller society, independent of their morals. For in that case, having no character either to save or gain, they become careless of their behaviour, except among themselves.

There are two mechanisms described by Hume here: first, members of minority communities are more robustly moral than majorities. It is not entirely clear what produces such (positive) conformity (or 'model minority'). It could be because the group polices itself more robustly because of fear of dishonor or because individuals are afraid to embarrass/shame their communities. Second, minority communities become less moral than the majority as a consequence of a false (!) stereotypes of the majority (Hume is clear it's false at first because of his use of 'superstition and prejudices'); it then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. On Hume's account the Jews fit the second mechanism: they are reliable among each other and more or less correctly noted for fraud among the general population.

Remarkably, then, Hume seems to have discerned and partially described the mechanism of stereotype threat, and still endorsed the judgments that are the product of it.

 

Hannah Arendt (and Chomsky) Predicted How Our Epistemocracy (almost) leads to Donald Trump

Daniel Bell is cautiously hopeful because he is aware that scientific and technical work depend on "theoretical knowledge [that] is sought, tested, and codified in a disinterested way" (op. cit). Perhaps this optimism can be justified so long as the scientists and technologists remain uninterested in power and are concerned with no more than social prestige, that is, so long as they neither rule nor govern. Noam Chomsky's pessimism, "neither history nor psychology nor sociology gives us any particular reason to look forward with hope to the rule of the new mandarins," may be excessive; there are as yet no historical precedents, and the scientists and intellectuals who, with such deplorable regularity, have been found willing to serve every government that happened to be in power, have been no "meritocrats" but, rather, social climbers. But Chomsky is entirely right in raising the question: "Quite generally, what grounds are there for supposing that those whose claim to power is based on knowledge and technique will be more benign in their exercise of power than those whose claim is based on wealth or aristocratic origin?" (Op. cit., p. 27.) And there is every reason to raise the complementary question: What grounds are there for supposing that the resentment against a meritocracy, whose rule is exclusively based on "natural" gifts, that is, on brain power, will be no more dangerous, no more violent than the resentment of earlier oppressed groups who at least had the consolation that their condition was caused by no "fault" of their own? Is it not plausible to assume that this resentment will harbor all the murderous traits of a racial antagonism, as distinguished from mere class conflicts, inasmuch as it too will concern natural data which cannot be changed, hence a condition from which one could liberate oneself only by extermination of those who happen to have a higher I.Q.? And since in such a constellation the numerical power of the disadvantaged will be overwhelming and social mobility almost nil, is it not likely that the danger of demagogues, of popular leaders, will be so great that the meritocracy will be forced into tyrannies and despotism?--Hannah Arendt (1972) "On Violence,"note XVI, in Crises of the Republic, pp. 196-7

The note quoted above is attached to a paragraph that treats Bell's analysis of a then-new phenomenon in history: the rise in importance of a credentialed technocratic class (of scientists and engineers, but also bureaucrats) that is indispensable in securing the open ended economic growth of modern (liberal) political economies. While Bell treats technocrats as a new species of disinterested agents, Chomsky and Arendt know better: as the social rewards of technocracy grow, the special ethos that governs an intellectual credit economy gives way among technocrats to mores more apt to political rule (and, in turn, this infects the academy).*

Since Bell, Chomsky, and Arendt discussed these issues, this credentialed class has increasingly secured the economic gains from its own contributions and is steadily supplying the political and economic elite (perhaps also the military elite). Along the way this class also rigged the system in its own favor, by permitting a rent-seeking financial elite to secure private gains at the expense of social costs since the great financial crisis  (in 2008), and by making patents and copy-rights ever more protected.** Thus what was only a speculative thought in the 1960 has become reality: we live in an epistemocracy, or (if you think our modern credentials are spurious) we live in a credentialed elite that purports to be meritocratic.*** Obviously, it is not a perfect epistemocracy (the elites’ self-selection mechanisms are imperfect), but we are heading there.

In an earlier piece on meritocracy, I noted it is very annoying to be told that one deserves to lose. It is worse, I think, if one is told repeatedly and frequently by a whole society's morality and shared commitments that the systematic pattern of outcomes in which one always end up on the losing side is morally just and due to your cognitive, physical, psychological, aesthetic (etc.) flaws, especially, perhaps, if it all seems true. [Note that the true can be ideological if it presupposes a status quo bias [recall]; it can also be a form of supportive propaganda in Stanley's sense [recall]] I would now add that the worst feature of a meritocracy is that the ruling elites treat their own values as constituting rationality.

It is very hard to combine an epistemocracy with democracy because as Arendt notes", in the counterfactial limit the numerical power of the disadvantaged will be overwhelming and social mobility almost nil. Even if the meritocracy is run in accord with Rawls' difference principle and the rising tide of prosperity benefits the least advantaged materially, there is no reason to expect that the majority will accept being second-class forever (even if its accorded all the procedural trappings of democratic participation). Obviously, Arendt smuggles in an assumption of considerable heritability of intelligence, and we may well think (with a nod to plasticity) that ceteris paribus there will be open-ended progress in improving intelligence via social/cultural/educational factors and, thereby, with clever social engineering constant renewal of the elites. But other things are not equal: those will money and influence will nudge the system in their offspring’s favor.

Because rationality and facts are, by (social) definition, on the side of the credentialed elites, the disadvantaged are susceptible to demagogues. And, in fact, if one thinks that power is a genuine end, as it must be in politics, then it is quite rational by the majority to turn to demagogues. While Arendt correctly notes the murderous traits of a racial antagonism that accompanies this turn to demagoguery she mistakenly assumes that its primary target is the credentialed elite rather than members of low status groups that are advancing in relative status due to economic success (I call this the enduring ‘Jewish problem’).

And so we can distinguish between two kinds of demagogues: (i) the ones [Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, etc.] that on the whole leave the credentialed elites pretty much alone and re-direct the majority's energies at scapegoats (immigrants, refugees, dark-skinned citizens, etc.), and (ii) those demagogues that channel the anger at the credentialed elites. It turns out that (i) is can be a serious nuisance to epistemocracy (as the disruption caused by Brexit shows) and harm some of its members (especially if they beling to targeted scapegoat communities), while only (ii) is lethal to credentialed elites as such. Credentialed elites are able to accommodate themselves to (i); from their vantage point Donald Trump is ultimately mere entertainment. We see this calculation at work, first, in the favorable media coverage Trump garnered and, second, because Trump is not being treated as an existential threat to the status quo by those that have most to lose from it.

Once a demagogue along the lines of (ii) arises democracy is finished because the credentialed elites will not defend it. For, they have no attachment to democracy as such: already 'ignorant voters' are treated as a self-evident fact by many of the most ardent epistemocrats; there is increasing fondness to use arguments from complexity to favor either markets or experts. Rather, as Arendt suggests the credentialed will desert the democratic cause, and defend their power against the more egalitarian impulse in the name of a moral cause: merit. 

Obviously these outcomes are not inevitable. It is possible liberal democracies muddle on. It is notable that there is a huge atmosphere of crisis that permeates Arendt's writinsg from the late 1960s and early  70s. There was a genuine crisis that was arguably worse than what's being faced now, but for all of our many imperfections liberal democracies have not imploded since. In particular, it is more likely that external threats (fill in your favorite: climate change, violent Jihad, China, etc.) will allow the construction of some kind of unity that will involve some compromise between the principle of merit and the principle of equality.

 

 

On Possible Worlds and Laws of Nature in Newton

Since Space is Divisible in infinitum, and Matter is not necessarily in all places, it may also be allowed that God is able to create Particles of Matter of several Sizes and Figures, and in several Proportions to Space, and perhaps of different Densities and Forces, and thereby to vary the Laws of Nature, and make Worlds of several sort in several Parts of the Universe.  Isaac Newton, Opticks, Query 31; Newton 1730: 379-80.

In the Principia, Newton is very careful not to offer an explicit cosmogony. The first edition of the Principia ends with the (Epicurean) suggestion that comets bring the seeds of life from one solar system to another and there is a kind of intimation of a cycle of life (and, by implication, an eternal return of life and catastrophe also familiar from Descartes's philosophy) under the guidance of a providential, but not especially Christian God. He repeats the thought in a famous letter to Bentley, “there might be other systems of worlds before the present ones, and others before those, and so on to all past eternity." (Newton 2004, 102.) The second edition of the Principia, closes with a more explicit (heterodox Chrsitian) theology in the General scholium, where Newton argues that a cosmogony that would explain the existence of the visible universe will have to posit a Designer-God. (I have argued elsewhere that Kant shows you can develop a plausible cosmogony without a designer.) The Queries to the Opticks, provides more detail on Newton's speculative cosmogony. Here I want to offer some reflection on what the quoted passage implies for his views on laws of nature and possible worlds.

First, a note on Newton terminology: the universe can (but need not) be composed of different worlds. Ordinarily when Newton uses 'world' he means thereby to refer to a solar system. Newton recognizes that the universe could be composed of different worlds that coexist (in the General scholium he remarks [recall] on the beauty of the night sky to aliens in other worlds). A 'system a worlds' is a collection of solar systems (we would say, a 'galaxy') that, presumably, share in a uniform motion. For in the scholium to the definitions of the Principia, Newton shows that in order for the First Law to hold for the centre of mass of a closed system of interacting bodies, the Third Law must hold for the interactions among the bodies (for details see my work with Chris Smeenk here ). [In addition, in Corollary 5 to the Laws he makes it clear that the relative motions of a closed system of bodies are not affected if the entire system moves uniformly without rotation.] 

Second, Newton also uses 'world' in a metaphysically richer sense. A world in this sense is constituted and characterized by the kinds of “particles of Matter” and forces that are to be found in it. The matter and forces of a world can be described by laws of nature. Newton's attitude toward matter and forces is realist (they are part of his basic ontology); matter and forces ground the laws of nature, which are derivative: note Newton's "thereby." In fact, Newton's treatment of laws of nature in the passage quoted from the Opticks is compatible with a very deflationary picture of laws of nature (they could be merely calculating devices), but it's also compatible with a less nominalist interpretation of them (that is, they are really existing second causes). Either way, Newton's laws are not primitive or productive in the sense that, say, Maudlin's treatment of laws are (recall).

Third, Newton's empirical, "laws of nature are not necessarily universal laws.+ They only hold of 'worlds' (in the metaphysical sense). Thus, Newton's position is compatible with (a) the universe having more than one kind of 'law of nature' each holding only for a different world (or system of worlds) or (b) the universe having one set of laws of nature that cover all the systems of worlds. In fact, the possibility of (a) helps explain that throughout Book 1 of the Principia, Newton also explores the characteristics of models with hypothetical force laws unlike the ones we find in nature. A universe that is like (a) would require causal disconnectedness among systems of the world (of the sort that [recall] Huygens posited for his alternative vortex-based theory).*

Fourth, the previous paragraph shows that Newton recognized that the empirical support for his laws of nature were limited in a sense. The evidence is biased to this-worldly observations. Below I return to this point when I discuss Newton's third and fourth rules of reasoning which push one to move from claims about matter in this world to the the matter in the whole universe.

Fifth, it is notable that Newton does not argue from God's power to the conclusion that the laws of nature could vary locally, but rather from the nature of space and matter. It's the divisibility of space and the possibility of a (local) vacuum that allows that matter could come in different kinds. (Newton takes Boyle's work on the air-pump and his own work on planetary and comet motions/trajectories to show that empty space is more likely than not.) One may wonder why a space/vacuum and density of matter are related. It turns out, that Newton (see, especially, Proposition 3.6, Corollary 3) relies on the counterfactual assumption that if matter is fully compressed to eliminate all interstitial void spaces, it would be of the same density. [In the second edition this was reworded so as to remove the commitment to atomism (see Biener and Smeenk for more on this).]

Sixth, one may wonder why Newton does not treat the laws of nature as universal. For, the third rule of reasoning reads, "Those qualities of bodies that cannot be intended and remitted and that belong to all bodies on which experiments can be made should be taken as qualities of all bodies universally." Newton's position relies (as the long commentary on the third rule shows) on the distinction between universal and essential qualities of matter. On my reading (defended elsewhere) essential qualities of matter are for Newton those that are required necessarily for matter to be matter. Universal qualities of matter are metaphysically optional. The third rule is a claim about how matter should be taken within the context of research. That is the third rule offers a  bold generalization from the empirically available domain to domains beyond our experimental grasp. George Smith has explained the epistemic pay-off from doing so (in light of Newton's subtle methodology). For the fourth rule claims that "In experimental philosophy, propositions gathered from phenomena by induction should be considered either exactly or very nearly true notwithstanding any contrary hypotheses, until yet other phenomena make such propositions either more exact or liable to exceptions. This rule should be followed so that arguments based on induction may not be nullified by hypotheses." The fourth rule teaches us that the pay-off to such inductive boldness is the ability to find other phenomena that make such propositions either more exact or liable to exceptions.

Seventh, it follows that within the context of research, Newton advocates (b) the universe having one set of laws of nature that cover all the systems of worlds; and that within that context the possibility of (a) is not allowed to be used to nullify (say) the universal character of gravity. This is the context that is privileged ontologically. But Newton clearly allows that, in a different register, one can speculate about alternative possibilities that may turn out to be fruitful in the future. That is to say, Newton recognizes (with a nod to Kant, Cassirer, and Michael Friedman) a dynamics of reason that operates alongside empirical inquiry into nature.

Finally, the passage is relevant for Newton's views on modality. Newton treats infinite beings (God, space, time) and finite beings (matter, forces, laws) as subject to different modal rules. In particular, in the General Scholium he argues with the principle that if some effect Y is universal temporally and spatially, then we can infer or posit as the ultimate cause something that itself is necessary in a way that accounts for Y (recall my treatment of Newton and Clarke). But as the passage quoted above, from the Opticks reveals, Newton does not allow the inference to go in the other direction: a necessary existing Being could have created an alternative reality when it comes to finite beings and the laws that govern particular [systems of] worlds.

The Pogge case After the New York Times

A Yale spokesman said that when the university received information that a candidate had exhibited inappropriate behavior, it investigated all allegations “to the extent possible.” Professor Pogge said that a university representative had asked him about the Columbia case while he was being recruited, in 2007. Professor Benhabib, who served on Professor Pogge’s selection committee, said that she and other committee members had heard about the Columbia case but did not discuss it.

“I didn’t think it was my place to go searching into his history at Columbia,” she said. “Everybody slips once. That was our attitude.”

She added, “In retrospect maybe we should have done more.”--The New York Times "After a Professor Is Cleared of Sexual Harassment, Critics Fear ‘Cultural Silence’ at Yale"

In a recent article, The New York Times exposed a few more salient facts about the Thomas Pogge case. I have been following the case, and was startled by these. It is worth noting their significance.

First, as the quote from Professor Benhabib reveals, quite a few people at Yale knew that there had been a case at Columbia when Yale was recruiting and hiring Thomas Pogge (more about this below).

Second, reasonable people may disagree to what degree more "should have" been "done" with this information at the time (see for discussion Leiterreports). (I assume that the folk that brought the information to the attention of our peers at Yale thought it significant.) It is a revealing glimpse at the culture of silence that operates within the profession (recall and here). Even if you think more should have been done at the time, it is worth reminding the more severe judges that since the profession has been educated by What is it Like to be a Woman in Philosophy?, The Feminist Philosophers blog, and many courageous women who have shared their stories and analysis.

But, with all due respect to Professor Benhabib, one wonders at what point the members of Yale University's search committee, when confronted with increasing evidence of Thomas Pogge's misdeeds, started to reach out to Pogge's victims and take action to correct their mistake (or, if you will, negligence)? I don't know the answer to this honest question, but I do know that given the steep prestige hierarchy of the profession, once the members of our most important departments do "more," we can change the professional norms.

Third, I mention the point in the previous paragraph  because I was bit startled by a recent public comment in the Huffington Post on the affair by the Chair of the search committee: “Yale is not Big Brother,” [Professor] Kagan said, “and you wouldn’t want it to be Big Brother.” Indeed, it wouldn't be good if Yale became a Big Brother. But there is quite a bit of scope for action by individuals (like the members of the search committee and -- see below -- Yale's administration) short of Yale becoming a Big Brother.

Fourth, (recall), Professor Kagan who was Chair of the search committee then, has also recently been quoted that he "added that had accusations against Pogge been brought to his attention, he would have discussed them with the administration." It follows (recall the Daily Nous) that some mebers of Yale's administration were aware of a prior case against Thomas Pogge when they hired him. As I noted all evidence points to current president of Yale University, Peter Salovey, being one of those administrators. This is not insignificant.

Fifth, the New York Times reports that "Mr. Salovey, acting as the case’s designated “decision maker,” approved the recommendations and later rejected Ms. Lopez’s appeal of the ruling." Here the appearance of a conflict of interest really is non-trivial. President Salovey could not just be seen to be trying to protect the institution's reputation (for key players at Yale knew that Ms. Lopez's case was the tip of a larger pattern of misbehavior by Thomas Pogge), but also his own reputation. Let's be frank: Yale seems to have conspired in a cover-up, in part, to protect its President's negligence in protecting Pogge's victims. (Recall from this Buzzfeed article that Yale offered Ms. Lopez hush money.)

Sixth, can anybody explain why President Salovey is still the President of Yale University?*

 

On Not finding the Words to Be in This World

Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully.

The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgements of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."--Lincoln (1865) The Second Inaugural.

In trying to find words to organize the jumble of my thoughts on this week's events Stateside, I was reminded of my second visit to Washington DC with the College Democrats in the early 1990s. One bright night I got bored with the networking and the efforts of the under-aged to obtain drinks, and went with a small group to the Lincoln Memorial. I had never been there. I had discerned that professional politics was not for me. One of my companions mentioned that Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a dream speech," was given at the base of Lincoln's statue.

A few years before I had visited the Jefferson Memorial and I had struggled with my response. The rhetoric gripped me at first, but over time I came to see in the particular choice of words a clumsy effort at propaganda. I was bracing myself for disappointment as I entered the Lincoln Memorial. And at first, I had to suppress laughter--Lincoln looked just like I imagined him to look and I expected him to stand up and play the part in a cartoon or a third rate horror movie. I recognized the Gettysburg address (recall my post), but the words of the Second Inaugural were unfamiliar. I was horrified and astounded by it: while allowing that God's providential plan may be unknowable, he was treating the suffering of the war inflicted on all parties (both North and South) as divine punishment for the evil of slavery.

I was astounded because I could not imagine a politician, certainly not a war-time leader, magnifying the voters' sins back at them. I had come to assume that while democratic political leadership was coextensive with some truth, it primarily entailed a form of flattery of the people by the politician. That Lincoln's stance had seemed impossible to me, made me feel not just physically small in his statue's presence, but I suddenly saw that my purported knowing-ness and realism revealed itself as underestimating democratic, no human, possibility.

I was awestruck, yet angry.

His words horrified and angered me because it reminded me of the Rabbinic argument that I had encountered as a teenager that the Holocaust was divine punishment of the Jews' sins. My teenage (modestly existentialist) self earnestly opted for nihilism given the choice between meaning-less suffering or a God that inflicts such (disproportionate) horrors on his creatures. (I didn't recognize that if God existed, my choice would seem comic to her.) Since, I learned that God is not required for the stance I rejected; I sometimes spot secular versions of a divine retribution theory (e.g., austerity measures inflicted on 'lazy' populations).

I have come to recognize the moral majesty of Lincoln's great sense of shared complicity in evil. And I am impressed by his willingness to entertain, subtly, such public doubt in God's possession of the attribute of justice and his sense of the absurdity even blasphemy of so much prayer. Yet, whether he believed his own words or not, I revolted against the embrace of divine retribution because (as a doctrine/explanatory principle) it seems biased against history's victims--it victimizes them twice over. Even so, while steady in my rejection of this theology, as the years have passed, I have come to wonder whether Lincoln's greatness and his theology are inseparable. (I am not claiming this theology is sufficient for greatness!)

So, here I am, a father of a young child, hoping that he will be surrounded by people willing to cope and adjust to each other without violence, knowing that I have no grounds for expecting this. Out of scholarly duty I look up the full text of Psalm 19, and there just before reaching, "the judgements of the Lord are true and righteous altogether," I read, אֵין-אֹמֶר, וְאֵין דְּבָרִים:    בְּלִי, נִשְׁמָע קוֹלָם. There is no speech, there are no words, neither is their voice heard.*

 

 

From Suez (via Iraq) to Brexit

“The UK’s relationship with the US has proved strong enough over time to bear the weight of honest disagreement. It does not require unconditional support where our interests or judgments differ.”--The Chilcot Report.

The whole point of publishing an inquiry into the 2003 -- yes that's more than a dozen years ago -- invasion of Iraq during the Summer with three great sporting events (Wimbledon, the Tour, and the European Cup) distracting us is to have a few days of page 2-5 stories and then move to other Summer diversions (an Olympics, some Royal Scandal etc.). Undoubtedly, the Chilcot report will be significant to some lawyers and future historians.

But as it happens, the report appeared after extraordinary weeks in which the hollowness at the center of British political life has been exposed. I don't write the previous sentence with joy (recall). But it is worth remembering that Tony Blair, a bright and energetic even moralistic man capable of winning elections, was once the recipient of the kind of adulation now showered on, say, Justin Trudeau.

Supporting G.W. Bush on Irag and Brexit are freely chosen, self-inflicted wounds that harm lots of innocents locally and elsewhere. On a surface level they have in common the utter lack of contingency planning. This is no small matter; if the capacity of collecting taxes is the bare minimum of being a state; then preparing for worst-case scenarios is the bare minimum of competence in governance. This suggests a very deep rot in the bureaucratic and political functioning of the British state.

On a deeper level they show an utter lack of clarity on the political, economic, and military interests of the UK. The UK's involvement in the Iraq war was, in large part, the product of a misguided commitment to a 'special relationship' that was one-sided and never truly in the UK's interest--it was a species of self-deception. (On the British side, the Iraq war was also a modern kind of imperial project fueled by greed [perhaps a way to advertise British armaments and grab some oil contracts] and pseudo-humanitarianism.) What it showed is that the UK's elites have never figured out a rational foreign policy, say, since the Suez-fiasco (that's 1956). Even the authors of the Chilcot report buy into a narrative that emphasizes the strength of the relationship.

Iraq is directly and indirectly linked to Brexit. Directly, because it means that the key political, economic, and (arguably, I am no expert) military interests of the UK remained undefined, undefended, and unsupported by the public. I mention this because it is common to hear educated observers to complain about 'ignorant voters.' But these were, in fact, never educated in the UK's true interests because the elites never seemed to have grasped it. Here's a non-trivial statistic: the EU accounts for half of the UK's trade.

To be sure, I am willing to allow that the UK's interest are not inside the EU. Mid-sized capitalist, countries can survive without being part of the EU (South Korea, Australia spring to mind). It may well be in the interest of the majority of English citizens to stop being Europe's bankers, let the City dwindle, end being a property/equity hedge-fund for the upper classes, and allow other parts of the economy to flourish. (And, for all I know (and I really don't), the English back their way into this path.)

Finally, Iraq is one of the indirect causes of Brexit. Because among the effects of the political chain-reaction that followed from 'Iraq' and then 'Syria' is the stream of refugees that die nightly on the TV news on the seas and shores of Europe. The British ruling elites have been shameful in their response (this is not to giver other Europeans a pass!); while systematically refusing to use the word 'refugee' (or 'asylum') the prime minister, David Cameron did use “swarm of people.” His government had no moral authority nor a vocabulary and, thus, no shared commitments or emotions to challenge the increasing xenophobia in the 'leave' campaign because its policies had already failed basic decency. Those of us that wish the British well can only hope that the contest between Theresa May and Andrea Leadsom is also the occasion for a number of serious debates over the future. But it is probably too much to expect from people that have risen to the top in this environment.

 

 

On Eternity and Chance in Borges on Eid al-Fitr

We inevitably desire eternity; and dreams of eternity can only fail, condemned as we are to temporality.--William Egginton "Borges on Eternity," (in Eternity: A History, 277)

Today, Eternity: A History edited by Y. Melamed arrived in the mail. I don't know why I received the volume (I have edited a volume on Sympathy in the same series, but I have not been sent other gratis copies in the series), but I am pleased with the anonymous gift. Because I sometimes muse about Borges, I was drawn to Egginton's elegant "Reflection" on Borges (quoted above). Oddly, when I looked up Egginton in the list of Contributors, I found his name missing. At first I wondered if Melamed had played a practical, Borgesian joke and invented a fictional character to write the entry on Borges. But from Wikipedia I learn William Egginton was born in Syracuse in 1969.*

In Averroës's Search,-- sadly unmentioned by Egginton --, the great philosopher, Ibn Rushd, is explicitly located in "the land of Spain, where there were not a great many things, yet where each thing seemed to exist materially and eternally." It's important for Borges' politics that this philosopher is also a Spanish philosopher and, thus, somehow in the cultural ancestry of the 'West.' And Spain gets presented as (to adapt a Quine-ean phrase) a desert landscape, where the lack of ''entity' density is compensated, as it were by a cosmic, metaphysical harmony, by eternal, material existence of the relatively rare entities found there. Of course, this only seems so because we assume that no material thing -- we can ignore spirits here -- exists eternally in Spain.

The next time we encounter the eternal in Borges's story of Ibn Rushd, Faraj (an "orthodox" Qur'anist) is reported as saying, "while language and signs and writing are the work of men, the Qur'an itself is irrevocable and eternal.'' (Averroës remains silent in response, although he thinks that Faraj could also have said "that the mother of the Book is similar, in a way, to the Platonic Idea.") Faraj is the host of the dinner-party, and it is impolite and imprudent to draw those unskilled in theology into discussion about it.

As an aside, in his contribution to the Eternity volume (p. 84), Peter Adamson helpfully notes that the idea that the Qu'ran is uncreated becomes an imposed dogma in the mid ninth century by the Abbasid Caliphs, although this remark only gives a hint of what is at stake in Ibn Hanbal's famous defiance on this point.**

It is notable that Borges's Ibn Rushd philosophical translation of Faraj's remark does not contradict it. He is shown capable of an esoteric reading that he does not utter. Here, as is elsewhere, Borges shows that he has grasped Ibn Rushd's political thought because Ibn Rushd is exceptionally clear on the significance to political-theology that the experts that know can keep quiet.

The 'mother of the Book' is itself a Quranic phrase (see 43:2-4) and on the Platonizing reading of Borges's Ibn Rushd it is a kind of eternal template for the Arabic text that Faraj knows how to recite. It is compatible with this idea, but that's unmentioned, that any material Qu'ran could also be produced in a different language (the work of men).***

The idea of a 'mother of the Book' returns under a different name (and with a different content) in The Library of Babel: in the eternally existing and eternally returning library, "There must exist a book that is the cipher and perfect compendium of all other books." There Borges's narrator treats the "belief" in what was termed the Book Man," that is, the "librarian" who "must have examined that book" (and "this librarian is analogous to a god") as a "superstition." (Here the narrator sides with the Islamic critique of Christianity.) I note that Borges's narrator goes on to insist -- and I hasten to add on impeccable, modal metaphysical grounds -- that this perfect compendium of all others books itself, must exist.

Eid Mubarak!

 

 

 

On Teaching Life and Death Philosophy (Seneca 23)

A compelling case can be made that more or less everyone, prior to the emergence of professionalized philosophy in the West over the course of the eighteenth century, took happiness to be the exclusive legitimate goal of philosophy. "The Ascetic" in J.E. Smith (2016) The Philosopher: a History in Six Types, 160.

[Stoicism councils] caution over courage [cautiores quam fortiores sunt]--Seneca, Letter XXIII.

Justin Smith's remark, which I read on the fourth of July, called me back to my commentary on Seneca's Letters (recall). At the start of Letter 23, Seneca distinguishes between two kinds of advice (i) the general rules one gives to distant friends and future generations (again revealing his interest in posthumous relationships) and (ii) the contextually detailed advice the philosophical teacher gives to somebody nearby. Seneca compares (ii) to the practices of physicians and gladiators. The examples don't merely point to significance of contextual judgment (a major theme of the letter), but in both cases (physicians/gladiators) life and death are at stake (and in both cases happiness -- as understood by Seneca -- are distant): some philosophical teaching is not just about the happy life, but about life as such.* Conceptually and etiologically life (vita) as such is prior than the happy life. This needs emphasizing because Seneca is willing to suggest (if only as an opinion) that no life is better than a bad life [censeo aut ex ista vita tibi aut e vita exeundum.].

Of course, there is a normative element to Seneca's conception of life (or existence); in fact, much of the letter is explicitly devoted to the happy path [felicitatem cursu], and the contrast between if and the appearance of happiness to be found in wealth and badly used leisure. But this is explicitly distinguished from the temporally posterior path that leads to stoutness and magnanimity (literally: grows the soul). That is to say, it's only once the soul is capable of happiness (the inferior good), of the kind that is independent of fortune, than then the soul may be turned by a true teacher to develop fortitude, strength of mind, and the other noble goods. We had already seen that for Seneca the fundamental goal is wisdom, and happiness a byproduct of it (recall Letter 16).

As an aside, Seneca echoes Plato (Laws X) in his disdain for prayer which he treats as a superstitious form of trading between men's wishes and God's favors [Emerge ad meliorem vitam propitiis diis, sed non sic quomodo istis propitii sunt quibus bono ac benigno vultu mala magnifica tribuerunt, ob hoc unum excusati, quod ista quae urunt, quae excruciant, optantibus data sunt.]. Seneca's position is the Gods bless those, who help themselves, and understand what they need. But what we need truly is badly taught by society, which is why death is feared and the paths of life are crooked.

Thus, Seneca suggests that a better social order would generate better lives. So, Seneca is not just recognizing philosophy's instructive tasks as (i) the general rules of living offered to distant friends and future generations, and (ii) the contextually detailed advice in the art of living  by the philosophical teacher, but also (iii) the task of framing laws for the human race that allow our true needs to be developed (recall Letter XIV). As Seneca also says in Letter XIV, (iii) is a Stoic task that does not involve courage.

I close with a reflection inspired by Smith. Smith's remark quoted above entails that with the rise of professional philosophy, philosophy is not oriented toward, to be flippant, the pursuit of happiness and that other projects have taken on the task of teaching and developing happiness. This is not to deny that some professional philosophers are very happy, but it is not intrinsic to their task as professional philosopher (and there is good reason to believe that the prestige hierarchy and zero-sum-attention-structure of professional philosophy deforms our reactive attitudes and makes us truly unhappy), nor to teach it others except accidentally. (Yes, I know there is a whole field of philosophy of well-being.)

In fact, Smith closes the chapter (The Ascetic) with an extended anecdote about Bernier (a student of Gassendi and early reader of Descartes, that is, on the cutting edge of philosophy), who has become incapable of what Smith calls "an openness to learning." Bernier is like those Dutch tourists who go abroad and find there the superiority of their homeland. It is Bernier's confidence in the superiority of his own intellectual heritage -- a kind of expert over-confidence -- that when he encounters a learned pandit, he hears "nothing more than "tales."" (185) Bernier knows much, but is incapable of receptivity. [It is part of the charm of Smith's book that portrays an earlier version of himself as no better than Bernier, and that the book shows us the joys of receptiveness--conceptualized as curiosity about singular things.]

And here one of the meanings of one of Seneca's recurring gimmicks comes into focus. As I have noted, most of his (early) Letters are closed with a saying not from the Stoic school, but one attributed to Epicurus. He explicitly honors not the Gods, but the offerings of other schools [sarcinas adoro]. You may say then that Seneca wishes to teach by example that true philosophy does not recognize the spirit of party or faction, or intellectual property rights. The receptive philosopher will take what he can and not disdain the offerings because they were developed in the wrong school or environment; if you like economics metaphors, the true philosopher will exploit opportunities for arbitrage and -- qua teacher -- is generous in sharing the gains, too.