Digressions&Impressions

On Foucault on 10 January 1979 On the Origin of Political Economy (II)

I said that this fundamental transformation in the relations between law and governmental practice, this emergence of an internal limitation of governmental reason could be located roughly around the middle of the eighteenth century. What permitted its emergence? How did it come about? Obviously, we should take into account an entire, comprehensive transformation (I will come back to this, at least partially, afterwards), but today I would just like to indicate the intellectual instrument, the form of calculation and rationality that made possible the self-limitation of governmental reason as a de facto, general self-regulation which is intrinsic to the operations of government and can be the object of indefinite transactions. Well, once again, the intellectual instrument, the type of calculation or form of rationality that made possible the self-limitation of governmental reason was not the law. What is it, starting from the middle of the eighteenth century? Obviously, it is political economy.
The very ambiguities of the term “political economy,” and of its meaning at this time, indicate what was basically at issue in all this, since you know that between 1750 and 1810–1820 the expression “political economy” oscillates between two semantic poles. Sometimes this expression aims at a particular strict and limited analysis of the production and circulation of wealth. But, in a broader and more practical sense, “political economy” also refers to any method of government that can procure the nation’s prosperity. And finally, political economy—the term employed by Rousseau in his famous article in the Encyclopedia—is a sort of general reflection on the organization, distribution, and limitation of powers in a society. I think that fundamentally it was political economy that made it possible to ensure the self-limitation of governmental reason.... 

it was formed within the very framework of the objectives set for the art of government by raison d’État, for what objectives did political economy set itself? Well, it set itself the objective of the state’s enrichment. Its objective was the simultaneous, correlative, and suitably adjusted growth of population on the one hand, and means of subsistence on the other. Political economy offered to ensure suitable, adjusted, and always favorable competition between states. It proposed precisely the maintenance of an equilibrium between states such that competition can take place. That is to say, it took up exactly the objectives of raison d’État and the police state that mercantilism and the European balance had tried to realize. So, to start with, political economy lodges itself within the governmental reason of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and to that extent is not in the kind of external position occupied by juridical thought. Michel Foucault, 10 January 1979, lecture 1  The Birth of Biopolitics. translated by Graham Burchell, 13-14.

As I noted earlier in the week, Foucault starts his lecture series in his first lecture with Walpole whom he assumes is unfamiliar to his Parisian audience; and I suggested that the manner in doing so implies that he is shadowing Locke and Hume. In the quoted passage above, half-way through the lecture, he reverses and he explicitly ("you know") assumes that the audience is familiar with the vicissitudes of the term 'political economy.' I assume he is taking for granted awareness of Marx's discussion of what Marx called "classical political economy" (in Capital 1, chapter 1; or in A Contribution to the Critique of political Economy). 

Political economy can refer to three perhaps four distinct even heterogenous projects/practices: (i) a theoretical "analysis of the production and circulation of wealth;" (ii) a practical art or "method of government that can procure the nation’s prosperity;" (iii) a "sort of general reflection on the organization, distribution, and limitation of powers in a society." What they have in common is their effect, that is, the taming or domestication of reason d'état, the self-limitation of governmental reason. And Foucault's claim is polemical because it goes against the self-understanding of liberals their marxist critics (recall here and here), who claim that the  rule of law is the ground of the development of liberal state and governmentality.

Crucially, Foucault's approach doesn't make the material conditions on the ground explanatory (of large social change), but rather an intellectual conceptualization and practice that appeals to the self-interest of rulers and their desire to control the social levers.** That is to say, Foucault's explanatory schema is unproblematic from a liberal perspective, and can be seen as a friendly corrective to it (while it should be anathema to a dialectical materialist).

But what about the fourth? In his own words, Foucault suggests (iv) that political economy aims at the "state’s enrichment." And its two main causal variables (or levers of control) are population and means of subsistence.** Put like that classical political economy can be traced back (recall here; and here) to the city of pigs. But with this difference that the city of pigs is treated as isolated from its surroundings (because deliberately left too poor to be worthy of conquest) whereas the more modern classical political economy assumes (with Hobbes and in the spirit of Westphalia) a competitive state system with a balance of power in equilibrium.

The joke, of course, is that the form of the assumed political background condition that is constitutive within the practice (of classical political economy) will then become a normative model within the practice (where stable and unstable competitive equilibria are treated formally). Simultaneously, and no less serious, Foucault thereby announces that his study -- of the birth of biopolitics -- is coextensive with (recall this treatment of the lecture of 24 january, 1979) the discovery of Europe and the evolution of the European state system (jnto imperialism).+ The history of  imperialism suggests against the assumption in the city of pigs is false; poverty need not prevent unwelcome conquest.

I already noted earlier in the week that according to Foucault the natural tendency of political economy is to promote despotism. Foucault reminds his readers of the well meaning physiocrats to make the point "political power must be a power without external limitation, without external counterbalance, and without any bounds other than those arising from itself, and this is what they called despotism." Marx makes the same point less subtly when he remarks in a note that Petty's "wonderful keenness shows itself e.g. in the proposal to transport "all the moveables and people of Ireland, and of the Highlands of Scotland...into the rest of Great Britain."" (A Contribution to the Critique of political Economy, translated by N.I. Stone, p. 57)

Perhaps, Foucault's audience expects an unmasking of political economy. But this is not what happens. Foucault closes the lecture by noting that political economy "revealed the existence of phenomena, processes, and regularities that necessarily occur as a result of intelligible mechanisms" (emphasis added). Of course, political economy is aware and diagnoses the many ways the mechanisms effects are hindered by policy. I don't mean to deny (and I will discuss in the next digression) that Foucault intends to interrogate the 'naturalness' with which these phenomena are (ahh) fetishized and the character, or "regime of truth" (18-9; recall here) they constitute; nor does he need to disagree with Marx (and Smith) that this plain of necessity is historically conditioned. But rather, he will resist the impulse -- so common among critics-- to insist that political economy is "wicked illusions or" mere "ideological products,"(if it is ideology at all) or self-justifying falsehoods of the rich (19). 

To be sure, prior (conceptually and historically) to political economy and its art of government these phenomena would not have existed. Foucault puts it like this:

That is to say, what I would like to show is not how an error—when I say that which does not exist becomes something, this does not mean showing how it was possible for an error to be constructed— or how an illusion could be born, but how a particular regime of truth, and therefore not an error, makes something that does not exist able to become something. It is not an illusion since it is precisely a set of practices, real practices, which established it and thus imperiously marks it out in reality.(19)

That is to say, political economy is a reflexive activity that helps bring about and stabilizes that which it studies. (This is why the art of governance and governance are so tightly linked for Foucault.) In my view, and I have argued this, this that political economy helps legislate and constitute that which it studies, is, I have argued, exactly how Adam Smith conceives of his own enterprise. And so one way to understand Foucault's lecture series is that by going native -- echt liberal -- he hopes to "grasp" "biopolitics." (22)

Now, we must retrace Foucault's retracing of liberalism, not because we are unaware of the fissures in the liberal edifice, but because we will need to perform the necessary plumbing while the boat is taking on water, even at the edge of capsizing. And, as Foucault promises on the first page of his lecture, he may be the therapist who can turn vicegerent that can guide us.

 

Arendt on Equality and Political Collapse

The breakdown of the feudal order had given rise to the new revolutionary concept of equality, according to which a "nation within the nation" could no longer be tolerated. Jewish restrictions and privileges had to be abolished together with all other special rights and liberties. This growth of equality, however, depended largely upon the growth of an independent state machine which, either as an enlightened despotism or as a constitutional government above all classes and parties, could, in splendid isolation, function, rule, and represent the interests of the nation as a whole. Therefore, beginning with the late seventeenth century, an unprecedented need arose for state credit and a new expansion of the state's sphere of economic and business interest, while no group among the European populations was prepared to grant credit to the state or take an active part in the development of state business.--Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, Part 1 (Antisemitism), Chapter 2 ("The Jews, the Nation-State, and the Birth of Antisemitism"), paragraph 1 ("The Equivocalities of Emancipation and the Jewish State Banker")

The passage caught my attention because Arendt's position reminded me (recall) of a feature of ordoliberalism. The ORDOs thought it normatively desirable to conceptualize the state as an 'independent state machine' above the parties. This naturally feeds into conceptualizing (recall also this post on Walter Lipmmann) the state as a kind of umpire who sets and enforces the rules and, where necessary, keeps score. The problem with this conceptualization is that it turns real politics explicitly into a problem because political agents will naturally pursue interests that may end up tilting the state machine into one direction or another. And it is no surprise the ORDOs spent considerable intellectual energy devicing different means to tackle the problem. 

One thing that Arendt makes explicit about the possibility of an 'independent state machinery' is that it requires independent revenue. As her larger argument makes clear during the broad centuries between the fall of feudalism and the introduction of the bureaucratically administered income tax,* the independent state machinery was financed primarily by credit. Presumably once the income tax is instituted, which often involves strengthening democratic representation and oversight, and thereby elevates the significance democratic politics, the possibility of keeping politics at arm's length starts to evaporate. 

Obviously, the previous paragraph obscures that the maintenance of the independent state machine now becomes coextensive with maintaining good credit. And, so this means that the politics free state machinery automatically serves the class of creditors which become coextensive with the "interests of the nation as a whole." This only works if the state machinery is run by children of the creditor class (so on a quasi caste system) or has extraordinary esprit de corps.  And, to simplify, this means there is a bias against inflation and an incentive to secure property rights. In addition, among the public goods that are produced by the independent state machinery are the rule of law (or formal equality).

It is, of course, an open question whether reality ever approached this near enough.  Later in part 1 -- I treat Part 1 as a kind of distinct monograph --, Arendt discusses the collapse of this fiction. I quote passages a few pages apart. 

It is characteristic of the period that a miscarriage of justice could arouse such political passions and inspire such an endless succession of trials and retrials, not to speak of duels and fisticuffs. The doctrine of equality before the law was still so firmly implanted in the conscience of the civilized world that a single miscarriage of justice could provoke public indignation from Moscow to New York....

[S]uspicion of the republic itself, of Parliament, and the state machine....Down to our times the term Anti-Dreyfusard can still serve as a recognized name for all that is antirepublican, antidemocratic, and antisemitic. A few years ago it still comprised everything, from the monarchism of the Action Francaise to the National Bolshevism of Doriot and the social Fascism of Deat. It was not, however, to these Fascist groups, numerically unimportant as they were, that the Third Republic owed its collapse. On the contrary, the plain, if paradoxical, truth is that their influence was never so slight as at the moment when the collapse actually took place. What made France fall was the fact that she had no more true Dreyfusards, no one who believed that democracy and freedom, equality and justice could any longer be defended or realized under the republic.

I deleted passages pertaining to antisemitism. On my reading of her that is the mechanism by which the collapse is focalized and accelerated, but itself not itself a root cause. Of course, it becomes central to what follows on the ruins of this collapse (recall here and here).

So, once the income tax and democracy start to predominate, the stability, even survival, of the state state machinery rests not just one the good opinion of the public, but in a particular belief that belief that the republic makes possible, or at least facilitates the plausible hope, that "democracy and freedom, equality and justice" can be realized  could under "the republic." And, in larger context, Arendt has no doubt there are two key features that make this collapse likely: first unpunished, endemic graft and corruption among the ruling classes. Second, widespread, potentially competing explanatory frameworks that emphasize the selfishness of agents such that talking or acting on public spirit is understood as either ideology or delusion. 

I will stop here. Some other time, I'll explore if Arendt has solutions on offer to prevent the dissolution of faith in democratic life. That the victory of fascism does not require  the numerical strength of fascism is (recall) a 'paradoxical' point also made by Karl Polanyi (and echoed by his brother Michael). If Arendt is right, the previous paragraph should frighten us.

 

 

Workers are neither Investors nor Citizens of Firms

Working humans are so much more than “resources”. This is one of the central lessons of the current crisis. Caring for the sick; delivering food, medication and other essentials; clearing away our waste; stocking the shelves and running the registers in our grocery stores – the people who have kept life going through the Covid-19 pandemic are living proof that work cannot be reduced to a mere commodity. Human health and the care of the most vulnerable cannot be governed by market forces alone. If we leave these things solely to the market, we run the risk of exacerbating inequalities to the point of forfeiting the very lives of the least advantaged.

How to avoid this unacceptable situation? By involving employees in decisions relating to their lives and futures in the workplace – by democratising firms. By decommodifying work – by collectively guaranteeing useful employment to all. As we face the monstrous risk of pandemic and environmental collapse, making these strategic changes would allow us to ensure the dignity of all citizens while marshalling the collective strength and effort we need to preserve our life together on this planet.

Every morning, men and women, especially members of racialised communities, migrants and informal economy workers, rise to serve those among us who are able to remain under quarantine. They keep watch through the night. The dignity of their jobs needs no other explanation than that eloquently simple term “essential worker”. That term also reveals a key fact that capitalism has always sought to render invisible with another term, “human resource”. Human beings are not one resource among many. Without labor investors, there would be no production, no services, no businesses at all.

Every morning, men and women, especially members of racialised communities, migrants and informal economy workers, rise to serve those among us who are able to remain under quarantine. They keep watch through the night. The dignity of their jobs needs no other explanation than that eloquently simple term “essential worker”. That term also reveals a key fact that capitalism has always sought to render invisible with another term, “human resource”. Human beings are not one resource among many. Without labor investors, there would be no production, no services, no businesses at all.

To the question of how firms and how society as a whole might recognise the contributions of their employees in times of crisis, democracy is the answer. Certainly, we must close the yawning chasm of income inequality and raise the income floor – but that alone is not enough. After the two world wars, women’s undeniable contribution to society helped win them the right to vote. By the same token, it is time to enfranchise workers.

Representation of labour investors in the workplace has existed in Europe since the close of the second world war, through institutions known as works councils. Yet these representative bodies have a weak voice at best in the government of firms, and are subordinate to the choices of the executive management teams appointed by shareholders. They have been unable to stop or even slow the relentless momentum of self-serving capital accumulation, ever more powerful in its destruction of our environment. These bodies should now be granted similar rights to those exercised by boards. To do so, firm governments (that is, top management) could be required to obtain double majority approval, from chambers representing workers as well as shareholders

In Germany, the Netherlands and Scandinavia, different forms of codetermination (Mitbestimmung) put in place progressively after the second world war were a crucial step toward giving a voice to workers – but they are still insufficient to create actual citizenship in firms...  https://democratizingwork.org/ "Coronavirus shows why we must democratise work.   @The Guardian, May 15, 2020

A few weeks ago I was asked repeatedly to co-sign the widely translated and circulated petition partially quoted above. Since some influential thinkers were already signed up, and I am (here and here) a friend of virtue signaling (for a nice argument see here), so the temptation to join in a noble cause was great. But I also knew that the text -- undoubtedly a messy compromise among the early drafters -- could not be changed anymore. And while I shared in the eloquently expressed concerns, in particular that badly designed and hasty bail-outs will just reinforce a flawed status quo, I could not in good good conscience co-sign. I have a number of conceptual and empirical reservations, and as I reflected on these I realized that I find the whole underlying vision of this document misguided.

 

Workers and employees are not "citizens" of firms and their "top management" is not a "government," and they should not be. Just as we should resist the corporate newspeak which turns every customer or client into a 'friend,' 'family-member' or 'patron,' we should resist (the corporatist-democratic-speak) turning our employee status into one one of citizenship. As a metaphor it's misleading as an aspiration fearsome.

 

If a worker is treated as a citizen of a company then you open the door for a company or bureaucratic organization to view itself as a sovereign over these 'citizens'. This is undesirable if only because plenty of states that insist on continuing a whole series of claims on and obligations to emigrants (that is, former citizens) and exiles who want nothing to do with these states. If companies start viewing themselves as sovereigns there is little conceptual space to prevent the increasing encroachment of their power over the lives of employees. 

 

You may think that citizenship is the answer to the very real existing problem of corporate tyranny and arbitrary powers over workers. But this is an instance where the solution is worse than the problem. Once one has sovereignty and, say, a subsidiary principle (common in federative polities) then rather than treating the state as a countervailing power to corporations and non-profits and non-profits and corporations as a countervailing powers to the state, these will become delegated powers. In states that are politically weak and poor, this will merely accelerate the power of corporations against the government. In states that are rich this will only increase the legal space for corporate control over employees' lives outside work hours. Sovereign power is, in principle, unlimited.

 

As an aside, it is notable that the petition wishes to 'decommodify' work by rejecting the conceptualization of workers as “human resource,” and conceptualize these "stakeholders" as "labor investors." Evidently human capital theory has -- despite talk of "dignity" -- a firm grip on the imagination of the drafters of the petition. But to treat workers as labor investors is a disastrous move because it encourages firms to shift their risks even more onto the backs of workers. This has already happened with many workers' pensions and is correctly treated as an instance of neoliberalism gone amok.

 

Strikingly the petition does not address the problem by calling for rights of individual employees against their new sovereigns. (Oddly, the petition only recognizes  "collective rights;" I return to this below.) Rather it calls for  more 'democracy' within firms. What's fascinating to me is that the very institution that has failed to provide the relevant protections at the national level (democracy), which is responsible for the existing status quo in most rich countries, is now called upon to rectify the problem at the individual firm/organization level. But why think that genuine democracy would work better within firms?  We are never told. I close with two observations on this.

 

First, the petition kind of pretends as if the status quo, or at least "human health and the care of the most vulnerable" is "governed by market forces alone." At one point it says "that market mechanisms alone cannot be left in charge of the choices that affect our communities most deeply" and implies this is the case "in the health sector." This may have been true in the nineteenth century, but we are very far removed from this situation today. Democratic legislation governs most of the pre-conditions of and constraints on economic life directly through licensing, zoning, health and safety regulations, subsidies, etc. and indirectly through taxes and trade regulation. The health sector, in particular, is among the most regulated of all industries at all levels even in the United States. (In many other places, the provision of care is either in government hands or under substantial government control.) That is to say the current situation is itself the outcome of the multi-faceted and open-ended play of political and market forces.  To pretend otherwise does not help solve the problem. What's really needed is education and, in particular, mass political mobilization at the national and international level (including, I agree, strengthening of union rights).

 

Second, I agree with the petition that the rich have been winning too many of the political battles in government. But why think they won't do so more in corporations? In particular, why think democracy will do a great job protecting the most vulnerable workers? Odds are that left to their own democratic devices within corporations, management and the educated and wealthier workers will combine against the most vulnerable. That's what democracies tend to, after all. (Even unions, alas, do not have a stellar record on this score.) Similarly, judging by our existing democratic politics, there is also no reason to expect that democratic firms will be green in virtue of being democratic. And once legitimated by and understood as sovereign power, the space to resist, to exit, or to experiment with alternatives has been narrowed which is welcome to the corporate class, but nobody else.

 

 

 

 

On Foucault on 10 January 1979 On the Art of Governing and the Origin of Liberalism. (I)

FREUD’S QUOTATION: “Acheronta movebo.” Well, I I would like to take the theme for this year’s lectures from another, less well-known quotation from someone who, generally speaking at least, is also less well-known, the English Statesman Walpole, who, with reference to his way of governing, said: “Quieta non movere,” “Let sleeping dogs lie.”* In a sense, this is the opposite of Freud. In fact, this year I would like to continue with what I began to talk about last year, that is to say, to retrace the history of what could be called the art of government. You recall the strict sense in which I understood “art of government,” since in using the word “to govern” I left out the thousand and one different modalities and possible ways that exist for guiding men, directing their conduct, constraining their actions and reactions, and so on. Thus I left to one side all that is usually understood, and that for a long time was understood, as the government of children, of families, of a household, of souls, of communities, and so forth. I only considered, and again this year will only consider the government of men insofar as it appears as the exercise of political sovereignty.
So, “government” in the strict sense, but also “art,” “art of government” in the strict sense, since by “art of government” I did not mean the way in which governors really governed. I have not studied and do not want to study the development of real governmental practice by determining the particular situations it deals with, the problems raised, the tactics chosen, the instruments employed, forged, or remodeled, and so forth. I wanted to study the art of governing, that is to say, the reasoned way of governing best and, at the same time, reflection on the best possible way of governing. That is to say, I have tried to grasp the level of reflection in the practice of government and on the practice of government. In a sense, I wanted to study government’s consciousness of itself, if you like, although I don’t like the term “self-awareness (conscience de soi)” and will not use it, because I would rather say that I have tried, and would like to try again this year to grasp the way in which this practice that consists in governing was conceptualized both within and outside government, and anyway as close as possible to governmental practice. I would like to try to determine the way in which the domain of the practice of government, with its different objects, general rules, and overall objectives, was established so as to govern in the best possible way. In short, we could call this the study of the rationalization of governmental practice in the exercise of political sovereignty.--Michel Foucault, 10 January 1979, lecture 1  The Birth of Biopolitics. translated by Graham Burchell, 1-2.

Foucault subtly draws a contrast between [I] (a) the ancient and traditional conception of governing and (b) a modern one; the modern one involves political sovereignty. He presents this as a narrowing of scope along some dimensions, although the presence of sovereignty suggests it is expansive in another dimension. Within the modern conception, and we are very much in the ambit of Max Weber here, Foucault draws a further contrast [II] between (c) what I am going to call a normative (as distinct from ethical and moral) conception of the art of governing and(d)  an empirical practice of governing. Foucault is explicitly focused on the normative version. It is normative because it is a reasoned reflection on the optimal (note the repetitive 'best' & 'the best possible.') species of the art of government. Tis normative conception is developed (III) by people who may have experience (e) with the empirical techniques of governing ("within" government) and (f) those at a distance from it (say in the academy, or what used to be called in retirement). And, (IV) while Hobbes thought one "must read" oneself and Machiavelli thought distance created proper perspective, Foucault will try to be "as close as possible to governmental practice." 

So, much for repetition. Foucault draws these distinctions within a more subtle form of references that will elude some in his audience. First, he is going to use Walpole as an exemplar. And so, second, he invites his learned reader to compare his account of Walpole, and what he stands for, with the only other "portrait," (of Walpole), David Hume's neglected one. Third, the inventor of (IIa) the normative conception of the art of governing in the sense Foucault is using it, is John Locke (in chapter 5 of the Second Treatise, recall here; and the first to develop it (recall) John Toland). 

Let sleeping dogs lie is a species of laissez faire. And Foucault thereby signals, with great, art that liberalism is heterogeneous. For Walpole is not to be confused with, say, Manchester liberalism, or Locke, or Hume (or they with each other). 

I don't mean to ignore the fact that Foucault also inscribes his lecture to an unfinished, and inherited therapeutic practice. There is a sense in which the 1979 lecture series is presented as a form of dream analysis (with liberalism's art of governing the fantasy). And while Foucault is also mirroring himself to Freud, I think it is pretty clear, in turn, that he is aware that the artful use of this gift turned Joseph into the Vizier of Pharaoh. 

I could stop here, but it is notable that Foucault then reminds his audience, first, not to confuse his lecture with either perennial philosophy of the historicist kind (both start from universals). He embraces the nominalist spirit and "let’s suppose that universals do not exist" and implies that to do so means, in part, giving up or setting aside the inherited categorizations of political life.

And, second, that in contrast to Walpole (and the unnamed Locke and Hume), there is another historically prior and (even by Foucault's lights) inferior art of government, raison d'etat, which presupposes that "the state only exists as states, in the plural." And each state has a kind of conatus. And raison d'etat has three features. First, mercantilism. Importantly, Foucault explicitly rejects the reductionist interpretation of mercantilism as a mere economic doctrine. "first, the state must enrich itself through monetary accumulation; second, it must strengthen itself by increasing population; and third, it must exist and maintain itself in a state of permanent competition with foreign powers." (5)

In addition to Mercantilism, raison d'etat has two other characteristic expressions: "unlimited regulation of the country according to the model of a tight-knit urban organization," (5) that is, what one can call a "police state;" (9) and "third, is the development of a permanent army along with a permanent diplomacy." (5) That is to say, it is directed against "imperial types of unification across Europe."

What is most striking about this is that Foucault here recapitulates, (recall) liberalism's self-understanding in two ways. First, like liberals themselves, Foucault is insistent that liberalism is not a clean break with what precedes, but that, in fact, reason d'etat and mercantilism not merely shape liberalism but remain permanent (inferior) temptations within it. And, second, he recognizes that law was both an instrument of royal authority and a countervailing power to it. But, crucially for Foucault, whereas in raison d'etat, countervailing powers are extrinsic to the practice, liberalism makes countervailing powers intrinsic to its normative art of governance. (10ff)

But rather then jumping to the familiar story of the division of powers (or the multiplicity of sovereignty), as Liberals tend to emphasize, Foucault thinks the crucial move is a conceptual division "between what must be done and what it is advisable not to do." (11) We might say, it is the distinction between necessity and possibility, with this understanding that the possible is governed by self-command (that is, to be able to act one what is advisable not to do). The latter is (and Foucault is now quoting Bentham) left of the agenda. (12) And crucially, the agenda-setter can be mistaken about what should be on or off the agenda (17). And oddly enough, there is a science that can diagnose and keep track of such mistakes. 

And suddenly, with a sudden clarity, the nature and origin of political economy is exposed (13): it is the skilled practice of organizing and conceptualizing the advisable, and not advisable, and the play, even interplay, of these domains. And while tracking what is on the agenda or not is a factual matter, that it is a mistake is an evaluative one. And this evaluation, this judgment is itself endogenous to political economy.

But, at least initially, in keeping with existence of raison détat, political economy presupposes that what must be done is done.* And as Foucault emphasizes, until political economy becomes liberal (that is, understands the significance of what must be left of the agenda) its natural tendency is despotic. 

Walpole himself is not presented as a liberal or much under the influence of political economy. Rather, he is presented as somebody who almost instinctively understands that "when the people are peaceful, when they are not agitating and there is no discontent or revolt, stay calm." (As Foucault implies, Machiavelli could have said this.) And this is the, almost accidental, discovery of liberalism.

Hume grants Walpole's "want of enterprise." But treats it as a vice. So, importantly, from Foucault's perspective, which on this point is the liberal self-understanding, Hume, who is undoubtedly one of the great political economists, initially (in 1742) misjudges the significance of this. 

You ask: why 'initially'? Because Hume withdrew the piece eventually.**

On Karl Pearson on Spinoza and Maimonides; On Jerusalem, Athens, and Eugenics

In the above remarks I have considered only the Yad Hachazakah, because hitherto attention seems to have been entirely directed to the More Nebuchim (cf. Joel, Sorley and others). It is not impossible that in the intervening ten years Maimonides somewhat altered his views. I should not be surprised to hear that the More was held more 'orthodox' than the Yad. The latter, despite much Talmudic verbiage and scriptural exegesis, notwithstanding many faults and inconsistencies, yet contains the germs of a truly grand philosophical system, quite capable of power- fully influencing the mind even of a Spinoza. Such a reader would, while rejecting the exegesis, recognise the elements of truth in the pure theosophy (cf. Joel, Zur Genesis, p. 9), and this is the point wherein the two philosophers approach most closely. In the second place, I have confined myself entirely to the influence of the Yad on the Ethica. Greater agreement would have been found with the Korte Verhandeling van God, &c., while Spinoza's views of Biblical criticism (especially his conceptions of prophets and prophecy as developed in the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus) owe undoubtedly much to the Yad. Yet I wished to show that the study of Maimonides was traceable even in Spinoza's most finished exposition of his philosophy. Those who assert that Spinoza was influenced by Hebrew thought have not seldom been treated as though they were accusing Spinoza of a crime. Yet no great work ever sprung from the head of its creator like Athena from the head of Zeus; it has slowly developed within him, influenced and moulded by all that has influenced and moulded its shaper's own character. Had we but knowledge and critical insight enough, every idea might be traced to the germ from which it has developed. While recognising many other influences at work forming Spinoza's method of thought, it is only scientific to allow a certain place to the Jewish predecessors with whom he was acquainted. Critical comparison must show how great that influence was. We naturally expect to find considerable divergences between any individual Jewish philosopher and Spinoza; these divergences have been carefully pointed out by Mr. Sorley, but they are insufficient to prove that Spinoza was not very greatly influenced by Hebrew thought. My aim has been to call in question the traditional view of Spinoza's relation to Jewish 'philosophy, i.e., that he learnt enough of it to throw it off entirely. I cannot help holding that, while Spinoza's form and language were a mixture of medieval scholasticism and the Cartesian philosophy, yet the ideas which they clothed were not seldom Hebrew in their origin. He might be cast out by his co-religionists, but that could not deprive him of the mental birthright of his people- those deep moral and theosophical truths which have raised the Hebrews to a place hardly second to the Greeks in the history of thought. Hebrew Philosophy seems to have a history and a development more or less unique and apart from that of other nations; once in the course of many centuries it will produce a giant-thinker; one who, not satisfied by the narrow limits of his own nation, strives for a freer wider field of action, and grafts on to his Hebrew ideas a catholic language and a broader mental horizon. He becomes a world prophet, but is rejected of his own folk. Such an one of a truth was Spinoza, and another perhaps, albeit in a lesser degree, Moses, the son of Maimon.1--Karl Pearson "Maimonides and Spinoza," Mind (8), No. 31 (Jul., 1883): 352-353 [HT: Jeffrey Bernstein]. 

Recently, I posted a picture of Karl Pearson's blue plaque in Hampstead on social media. In which he is presented as "pioneer statistician." By implication, I noted (recall here; and here) that Pearson's eugenic activities where, pardon my expression, white-washed. In subsequent discussion Prof. Bernstein asked whether this is "the Karl Pearson who also wrote some essays on Spinoza?" 

I had no idea! But the answer is: yes. 

I have quoted the conclusion of the essay above. As it happens, a few days before I presented a draft paper, "Spinoza's Emendation of the Hebrew Bible in the Ethics," at an online version of a department colloquium at Santa Cruz (recorded here). While I had removed Maimonides from the slides in the presentation because I had re-read parts of his Guide to the Perplexed in the weeks leading up to the presentation and had grown a bit skeptical of my earlier enthusiasm connecting the two thinkers. So, the timing of Bernstein's comment was perfect because the relationship between Spinoza and Maimonides had become a matter of urgency to me. 

Let me start with Pearson's paper. He offers excellent set of argument for the idea that Maimonides'  Yad Hachazakah (literally: strong hand) is, despite non-trivial differences of presentation and the manner of treating the subject matter, a major influence on Spinoza's Ethics. The Yad is generally known as The Mishneh Torah (מִשְׁנֵה תּוֹרָה‎, or "Repetition of the Torah"). Its main purpose is to articulate and codify Jewish written and oral law. Despite receiving a rocky reception -- parts of which were burned --, it has become an extremely influential work within the development of Jewish law and ritual. 

Some other time I return to the details of Pearson's paper. Here's the thing: I missed the angle between The Mishneh Torah and Spinoza Ethics entirely. And this made me wonder how this is possible. The first thing to note is that Pearson's paper -- despite, and perhaps (I return to this below) the fame of the author -- has had negligible impact on Spinoza reception since. It is cited in a well known paper "A Portrait of Spinoza as a Maimonidean," by Warren Harvey a significant figure in Spinoza scholarship. But the citation is totemic; Pearson's paper is not used at all. And the reason for this is that Harvey is interested in connecting Spinoza to Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed not The Mishneh Torah (which is barely mentioned by Harvey in his article.) 

Now, it is possible that Harvey considered Pearson's papers on its merits and simply rejected the argument. This is not impossible because Pearson cherrypicks favored passages, sometimes relies on a bad translation, and systematically ignores lots of ways in which Spinoza and Maimonides differ in approach. (He does mention a few doctrinal differences, but mostly in order to illuminate the agreements).

But it is more likely that for Harvey the connection that Pearson drew was simply far-fetched. And the reason for thinking this is that Harvey is working with an opposition between Athens (philosophy) and Jerusalem (faith) in which The Guide falls on one side and the Mishneh Torah on the other side. For, Harvey starts his paper with announcing, "I try to sketch a portrait of Spinoza as a Maimonidean, as the last major representative of a tradition that mightily dominated Jewish philosophy for almost five centuries following the appearance of the Guide of the Perplexed." Much of the paper constructs this very tradition of Jewish philosophy artfully and unobtrusively.  In this tradition there is no place for Mishneh Torah, except the accidental one that its author also happens to have been an exceptionally gifted philosophical author of the Guide. Because the Mishneh Torah does not even qualify as philosophy.** 

I do not mean to suggest that learned commentators on Spinoza's Ethics never mention the Mishneh Torah. (Carlos Fraenkel discusses a passage in Cogitata Metaphysica in light of Mishneh Torah). Or that all commentators would agree with the implicit contrast between Jerusalem and Athens. For many, Spinoza's Ethics is timeless philosophy unrooted from any historically situated tradition. If one comes to believe, as is increasingly common for good reason, that Spinoza is to quote Michael Della Rocca "an arch-rationalist," there would be no reason to connect Spinoza's thought with Maimonides' Yad that appears to take revelation for granted. 

Of course, even scholars doubtful of the significance of Jewish philosophy on Spinoza, will recognize that Spinoza discusses the Mishneh Torah in the Theological Political Treatise. But that book, while important to the founding of the radical Enlightenment, is itself generally treated as an application of his philosophy to practical problems (including the relationship between revelation and philosophy). And while political philosophy is now treated as philosophy again, by and large commentators do not read the TTP to find Spinoza's true metaphysics. And so while I do not want to claim that the TTP is itself treated as belonging to Jerusalem, even its fans think of it as less philosophical than the Ethics. This attitude is also visible in Pearson (who treats the Ethics as much more "finished" philosophically than the TTP.

As an aside, part of the argument I presented at Santa Cruz is that the Ethics is, on some crucial matters, far more pious and guarded than the TTP , and also, and even more surprising perhaps, directly engages with the Hebrew Bible.

So, I have suggested that Pearson's essay and the argument he presented have been ignored because they do not fit the preconceptions of what counts as philosophy even by those friendly to the suggestion that Maimonides is a significant influence on or important to understanding Spinoza. But one may think that the reliance on the category of Jewish philosophy should form no objection to treating the Mishneh Torah as a source of Spinoza's philosophy because, after all, Pearson also relies on the category.

But, as the quote above suggests, Pearson's idea of 'jewish philosophy' is more Herderian and relativistic: the contrast between Athens and Jerusalem here is not a contrast between truth and revelation, but rather a contrast between two competing traditions toward the truth. When people like Harvey speak of Jewish philosophy, they mean that the Platonic-Aristotelian tradition is articulated in a Jewish context and responsive to concerns mediated by jewish experience and history. But Pearson thinks of Jewish philosophy as an autonomous philosophical  tradition: "Hebrew Philosophy seems to have a history and a development more or less unique and apart from that of other nations." That is to say, Pearson's conception of Jewish philosophy is analogous to the way scholars in the period (recall here and here) think of Chinese and Indian philosophy, as belonging to a civilization distinct from western philosophy's home.  (Except that Hebrew philosophy occurred geographically within the West.)

At this point one can understand why some readers will have wanted to keep their distance from Pearson, whose later work shows more interest in racial and ethnic superiority. Pearson's fondness for ranking cultures is already visible in the quoted passage. Although it is not impossible that his contemporaries would have been more bothered by his philo-semitism than the fact that he was ranking intellectual/cultural tradition!

Of course, Spinoza and to a lesser extent Maimonides are treated by Pearson as something more than Hebrew philosophers; they are world (philosophical) prophets. And one can discern in this Pearson's hope that, despite varied starting points (even Ohio will do), true philosophy transcends the culture that births or generates it.+ Pearson himself is clearly speaking from this superior to one's own intellectual culture's vantage-point. And, let me submit that it's this almost cosmopolitan perspective, much more than the sense of superiority toward other peoples, that is at the root of the science of eugenics.

 

 

 

 

 

On Analytic Marxism's Displacement of Dialectics

In each sense of 'analytical', to be analytical is to be opposed to a form of thinking traditionally thought integral to Marxism: analytical thinking, in the broad sense of 'analytical', is opposed to so-called 'dialectical' thinking, and analytical thinking, in the narrow sense of 'analytical', is opposed to what might be called 'holistic' thinking. The fateful operation that created analytical Marxism was the rejection of the claim that Marxism possesses valuable intellectual methods of its own. Rejection of that claim enabled an appropriation of a rich mainstream methodology that Marxism, to!its detriment, had shunned....I said (see section 1 above) that analytical Marxists do not think that Marxism possesses a distinctive and valuable method. Others believe that it has such a method, which they call 'dialectical'. But we believe that, although the word 'dialectical' has not always been used without clear meaning, it has never been used with clear meaning to denote a method rival to the analytical one.[1] There is no such thing as a dialectical form of reasoning that can challenge analytical reasoning. Belief in dialectic as a rival to analysis thrives only in an atmosphere of unclear thought. G.A. Cohen "Introduction to the 2000 edition" (2000 [1978]) Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence, xvii-xxiii.

Cohen takes non-trivial pride in having helped  found the method of analytic marxism (see p. xvii & xxiii).  This is explicitly opposed to, and intended to displace, what is known as dialectics. Dialectics is dismissed for being unclear . In the quoted passage, and later in the introduction, he suggests dialectics is only taken seriously in a context pervaded by unclarity such that resistance to analytic marxism (by those wedded to dialectic) exhibits "irrational obscurantism." (xxiv) Presumably, the footnote [1] is supposed to illustrate the lack of clarity. It reads,  "I do not think that the following, to take a recent example, describes such a method: 'This is precisely the first meaning we can give to the idea of dialectic: a logic or form of explanation specifically adapted to the determinant intervention of class struggle in the very fabric of history.' (Etienne Balibar, The Philosophy of Marx p. 97.) If you read a sentence like that quickly, it can sound pretty good. The remedy is to read it more slowly." (p. xxiii) 

As regular readers know, I am a bit allergic to the habit, cultivated by my analytic peers, to quote exemplary sentences (generally by continental philosophers) out of context, add some snark (here disguised as sincere advice), and say, see. Perhaps, Balibar's work on Marx is as shallow as Cohen suggests.  But the choice for Balibar (an academic best known by me for his work on Spinoza) is revealing because it is neither Marx nor an accomplished revolutionary practitioner of dialectics, say, Rosa Luxemburg, who calls the "dialectical materialist method of historical analysis" one of two "principles" of the "essence" of Marxism ("Foreword to the Anthology The Polish Question and the Socialist Movement.")

Let's stipulate that clarity is an important intellectual virtue even within Marxism. And if you are already socialized in a certain intellectual habitus, it is perfectly legitimate to take it for granted (even for polemical purposes). But, speaking strictly as a bourgeois intellectual, it is an odd choice for a Marxist to rest one's case on. Let me explain.

For Carnap, whose socialist commitments were not disguised, clarity is, in fact, a property or by-product of formal systems.* Carnapian clarity is really a second-order property of an otherwise esoteric, expert practice.  But if one is interested in revolutionary or even emancipatory politics,  it is not obvious that such clarity is the ruling virtue (as opposed to virtues that motivate action, or enable the proletariat to fulfill their revolutionary potential).  I don't mean to deny that for Carnap, presumably, anybody can be trained to become such an expert. And there is an attractive feature of communism -- emphasized, say, by Ernest Mandel in The Economic Formation of the Economic Thought of Karl Marx 1843 to Capital -- that under communism everybody will be intellectually literate. But that's supposed to be the end-point of the revolution not the (prefigurative) means. 

Be that as it may, the introduction I quoted from is a later addition. In Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence, Cohen does not (as far as I can tell) engage with the question at all.** I have been unable to find any place where Cohen does the intellectual work to show with some care what's wrong with dialectics. Throughout the book he cites his own (1974) "Marx's Dialectic of Labor;" this paper explicitly sets aside anything that non analytic Marxists might mean by dialectic and only focuses on "the descriptive residue" of the concept.

Earlier yet, in 1969, Cohen did a lovely review essay, worth re-reading for many reasons, "Critical Theory: The Philosophy of Marcuse," of Marcuse in New Left Review . This is a more general critique of (what Perry Anderson has called) Western Marxism to move from to "the aspirations of people" (and being a spokesman for them) to a focus on "culture" (and ideology). In this piece, Cohen suggests there is an authentic Marxist spirit from which Marcuse has deviated. An example of this more authentic Marxism (by Cohen's lights in 1969) is Karl Korsch.+ 

As it happens, Korsch is a lucid writer. And in his (1923) Marxism in Philosophy he offers a useful diagnosis of the motives of those who reject dialectics and a hint of what it might be:

Setting aside any philosophical considerations, it is therefore clear that without this coincidence of consciousness and reality, a critique of political economy could never have become the major component of a theory of social revolution. The converse follows. Those Marxist theoreticians for whom Marxism was no longer essentially a theory of social revolution could see no need for this dialectical conception of the coincidence of reality and consciousness: it was bound to appear to them as theoretically false and unscientific.-- [Emphases in original.] Translated by Fred Halliday.

In context, it is clear that the coincidence of consciousness and reality -- hereafter: the coincidence thesis -- is a constitutive feature of dialectics, but does not exhaust it. That consciousness and reality coincide is a position associated in different ways and with different political sensibilities with Platonism, Spinozism, and Hegel. It is easy to make fun of, but it is not unintelligible or, if you try working through it, nor obscure. (It is a bit tricky to learn to embrace the coincidence between epistemic and ontic perspectives if you have been taught this is a blunder.) Somewhat amusingly in Spinoza the epistemological and metaphysical achievement (recall this post on Tarski) of such coincidence is itself associated with full clarity. Korsch doesn't claim that Marxist dialectic is itself clear, but he thinks it is clear that the coincidence thesis is necessary for the way in which a critique of political economy could become a part of a theory of social revolution. And this, in turn, is a key feature to generate (the right sort of) revolution. 

Let me take stock. I have not here tried to articulate a full theory of dialectics. (That's for another time and perhaps not my role in life.) I have also not discussed the merits of analytic marxism. More narrowly, while Cohen is an early mover in analytic marxism, he is fairly late in the history of analytic philosophy. And so this makes one wonder if anybody in the analytic tradition did the serious work of showing by way of argument what's wrong with dialectics. This question is especially urgent because there are many indications that marxism is receiving renewed consideration within analytic philosophy or at least by our students.

To find such an attempt, we must look, I assume to Vienna (in the 1920s-30s) or New York (in the late 1930s), or perhaps Lodz (in the 1930s). As it happens, Cohen echoes in uncanny fashion -- the lesser,  lazy polemics*** of -- Ernest Nagel's treatment of dialectics; Nagel presents (recall) dialectics like the early moderns treat the terms of scholastic philosophy: as fundamentally unintelligible. And so, we seem to be stuck in an eternal return of name-calling. However, Nagel was intimately familiar with Sidney Hook's (1939) "Dialectic in Social and Historical Inquiry," (published in JPhil) which presents itself as doing such thankless work, and, perhaps, the only such effort in the analytic tradition (now broadly conceived).++ I shall turn to it soon in order to establish whether Nagel's (and so by extension) Cohen's polemics rest on intellectual granite or quicksand.

 

 

Guest Post by Eric Winsberg: Discounting the Future in Pandemic Mitigation Ethics

[This is an invited Guest Post by Eric Winsberg [The University of South Florida]--ES]

“I would gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.” J. Wellington Wimpy

Much of the political debate about how strict our measures to mitigate the spread of SARS-CoV-2 ought to be has fallen along partisan political lines. People who generally favor strong climate mitigation practices also favor strict legally-mandated social distancing practices and the closure of segments of the economy. This alignment has been natural for a number of reasons. First, both climate mitigation and disease mitigation arguably involve personal sacrifice for the common good and a healthy respect for the advice of experts. Second, Donald Trump, who says climate change is a hoax, appeared to downplay the seriousness of the virus early on. This surely played a role in solidifying, among the people who take climate mitigation seriously, the view that the ethically correct response to the oncoming pandemic was to suppress it at almost any cost.

I would argue that this alignment is far more superficial than it seems. Never mind that the science, and the advice of experts, with regard to the basic parameters of the Covid-19 pandemic, has been far more mixed than the science of climate change. This is to be expected since the problem of climate change has been studied extensively for over thirty years, while the pandemic is only 4 months old. And we still remain ignorant of basic facts about the virus and its degree of spread. The greater strain on the alignment between climate mitigation and pandemic mitigation lies at the heart of a fundamental ethical quandary: how much should we value our present interests against our future interests and the interests of our children? 

In climate ethics, this is often framed in terms of the question of how much we should ‘discount the future.’ Like J. Wellington Wimpy, most of us, at least in our less reflective moments, will gladly sacrifice goods for our future selves in order to receive goods of equal value today.  That’s why people who lend or invest their money expect a positive return in exchange for deferring their consumption until the future. Economists call the rate of return that we ought to use to determine the present value of future cash flows the “discount rate”.  The idea is that I should discount, by a certain amount, the value of the dollar J. Wellington Wimpy is going to give me Tuesday, even if I am morally certain he is going to pay that dollar promptly and in full when Tuesday comes.

Debates about the discount rate loom large in climate ethics. Those who oppose expensive climate mitigation measures, or argue for a very low carbon tax (those, that is, who do not simply deny the existence of anthropogenic climate change) often argue that the discount rate ought to be high.  For such people, even if climate change is going to cost us 20% of GDP in 2120, we should only be willing to pay a small amount for mitigation efforts today to prevent that damage, just as we might expect to have to pay $1.10 on Tuesday for a $1 hamburger today.  Arguments about climate mitigation are sometimes arguments about what the best science says, and sometimes about how much we can trust governments to enact useful regulations, but mostly, they reflect profound disagreements about just how much we ought to discount the future.

Even though it is an observable sociological fact that proponents of climate change mitigation overlap considerably with people who support the current aggressive suppression strategies for SARS-CoV-2, it’s also undeniable that with respect to the question of how much we should discount the future, these two political positions are at odds with each other.  Current Covid-19 mitigation measures massively discount the future. They are diminishing our civil liberties for an unforeseeable length of time, severely damaging the economy, and burning through debt in a way that will cost the younger generations a great deal for a long time. The benefits, in places where the hospital systems are not over-taxed, are to postpone infections for what can at best be a very short period of time--almost surely not long enough to get us to a vaccine. 

Why think that the primary costs of Covid-19 mitigation are born by our future selves?  Many seem to think that there is no cost to shutting down if we simply compensate those who lose their economic opportunities. Or they complain that people who bring this up are only worried about spending money to make up for the loss of economic output. That such people are arguting for austerity. But this is mistaken. The worry here is about the loss of economic output and the loss of the opportunity for young people to participate in it. When you take on debt to compensate those who are locked out of their jobs and businesses, you are giving the people you borrow from a claim on your future economic output.   You are promising them a hamburger Tuesday in exchange for giving you a hamburger today. We can hope that political action will help to direct economic losses so that they will disproportionately fall on those who can bear them best, but this is optimistic.  The US Federal Reserve has just done a study that said that 40% of households with less than $40k/year in income have lost at least one job. And there are wide reports of the stimulus money being raided by the best-positioned and largest American companies.

The point here is completely independent of what you think about the wisdom of the federal government taking on more debt.  $2 trillion (or much more) that we borrow today to offset that loss of economic output is money that could have been spent on new hospitals, schools, green energy, public transportation, etc. So if you believe in modern monetary theory (MMT), or are a Keynesian, then good for you. You think we can absorb the debt. I'm not arguing about that here. I'm simply pointing out that this is consumption being pulled forward from the future in exchange for forcing people to sit idle rather than in exchange for investment in schools, roads, green energy, etc that could benefit the future. And no economic theory, Keynesian, MMT, or otherwise, denies this. 

Spending trillions of dollars mitigating the economic fallout from the shutdowns means not spending trillions in fighting climate change. At some point, we are going to have to spend trillions on climate change, but Covid mitigation means it is not going to happen now or anytime soon. The further we delay climate mitigation in order to address Covid mitigation, the closer the climate gets to points of no return.

There are also many children whose schooling will be disrupted for a long time; and this is something that will meaningfully diminish life prospects for children from disadvantaged backgrounds.  Students who are putting off college for financial reasons are students who may never be able to attend college again. Graduating seniors whose internships and jobs have disappeared will start their working lives later and at a financial deficit.  This leaves aside costs that will be difficult to measure:  children who grow up with inadequate socialization, lack of outlet from domestic abuse, late immunizations, etc. 

And all of this is only looking at things from the point of view of the impact of decisions by states with developed economies on their own states of affairs.  When developed economies go into deep recessions, it causes large harms at home, but it also causes massive harms in developing economies.  In the US, it means people lining up in foodbanks.  In India and the rest of the global south, it means starvation, death from preventable diseases, missed immunizations of children on a mass scale, and so on.

In climate ethics, it is well understood that a frank discussion of how much to discount the future is vital to making good policy choices.  It is time to bring that awareness to pandemic mitigation ethics.

Models, Politics, Populations, and Public Science in times of Pandemic (V); On Marc Lipsitch and Synthetic Science

I share Medawar’s pragmatic vision of scientific reasoning. Scientists must resist the temptation to excessive skepticism: the kind that says no evidence is ever quite good enough. Instead they should keep their eyes open for any kind of information that can help them solve problems. Deciding, on principle, to reject some kinds of information outright, or to consider only particular kinds of studies, is counterproductive. Instead of succumbing to what Medawar calls “habitual disbelief,” the scientist should pursue all possible inputs that can sharpen one’s understanding, test one’s preconceptions, suggest novel hypotheses, and identify previously unrecognized inconsistencies and limitations in one’s view of a problem....If the COVID-19 crisis has revealed two “competing” ways of thinking in distinct scientific traditions, it is not between two philosophies of science or two philosophies of evidence so much as between two philosophies of action....

This is not to deny that there are different and valuable perspectives on epidemiology. Like any other field, there are many specialties and subspecialties. They have different methods for how they study the world, how they analyze data, and how they filter new information. No one person can keep up with the flood of scientific information in even one field, and specialization is necessary for progress: different scientists need to use different approaches given their skills, interests, and resources. But specialization should not lead to sects—in this case, a group of scientists who accept only certain kinds of evidence and too rigidly adhere to a philosophy of non-interventionism....

Infectious disease epidemiologists must embrace diverse forms of evidence by the very nature of their subject. We study a wide range of questions: how and under what conditions infectious diseases are transmitted, how pathogens change genetically as they spread among populations and across regions, how those changes affect our health, and how our immune systems protect us and, sometimes, make us vulnerable to severe illness when immune responses get out of control. We also seek to understand what kinds of control measures are most effective in limiting transmission. To understand these issues for even one type of disease—say, coronavirus diseases—requires drawing on a wide range of methodologies and disciplines....

The upshot is that, done well, epidemiology synthesizes many branches of science using many methods, approaches, and forms of evidence. No one can be expert in all of these specialties, and few can even be conversant in all of them. But a scientist should be open to learning about all of these kinds of evidence and more.--Marc Lipsitch (May 12, 2020) "Good Science is Good Science" The Boston Review. [HT Matt Lord]

(This is the fifth in a series of posts (see the first here inspired by Phillipe Lemoine; and, inspired by Stegenga, the second and third.)

Sometimes I notice the English heritage plaque commemorating Sir Peter Medawar on Downshire Hill, and I am reminded of the joys of reading the belles lettres of urbane scientists who, through their attention to detail, and highly specialized knowledge, open gates to inviting, untrodden paths meandering in nature's library and our location in it. The essays collected in Medawar's The Uniqueness of the Individual are among the greatest in the genre.  

Unlike Kuhn's image of scientists as unreflective puzzle solvers, Medawar developed a strong interest in philosophy, even a philosophy of science that emphasized the creativity of working science.* Because his philosophy of science seems to have been developed under the influence of a philosopher (Popper) I find this work less stimulating.** Although I take a professional interest in the way in which philosophical ideas play a role in (what I call) the image(s) of science -- (recall these posts on Hume, Williamson, Spinoza), within science and public pronouncements of scientists (and aggregators or what Polanyi called 'influentials'). An image of science is a list of characteristics that function as short-hand for representing science when these characteristics are used in debates where one side (or more) appeals to the (epistemic) authority of science to settle debate.

The passages quoted from Lipsitch, an epidemiologist, are a response to an essay by Jonathan Fuller itself a rare philosophical intervention in unfolding scientific and public policy controversy (which I discussed in the fourth post in this series). Lipsitch gives us a glimpse, from under the hood, of a species of (what in honor of Jacob Stegenga I call) policy apt, fast science. This species involves the synthesis of many different kinds of sciences and different kinds of evidence. And Lipsitch self-consciously presents his discipline as synthetic in this fashion.

As it happens, despite the increasing significance of ecology and climate science, there is not more sustained reflection, philosophical or popular, on synthetic disciplines in science.+ In addition to the integration of specialist knowledge from the special sciences it requires non-trivial judgments about the ways these hang together. When these connecting links are subject to experiment and statistical techniques, the integration may itself be a scientific discipline; when these links involve leaps of the imagination or conceptual creativity the integration may be more likened to philosophy (what I call synthetic philosophy). Of course, the dividing line between science and philosophy may be blurry or a matter of sociology of the academy.

When there is time to integrate, one aims to develop the techniques that allow one to stress test the links (models, techniques, experiments, concepts, etc.) constitutive of a synthetic science. But as Lipsitch describes, when such time is absent, a lot of the integration occurs almost heroically on the fly.++ This is so even if the underlying (special) sciences are robust and well understood. Lipsitch describes how good judgment across multiple forms of evidence is required. Presumably this also involves comparing features of COVID-19 to better understood diseases and mechanisms.

It follows from Lipsitch's account of the practice of infectious disease epidemiologists that their synthetic science involves lots of judgment calls that can generate plausible disagreements among even the most informed experts. This matters in a policy context because it means that one is not in the realm of constrained choice -- characteristic of applied ethics and decision theory ; in constrained choice areas, and as Ellsberg taught the intermediary contexts (characterized by constaints and uncertainty), experts can have considerable understanding of possible consequences of policy and one may even evaluate them in light of ends one may wish to pursue or avoid. 

But in the context of fast, synthetic science that aims to be policy apt -- "decisions are urgent and must be made with the evidence we’ve got" -- we should expect lots of controversy: legitimate second guessing of both the judgments internal to infectious disease epidemiology as well as the judgments about how to pursue policy (even if there were consensus about ends/values). From that vantage point it is to be welcomed that Lipsitch engages in critical dialogue with learned critics.

But there is a more important moral lurking here. As I noticed last week (recall this post on Ernest Nagel), it is a deeply ingrained way of thinking about the role of science in public policy that it supplies the decision-makers and public with authoritative, univocal answers to decisions. And when the scientific community does not spontaneously supplies such unicity, the impulse has been to create mechanisms of consensus generation (through surveys, panels, boards, special issues, etc.). The impulse is natural both (a) when one fears that diversity of voices will make space for political arbitrage or even to allow slick operators to sideline  knowledge altogether or (b) thinks that univocalness allows for the benefits of social coordination to materialize.  But premature (that is not stress-tested) consensus generation is also fraught with risks because it also means the authority of a particular synthetic science rests on fragile foundations.*** Thanks to Eric Winsberg I have been alert to the (reputational) risks to science as such that accompany this.

So, the moral is this. Lipsitch rightly calls for a philosophy of action in the context of fast, policy apt synthetic science. In my view, informed by Medawar's embrace of human diversity within (imaginative) science tempered by responsibility and obligations, such action will be better constrained once science and society learn to be comfortable with an image of science that permits listening to and speaking with multiplicity of informed voices. 

 

On (Wireless) Networks, Secret Police, and the Information State (via Hannah Arendt and Walter Lippmann)

The only important addition to our knowledge, the contents of the Smolensk Archive (published in 1958 by Merle Fainsod) have demonstrated to what an extent dearth of the most elementary documentary and statistical material will remain the decisive handicap for all inquiries into this period of Russian history. For although the archives (discovered at party headquarters in Smolensk by German intelligence and then captured by the American occupation force in Germany) contain some 200,000 pages of documents and are virtually intact for the period from 1917 to 1938, the amount of information they fail to give us is truly amazing. Even with "an almost unmanageable abundance of material on the purges" from 1929 to 1937, they contain no indication of the number of victims or any other vital statistical data. Wherever figures are given, they are hopelessly contradictory, the various organizations all giving different sets, and all we learn beyond doubt is that many of them, if they ever existed, were withheld at the source by order of the government.
Also, the Archive contains no information on the relations between the various branches of authority, "between Party, the military and NKVD," or between party and government, and it is silent about the channels of communication and command. In short, we learn nothing about the organizational structure of the regime...In other words, while it has always been known that official Soviet publications served propaganda purposes and were utterly unreliable, it now appears that reliable source and statistical material probably never existed anywhere.--Hannah Arendt The Origin of Totalitarianism, Preface to Part Three, xxxi (June 1966)

In her analysis of totalitarianism Arendt calls attention to the "multiplication of offices" in one-party dictatorships (522). This permits "constant shifting of power" (among party, state, office, etc.) by the leadership in order to generate permanent domination by the leader (53). One side-effect of this multiplication and constant motion is the undermining of competent state capacity (564).*

A key feature of this is impaired state capacity, which is worsened by the culture of secrecy, pervasive censorship and propaganda,  is that the state and its leadership lack reliable information even about itself. And part of the problem is that the culture of trust that supports a whole system of data gathering, collecting, and dissemination is constantly undermined in a totalitarian context.+ 

That the state is a machinery of record, a collector and disseminator of accurate public data was (recall) the central argument of Lippmann’s book Public Opinion (1922). A lot of our social practices, inside and outside the market, presuppose a social infrastructure in which the machinery of record is reliable; public authorities and private actors can plan their activities.

Lippmann’s underlying idea was not wholly original. As Nick Cowen reminded me recently, one can see the germ of it articulated nicely in John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty that “the greatest dissemination of power consistent with efficiency” should be allied with “the greatest possible centralisation of information, and diffusion of it from the centre.” Mill adds that "this central organ should have a right to know all that is done, and its special duty should be that of making the knowledge acquired in one place available for others."

To be a machinery of record requires state bureaucracies that operate by clear and impartial rules, statistical offices that collect data, and public record-keeping that is reliable and accessible to all with minimal thresholds. This immense and often nearly invisible machinery makes possible both political contestation and many private individual and collective decision making. As Lippmann, himself an accomplished journalist, emphasized even the very free press that reports the news and holds politicians accountable presupposes a proper functioning machinery of record (of births, deaths, marriages, licensing, etc.).

Totalitarian and authoritarian regimes have a tendency to undermine the machinery of record for a whole mixture of ends. But this is also true in states in which petty corruption takes a firm hold: once the opportunities and culture of bribery take over, say, customs house and farm or building inspectors, the data they report must be treated as fiction. In societies where corruption is normalized, the machinery of record cannot hope to stabilize expectations and facilitate planning. 

But, Arendt also notes that within structural undermining of the Weberian bureaucracy, there is "the utopian goal of the totalitarian secret police." (567) This goal is the development of a map -- we would say network--  of "the relations and cross-relationships of the entire population." (567) With the increase of computer power and the drop in its cost this goal is now not just feasible, but almost certainly within reach of public and private institutions. Arendt's concern is not the ways by which this network can be exploited to some policy end; but rather that a full map of the network allows for disappearance of (shall we say) nodes on even whole regions of the network. Survival in a totalitarian state requires, in addition to Luck, disappearing from the grid.

So, on Arendt's account then totalitarianism is characterized by two opposing movements: (i) the structural undermining of the state as machinery of record; and (ii) simultaneously the development of a secret map of the networked characteristics of the population. It is important to recognize that these are not in contradiction with each other. This is not just because the networked population map is relatively flat. Rather, given the effect of (i) on (ii) it is because in this map, once shadow-bookkeeping can't be trusted either, the state's activities become invisible to itself. This is why, despite the fearsome capacity to kill and terrorize, and (say) build at gargantuan scale, totalitarian and authoritarian regimes tend to be relatively hollow.

Naturally, this analysis raises non-trivial questions about political contexts in which the machinery of record and the networked map are properly functioning and not kept a secret. This question can be explored by way of the present political and public health fascination to use networked maps of wireless phone usage to control the spread of a virus, and people.

 

 

On Vestal Virgins, Marxism and Final Causes (via Ernest Nagel, Huxley, and Bacon)

The third type of philosophy of science will require only brief exposition. It is professed, among others, by a number of scientists in this country and England, whose object is to show the social implications of theoretical research and thereby to rob modem theories of their air of mystery. They explain, frequently with admirable lucidity, the new sources of power opened up by science, the economies in human effort which it is capable of effecting, and the close interdependence of science and the technological arts. The dominant emphasis is thus placed upon scientific theories as engineers' "blue-prints for action," rather than as disclosures of some final reality.
There might be little to object to this approach to science if those who take it would not confuse their thesis by other claims: that scientific research ought always to be conducted with the social good in view, or that all significant research is in fact deter­mined by the organization and practical needs of society. There is, however, no evidence for the proposition that a warm social conscience is the best guide for the conduct of research; there is no ground for assuming that everyone knows what is socially desirable, that what is not of immediate social value will never prove to be so, or that devotion to socially valuable results neces­sarily contributes to the fullest development of systematic knowl­edge. There is overwhelming evidence to show that the content and direction of theoretical research is in the main controlled by technical problems internal to the sciences, and that changes in the social economy do not in general constitute the sufficient con­ditions for the specific content of theoretical inquiries.
A number of writers in this group make the further claim that the methods as well as the conclusions of science conform to the triad of "dialectical principles" sacred to many followers of Hegel and Marx. For example, Levy has argued that the occurrence of a distinct type of wave produced by a ship after it reaches a critical velocity illustrates the law of abrupt change of quality with sufficient increase of quantity; and Haldane has borne witness to the inestimable value of all three laws in his own biological researches. Space is lacking to examine these and other claims for the virtues of the dialectic laws. It must suffice to recall Einstein's remark that philosophers are fortunate indeed in beingg always able to establish the agreement of the latest findings of science with their own metaphysical principles. The principles of dialectic can be guaranteed never the fail, because their terms have no fixed content; they can be stretched to cover any facts whatsoever, after the facts have been independently established.
Were it not for the mysterious profundity claimed for them, and did they not serve to check inquiry by the glib finality with which they resolve all problems, the laws of dialectic could be left unreproached as a curious verbal game. As instruments for disentangling the web of theoretical constructions, however, they are as barren as the purest of vestal virgins.--Ernest Nagel (1941) "Recent Philosophies of Science," Kenyon Review (Vol 8), reprinted in Sovereign Reason (1954) 45-46.

I have quoted all of section 3, from a brief, critical "survey" of then prominent four philosophies of science by Ernest Nagel. Near the end of the paper, Nagel himself is forthright that he favors the fourth approach, which "does not aim at a compact system bt at painstaking analyses of the details of scientific procedure (46); but he associates it with names like "Mach, Poincare, Duhem, Campbell...Pierce....Russell, Wittgenstein, Tarkski...Carnap...James, Dewey, Cohen, Neurath, and Woodger;" (46) This approach frequently "goes under the somewhat unprecise and misleading of of "operationalism." (39) The two other approaches are associated with Whitehead (which gets a respectful critical treatment) and Eddington (which does not: his "philosophy of science consists of "outrageous puns."" (45)) 

The third type involves what we may call Marxist philosophy of science and Nagel's two exemplars are Haldane and Levy (surprisingly Bernal is not mentioned). I assume J.B.S. Haldane is somewhat familiar to readers of this blog. (And his work is due a rediscory given his interest in infectious diseases and pandemics.) I am pretty confident that most of my readers are less familiar with Levy. The index to Sovereign reason suggests this is a H. Levy. And with help of Google, I am pretty confident this is the author of (1938) A Philosophy for a Modern Man because it is also mentioned by Robert S. Cohen in "Marxism and Scientific Philosophy" a longer and more scholarly (and fascinating) review article in Metaphysical Review (1951).

The four features of Marxist philosophy of science that Nagel rejects are: (i) the normative claim that science ought to be guided by social aims; (ii) the empirical claim that it is always guided by social aims. In addition, (iii) the historicist thesis that science is determined by social economic context. And, finally, (iv) dialectical principles and its laws.

As an aside, (iii) was not just associated with Marxist philosophy of science. Institutional economists who were progressives (but not necessarily socialists or marxists) also accepted a version of (iii). As I have demonstrated, George Stigler, the Chicago economist, who was well read in philosophy of science (including Nagel) polemically rejects a version of (iii) in the 1950s-1960s; Stigler called it the “environmental theory" and he associated it with the historian of economics (and sociologist of knowledge) W. Stark and Wesley Mitchell, one of the leading institutionalists of the previous generation (who had died in 1948) and one of Milton Friedman’s mentors at NBER. 

Some other time I want to reflect a bit, from a sociological perspective, on the significance of the polemical rejection of dialectics by (would be) analytic philosophers, including those self-proclaimed analytic marxists more friendly to Marxism. Unlike his treatment of (i-iii), and his criticisms of the other approaches to philosophy of science, Nagel clearly does not think it is worth his effort to try to argue against dialectic and its laws. His only criticism that does not reduce to name calling ("no fixed content';" "mysterious profundity;" glib" etc.)* is that its practitioners engage in retrospectifve confirmation ("after the facts have been independently established"), which may be true but it is not a criticism of it qua philosophy of science. (As Nagel frankly admits it his own favored approach is not interested in "canons" of discovery. (47))

Here I want to close with an observation on Nagel's assertion that the laws of dialectic are as barren as the purest of vestal virgins. As it happens (friend of the blog, recall), David Haig discusses some of the history of this phrase in the history and philosophy of science in chapter 1 of his (2020) From Darwin to Derrida, a book I have had occasion to mention before. For, it is often the case that final causes are likened to barren virgins and, thereby, to be rejected. As Haig shows a version of the phrase goes back to Bacon's (1623) De Dignitate et augmentis Scientiarum, where Bacon is referring to the virgins consecrated to God (as vestal virgins were). Although it is likely, as Haig, suggests that the modern association of Bacon with the phrase "vestal virgins" is due to William Whewell, the founder of philosophy of science. (Whewell himself thought of final causes as constitutive and regulative to speculations.) It is with Huxley, while reviewing Darwin (1859), that the association of final causes as "barren virgins" to be left aside is put in place. (Haig and I both agree this was not exactly how Darwin thought about it.) 

We can assume that Nagel, who was widely read, was reasonably familiar with the association of the rejection of final causes as barren virgins since Huxley.[UPDATE: SEE FOOTNOTE]** Circumstantial evidence for the widespread familiarity of this point can be found in an essay in 1927 by C.D. Broad on "The Philosophy of Francis Bacon," where Broad warns his readers not to assume that in Bacon the phrase signals rejection of final causes. (I can't prove Nagel read this paper, but he was familiar with Broad's writings on the mind as a teleological system.) In the philosophy of biology, Nagel wrote quote a bit on teleological explanation. Much of it is naturally read as redescribing teleological concepts in terms of efficient causation or underlying laws. But near the end of his career he granted that "teleological concepts and teleological explanations" are not obscure (301) 

So, to sum up, Nagel treats the dialectics of those inspired by Hegel and Marx as fundamentally obscure. Writing in 1941, he thereby foreshadows the more common criticisms by analytic philosophers of folk who much later came to be known as continental philosophers.+ But the trope he activates to do so is one then commonly associated with the rejection of final causes.

But at no point were final causes thought obscure or unintelligible (even Spinoza did not go that far); rather from Huxley's polemics onward they were taken as local final causes to be thought unfruitful in scientific or experimental research. Because (recall) Huxley himself was an agnostic about fundamental matters, Huxley could acknowledge that general final causes were intelligible and perhaps appropriate in the domain of fundamental metaphysics. 

Nagel treats dialectics a bit like the early moderns treat the terms of scholastic philosophy: as fundamentally unintelligible. He simultaneously treats dialectics in the way Huxley treats local final causes: as intelligible albei unfruitful in (the philosophy of) science. But Nagel is so focused on his polemics that he forgets it can't be both.