As philosophers have begun to express scepticism with traditional briefs for their discipline—including various forms of conceptual analysis and metaphysical speculation—some have suggested instead that our role should be to draw together the results of many different sciences, with the aim of providing a balanced and coherent image of our place in nature that is both conceptually disciplined and properly grounded in empirical enquiry. One problem levelled at this synthetic mission statement for philosophy is that it makes the business too demanding: it is simply implausible that anyone can attain the necessary critical mastery of such a wide range of fields. Kim Sterelny’s wonderful new book, which knits together results from ethnography, theoretical biology, cognitive science, and biological anthropology, constitutes an intimidating possibility proof for others who would aim at such syntheses. Tim Lewens (2014) reviewing Kim Sterelny (2012) The Evolved Apprentice: How Evolution Made Humans Unique in The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 65(1): 185–189 [HT: Walter Veit]
I have described before (recall) the strange sensation of becoming aware that one has been scooped. But there is a huge difference between an independent discovery and losing the proverbial race to publish, and being anticipated by several years. And while sometimes there are linguistic, technological, and disciplinary barriers to a failure to cite, I could have found and read Lewens' piece if I had searched harder. And while my own piece is not strictly speaking a research article -- it's a "review essay" -- Lewens' anticipation of my own though is really striking. It's also stylistically and thematically similar to my own professional writing persona with its fondness for the ciceronian sentence, the m-dash, the meta-philosophical tendency toward sociology of knowledge, etc.; I found the similarity in combination of content and style so uncanny in fact, that when I first read it, I thought, this could be written by me!
Mea Culpa. And sincere apologies to Tim Lewens. I should have cited Lewens on Sterelny 2012 in my (2019) piece on synthetic philosophy,* and in the various blogs and even a Dutch publication since in which I elaborate on and sometimes distinguish my own conception of synthetic philosophy from alternatives (recall) including Kitcher's Deweyan senseand even (recall) Sterelny's sense based on an interview in 2019.
It would be relatively easy to argue that this was an innocent mistake. But I am conscious of the fact that when I wrote my Biology & Philosophy review, I was aiming for something that would be widely read and could have wide uptake, perhaps even impact on the profession. So, while writing it, I was not merely reviewing Dennett and Peter Godfrey-Smith as best as I could, but I was trying to situate them in a much wider intellectual landscape. And I was grateful to Michael Weisberg (the editor) for encouraging me to be ambitious in this very way. So, when the piece went viral -- it's been downloaded 7880 times and I have seen others drop it casually in conversation since -- I was pleased. I was also surprised because I had never ever before see my own non-blog, scholarly writing go viral.
So, my scholarly conscience makes me wonder whether my desire for glory got the better of me. For, while Lewens' piece lacks my historical narrative (although Lewens, too, has a clever nod to Darwin), he got their first. In particular, Lewens treats synthetic philosophy as an integrative project that brings together insights of many sciences that is supposed to generate a new kind of coherent image ("together the results of many different sciences, with the aim of providing a balanced and coherent image of our place in nature that is both conceptually disciplined and properly grounded in empirical enquiry.") So do I.
I like, in particular, Lewens' emphasis on 'conceptually disciplined.' Mere creative integration is insufficient to count as synthetic philosophy on my view because it risks encouraging a kind of cult of romantic genius. (I do worry that Lewens' depiction of Stereny's eclecticism can conjure such an image: "the sorts of explanatory tools Sterelny draws on to tell his story are of an extremely eclectic kind.") On my view what's needed is the embrace of some kind of generic, but broad theory to provide the synthetic/integrative glue. This makes synthetic philosophy disciplined (perhaps even conceptually disciplined). I also emphasize this feature because it makes journal publications about features of the generic theory or its application in partial projects toward a synthesis possible. And as the quoted paragraph of Lewens suggests synthetic philosophy otherwise becomes a colossal achievement for the magisters and not the rest of us.**
Another important anticipation by Lewens is the fact that synthetic philosophy may even not appear as philosophy "if by ‘philosophy’ one means the sort of discussion that goes on in the pages of our professional journals. There isn’t even much philosophy of science."+
Even so, it may be useful to distinguish one feature of Lewens' description of my own. Lewens' "our place in nature" is ambiguous between a manifest and scientific image, and could also just convey what used to be called a 'worldview' (e.g., Koyré's From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe). But this is just a matter of degree. For, on my view the aim of synthetic philosophy is the generation of a scientific image that may, in turn, influence the development of the special sciences, philosophy, public policy, or the manifest image. However, Lewens, too, emphasizes that synthetic philosophy can help the specialized sciences communicate with each other, at least indirectly: "help to bring the biological anthropologist’s vision of the genealogy of human cognition into closer harmony with the social anthropologist’s vision of the constitution of human cultures."
So, to sum up. Theoretically I believe that nobody is ever truly original and that what explains the fruitful circulation of (ahh) successful memes tend to be features of the (selection) environment and not the inventive capacity of a particular scholar who contributes primarily personality (although it can be very much worthwhile getting clear on the distinctive contribution of each of us). This informs much of my scholarship. But that thought turns out to be predictably compatible with the further thought that when I think I have something distinctive to say, it's extremely likely others have anticipated me. So, if you are inclined to discuss my (metaphilosophical) work on synthetic philosophy (and its history), please cite Lewens first!
*Strikingly, in note 15 of my piece, I do cite one of Sterelny's earlier books, Thought in a Hostile World: The Evolution of Human Cognition. (2003), as an exemplar of synthetic philosophy.
**Lewens praises Sterelny's use of a rather flexible "informational framework" that "is perhaps best interpreted in an open-ended heuristic manner." If this is right, I would be more critical, I suspect, of the absence of a more systematic theory of information.
+ Lewens does offer a further justification: "The account is nonetheless philosophical, partly because of its speculative nature, partly because Sterelny’s synthesis is an armchair activity parasitic on the empirical work of others, and partly because the sort of conceptual ground clearing loved by philosophers is essential as the elements of Sterelny’s story are combined."
Comments