Digressions&Impressions

Nancy Bauer vs Carnap and Langton on Philosophical Authority

    What kind of authority is necessary for a philosopher’s vision of how things are with the world to hold sway? What is necessary, to put the question in Austinian terms, for the successful execution of a philosophical speech act? More fundamentally, what is a philosophical speech act? What sort of illocutionary force does a felicitous philosophical speech act wield? Under what conditions is such a speech act felicitous? Let us pose these questions in light of one of Langton’s philosophical speech acts. At the climax of “Speech Acts and Unspeakable Acts” Langton writes: “The claim that pornography subordinates has good philosophical credentials: it is not trickery, or ‘sleight of hand’; it is by no means ‘philosophically indefensible.’” What act is being attempted in this passage? Well, at this juncture in her article Langton is epitomizing a claim that she has been trying in the article to defend. She is also engaged in a further act of claiming (that the claim that pornography subordinates has good philosophical credentials). If we inspect the felicity conditions for such an act, we will not find that having authority is one of them. But we can say more about Langton’s speech act than that she is lodging a claim. For isn’t she trying to legitimate MacKinnon’s view of the relationship between pornography and sexual subordination, to rank this claim as better justified than the claims that would purport to undermine it, and perhaps even to make it the case that the lodgers of these would-be undermining claims are silenced at the level of the success of their own illocutions—that their attempts to extol pornography will come off as unauthoritative? If so, then by her own lights these actions will misfire to the extent that she lacks the requisite authority. But what is the requisite sort of authority? What authorizes philosophical speech?
    The obvious answer is: reason itself. But this answer begs the question of how reason, on any construal of the notion, gets its authority in the culture. All you have to do is look around to conclude that, contrary to the assumption that appears to pervade philosophical writing these days, the culture does not take reason’s authority to be self-evident. Plato, for one, felt this state of affairs to be intolerable: on his view, any philosopher worthy of the name was obligated not just to commune with the forms but to come down from the mountaintop and attempt to attract the citizenry to the sublime, if almost imperceptible, beauty of reason. It was not enough for the philosopher to churn out journal articles on the mountaintop and hope that the hoi polloi would at some later date decide to take an interest in their acts of legitimating, ranking, and so on. To be a philosopher for Plato is to provide a vision of how things are with the world and to attempt to attract people to the project of recognizing themselves—or not, as the case may be—in this vision.
    Aristotle agreed with Plato. So did the medievals, and so did any number of modern philosophers. In fact, it was not until the mid-twentieth century that philosophy seems to have beaten a retreat to the proverbial ivy tower. Part of the impetus, of course, has been the increasing specialization and institutionalization of the discipline. But philosophers’ relatively recent reluctance to worry about our authority in the culture also has nobler roots. It is to some extent a product of horror at the way their colleagues’ work had been exploited by dangerous ideologues—how Marx’s investment in humanizing humanity had given way to Stalinist Russia, how Nietzsche’s celebration of human nature had provided grist for the mill of Hitler. The young Rudolph Carnap alludes to this horror in the preface to the Aufbau, as we see in the following passage:

We cannot hide from ourselves the fact that trends from philosophical-metaphysical and from religious spheres, which protect themselves against [a scientific, rational, and anti-individualistic conception of philosophy], again exert a strong influence precisely at the present time. Where do we derive the confidence, in spite of this, that our call for clarity, for a science that is free from metaphysics, will prevail?—From the knowledge, or, to put it more cautiously, from the belief, that these opposing powers belong to the past.

Vigorously progressive in his politics, committed to the ideals of socialism, and horrified by the elitism he saw in the metaphysics of, most prominently, his contemporary and compatriot Martin Heidegger, Carnap passionately believed that he was morally and politically obliged to treat philosophy as an at least potentially rigorous science. It is understandable, then, that Carnap in his day and age felt that the cost of philosophizing in the old way—the cost of attempting to arrogate cultural authority by the sheer act of writing—was simply too high. Philosophy was instead to take its carefully circumscribed place in a new world, one grounded not on the philosopher’s personal metaphysical vision but on pure reason itself. The philosopher’s goal, Carnap thought, was to employ reason to make progress on fundamental scientific questions of universal interest and importance. The social and political cost of construing the cultural role of philosophy otherwise, he claimed, was simply too high.
   Carnap is to be lauded for his relentless thoughtfulness about what he was doing, within both philosophy and the wider world. My beef is neither with Carnap nor with the style of philosophizing he bequeathed to the next century. My worry, rather, is that Carnap’s conception of philosophical reason has come apart from the reasons for his investment in it—that we have inherited his thought but not his thoughtfulness. (Crucially, I could say exactly the same thing about Freud or Wittgenstein or Kant as an ethicist.)
   What I am in effect worrying about, then, is whether we can afford to continue to cleave to the narrow conceptions of philosophy we have inherited and their implicit claims to self-evident authority. I am not suggesting that we dumb philosophy down in order to rescue the masses. I am not advocating a return, or forward leap, to any particular style or form of philosophizing. I am not denying that we take tremendous political, social, and moral risks when we attempt to provoke other people to unsettle their settled opinions. I am not encouraging us to aim too high. But I am calling for us to commit ourselves to a grander, more ambitious, and more explicit expression of interest in the question of what it is that we are doing and what licenses our doing it. What would it look like for philosophy to issue an audible call for genuine thinking, to compete, that is, with the penchant for self-anesthetization that contemporary culture encourages? What would it look like for us to aspire above all to have a say in the world?--Nancy Bauer (2015) "On Philosophical Authority" in How to do Things With Pornography, pp. 125-128 

Last week, in the context of her criticism of Timothy Williamson, I noted that Bauer's book is full of metaphilosophy. In many ways the quoted passage, which ends chapter 7, is the meta-philosophical core of the book which is why I quoted it length. 

In contemporary philosophy, clarity and rigor in argument is often held up as the ideal. And this can be understood in two ways. One sees in getting the argument right a means to facilitate further discussion (about the premises, or significance of the conclusion). I associate this (dialogic) view of argument with my former NewAPPS colleague, Catarina Dutilh Noveas, and it can also be discerned, as a dynamics of progress, in Daniel Stoljar (recall) Philosophical Progress: In Defence of a Reasonable Optimism.

The other way sees that arguments have a silencing effect at the pain of being called, as Nozick noted, 'irrational.' Nozick expressed the idea as follow:

The terminology of philosophical art is coercive: arguments are powerful and best when they are knockdown, arguments force you to a conclusion, if you believe the premise you have to or must believe the conclusion, some arguments do not carry much punch, and so forth. A philosophical argument is an attempt to get someone to believe something, whether he wants to believe it or not. A successful philosophical argument, a strong argument, forces someone to a belief” Philosophical Explanations, p. 4.*

Bauer's worry about Langton's paper has a family resemblance to Nozick's concern about arguments. I mention Nozick, because there is a natural way to construe Langton's exercise as a kind of legitimate self-defense against the previously successful efforts to delegitimize MacKinnon's views which attempt to end the silencing and subordination of women. To put that in context, in May, I put a tentative syllabus for a feminist theory course online, and a very distinguished legal and political philosopher opined on my facebook page that I should put Langton and not MacKinnon on my syllabus because Langton is far more sophisticated and, after I pushed back, that MacKinnon is philosophically not rigorous. His reaction suggests that indeed Langton has legitimated certain views (and simultaneously and ironically allows some to continue to devalue MacKinnon's contribution). And Langton has become the (ahh) authoritative spokesperson within certain overlapping disciplines -- because conforming to certain standards -- for these views.

Nozick also rejects the self-defense model: "For one's own protection it should not be necessary to argue at all, merely to note publicly what bludgeoning the others are attempting-intellectual satyagraha, to use Gandhi's term for nonviolent resistance." (5) But while this is a noble stance in philosophy, perhaps, it is not apt for the law where it might entail unilateral acquiescence in one's subordination. And while satyagraha is a legitimate political stance, it is not to be prescribed to others (because then it can be a further means of subordination). 

In fact, Langton's paper is not just directed at philosophers who did not give MacKinnon's ideas their due (because they mistakenly treated these as incoherent), it is, as the closing sentence of her paper reveals, also designed to open the door to a change in government policy/law.** And the line of influence is pretty clear: if legal philosophers and judges better understand the coherence and legitimacy of MacKinnon's views, they may well prevent courts from rejecting local (and national) anti-porn ordinances. The form of Langton's speech act is perfectly calibrated to try to shape legally influential elite opinion (which has been preventing local democratic majorities from exercising their political authority). So, it strikes me as a mistake to claim that Langton has not properly conceptualized, as Bauer claims "the illocutionary force of her own words." (114)

I mention this because while Bauer recognizes that Langton is "underwriting a particular political position," (120) Bauer also represents Langton as taking a "very carefully circumscribed role with respect to a certain feminist antipornography position...simply to remove a stumbling block--a charge of incoherence---from the path of MacKinnon and like-minded activists" (122). And as should be clear from the long block quote above, Bauer opposes to this a "grander vision of our profession, our capacity to speak in an authoritative voice in our culture, our capacity to call ourselves and others to task of serious reflection." (122) But because the way elite legal opinion co-shapes judicial review, Langton's approach is not a good exemplar for "the irrelevance of contemporary philosophy in the culture at large....for to be worthy of the name feminists must...be committed to serious and social transformation." (116) For, while Langton's approach (writing in P&PA in 1993) may not be known to the culture at large it does help shape social transformation. 

What Bauer misses is that Stateside, and in places with traditions of constitutional review, the authority of philosophical speech is albeit partially, imperfectly, and indirectly, secured by the constitutional order and the customs/practices and force that secure it. (And if one thinks that philosophy or reason is immanent in the sciences, then the political process institutionalizes philosophy into a powerful force in society in many more (imperfect, partial etc.) ways.) This is why it is not wholly misleading to call constitutional government an Enlightenment project. For contemporary critics (often religious and nationalist in character), these constitutional orders also exhibit the dangers of giving a certain philosophy too much power.+ 

Notice that if this is right, it suggests it is wrong to treat Carnap and others move into the ivory tower as a retreat from political influence. (This is not Bauer's view, but it is sometimes associated with Reisch's influential interpretation of cold war philosophy of science.) For in the proper constitutional order, philosophy's uptake is mediated by judiciary, bureaucracy, technology, and sciences. This is, in fact, a kind of mediated trickle-down of philosophy. 

But this observation actually helps illuminate Bauer's larger project: given the incentives, it is very tempting to speak to fellow elites and not the culture at large if you happen to be a philosopher aiming at political influence. On my view this is, for example a feature of utilitarianism as a technology of government, and helps explain some of its moral failures (when it fails to notice that those not at the table or not as sophisticated with the tools may be harmed badly). Of course, political influence may well fall short of social transformation and so one can, with equal justice, describe the position I have just outlined as a form of pacification of philosophy.

So far I have suggested that Bauer has asked the right question about the authority of philosophical practice. I also have suggested she offers the right diagnoses of most of it, but that it misfires in the case of Langton's project. And while I agree with Bauer that in general, philosophers have 'appropriated' Austin's distinctions against the spirit of Austin's own philosophy, Langton's speech act is an important example of how philosophers can do things with words in our political culture. And I say this even though I agree with Bauer's more methodological criticisms of Langton's approach to claims of pornography's authority (on which I have been silent here).

Now,  I have not suggested that Bauer is wrong to want something different from philosophy. But I think her position is at odds with herself and that her use of Plato exhibits this tension. For even in her depiction of Plato, philosophy does not have an authoritative voice in a culture if by that we mean capable of shaping and even transforming the culture.

Rather, what she shows Plato as doing (and I think this is a plausible and inspiring reading of Plato's philosophy and its role as an instrument to call people to the academy) as being skilled in persuading some to an intellectual way of life in which they are challenged to think autonomously. She never mentions Thoreau, but Thoreau's (delayed, perhaps) effect on the young may be thought an instance of such a true education. This still involves philosophy with a public-facing rhetoric, but it is not a rhetoric aimed at the people at large.  

Yet, feminism has -- by her own lights -- a broader ambition: to end patriarchy, and, thus, to transform society radically. And one may well believe that a kind of mediated trickle-down and the Platonic call to individuals are insufficient if it is divorced from a larger social movement shaping the culture, as it were, from below.  Of course, social movements are populated by individuals who think for themselves and recognize themselves in properly transformed social reality. But if you want an authoritative philosophy apt for that project, I suspect you have to be willing to play with the fire that Carnap warns against.

 

 

De Beauvoir and The Origins of Patriarchy

Thus, the triumph of patriarchy was neither an accident nor the result of a violent revolution. From the origins of humanity, their biological privilege enabled men to affirm themselves alone as sovereign subjects; they never abdicated this privilege; they alienated part of their existence in Nature and in Woman; but they won it back afterward; condemned to play the role of the Other, woman was thus condemned to possess no more than precarious power: slave or idol, she was never the one who chose her lot. “Men make gods and women worship them,” said Frazer; it is men who decide if their supreme divinities will be females or males; the place of woman in society is always the one they assign her; at no time has she imposed her own law.

Perhaps, however, if productive work had remained at the level of her strength, woman would have achieved the conquest of nature with man; the human species armed itself against the gods through male and female individuals; but she could not obtain the benefits of tools for herself. Engels only incompletely explained her decline: it is insufficient to say that the invention of bronze and iron profoundly modified the balance of productive forces and brought about women’s inferiority; this inferiority is not in itself sufficient to account for the oppression she has suffered. What was harmful for her was that, not becoming a labor partner for the worker, she was excluded from the human Mitsein: that woman is weak and has a lower productive capacity does not explain this exclusion; rather, it is because she did not participate in his way of working and thinking and because she remained enslaved to the mysteries of life that the male did not recognize in her an equal; by not accepting her, once she kept in his eyes the dimension of other, man could only become her oppressor. The male will for expansion and domination transformed feminine incapacity into a curse. Man wanted to exhaust the new possibilities opened up by new technology: he called upon a servile workforce, and he reduced his fellow man to slavery. Slave labor being far more efficient than work that woman could supply, she lost the economic role she played within the tribe.---Simone de Beauvoir (1949) The Second Sex translated by Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier (2009), pp. 88-89.

A few years ago, while reflecting on work by Liam Kofi Bright and Lionel McPherson (recall), it dawned on me that the very steep prestige, economic, and racial hierarchies (recall) within the academy (and sciences) mirrors those of our oligarchic society. And that if I wanted to understand my own life-world, I needed to study systems of thought that take hierarchy and subordination seriously as objects of enquiry. So, I have been studying golden age Islamic political philosophy and the long history of feminism(s) as much for teaching prep as for self-understanding. Because I recently read Manon Garcia's We Are Not Born Submissive and Nancy Bauer's How to Do Things with Pornography (recall), I was moved to pick up The Second Sex (in translation).

In addition to the functioning of systems of hierarchy, there is also the question of their origins and overcoming. And one might reasonably assume that insight into the origin of a system of hierarchy -- which is not without interest if it is as widespread as patriarchy -- might help in devising strategies for its overcoming. And, in fact, because patriarchy is so prevalent geographically and temporally, and compatible with so many different political systems, it is by no means obvious when to locate its establishment or multiple re-establishments and its persistence. 

De Beauvoir's analysis is primarily focused on patrilineal civilizations of paternal right that "have evolved technically and ideologically," (note on p. 87). As she puts it, "By the time humankind reaches the stage of writing its mythology and laws, patriarchy is definitively established: it is males who write the codes," (91; emphasis added) These civilized societies/stages are contrasted with matrilineal and patrilineal societies that have remained in the "primitive stage". Thus, her stadial analysis presupposes a distinction, familiar from European Enlightenment thought, between savage and civilized (recall this post on Hume).

And because of this conceptual contrast, she also assumes (the idea goes back to Locke) that anthropological insight into contemporary primitive societies provide a window into the very distant past stage of primitive life. This, too, is an Enlightenment idea that more recent anthropologists (since Geertz, I guess) have recognized is a highly dubious working assumption. The effect of these dual ideas of progress (discussed in this and previous paragraph) in De Beauvoir, is that really existing matrilineal or matriarchal societies are irrelevant to her project (because backward) and so can be left aside. (A more polemical author than I might discuss some of the racialized issues lurking here.) It also means that from the perspective of the origin of patriarchy, one does not really have to study history (understood as the history of civilization) because it is (almost by definition) everywhere patriarchal.

As an aside, while De Beauvoir herself is super learned in the long history of feminist thought (Poulain de la Barre offers her one of her epigraphs), one can see how these ideas conjoined with scattered remarks about really existing historical patriarchies, might make a reader of De Beauvoir think that there are few feminist resources in the past and so this has, I suspect, contributed to the idea that feminism is a recent phenomenon.

Okay, let's turn to her explanation of the origin of patriarchy. This follows her very compelling refutations of Freud's and Engel's accounts of the origin of patriarchy (in chapters 2-3 of Part 1 of Volume 1). The first sentence of the quoted passage notwithstanding, I don't think De Beauvoir denies that the institution of patriarchy was violent and maintained by (explicit or the threat of) violence--rather, she denies the claim that there was a single violent revolution.

But, more important, it's not merely violence that sustains patriarchy. There is an underlying idea or view that gets it going and these views are rooted in biological facts and essentialist. And to avoid confusion, De Beauvoir famously herself does not endorse the essentialism or the naturalization of these facts, but she kind of implies that the humans who were on the threshold of patriarchal civilization do (or were capable of using violence to enforce assent to them). And because of that, she sometimes sounds here in offering the explanation of the origin of patriarchy like she herself is rather reductive.  

The underlying idea, "the key to the whole mystery," (76) is, in fact, stated most clearly a few pages before:

On a biological level, a species maintains itself only by re-creating itself; but this creation is nothing but a repetition of the same Life in different forms. By transcending Life through Existence, man guarantees the repetition of Life: by this surpassing, he creates values that deny any value to pure repetition. With an animal, the gratuitousness and variety of male activities are useless because no project is involved; what it does is worthless when it is not serving the species; but in serving the species, the human male shapes the face of the earth, creates new instruments, invents and forges the future. Positing himself as sovereign, he encounters the complicity of woman herself: because she herself is also an existent, because transcendence also inhabits her and her project is not repetition but surpassing herself toward another future; she finds the confirmation of masculine claims in the core of her being. She participates with men in festivals that celebrate the success and victories of males. Her misfortune is to have been biologically destined to repeat Life, while in her own eyes Life in itself does not provide her reason for being, and these reasons are more important than life itself. (76)

A few days ago I jokingly tweeted a picture of this passage out with the caption that she backward projects existentialism onto primitive man and so implies that Sartre peddles a patriarchal and dated philosophy.  The ideology that she is describing here is better known as Homo faber--man the maker--"an inventor since the beginning of time" (75); as she puts it shortly before the passage I quoted at the top of this post: "Homo faber is the reign of time that can be conquered like, space, the reign of necessity, project, action and reason." (87) To be sure my view is that in these passages she is merely describing the ideology not endorsing it, but others have read her as accepting these claims.*

The ideology was undoubtedly familiar to her and her readers from Bergson's Creative Evolution, where he writes, "If we could rid ourselves of all pride, if, to define our species, we kept strictly to what the historic and the prehistoric periods show us to be the constant characteristic of man and of intelligence, we should say not Homo sapiens, but Homo faber. In short, intelligence, considered in what seems to be its original feature, is the faculty of manufacturing artificial objects, especially tools to make tools, and of indefinitely varying the manufacture." (139) [I was pleased to find the work by Margaret A. Simons.] De Beauvoir connects these ideas surrounding Homo faber to Heidegger's emphasis on companionship (mit-sein), or a world dense with human values and social practices.

Crucially, the ideology that originates and sustains patriarchy is one in which man the maker is also a maker (there are shades of Nietzsche here) of values, and so daringly embraces novelty that always goes beyond the empirically given. This embrace of excess, and of novelty is sexed male in opposition to the repetition of empirical and biological reality (sexed female). 

A key point in De Beauvoir's explanatory schema, is that ur-woman admires (aesthetically?) the prestige of this Nietzschean Homo faber, who also throws irresponsibly large but splendid festivities to promote his own (military and hunting) achievements, in contrast to her own boring (ahh) rootedness. So crucially -- and this a major theme of Garcia's book I mentioned above -- women become partially complicit in their own subordination from the start and help sustain it in various ways.

Since this is a rather long post, I just want to note that on its own terms this does not fully succeed as an explanation. For the idea that Homo faber is admirable and worth submitting to, and that biology is destiny, is precisely what needs explaining. As MacKinnon notes, the whole explanation presupposes that "patriarchy is already institutionalized." (Toward a Feminist Theory of State, p. 55)

However, whatever one thinks of this as an explanation, it is, in fact, action guiding. Shulamith Firestone and her more recent Xenofeminist followers see in technologies that decouple reproduction (and motherhood) from biology a possible way to overcome patriarchy. That is, and more culturally, one can unsex Homo faber. Or, one can reject the very ideology of Homo faber (which is, I  think, De Beauvoir's own position).

I close with two observations about this explanation of the origin of patriarchy. First, there is a curious and somewhat subtle rejection of Hobbesian ideas at the root of this explanatory schema. (Yes, Hobbes is never mentioned; but notice patriarchy is a system of sovereignty.) For, in Hobbes submission to authority is found in treating death as the summum malum, and the preservation of life as the minimal baseline (which is bequeathed to liberalism as can be gleaned off 'life, liberty, etc.'). But from the vantage point of the ideology that gives rise to patriarchy, Hobbes' schema turns out to be sexed. For, (to repeat) "in her own eyes Life in itself does not provide her reason for being." And, even more important, "these reasons are more important than life itself."

As is well known, in Hobbes the rejection of a summum malum is thought a mark of unreason or dangerous ambition. That is to say, from the perspective of Hobbes -- which I make here stand in for canonical rationality -- women's self-understanding of her submission to initial patriarchy makes no sense. (This is why above I emphasized aesthetic issues.) Patriarchy as a system of sovereignty is in some ways unintelligible from the perspective of Hobbesian socials science not just because it is founded on the rejection of the summum malum, but also because its appeal to those that do not initially benefit from it is, in fact, a rejection of social reproduction of the same as a fundamental value itself.+ In addition, the patriarchal men are also odd from a Hobbesian perspective because they value property (and its survival over the generations) more "than life itself" (93).

Second, on De Beauvoir's explanation, patriarchy and the existence of slaves or (very) exploited labor are co-extensive. Not because women are the slave population in patriarchy. (De Beauvoir silently glides over those women who are among the slaves.) But because for his  ambitions, which by definition exceed the given (and its constraints), Homo faber always requires a population who can generate a surplus for his projects. Strikingly enough, in this schema, women are not treated as sources of such surplus. That is, by definition, the system of patriarchy always sustains multiple forms of subordination (that can intersect). She doesn't say this, but the explanatory schema also leaves women the role as (unproductive) ornament within patriarchy. 

 

Leibniz, Clarke, Newton, and Reformation of the Solar System

Thanks to Leibniz, there is a common reading of Isaac Newton in which Newton is committed to the idea that God periodically restores the solar system. I do not mean to suggest Leibniz is solely responsible for this; Clarke's response to Leibniz fails to disabuse clearly the reader of this. And since for a long time Clarke's response was taken to be authoritative of Newton's views the idea has persisted.  

Here is Leibniz's charge right at  the start of the Correspondence:

Sir Isaac Newton and his followers also have a very odd opinion concerning the work of God. According to their doctrine, God Almighty needs to wind up his watch from time to time, otherwise it would cease to move. He did not, it seems, have sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion. No, the machine of God's making is so imperfect, according to these gentlemen, that he is obliged to clean it now and then by an extraordinary concourse, and even to mend it, as a clockmaker mends his work; he must consequently be so much the more unskillful a workman as he is more often obliged to mend his work and to set it right. Leibniz to Clarke (November 1715), Letter 1, par. 4 (copied from the Ariew edition).

The charge is curious because [A] Newton never claims that God needs to rewind the universe (or solar system) and [B] Newton never compares, I think, God's work and his creation to a watchmaker and watch. Newton's favored analogy is God as the perfect geometer. There are subtle similarities and differences between the two analogies, but I will explore these in a future post.

In his response Clarke comes very close to noting [B], but he fails to do so unambigiously and simultaneously muddies the waters: "the notion of the world's being a great machine, going on without the interposition of God as a clock continues to go without the assistance of a clockmaker, is the notion of materialism and fate, and tends (under pretence of making God a supramundane intelligence) to exclude providence and God's government in reality out of the world." Clarke's first response, par. 4 (copied from the Ariew edition). It is quite natural to read Clarke as accepting [B] and endorsing [A].

As an aside, that Clarke actually rejects [B] (the clock analogy) only becomes clear indirectly. In the fourth response to Leibniz, in the context of explaining that gravity does no fit the mechanist's conception of causation by contact, Clarke writes: "If the word natural forces means here mechanical, then all animals, and even men, are as mere machines as a clock. But if the word does not mean mechanical forces, then gravitation may be effected by regular and natural powers, though they are not mechanical." (par. 46) The natural powers that Newton has really shown to exist make it impossible, ipse facto, to conceive the universe as a (mechanical) clock. (See also Clarke's fifth reply ad 110-116, which also seems to assume this kind of argument.)

Notice, too, in his first response to Leibniz, Clarke does not actually concede the mending charge. All he wants to insist on is God's "providence and God's government." And this he is opposes opposes to "materialism" (Epicurean/Hobbesian system) and "fate" (Spinozism).  The key here is their denial of (general) final causes and the idea that there is really a three-way debate among the systems of fate, materialism, and mind/providentialism. Of course, this also turns on what he might mean by 'government.' I also think Kenny Pearce (whose tweets on the topic prompted this post) is right to claim that "Clarke's response to Leibniz's allegation that Newton's God is an incompetent watchmaker depends essentially on Clarke's view that there are no absolute miracles, only relative ones." I'll let him explain why this is so.

As it happens, in my own work on Newton (following Ted McGuire and Howard Stein) I am not inclined to treat Clarke as authoritative on Newton. So, it is worth explaining why I think Leibniz's charge shouldn't have gotten off the ground at all.

It is, I believe, agreed by all that the following passage from Query 31 of Newton's Opticks gave rise to Leibniz's original charge:

For while comets move in very eccentric orbs in all manner of positions, blind fate could never make all the planets move one and the same way in concentric orbs, some inconsiderable irregularities excepted which may have arisen from the mutual actions of comets and planets upon one another, and which will be apt to increase until this system needs a reformation. Such a wonderful uniformity in the planetary system must be allowed the effect of choice.

I included the final sentence in the quote because I think this helps explain Newton's reasoning. Notice, first that Newton does not mention clocks or watches here. Second, the argument is directed against the system of blind fate and in favor of the system of God's (providential) choice. I think this nobody would deny. 

Now, it is natural to assume that [C] Newton is here anticipating the eighteenth century debate over the stability of the solar system. And that [D] his answer is negative. And if one thinks Newton is committed to [C&D] then it's quite natural to assume that Newton thinks that God needs to rewind the solar system regularly. But I don't think Newton should be taken here to be committed to be thinking about [C-D.]

For, notice, that the claim about the system requiring a reformation is offered as a reductio of the system of fate. And the underlying claim is that the particular patterns of motions we see in the solar system, must be the product of intelligent choice.  That is to say, rather than being worried about the stability of the solar system, Newton is interested in cosmogony (the origin and evolution of the system). And the underlying claim is that from the perspective of the system of necessity one cannot device a system of laws that can account for the simultaneous origin and evolution of the irregular motions of the comets and the regular motions of the planets (and their moons) and their interactions. So, the charge is that Spinozism (which, as Clarke and Newton argue elsewhere, lacks a compelling physics) does not provide an account of the particular motions we observe and would be internally inconsistent if it tried. In my view (see here for details) variants of this argument are trotted out by Newton in his exchange with Bentley and in the General Scholium, and by Clarke in his Demonstration (also directed against Hobbes and Spinoza). 

 

The Ship of State again, Democratic Elites, and Populism

One of the attractions, which is simultaneously one of its great dangers, of blogging is that there are no referees (and editors) to warn you against a serious mistake. Since these digressions are by and large ephemeral, and since I tend to discuss abstruse topics, the stakes are pretty low -- the worst that can happen is that my balloon-ish reputation is deflated even more -- so by and large it's worth acquiring some freedom for the risk of letting a howler slip through. Besides, howlers also slip into the august pages of our best journals, and I often have friendly readers that offer quiet or more notable corrections. I often quietly correct factual and typographic mistakes in the first day of 'publishing' an Impression. And when I am wrong about something substantively, I alert the readers to my corrections in the original post and/or leave em standing with the hope that some future nerdy scholar, running on lots of terabytes, who has decided to use my pieces as a window into 'the decadent phase of late capitalism's philosophical scene' will find my mistakes amusing.

So, it's all a bit embarrassing that my (2018) piece on Plato's ship of state (here) has attracted more than 17,400 page-views. (My hunch is that these are undergrads looking for help on their term paper in some way.) Even by my standards that's not a shabby number of page-views. In this case, I don't gloat about this because the piece contains a glaring mistake. Remember that the analogy starts with this sentence (now quoting Reeve) "The shipowner is taller and stronger than everyone else on board. But he is hard of hearing, he is a bit short-sighted, and his knowledge of seafaring is correspondingly deficient. The sailors are quarreling with one about captaincy."

In my commentary at the time, I reject the (correct) idea that the people are the ship-owner, and claim (incorrectly) that the ship-owner reflects the propertied class. This is bad enough, but because of this mistake I fail to mention that in the analogy the sailors are supposed to be the political elites of a democracy. This is, in fact, hard to miss because Socrates says it explicitly at 489c. (And some of my own students reminded me of this.)

Somewhat surprisingly much of what I said in the post is not actually much undermined by this mistake. But what the piece ends up missing is that the point of Socrates' criticism of democracy in the ship of state analogy is to be especially scathing about democratic political elites. And, in fact, there is a tempting way to read Socrates as a true democrat because in the ship of state analogy the people are the victims of their elites. (Of course, this also exhibits a strain of elitism because it kind of denies the agency of the demos.)

What's worth noticing about this today is that Socrates' critique of democratic political elites anticipates the tenor of contemporary so-called populist criticism of liberal democratic elites, who don't represent the interest of the people and who by their bickering undermine unity and flourishing.* He later suggests they are composed of the useless drones, a parasitic rentier class (564c).

That Socrates anticipates the populists becomes even clearer when one recalls his first law of political science/unity:  "[T]he simple and unvarying rule, that in every form of government revolution takes its start from the ruling class itself, when dissension arises in that, but so long as it is at one with itself, however small it be, innovation is impossible" (Republic, 545d, translated by Shorey). For the populist this empirical-conceptual regularity is actually encouraging because if they can nudge such disunity along, political rule is within reach. 

I don't mean to suggest that contemporary populists are (despite the fondness of some of them to quote classical sources) promoting a kallipolis. Nor do I mean to deny that from Socrates' perspective such populists are in fact the intoxicant who eat and drink up the ship's cargo and become would-be tyrants (565e).

At this point one might think that I could have saved my initial argument back in 2018 by saying (as contemporary critics of our democracy are won't to do) that the people are to blame for their leaders. And there is a sense in which Socrates also, eventually, makes a claim like this later in Book 8 (in 562cd &  563d), suggesting that the people will reject leaders who won't give them what they want which just is license and live from moment to moment (561c). Interestingly, the main examples of such license are extreme sex-equality and (near) abolitionism of slavery (563b), and relatively open borders to immigrants (562e/563a). {I love hearing folk saying that such ideas are modern inventions.}* 

Now, more is worth saying about how when democracy was revived in recent centuries some of the criticisms of Socrates were internalized in different ways in different liberal democracies. But that's for another time. I have decided not to delete the earlier post on the ship of state. What gives these diaries their charm, if any, is that they reflect my howlers, too. But I will add a disclaimer to it to check out this post, too, for corrections to it. And, yes, it's possible I will need to do that again.

Nancy Bauer vs Timothy Williamson (I)

    The point is that anyone who takes an interest in the Sorites paradox is going to do so not because life calls for a theory of vagueness but for reasons that are completely internal to a certain way of proceeding in the practice of philosophy. Despite its ancient history, however, the reasons people worry about the Sorites are not as deeply entrenched as philosophy students these days may be led to believe. It may surprise those who find the Sorites and other problems and paradoxes of vagueness unavoidable to learn that we find no discussions of these issues throughout most of the history of Western philosophy, from Aristotle until the early twentieth century. (I will not speculate about the reasons for this absence but will point out only that it indicates that the problem of vagueness did not exercise humankind for at least two of it’s 2.5 millennia existence.)
   Williamson’s agenda in his Mars paper renders unsurprising the revelation that what revivified the problem was the development of predicate logic, which allows you to cast the following argument in formally valid terms (and in various forms of those terms):

Premise: One grain of sand does not a heap make.
Premise: If x grains of sand do not a heap make, then x + 1
grains do not a heap make.
Conclusion: Therefore, 100,000 grains of sand do not a heap make.

The conclusion here seems obviously false. But where does the argument go wrong? The first premise seems indubitable. But if we reject the second premise, then we are committed to the implausible claim that there is some precise x such that x – 1 is not a heap but x, x + 1, x + 2...x + n are. A nonphilosopher might find this problem to be of a certain intellectual interest. But for a contemporary philosopher of language, it constitutes a threat. The reason is that the contemporary philosopher of language is interested in coming up with a formal theory—that is, one that works with predicates with precise extensions—that explains how natural languages do what they do. Because there are lots and lots of vague predicates in language, the Sorites looms everywhere. So if we can’t solve the Sorites, then the theorizing enterprise appears to be threatened.
    The early logicians—Bertrand Russell in particular—did not feel this threat because they had more modest aspirations than do contemporary philosophers of language. Frege and Russell had no interest in generating a formal semantic theory of natural language. Their goal was to use logic to develop an ideal language. In his 1923 paper “Vagueness,” Russell says,

In an accurate language, meaning would be a one-one relation; no word would have two meanings, and no two words would have the same meaning. In actual languages, as we have seen, meaning is one-many. (It happens often that two words have the same meaning, but this is easily avoided, and can be assumed not to happen without injuring the argument.) That is to say, there is not only one object that a word means, and not only one possible fact that will verify a proposition. The fact that meaning is a one-many relation is the precise statement of the fact that all language is more or less vague.

    For Frege and Russell, then, the Sorites problem was a nonissue. Of course (thought they) expressions of natural language are vague. But if you aspire to use logic to come up with a general theory of natural language, then the Sorites will loom large for you.
    This brief discussion of the Sorites suggests that for contemporary philosophers of language the interest in the vagueness problem is a function of a deeper interest in the project of using formal logic to generate a general theory of natural language (and not a function, that means, of various particular real-world interests in the history of Mars, the age of consent, hirsuteness, and so on). But now the impatient person that Williamson has in mind has reason to ask why he or she ought to find this project interesting. Nancy Bauer (2015) "What is to Be Done With Austin?" in How to do Things With Pornography, pp. 111-112.

The quoted passage is the end of chapter 6 of Bauer's lucid, adult, and all-round excellent book, which has a surprising amount of meta-philosophical meat. I know it's par for the course in feminist writings, but I did not expect it in a book with 'pornography' in its title (my bad). 

In order to avoid confusion, Bauer does not deny that in "real-life" vagueness is often very important.  What she denies is that a generic treatment of the sort that Williamson advocates will be salient in "real-life." Williamson here stands in for those who pursue philosophy as a theoretical, scientistic enterprise--those that "attempt to describe and explain phenomena systematically in internally consistent way that mandates or predicts what should will happen in relevant future cases." (106) And Bauer takes on Williamson's exemplary question whether "Mars always [was] either dry or not dry?" (108)

In his paper, Williamson calls this the 'original question.' And indeed Williamson treats it as a proto-philosophical question, and he stipulates that "a philosophical account of vagueness that did not tell us how to answer the original question would thereby be incomplete." And he later informs us that people "under the influence of the later Wittgenstein" are his targets. So, it's not wholly surprising that Bauer (who might be said to be shaped by later Wittgenstein in some sense) responds.

But it is worth noting that nothing Bauer says turns on (I am still quoting Williamson) "a premature and slightly facile pessimism" about the possibility of a formal semantics as such. Bauer might well grant, for the sake of argument, that a complete formal semantics of natural language is possible and worth developing. Her point, if I understand it, is two-fold: (i) drawing on Austin, she argues that such a formal semantics always leaves something out in the manner of language use (and while this is partially captured by pragmatics it is not wholly so captured). And (ii) the Williamson justification of formal semantics on offer is blatantly inadequate: that we really don't need to formal semantics to answer the original question. For, according to Williamson in order to answer that original question we must develop logical or metalogical theories (or, to use Williamson again, "complex, technical, metarepresentational theories"). 

In my view Bauer is right to criticize Williamson's claim that formal semantics is necessary to answer the original question. And she is also right to criticize his "contempt" for those that disagree with him. (108) He does not make a good faith effort to meet the concerns of those influenced by later Wittgenstein (note that this does not involve me--I have always been unmoved!) And I think a lot of folk who admire him for good reasons tend to offer equally bad arguments in the vicinity of this area (treating metaphilosophical critics of Williamson as if they are continental philosophers). And she is right to criticize the idea that somehow philosophy could be justified when it can offer formal semantics as a gift or exemplar to non-philosophers. On Bauer's views cases of vagueness are resolved in "real life" not by generic theoretical improvements, but are "invariably specific" (109) and often relatively arbitrary (110); thinking "about vagueness in general gets us nowhere." (109) However, I don't think Bauer needs these particular claims in this extreme form (not to mention that she is helping herself to "real life" without much argument). She could easily concede without undermining her argument that in some scientific or technical areas, the formal semantics of vague predicates may be very useful or could with minor adjustments be tailor-made to be very useful. (These areas may not count as sufficiently 'real-life' for her.)

Now, I have to admit I was a bit surprised by her claim that the Sorites paradox was (ahh) a dormant philosophical puzzle for very long stretches of philosophical history. In her excellent entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Diana Raffman places the revival of interest slightly earlier than Bauer does: "the paradox attracted little subsequent interest until the late 19^th century. Marxist philosophers in the neo-Hegelian tradition, like Plekhanov (1908 [1937: 114]), cited the paradox as evidence of the failure of “customary” logic and the utility of the ‘logic of contradiction’." Even so, Raffman, too, notes the dormancy.

But it does not follow that phenomena that instantiate a Sorites paradox are not common in the history of philosophy. This is, in fact, in accord with Bauer's insight that problems of vagueness are not treated as generic problems of vagueness or a general Sorites paradox. So, I have argued in print that some elements in Hume's description of the missing shade of blue actually turn on a Sorites style paradox, and one can find other places in the history of philosophy and science where Sorites paradoxes are lurking but without them being treated as a general paradox. In my own case, I learned about the structure of Sorites paradox from Poincare (writing in late 19th century) before I ever took a class in metaphysics or sementics.

More important, one can agree with Bauer that something goes badly off the rails in Williamson's defense, while still granting (as I would, but she not) that (i) Martian history buffs could be made to see and find interesting that the original question is an instantiation of a general philosophical problem (108); (ii) that formal semantics is worth doing for intrinsic philosophical reasons; and (iii) that not all generic theories are equally bad. That is to say, while I think Bauer is right to think that certain kind of philosophical theories are being oversold with poor justification, it is not true that generic theories don't have a fruitful place in bringing philosophy into contact with all kinds of areas of special application. 

As regular readers know (recall here; here; here), I am a fan of a species of generic theories, synthetic philosophy, by which I mean a style of philosophy that brings together insights, knowledge, and arguments from the special sciences with the aim to offer a coherent account of complex systems and connect these to a wider culture, policy, or other philosophical projects (or both). Now the generic theories of synthetic philosophy (I have used as examples game theory, information theory, Darwinianism, actor-network theory,  etc. ) are developed within and in conversation with special sciences and need not be topic neutral in a general way. Yet, these generic theories are not just useful in the special sciences, but often can be made action guiding in non-trivial ways. In fact, given Bauer's feminist desire to transform the world (xi, 11 (etc.), she should not wish to throw out such generic theories. But I have gone on long enough, TBC.

 

 

 

 

 

On Comedians that Punch Down (Srinivasan/Cowen, and yes Chappelle)

One of the great jokes of the political circumstances of our age is that comedians are the great political commentators of the age. And while it would be silly to claim that David Letterman is solely responsible for the political ascendancy of Donald Trump, it's also true that he helped turn Trump from a New York city character into a national celebrity by repeatedly giving him space for -- I say this with the benefit of hindsight -- test-running his campaign massages. Belatedly, around 2010 Letterman himself grew uneasy about this, calling Trump a racist and sharply demarcating the "circus" (in which Letterman and Trump were both starring (ahh) freaks) from the political arena. The point of the contrast in Letterman's shtick then is to proclaim Trump unfit for office. (The interview with Dr. Phil is still worth re-watching; Jason Zinoman's 2017 New York Times article gives useful background, although does not mention Trump's role in the Central Park five.)

Letterman's underlying instinct that there is a contrast between comedy and politics is an important one. It's no less important than the difference between work-place harassment and comedy. What's  funny and worth having in one context, is oppressive in another.

I am thinking of these matters not just because Plato implies that Aristophanes is responsible for the accusation (and so eventual execution) of Socrates, or the predictable controversy about Dave Chappelle's latest special, and (recall) my struggle with the implications of my admiration for Norm Macdonald, but also because the topic frames the relatively recent, fascinating discussion (or interview) between Tyler Cowen and Amia Srinivasan. 

So, let's first look at how that exchange commences:

COWEN: You’ve described yourself as a utopian feminist. In your vision of utopian feminism, how much room is there for what I would call compartmentalization? Just to give a simple example, if you look at, say, stand-up comedy, a lot of it is sexist or racist, or even if it’s not, it’s perceived as such. What happens to that in the utopia? Do we just compartmentalize and let it continue? Or how do you treat it?

SRINIVASAN: I’m not sure about room for compartmentalization. I do think there’s a lot of room for context. For example, when you’re thinking about the violence in rap lyrics, an obsession that began in the conservative pearl-clutching in the ’80s, you’ve got to think about what those invocations of violence are doing performatively in a piece of art, that is, rap music. It’s not the same thing as someone standing up in the middle of the town square, trying to deliberately incite violence against people.

Not even speaking about the utopia, just speaking about how we should think about performative utterances right now, I think we need to address them with a great deal of contextual sensitivity and think about, in general, what is happening in these particular cases. What seems to be problematic might not be. But then, let’s be honest, if you’ve spent any time in a comedy club — and I recently did that when I was last in LA — there is just a lot of quite naked sexism there.

It’s pretty shocking — despite the fact of this feminist revolution in comedy — just how much stand-up comedy is really quite comedically boring and sexist. Now, there’s this question about — I take it that one of the thoughts you have is something like humor —

COWEN: Right, which has a brutal element to it. How humor fits into utopia is a long-standing puzzle because humor is often brutal, right?

SRINIVASAN: Yes. Look, I don’t think the utopia or the post-revolutionary world is a place without any form of brutality, and it’s certainly not a place without humor. It’s going to have disappointment and heartache and tragedy and tragicomedy. Human foibles will still exist. Heartbreak will exist. With all of those things, you have humor.

What is very limited is the thought — and I’m not suggesting that you’re advocating for this thought — but the thought that you basically need structures of organized political oppression like racism to have humor. The Greeks had humor without having racism. They had other systems of domination, but they had a great and advanced sense of humor, often directed at intellectuals and philosophers, who, I think, are often very much a worthy target.

I think there can be this view on which ending forms of domination and oppression somehow drains life of all that is special and textured about it: humor, love, intimacy, friendship. I just don’t think that’s true. I think, in fact, what the end of domination would do is release us more fully into the specific things that make human life worth living, including humor.

Now, it's quite possible that Cowen surprised Srinivasan with this line of questioning. I recently read (and discussed) Srinivasan's The Right to Sex, and, while she does self-describe as a 'utopian feminist,' and mentions Louis C.K's misdeeds, I don't recall comedy being especially important to her arguments. Having said that Cowen did his homework and seems to have been aware of the fact (as I was not) that Srinivasan has a serious background in theater (as she affirms later in the interview). I hope to return to the meat of the interview some other time.

I was, however, taken aback by Srinivasan's comments that I have just quoted. For, if a post-revolutionary world, feminist or not, cannot do without "brutality," then it is not obviously worth having. Of course, she leaves unclear what 'form of brutality' she foresees, and without further specification there is not much more to say here.*

Second, she thinks that "intellectuals and philosophers" are worthy targets of comedy. Since she is talking about ancient Greece, and is one of our leading philosophers, one might say she forfeits Plato's/Socrates' "ancient quarrel" (Republic, 607b) against Aristophanes on behalf of the rest of us. She does not explain why, but given her comments in context, I assume this is so because the "intellectuals and philosophers" are not at the bottom of the dominance hierarchy and, one might argue, can wield the pen (or feather/keyboard) as sharply as the comedian. I suspect, then, she thinks it's kind of a fair fight that old quarrel between philosophy and the comic poets.

Fair enough. Although it's worth noting -- as the fate of Socrates suggests --, it's not wholly a fair fight because the comedian can attract a much wider audience than the philosopher, and may well be much better at political and social rhetoric (this is one of the sub-themes of the Symposium, after all.) And the consequential afterlife of such public rhetoric can be quite unpredictable. Aristophanes' Clouds may well have been thought harmless to Socrates when it first was performed, but after a plague, disastrous imperial overreach, a civil war and murderous dictatorship, context shifted dramatically. I mention these historical facts because what Letterman himself clearly thought initially was harmless entertainment, became politically potent after a great financial meltdown and a bailout of the rich and connected.

So, lurking in Srinivasan's comments, which, as I suggested, may well be entirely improvised, is the idea that humor, even brutal humor, is fine as long as it does not reinforce a structural hierarchy of some sorts. In addition (I take this from what she says about rap), comedy should not incite violence. 

Now, one natural way to read Srinivasan is that while comedy may not be art (like some rap is), comedy is, in fact, self-justifying. It's just one of those things that make a good life good. And because I agree with her about this (that comedy is self-justifying), and her suggestion that even in a very well ordered (albeit brutal) society there would be comedy, I do not want to exaggerate our differences.

But it does not follow from this that in addition to being good in its own right, comedy serves no social purpose in a disordered, hierarchical society like ours. For, comedy also offers society a mirror, even if it is a crooked or distorted mirror. And, not unlike great utopian fiction, it reflects back to us -- in exaggerated fashion, perhaps, -- the way laws, norms, and mores operate and the effect of them on all of us or some of us. In fact, Aristophanes Lysistrata has an important role to play in combining comedy with the birth pangs of feminist utopianism (if I don't have enough street cred for you to say this, this is the place in which I invoke the authority of De Beauvoir). Much of the old Chappelle's Show on Comedy Central (now available on Netflix) was about offering society a mirror on racial relations that with the benefit of hindsight looks prescient in light of black lives matter. 

Of course, Chappelle's recent special on Netflix, taped in Detroit, has gotten a lot of attention for its explicitly pro-TERF stance and its many transphobic jokes (also a theme in his earlier 2019 special). But if you watch his shows, there is a broader more complicated position. I want to introduce my defense of that claim by first mentioning another theme unrelated to transgender issues. A set of Chappelle's jokes (this is in his earlier 2019 show) is about Michael Jackson's child victims. And some of the jokes clearly minimize the harm done to the children (and others suggest Chappelle does not believe all the allegations). But the set is itself explicitly framed by Chappelle mentioning the fact that 50% of the audience members have probably experienced sexual harassment or worse. And while each of his punchlines can be construed as a belittling of the problem, the overall point is that there is a horrid epidemic of sexual harassment (and it should not just focus on celebrities). 

I think something analogous happens with Chappelle's orientation toward transgender issues. This is an issue he has gotten flack for in the past, and some of that criticism is part of the narrative. (I don't mean to suggest he is fair to his critics or actually responds well to them.) So, for example, there is a series of jokes about how on a road-trip a car, which includes a transgender person (a 'T'), can't make bathroom stops in four states. What's interesting about these jokes is that Chappelle is clearly not at all oblivious to the fact that many states make it inordinately difficult to be transgender; and his sympathies are clearly with the transgender against the states that wish to police bathroom behavior. 

After watching Chappelle's special and his (2019) Sticks & Stones, it seems pretty obvious to me that his underlying political outlook is live and let live (as long as Chappelle can make fun of you). I don't know whether Srinivasan thinks Chappelle is one of the "boring" comedians, but plenty of his jokes are not just transphobic, but also sexist.** (He recycles and repackages Norm Macdonald's sexist jokes about the WNBA. He also repurchases MacDonald's Jacques de Gatineau joke which is not sexist at all.) It would be disingenuous to say that he is merely representing or providing a window on sexism in society. He is also reenacting it.

But I don't think Chappelle is reenacting his transphobia merely for the purpose of putting his finger in the eyes of his critics. For the recent special culminates in a narrative about his relationship to Daphne Dorman a transgender (part-time) comedian, who ended up committing suicide. What's interesting about the narrative is not that Dorman (and later her family) defended Chappelle or that Chappelle set up a trust fund for Dorman's daughter, or that he has had a transgender friend and offered her professional opportunities, or even that Chappelle thinks white transgenders use their racial privilege in ways he rejects. But rather that Chappelle hoped to speak with Dorfman's daughter someday and that he wants to say to her (and now I quote from memory) that he "knew her father. And he was a hell of a woman.” (See here for slightly different rendition.) And whatever else Chappelle is implying with this joke, he is telling his audience that if even a transphobe -- and if you listen to his set he does not present himself as a moral exemplar at all -- like him can recognize and see Daphne Dorman's gender, anyone can. The implicature of the special is, thus, that the transphobes who act on their transphobia politically and economically are the real problem, and that if one recognizes one's own imperfections one can rise above them.

For Chappelle, we are all flawed none of us is really without sin. And his best jokes (and impersonations) have or exhibit, and now I echo Norm Macdonald's considered views about all good comedy, compassion for their targets.

The underlying point is that by being the object of a joke one can also, simultaneously, be humanized. Of course, this is not always true. But even jokes that are experienced as offensive and entrenching subordination also bring the outcasts into the community and into a larger conversation. (This is Chappelle's own defense in the special.) Not all purported jokes or the sets they are part of do this, of course. And my judgment here is fallible. And I also don't think Chappelle's humor is always that funny. (I never found Chappelle's Show on Comedy Central especially funny, but I also recognize that this may be colored by the realization that people like me were its target! Yet, some of the sketches are etched in my memory.)

But let's say I am wrong about all of this. Maybe his transphobic stance (funny or not to some) is simply beyond the pale, and maybe there are no positive consequences from punching down at all in comedy.  I would still argue that when performing, comedians should have an artistic license to mock and insult on par with the academic freedom of academics in academic life. 

For, it's healthy for society to have a place where none of us is above the joke. I don't just think this because it creates a privileged space for politicized or social commentary and for presenting the effects of our follies and foibles. Because of workplace rules and polarization, there are, in fact, few places where controversial and potentially obnoxious views can be aired at all in relatively heterogeneous company (outside echo chambers). And it is not like comedians can say anything. They, too, are regulated by public opinion and the views of their audience. So, the social utility of comedy is not just that it offers us a window into (the effects of) a lot of our social norms and practices, but also that they do so -- despite audience fragmentation and filtering -- in a way that is accessible to a relatively heterogeneous (and potentially large) public. This is, after all, one of the reasons why despite their lack of authority, they are important politically. 

I have gone on longer than is typical in such a Digression. And this reflects my awareness that perhaps I am all wrong here. So, I should stop here. But I wanted to add two more thoughts.

First, at one point, in an interview I think with Larry King, Norman Macdonald says in self-effacing manner, that stand-up comedy is no art. And this may suggest that Srinivasan is right in her implied contrast between rap (an art) and comedy (not an art) in her response to Cowen quoted above. For, Macdonald says, art is capable of multiple interpretations, whereas the job of a stand-up comedian is to make a room or a TV audience have the same reaction at the same time. What's funny about the comment, of course, is that Macdonald was quite capable of generating multiple reactions to his jokes over time (in the same audience). So, comedy is art, after all, but can only show (not say) it. Many of Chappelle's stories and jokes, too, also have multiple layers to them. He is not just creating laughs, but he is also inviting multiple interpretations. (This also suggests I should not be too confident in my own!)

Second, my partial defense of the fruitfulness of even potentially offensive comedy presupposes that comedy knows its proper place and stays in its lane. But as Letterman discovered that assumption is naïve. When a clown is seen as a trickster or noble truth-teller, they can become quite powerful politically in times of instability even potential civil war. (For the contrast between a clown and trickers see this fine essay on Boris Johnson by Alan Finlayson.)  

My idea that comedy is an important social safety valve and sometimes an epistemically useful window in a democracy also entails that it may be socially dangerous (as dictators everywhere recognize). My cop-out response here is that thankfully Chappelle's critics have access to influential outlets so that their concerns are also heard. Unlike the popular representation of Mill (which, inspired by Jill Gordon, I don't think captures Mill's views), I doubt the truth prevails over time in the 'marketplace of ideas.' Rather, liberal democracy is also a project in forbearance in which we ought to try to minimize mutual inconvenience and harms. Comedy can produce genuine harms, but it also plays an indispensable social role in helping see a way beyond them.

 

 

 

Covid Diaries: stagnation and memorial

It's time for a covid update. (For my "covid diaries," see here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here, here;  here; and here.) I am now in my tenth month of my illness and partial sick-leave. Under Dutch law my salary is cut now. It's a pay-cut of 30%. (That's starts after nine full months and runs until the end of the second year of medical leave.) Because I formally work part-time, the cut will be about half of that. In the middle of November, my occupational physician will give guidelines to my department and me what to expect from me second semester. I continue to be pleased with reaping the fruits of past generations' activism. 

First, the good news: I am physically quite mobile. I try to walk about 8-10 kilometers a day. And there are no signs of untriggered fatigue. 

Second, in light of the occupational physician's guidance my department reduced my teaching load and made sure that the seminar style course I would teach -- a course on Utopia/Dystopia I have taught several times before -- would have capped enrollment of 16 students. The other section of the class is taught by another instructor, who is formally also my back-up in case I can't do my duties. The students are aware of my condition, and have been very understanding and empathetic. 

The course meets once a week week for three hour sessions (with two breaks). After five sessions, I have not needed to ask for back-up. I have very fine students, who clearly enjoy being back in live circumstances. They always show up early, come to class well prepared, and diligently followed masking guidelines. (After group consultation, we have dropped these now.)

Because of my cognitive limitations -- more about that below --, I come to class better prepared, and have adjusted my teaching style. I prep more, improvise less, and teach with much lower energy level (less joking) and with more in-class assignments. Rather than relying on charisma and instinct, I now teach from a more vulnerable place. 

The previous paragraph is a bit mysterious, so let me come to the point: unfortunately, my recovery is stagnating. The lectures themselves are -- despite breaks, good organization (with group assignments, etc.)--, completed by the skin of my teeth. Usually I collapse somewhere during the second hour of class, when I have to withdraw for a while. (I then put them to work.) More important, after class I usually need 36-48 hours (!) to recover: I have headaches, sleep badly, and not infrequent nausea. This did not happen once (after the third lecture). Because I prepare class on Mondays and Tuesdays (and grade/comment on the students' weekly writing assignments), I don't really get around to do much else. I read a lot (de facto mainly feminist theory because I am still scheduled to teach in Spring). Because my family is in London, I live alone in Amsterdam and mostly chill. (I will spend two weeks in October with them.) I limit my modest social life to week-ends and Mondays. 

In a broader sense, I can't really handle more than 45-90 minutes of social interaction, and certainly not in a context of multiple stimuli at once (so zoom and cafes are worse, etc.) I didn't realize I was this limited in my social ability during the summer because I actually had a very quiet life in London with lockdowns.

De facto all this means that I can hardly do research during teaching periods, and that I am very reluctant to go to meetings and committees. I had to withdraw from all my supervision and admin duties, including work on a big grant that I am PI on (and in which I will now effectively be a bystander). Because I am 2nd/3rd author on some projects, and my pipeline was pretty full, proofs drop by regularly. So whatever 'research' I do is completing work I have done. But the projects I started over the summer have now come to a standstill despite my low teaching load. I don't expect to do new research until class ends. 

In November I will receive quite a bit more specialist medical attention in London and Amsterdam, and the occupational physician and I have been looking for therapeutic interventions that can make me more resilient cognitively. Unfortunately, the one promising practice we found only has a spot open in January. 

On Tuesday I met my occupational physician and my chair (a few hours apart). Both are wise and supportive. Even so, by the end of the day, I was aware that I should not expect much from myself the remainder of this academic year. And because of the sense of stagnation, I am less optimistic I will recover fully in the fullness of time.

While I was talking to my Chair (and sealing decisions about my department and grant duties etc.), I suddenly realized that I was disassociating from the ambitions that had characterized my professional identity. I spent the last ten years writing (near) daily these digressions (and scholarship), which also were a means of self-therapy and grounding. And while I always had periods of relative quiet, I lived from one (missed) deadline to the next. I know and understand that person quite intimately, but it's clear I don't quite identify with him. During the past weeks there were a number of occasions where he would have written an editorial or started a new paper. I even didn't write a few polemical digressions because I knew I could not be around for the possible push back.

Because of the rain, I stayed in the office a bit longer than I intended after the meeting with the Chair. So, when I left the building the area was quiet, and I could enjoy the Autumn colors (see above). And following the Sunset, I took a slightly different route home. (Rather than cycling, I use my walks to and from the office as part of my daily exercise.) And after five minutes I suddenly found myself face to face with the new Holocaust memorial designed by Liebeskind. It was so quiet that I decided to walk down a few steps and enter it.

It mostly consists of walls with unadorned bricks with the names, birth-dates, and ages when murdered of all 102,000 Dutch Jews, Roma, and Sinti. There are some mirrors, but the overall atmosphere is quite (fittingly) austere. Because my paternal grandpa, grandma, and dad arrived in 1939 and survived the war at Westerbork, and because my maternal grandpa arrived in 1938 and, after a period of imprisonment (the Dutch were no kinder then to refugees than now) soon left for the States; I knew there would be no family names on these walls. And when I thought about it, as I went into the quiet maze, I assumed that I would experience the kind of awe I had at the granite, Vietnam memorial in DC. Besides, I thought, I was too self-absorbed with my own troubles to feel much.

But as I walked and saw the family names of whole clans wiped out, I frequently recognized the distinctive surnames of my classmates of my Jewish day school, the last names of my dad's and mom's bridge-partners, the familiar family names of the officers of the synagogues, Zionist movements, the Jewish weekly, and what my academic self would call the civil society of Dutch Jewry. I was struck by the fact that most of my childhood was immersed in a world where almost every one I knew had uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, and grandparents on these walls. (I was reminded of this, of course, by their updates on social media these past few weeks since the opening of the memorial.) 

I knew I was crying, when I bumped into another visitor. I felt a bit guilty because I was not mourning anyone in particular on that wall. More likely, I was mourning my past academic persona or, perhaps, my childhood.  

It took the Netherlands 75 years to build a proper memorial to its own citizens. Enough time, I thought bitterly, for all the collaborators and sly opportunists who profited from the killing and looting to die. I write these words not on Tuesday but now (Friday) just after I read a summary written by the Dutch judiciary about its own judges who between 2010-2019 in 16,753 cases (impacting almost 35,000 parents) mistakenly and cravingly sided with the government against mostly poor and frequently darker-skinned fellow citizens who were generally unfairly treated as fraudsters by tax authorities and backed up by the judiciary and the council of state. Only one court showed any independent judgment.

The judiciary report's main recommendation is to encourage judges to show more empathy for citizens.* That judges will continue to act primarily as functionaries of state authority rather than as impartial (ahh) judges is not likely to change without systemic change. I regret I lack the energy to write that editorial.

The next day (Wednesday), we explored Book 1 of Utopia with its great debates over the proper functioning of the rule of law and the kinds of aspirations and opportunities experts might have in truth-telling to rulers and people alike. During the discussions I thought about, but didn't mention the walls with their rows of names just a few hundred yards away. I wondered if my silence was a kind of cowardice. But my restraint was rewarded because when we talked about the three (non-Utopia) fictitious countries  -- the Polylerits, the Achorians, and  the Macarians -- that Raphael Hythloday describes, one of my student groups noticed (in their discussion) that they represent a stylized discussion of the proper functioning of the three elements of the trias politicas: the rational ordering of the law of the Polyterits, the independent judgment of the people of the Achorians against the tendency toward conquest of the sovereign, and the self-limitation of the functions of the sovereign by the Macarians. And despite the temptation toward self-pity, I felt lucky and grateful that I keep learning from my students. 

 

More's Utopia and the Reform of Christianity

‘People who have made up their minds to rush headlong down the opposite road are never pleased with the man who calls them back and points out the dangers of their course. But, apart from that, what did I say that could not and should not be said everywhere? Indeed, if we dismiss as outlandish and absurd everything that the perverse customs of men have made to seem alien to us, we shall have to set aside, even in a community of Christians, most of the teachings of Christ. Yet he forbade us to dissemble them, and even ordered that what he had whispered in the ears of his disciples should be preached openly from the housetops. Most of his teachings are far more alien from the common customs of mankind than my discourse was. But preachers, like the crafty fellows they are, have found that people would rather not change their lives to fit Christ’s rule, and so, following your advice, I suppose, they have adjusted his teaching to the way people live, as if it were a leaden yardstick. At least in that way they can get the two things to correspond in some way or other. The only real thing they accomplish that I can see is to make people feel more secure about doing evil.--Thomas More Utopia, Book 1, translated by Robert M. Adams

The quoted passage is part of the response by Raphael Hythloday to Thomas More's suggestion to use an "indirect approach" in one's attempts to offer expert advice to sovereigns, to use tact, and to try "what you cannot turn to good, you may at least make as little bad as possible." (37) I leave aside here the delicate question to what degree the character Thomas More stands in for the views of the author Thomas More. The character More (echoing Cicero) promotes a mitigation or amelioration strategy in contexts where one knows that there is no appetite for uptake of better, minimally decent courses of action.  

And Hythloday claims that the strategy advocated by More (the character) is a dangerous form of self-deception. Because one ends up legitimizing, even advocating true evil (even if -- one can stipulate -- it is less evil than it otherwise might be). And because More (the author) understands the problem and its complex temptations first hand, the issue is treated in timeless fashion. As I have noted before (recall; and here) the theme is pursued throughout Utopia.

But what I had not quite noticed before is that Hythloday uses the occasion to point out that speaking truth to power is as difficult as speaking truth to ordinary people (assuming, for the sake of argument, he believes in the truth of Christ's teaching). And not unlike the early Protestants who are just about to arrive on the historical horizon, Hythloday claims (in very Epicurean fashion) that the clergy have corrupted Christ's teaching in order for it to be acceptable by the people. (The point survives the further thought that on balance, Hythloday's pure religion is a rather Spinozistic Christianity [see here; here; and here.] He had made the same point -- the key role for the opinion and sentiments of the governed -- about the nature of royal authority in his vignette (recall) on the Achorians a few pages before. Interestingly enough, in both cases ordinary opinion dramatically constrains the ambitions of a ruling authority, in the case of royalty for the better (it makes it more responsible and pacific) and in the case of Christianity for the worse (it undermines the core teachings of the religion).

But the situation is a bit more complicated yet. As I noted when I was still writing at NewAPPS, earlier Hythloday contrasts, (i) Moses's legal code and the more gentle rule of Christianity. (Both are treated as mediation's of God's will.) And an implied contrast (ii) between the way one rules a barbarous people (recently liberated from tyranny) and the way one rules a more civilized people. The implied contrast (ii) effectively historicizes the Bible, whose commandments are now understood as fitted to a people at a particular time and place in need of strict rule. But in the passage quoted above, it becomes clear that the gentle rule of Christianity is in some sense felt to be too demanding for kings and people alike in the context of Roman empire and European feudalism.

Now, one way to go at this point is to look for a renewal of Christianity by a legislator with Moses' political skill. And it is not farfetched to see Utopus and (say Bacon's refounder of Bensalem, King Salomana) as an example hereof (recall here; here). And there are echoes of this project throughout the early modern period (up to Rousseau's divine legislator in the Social Contract).

Another way to go, if you think religions are in part a function of context and popular uptake, is to suggest that traditional Christianity has outlived its possibility. And that what is needed is a new kind of religion better suited for time and place. Comte is the best known example of an explicit attempt at this. But plenty of religious reformers between More and Comte can be said to fall in this category. I actually think an option like this is explored  in Book II of Utopia, but that's for another time.

At this point one may well wonder 'why religion at all?' Rather than treating the question as an anachronism, it is pretty clear that there is an answer to it in Utopia; where throughout religion is treated (anticipating Spinoza and Kant) as a regulator of moral life. And, as the quoted passage reveals, at least Hythloday believes strongly (anticipating Spinoza's eighteenth century critics) that without the restraint of religion people would be even more evil than we find that they are. People claiming to be Christians act in very unchristian fashion.

I will stop here. But I don't mean to suggest this exhaust the issue in Utopia. Of course, that people claiming to be Christians act in very unchristian fashion may also suggest that the problem is Christianity. Whatever else Book 1 of Utopia establishes (recall) is that people respond to incentives and that one must design and reform social institutions accordingly. It also establishes that monopoly power (in economic and political life) without countervailing powers is very dangerous to public or "common good." So, Book 1 also invites us to consider to what degree one needs religion to promote common good, and if one does, how it should be organized given a given material context. And if I understand More (the character) aright, this will be articulated in an indirect fashion.

 

 

Norm MacDonald, Lou Jacobi, and the Best Joke of All Time.

One of my imperfections that I have become aware of through marriage is my tendency to wisecrack at inopportune moments, especially during moments of vulnerable intimacy or awkward silences. And when I think I am funny, I'll repeat the wisecrack. I call this 'situational comedy' (although I realize that is confusing given the TV/Radio genre with the same name and probably should have settled on something more pretentious like 'fondness for the absurd'), and I sharply distinguish it from joking and punning. At some point, I decided that repeating the wisecrack -- a word that appeals to the skeptical philosopher in me -- would only enhance the joke; repetition is key to the gag. This tendency makes the awkwardness worse, of course. 

In my defense, there is a skill involved in being funny, to adlib in the moment; it is, in fact, true improv unlike the genre that has the name, which is almost entirely scripted and a really skilled profession. I mention this not to suggest that I have any expertise in jokes or comedy. I am, in fact, terrible at telling actual jokes. And unlike, say, my teacher the late Ted Cohen (recall), who could be funny at will, I lack a theory of why things are funny, or not, when they are.

That I am bad at telling jokes is actually surprising because at one point, in my twenties, I hung out regularly with Lou Jacobi (a family friend--about that some other time more), who would take my to Museums on the Upper East Side. (There is a fascinating short video about Lou.) Lou and I mostly talked about the art we saw, and his showbiz stories, but at one point, we were walking near Lexington, he asked me if I wanted to know the secret of joke-telling. His eyes lit up as he leaned over to me with a conspiratorial glimmer, and I wondered if he was violating some guild-protocol, he whispered, 'always remember the punchline!' And started crackling. 

There is, in fact, no easier way to remember the punchline if it is identical to the set-up. Norman Macdonald repeatedly asserted that the "perfect joke would be if the punchline and the set up were identical," or "almost identical." (I have heard him say different versions.) Macdonald, who died last week, loved this principle, and he used variants on it throughout his time at SNL (see below). 

I sometimes wonder whether it's news to most philosophers that 'A = A' can be funny and even is the structure, or the form, of the perfect joke. (It probably was old hat to Wittgenstein.) Part of the joke of identity is, of course, that the second 'A' (the repetition) is not the original; it's a copy.

After Macdonald died, and in order to forget my frustration over my slow recovery, I binge-watched (and listened) to clips of Macdonald and other comedians discussing Macdonald's craft. They (the comedians) routinely describe him, even before he died, 'as the funniest man I know.' (No, never 'funniest person.') It was odd for me to see that in the days after he died, these very comedians had also binge-watched the same clips I had been binge-watching. Most of them ignored the perfect joke, and would speak about the Bob Saget roast, the moth joke, the ESPYS, the Courtney Thorne-Smith/carrottop mockery, and being fired for joking about OJ Simpson. 

Macdonald has a bad reputation among contemporary moralists and increasingly became a red state hero. And it's true that Macdonald made a lot of fun of the Clintons, and over time became somewhat of a hater. But if you go back to the SNL days, nearly all of his jokes about them express his outrage over the fact that Clinton is a known, serial sexual harasser in plain sight and got away with it. (Something similar is on display in his repeated jokes about Michael Jackson's pedophilia.) His political comedy was moralistic.

I suspect Macdonald, who was incredibly well-read, later regretted that his initial fame was due to his political jokes because he came to deny that hating on others generated real humor. (For example, he loathed Alec Baldwin's Trump because there is no place for any fondness of Trump, but greatly admired Darrell Hammond's Trump.) Rather, in his interviews it's clear that while he dislikes confessional humor, he greatly admires those comics that can do jokes about ordinary life without showing their craft, especially Bob Hope, who could be very funny in virtue of extremely minor facial or posture changes despites his jokes being rather bad. (This is something late Macdonald clearly tried to emulate in his final Netflix show, being funny with bad jokes.) 

In listening to the comedians talking about Macdonald, I realized that their world is not so different from professional philosophy. For, they have a strong norm against plagiarizing each other's jokes, although they allow some to do so as a form of (ahh) intertextual homage. (Macdonald was fond of this privilege, and used it not irregularly especially when roasting his friends in order to pay homage to Don Rickles, Rodney Dangerfield, and this, too, then also get remarked upon by the other comedians.)

As an aside, the moth joke was, I gather, apparently not Macdonald's, but a friend's (although I am sure it has a much longer prehistory). The joke itself is super-corny, and the set up has a rather classical structure of ascending woes, but because O'Brien interrupts a few times, Macdonald has to improvise. The brilliance of the moth joke is not the punchline, but the long-winded delivery of the set-up. This was, in fact, one of the reasons other comedians admire Macdonald because he could make the set up itself more hilarious than the punch-line. This kind of inversion is much harder to pull off than anti-humor. I just love listening and watching repeatedly to the set ups of Macdonald's Jacques de Gatineau joke, the polish joke, the professor of logic joke, and even the Andy Richter joke (which Andy Richter quite rightly did not find funny).  Not to belabor the point, but this focus on the comic potential of the set-up, is itself a key to the borsht belt humor in some of the best sketches on Jacobi's You Don't Have to be Jewish (e.g.,  a 'Call from Long Island'; 'The Reading of the Will'; 'James Bondstein'). 

Also, I noticed that among comedians it is a completely legitimate argument to claim that the fact that Letterman asked Macdonald to be Letterman's final (comic) guest proves that Macdonald is really the funniest. It's a bit like the honor philosophers show each other at a Fest. 

Let me wrap up: when I teach I often wisecrack to end awkward silences. The jokes are pretty bad, but the undergrads find my repetitions funny (I can demonstrate this with hundreds of student evals). What's neat about this is that what is objectively a personality defect --  the badly timed witticism that blocks intimacy with a loved one -- can be made functional in the classroom because it helps the students relax despite the fact that we're discussing very challenging and often politically polarizing material. It does so by marking off, as it were 'once upon a time,' the (cognitive) space in which we are super serious from the outside-world in which people come to blows over the same issues, but we pride ourselves on our detachment. Or, maybe, the students are just laughing at me.