Digressions&Impressions

The Case Against Hume (I)

The king, sensible that nothing kept alive the ideas of military valour and of ancient glory, so much as the traditional poetry of the people, which, assisted by the power of music, and the jollity of festivals, made deep impression on the minds of the youth, gathered together all the Welsh bards, and from a barbarous, though not absurd policy, ordered them to be put to death.--David Hume History of England

Edward I's mass murder of the socio-cultural leaders of the Welsh in 1284 is called 'barbarous,' but not absurd. It's not absurd because Hume recognizes the significance of what one might call a 'civic culture' -- poetry of the people...assisted by the power of music, and the jollity of festivals, -- for possible future (national) political resistance. That is to say, Hume recognizes the instrumental rationality of the English king's pacification of the Welsh which requires forceful methods to succeed. 

That despite finding Edward's policy intelligible from the perspective of (Machiavellian) statecraft, one might well naturally think that Hume also condemns Edward's mass murder, even cultural genocide because he calls it 'barbarous.' And it is certainly case that the sociological contrast between barbarous and civilization, which is an important empirical distinction in Hume, is also normatively laden. For Hume, to be civilized is to be normatively better, more advanced, than to be barbarous. So, the natural thought is not silly here.  I return to this below.

Yesterday, Mauricio Suárez called my attention to an article in The Scotsman, where academics protested the removal of David Hume's name from a university building at the University of Edinburgh. At first sight the critics are correct to suggest that Hume did not get honored belatedly by the university (which infamously refused him a post while living) in virtue of his racism, but for other “great and locally relevant [intellectual] achievements.” Let's stipulate this is true (although below I make an important qualification). It is also an  interesting and tough question (recall Neil McArthur -- himself a distinguished Hume Scholar - here)  how much imperfection one can tolerate in a scholar before certain academic honors for genuine intellectual achievements become off-limits. Jacob Levy (here; here) has done important work on this topic, which has influenced my own evolving sense. 

The critics' defense, as reported (which is an important caveat), of Hume involve at least five other claims: first, that his (acknowledged) racism toward "blacks [is] nonetheless marginal to his body of ideas." It is merely "one racist footnote." Second, that the university process was shoddy (“This is an area which requires sensitivity, tact, procedural transparency and patience.") Third, that the decision potentially negatively impacts the reputation of scholars who work on Hume ("suggests the university also regards these colleagues’ work as dubious or disreputable.”) Fourth, “Hume’s views on race...were common in his day." And, fifth, that the actions of the past are in a certain sense irrelevant today (“History contains many offensive things that cannot now be undone. What matters is how those living in the present conduct themselves towards one another.”)

Since I am a Hume scholar -- even got my first lucky intellectual break to write on Hume for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy --, you may expect me to be sympathetic to the critics and worry about my reputation. But, in fact, Hume scholarship has tried hard to confront Hume's racism (and I discuss some of this scholarship in my book on Smith). Anyway, my concern here is not with the reputation of Hume scholars, but with how to think about Hume's legacy.

I agree with the critics that the University of Edinburgh has done itself a disservice by it's unintellectual and uninformative explanation for its decision (here, so you can make up your own mind; ht Dailynous). But it does not mean the critics are right that there is no case here. As I have explained here, that infamous footnote occurs in a text which is also quite clearly anti-semitic. Hume's attitude toward the Jews (which sometimes could be more sympathetic) contrasts strongly with (say) Toland's advocacy of Jewish emancipation (a generation earlier).

In addition, Hume's views on the Irish (in his History) are not exactly sympathetic. I think (and will argue another time) that Adam Smith's one real fight with his close friend, Hume, involved Hume's prejudice toward the Irish (where Hume takes the side of the English, recycling its propaganda) in his treatment of the Irish (1641) rebellion. But today, I link you to Clare Moriarty's tweet which presents another's testimony. (Moriarty is a scholar of Berkeley's mathematics, who has called attention to his eugenic interests, anti-Irish prejudices, and slave-owning in the past.)

So, it is not true that in Hume's age, Hume's racial views were uncontroversial. Philosophers are endlessly taught, on the authority of both Hume (“that bigoted silly fellow")* and Kant, that James Beattie was a philosophical idiot. But whatever the merits of this claim against Beattie's arguments on causation, Beattie was also a fierce critic of Hume's racism (and may have even influenced Hume to moderate his racism).

So, the scholarly critics of the University of Edinburgh, rely on a flawed modern historicist defense of Hume which itself presupposes moral progress, where we know better and the mythical past was uniformly bigoted, as I have argued here (one of my better blog posts--go read it!) And while Hume was a critic of (ancient) slavery, his views on race were (predictably) used by contemporary defenders of slavery (recall here) and fiercely debated by English abolitionists.** 

So, the case against Hume is that his racism is not a minor aberration in his thought, but a significant element of his larger views. In my view this is so not because Hume was especially animated by cultural prejudice or racism, but rather because he was a proponent of civilization -- which he associated with being governed by rule of law, commerce, humanity, and progress -- and thought it okay, on balance, if civilization was spread, even by force. And this returns me to his comment on Edward I.+ For, while if we only look at the passage above, it might seem Hume condems Edward's brutal policy of pacification, Hume himself offers the following summing up a bit later in the History:

The enterprizes, finished by this prince, and the projects, which he formed and brought near to a conclusion, were more prudent, more regularly conducted, and more advantageous to the solid interests of his kingdom, than those which were undertaken in any reign either of his ancestors or his successors. He restored authority to the government, disordered by the weakness of his father; he maintained the laws against all the efforts of his turbulent barons; he fully annexed to his crown the principality of Wales; he took many wise and vigorous measures for reducing Scotland to a like condition; and though the equity of this latter enterprize may reasonably be questioned, the circumstances of the two kingdoms promised such certain success, and the advantage was so visible of uniting the whole island under one head, that those who give great indulgence to reasons of state in the measures of princes, will not be apt to regard this part of his conduct with much severity. But Edward, however exceptionable his character may appear on the head of justice, is the model of a politic and warlike king: He possessed industry, penetration, courage, vigilance, and enterprize: 

Here Hume quite clearly suggests that Edward I was the best king England ever had before or since ("any reign either of his ancestors or his successors").++ And one of the reasons for this is the very brutal annexation of Wales and the model it provided for the subduing of Scotland. And while Hume grants that from the vantage point of equity and justice Edward can be criticized, the consequences of this brutality are so excellent that the means justify the ends (the expansion of civilization). It is a very natural reading of Hume's History -- which was the source of his initial fame -- that brutal conquest in the name of reason of state is fine as long as you promote and secure the rule of law. This is a consequentialist argument.

Notice that Hume is not shy about judging characters of the past as exemplars worth emulating or not. Hume would reject the historicist argument of his defenders.

And while I have no doubt that British (racialized) imperialism in the name of civilization would have happened without Hume, Hume did help give this ideology (which goes back to earlier times [cf Petty's conquest of Ireland]) extremely wide currency and respectability (despite Adam Smith's and his student Millar's attempts to undo it). So, while this ideology does not influence the problem of induction, I do think it ties together many elements in Hume's moral and political philosophy and defense of commercial society. And I sometimes fear that despite Hume's scepticiam and irreligion (which made him ineligible for a university position), it is this proto-imperialist ideology that made Hume so widely and publically highly regarded (assuming most were uninterested in his metaphysics and the fine points of his epistemology). That's compatible with the claim that there are resources in his philosophy to combat this ideology.

Let me close. I do not think the case against Hume is simple or without complexity. And I do not wish to suggest that one cannot paint a better picture of Hume than I did today. (I have done so myself and will do so again.) But the case against Hume is wider and more relevant than his defenders realize. And ignoring that case means we do not confront the complicity of our heroes in justifying really important evils that ought to be repaired if we still can. 

 

A Proto-Genealogy of Classic

Whenever a Gentleman and a Scholar tums Editor of any Book, he at the fame Time commences Critick upon his Author ; and that wherever he finds the Reading suspected, manifestly corrupted, deficient in Sense, and unintelligible, he ought to exert every Power and Faculty of the Mind to supply such a Defect, to give Light and restore Sense to the Passage, and, by a reasonable Emendation, to make that satisfactory and consistent with the Context, which before was so absurd, unintelligible, and intricate....But as I have laid it down as a Rule to myself not to be arbitrary, fantastical, or. wanton, in my Conjectures upon our Author, I (hall venture to aim at some little Share of Reputation, in endeavouring to. restore Sense to Pastages in which no Sense has hitherto been found ; or, sailing in that Hope, must submit to incur, which I should be very unwilling to do, the Censure of a rash and vain Pretender.
As Shakespeare stands, or at least ought to stand, in the Nature of a Classic Writer, and, indeed, he is corrupt enough to pass for one of the oldest Stamp, every one, who has a Talent and Ability this Way, is at liberty to make his Comments and Emendations upon him...And he, who has the Luck to be allowed any Merit in it, does not only do a Service to the Poet, but to his Country and its Language. This Author is grown so universal a Book, that there are very few Studies, or Collections of Books, tho' small, amongst which it does not hold a Place: And there is scarce a Poet, that our English Tongue boasts of, who is more the Subject of the Ladies Reading. But with what Pleasure can they read Passages, which the Incorrectness of the Editions will not suffer them to understand?--Lewis Theobald  (1726) Shakespeare restored, or, A specimen of the many errors, as well committed, as unamended, by Mr. Pope in his late edition of this poet: designed not only to correct the said edition, but to restore the true reading of Shakespeare in all the editions ever yet publish'd, v-vi

In his entertaining Philology: the Forgotten Origins of the Modern Humanities,* James Turner writes that "by the early 1700s, readers had come to see well-known English authors of bygone eras as "Classic" like Cicero or Homer; so Lewis Theobald called Shakespeare in 1726." (80) It occurred to me that my attempt to offer an analysis (inspired by Coetzee's treatment) of the nature of a classic in philosophy had missed an important angle: when (and perhaps why) did "classic" take on something like our meaning? So, I decided to leave Turner aside momentarily, and turned to Theobald. 

In the seventeenth century,  a classic meant something like, "of or belonging to the highest class; approved as a model" (in the still extant sense of being first in class). For many it was obvious (some of ) the Greek and Latin authors counted as classic in this sense ("belonging to or characteristic of standard authors of Greek and Roman antiquity" is attested in the 1620s). So, a "classic" in the seventeenth century sense is honorific and refers to a small class of excellent, ancient authors.  In the 1726 Shakespeare restored, Theobald does not use 'classic' and its cognates very often. But in most cases he uses it in the traditional sense.

So, for example (and one of interest to Berkeley scholars), at one point he argues that 'notion' should be inserted where the printed edition of Otello has 'motion.' And then, while illustrating what 'notion' means by appealing, he states "The Classics, I think, have employ'd the Word in the
same Sense: And Cicero, I remember, to quote no worse an Author, has defin'd it thus." (Theobald 1726: p. 129) Somewhat amusingly, Cicero, in turn, is quoted as quoting a Greek authority. 

In fact, in my opinion the only instance he is willing to apply 'classic' in innovative fashion to a more recent author is in the sentence quoted from the introduction above. That Theobald knows he is innovating by applying 'classic' to Shakespeare is, I think, clear from his phrasing. "As Shakespeare stands, or at least ought to stand, in the Nature of a Classic Writer," His "ought to stand" reveals it is not yet established practice, but a proposal.* 

And in order to avoid confusion, Theobald is not claiming that Shakespeare is corrupt  ("and, indeed, he is corrupt enough to pass for one of the oldest Stamp"), but rather that the printed editions of Shakespeare are corrupted (in the same manner as old texts get corrupted over time). Seven years later (in 1733), in the "preface" of his seven volume Works of William Shakespeare, Theobald makes the very point: "Shakespeare's Case has in great Measure resembled That of a corrupt Classick, and consequently, the method of Cure was likewise to bear a Resemblance." (xxxix; the sentence is also quoted by Turner on p. 81.) Here, too, Theobald is not yet insisting that Shakespeare is a classic; a resemblance not being identical to its exemplar.

So, I take it to be an open question when, exactly, 'classic' became decoupled from the small band of ancient exemplars. I welcome suggestions from my learned readers! I suspect, but this is a hypothesis, this only happened when in the battle between ancients and moderns, the balance of power/taste shifted toward the moderns. (Obviously, and as Turner notes later, in the nineteenth century a discipline called 'classical studies' or simply, 'classics' developed, so the story is complicated.) 

Okay, where does this leave me? I have learned that 'classic' in the modern sense may well have been invented in the context of the presentation of a text-critical edition of a text deemed worthy of such philological efforts. I have to admit this surprises me; my guess would have been that 'classic' in this modern sense was first deployed in an educational/curricular setting or, inspired by Coetzee, in a discussion about standards of taste/merit among skilled judges. 

 

 

Jonathan Swift and Pessimistic Meta-Induction

[Aristotle’s ghost] freely acknowledged his own mistakes in natural philosophy, because he proceeded in many things upon conjecture, as all men must do; and he found that Gassendi, who had made the doctrine of Epicurus as palatable as he could, and the vortices of Descartes, were equally exploded. He predicted the same fate to attraction, whereof the present learned are such zealous asserters. He said, that new systems of nature were but new fashions, which would vary in every age; even those who pretend to demonstrate them from mathematical principles would flourish but a short period of time, and be out of vogue when that was determined.--From Jonathan Swift's (1726) Gulliver's Travels. Part Three, Chapter 8. 

Swift let's Gulliver recount through Aristotle's Ghost what we may call a pessimistic meta-induction (see here in the Stanford Encyclopedia). Swift is not the first to produce such a meta-induction I am familiar with several version of it to be found in Montaigne's Apology of Raimond Sebond -- involving induction over multiple sciences  --, and I would not be surprised if it has an ancient Skeptical pedigree. Montaigne wrote in the aftermath of the Copernican revolution so it is no surprise he is sensitive to this opportunity to argue for his version of skepticism. 

We are inclined to read Swift's version as, perhaps, displaying his scientific experience. How could one claim that Newton is mere 'fashion' and founded upon 'conjecture?' In his edition of Swift, Sir Walter Scott, suggest that this passage shows "the Dean understood little natural philosophy."* Scott may correct about this. While one can wonder why another novelist fails to recognize that a writer need not agree with his character, I leave that aside. But Scott underestimates Swift's remarks.

First, note that Swift correctly grasps that Newton had made Descartes's vortex theory obsolete. It's little noticed fact that Newton offered the first quantitative vortex theory and showed that it was incompatible with the empirical evidence (for explanation see this paper--the argument is Smeenk's.) This was by no means the consensus everywhere. (And, in fact, Newton's argument rested in part on a subtle mistake in his treatment of torque recognized by Bernoulli.) But Newton had clearly shifted the burden of evidence; Descartes version was doomed.

Second, it is worth noting that 1726 was also the year of publication of the third edition of the Principia. (So, Gulliver was written in the shadow of the second edition.) Even so, the most controversial empirical results of the Principia (shape of the Earth, universal gravity, the lunar orbit etc.) were still very much contested. These were not settled until more than a decade later in groundbreaking work of Maupertuis, Clairaut, and Euler. While there were many sympathetic defenses of Newton in circulation, that even in the British Isles, Berkeley and Toland had demonstrated that there was space for works that were not uncritical of Newton (along many dimensions).

Now, one may still think Swift should not have said (or let Aristotle's  Ghost say via Gulliver) that the Principia was grounded in conjecture. But that was not an uncommon view (see here for evidence) among the learned who had good evidence to think that the empirical world did not favor Newton's theory and that he violated standards of intelligibility. 

Moreover, the idea that the use of mathematical is a matter of fashion and context specific is one that is key to a series of important arguments by Mandeville developed in his (anti-mathematicist) treatment (see here) of using the incentive structure of medicine to support epistemic claims in his A Treatise of the Hypochondriack and Hysterick Diseases (recall my old posts here and here.) I believe Mandeville's arguments were inserted in the second (1730) edition. If so, then Swift may well have encouraged Mandeville's development of the point. Mandeville's argument is so much more thoroughly developed than Swift's remark that I hesitate to call it an influence. 

Anticipating Kuhn (and Adam Smith), Aristotle's Ghost treats the commitment to a particular scientific paradigm as akin to a religion. And while he does not claim that the acceptance and rejection of scientific theories is entirely due to social context, social context is a key factor. And, in fact, it would be useful to read this passage alongside the critical treatment of the royal society in his description of his visit to Laputa and the floating island, but that's for another voyage, I mean digression.

 

On the Neuraths, Eugenics, and Translation

Now there is no denying that, given the trajectory of his later career, Neurath’s translation (with his first wife Anna Schapire-Neurath) of the second edition of Francis Galton’s Hereditary genius as Genie und Vererbung (1910) stands in need of explanation—indeed: contextualisation.¹⁷ Once that is provided, however, it becomes clear that his seeming ‘enthusiasm’ for eugenics was in fact considerably tempered. What prompted this tempering was, first of all, the complex influence of his father Wilhelm Neurath’s early arguments against Social Darwinism, albeit from an idealist perspective.¹⁸ In addition it must be noted that even the left of the day was by no means unanimously opposed to all eugenicist programmes and that the ideology of German eugenics before World War 1 was ‘less racialist than nationalist or meritocratic’, though unsavoury tendencies were already in evidence (Proctor, 1988, p. 20). Characteristically, Karl Kautsky dedicated the last chapter of a book of socialist reflections on Darwinism to the issue of ‘building a social consciousness in the spirit of racial hygiene’ (Kautsky, 1921, p. 265), explicitly in opposition to proponents of state-directed eugenic interventions like Wilhelm Schallmeyer. Finally, note must be taken of the protracted polemic against ‘the natural–scientific theory of society’ that Neurath’s mentor Ferdinand Tönnies conducted against Social Darwinists like Schallmeyer during the first decade of the past century in the journal of one of Neurath’s Berlin professors and dissertation examiners, Gustav Schmoller (Tönnies, 1925).

In light of this, the translation of Galton’s early work on eugenics may be regarded as an attempt to induce a certain sobriety into a highly topical public debate, especially since the translator’s ‘Preface’ draws the reader’s attention to what is significant about the second edition. Galton’s ‘Preface the second edition’—translated in full—not only stresses that the inheritance of acquired characteristics plays a still more minor part than originally thought, but also that in the meantime he had discovered the phenomenon of regression to the mean and the need to distinguish between genetic variations and so called sports. Galton concluded that ‘it is in consequence impossible that the natural qualities of a race may be permanently changed through the action of selection upon mere variations. The selection of the most serviceable variations cannot even produce any great degree of artificial and temporary improvement, because an equilibrium between deviation and regression will soon be reached, whereby the best of the offspring will cease to be better than their own sires and dams’ (Galton, 1892, p. xviii). That this radically reduces the scope for eugenics and reduces ‘the speed of the progress’ thereby promoted—as Galton put it in a passage from his Memories also reproduced in the translators’ ‘Introduction’ (Neurath & Schapire-Neurath, 1910a, p. vi)—is evident. It is surely not far-fetched to conclude that readers were meant to notice these consequences by the translators.

By 1913, in any case, Neurath observed: ‘One should clearly realise that instinct must fail with regard to the complex rational relationships created by the consciously shaped institutions of the social order and modern technology’ (Neurath, 1983, p. 5). So it is misleading to say that Neurath ‘in the years before the First World War became interested in eugenics’ (Proctor, 1991, p. 168) and wholly false to claim (as already noted) that it served as a ‘model and metaphor for social engineering’ (Richardson, 2009a, p. 19).¹⁹ Rather, by the time of World War 1, Neurath had lost interest in it because he realised that it was of no use for the transformation of society that he had begun to believe was required to alleviate the misery of the largest part of the population.--Thomas Uebel (2010) "What’s right about Carnap, Neurath and the Left Vienna Circle thesis: a refutation," Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A

Yesterday, while discussing LK Bright's work on the logical empiricist's taboo on (biological) racial explanation in human affairs, I alluded to an existing debate over the significance or meaning of the Neuraths's translation with his wife (a "professional translator") of Galton's Hereditery Genius. (As Galton makes clear in the preface to the second edition, by 'genius' he means 'natural ability,' although this does not rule out the impact of education and cultivation.) For even if one is friendly to the Vienna Circle it is a bit troubling to see one of its leading intellectual lights implicated in the active spread of eugenic ideas. (And one can imagine that at least some of those who are hostile will use it as critical ammunition.) Bright (and I) cite/link to a piece by one of the leading scholars of the Circle, Uebel (which I have quoted above). My own inclinations are with Richardson's position,* but what follows is agnostic about the relevance of early Neurath's views on eugenics to our interpretation of (a branch) of the later Vienna Circle.

First, I fully agree with Uebel that "even the left of the day was by no means unanimously opposed to all eugenicist programmes." In fact, as I remarked yesterday, many progressives, who want to improve society, after all, were invested in all kinds of scientific eugenics. (As regular readers know, I became aware of the significance of this by working on the overlapping history of philosophy and economics prompted by David Levy's scholarship.) Not all of these eugenic improvers were invested in racial hierarchy. But it is equally true that racial hierarchy is rarely fully absent from eugenic programs. As I remarked yesterday, Galton's book has a full chapter in which he presents his racialized hierarchy of peoples. The Neuraths's introduction does not challenge this classification. (It provides biographical background to his interest in the subject.) So, even if Uebel is right that the second edition of Galton's book does not promote eugenics, it does promote a racial hierarchy.

Second Uebel is right to call attention to the significance of the regression of the mean. The Neuraths's also call attention to Galton's comments (which he had added to the preface of the second edition) in their introduction. I want to make three comments about this. (a) The purported findings of racial hierarchy are not undermined by Galton's awareness of regression to the mean (which is a quality of a race); he repeats his views on the inferiority of "Negroes" in the introduction to the second edition (xxv-xxvi). In fact, (b) while Galton does not say this, one may even suspect that he thought this entrenches the hierarchy -- if one can maintain racial purity from the lower races -- because one can't breed up.

Now, it's true that Galton expresses (a lot more) pessimism about breeding for increasing existing characteristics in a population due to thinking through the implications of regressions to the mean (see, second edition p. xviii). But (c) he is explicit that it leaves open possibility for breeding for novelty or new characteristics (or what he calls "spots") which can then be passed on to the next generation. This can ultimately lead to a new "species" (race/kind). Galton goes on to call for the establishment of an experimental research lab in which breeding experiments on animals are performed alongside demographic study of human populations. So, a eugenic program that breeds new, desirable characteristics into a new kind of man may well be possible (and that's what, in fact, he calls for research into). Galton's remarks reveal the (evidential) research potential of drastic social engineering:

The great problem of the future betterment of the human race is confessedly, at the present time, hardly advanced beyond the stage of academic interest,  but thought and action move swiftly nowadays, and it is by no means impossible that a generation  which has witnessed the exclusion of the Chinese race from the customary privileges of settlers in  two continents, and the deportation of a Hebrew population from a large portion of a third, may  live to see other analogous acts performed under sudden socialistic pressure. (xx)

Galton here does not advocate massive social engineering. But it's clear that if the evidence supports its utility, he would embrace it. ("They compel us to face the question as to what races should be politicall the chief occupiers of that [African] continent." (xxv))

The Neuraths do not comment much on Galton's vision. So, Uebel may be right that they wished to introduce "certain sobriety" into the discussion. (As I speculated yesterday, while Galton endorses a racial hierarchy his book is not antisemitic (even philosemitic), something they may have found attractive in a Germanic context.) Perhaps they did not endorse his racial hierarchy and other eugenic projects. (But why not say so in the  introduction?) But it does not follow that they rejected everything in the book. In fact, there is clear evidence that the Neuraths explicitly accept Galton's idea of the inherited characteristic of intelligence. For, in their 'preface" (Vorwort) they explicitly call attention to a (modest) mistake by Galton. Galton had presented Fichte as an isolated genius; but they note that he had a son who was a philosophy professor. The point is echoed in the biographical sketch of Galton in their "introduction," where they explicitly note, as an illustrative example of Galton's theory, the above average likely presence of other smart people in the families of exemplary men (iii-iv).**

 

Ón (Forcing others and) Having Fewer+ Children and Cars to Save the Planet

We have identified four recommended actions which we believe to be especially effective in reducing an individual's greenhouse gas emissions: having one fewer child, living car-free, avoiding airplane travel, and eating a plant-based diet. These suggestions contrast with other top recommendations found in the literature such as hang-drying clothing or driving a more fuel-efficient vehicle. Our results show that education and government documents do not focus on high-impact actions for reducing emissions, creating a mitigation gap between official recommendations and individuals willing to align their behaviour with climate targets. Focusing on high-impact actions (through providing accurate guidance and information, especially to 'catalytic' individuals such as adolescents) could be an important dimension of scaling bottom-up action to the transformative decarbonisation implied by the 2 °C climate target, and starting to close this gap.--Seth Wynes and Kimberly A Nicholas (2017) "The climate mitigation gap: education and government recommendations miss the most effective individual actions" Environmental Research Letters, Volume 12, Number 7 [HT Ingrid Robeyns]

A few years ago, because of the research of (my former BNI co-blogger) Ingrid Robeyns, I became aware of the fact that cutting edge climate science was putting demographic controls back on the political philosophical agenda. The previous sentence also reflects a bit of parochialism because there are places (e.g., China) where it never went away. But because (i) the Nazis had made eugenics disreputable, (ii) welfare states require a steady rise in working age populations (to pay for generous pensions, insurance, child-care, etc.), and (iii) economists quietly assumed that technological improvements would help solve any demographic problems (related, say, to Malthusian over-population), demographics were a subdued presence in the political philosophy of cold-war and thereafter liberalism.*

I wrote 'back' in the previous paragraph because the more I read, the more clear it is to me that for all the major theorists in the history of political philosophy and political economy through the middle of the twentieth century (recall this post on Berkeley's racialized eugenics), the control of populations is a crucial theoretical factor because (a) famines are very disruptive (and morally bad); (b) soldiers are needed for the military; (c) a growing, able population is good for the economy (and taken as a sign of proper functioning  institutions); and (d) in the Platonic strain, desirable characteristics of the ruling elite ought to be bred for (in addition, to, of course, some mixture of (a-d)). One reason why Foucault's bio-politics made such a splash is that he revived the study of some of these characteristics from within the tradition.  

Wynes &  Nicholas base their claims about children on a 2009 article, "Reproduction and the carbon legacies of individuals,"  Paul A. Murtaugh and Michael G. Schlax. While there is plenty to say about the modeling done here, today I focus on how we can see the effects of the anxiety produced by (i-iii) in the rhetoric and policies of Wynes & Nicholas and Murtaugh & Schlax. In both articles, when it comes to population control, the focus is on "reproductive choice" of individuals which are treated as "individual lifestyle choice." Amazingly, neither article even mentions the various subsidies and tax credits that the governments of rich countries give to promote having some children (often within marriage). The only tax that Wynes & Nicholas mention is a "carbon tax on food commodities."

If one is skeptical about massive norm/life-style changes (no flying and changing diet) and one is interested in promoting policy, and one is convinced we're heading for environmental catastrophe absent such policy, then, when reading Wynes & Nicholas, population reduction and living car-free are the low hanging fruit. As it happens, the car-free universe is suddenly all the rage for three technological reasons: first, due to improvements in AI, self-driving cars are on the horizon, and these are going to be safer and operated more efficiently; second, cheap electric cars are now within planning reach; third,  due to software developments, car sharing is becoming insanely easy and cheap. Because in most cities space is limited (and expensive), these will make car ownership suddenly very unattractive economically and life-style-wise. This is why futurologists are predicting that the value added hub of transportation will shift toward Silicon Valley away from traditional car-towns.

As an aside, Stephen Davies has been alerting me to the growing bubble in car-loans and securitisation of these. The risks of this bubble has been getting some media attention already (see here). What has not been fully grasped yet, I suspect, is that, even leaving aside that bubble, in light of the developments of the previous paragraph, at some tipping point the second-hand-car market will collapse in value. And this means that a whole segment of the financial sector's business plans and collatoral will be worthless. I have seen no evidence that the stress-testing that financial institutions have been doing includes a collapse of the car-loan market.

To return to the main argument, a car-free-world is within reach.** Of course, "until the emissions associated with desired services are reduced to zero, population will continue to be a multiplier of emissions." And here is where the trouble starts. For enviornmental do-gooders destroying liberal welfare states, which (recall) require growing populations, is politically unattractive for two connected reasons: the welfare state is popular and in line with moral (Rawlsian) commitments and cutting benefits is politically hard to achieve. As it happens, (as Malthus already noted), as a population becomes wealthier and women are educated fertility goes down; this is why (leaving aside immigration) population has been growing slowly or even stagnating in many wealthy countries. The combined effect can be quite dramatic (as Japan, where the population is shrinking, is revealing). But because women are very educated and not very fertile in rich countries (you can play around with the OECD data here), the environmentally desirable big population gains can only be had elsewhere (again, I only became aware of something like this argument since 2013 through unpublished work by Ingrid Robeyns--this paragraph and the next few are not intended to do justice to the details of her unpublished arguments, but the musings were inspired by them).

With cars taken care off, controlling the fertility of primarily poor (and if the latest hope of technocratic-liberalism, President Macron, is to be believed, uncivilized) women becomes the central policy relevant factor that can help prevent environmental catastrophe. One need not be a feminist or have some sense of how ordinarily imperialism plays out to recognize that this is a recipe for many moral disasters (e.g., forced sterilizations/abortions, murder, taxes on children, etc.).

Of course, as noted, education is another factor driving down fertility (there is also evidence of this in sub-sahara Africa). So, in the short run, expect a lot more activity and publicity surrounding programs promoting and lengthening girls's and women's education in poor places. This has the nice feature of fitting a lot of pre-existing (Enlightenment and Feminist) emancipatory doctrines. (While this reduces fertility, populations with better human capital also aids economic growth, so the effect will not be only pro-environment.) Have the affective (sic!) altruists gotten on board yet?

Yet, Spivak famously reminds us (in her criticism of Foucault and others), that our "standardizing benevolence" (90) is particularly dangerous for the 'subaltern' who we take to be aiding (from our enlightened self-interest). Not to mention (recall) that some of the worst, enduring cultural conflicts originate in hegemonic powers imposing their views of civilized gender relations on savage others. There are no risk-free choices here (if there ever are)....

 

On McMahan on Parfit (A Pet Peeve)

Over the twelve years following the publication of this landmark paper, Parfit worked relentlessly on the manuscripts that were to become Reasons and Persons (1984). This book has often been described as comprising four distinct but closely connected books: one on the ways in which moral theories can be self-defeating, a second on rationality and time, a third that defends his view of personal identity, and a fourth on the ethics of causing people to exist and duties concerning future generations. While each of the four parts has been enormously influential, Part Four effectively created a new, difficult, highly important, and now flourishing area of philosophy known as ‘population ethics’. Peter Singer has described Reasons and Persons as the best work of moral philosophy since Sidgwick’s Methods of Ethics, which was published in 1874.

Beginning in the mid-1970s, material that would, after much rewriting, eventually coalesce into Reasons and Persons began to circulate in photocopies of Parfit’s typescripts. It is perhaps difficult for those who have entered the field of philosophy since that book was published to appreciate how exciting and exhilarating those early formulations of his ideas were. Over the intervening decades, much of moral philosophy has been shaped by the forms of argument, including the imaginative use of hypothetical examples, and even the style of writing that are characteristic of Reasons and Persons. But at the time they were radically different from what philosophers were familiar with. For many of those working in philosophy then, and perhaps especially for graduate students who were able to read some of Parfit’s manuscripts, the novelty, brilliance, and practical significance of his arguments were intoxicating. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that, at least for some of us, that era seemed rather as the French Revolution seemed to the young Wordsworth: ‘Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven!’

Parfit had a native genius for philosophy. But he also devoted more time and concentrated effort to the development of his ideas than any other philosopher I have known. He once mentioned a passage in a book of economic history that noted that the concept of work had sometimes been understood in such a way that work was necessarily unpleasant. On this understanding, Parfit almost never worked.-Jeff McMahan Obituary of Derek Parfit. [HT Don Ainslie]

First, I was moved by McMahan's obituary of Parfit. And I warmly recommend it.* It offers a portrait of a life fully and somewhat lopsidedly immersed in philosophy. Those of us who think that a good-life must be more rounded do well to reflect critically on our own attitudes in light of the exemplar Parfit. And while the genius (I tend to wince at this word [recall my treatment of boy-wonders] when discussing professional philosophers and population ethics, but let's allow McMahan the use) may have been native it was clearly cultivated by considerable effort and focus. In addition, what also shines through in McMahan's obituary is that Parfit's genius was also, in a sense, social. After all, he put tremendous effort into improving others around him:

Parfit’s kindness and generosity, not only to his students and friends but to others as well, are legendary. The comments he gave to people on their manuscripts were sometimes longer than the manuscripts themselves, and the comments were invariably articulated in the gentlest, most tactful, encouraging, and constructive way possible. (3-4)

It is no criticism to remark that such kindness and generosity are rewarding in multiple ways not just to the community but also to the person Parfit in a credit economy in which giving of intellectual gifts -- and attention is the greatest (and scarcest) gift of all -- is one of the main, status enhancing currency. (The previous sentence is compatible with the absence of this insight as a psychological motive in Parfit; one cannot see well in the recesses of other people's hearts when is also simultaneously dazzled by their genius.)

The previous paragraph is misleading in one respect. Another scarce good in the political economy of the profession is time. And it is clear that the circumstances of Parfit's appointment gave him considerable freedom to develop his views without the demands of publication that are nearly inconceivable to the rest of us. That's no criticism of Parfit. In fact, one may say he understood his circumstances and made the best of them (again, this is not a remark about his psychology).

Even so, I also want to articulate a pet-peeve. I do so, in part, because I encounter some such inflationary claims more often in the self-understanding of my fellow analytical philosophers. The pet-peeve is not prompted by Singer's remark (quoted by McMahan) that 'Reasons and Persons as the best work of moral philosophy since Sidgwick’s Methods of Ethics,' although I will allow that I find something peculiar about the very practice of ranking works in moral philosophy (unless one is parceling out scarce goods like jobs, then rankings may be a necessary evil). For the person judging places himself as an arbiter of taste or value. Yet, the value of works of philosophy, and especially works of moral philosophy, is their impact on the lived experiences, including as theoretical reasoners about moral value, on not just specialized, cognitive communities, but also many readers that will be unknown to such a judge. What we do with other people's works is hard to judge in advance.

Rather, the pet-peeve is McMahan's claim that 'Part Four effectively created a new, difficult, highly important, and now flourishing area of philosophy known as ‘population ethics’. Now, it's true that recent population ethics (in style of argument and in its presuppositions) owes much to Parfit (and I think McMahan captures this very nicely in the passage I quoted above). But that's not what McMahan writes. He turns Parfit into the inventor of population ethics. Yet, population ethics has been an integral part of philosophy since Plato and Aristotle in all kinds of guises during the long history of normatively discussing various intellectual practices that mixed eugenics, political economy, political demography, and political philosophy (Sidgwick's fellow victorians were not unfamiliar with population ethics). {One may say, in short-hand that this is the pre-history to what Foucault calls biopolitics.} That it's not always recognized as philosophy by us or in the past is a different question. I'd like to think, for example, that Parfit-style population ethics was inaugurated by Swift in a Modest Proposal [recall].** (I am not claiming that treating A Modest Proposal from the perspective of population ethics does full justice to its (ahhh) genius.)

There are, of course, non-trivial issue about the reasons why population ethics fell out of favor in the early post-world-war-II years. But that's for another occasion. Rather, when Parfit is treated as the founder and originator of population ethics, he is essentially being inscribed into a familiar narrative: as a Kuhnian legislator of a paradigm in which others can develop professional careers working out the implications. It generates a sociologically powerful excuse to ignore alternative approaches and to be ignorant of the prior history of philosophy (including sordid bits); it nudges the young -- who increasingly lack time to read around uselessly -- to stay focused on the puzzles at hand. I recognize that for some this is, in fact, a fine justification for McMahan's narrative, but I am less confident that this is good for philosophy.

 

A Note to Adam Smith on Natural Equality (with a note on the PSR & Simplicity)

The difference of natural talents in different men is, in reality, much less than we are aware of; and the very different genius which appears to distinguish men of different professions, when grown up to maturity, is not upon many occasions so much the cause, as the effect of the division of labour. The difference between the most dissimilar characters, between a philosopher and a common street porter, for example, seems to arise not so much from nature, as from habit, custom, and education.

When they came into the world, and for the first six or eight years of their existence, they were a, perhaps, a very much alike, and neither their parents nor play-fellows could perceive any remarkable difference. About that age, or soon after, they come to be employed in very different occupations. The difference of talents comes then to be taken notice of, and widens by degrees, till at last the vanity of the philosopher is willing to acknowledge scarce any resemblance. But without the disposition to truck, barter, and exchange, every man must have procured to himself every necessary and conveniency of life which he wanted. All must have had the same duties to perform, and the same work to do, and there could have been no such difference of employment as could alone give occasion to any great difference of talents.--Adam Smith Wealth of Nations,  1.2.4-5.

The quoted passage, which occurs early in Wealth of Nations in the context of the treatment of the division of labor, is at the core of so-called analytical egalitarian interpretations of Adam Smith (and methodological analytical egalitarianism [MAE], more generally, see this book by David Levy and Sandra Peart); in the passage Smith seems to side with nurture. Human cognitive differences are primarily explained by individual "habit," social "custom," and "education,"  as well as employment ("division of labor"). (It is methodological because when there are observed differences, Smith encourages the would be researcher to explore the social causes -- e.g., "habit, custom, and "education," as well as employment ("division of labor" etc.. --  that can account for them.) The role of employment is subtly emphasized by Smith's reference to the "first six or eight years" of a child's life; he is writing in an age of child labor, and so that labor influences the development of the child to "maturity."

Part of the point of the passage is to warn against expert overconfidence (the vanity of the philosopher) and hubris (unwillingness to acknowledge similarity). Another point is (recall) to challenge the classical conception (familiar from Plato and Aristotle) that the division of labor is the product of natural cognitive hierarchy--a position still popular (Berkeley and, as is well known, Hume flirts with it, and after Kant it gets a new lease on live in the imperialist nineteenth century). [I return to this below.] This much is familiar enough. Smith does not deny some natural, cognitive difference, but he minimizes is.

Smith pretty much asserts the position, almost like an axiom.

Smith does offer an explanation. It is peculiar and that's why, perhaps, it has escaped notice. He writes, "without the disposition to truck, barter, and exchange, every man must have procured to himself every necessary and conveniency of life which he wanted. All must have had the same duties to perform, and the same work to do, and there could have been no such difference of employment as could alone give occasion to any great difference of talents."* Smith had introduced the disposition to truck (etc.) a bit before in the first paragraph of the chapter:

THIS division of labour, from which so many advantages are derived, is not originally the effect of any human wisdom, which foresees and intends that general opulence to which it gives occasion. It is the necessary, though very slow and gradual consequence of a certain propensity in human nature which has in view no such extensive utility; the propensity to one thing for another. Whether this propensity be one of those original principles in human nature of which no further account can be given; or whether, as seems more probable, it be the necessary consequence of the faculties of reason and speech, it belongs not to our present subject to inquire. Wealth of Nations 1.2.1

Smith alludes here to a conceptual-historical distinction between (i) dispositions that are original principles of human nature, and (ii) dispositions that are acquired principles of human nature. (In the 18th century, a 'principle' is a causal explanatory ground or a fundamental (causal) property.) Smith strongly implies that 'reason and speech' belong to the original principles of human nature, and that the propensity to truck, barter, and exchange is a late, historical acquisition (a consequence of reason and speech). That in turn is one of the historical causes for the existence of the division of labor. So, without language and reason there would be no development of the disposition to trade and without this disposition there would be no division of labor. Elsewhere I have explained how Smith is developing here a form of historical explanation that, itself is a species of unintended consequence explanation indebted to Mandeville, that I have dubbed Smithian Social Explanation. This has three core elements:

1. It is causal (“necessary consequence”). So, regardless of the status of propensities, the persistent triggering of these and their expression can lead to nomological outcomes such that the outcome could not be otherwise.
2. It is a historical explanation. By “historical” I mean to capture three features: (a) that the stable consequence would not have been in “view” (or predictable) to observers of human nature at an early time (and, so not even capable of being intended); (b) that to be a cause here does not require temporal contiguity between the cause and the effect. c) The explanandum takes place over a very long period of time ("very slow and gradual consequence").
3. Smith’s account requires that after certain consequences become visible to observer-participants they become self-reinforcing. Presumably this self-reinforcement is due to the fact that those that benefit from the cumulative consequences will help prevent backsliding from new social arrangements.  (It may also be aided by the fact that those that do not so benefit will be deprived of various resources to prevent further change.) So, in the long run and in the aggregate, human propensities will produce initially unpredictable, albeit definite and determined outcomes.

Okay, now we can return to Smith's explanation of the lack of intellectual, cognitive hierarchy: “without the disposition to truck, barter, and exchange, every man must have procured to himself every necessary and conveniency of life which he wanted. All must have had the same duties to perform, and the same work to do, and there could have been no such difference of employment as could alone give occasion to any great difference of talents.” That is, absent the disposition to truck and barter -- which Smith just stipulated would likely be the case in human pre-history -- all humans must have had to do pretty much same work (as Smith considers the case in savage circumstances, WN Intro. 4, 10).

That is, Smith claims that in a counterfactual situation in which humans lack the disposition to truck (etc.), a great difference of talents would have been pointless and so absent. Given that according to Smith there are in his day still societies in which a great difference of talents is pointless, natural difference of talents ought to be limited.

It strikes me that Smith is relying on two suppressed premises. First, that humans form a single kind; as noted that was, itself, quite controversial (recall, again, alas, Hume’s “Of National Characters.”) Let's spot him the premise. Second, and more important, Smith here is clearly presupposing some kind of teleological-optimality principle, that there are no (major) natural differences in humans without a purpose. This principle has some affinity with two familiar principles, the PSR ("no effect without a cause") and, even more, the idea (found in Aristotle and Newton) that nothing is done in vain ("no cause without an effect.")** Smith does not seem to feel the need to defend the second premise.

Yet, we can make Smith's position plausible if we see what it entails about, say, Plato's position. For, Plato certainly seems to think that nature is governed by some such teleological-optimality principles. At Timaeus 28C, Plato endorses the PSR (recall "no effect without a casue") and at Timaeus 29a, he endorses some kind of (aesthetic) causal optimality principle. Now, recall that Plato's City of Pigs (or true city) in the Republic has an uncanny similarity to Smith's system of natural liberty. Socrates insists that there is a division of labor in the 'true city' that is grounded in a cognitive and physical hierarchy. From Smith's vantage point, Socrates simply assumes the causal arrow here. Smith's response to Socrates is that there is no reason to think that in the (counterfactual) state of nature prior to the City of Pigs, there would be any reason for a cognitive and physical hierarchy and so the City of Pigs could never get off the ground.

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

How Berkeley Invented the germs of Empiricism by (deliberately) conflating Newton and Locke

98....For my own part, whenever I attempt to frame a simple idea of time, abstracted from the succession of ideas in my mind, which flows uniformly and is participated by all beings, I am lost and embrangled in inextricable difficulties.--Berkeley A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710)

Locke [1632–1704] undertook and successfully carried through what Newton had not dared to do, or perhaps would have found impossible. It can be said that he created metaphysics, almost as Newton had created physics.--Jean le Rond d'Alembert (1751) Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopedia of Diderot, trans. Richard N. Schwab

When Berkeley published the Principles  (1710), Newton had already published the first edition of the Principia, but not yet the General Scholium. So the proper metaphysical interpretation of the Principia was still up in the air. (In addition to the General Scholium, Cotes’s editorial preface to the second edition of Principia was also not published yet.)[1] Newton was keeping his metaphysical views close to his chest. Toland (who in his Letters to Serena combined instrumentalism with Spinozism) and Clarke (who in in his Demonstration defended a species of rationalism) had offered competing visions. In his correspondence with Stillingfleet, Locke had intimated that his views had become akin to  Newton’s (especially on gravity), but as Mary Domski, Lisa Downing, and Howard Stein have taught us, we should be cautious about conflating the view of Locke and Newton (despite their close friendship). 

In sections 110-111, Berkeley is explicit, that in fact that sections 97-8 are targeted against Newton: "111. As for Time, as it is there taken in an absolute or abstracted sense, for the duration or perseverance of the existence of things, I have nothing more to add concerning it after what has been already said on that subject. Sect. 97 and 98. For the rest, this celebrated author holds there is an absolute Space." (In 110 he had claimed the celebrated author is the author of "a certain celebrated Treatise of Mechanics. In the entrance of which justly admired treatise, Time, Space, and Motion are distinguished into absolute and relative, true and apparent, mathematical and vulgar; which distinction, as it is at large explained by the author, does suppose these quantities to have an existence without the mind."  A clear reference to scholium of the definitions of Newton's Principia.)

Even so, the quoted passage from section 98 at the top of the post does not describe Newton's position. For, first, there is no evidence that Newton thinks there is a simple idea of duration in the way that Locke does (Essay 2.15.9). It is not obvious that for Newton a finite mind can actually behold infinite duration, which, I have argued, is only introduced for theological reasons in the Principia. It secures for Newton God’s eternal existence in time (even though time is a necessary consequence of God’s existence).

Second, and more important, Berkeley is treating the simple idea of time as an abstraction. This is not an implausible reading of Locke's position (2.15.8). But there is no reason to believe that Newton thinks time-keeping or absolute time involves an abstraction (in either Locke’s or Newton’s sense). For, while Newton does take abstraction seriously in his physics -- he is explicit that “places and motions” are abstractions --, he does not claim this about time.

Third, Newton and Locke have different views of what abstraction is. Locke's account of abstraction, to simplify, relies on the way words can be signs of general ideas "and ideas become general, by separating from them the circumstances of time and place, and any other ideas that may determine them to this or that particular existence." (3.3.6) By contrast, in the Principia, Newton uses the traditional conception of abstraction by which we abstract from sensible qualities by removing or stripping features in order to focus only on those features of experience that are capable of being treated by quantities (recall my treatment of Buffon).

So, if Berkeley really has Newton in mind he is conflating Newton's position with features of Locke's in an incompetent fashion. It is not impossible, of course, that Berkeley is confused. But, while Berkeley can be sloppy about such matters, I see no reason to believe that he would conflate Locke and Newton as such. Rather, it is more likely that he is treating Newton on duration as an exemplary (and celebrated) instance of the problems that are generated by the doctrine of abstraction which he does explicitly associate with Locke (the metaphysician) in the Introduction, section 11. In fact, it strikes me that there are two main aims in Berkeley’s argument (in section 98): first, to attack the Lockean doctrine of abstraction and, second, to drive a wedge between Newtonian mathematical natural philosophy and the Lockean interpretation of it. On the first aim: this is, in fact, one of the main aims of the Principles as such. So, it is possible that Berkeley here treats a refutation of Lockeanized Newton as a strike against Locke’s metaphysics. 

The second aim may have been inspired by the Toland's rhetorical strategy in the fourth and fifth Letters to Serena. Once the Lockean interpretation has been discredited, Berkeley can offer his own re-interpretation of Newtonian mathematical philosophy along instrumentalist (or pragmatist) lines—that’s ultimately the project of De Motu and by then (1921) it’s clear that Berkeley is disagreeing with Newton’s own metaphysics. (This is pre-figured in the Principles.)

The historiographic significance is this: in the French Enlightenment, coupling Newton and Locke had become trope. (I have quoted d'Alembert above, but one can also cite Voltaire.) I had thought that this systematic coupling originates in Voltaire's teacher, the Dutch Newtonian 's Gravesande. But it is worth noting that Berkeley may have been the first to create a Lockean Newton in order to show that the Lockean metaphysical program leads to absurdity. In so doing he produced an intellectual dynamic that we have come to associate with "Empiricism'' such that Hume and Adam Smith (recall) had to offer their own view on the complex relationship among ordinary experience, abstraction, and scientific practice.*

 

Berkeley (and Hume) On Intellectual Trickle Down & Systematicity

[I]f by their Speculations rightly placed, the Study of Morality and the Law of Nature were brought more into Fashion among Men of Parts and Genius, the Discouragements that draw to Scepticism removed, the Measures of Right and Wrong accurately defined, and the Principles of Natural Religion reduced into regular Systems, as artfully disposed and clearly connected as those of some other Sciences: There are grounds to think, these Effects wou'd not only have a gradual Influence in repairing the too much defaced Sense of Vertue in the World; but also, by shewing, that such Parts of Revelation, as lie within the reach of Humane Inquiry, are most agreeable to Right Reason, wou'd dispose all prudent, unprejudiced Persons, to a modest and wary Treatment of those Sacred Mysteries, which are above the Comprehension of our Faculties.--Berkeley (1713) “preface” of the Three Dialogues.

Berkeley offers a kind of ‘intellectual-trickle-down’ theory.[1] He addresses his arguments to “those, who are most addicted to speculative Studies,” but the consequences of their combined judgments, would radiate out to the other (less speculation-addicted) learned, the professions, the wealthy and, eventually, to the lower orders of society.

According to Berkeley, he is motivated to close the gulf that has opened between modern philosophy and what he calls “common life.” This gulf leads, he believes, to skepticism not only about the existence of God but also, anticipating the Introduction to Hume's Treatise, about the use and relevance of philosophy. So, Berkeley acknowledges the continued existence of a version of the old problem going back to the time of Socrates between philosophy and common life. Berkeley wants to “rescue” the addicted from their paradoxes and atheism (“the wild mazes of philosophy”) and “reduce” them “to common sense.” While the cure may be hard to swallow at first, the result, the “return to simple dictates of Nature,” will be “not unpleasant.” If the therapy works, then, through a kind of intellectual trickle-down effect, “the study of morality and the Law of Nature” will be revived; the appeal of “skepticism removed, the measures of right and wrong accurately defined, and the Principles of natural religion reduced to regular systems." Finally, it will allow the knowable parts of revelation to be acceptable to “right reason,” and the other parts to remain “sacred mysteries.” (The previous paragraph and the following draw on this paper.)

We can say, and we have been anticipated by certain readers of Wittgenstein, that Berkeley’s philosophical system is a kind of antidote to philosophy. It is designed to make the learned experience the world from the point of view of the common sense vulgar. In fact, a principle of his therapy is that, despite his flirtations with ethnic hierarchies elsewhere (recall), there is no difference in kind between the “natural philosopher and other men”--a thought he shares with Mandeville and assimilated by Hume and Adam Smith all of whom applied this analytical egalitarianism more consistently than Berkeley.

In the quoted passage from Berkeley’s Dialogues the word “system” is used to describe a mode of organization of the explanatory principles of a particular science (i.e., natural religion; in the Introduction to the Treatise, Hume, too, treats ‘natural religion’ as one of the sciences).[2] To be systematic, then, here means that such explanatory principles of a science, or intellectual discipline, cohere with each other and are properly connected. (As an aside, this is the central sense in which Adam Smith also uses the term “system.” (recall)) Berkeley’s plural (“systems”) suggests that for him a single science or theory can contain multiple, coherent and properly connected explanatory principles and so can be a collection of systems. Presumably, once the systems are fully integrated into a single set of connected and coherent explanatory principles, a science can be thought of as a single system or a unified theory. It is not a huge leap from this intra-scientific (or intra-disciplinary) notion of ‘system’ to an inter-scientific notion of ‘system’ in which the explanatory principles of different sciences cohere and are connected with each other.

This latter, inter-scientific notion of ‘system,’ is part of the self-described aim of Hume in the Treatise: “we in effect propose a compleat [sic] system of the sciences.” In context, Hume suggests that such a complete system of all the sciences, is only possible if one science, the science of human nature, or “the science of man,” is epistemically foundational to the other sciences. In Hume’s Treatise this science is composed of multiple systems (e.g., his system of generating “general idea,” (1.1.7.16) “system concerning space and time,” (1.2.4.1), etc.).

The known up-take of Berkeley by Hume -- he calls him a "great philosopher" -- suggests that even planned intellectual trickle-down can have many unexpected consequences.