Digressions&Impressions

What to Expect from Peter Ludlow's Lawsuit

What the hell are we meant to advise students just now if they have a complaint? Be prepared to be sued, have your name be made public at one of the most vulnerable times of your life and have to pay for a lawyer at one of the poorest times? What a despicable situation!--Ross Cameron

Let's stipulate, for the sake of argument, that Peter Ludlow has been treated unfairly by Northwestern's internal procedures that handled a number of accusations against him (and found against him). Let's also stipulate, for the sake of argument, that various public statements by Northwestern's Administrators this past Spring caused Prof. Ludlow real harm. It makes sense, then, for Ludlow to sue Northwestern University and its administrators. It's possible that a court will agree with Ludlow's version of the events and it might vindicate Ludlow. I don't have great trust in university procedures, with their routine use of non-disclosure agreements, which seem primarily designed to protect universities rather than protect victims, or -- let's stipulate -- the accused.

Even so, what could be the point of suing the PhD Student that complained against him?  The PhD did not make public statements and has not sought attention to her case. In fact, (a) judging by Ludlow's own account, it seems that she was reluctant about filing a complaint; (b) outside the Northwestern community, the existence of her charge against Ludlow was disclosed by Ludlow in the brief filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division [HT Brian Leiter]. If one is concerned about "reputational damage," as Ludlow claims in his complaint, it is very odd to reveal that one dated a PhD student and that she filed a complaint against you and that one of your own colleagues thought you behaved inappropriately toward students on a trip abroad. (According to Ludlow's complaint, folk at Northwestern were informed of this by the NU administration.)

Moreover, I understand that lawyers will use any legal means to win cases, but it seems unnecessary and hypocritical (given that one cares about "reputational damage") to disclose information about the PhD Student's past (as Ludlow does in his complaint). It's not clear what purpose this could serve except to exploit existing stereotypes and to try to undermine her professional reputation.

Finally, as Prof. Cameron notes in the passage above, the foreseeable effect of Ludlow's course of action is that bystanders will likely discourage future victims to step forward. Active bystanders must now be concerned that they can be sued (cf. Prof. Lackey), and they will have to inform victims that they can also be sued when, in fact, they are most vulnerable. Perhaps, Prof. Ludlow will win his day in court. Perhaps, too, this case will lead to a fruitful reform of university procedures. But unless universities start assuring students that they will cover legal fees in such cases, the foreseeable consequence is that many victims will likely to prefer to keep quiet. It's disconcerting that a fellow professional philosopher's pursuit of justice, may well lead to such an outcome. 

Will History of Philosophy Disappear?

I have been blogging less frequently during the last few days because I am responsible for four grant proposals that need to be turned in today and tomorrow. Professionally, I live, in part, in a grant-driven-environment. That means that most of our department's PhD students and Post-docs are funded by grants from some research body (generally funded directly or indirectly by the government). I am a university funded *research professor*, which means that I get systematic teaching reduction (for a limited period renewable -- knock on wood -- later this year) in order, well, to do research and, especially, 'leverage my CV' for grants. In order to leverage my CV I need to pay some attention to where I publish, to publish at a steady clip in reasonably good outlets, to be part of various international 'networks,' and to have some 'big ideas' that might be divided into smaller 'research projects' (for myself and others). I am also a member of an interdisciplinary (Humanities) grant-giving body that awards grants to other researchers locally, and so have some sense of how 'the system' works in Flanders.

Neither being an applicant nor being a member of a grant-giving body inclined me to pay much attention to scientometrics in my publishing strategy. (This is not to deny that being in a grant environment doesn't create all kinds of subtle pressures in lots of unexpected ways.) That is, until I started to apply for interdisciplinary research grants. Outsiders may respect measures of reputation, but when -- by stipulation -- all the candidates are excellent in their field anyway, then metrics may well help nudge decisions in one direction or another. Last week I had a very sober and chilling look at my own metrics. I just linked to scholar.google, which is more generous than the metrics used by my funding agencies (web of knowledge, which has a known bias against the Humanities). My highest cited paper is this one. It has been cited 30 times according to Scholar.google. While this is facilitated (ahh) by my own generous citation practices, it is also an under-count because the paper has been cited in reputable handbooks yet not tracked by google (what's up with that, OUP and Google?)! The paper was published in BJHP, a reputable journal in my field (says this poll and, more impressively, perhaps, this one). A few years ago (after I published the piece) the journal was included in web of knowledge, and so now my grant agency agrees. In fact, BJHP lists my paper as one of the most cited ones on their website (the list also includes papers on Spinoza and Locke).* I am very proud of this because when I published the piece Adam Smith was still thought off-beat topic for a historian of philosophy. Even so, the year I published the piece in BJHP, it's so-called impact factor was 0.109 (that's very low). To simplify: that basically means almost all the papers published in BJHP will almost never be cited. The citation scores of BJHP are going up, but remain low. Sadly, none of the other history of philosophy journals do much better. Impact factors are so low in my main area of specialization that basically it's probably better not to mention them than to list them and induce laughter in the grant evaluation committee.

Heidegger, Frege, Antisemitism, and worse

The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.—John Maynard Keynes.

David Hume, who to this day is known as 'le Bon David' and a nice guy within philosophy, was a nasty racist. Don't believe me? Read this awful footnote. I used to think that one could accept much of Hume's moral and political philosophy without the racism. But Hume's account of the rule of law as being constitutive of 'civilization' also encourages the violent exportation of it as is illustrated by his rather favorable account of English conquest of Wales (essentially a tale of cultural genocide) and Ireland (see this article). With law-governed civilization (as opposed to barbarism) as a necessary prerequisite for (and co-development with) philosophy, Hume's approach facilitates, despite the significance of the moral virtue humanity in his project, empire and patterns of systematic cultural exclusion.* Despite vigorous eighteenth-century criticism of Hume (in Smith, Herder, Wollstonecraft, Millar, etc.), it is undeniable that these ideas survived in mitigated form, perhaps, in the works of some of the greatest philosophers, Kant, Hegel, and even Mill. 

So, individual philosophers can have both (a) pernicious philosophical beliefs as well as (b) very dangerous meta-philosophical conceptions of their own enterprise.  This is no surprise ever since Socrates was put on trial, fairly or not, for corrupting the young and for having too many high profile students caught up in collaboration and dictatorship as Aeschines emphasized. (I.F. Stone wrote an important book on it that for all its flaws deserves more respect among philosophers.) This is why I tend to talk about these issues in terms of the enduring Socratic Problem for philosophy, and experts more generally. But it is worth noting that (a-b) are compatible with (c) being a nice (or not) professional colleague, and (d) exhibiting moral courage (or not) under duress. 

On Blogs in Philosophy

Yesterday, I was discussing the philosophy 'profession' with an eminent scholar. In my typical impatient fashion, I was expressing exasperation with the relentless focus on Brian Leiter's blogosphere behavior; I explained to him my theory about how convenient this focus is for the savvy greying professional heavies -- say some of the senior folk that have been a lifetime at Princeton -- that have been at the center of the various networks in the discipline; they are never scrutinized in discussions about how the profession polices itself while they (and their proteges) are the main beneficiaries of existing norms as well as the Leiter guided Philosophical Gourmet report. (See the footnote at the end of this post for my views on the Gourmet report.)

He interrupted me, rather gleefully, 'Of course, Eric, the focus on philosophy blogs is ephemeral.'

Well, wait a second.

Here are the hard facts: most blog posts at the main professional philosophy blogs are read by the majority of their readers within the first six to eighteen hours unless they get a second life through links and social media. (Even then, it's rare to see links to posts that are older than a week; I have never understood this--folk can make something 'news' at any time.) This audience decline is even true for blogs that offer substantial content; it is rare for a blog post to get a steady stream of regular visitors, although they do exist (especially if they are related to popular essay questions or striking scientific/mathematical phenomena). So, yes, blog posts have a short audience life-span.

But it does not follow from this that they are entirely ephemeral sociologically and philosopically.

First, the obvious fact: led by Leiterreports, the blogs have changed professional dynamics. Undoubtedly, blogs have generated lots of undesirable consequences, and I trust that my readers are familiar with them. On the plus side, they have facilitated discipline-wide discussions, the sharing of information, they have called attention to lots of local injustices and sclerotic idiosyncrasies. They have allowed for the sharing of best practices, and the mobilization of various sub-communities. Crucially, the blogs have largely destroyed the information and status monopoly of what I will call, local gurus.*

And, this last sentence, also points to the wider philosophical significance of blogs.

Vigilante Justice at Northwestern?

In calling attention to student protest against (Northwestern's) Prof. Peter Ludlow, Brian Leiter, a renowned legal scholar, uses "vigilante justice" to describe what appears to have been intended as a fairly modest protest: "students will sit in on Professor Peter Ludlow's 12:30pm philosophy class and will walk out of his class together at 1:00pm."--Facebook. This is certainly annoying, but even if repeated on a weekly basis -- and then it would certainly be disruptive -- it does not amount to vigilante justice (e.g., according to Wikipedia: "Frontier justice (also called vigilante justice or street justice) is extrajudicial punishment that is motivated by the nonexistence of law and order or dissatisfaction with justice.") Even the fact that Northwestern has now chosen to replace Ludlow for the remainder of the quarter does not amount to more than a serious nuisance (primarily to his replacement, that is, "the chair of the philosophy department," as well as the students who may well have benefited from Ludlow's expertise).

The protesters are certainly right to be angry about Northwestern's attempts to keep its own findings against Prof. Ludlow quiet, thus, depriving his future students, future employers, and his peers in the profession crucial information.  More damaging, from all the newsreports, it appears that Northwestern's administration is more concerned about its reputation than the well-being its students.

As I have said before, Ludlow has made vital contributions to drawing attention to and analyzing the evils of the National Security state. While many will disagree with me over this: it is vital that he keeps a home in an academic environment or, better yet, some kind of think tank away from students. It strikes me as unjust to fire somebody for an offense that apparently was not defined as such [ADDED FOR CLARIFICATION: that is, a fireable offense] when the event took place. More generally, I also believe that all people deserve second chances in life. Few deserve to be vilified forever, Even so, it is very troubling that his legal strategy amounts to suggesting the victim asked for it. Obviously (yes?), universities and the philosophy profession have been too welcoming of perpetrators of sexual harassment; to his credit, Brian Leiter has long been very outspoken about this professional embarrassment. Even so, I think he is mistaken to vilify those that protest this sad fact peacefully.