Digressions&Impressions

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. 

 

 

On Being a Magician-Essayist

Of all forms of literature, however, the essay is the one which least calls for the use of long words. The principle which controls it is simply that it should give pleasure; the desire which impels us when we take it from the shelf is simply to receive pleasure. Everything in an essay must be subdued to that end. It should lay us under a spell with its first word, and we should only wake, refreshed, with its last. In the interval we may pass through the most various experiences of amusement, surprise, interest, indignation; we may soar to the heights of fantasy with Lamb or plunge to the depths of wisdom with Bacon, but we must never be roused. The essay must lap us about and draw its curtain across the world.--Virginia Woolf "The Modern Essay"

I am sometimes told that what is distinctive of these Digressions  is that as a philosophical essayist, I often mix autobiography and philosophy. These remarks conflate, I fear, perhaps necessarily, my personality with my biography. My second thought is that what's truly stylistically distinctive, in almost gimmicky fashion, about my Impressions  is that nearly all of them are prompted by and in dialogue with other people's reflections.

Virginia Woolf (recall) suggests that the essayist is a kind of pleasing magician who produces intense experiences, but no action (we must never be roused). That is, an essayist either belongs to the company that divert (or entertain) or those that prompt contemplation (or both), but not, say, to the life of action (e.g., politics, engineering, gardening, etc.). So, an essayist can qua essayist be a theorist even a systematizing theorist (although not offer a completed system), but not a theoretician.

To be sure, the essay, while belonging to the realm of truth also is responsive to public opinion ("as the conditions change so the essayist, most sensitive of all plants to public opinion.") That is, the essay is always a non-autonomous response to factors beyond the essayist's control -- a crooked mirror, but a mirror nevertheless -- even if, as we can grant Seneca, that such limited starting points are turn-stiles toward the path of truth.

Most essays do not generate pleasing magic in their readers. Woolf notes, correctly, but imprudently that,

So great a feat is seldom accomplished, though the fault may well be as much on the reader's side as on the writer's.

 

 

 

Is Blogging philosophy (or science), really?

In short, Fiske doesn’t like when people use social media to publish negative comments on published research. She’s implicitly following what I’ve sometimes called the research incumbency rule: that, once an article is published in some approved venue, it should be taken as truth. I’ve written elsewhere on my problems with this attitude—in short, (a) many published papers are clearly in error, which can often be seen just by internal examination of the claims and which becomes even clearer following unsuccessful replication, and (b) publication itself is such a crapshoot that it’s a statistical error to draw a bright line between published and unpublished work...

Fiske is annoyed with social media, and I can understand that. She’s sitting at the top of traditional media. She can publish an article in the APS Observer and get all this discussion without having to go through peer review; she has the power to approve articles for the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences; work by herself and har colleagues is featured in national newspapers, TV, radio, and even Ted talks, or so I’ve heard. Top-down media are Susan Fiske’s friend. Social media, though, she has no control over. That’s must be frustrating, and as a successful practioner of traditional media myself (yes, I too have published in scholarly journals), I too can get annoyed when newcomers circumvent the traditional channels of publication. People such as Fiske and myself spend our professional lives building up a small fortune of coin in the form of publications and citations, and it’s painful to see that devalued, or to think that there’s another sort of scrip in circulation that can buy things that our old-school money cannot.

But let’s forget about careers for a moment and instead talk science.

When it comes to pointing out errors in published work, social media have been necessary. There just has been no reasonable alternative. Yes, it’s sometimes possible to publish peer-reviewed letters in journals criticizing published work, but it can be a huge amount of effort. Journals and authors often apply massive resistance to bury criticisms....

Let me conclude with a key disagreement I have with Fiske. She prefers moderated forums where criticism is done in private. I prefer open discussion. Personally I am not a fan of Twitter, where the space limitation seems to encourge snappy, often adversarial exchanges. I like blogs, and blog comments, because we have enough space to fully explain ourselves and to give full references to what we are discussing. Andrew Gelman "What has happened down here is the winds have changed."  [HT L.A. Paul & Liam Kofi Bright]

Gelman's post is reading in full, although I should mention that his useful historical timeline ignores the very important work done by Deirdre McCloskey (and her collaborators) on statistical significance, and the very early work (1990-3) [here, here, etc.] on the problems of replication in the social sciences by my mentor David Levy and his then collaborator Susan Feigenbaum. These papers by Feigenbaum and Levy were largely ignored (although they influenced my own work and early blogging). I know from conversation with David that NSF was uninterested in funding work on problems in replication at the time. The market in ideas is inefficient and the self-correcting mechanisms of science are imperfect, yet in philosophy we nearly always assume/presuppose an image of science that posits these. Okay, now let me get to the point.

Within professional philosophy (and science [you may substitute science for philosophy in this post]), blogging is currently treated in four predominant ways:

(i) A place to discuss and debate professional issues/norms (think of all the work Jennifer Saul and her collaborators have done to get gender-related issues discussed)

(ii) a means to convey news about the profession;

(iii) a way to try out ideas among sub-set of interested specialists and would be specialists; in fact this often leads (iii*) to the development or reinforcement of intellectual communities around some issues (with the risks of generating echo-chamber).

(iv) A means to promote developed and published views to the profession and the public.

There is recognition that (i) is a service to the profession and that curating blogs that cater to (ii-iv) is also a professional service. Publishing a blog post is generally treated as akin to an editorial--a part of public outreach or public service. Few are willing to treat blogging (v) as a species of philosophy, let alone professional philosophy that contributes substantially to the ongoing development of philosophy (or some other discipline). This last point is true even though some of the debates over the norms of the profession fall very properly and centrally under what goes by the name of 'meta-philosophy' (which in some quarters is becoming a recognizable area of specialization (AOS) or (AOC)). It is notable that both (iii) and (iv) require considerable philosophical skill to do so in a way that does not undermine professional reputations. Brian Weatherson, for example set the bar very high (on iii) in his earlier years at Thoughts Arguments and Rants.

There seem to be two arguments that prevent recognition of blogging as (professional) philosophy (science): first, it is not refereed (in fact, blogging is often, but not always, self-publication); second, the blogging format deviates in content and style from the existing professional formats (that is, the refereed journal article and scholarly monograph). Both are contingent arguments against treating blogging as a means to contribute substantially to professional philosophy as such. (Nobody would say Aristotle is not philosophy because he was not refereed.) For, while undoubtedly evaluating a blogger's quality would require some innovation in one's metrics/criteria, there is no principled reason why one could not evaluate the quality and impact of a blogger's blog post(s) post-facto in, say, a normal tenure review and promotion. In addition, quite a bit of objective data (about visits, links, discussion, prizes/honors) can be collected to contextualize interest in a blogger and his/her impact. Obviously, some of these metrics may reinforce (recall) the worst tendencies in contemporary, technocratic scholarly evaluation, but that's something that can be addressed.  Moreover, while it's true that blog posts deviate from existing academic formats, they are often contiguous with other formats found in philosophical history (including letters [e.g., Seneca, Margaret Cavendish], and linked essays [Bacon, Addison, Montaigne]), and commentaries [De Grouchy]--this is, especially relevant for members from historically marginalized groups whose philosophical contributions often appeared in non-academic formats in the past.[1]

By contrast, I would argue (in self-serving fashion) that blogging (in the manner of v) has some non-trivial professional virtues that can contribute substantially to philosophy not just as a service but as a means to advance the content/core of the discipline: (a) it is fundamentally not-gated, so there are few barriers to entry (anybody can start a blog) and criticism (most blogs have a comment option--or one can start another blog commenting an blog), so it removes a status quo bias in existing research. Non-trivially, one of the ways it removes barriers to entry is that blogging is (b) also to lower cost (it is truly open as opposed to the many pseudo-open science projects). In addition, (c) blogging can be dialogical with audience members reviewing (including structured peer review) and responding to/commenting on posts. A blogger can (d) make transparent connections and links by linking to other works within a particular blog post (and so, thereby, reveal or call attention to systematic entailments or presuppositions) and within the life of a blog or blog-persona. While some element of this (d) is also the case in traditional academic formats, a blogger can (e) respond to events in real time and continuously update her position (if she so wishes) and (e*) reveal the ways her thought has developed. In particular, (f) blogs can shape the events and discipline in real time (e.g. Gelman).  Finally, a blog can (g) try out or host different kinds of voices, and, thereby, explore a wider range of experiences.

While there is no reason to wish for the total displacement of the traditional scholarly formats – there are important virtues attached to peer review, and the slow accumulation of research findings --, it seems clear that blogging can expand the ways in which true scholarship (science, philosophy) is practiced. For too long we have conflated the peer-review process not just with the gold standard, but with the only legitimate standard. But while there is a lot to be said for the virtues of peer review and attempts to improve it via smell steps of introducing better and better practices, there are also known systematic fragilities with that process that no amount of tinkering will eliminate (because humans are not angels). (This is more general vice in the sciences where one method becomes fully hegemonic (e.g., evidence based medicine and randomized control trials are promoted in ways that create foreseeable fragilities.)) 

Thus, my claim is that blogging is a means toward making philosophy (science) more truth-apt because it allows us to become more robust. This is why we need to prevent the situation that only tenured folk can really afford to invest in blogging (v) as a way to contribute to philosophy. Now, nearly all the prolific bloggers are folk with tenure who, having figured out how to produce a steady stream of ordinary scholarship, can leverage their professional status to get an audience for their view(s). But this just reinforces species of status quo bias. Until we are willing to recognize blogging as a species of true philosophy and reward that professionally, young folk will be reluctant to run all the risks associated with it.

The argument here is agnostic on the virtues of blogging as a means toward public philosophy or disseminating philosophy to a wider audience, although it is clear that some of the arguments offered here carry over  to these realms, and may be even more compelling, in cases of blogging as a species of public philosophy.*

 

[1]O’Neill, Eileen. "Disappearing ink: Early modern women philosophers and their fate in history." Philosophy in a feminist voice: Critiques and reconstructions (1998): 17-62. See also, Lisa Shapiro (ms) “What is a Philosophical Cannon”

Defending the Asses

PEA Soup was founded as a place where people would try out new ideas, posting about an idea for a paper and not a completed, fully armored, paper. We don’t want to discourage discussion of completed work. Indeed, we have partnered with many great journals, whose recently published papers are commented on and discussed here at quite a sophisticated level. We love those discussions. But we miss and feel the need to especially encourage the more half-assed posts about papers that are still just a twinkle in the author’s eye....There are too few venues where we can quickly get feedback from the profession at large of our nascent ideas. Such feedback can be vital—saving us months of toil working on a hopeless idea or pointing us to key literature or shaping our paper early on so as to deal with key concerns.--David Sobel, PEA Soup.

Sobel tries out three reasons for the decline in discussion at PEA Soup: (i) "Facebook happened;" (ii) Sobel and his buddies have become more established; (iii) PEA Soup has become "somewhat reputable and now feels like a more high-stakes venue,"* that is, there is concern over professional reputation (this is also emphasized in dicussion). As I write this, in discussion two more reasons are added: (iv) "Contemporary philosophy is not exactly a treasure trove of new ideas," (Curt Doolittle); and reinforcing (iii): (v) people require trust to try out ideas and such trust is absent among strangers (this is how I read Manyul Im). All five of these reasons ring true to me, and I know plenty of conflict-averse professional philosophy folk who get nervous from the very idea of blogging.

As a historical aside, our blogging reticence is also unusual: Erasmus of Rotterdam basically used the then novel printing press to develop a new persona for philosophy.

But the key barrier is, in fact, a tacit presupposition in Sobel's post: (vi) published papers are the real deal+ and so blogging is either derivative (they generate comment/discussion) or, to use a technical term, half-assed. And, of course, this commitment fuels the fears expressed in (iii) & (v; I return to this below).  Given that published papers are still the route to professional advancement (especially tenure Stateside and grants in Europe) Sobel's presupposition has a lot of sociological staying power.  There is also no doubt that for some philosophical purposes, published papers generate lots of philosophical virtues--to get anything published in a reputable journal a certain care and solidity is required. But there are are also vices: a lack of play-fullness if not tediousness, status quo bias (due to having to satisfy gate-keepers), a lack of immediacy, the generation of useless scholarly epicycles, and, often, a kind of fake clarity (the one that is subsequent a lot of jargon-mastery [recall]). It is by no means obvious that the philosophical "months of toil" required to get any idea or argument into journal-publishable format, especially after the low-hanging fruit related to an idea or argument has been nabbed, is really, philosophically speaking, worth all the effort that goes into it. (I am excepting the skill that some assholes -- you know who they are -- have of churning out one paper after another.)

Of Fleeting Impressions, or an author's frailty

The Circumstance which gives Authors an Advantage above all these great Masters, is this, that they can multiply their Originals; or rather can make Copies of their Works, to what Number they please, which shall be as valuable as the Originals themselves. This gives a great Author something like a Prospect of Eternity, but at the same time deprives him of those other Advantages which Artists meet with. The Artist finds greater Returns in Profit, as the Author in Fame. What an Inestimable Price would a Virgil or a Homer, a Cicero or an Aristotle bear, were their Works like a Statue, a Building, or a Picture, to be confined only in one Place and made the Property of a single Person?--The Spectator, No. 166. Monday, September 10, 1711. Addison.

At a conference, I recently caught Menachem Fisch engrossed in Dror Wahrman's fascinating Mr. Collier's Letter Racks, which Menachem warmly recommended. The passage from Addison is partially quoted on p. 51; Wahrman cuts it off at "Eternity." In context, Wahrman is not interested in the trade-off between profit for unique works and enduring fame that Addison posits (although fleetingness of life, of print, of identity (etc.) is a major theme of the book). Because duplication undermines scarcity -- it even risks effacing property --, it generates too much supply, and lowers what one might call "exchange value." (As Addison recognizes, the intrinsic or use value remains, and may, in fact, be increased because more folk can enjoy the fruits of one's labor.)* Addison imagines counterfactually, "What an Inestimable Price would a Virgil or a Homer, a Cicero or an Aristotle bear, were their Works like a Statue, a Building, or a Picture, to be confined only in one Place and made the Property of a single Person?" Yet, unique properties, which have a huge upside in exchange value, are vulnerable to the destruction wrought by time: statue, buildings, even pictures are fragile--and  even when they survive they may -- despite the necessity of the logicians -- be disassociated from the name that ought to be associated with it.

That is to say, one can be rewarded in money and approbation. If one scribbles in the right sort of medium, one can even hope to rewarded with posthumous applause. Addison's little counterfactual implies, in fact, that the truly talented (Virgil, Homer, Cicero, Aristotle) correctly favor the possibility of extraordinary posthumous fame over extraordinary riches in one's life. As Hume insisted, while subtly correcting Addison's implicit axiology, that there was such a thing as a "most durable, as well as justest fame," and offered as examples:

Forgotten Addison, founder of Philosophy of Science, and the patron of bloggers

It gives me much Despair in the Design of reforming the World by my Speculations, when I find there always arise, from one Generation to another, successive Cheats and Bubbles, as naturally as Beasts of Prey, and those which are to be their Food.--Steele (6/30/1712), #444, The Spectator.

Addison, perhaps, will be read with pleasure, when Locke shall be entirely forgotten.--Hume.

Addison is forgotten.

Hume wrote before the revival of professional philosophy, and so assumed an 'equitable posterity' that was not to be. Professional philosophy has not been kind to the very best essayists--Montaigne, Bacon, and Seneca are familiar names vaguely associated with doctrines or moments (history of skepticism, fideism, crucial experiment, inductions, Stoic suicide, etc.), but they  have not attracted philosophical scholarly industries. Even Hume's great essays tend to be read mostly for supporting evidence--the exception, 'Of Miracles,' the least artful or profound of the lot.

Addison gets passing, sometimes respectable mention in works devoted to eighteenth-century aesthetics (sublime, taste, etc.). Yet, together with Steele, Addison is the patron-saint of today's philosophical bloggers. He wrote (near) daily essays with a lively comments section (including trolls), and found a proper mix of familiarity and surprise in keeping readers engaged over extended period. Steel and Addison were also, despite Hume's deflationary representation of Addison in the full paragraph from which I quote above, subtle thinkers, who -- as Steele notes above -- use reflection to reform their world. They are not mere spectators.

For present purposes, I define 'philosophy of science' as the disinterested study of science with the aim of making generalizations about the nature and methods of the science(s) and scientists. Thus defined scientists can engage in philosophy of science as a kind of second-order practice within the science(s), and they have done so even before the category 'science' took on its present (post 19th century) meaning. If we except scholastic text-books and their authors,  until the eighteenth century nearly all 'philosophy of science' was done by practicing scientists or natural philosophers. This changed in the eighteenth century in response to three non-trivial developments: