Digressions&Impressions

On Two Styles of Conservatism; or Is Conservatism a Philosophical Tradition?

The year 2016 marked a dramatic change of political course for the English-speaking world, with Britain voting for independence from Europe and the United States electing a president promising a revived American nationalism. Critics see both events as representing a dangerous turn toward “illiberalism” and deplore the apparent departure from “liberal principles” or “liberal democracy,” themes that surfaced repeatedly in conservative publications over the past year. Perhaps the most eloquent among the many spokesmen for this view has been William Kristol, who, in a series of essays in the Weekly Standard, has called for a new movement to arise “in defense of liberal democracy.” In his eyes, the historic task of American conservatism is “to preserve and strengthen American liberal democracy,” and what is needed now is “a new conservatism based on old conservative—and liberal—principles.” Meanwhile, the conservative flagship Commentary published a cover story by the Wall Street Journal’s Sohrab Ahmari entitled “Illiberalism: The Worldwide Crisis,” seeking to raise the alarm about the dangers to liberalism posed by Brexit, Trump, and other phenomena.

These and similar examples demonstrate once again that more than a few prominent conservatives in America and Britain today consider themselves to be not only conservatives but also liberals at the same time. Or, to get to the heart of the matter, they see conservatism as a branch or species of liberalism—to their thinking, the “classical” and most authentic form of liberalism. According to this view, the foundations of conservatism are to be found, in significant measure, in the thought of the great liberal icon John Locke and his followers. It is to this tradition, they say, that we must turn for the political institutions—including the separation of powers, checks and balances, and federalism—that secure the freedoms of religion, speech, and the press; the right of private property; and due process under law. In other words, if we want limited government and, ultimately, the American Constitution, then there is only one way to go: Lockean liberalism provides the theoretical basis for the ordered freedom that conservatives strive for, and liberal democracy is the only vehicle for it.

Many of those who have been most outspoken on this point have been our long-time friends. We admire and are grateful for their tireless efforts on behalf of conservative causes, including some in which we have worked together as partners. But we see this confusion of conservatism with liberalism as historically and philosophically misguided. Anglo-American conservatism is a distinct political tradition—one that predates Locke by centuries. Its advocates fought for and successfully established most of the freedoms that are now exclusively associated with Lockean liberalism, although they did so on the basis of tenets very different from Locke’s. Indeed, when Locke published his Two Treatises of Government in 1689, offering the public a sweeping new rationale for the traditional freedoms already known to Englishmen, most defenders of these freedoms were justly appalled. They saw in this new doctrine not a friend to liberty but a product of intellectual folly that would ultimately bring down the entire edifice of freedom. Thus, liberalism and conservatism have been opposed political positions in political theory since the day liberal theorizing first set foot in England.

Today’s confusion of conservative political thought with liberalism is in a way understandable, however. In the great twentieth-century battles against totalitarianism, conservatives and liberals were allies: They fought together, along with the Communists, against Nazism. After 1945, conservatives and liberals remained allies in the war against Communism. Over these many decades of joint struggle, what had for centuries been a distinction of vital importance was treated as if it were not terribly important, and in fact, it was largely forgotten.

But since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, these circumstances have changed. The challenges facing the Anglo-American tradition are now coming from other directions entirely. Radical Islam, to name one such challenge, is a menace that liberals, for reasons internal to their own view of the political world, find difficult to regard as a threat and especially difficult to oppose in an effective manner. But even more important is the challenge arising from liberalism itself. It is now evident that liberal principles contribute little or nothing to those institutions that were for centuries the bedrock of the Anglo-American political order: nationalism, religious tradition, the Bible as a source of political principles and wisdom, and the family. Indeed, as liberalism has emerged victorious from the battles of the last century, the logic of its doctrines has increasingly turned liberals against all of these conservative institutions. On both of these fronts, the conservative and liberal principles of the Anglo-American tradition are now painfully at cross-purposes. The twentieth-century alliance between conservatism and liberalism is proving increasingly difficult to maintain.

.... But to have a strong and intellectually capable conservatism, we must be able to see clearly what the Anglo-American conservative tradition is and what it is about. And to do this, we have to disentangle it from its old opponent—liberalism...--- "What Is Conservatism" (2017) By Ofir Haivry and Yoram Hazony  @AmericanAffairs.

I tend to think of Conservatism as a humane, anti-philosophical tradition (or if it has an esoteric philosophy, it is skeptical in tenor) rooted in a status quo bias grounded in gradualist risk aversion, cognizant of human folly, and willing to embrace a plurality of human value (e.g., beauty, craftsmanship, nobility, understanding of history, the classics, etc.) in education and averse to relentless embrace of public utility or moralism (recall here). This tradition is opposed to diverse forms of tyranny. When American conservatives, even when taught by Leo Strauss and his students, embrace the Enlightenment project of Jefferson and Lincoln, I see them as adapting the virtues of conservatism to local their milieu. By now, the Enlightenment project, liberal democracy, and even the welfare state are part of our tradition, and so deserve careful conservation. Let's call this Type 1 conservatism.

As an aside, if one believes in providence, Type 1 conservatives are essentially tragic figures breaking the historical tidal waves and orienting these toward less bad outcomes they cannot endorse themselves. When one rejects such providence, Type 1 conservatives are essentially heroic--mocked from the point of view of reason and justice--who use their rhetorical and tactical genius to domesticate the ambitions of reason.

By contrast, Haivry and Hazony treat contemporary exponents of this Conservative anti-philosophical tradition as misguided.  Sensing a world-historical moment, they construct a nationalist, religious Conservative philosophical tradition not just by a list of names ("Sir John Fortescue, Richard Hooker, Sir Edward Coke, John Selden, Sir Matthew Hale, Sir William Temple, Jonathan Swift, Josiah Tucker, Edmund Burke, John Dickinson, and Alexander Hamilton. Men such as George Washington, John Adams, and John Marshall...would also have placed themselves in this conservative tradition rather than with its opponents, whom they knew all too well") but also by emphasizing the "shared common ideas and principles" of these men,  who on their account "saw themselves as part of a common tradition of English, and later Anglo-American, constitutionalism."  Of these names, they spend most of their time on Fortescue (1394–1479), who was previously unknown to me and I am pleased to learn about, and Selden (known to me, in no small part, due to Haivry's work), who deserves more study. In turn, they connect Fortescu to the history of Biblical Hebraism.

Haifry and Hazony, treat Conservatism as a constitutional tradition, which embraces national distinctiveness, and that, as a matter of principle, stands both against authoritarian absolutism (associated with certain forms of monarchy/empire) as well as liberalism (associated with another form of universalism, namely rationalism, which is connected to Grotius and Locke). This conservative tradition is both pragmatic and gradualist, and proceeds by trial and error (which is why practice of common law matters so much to it), but rooted in natural law and the teachings of revelation and an embrace a national church (which provides basis for national unity and lack of dangerous conflict over what revelation teaches). To prevent misunderstanding, Haivry and Hazony are aware that Locke is ordinarily classified as an empiricist (in epistemology and psychology), but they treat him as a rationalist because of the axiomatic "elements of Locke’s political theory".... [that is, the “perfect freedom” and “perfect equality” that define the state of nature"]... "are not known from experience." 

In sum, their let's call it Type 2 conservatism as a philosophical tradition has five core commitments:

(1) Historical Empiricism. The authority of government derives from constitutional traditions known, through the long historical experience of a given nation, to offer stability, well-being, and freedom. These traditions are refined through trial and error over many centuries, with repairs and improvements being introduced where necessary, while maintaining the integrity of the inherited national edifice as a whole. Such empiricism entails a skeptical standpoint with regard to the divine right of the rulers, the universal rights of man, or any other abstract, universal systems....

(2) Nationalism. The diversity of national experiences means that different nations will have different constitutional and religious traditions. The Anglo-American tradition harkens back to principles of a free and just national state, charting its own course without foreign interference, whose origin is in the Bible. These include a conception of the nation as arising out of diverse tribes, its unity anchored in common traditional law and religion. Such nationalism is not based on race, embracing new members who declare that “your people is my people, and your God is my God” (Ruth 1:16).

(3) Religion. The state upholds and honors the biblical God and religious practices common to the nation. These are the centerpiece of the national heritage and indispensable for justice and public morals. At the same time, the state offers wide toleration to religious and social views that do not endanger the integrity and well-being of the nation as a whole.

(4) Limited Executive Power. The powers of the king (or president) are limited by the laws of the nation, which he neither determines nor adjudicates. The powers of the king (or president) are limited by the representatives of the people, whose advice and consent he must obtain both respecting the laws and taxation.

(5) Individual Freedoms. The security of the individual’s life and property is mandated by God as the basis for a society that is both peaceful and prosperous, and is to be protected against arbitrary actions of the state. The ability of the nation to seek truth and conduct sound policy depends on freedom of speech and debate. These and other fundamental rights and liberties are guaranteed by law, and may be infringed upon only by due process of law.

The key genealogical move is to suggest that the American revolution founding is not exclusively indebted to Lockean rationalist-radicalism, but that "there were already two distinct political theories" in America one conservative one, associated with Hamilton, and the other more radical one associated with Jefferson (who is lumped together with English radicals influenced by Locke: "Richard Price, Joseph Priestley, Charles James Fox, Charles Grey, Thomas Paine" who were Burke's target.) The high point of the radicals is the Declaration, and the high point of the Conservatives is the Constitution, which then gets corrupted -- there is always an ejection from Eden! -- by the influence of Jeffersonian separation of Church and State and, then, destroyed by FDR's New Deal. (They skip over Lincoln, which is odd.)**

It should be obvious, at once, that Haivry and Hazony have great difficulty finding a place for the non-Lockean, liberal tradition one can associate with the younger Burke and now primarily known to us from the writings of Hume, Montesquieu, Smith, Madison, Constant, Sophie de Grouchy, and, more recently, Hayek, or Shklar--this tradition has considerable overlap with their their Type 2 conservatism, but rejects their (2)-(3) as organizing principles (and has a more positive views about immigration). In my view, this non-Lockean tradition is not conservative because it also recognizes the political and prudential utility of having a normative and systematic ideal guiding one's pragmatic choices (see, for example, Hume's Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth), but it does so through a willingness to embrace a second-best ameliorative stance that gets articulated by way of dynamics of historical, practical reason. If one is interested in the complex interplay of different strands of liberalism, one could usefully start with Jacob T. Levy's excellent Rationalism, Pluralism, and Freedom.

In fact, Haivry and Hazony often sound like Hayek in their critique of what they call 'rationalism,' but are suspicious of his cosmopolitanism and lack his interest in commerce and trade.* Once this anti-Lockean Liberal tradition is allowed back into the historical story, one can immediate see that Liberalism has a lot more resources than Haifvry and Hazony recognize. The include resources for folk one may well understand as Type 1 conservative and that have long been comfortable, perhaps  too comfortable, on the political Right.**

But let me close with an observation. Haivry and Hazony berate liberals for failing to grasp the menace of radical Islam. Let's grant, for the sake of argument, that liberalism has been slow to articulate a proper response to it. But Haifvry and Hazony spend so much time trying to distinguish (Lockean) liberalism from their own Type 2 conservatism that they forget that their greatest difficulty is to distinguish themselves from ethno-religious-nationalists with a fondness for authoritarianism. (This is not to deny they have some such resources--their nationalism is self-consciously not ethnic.) In fact, even if one grants that Type 2 conservatism is a genuine historical tradition, Haifry and Hazony overlook the fact that totalitarianism is not the only species of tyranny opposed by liberals and, bless their souls, Type 1 conservatives: after all, we recognize that non-totalitarian, ethno-religious-nationalism (i.e., folk that reject their (4)-(5)) is the other true menace of our times (a case can be made that it often merges with versions of radical Islam), and we think that Type 2 conservatives like Haivry and Hazony run the risk of becoming the intellectual handmaidens of such petty, yet nasty, tyrants.

 

On hints of a unified Perspectives on the world

I really value the ability to produce such an emotionally coherent philosophy in humanistic thinkers. One -- not the only, nor even the most important, but one -- valuable thing I think we can offer as humanists is placing facts, arguments, perspectives, into such a light as they provide a kind of unified perspective on the world, that they can shape and guide a coherent approach to life's many problems and joys. I don't think this need be the explicit subject matter of what is done, indeed I think it is often best done kind of obliquely as one focuses on more immediate or precisely formulated problems. Indeed, a lot of what I say here is shaped by my reading of Carnap, who I think also deliberately did this obliquely, and ends up painting a very different picture from Williamson. But some of my favourite thinkers are such precisely because they have the ability to conjure in me a window into their lifeworld. I think analytic philosophy has greater potential to contribute to this kind of humanistic project than even some of its own practitioners admit; and as I develop as a thinker I aspire to have such a vision emerge from my own work.

Eric Schliesser's post... does a great job of not just pointing to Williamson's lifeworld but also exemplifying what it would be to live in it. One gets the sense that even in the face of personal and social catastrophe, even where others cannot be brought to see it, there is still a value to be found in discovering the world as it is and acclimatising to it, terrible tough it may be. The determination to gain that knowledge and comport oneself accordingly just is a good, and that value is invariant across the waxing and waning of fortune---The Sooty Empiric.

In the concluding paragraphs of his generous* and insightful post, Liam Kofi Bright boldly proclaims (in partial response to my post) that he wishes to develop a unified perspective on the world, which will be, perhaps, obliquely available to his discerning readers as well as "shape and guide a coherent approach to life's many problems and joys." He will reveal this perspective as he addresses other philosophical challenges. Articulating such an aspiration is a means of binding future selves -- assuming these selves value internal consistency over time --, and an invitation to witnesses to become complicit or co-constitutive of the enterprise. It is, however, not mere consistency, but also a claim to a kind of existential philosophical integrity, which, demands from us not just (recall) that our the way(s) in which one's professional arguments, professional credit, and public utterances and comportment cohere, but that these (public philosophical integrity) are anchored in what he calls an "underlying emotional basis for their work."

It is worth noting that systematicity and an embrace of obliqueness both have a complicated status within analytical philosophy. Systematicity bumps up against the tradition of conceiving philosophy as puzzle-solving in the context of an intellectual (and non-hierarchical) division of labor (#noheroes); while deploying hints offends our fondness for clarity and direct/assertoric speech and our distrust of polysemy. For most of my education it never even occurred to me that obliqueness would be deployed in the pale gray threads of our intellectual elders until I learned from Abe Stone the significance of hints in Carnap (recall and in David Lewis, who -- together with Jody Azzouni (recall) -- may be the only major systematic philosopher analytical philosophy has produced).

One way, I think, to distinguish analytical hinting or obliqueness from vulgar Straussianism (which is verboten) is precisely the demand to adhere to the  two-fold coherence that public and existential philosophical integrity demand from us. By contrast, a Straussian is allowed to embrace a noble lie or an esoteric doctrine that contradicts the exoteric doctrine.

It was especially kind of Liam Kofi Bright to note that I was aiming to convey even exemplify what it would be to live in Williamson's lifeworld. Recall that I quoted him as follows,  although language is a human construct, that does not make it transparent to us. Like the children we make, the meanings we make can have secrets from us. One can recognize this while holding on to (recall) the ideal of clarity as a kind of property or by-product of formal systems, of constructed languages, that is, to aim for transparency in one's inferential practices, one's commitments, and the use of terms (etc). In fact, Williamson could have said (but didn't) although formal language is a human construct, that does not make it transparent to us even if it simultaneously can be a means to greater transparency in many respects. When we construct languages we gain control over some matter, but we also (often unintentionally) produce secrets for ourselves. A continental philosopher would be inclined to start talking about  hidden-ness, but here I'll resist that temptation.

There is quite a bit more to be said about Williamson's remark. But here I wish to close by noting that I have often found my analytical training a hindrance to the task of (to quote Liam Kofi Bright) placing "facts, arguments, perspectives, into such a light as they provide a kind of unified perspective on the world, that they can shape and guide a coherent approach to life's many problems and joys." By this I do not mean that analytical training is a hindrance in constructing such a lifeworld for oneself or close peers (I think it is not); rather I find my training and the intellectual and emotional dispositions that accompany them a hindrance in recognizing the lifeworlds of others with a different orientation (recall also this post). (This is especially so if I am correcting another person's fallacy also generates an incapacity to listen to the emotional basis of his words.) One way one can understand these daily impressions is as hard exercises in placing other people's "facts, arguments, perspectives, into such a light as they provide a kind of unified perspective on" their "world," which they may, or not, share with others.

 

On Intellectuals that Support(ed) Donald Trump (II); What's True in The Pro-Trump Critique

That logic’s essence, expressed variously by Herbert Croly and Woodrow Wilson, FDR’s brains trust, intellectuals of both the old and the new Left, choked back and blurted out by progressive politicians, is this: America’s constitutional republic had given the American people too much latitude to be who they are, that is: religiously and socially reactionary, ignorant, even pathological, barriers to Progress. Thankfully, an enlightened minority exists with the expertise and the duty to disperse the religious obscurantism, the hypocritical talk of piety, freedom, and equality, which excuses Americans’ racism, sexism, greed, and rape of the environment. As we progressives take up our proper responsibilities, Americans will no longer live politically according to their prejudices; they will be ruled administratively according to scientific knowledge.

Progressivism’s programs have changed over time. But its disdain for how other Americans live and think has remained fundamental. More than any commitment to principles, programs, or way of life, this is its paramount feature. The media reacted to Hillary Clinton’s remark that “half of Trump’s supporters could be put into a ‘basket of deplorables’” as if these sentiments were novel and peculiar to her. In fact, these are unremarkable restatements of our ruling class’s perennial creed.--September 27, 2016  Angelo M. Codevilla "After the Republic" @Claremont Review

This is the second in a series after Trump's victory (recall here; but don't forget this post and this one). Codevilla's starting point is that the American Republic is doomed and that the choice between Trump and Clinton merely represents the choice between the nature of empire. In the essay, Codevilla traces this decline over "the past half century," that is, the period of Great Society, the Voting Rights act, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (which is treated with particular scorn by Codevilla--his silence on the racial injustices it corrected reminds us that all supporters of federalism and constitutionalism find it difficult to confront the problem of racism with forthrightness);* but as the passage above suggests, the ideas precede it and can be traced to the Progressive movement's faith in managerialism. Alongside it, there has been a growing tendency of presidents to rule "not by enforcing laws but increasingly through agencies that write their own rules, interpret them, and punish unaccountably—the administrative state." Even if we disagree over that 'unaccountably' (generally one has recourse to courts), the administrative state has grown because of the needs of the (imperial) military-industrial-welfare-finance-state.

One may respond, with the experience of Republican obstructionism toward the Obama administration in mind, that President turned to executive orders and administrative rule because the Congress had no interest in working with him. But this does not address Codevilla's point because it is pretty clear that the (let's call it Madisonian) constitution was designed to generate considerable status quo bias. To a considerable extent this status quo bias was maintained in the settlement after the Civil War. So, from this vantage point the last century has been an unmitigated disaster from the perspective of constitutionalism.

One may then wonder, what makes 2016 so different from earlier elections? Here then one must recognize the disappointment of the Reagan years; while critics from the Left treat Reaganism (and Thatcherism) as the successful arrival of neoliberalism, from the Right it is seen as a solidification of the New Deal and Great Society--one that is made official in the compassionate conservatism of Bush the younger. (It is notable that Clinton's The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 was the only major cut in the welfare state.) One reason why Trump is welcomed, then, is that he offers an alternative to status quo consensus among Democrats and Republicans.

One may then find it peculiar that a constitutional-republican would welcome Trump because -- like European new right politicians who combine nationalism with welfare-statism -- he actually campaigned on defending and extending the welfare state in various ways. In traditional terms, some of his attacks on Clinton were from the Left. But Trump is not being welcomed because he promises us to return back to a constitutional order (first best); he is being welcomed because he would signal the de facto regime change.

Before I note a final peculiarity in Codevilla's argument, it is worth mentioning that I agree with elements of his criticism of managerial Progressivism, As I noted when criticizing Jason Brennan's attempts to promote more technocracy,** "across the western world, government today is the province of the educated...epistemocratic elites have created a two-tier polity: the credentialed are protected by the state and have lots of economic and judicial privileges; the uneducated are, well, left to fend for themselves harassed by law enforcement and technocracy. Brennan notes that "all across the West, we’re seeing the rise of rise of angry, resentful, nationalist, xenophobic and racist movements, movements made up mostly of low-information voters." What he fails to recognize is that these are the effects of a political culture and institutions that are already highly epistocratic. Why prescribe a double dosage of a medicine that has nearly killed the patient?"

Codevilla's main argument in favor of Trump is a lesser-evil argument. Yet, it is peculiar that part of his positive argument for Trump is the following: "The character of an eventual Trump Administration is unpredictable because speculating about Trump’s mind is futile." Indeed, I agree with this as a psychological fact (or fact about character). Early signs suggests that many of Trump appointments will continue the rent-seeking (and worse) that Codevilla decries. But what is peculiar here is that somebody with fondness for classical republicanism and constitutional order would embrace (guaranteed?) unpredictability. For such a theorist the rule of law is justified as a means to reduce uncertainty and, simultaneously, create reasonable expectations. (Of course, there are better and worse versions of the rule of law.) But by marrying the (imperial) military-industrial-welfare-finance-state  to unpredictability one gets the worst of both even if Trump turns out to be merely pragmatic and not tyrannical.

Codevilla recognizes this point, and like traditional Marxists, suggests that "Continuing pretty much on the current trajectory under the same class will further fuel revolutionary sentiments in the land all by itself. Inevitable disappointment with Trump is sure to add to them." That is to say, if we listen carefully, the most insightful and eloquent defenders of Trump foresee a bad and bloody ending to his rule. Let's pray they are wrong.

 

A Common Historiographic Mistake By Students About Their Professionally Successful Teachers

Serious intellectual history and intellectual biography consist in more than presenting a chronological set of textual summaries, even if some of those texts are parts of debates. Any number of serious historical narratives cum explanations of, say, the emergence of SSR, might be grounded on such a chronological archive as Marcum provides, but they would have to go quite a bit further, in terms of interpretation and analysis of the agendas, resources in play, problems and struggles of Kuhn and his key interlocutors.

For example, Marcum's treatment of Alexandre Koyré is peremptory, consisting of several brief mentions at different chronological points (11, 26, 38, 75, 112). We learn little about what Koyré was trying to do, and how Kuhn struggled within and beyond Koyré's dispensation. It is perhaps not well known that in the late 1960s and early 1970s Kuhn would summon his first year Princeton HPS graduate students to a meeting with him on their first day. To this gathering he would bring his tattered copy of Koyré's Études Galiléennes, the 1939 edition. (Of course there was no English translation until 1978.) He would hold it up and pronounce, "Nobody is getting out of here until they have read this." Kuhn meant nobody would graduate who did not come to understand Koyré (and Kuhn himself) as practitioners of textual analysis and internalist history of science writing.

Kuhn was devoted to Koyré: He took up and pluralized Koyré's notion of the centrality of metaphysics -- the metaphysics of any given real science need not be Galileo and Copernicus's watered down neo-Platonism. Kuhn searched for what Koyré's notion of ruptural revolution lacked, to wit, an explanation of what it was about science dynamics that led to and shaped revolutions (enter eventually normal science). Kuhn shared and disseminated Koyré's disdain for doctrines of scientific method as keys to scientific practice and the shape of the history of the sciences. He also less fortuitously was led by Koyré's catastrophism to downplay the creativity of normal science, the role of small but significant discoveries in science, and to miss the dynamics of what we might call the politics of experiment. Koyré is not just one amongst many items in a chronology; he was the single most important resource and constraint (I do not use the language of 'influences') in the making of the younger Kuhn's practice as an historian and in setting his problematic, for better and worse as it turned out.

...

I was a graduate student of Kuhn at Princeton 1969-73, followed by a year as his colleague in the HPS Program there. Like almost all the Program's graduate students I was in the 'history side' of the Program and formally a member of the Princeton History Department. In addition I was a participant, from the late 1970s in the evolution of 'post-Kuhnian' history of science (and sociology of scientific knowledge). What happened in these domains, say in the generation after about 1980, gets almost no mention.--John A. Schuster reviewing James A. Marcum, Thomas Kuhn's Revolutions: A Historical and an Evolutionary Philosophy of Science?, Bloomsbury, 2015, at NDPR.

John Schuster is (even when wrong) an interesting and sophisticated Descartes scholar. His fascinating review of Marcum's book on Kuhn provides many insights into both Kuhn's teaching at Princeton and Kuhn's impact on the development of the distinct American disciplinary contours of late twentieth century history of science (and work on HPS and sociology of knowledge more generally). But it also exhibits a common historiographic fallacy. Because he writes from the vantage point of "Serious intellectual history and intellectual biography," it is especially important the fallacy. The fallacy I am about to describe also shows up in philosophy (especially in students of Rawls, Strauss, Cavell, Wittgenstein, etc.). It has two distinct, but connected elements.

1. A PhD student mistakenly takes how his (revered) teacher (Y) teaches his own work X as (trumping) evidence for (a) how Y arrived at X or (b) what Y thinks important about X while writing X or, more surprisingly, what (c) Y thinks really important about X.
2. The teacher (Y) is a founder of a school of thought (and often the student does not even recognize it as such) or a key agent in discipline formation.

On (1): there are many aims in graduate teaching of philosophy. But it would be really surprising if (a) or (b) are part of them. Even if a teacher were sincerely interested in sharing his/her biographical details, it does not follow that such post facto comments are reliable. Memory is a tricky faculty, especially when there is an audience around; it is simply not to be trusted. It is very odd that a trained historian would fail to recognize this point. (To be clear Schuster explicitly denies an interest in "influence" (that is (a), but he does think he can discern something like (b).)

It is admittedly more plausible that the teaching reflects what X thinks is important about Y. But even here one cannot assume this. The art of teaching consists, in part, of guiding another toward the truth (Good, etc.). What is emphasized in teaching, and here I'll add a rhetorical 'significant tecahing,' is emphasized for pedagogic purposes not for revealing one's estimation of significance. This is especially so when we consider (2).

On (2) a teacher who founds a school or the players in a discipline, always submerges something of significance in order to allow for puzzles, problems, the sense of achievable aims. Such a teacher also tends to create a tacit hierarchy within the school, but about that some other time more. Such a teacher creates shared bits of background knowledge (say Rawls on the history of philosophy) that are not just hoops to jump through ("Nobody is getting out of here until they have read this,") but ways to see the project. That is to say, we can assume that such a teacher did not teach all of the most significant bits of his own achievement.

This is not to deny that Koyré is a non-trivial figure in contextualizing and understanding Kuhn. But from Kuhn's teaching we cannot infer that he is the "single most important" such figure. There are other reasons to doubt this claim, but that's for another occasion. 

RIP: José Benardete (1928-2016)

Kris McDaniel informed me that my former colleague and mentor, José Benardete died last week. Before I came to Syracuse for my job talk I only knew of José as the other brother of Seth (the classicist), whom I encountered in person and in his writings, and of Diego (the mathematician), whom I knew, through a mutual friend, by reputation. I was no fan of Seth  -- not because of his Straussianism --, because I found that public conversations with him had the character of a blood sport; undoubtedly, my memory is colored because he got the better of me in public. After my job-talk talk, at the reception José cornered me and while I was ducking his arms that he flailed around in animated gestures, I was introduced to one of the liveliest, analytically acute, erudite, and humorous minds I have ever encountered. His was a peculiar charm: he was just as at ease in thinking through multiple permutations of moves and counter-moves of an argument (I was not surprised to learn he really liked chess), as he was placing that argument in world-historical philosophical context that seemed simultaneously  completely obvious and, upon reflection, utterly original. He would regularly tell me  that qua philosophical historian, I lacked spirited ambition -- my true task qua historian was to change philosophy --, yet do so in a way that made me feel elevated, nearer to the clouds (where we could engage not just with Aristophanes's Socrates, but provide Icarus with directions).

José was one of those characters that generated legendary anecdotes (about him), but whose profundity of thought could not be reduced to them. He would corner you for lunch or in your office (sometimes because had locked himself out of his own), and would start talking. Often you had the feeling you were encountering him in medias res, but he had a keen sense of audience. Once he started telling me about Quine's footnotes (later I learned he had actually written on some of these [recall]), and then, en passant, slyly noted that the footnotes of one of the papers I had sent along as a writing sample (on Adam Smith's obituary of David Hume) the year before contained the heart of the matter and that I should stop hiding the important things from my readers. Once a week, we would meet for lunch and the most memorable ones were the ones in which he gave me master classes on either Wallace Stevens's poetry or recent analytical metaphysics.

José started his philosophical life as a funny mixture of Husserlian, Whitehead-ian metaphysician, and Straussian. His dissertation (at Virginia) was on the philosophy of time and philosophical theology. But his (1964) book on Infinity revived the genre of analytical metaphysics [this baffled the readers in the 1960s {in my lecture below I provide evidence for this claim}] and -- inspired by Wittgenstein -- offered a philosophy of mathematical practice. (The Husserlian and Straussian elements are still visible, but do not predominate.) The book dazzles and continues to dazzle with arguments. It is no surprise that when genuine metaphysics returned to fashion in analytical philosophy, Syracuse (with in addition to Jose, Bennett, Alston, and Van Inwagen) in upstate new york was one of its hotbeds. By the mid 1970s his writings exhibit a deep engagement with the then Quine-ean analytical mainstream. I have argued (see below) that the change of register hides a unity of philosophical vision.

Much to my amazement, while I was at sabbatical at Santa Barbara, I was asked to speak at his retirement party back in Syracuse about his book manuscript on magnanimity. For one divine Fall while overlooking the Pacific, I read all the works of Jose I could get my hands on in order to prepare my lecture alongside Spinoza's Ethics (that I was teaching). I discovered he was not just a great conversationalist; to my horror I noticed that all kinds of ideas I thought I had dreamed up -- in light of his challenge to aim to be a philosophical historian of philosophy [cf. 'Wiggins on Locke'] --, were to be found more cleanly and with more acuity (and poetry) in his writings. Below the fold is the invited lecture I gave at the occasion of his retirement in which I try to characterize Jose's meta-philosophical vision.

Jan Cover closes his moving tribute, May there be a place for him, in the heavens, near Plato. I doubt Plato will get much of a word in.

On Esoteric Writing and Skepticism

As to those Works of Alpharabius which are extant, they are most of them Logick. There are a great many things very dubious in his Philosophical Works; for in his Méllatolphadélah, i.e. The most excellent Sect, he asserts expressly, that the Souls of Wicked Men shall suffer everlasting Punishment; and yet says as positively in his Politicks that they shall be dissolv'd and annihilated, and that the Souls of the Perfect shall remain for ever. And then in his Ethicks, speaking concerning the Happiness of Man, he says, that it is only in this Life, and then adds, that whatsoever People talk of besides, is meer Whimsy and old Wives Fables. A principle, which if believ'd would make all Men despair of the Mercy of God, and puts the Good and Evil both upon the same Level, in that it makes annihilation the common end to them both. This is an Error not to be pardon'd by any means, or made amends for. Besides all this, he had a mean Opinion of the Gift of Prophecy, and said that in his Judgment it did belong to the faculty of Imagination, and that he prefer'd Philosophy before it; with a great many other things of the like nature, not necessary to be mention'd here.--Ibn Tufayl Hayy Ibn Yaqzan translated by Simon Ockley (1708).

Because I met Daniel Tangay as a PhD student in graduate school, I read his intellectual biography of Leo Strauss. One of the claims in it that surprised me was that he suggests that Strauss' zetetic species of skepticism is due to, or inspired by or modelled on, Al-Farabi's (200-1). As it happens during the last few years, I have been studying and offering Impressions of Farabi (in translation, alas), and I have been puzzled not by Tangay's interpretation of Strauss, which strikes me as apt, but by what is reported as Strauss's interpretation of Al-Farabi because he (Al-Farabi) quite naturally reads like a neo-Platonic philosopher (who often uses Aristotelian terminology in his arguments). I had made a mental note to study Strauss on Al-Farabi some day, but that plan was put on the long pile of projects to be pursued after I complete the introduction to the experimental novel Celebrating the Obvious, which culminates the descent of reason.

So, I was badly prepared for Ibn Tufayl's remarks quoted above. I have mentioned Ibn Tufayl's Hayy Ibn Yaqzan -- a twelfth century philosophical, Utopian novel -- before (and also last week). At the start the tale is offered to an unnamed disciple who is interested in the esoteric knowledge (or mysteries) emanating from the East sometimes mentioned in Avicenna's work. In fact, the tale is framed by the problem of esoterism because it also closes with these remarks:

I have thought good to give them a Glimpse of this Secret of Secrets, that I might draw them into the right Way, and avert them from this other. Nevertheless, I have not so delivered the Secrets which are comprehended in these few Leaves, as to leave them without a thin Veil or Cover over them, which will be easily rent by those who are worthy of it; but will be so thick to him, that is unworthy to pass beyond it, that he shall not be able to get through it.

Some other time, I'll try to address how we should understand Ibn Tufayl's self-description. Rather, here I note that before Ibn Tufayl gets to his actual tale, which takes up the vast majority of his narrative, he briefly offers a partial history of Islamic philosophy. The paragraph about Al-Farabi I have quoted above is followed by one about Avicenna and one about Al-Ghazali. All three paragraphs remind the reader that one should not take the words of these thinkers literally at face value (e.g., about Al-Farabi he writes, "if the Reader, take the literal Sense only, either of the Alshepha or Aristotle, with, out penetrating into the hidden Sense, he will never attain to perfection, as Avicenna himself observes in the Alshepha.")

As an aside, this theme returns through the tale of Hayy because, first, it is key to debate between two friends, Asâl and Salâman, who disagree over the proper way to understand the revealed text of the "ancient prophet." And, second, it is central to the polical failure of Hayy, who is himself an exemplar of a great self-taught, sufi-style-philosophical-mystic, who fails to persuade his audience to depart from a base literal-ism and so withdraws from human society.

It is notable that when Ibn-Tufayl reads his predecessors, he is primarily focused on noting the tensions and contradictions between the works of each individual author. It is these tensions that provide him with a clue toward their true meaning. (As my student noted, he is not tempted to read these tensions as evidence of intellectual development or change.) Now, Ibn Tufayl does not say that Al-Farabi is a skeptic (although it is possible that the phrase, "There are a great many things very dubious in his Philosophical Works" may be translating the idea that his "philosophical works express much doubt.")* But it is clear that by Ibn Tufayl's lights if you really understand Al-Farabi he is really inclined to deny the reality of the afterlife. (Depending on how this is worded this is a species of skepticism or dogmatic denial.)

In fact, Ibn Tufayl's criticism of Al-Farabi, who is deflationary about the power of prophecy (and anticipates Spinoza in insisting that it is due to the working of the imagination), is not that he denies the afterlife as such, but that if people were to come to recognize Al-Farabi's true views and believe it, a form of generalized nihilism would follow (it would make all Men despair of the Mercy of God). And as context reveals, the concern is that without some such belief in afterlife (with punishment for the wicked and reward for the virtuous), there may well be concern over people's willingness to do good and maintain social order. That is, from our vantage point, Ibn Tufayl reads Al-Farabi in a way that anticipates elements of the philosophy we now more commonly associate with Hobbes and Spinoza. If there is a criticism of Al-Farabi  in these remarks, it seems to be primarily that Al-Farabi is not just immoral, but also reckless.

So, has Strauss's reading of Al-Farabi been thereby vindicated? All that has been shown here is that there is historical precedent for it to be found in somebody who had a decent grasp of the intellectual and religious habitus that Al-Farabi inhabited and helped shape. What we can say with more confidence, perhaps, is that Ibn Tufayl left us a text that invites the reader to reflect not just on the nature of allegory, but also modes of writing whose meaning will be understood differently by different readers.

Rationalizing Intellectuals in Plato and an Islamic Philosopher (Ibn Tufayl)

Our Ancestors, of Happy Memory, tell us, that there is an Island in the Indian Ocean, situate under the Equinoctial, where Men come into the world spontaneously without the help of Father and Mother. This Island it seems, is blest with such a due Influence of the Sun, as to be the most temperate and perfect of all places in the Creation; tho' it must be confess'd that such an Assertion is contrary to the Opinion of the most celebrated Philosophers and Physicians, who affirm that the fourth Climate is the most Temperate...

There's much more to be said about this Argument, in order to the explaining it fully, but it is not suitable to our purpose; I have only hinted it to you, because it helps the Story a little, and makes it something more probable that a Man may be form'd without the help of Father and Mother; and there are some which affirm positively that Hai Ebn Yokdhan was so, others deny it, and tell the Story thus...

Those who affirm that Hai Ebn Yokdhan was produced in that Island without Father and Mother tell us, that in that island, in a piece of Low ground, it chanc'd that a certain Mass of Earth was so fermented in some period of Years, that the four qualities, viz. Hot, Cold, Dry, Moist, were so equally mix'd, that none of 'em prevail'd over the other; and that this Mass was of a very great Bulk, in which, some parts were better and more equally Temper'd than others,and consequently fitter for Generation; the middle part especially, which came nearest to the Temper of Man's Body...That the Matter being thus dispos'd, there was, by the Command of God, a Spirit infus'd into it; which was join'd so closely to it, that it can scarce be separated from it even so much as in thought; which did as constantly influence this Mass of matter as the Sun do's the World...So that Spirit which comes by the Command of God, do's at all times act upon all Creatures...such is Man particularly, which is hinted before where 'tis said that God made Man after his own Image[19].--Ibn Tufayl Hayy Ibn Yaqzan translated by Simon Ockley (1708).

I have mentioned Ibn Tufayl's Hayy Ibn Yaqzan -- a twelfth century philosophical, Utopian novel -- before. The tale is offered to an unnamed disciple who is interested in the esoteric knowledge (or mysteries) emanating from the East sometimes mentioned in Avicenna's work. We quickly learn that the student is not yet ready or skilled to experience mystical experiences himself, but he can be told about its nature. At the end of the narration we're told that some of the esoteric knowledge has, in fact, been revealed in the tale, esoterically: "I have not so delivered the Secrets which are comprehended in these few Leaves, as to leave them without a thin Veil or Cover over them, which will be easily rent by those who are worthy of it; but will be so thick to him, that is unworthy to pass beyond it, that he shall not be able to get through it."

Be that as it may, the two passages quoted above occur near the start of the story, in which the autobiographical narrator, presumably Ibn Tufayl himself, offers two competing traditions on the origin of the hero of his tale about Hayy Ibn Yaqzan. Here I leave aside, momentarily, the other tradition.

The tradition recounted above is a species of rationalization. Once one reflects on it, it quite clearly reports an intellectual debate (that is, some affirm, others deny) over or search for a naturalistic explanation of not just the manner of creation, but also the precise location (near the equator off the coast of India) of the Garden or Paradise. These Theistic intellectuals clearly accept the Quran's narrative that there must have been a first man, and offer an account of how this possible (and continues to be possible). These theistic intellectuals accept a modified version of the principle of sufficient reason because given that there is no reason to limit God's active power, it follows that if Adam is possible so is Hayy Ibn Yaqzan.+

Near the start of the Phaedrus (229b-e), Socrates and Phaedrus discuss the myth of Boreas and Oreithyia, and there, too, some (sophistical/wise) intellectuals try to locate the place and mechanism of the recounted narrative. That is, rationalization involves accepting the truth of myth as an allegory  to be explained by either a hidden inner meaning or by way of naturalization. Rationalization does not deny myth altogether. As it happens, with an appeal to the scarcity of time, Socrates refuses to engage in such rationalization not because he insists on the falsity of myth, but because one such explanatory rationalization invites open-ended further rationalization (229d). As I have noted before in dialogue with Rene Brouwer's work on the Stoics, other options are rejected, too, including the assimilation of myth to rustic wisdom, and this has non-trivial consequences in the subsequent history of philosophy.

As it happens, and noted above, in Ibn Tufayl's narrative another account of the origin of Hayy Ibn Yaqzan is given. This origin narrative does not deploy God's creation to explain the origin of Hayy Ibn Yaqzan, and tells us of how at infancy Hayy Ibn Yaqzan was cast in the sea in ark by his mom who feared for his life from the wrath of her tyrant brother. The alternative account does involve a reference to God's creation: Hayy Ibn Yaqzan's mother is faithful to God (with a nod to Quran 76:1-3, she believes in God's creative participation in forming the fetus inside the womb),** but not to her brother, the King. The alternative tradition is reminiscent of Moses, Oedipus, and, as it unfolds, Romulus and Remus. In this alternative tradition, Hayy Ibn Yaqzan is a political refugee cast out from society (I return to this point before long).

Here I close with an observation. From the vantage point of the rationalizing project mentioned above, this alternative story of the origin of Hayy Ibn Yaqzan is pious but unsatisfactory because it fails to address the pressing questions that motivate the rationalizing project in the first place. In addition, while Hayy Ibn Yaqzan's mother believes the revealed account of God's creation, the narrative in which she figures is compatible with the eternity of the world because it fails to explain the origin of manin accord with rational principles. It is no surprise, then, that the debate between the eternity and creation of the world is central within Hayy Ibn Yaqzan's own intellectual development. I hope this is sufficient, tantalizing invitation to join us in exploring Hayy Ibn Yaqzan's voyage, which is really the voyage of each of us--but I am getting ahead of myself.

Ahh...am I Straussian?; on the Political Theory and Political Philosophy divide

Maybe it's because Digressions lacks a category for 'political theory' and I am halfway through my first semester as an analytically trained philosopher employed as a political theorist in a political science department, but the other day I read (perhaps re-read) Jacob Levy's entertaining and illuminating essay on the distinction between political theory and political philosophy. Levy's essay is just about to become dated because (i) within analytical political philosophy the strangle-hold of Rawlsianism is being broken by what I have called analytical ideology studies (and here, too) associated with recent work by Haslanger, Saul, Stanley, Maitra, etc.;(ii) within political theory there has been an upsurge of what one may call applied continental philosophy drawing on Foucault and Deleuze and the enduringly relevant Arendt, especially, in work on bio-power, neo-liberalism, terrorism studies, migration studies, post-humanist ecological thinking, etc.

While Levy does a very fine job in calling attention to genuine, different methodological and practical commitments between the two 'fields,' ultimately his essay very much reads as describing two families capturing their own territory in closely related institutions. This may not be the main point of Levy's essay, but this conclusion follows from the way the piece is structured ("What is it that differentiates John Rawls, Christine Korsgaard, Thomas Scanlon, Brian Barry, Thomas Nagel, G.A. Cohen, and Joseph Raz, and their students and admirers, from Michael Walzer, Judith Shklar, George Kateb, Sheldon Wolin, and their students and admirers?") Even the group (or school) that is the exception to the fairly robust generalizations is identified in terms of genealogical attributes (e.g., "Students of Leo Strauss...Those influenced by Strauss").*

 

Even so I was personally startled by Levy's piece. Let me explain. While I have Rawlsian teachers (Norm Daniels, Dan Brudney) and studied with those that engaged closely with Rawls (Larmore, Nussbaum), I didn't come from political philosophy to political theory. I came from history and philosophy of science (HPS) with an emphasis on early modern and philosophy of economics. But in reflecting on Levy's essay, I noticed that by his standards I am a Straussian!** Consider the following eight criteria (these are almost all direct quotes):

1. An emphasis on Francis Bacon and Maimonides that is pretty alien to the rest of political theory. 
2. Straussians place great weight on a practice they identify as "philosophy," but mostly they study others who have engaged in that practice rather than engaging in it themselves.
3. Straussians are strongly pro-philosophy (as they understand it) .
4. Straussians are serious critics of social science.
5. Yet almost without exception Straussians are located in political science rather than philosophy departments.
6. Despite 3, contemporary philosophers do not identify Strausians as philosophy.
7. Straussians tend to reach whole books with attention to close readings and eye for details.
8. Straussians ignore Benjamin Constant.

Of these eight, I fit five or six criteria naturally. (Of course, I am pro-philosophy!)  I have not published much on Bacon, but I teach him nearly every year. (And while I don't teach Maimonides, I am teaching Al-Farabi twice this academic year.) Moreover, while I am not a student of Strauss, at Chicago I took classes with some Straussians, and I have repeatedly written warmly of Cropsey and, my former colleague, Jose Benardete (who was clearly influenced by Strauss, but who does not fit Levy's characterization because Benardete is also a philosopher's philosopher who spent a life-time in a very analytic philosophy department).

What do I make of this? Four observations: first, Straussian themes clearly rubbed off on me at Chicago. I don't think this was primarily work of the faculty there; but rather the cumulative impact of my fellow graduate students (whom I encountered not just in classes but in the famous Chicago workshops [where I also first met Levy!] as well as on the basketball court). It's very hard to take the endless vilification of a whole school of thought seriously when on a daily basis you encounter smart, erudite, and interesting characters doing fascinating research. (Since I have also encountered the kind of Straussian that is easily to caricature.) Second, in the 1990s at Chicago, where Lewis-style metaphysics was not taken seriously, it was by no means obvious that analytical philosophy would endure as a living tradition. It seemed exhausted and focused on narrow (and by no means promising) lines of inquiry. (The most interesting work was in the philosophy of the special sciences.) Third, the eight characteristics are not exclusive to Straussianism. (After all, Putnam is as critical of the fact-value distinction as is Strauss. At Chicago, even philosophy of space-time physics was taugh, in part, by way of close readings of classical texts. [I learned close reading from Ian Mueller and Howard Stein, both far removed from Strauss in lots of ways.]) Finally, I'd like to think that the eight criteria neither exhaust nor track the essential characteristics of my philosophical personality (there is a neo-Heideggerian strain in Straussianism that I am decidedly lukewarm about), but I recognize I am not the right judge.

Luckily, I am about to revisit my interest in Benjamin Constant (recall).

 

 

Al-Farabi On Treating People as Ends or Means (with nods to Spinoza, Rousseau, and Kant)

According to its form, the rational animal is not for the sake of any other species at all--not by way of material, nor by way of being an instrument or of serving. Every of them beneath it, by right of its form, is either only for something else or brings both of them together: existing for itself and existing for something else. Justice is for both its portions to be accorded by nature.--Al-Farabi, Political Regime, 54 (in Butterworth's translation, p.55).

Al-Farabi's Political Regime, which is not very long, can be divided in roughly four parts: (i) the longest part: a highly technical and compressed metaphysics (and cosmology/modal logic); (ii) a brief causal account of political variety; (iii) a serious description of the best/virtuous city that is longer that Socrates's city of pigs, but considerably shorter than the luxurious city; (iv) a quick survey the many kinds of non-virtuous cities.

Part (i) is not accessible to those that lack grounding in Platonic and Aristotelian metaphysics/terminology. So, unlike Plato's Republic, which draws the reader into the topic with sharply drawn and exciting exchanges in the first two books, Al-Farabi is clearly writing for a rather limited audience. This is no surprise because Al-Farabi is an elitist about cognitive ability and thinks that even among those with high cognitive potential few cultivate it.One might then think, perhaps alerted by Leo Strauss's legacy on the reception of Al-Farabi, that the first very technical part is the intellectual barrier and smoke-screen for the political teachings that come at the end or, more subtly, are woven into the technical bits (about which below).

Even if the thoughts of the previous paragraph are not incorrect, it does not follow that the intended audience for this book is (only) philosophers or would-be philosophers because the book as a whole does not develop many of the points it introduces. In fact, it treats many issues in a kind of overview, summary manner. And while it is hard-going at first, it quickly rewards the reader who is interested in politics and ruling. So, the book seems to pitched not so much for those with extended desire to grow intellectually or with true leisure time, but at the intellectually curious, even philosophically educated, among the ruling elite or would-be elite. It reminds me a bit of the purported intended audience ["the philosophical reader" (philosophe lector)] of Spinoza's Theological Political Treatise.

The passage quoted at top of the post, occurs in the midst of Al-Farabi's fascinating (and to modern eyes unusual) treatment of modality. In fact, as an aside, just before  justice was explicitly introduced, in the context of metaphysical multiplicity, as a metaphysical means of intervening in and settling (to simplify) the way a possibility is actualized or not  (about that thought and the way Al-Farabi's cosmology and metaphysics is intrinsically normative some other time).

The quoted passage entails (animal rights' activists will not like this) that mankind has dominion over (most) other animals because they lack a rational faculty. But it also implies that by nature humans may not be treated by each other as a means because they have -- to use poetic language -- the spark of rationality. Let's call this Al-Farabi's rational humanism. It is compatible with his assumption that mankind is naturally hierarchically differentiated in many different ways and, in turn, cultivated and educated in ways that increase multiplicity.

Even so, within a political order, a truly wise ruler, the godly magnanimous soul, who is akin to a Platonic philosopher-king (and who combines theoretical and practical rationality), and (I believe) only the truly wise ruler can use and guide others as a means for their own good and happiness which will coincide with the city's good and happiness. (Al-Farabi is relatively elaborate on the nature of this truly wise ruler and rather terse on the institutional arrangements required for this rule.) That is, he can force others -- through education and cultivation -- toward the perfection of their own rationality to the best of their ability;--a people ruled by such a ruler (who emanates, as it were, his wisdom to his subjects) would be virtuous.

Al-Farabi does not say if such an exemplar has existed or will exist. But he does say we ought to think of such a ruler as a recipient of revelation, that is, a true prophet.

Debating Kant & Spinoza with Boehm (III): Rational Faith vs Feeling (the PSR reconsidered)

[F]aith can be taken seriously as a condition of ethics. This, more than any other reason, is why Kant’s thought should be studied as an answer to Spinoza: no philosopher strived like Spinoza to reduce practical reason and faith to theoretical reasoning; indeed, this is why his geometrical metaphysics is called the Ethics, why Substance is dubbed “God.” Kant attempts to put that Spinozist picture on its head: neither practical reasoning nor faith are reducible to theoretical reasoning; ultimately, in fact, he would argue that theoretical reasoning is grounded in practical reason. (xxiii)

To understand Kant’s position as a genuine alternative to such [Nietzschean] ethics—and to be able to consider this Kantian alternative as a genuine possibility for us—we must be willing to take seriously the project of denying knowledge in making room for faith. Historically speaking, this means that we must come to terms with Kant’s answer to Spinoza and Spinozism. (xxvii)

Jacobi’s claim that Spinoza’s philosophy is the only possible one relies on his understanding of the PSR ; first, as the normative criterion of rationality; and second, as the “spirit of Spinozism.” Ex nihilo nihil fit—Jacobi argues that this principle entails both necessitarianism and pantheism. And, interestingly, he claims to have learned this lesson from Kant’s Beweisgrund. As we saw in Chapter 1, this isn’t, pace Beiser, merely a “tendentious” reading of Kant, who himself was aware of his Spinozist commitment....Accordingly, he thinks it would be vain to try to give a rational defense of freedom, morality, or faith, because such a defense is beforehand committed to the PSR and would fall back on fatalistic pantheism (201)

The big picture issue in Boehm's exciting book, Kant's Critique of Spinoza, is to show that Kant's regulative Spinozism, which makes room for rational faith, is the only alternative to ontological (or metaphysical) Spinozism, which itself is taken to lead to a kind of Nietzschean nihilism and fatalism.* In particular, while the book is constructed in terms of historical figures, the issues are still open: soft Kantianism is in full retreat in professional philosophy, and dogmatic realism is the new common sense, yet few thinkers have really confronted what this entails for a morality worth having without, it often seems, a kind of metaphysical special pleading. Boehm's book is, in part, intended to rethink what is at stake in the debate between regulative and metaphysical Spinozism. [This is the third piece on the book (see here and here); the series should also be read in light of my comments on the debate between Garber and Della Rocca on the status of the PSR.]

There are a number of signs throughout the book that Boehm understands this book as a kind of set-up for a further book (or series of books) in which Kantian rational faith is articulated and more fully defended. (To be sure, if metaphysical Spinozism is the only alternative, then Boehm offers a modal and a distinct normative argument against such Spinozism such that rational faith becomes the default position. In this post I won't do full justice to either of these arguments.) So, here I want to focus on his characterization of Spinoza and Spinozism.

In regulative Spinozism (that is the Critical, Kantian position) the PSR is a kind of epistemic imperative ("for every p that exists, we demand a reason why p exists") while the key maxim is (which is also the "essence of enlightenment") to "use one's own understanding--never to believe something I cannot myself understand." (182) By contrast, metaphysical Spinozism embraces an ontological commitment to the PSR: "for every p that exists, there is a reason why it exists," which itself -- from the Kantian position -- becomes caught up in a transcendental illusion (172). (In addition, positions that try to finesse the choice between the epistemic and metaphysical versions of the PSR or that accept the ontological version, but then add bells and whistles to avoid pure Spinozism, are taken to be fundamentally unstable. I am also ignoring issues about the role of infinity in this.)

So much for set-up.

Let's stipulate that Spinoza was a metaphysical Spinozist and that the PSR plays the roles assigned to it in Boehm's (Jacobi inspired) hands. This entails, and Boehm is right about this, that the ontological argument is both a central part of Spinozism and also defensible within it. (My old colleague Dan Schneider had already taught me a version of this, and I hope his version appears in print before long.) But Spinoza's philosophy also gets distorted from within the Kantian framework in at least two ways (I think the second is more subtle than the first, so be patient). The two may be connected, but I treat them separately. First, Spinoza's conception of freedom, which we can put in a slogan: acting from reason, is never really taken seriously by Boehm (here he follows the Jacobi-Lessing reading of Spinoza (see 201)). To be free is to act from knowledge (or adequate ideas or virtue, etc.). By this I do not mean  that complete Spinozistic freedom is almost out of reach for ordinary mortals (who are always under the influence of passive affects) which may (in light of say, 'ought implies can') be thought to be a reductio of the Spinozist position; but rather that he treats Spinoza as a kind of combatibilist (x). To be sure, Spinoza is (probably) best understood as a compatibilist in the strict sense, but that does not really do justice to the Spinozist position (which in various ways he inherits from Descartes and other strands of Platonism) which is not in the business of defending freedom of the will, but rather another notion of freedom.

Boehm recognizes this, of course, and sets up the challenge to Spinozism as follows "idea x is adequate in mind y iff God's idea x is given in virtue of having y. When this is the case, mind y is not compelled into thinking by any external forces: it thinks only ideas that are contained within it, and in that sense, it is genuinely free. Let us grant that if the human mind can satisfy this criterion, man is free when conceiving an adequate idea." (136) Oddly, Boehm recognizes that this challenge can be met from within Spinoza's system for common notions (138-9), but insists (even though he grant's Spinoza's position of freedom is "coherent" (140)) this is not sufficient because circular and, then, turns the issue into a question to what degree Spinoza can offer a plausible account for the acquisition of "an adequate idea of the unconditionally existing substance." (139)

Now, the main reason I say that Boehm cannot take Spinoza's account of freedom seriously is that he does not scrutinize the merits of this (neo-Stoic) freedom from, say, the vantage point of morality or politics worth having. He also assumes that it leads to (a bad kind of) fatalism, even nihilism. (By contrast, and this is my minor reason, Boehm does not let Spinoza criticize the Kantian conception of freedom, even though Spinoza has resources to cast doubt on it.) But as Adam Smith notes in the context of a very critical analysis of Stoicism (which, I think Smith actually uses to discuss Spinozistic necessity, but that's for another occasion), the doctrine of necessity (or fate) need not lead to fatalism; for the Stoic philosophy had a "great influence upon the character and conduct of its followers, cannot be doubted; and that though it might sometimes incite them to unnecessary violence, its general tendency was to animate them to actions of the most heroic magnanimity and most extensive benevolence." That is to say, for true Spinozists, fatalism (or nihilism) does not follow (necessarily) from its doctrine of freedom in the right institutional and education context. 

As an aside, Boehm cannot object to such a consequentialist justification of a philosophical doctrine because, in fact, Kant, too, appeals (in "Was Heist, sich im Denken orientieren") to the analysis of a doctrine's effects in terms of the worthiness of freedom (of thought). That worthiness is understood in terms of both a doctrine's likely consequences, by way of intellectual trickle down' on a larger public and it's impact on other intellectual currents of thought (see, especially, 221-2). So, the Spinozistic doctrine of freedom need not be justified in terms of an extra Spinozistic metaphysical principles if there is such a consequentialist justification. (This is, of course, not the only way to defend acting from reason, but it is one way that Kant is not allowed to block as such.)

Second, Spinozism is understood as hyper-rationalism. Fair enough. But it is worth noting that even in a Jacobi inspired hyper rationalistic Spinozism -- in which the metaphysical of the PSR does a lot of the intra-systemic work, and in which there is some ultimate ground [be it necessity, the ontological argument, causa sui, etc.] -- a key feature (as Noa Shein taught me) of Spinoza's system is overlooked: the role of feeling. Feeling is introduced in two axioms (four and five) at the start of Book 2 of the Ethics. (It is clear from the preface to part 5 of the Ethics, that whatever Spinoza means by feeling it is not the Cartesian version.) The most prominent use of feeling in the Ethics, is in the treatment of the Spinozist the mind's eternality (E5p23Scholium).

So, rather than treating Spinoza's anthropology as turning the best of us into a kind of cold, mechanical automaton under the guidance of the PSR, Spinoza insists that philosophy requires, axiomatically, feelings and relies on feeling for his most controversial doctrine. In particular, Spinozistic demonstrations must also be brought home: "the mind feels those things that it conceives in understanding...For the eyes of the mind. by which it sees and observes things, are the demonstrations themselves." 

Now, from the vantage point of Jacobi (and Boehm's Kant) this may be thought an inconsistency in Spinoza (who is, then, a not quite pure metaphysical Spinozist). For, in Jacobi, feeling is paradigmatically something uncommunicable nor rationally supported (202). Unsurprisingly, Spinoza's use of the eternity of the mind is a quasi-mystical experiental doctrine that gets the name 'intellectual love of God.' That experience is, probably, not Kant's sublime, which justifies Kant's infinite unconditioned (99), but it belongs, shall we say, to the same species of experience. So, if Kantians can appeal to the feeling of the sublime, Spinozists can appeal to the felt intellectual love of God.