Digressions&Impressions

On Realism, Theoretical Modesty, Systematicity, and Prefiguration

We have now seen how realists, especially through their focus on legitimacy, tend to be committed to strongly contextual approaches to political normativity. Contextualism also provides a way into the last and so far least developed focal point of realism, namely, the rejection of ambitious attempts to formulate grand theories from which to derive prescriptions for any possible political scenario and in reference to which we can judge political behaviour, in favour of a normativity that is appropriately sensitive to the specific conditions under which political decisions are taken and agents act. Enzo Rossi & Matt Sleat "Realism in Normative Political Theory" Philosophy Compass (2014), 694.+

l have noted before (recall here and here) the realist suspicion of theory as a set of systematic relations that can guide policy. By 'realist' I mean the tradition of thought that takes its immediate cue from Bernard Williams and Raymond Geuss, but that purports to find its world-historical inspiration in Machiavelli, Thucydides, Hobbes, and Schmitt. If Rawls and/or ideal theory is the only conception of grand theory that's available, and these, in turn, are constructed in terms of a (technocratic) ideal of consensus formation,* one can understand the realist distaste (given their other commitments), especially if such theories are (exclusively) -- to quote another, more recent paper by Rossi --  "inferred from overarching, pre-political values or principles." 

Now, one may wonder why this prevents one from embracing grand theories that are inferred from or constructed with attention to political values and principles (if one grants the realist that there is a distinction between ethical and political values). To the best of my knowledge, this is not addressed by contemporary theorists, but one can infer the suspicion of it from the following passage quoted approvingly and commented on by Rossi:

we cannot describe, that is, picture, in the concrete, any state of society of which the world has had no experience. For into the reality of a society, even in its broader details, there enters a large element of contingency, of alogicality, of unreason, with which no general principles will furnish us. (Belfort Bax 1891, Preface)**

radical realism is empirically informed, and so while it can let the political imagination run free of feasibility constraints, it is wary of letting it go down the dark alleys of precise prescriptions that balance an unwieldy amount of variables. The realist can be politically ambitious but must be theoretically modest enough to leave those details to politics: there are aspects of politics not amenable to philosophical domestication.--"Being Realistic and Demanding the Impossible"

We see here that Bax embraces a number of interrelated points: first, the embrace of radical (Knightian) uncertainty in political life; second, the idea that society itself contains internal contradictions, even (third) non-eliminable superstition. Fourth, that because of these facts any coherent and systematic theory of what an as-of-yet-non-existent society should look like, will be, as it were, falsified by the new world.

Rossi's endorsement of Bax infers from Bax's diagnosis that one should reject a baroque theory (with many variables [there are shades of Duhem here]) that purports to offer detailed policy prescriptions either to get from the bad status quo to the desirable end-state or to legislate the character of the end state. From the vantage point of realism, such Baroque theory is comic. Now, from the rejection of "blueprints" (technocratic and utopian), Rossi's recent work does not end up with mere (Schmittian) decisionism, nor with a focus on contextual judgment (which he had seemed to endorse while writing with Sleat); rather Rossi recognizes, that his rejection of grand theory still allows some place for (ahh) small theory (in the sense of 'small is beautiful'). He does so in describing so-called 'prefigurative politics' in sympathetic fashion:

one can create microcosms supported by alternative, not (or less) ideologically flawed legitimation stories, irrespectively of whether similar structures are feasible at the level of the whole society. To be sure, prefiguration is often understood as a way to enact what one hopes or expects to eventually extend society-wide. But it doesn’t need to be understood that way. Small-scale structures may simply be the best we can hope for, and that is all the more reason to pursue them.

I agree with Rossi (who himself aspires to a more Maxist position than I would) that realists should not reject prefigurative politics out of hand. But it is peculiar that Rossi does not stop to pause at the danger that small scale improvements may well entrench larger scale (bad) structures (say, by making these more robust). This is not a mere oversight. From the contemporary realist's perspective, there is no theoretical ground to make the evaluative claim (or prediction) about the effects on the larger structure. That's because he (and contemporary realists more generally [with the notable exception of our colleague, Paul Raekstad]) have rejected grand theory. I want to close today's post by gesturing at what I mean.

As regular readers know, I share much of the grounds that lead the realist to reject of Baroque theory (of both the technocratic and utopian kinds) with its detailed blueprints. But it does not follow that the realist must reject non-Baroque grand theory that sketches a politically desirable end point without offering a detailed recipe. So, for example, at the end of the Prince, Machiavelli proposes a plan for Italian unification:+

Italy, left as without life, waits for him who shall yet heal her wounds and put an end to the ravaging and plundering of Lombardy, to the swindling and taxing of the kingdom and of Tuscany, and cleanse those sores that for long have festered. It is seen how she entreats God to send someone who shall deliver her from these wrongs and barbarous insolencies. It is seen also that she is ready and willing to follow a banner if only someone will raise it.

The unification of Italy is an ideal that means to combine (i) the elimination of really existing  injustices ("ravaging and plundering;" "swindling and taxing;" "wrongs and barbarous insolencies") and so be an enteprise that really is "great justice" and (2) a call to a magnanimous soul to engage on a great heroic enterprise worthy of lasting fame. While much of the Prince is full of insight on how to go about such a great enterprise, it does not go into the details how to get from here to there. 

There are two features worthy of comment here. First, Machiavelli recognizes that ideals, including highly normative ideals, are politically motivating. Unlike more modern realists, which (to simplify) tend to embrace a kind of political facts vs ethical ideals distinctions, Machiavelli recognizes that values (and ideologies) motivate (great) collective action that, second, may themselves become constitutive of political union. Obviously, Machiavelli's ideal is rooted in already existing (geographic and historical) realities, but these do not predetermine the shape of the ideal. There is a more important point lurking here. Once such an ideal is motivating, then it creates a whole bunch of conceptual-social necessitations that constrain future paths while recognizing that in practice politics will be full of contingency.

Now, Machiavelli's sketch of a grand theory is extremely thin. And I mention it only because Machiavelli is a realist in excellent standing. But a realist grand ideal can be elaborated systematically and immodestly without falling into the trap of an overly detailed, Baroque blueprint. (I have analyzed in my book such a realist, but relatively un-Baroque grand theory by Adam Smith; I have in mind not his argument for the system of natural liberty, but rather his plan to 'complete' the constitution of the United Kingdom in order to ameliorate the wrongs done to the Irish wrongs and to prevent war with the American colonies.) Such a systematic theory, which -- let's stipulate in honor of the realist demand to respect facticity-- should not go against robust findings of social sciences, is required because of its political virtues (recall also this piece on Adam Smith and Jacob Levy):   

1. A system can allow one to limit the risks of always acting in ad hoc fashion and, thereby, allow one to grasp which compromises are worth accepting and which undermine one's political, strategic, and (yes) moral  aims.
2. Some kind of system is required to guide (not control) long-term planning and to allow trade-offs to be modeled (say, between short-term gains and long-term goals) and, where possible, foreseen. 
3. Being guided by a system generates the possibility of consistency (maybe even accountability) over time. 

 

When Zionists assume that Neo-Nazis Belong to the Past

To put things in perspective. I'm a Jew, I'm an Israeli, the neo nazis scums in Virginia hate me and my country. But they belong to the past. Their breed is dying out. However the thugs of Antifa and BLM who hate my country (and America too in my view) just as much are getting stronger and stronger and becoming super dominant in American universities and public life.--Yair Netanyahu [HT Fox news]

I stumbled upon Yair Netanyahu's comment because I was curious how his father, Prime Minister Netanyahu, would respond to President Trump's (ahh) troubling responses(s) to Charlottesville. I have interpreted the Netanyahu government's embrace of the Trump administration,* which has shown a willingness to nurture White Supremacist nationalism, as a fatal and fundamental betrayal of a tacit pact that has sustained Zionism among Jews for a century: because real-world liberal institutions inevitably generate tensions for minorities and are sometimes incapable of protecting them when most needed, diaspora Jews, primarily those Stateside, would support the state of Israel financially and politically and, in turn, its right of return as well as its ability to project power abroad would be a kind of insurance policy for Jews in need. I have defended the moral grounds of this pact. (See also for the roots of this idea in Herzl's writings here and, more recently in the context of a controversy between Omri Boehm and Andrew Pessin, here.) For it has been clear (ever since Bibi Netanyahu called on French Jews to leave France in February 2015) that the government of Israel not only understands itself as promoting the mass migration of diaspora Jews to Israel (that's always been its declared goal), but is also willing to promote partisan ends [Netanyahu's tilt toward Republicans has been clear since his too open support of candidate Romney] in other countries to serve its own (tactical, short-term) ends even if these ends undermine the local, diaspora Jews.

As an aside, it is an open question if the Trump administration's pro-Israel rhetoric signals a decisive shift in policy.* It's hard to see how the bi-partian US policy toward Israel since the Clinton administration could be any more pro-Israel (unless what will follow is (a) a shift of US embassy to Jeruzalem and (b) carte blanche for settlement expansion.) Israel has been very critical of the Obama administration's policy on Iranian nuclear program, but if Israel really thought this could be  prevented it would have already delivered the necessary military blows. Israel is de facto a protectorate of the US, it cannot reasonably complain when the imperial hegemon pursues multiple ends some of which balance its interests alongside others. The Trump administration may wish to re-balance its policy over Iran toward the Israel government's position, but if it does so, it will find itself, in all likelihood, sacrificing other ends.

I am interested in Yari Netanyahu's comments not because they represent the official thinking of the State of Israel or his father's informal views. Rather, because they are offered in the form of a facebook post they offer a revealing, informal window into the mindset of elite Israelis in two ways. First, he embraces a teleological conception of neo-nazism as a primarily historical ("past") and generational (breed is dying out) phenomenon. This is a natural thought for an Israeli because Israel's self-conception understands itself (too frequently) as a response and successful overcoming of the catastrophic Nazi era. In this scheme, Israel -- like Noah's ark -- just is the future that has left Nazism behind. This, in turn, has a surprising implication: (i) the diaspora Jews are themselves historical relics that (if they don't make Aliyah) will also be left behind (note my comment above about undermining diaspora Jews)--they don't get mentioned at all in his comments. And (ii) Israel understands itself as having overcome the historical conditions that gave rise to its necessity (namely, the liberal state system's inability to protect [historically] persecuted minorities). This (ii) suggests that such Israelis feel safe from existential threat.

As should be clear I think Yair Netanyahu's betray complacency. By this I do not merely mean that no state endures forever (although this is surely also true) and  so that Israel's Jews remain vulnerable. But primarily, as the pictures of Charlottesville reveal, that young people, especially young men, continue to be attracted to Neonazi ideas even in the adverse environment of the US where Nazis have long been the declared enemy, including the stock villain in the entertainment industry. It is a peculiar complacency because the Zionist contribution to the history of (liberal) political theory is that versions of Nazism and ideas that support ethnic supremacy are enduring possibilities, inherent shadows we might say, of modern nation-states: capitalist economies are disruptive of existing hierarchies and they promote economic advancement for some groups at the expense of (the expectations generated by the) existing privileges.+ This interpretation is, in fact, illustrated by the neo-nazis of Charlottesville (alongside their Confederate sympathizers), who chanted (among other slogans) that "Jews will not replace us."  I can't say if by this they meant to express economic anxiety (to be displaced in jobs, economic status, etc.)** or  genetic/cultural anxiety (in the sense of (ahh) 'their breed is dying out').

Second, the younger Netanyahu reveals that the major anxiety of Israelis is the effort to de-legitimatize Zionism in the PR war on American campuses Stateside. Recall, "Antifa and BLM who hate my country (and America too in my view) just as much are getting stronger and stronger and becoming super dominant in American universities and public life." This statement is peculiar for the fact that the major movement that aims to de-legitimize Israel, BDS, goes unmentioned (for my position see here) and for its utter, even abhorrent, lack of minimal sympathy for Black Lives Matter.++ For even the Economist (echoing  Jacob Levy (here)) understands that BLM's "supporters oppose police brutality, mass incarceration, America’s drug war, police militarisation and civil-forfeiture abuses. All of those are causes that liberals, libertarians and conservatives—anyone who fears unchecked state power—ought to cheer." That is, lovers of liberty, least of all Jews, have nothing to fear from the success of BLM in promoting its primary aims.

One may object that political success and, thereby, increased prestige of BLM  on college campuses will come at the expense of sympathy for Zionism. Now, it is undeniable that some, perhaps many, folk who are active in contemporary civil rights movements have  become convinced that Zionism as such is a great evil that needs to be stopped (recall). (I leave aside here to what degree some folk among these are also antisemitic.) But if one meets peaceful attempts at de-legitimization with unrelenting opposition -- and without scrutiny of one's own actions -- all one succeeds at is the hardening mutual opposition with the non-trivial risk of, thereby, further undermining  (would be) support for Jews and Zionism. While it is foolish to suggest to invite armed Neonazis to afternoon tea, denunciations that emanate from vulnerable civil rights activists should be met with invitations for conversations and occasions for mutual learning. While Israelis perceive they have no interest in starting or maintaining conversations with activist critics (and I am the last to deny these can be painful--my support for Zionism has weakened long-standing friendships), there exist clear common interests among American Jews and other historically persecuted minorities Stateside in securing the (bare minimum of the) rule of law. By promoting a zero-sum agenda, Israelis play into the hands of BDS and prevent fruitful, tactical and strategic coalitions for America's Jews.

Finally, despite what Yair Netanyahu implies (if the neo-nazis are the past, Antifa & BLM (etc.) are the future), antisemitism in activist circles outside and on college campuses is not a new thing. Quotas on Jews and a lack of welcome for Jewish refugee scholars, not to mention the endurance of a genteel-Snobbish-academic-antisemitism, are an enduring element of the history of Anglophone higher education. I have seen this up close. And, nobody familiar with the history of Marxist-Leftish thought since Marx's Zur Judenfrage, would deny that its relationship to antisemitism is a complicated one including very ugly episodes (including state, antisemitic propaganda in some Communist countries).* But this history also includes great, principled acts of courage on behalf of Jews and tactical alliances with Jewish interests. But the most striking feature about lefty-activist- antisemitism, when it exists, is that it has been far removed from the regions of political-economic power in most liberal democracies for a long time now. The same is not true, alas, for white-supremacy.

 

 

 

On the Nature of Scientific Authority; on Hannah Arendt and Heather Douglas

No one ideal for values in science will suffice. We need nested ideals, articulated for individual actors, for communal practices, and for science-society interfaces, in order to ground the authority of science.  

The authority of science rests on the interlocking character of these norms. At the communal level, scientists are expected to continually question and critique each other’s work. They are expected to respond to criticisms raised, and to hold no scientific claim above criticism. Such mutual critique is a minimum for granting science prima facie epistemic authority. The more diverse and reflective of the plurality of society the scientific community is, the more taken for granted assumptions and unreflected value commitments will (hopefully) be elucidated, the more authority science should have.

But community practices need good individual reasoning practices to operate with. Maintaining the proper roles for values in science keeps values from acting in place of evidence, which will support the critical interactions needed in science. New evidence should always be able to contest old positions, and this can only happen if values are not used to protect desired positions from unwanted criticism. A scientist can point to their values to argue for why they require more evidence to be convinced, but they can never point to their values to argue for why evidence is irrelevant to the claims they make or protect. Asking for more evidence drives the inquiry dialectic; holding claims above evidential critique does not.

Further, it is not just in individual reasoning integrity (right roles) and communal practices, but in some shared values (operating within proper roles) that science gains its authority in a democratic society. I will discuss this more in the next two lectures, but for now, note that getting the values right, particularly in the realm of policy relevant science, strongly supports scientific authority. That scientists are investigating questions we care about, using methodologies that we find morally acceptable and targeted at what we are concerned with, and using values we share for assessing evidential sufficiency, can and should make a big difference for what we think is epistemically authoritative. Thus, elucidating the proper roles and proper values for science is part of what makes science authoritative, rather than undermining the authority of science.

Finally, the authority of science also rests on its raw instrumental success. Relying upon scientific understandings of disease (e.g. in the cases of communicable diseases) has greatly increased lifespans, relying upon scientific understandings of materials has greatly increased the range of what we can manufacture, relying upon scientific understandings of what we can transmit in the air has transformed communication, and so forth. It is this raw instrumental success that is probably at the root of most of the trust society places in science. But, as we will see in the next lecture, we are running into areas of science where success is not easily measured, especially in the short term, and the problems we are addressing seem more interrelated than ever. The challenge of science in democracy is still with us.--Heather Douglas (September 2016) "Descartes Lecture 1: Opening Statement: Why Science, Values, and Democracy?" [quoted with permission.]

Hannah Arendt notes that authority is neither the compelling of another by persuasion nor the compelling of another by physical/legal force (see her (1954) "What is authority?) Rather, it's the kind of rule that generates obedience, which is naturally associated with child-rearing and the Church.  In both force and persuasion are available, of course, but neither relies exclusively nor primarily on force and persuasion. (This is not to deny the many legal, normative, and social differences between the authority of parents and churches.) When one thinks of the authority of science(s) and scientific experts in terms of (Kuhnian) hegemonic paradigms, then speaking of the "authority of science" or "scientific authority" is a natural way to talk if we think of Church authority.  As is well known, there are many natural resonances between conceiving of the functioning of scientific paradigms and Church history. The connection is not merely historical-cultural; as I noted Koyré was himself both a great historian of religion and a key influence on Kuhn.

Somewhat surprisingly, Arendt does not discuss the authority of science in her essay. It is surprising because science is mentioned in her essay and it is treated as a cause in the undermining of traditional forms of authority (associated with the Church, educators, and parents). [It is notable  that Arendt is writing this already in the 50s and not in the late 60s as I assumed before I looked up the date.] In Arendt's hands social science paradigmatically offers functional explanations of social phenomena and institutions and, in so doing, deflates their pretensions. Now, science can do so -- analyze and deflate -- because its deliverances have some authority over our minds. To resist some such functional explanations (and the unmasking that follows it), is to resist being reasonable in a certain sense, that is, one comes across as being unreasonable. (I say 'in a certain sense' because, to be sure, Arendt is a critic of such functional-focused social science.) But, of course, both 'Frankfurt' and Foucault offered functional explanations of science's authority and this did undermine it (alongside moral and political disasters consequent -- e.g., eugenics, Hiroshima, etc. social planning, financial bubbles, etc. -- of the authority of science).

As an aside, the rise of methodological individualism pushed back at the authority of functional explanations even among Marxists (recall this post on Elster), and while controversy has not been eliminated, science's authority has survived in many ways such that we often trust some or the consensus of experts and act accordingly. (Of course, different sciences have different authority.)*  think functional explanation in social science are ripe for a come-back thanks to Dennett's distinction between doing things for reasons and having reasons for doing things. But that's for a different day.

Heather Douglas is committed to the (normative) idea(l) that within science no authority is to be used to prevent new evidence from having a hearing (it "should always be able to contest old positions, and this can only happen if values are not used to protect desired positions from unwanted criticism"). But in science's relationship with society, she thinks that science can have authority (based in part on its track record "instrumental success").

As the quoted passage reveals, by "authority," Douglas means to convey a certain kind of "trust" not obedience. This distinction matters because Douglas's wishes to promote a conception of science in which science engages in conversation with the public not as infallible experts talking to a needy, child-like public, but with receptivity such that constructive dialogue among folk with competing commitments can shape and improve research the outcome of which may surprise (epistemic uncertainty plays a big role in Douglas's account). It's her commitment to some such dialogue, hat helps explain why she thinks that "elucidating the proper roles and proper values for science" can be helpful to generating authority for science (both within and outside science). How this is supposed to work, exactly, I leave aside here. But the thought seems to be that by being more honest about the nature of science the more support it can have among an Enlightening public, because it becomes less vulnerable to debunking arguments.

For, one of Douglas's key moves is to argue that "Rather than stalemates of ideological clashes, we can see how understanding the intertwining of values and evidence in science provides ways to disagree rationally and to discuss our disagreements without disparaging our opponents." Douglas gets there by introducing (it's already in her 2009 book, see p. 153) what I call a neo-Popperian assumption that (ideologically diverse) participants in the public discussion need to reveal what (kind of) evidence would make them change their mind about some policy or claim. (Obviously, it is an open question if they will treat the evidence as evidence, etc.) Revealing this will spur on conversation and research.

The problem is, is that authority is meant to produce obedience of a certain sort not conversation nor persuasion.  Such obedience need not be unquestioning and can allow conversation, but authority is designed to end conversation (and make space for action or inaction). So, it's an awkward concept for Douglas to be relying on. Even if we treat authority as a kind of trust, it's clear that trust is necessary, but not sufficient to generate such (non-violent, non-forceful) obedience.  Something extra is needed. Now, Douglas can allow this because she treats authority not as a mass noun, but as something that can come in degrees. If this extra is not going to be force/violence (and we should not ignore the role of state-power), then this something extra is going to be either some kind of faith or value/aesthetic commitment, or rhetoric. I don't mean to suggest this is a criticism of Douglas; for all I know, she welcomes this result.

 

 

Social Modality and Ideology (on Lippmann, Stanley L.A. Paul and Adam Smith)

The systems of stereotypes may be the core of our personal tradition, the defenses of our position in society. They are an ordered more or less consistent picture of the world, to which our habits, our tastes, our capacities, our comforts and our hopes have adjusted themselves. They may not be a complete picture of the world, but they are a picture of a possible world to which we are adapted. In that world, people and things have their well-known places, and do certain expected things. We feel at home there. We fit in. We are members.--Walter Lippmann Public Opinion, Chapter VII (emphases added--ES).

In ch. 5 (ms) of Jason Stanley's "How Propaganda Works," Stanley's calls attention to, and discusses the quoted passage from Lippmann's Public Opinion. Stanley's discussion is excellent, and he deploys Lippmpan's accounts of stereotypes, or in Stanley's terminology, 'scripts,' which structure expectations, to explain both how legitimation of ideology works and to explain the role of ideology in generating resistance to rational revision. (An 'ideology' is "simply a social "script" that governs one's expectations, normative and practical.) Thus, Stanley, who uses Hume and Marx (and others) to motivate his approach to ideology, meets Elster's challenge to the Marxist in Sour Grapes (recall), that is, to supply empirically robust psychological and social mechanisms that can secure a consequence explanation of ideology. (Stanley appeals to empirical work by Payne, Steele, Eberhardt, and others.) In the chapters I have read Stanley does not mention Elster, but, in effect, he helps rehabilitate (alongside work of Gendler, Dotson, Siegel, and Haslanger--all cited and discussed by Stanley) the viability of the notion of ideology.

In the passage quoted from Lippmann, there is a further feature not emphasized by Stanley (but compatible with his approach) that I emphasized above: stereotypes (or social scripts) shape (what I'll call) social modality, that is, the shape of possible experience and counterfactual expectations within it. (Stanley makes a point like this without appealing to counterfactuals and possible world language.) According to Adam Smith in a properly functioning person there is a reciprocal relationship between the habituated mental anticipations of events and sound judgment (recall my discussion here). In my book on Adam Smith (ms) I call this -- in honor of Vernon Smith (in addition a terrific Adam Smith scholar) -- 'ecological rationality.' Homogeneous communities tend to share such ecological rationality. (Recall.)

These scripts exist at the individual and social level, but also at intermediate levels of say, scientific practitioners, journalists, experts like doctors and engineers and interact among each other in complex ways to generate social modalities with individual, disciplinary, class, gendered, race (etc.) perspectives. Many such social modalities are extremely robust anchored as they are in our ordinary cognitive functioning and enduring social institutions (the law, family-structure, discipline formation, the economy, education, etc.). So, in all disciplines there is a built-in tendency toward agreement (which, say in our profession, is reinforced by an image of science that values/promotes consensus along Kuhnian lines). Social modalities also explain the existence of systematically overlooked patterns (epistemic versions of Knightian uncertainty) of the sort recently reinvigorated by L.A. Paul.

As Beiser notes in the final chapter of his wonderful book on the German Historicist Tradition, Max Weber noted that in advanced economies, and increased division of labor, value pluralism is a natural consequence (recall). Given the framework developed by Stanley, we can understand why this so: social modalities will vary in an heterogeneous environment (as the division of labor is). As Stanley notes (and this echoes Smith's move), normative expectations are not immune from this process. 

This generates all kinds of questions (about pluralism, the social ontology of intentional objects that are social modality dependent, the role of a theorist that articulates/practices her subject within a certain entrenched modality, etc.). Here I note just the following: one problem in the vicinity here is that some reasonable expectations are manifestly unjust to outsiders. (Stanley discusses how the institutions of slavery generate ideologically sanctioned legal, commercial, cultural, gendered, racialized (etc.) expectations.) But within a lot of legal and moral areas we cannot really do without some such expectations (see here for an introduction). Life and commercial plans are made within unjust institutional structures by people that are, perhaps, indirectly complicit in them but not responsible for them. (Of course, some may well be responsible or have sufficient privilege within them to generate duties.) That is to say, an intentional violation of an entrenched social modality will generate demands, perhaps some quite reasonable, to be compensated for psychological, political, and commercial losses, including counterfactual ones that will be utterly unexpected.

On the Carnap-Strawson debate and the soul of Analytical Philosophy during the Cold War

If the reader is shocked or offended by the two last-mentioned procedures, I hasten to assure him that they, occur, of course, only in the more barbarous regions, like America, where the sacrilege of tampering with the holy tradition of language is sometimes connived at.--Carnap "P.F. Strawson on Linguistic Naturalism" (937)

The distinction I used above between the way things happen in the world, and our own natures, is here, though vague, important. For it is a part of our nature that, things other than ourselves being as they are, it is natural for us to have the conceptual apparatus that we do have. But human nature is diverse enough to allow of another, though related, use of philosophical imagination. This consists in imagining ways in which, without things other than ourselves being different from what they are, we might view them through the medium of a different conceptual apparatus; Some metaphysics is best, or most charitably, seen as consisting in part in exercises of this sort...Of course, even when it can be so interpreted, it is not presented as a conceptual or structural revision by means of which we might see things differently; it is presented as a picture of thing as they really are, instead of as they delusively seem. This presentation with its contrast between esoteric-reality and daily delusion, involves, and is the consequence of, the unconscious distortion of ordinary concepts, i.e. of the ordinary use of linguistic expressions. So metaphysics though it can sometimes be charitably interpreted in the way I suggest, in fact always involves paradox and perplexities of the kind I first mentioned; and sometimes embodies no rudimentary vision, but merely rudimentary mistakes. Strawson (1963) "Carnap's Views on Constructed Systems Versus Natural Languages in Analytic Philosophy," (516; [emphases in original--ES])

Branden Fitelson wrote me a lovely, critical letter in response to viewing my lecture, "Anti-Mathematicism and Formal Philosophy" at the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy available online. In it he reminded me of an exchange by Strawson and Carnap that he uses in teaching. The papers represent philosophical fireworks of the highest order--they are, as Strawson's title indicates, a debate over the very soul of analytical philosophy. The papers repay repeated re-readings, and both sides make many  insightful observations on the philosophical merits of formal philosophy (a topic I regularly post about, see here and here). In particular, one is reminded -- and this is especially noteworthy in a philosophical age in which the guide to graduate education provided by the PGR does not even consider expertise in philosophy of education as worthy of note -- that one of the central philosophical issues is the nature of philosophical education.*

As a speculative aside, prompted by some remarks by Jason Stanley, the displacement of philosophical education as worthy of any attention was, in part, due to the success of Strawson's and Carnap's students and their intellectual allies in discrediting the non-scientific wing of Pragmatism associated, say, with Dewey. Subsequently, even Plato scholarship was reconstituted as unrelated to philosophical education. (The Meno and Theaetetus are then taught as obviously belonging primarily to the history of epistemology, etc.)

To return to my main point, in his response to Strawson, Carnap construes the debate as one between (linguistic) "naturalists" (that is Strawson, although this is not Strawson's term) and "constructionists" (Carnap). This construction allows Carnap to recycle some of his anti-Quine-ean moves against an opponent that has fewer resources to respond. He then offers effective responses to most of Strawson's charges, showing that they rely on unreliable distinctions/assumptions, misrepresentations of Carnap's program, and, crucially, that even where Strawson's positive program has merit, the two programs can be mutually supportive. Now, due to Strawson's title and the way the dialectic is construed it seems that what is at stake is ultimately the respective roles of natural language (and empirical observations on use), and the role of formal languages (and the merits of explication).+ Because Carnap has the last word in the Schilpp volume, he also gets away ignoring a feature of Strawson's argument (the passage quoted above) that Strawson admittedly qualifies as not being "central," (515), but does characterize as "inportant" and "a wide field open to philosophical imagination." (516)

I have quoted Strawson's defense of the role of "imagining ways in which, without things other than ourselves being different from what they are, we might view them through the medium of a different conceptual apparatus." Now the first thing to note is that this is presented as an extremely modest enterprise. There is no sense that an alternative conception of reality might be a guide to action or generate a vision of reality worth attaining (see philosophical prophecy). Given that Strawson makes disparaging remarks ("grandiose plan of logical atomism") of Carnapian "planners," the conservative implications are deliberate here. Strawson's version of descriptive analysis and descriptive metaphysics, self-consciously leaves things alone (recall yesterday's post). No doubt there will be howls of derision from Oxford -- if they pretended to care about my digressions -- but this is (further) evidence of the ignoble effects of the cold war on philosophy's self-image.

Piketty, Ray, and Economic Explanation

Inequality has been rising, and to see it well, one should study “top incomes,”: those of the top 1% or even, in a variant which we might call SuperOccupy, the top 0.1% or 0.01%. This is an extremely important observation. There are lots of people in the top 1% (more in India, for instance, than in a good-sized European country), and they cast a long and enviable shadow...Even a large sample survey will often fail to pick these people up, so Piketty’s meticulous examination of tax records (along with co-authors) in different countries is to be applauded. This is data work at its best, with a well-defined reason for doing it, and when I read the papers with Emmanuel Saez and Tony Atkinson that put these findings together, I felt I had learnt something.--D. Ray, on Piketty's Capital. [HT Hülya Eraslan]

One of the most important economists today that you probably have never heard of, Debraj Ray,* wrote a careful, amusing, and -- as one ought to expect -- very insightful response to Piketty's Capital. Ray matters in economics: he is the co-editor of the leading journal. Ray is one of the intellectual leaders of the new generation of 'theorists' that combine mathematical sophistication and data with a focus on policy relevance.* Ray is also an important figure in development economics, which he has helped move to the center of the discipline. You might think such sociology is irrelevant, but as Ray notes, Piketty's Capital has a self-presentation and narrative which is a form of "positioning" that appeals to his once-inside now purported outside-status in the profession. Part of Piketty's rhetoric is to rail against "simplistic mathematical models" (16; 574, and, especially, the autobiography on p. 31-2 culminating in an indictment against "petty mathematical problems.") This is not just a matter of mere positioning within economics; for, -- and Ray does not comment on this -- at crucial junctures, Piketty relies on a contrast between the esoteric mathematical models of the experts and democratic decision-making under conditions of transparency (e.g., 480, 513; recall also this post; Vallier also picks up on this [3E/3P] and will blog about in the future). But it is also a matter of positioning oneself as being the privileged expert with the public. Even if Ray's irritation were wholly self-interested, he has put his finger on on a non-trivial feature of Piketty's rhetorical strategy. (Don't get me wrong lots of economists become such privileged experts with worse strategies: i.e., they are bought by some interested party, or they get chosen by a politician who likes what s/he hears, etc.)

That Piketty's is, in part, a rhetorical strategy is clear from two facts: first, when it suits him he, too, relies on fairly simple mathematical models (often he is disarmingly upfront about this, e.g. 364). Second, he relies in non-trivial ways on existing economics. I had pointed to this in my second post on Piketty, but I am really an amateur and Ray's post adds a lot more detail, insight, and depth to what I had said. In particular, what becomes clear is that in some non-trivial respects Piketty is working with commitments that are found in the old economics work-horses (that is, the descendants of the "models of Harrod and Domar") and some so-called "dynamic efficiency" assumptions (see Ray's slightly more technical appendix here.)  Piketty is a world-class economist, so this should not surprise. But as I pointed out before, it is unclear what constraints are driving his partial appropriation of existing economic theory.

Now, the core of Ray's piece is actually applied philosophy of science:

Milton Piketty

I can see that the search for constants may be a valuable way to guide research. Clearly there are empirical regularities in economics that speak of the existence of constants. I have in mind such phenomena as the extraordinary similarity of long-term interest rates over centuries, the stability of the relationship between the velocity of money and interest rates, the similarity of lag patterns around the world. There is no reason in principle why there should not be constants underlying that kind of behavior even though they do deal with human action and reaction.--Milton Friedman to Eric Schliesser, August 24, 2004.

 

In any case, this virtual stability of the pure return on capital over the very long run (or more likely this slight decrease of about one-quarter to one-fifth, from 4-5 percent in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to 3-4 percent today) is a fact of major importance for this study.--Thomas Piketty, Capital,  p. 206; [see this chart]

 

In a country, such as Great Britain, where money is lent to government at three per cent and to private people upon a good security at four and four and a half, the present legal rate, five per cent, is perhaps as proper as any.--Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, 2.4

After dipping in Piketty's fashionable book, I have started to read it with a great deal of care. I look forward to posting about it regularly over the next few months.

 

Piketty is the true heir of Milton Friedman. This claim might seem perverse if one focuses on policy. But if one looks at (a) methodology, and, crucially, (b) the conception of what economics might be about, ultimately, then Piketty's book is an attempt to return economics to an approach that was never really dominant, but that can be book-ended between Adam Smith's Digression on Silver (or Hume's population essay) and Friedman's (1963) Monetary History. This approach to economics is focused on (i) the longue duree (centuries rather than quarters); (ii) data driven while being extremely sensitive to limitations in -- and self-conscious about the social construction of -- one's data; (iii) a suspicion of intricate mathematical modeling accompanied by a privileging of simple models; (iv) resolutely macro; (v) a recognition of the political (legal, etc.) context of economic activity. There is also a more subtle similarity: (vi) the aim of economics is to generate an "intellectual climate" that can influence policy (Piketty, 549). Now, in his book Piketty gives (i)-(v) a name, "serial history." This focuses on "economic and social history based on the evolution of prices, incomes, and fortunes." (p. 582 n. 35)  And, as he admits at the end of his book, the proper name for (i)-(vi) is: "political economy." (574)

W.E.B. Du Bois, economist, philosopher, true lover of humanity

I have told you of those seventy-five landholders in Lowndes County--owning $25,000 worth of land, building new and better houses and working steadily and saving. And yet, gentlemen, not a single one of those men under the new constitution of Alabama has the right to vote: they cannot say a word as to the condition of the roads that pass their farmers, the situation of the schools, the choice of teachers, the kind of county officers or the rate of taxation. They are just as absolutely disfranchised as the worst criminal in the penitentiary and as I am in Georgia. You can twist this matter up and down and apologize for it and reason it out--its wrong, and unjust, and economically unsound, and you know it. (Du bois, 1906 "The Economic Future of the Negro," 242)

During the nineteenth century, philosophy, political economy, and moral sciences were overlapping disciplines that remained in fruitful, albeit increasingly fractured, conversation through the first half of the twentieth century. As philosophy became professionalized (as a species of scientific philosophy), it lost all memory of this; John Rawls educated himself into these matters and was the last to have a deep and wide knowledge of the issues. The oldest generation of active economists (who were still required to take history of economics in their graduate education) are the last disappearing store of knowledge about any of this.

One myth about the shared history of philosophy and economics is the idea that the historical overlap between the two is essentially constituted by utilitarianism.* W.E.B. Du Bois was no utilitarian, yet at the start of his career he was a distinguished economist trained in Berlin in the German historical school, then led by Schmoller and Wagner.** The passage above is, as Prasch suggests (320), directed at the economist John Bates Clark -- whose name is still remembered in professional economics because of the very influential medal named after him --, who had argued that economic development had to be prior to expansion of the franchise. Du Bois points to the enduring moral and economic truth: economic activity is embedded in (developing) political frameworks, which play a non-trivial role in generating patterns of economic outcomes.