Digressions&Impressions

Long Covid Diaries: Downs and Ups

It’s time for another long covid diary entry. (For my official "covid diaries" see here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here;  here; here; here;  here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here;  here;  here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here;  here; here; here; here; here; here; here; and here) As usual it’s a mixed bag.

I was so disheartened a month ago I didn’t want to do another ‘diaries update.’ To recap: the main remaining long-term effect of my long covid is the onset of migraine when I am socially overstimulated or cognitively multitasking, exercise (alas), and when I have lack of sleep. (Undoubtedly stress is a contributing factor.) I have been getting Botox shots in my neck every 12 weeks to combat this. It usually takes about 9-14 days for the Botox to make a noticeable difference. And then I am migraine free for about five to six weeks. Not ideal, but more manageable.

I got my last Botox shot around the time of my last update (the middle of December). And by January it was pretty clear that it was not working as usual this time around. In addition, we had rented a lovely home for the holidays, but it was located alongside the fairway of a tropical golf-course. And so every morning the mowing machines woke me and made a droning noise for a few hours. Even ear-plugs did not help much to cancel the noise and discomfort. I spent most of the holiday with a migraine or taking anti-inflammatories.

When we returned from holiday, I had my annual blood check. And my kidney functions looked dubious (a known side of effect of my anti-inflammatories). I wondered whether I was heading toward an awful choice between kidney failure and structural migraine.

I didn’t feel like sharing any of this because just the idea of writing it all up was disheartening. And I didn’t want to sound pathetic while so many other folk have far worse struggles. I also had a simmering irritation with my employer that after being on disability for two years, I had ended up teaching hundreds of hours above my assigned contract hours. But due to a combination of factors,the actual work load was even more than registered. (It’s not uncommon in my university, and so I knew it was not directed at me personally.)

At some point I pulled a muscle in my back — it hurt so much for several weeks — that I thought I had a hernia or pinched nerve. (My GP eventually disabused me of this.) With all of that going on I wasn’t sure I should head off to California for a week-long conference, "Is Philosophy Useful for Science, and/or Vice Versa?" at Chapman University. But the day before I left, I was an examiner for an external Viva at Cambridge. I ended up also meeting a number of academic friends for coffee there. Much to my surprise, I did not collapse and saw no need for any medication to pull me through.

When I arrived in California after a long day of flying, I was locked out of the (lovely) home assigned to me and needed the (very nice) campus security officer to let me in. All week I struggled with my back and with horrible jet lag. Unsurprisingly I started the week with a migraine. Yet, the day at Cambridge also had given me hope a corner had been turned, and I held on to that.

Then I received news that a new blood test showed that my kidneys are functioning fine. And, somewhat oddly, while I shuffled around Old Orange (I got myself a massage that made things worse) without sleep, the feared-for collapse didn’t occur. Rather, the Sun and the conference comradery evidently gave me a huge boost. Because I was scheduled as the final talk of the event, I allowed myself a fairly wide-ranging set of provocations (see here for the video recording).

When I returned to Amsterdam, jet-lagged and limping, for my large lecture course (this year 340 students), part of me wondered whether this would be my last semester teaching full time. In addition, I was very taken aback that during my first two lectures the students, while respectfully listening and showing their appreciation with an applause after, were not asking questions from the floor. It felt like lecturing to a wall.

Yet, it’s a month later and I have had no reason to take any anti-inflammatories since. I have had no migraines at all. I am sleeping soundly; for the first time in more than three years, I am not waking up every ninety minutes to three hours. During the last few weeks there have been only two mornings when I awoke thinking, ‘urrgg it’s back;’ but with meditation, a hot shower, and espresso the migraine or whatever was back would dissipate without meds. Luckily the students have also become much more lively.

I miss my family, but otherwise I am rather optimistic about life again. When possible, I keep planning carefully with plenty of rest-moments in between activities. I also try to avoid multi-tasking too much on a single day. So, I wouldn’t claim that I am where I was before I got sick. But I have a rich social life; still enjoy teaching; and am also more willing to accept lecture invites.

Because of my growing confidence about my health, I also have less anxiety before busy periods in my schedule. This week-end I am returning to the Ghent philosophy department for the first time to give a talk since I left there almost a decade ago. Next week, I’ll get another round of Botox shots, but I have wondered whether I should cancel. All in all I am clearly much better than three months ago. If the relentless Amsterdam grey weather wouldn’t indicate otherwise, I would say that ‘'Spring is in the air.’

On Borges, John Perry, Spinoza, and Identity

[I will phase out D&I at typepad. This post was first published at:  digressions.impressions.substack here. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber at <digressionsimpressions.substack.com>]

I once met John Perry for a few minutes in line at a hotel Starbucks at an Eastern APA when those were still the job-market. We didn't know each other, and we never met again (so far). But I knew his name because I owned his A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality; our chat was brief, but it was kind not the least because his eyes didn't wander to scan the room while we talked. I forgot what we talked about, but, as the kids say, sometimes the vibe is more important than the words and it was one of the few sweet moments during that otherwise dismal APA.

So, I'll forgive him that in his (2007) Amherst Lecture which offers a reading of “Borges and I,” Perry opts for "the more straightforward interpretation" in supposing that the implied author of "Borges and I" is Borges the (famous) actual author of the piece, and not some fictional counterpart or doppelgänger of the actual author. After all, we're dealing with Borges, the author of Pierre Menard!

"Borges and I' is, in fact, about the estranged relationship between the implied author of "Borges and I" and the famous author, Borges. So, it's not impossible that the implied author of "Borges and I" is the fictional counterpart.

Perry actually acknowledges this possibility on some level later in his argument when he concedes that "in following the writer’s thoughts, we must to a certain extent pretend that the writer is not Borges." But Perry thinks we can't sustain this perspective because "the interest of the story is the thoughts that the writer has about himself" (emphasis added) and not the implied fictional counterpart.

As an aside, the less straightforward interpretation that Perry rejects is that "Borges could have written a story like this about some other author." But that's compatible with the implied author being (not just a counterpart/doppelgänger of Borges, but) also (say) Eric Schliesser. And it's quite clear that the latter option is not really implied by the story. So, while I agree with Perry that this is less likely and should be rejected, I don't think, as I hinted in the previous two paragraphs, Perry has canvassed all the relevant options when he opts for what he takes to be the more straightforward interpretation.

Perry's interpretation of "Borges and I" actually goes off the rails, I think, shortly thereafter when he writes that "It would not only be odd, but quite impossible, for Borges to survive the writer. Even if all that is meant by “survival” is living on as a literary figure, if Borges lives on in that way, so will the writer."  This is not right if we reject the more straightforward interpretation.

But even on the straightforward interpretation there is a wrinkle that Perry does not confront. (I say this with some trepidation not just because I remember his kindness so fondly, but also because between the two of us, he is actually the expert on identity.) Before I get to that, for Perry, "Borges and I" is fundamentally about the expression of "a certain alienation [the actual Borges] feels about certain aspects of himself and certain achievements of his." The alienation thesis is quite plausible. But the reason for Perry's confidence here is that he is working with a theory of identity (let's call it a 'classical' one) in which "the relation that A and B have when there is just one thing that is both A and B. It is the relation that Tully has to Cicero, the evening star has to the morning star, Mark Twain has to Samuel Clemens, Bill Blythe has to Bill Clinton, and so on. Identity is the relation that each thing has to itself and no other." This is familiar enough for philosophical readers.

In order to hold on to this classical theory of identity and to handle the ways in which A and B (Borges and I or I and Borges) may seem to come apart in "Borges and I," Perry introduces the idea of "motivating cognitive complex." If you are interested in finding out what that is read Perry’s lecture. I'll stipulate here that it can do the job Perry wants it to do.

To be sure, I don't mean to deny that Perry may be playing an elaborate, Borgesian game with us, too. After all, along the way, while discussing a thought experiment of Hector-Neri Castañeda, Perry notes that "then I see on the web that the date when John Perry published his Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality was 1978, that information goes into the same mental file where information about what is in front of me, whether I am hungry or not, and the like, is kept. I get the information “John Perry published the dialogue in 1978” and this leads to the thought, “I published the dialogue in 1978.”" One may well wonder who this I really is supposed to be. 

Be that as it may, I don't think that Borges (in the straightforward interpretation) or the implied author, Borges's counterpart (in my preferred interpretation) is relying on the classical theory of identity in "Borges and I." And my reason for thinking that is two-fold: first, the story ends with an epistemic claim: "I don’t know which of the two writes this page." On Perry's reading this ought to be deeply puzzling. For, by stipulation (the straightforward interpretation), the persona who is writing the piece is Borges the famous author. So this doubt really can’t arise on Perry’s straightforward reading.

Second, Perry completely, and somewhat oddly (he is a professional philosopher, after all), skips the explicit invocation of Spinoza in "Borges and I" (which in the translations I am familiar with is shorter than a double-spaced page). 

It's pretty clear that Spinoza rejects the classical theory of identity. This is obvious in Spinoza's doctrine of eternality in which the X that becomes eternal loses all the particularity one naturally  (and also on the classical theory of identity) associates with X and becomes, in fact, in a certain sense co-extensive with the true or the truths (Y). But it’s not so that from the perspective of eternity, X=Y. (See here for an attempt to describe this.) In fact, Spinoza also rejects what Tarski calls the 'classical' conception of truth (and defends what one might call a metaphysical identity theory of truth (recall here)). Rather, like the Muslim philosophers' views of God’s knowledge (as Al-Ghazali infers, they deny that God knows individuals), from the perspective of eternity, Spinoza's individuals and individuality are ephemera (and so unknowable). My point here is not to defend Spinoza.

Now, it's possible, of course, that the implied author of "Borges and I" has a different interpretation of Spinoza than the one hinted at in the previous paragraph. Fair enough. In the story, the following is claimed: "Spinoza understood that all things want to be preserved in their being." This is an evocation of a feature of the so-called general 'Conatus doctrine' (EIIIp6). In fact, it echoes Ethics IIIp9 (and a whole series of propositions developed in parts IV/V of the Ethics): "The mind, both insofar as it has clear and distinct ideas and also insofar as it has confused ideas, strives to persevere in being." In "Borges and I" the doctrine gets glossed as follows (in the translation of Ilan Stavans): 

the stone eternally wants to be a stone and the tiger a tiger. I shall remain in Borges, not in myself (if I am someone), but I recognize myself less in his books than in many others and in the laborious strumming of a guitar. Years ago I tried freeing myself from him and went from the mythologies of the arrabal to the games with time and the infinite, but those games are Borges’ now and I shall come up with other things. Thus my life is a flight and I lose everything and everything belongs to oblivion, or to the other.

Again, at first one may think it's pretty clear Perry is onto something when he suggests that this expresses alienation. Perhaps an alienation so extreme, that the conatus doctrine ends up in a kind of inversion: rather than tending toward eternity, it tends in the implied author toward oblivion or near-total loss of identity.

Before I close this digression, I should admit that I ended up returning to Borges' story because my friend Petra had bait-and-switched me into buying Amina Cain's fascinating essay, A Horse at Night. This essay mentions two of Borges' stories (including "Borges and I”.) I write ‘bait-and-switch,’ because Petra had sent me a picture of a paragraph from Cain, which I only later realized (while reading Cain's essay) was an excerpt from Annie Ernaux's The Possession.

A major theme of A Horse at Night, is how in "writing and life" two things can be imaginatively projected on top of each other without eclipsing each other and, thereby, generating something new. That is, Cain explores the complex nature of identity. To put this as a serious joke: I find Cain's implied author in A Horse at Night nearly insufferable and banal when she is engaged in autobiography and mesmerizingly evocative and interesting when discussing other artist’s works of art. For the record: Cain treats the implied author of "Borges and I" as sad.

Neither Perry nor Cain discusses Spinoza or the skeptical conclusion of "Borges and I:" "I don’t know which of the two writes this page." It's not obvious on Perry's reading why this occurs. It's a rather extreme form of skepticism; it denies knowledge of the self-identifying features of the Cartesian ego in the very act of affirming its existence. It is especially notable — alerted by Cain — that this occurs in the writer’s life that one forgets or losses oneself in a certain sense. (Cain touches on this from the perspective of the Soto Zen tradition, not Spinozism.)

If we glance at Spinoza's theory of identity the puzzle disappears if we imagine, as we are allowed in fiction, that the sentence, "I don’t know which of the two writes this page," is written from the perspective of eternity/oblivion. For from that perspective such individualizing marks are not known/knowable. Of course, the joke is knowing that one is Borges, or the implied author, or his very vain counterpart, wouldn't matter from that perspective either, or at least it shouldn't.

• This first appeared at: <On Borges, John Perry, Spinoza, and Identity - by nescio13 (substack.com)> a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Covid Diaries: A Mixed Bag with some joy, and the mediocre

I have been on leave at the University of Arizona for nearly a full month now. It's time for another entry in my Covid Diaries. (For my official "covid diaries" see here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here;  here; here; here; here, here; here; here, here; here; here; here; here; here; here; and here). My situation is a mixed bag. I have a lot of great news, but also non-trivial new challenges. 

First, I love the weather in Tucson in November. My hosts have given me perfect working conditions with a nice office, and a lovely apartment a convenient fifty-minute walk through town. The free trolley connects my apartment with the university, but I prefer being outdoors and getting some activity walking to compus while taking pictures of local murals and the sky. I pinch myself that being paid to join a research group while on leave is possible in my academic life; although it's also a long time, too long away from my family. It's my son's thirteenth birthday tomorrow, and the occasion is bittersweet.

Anyway, let me start with the promising new. I am much better able to engage in socially complex activities: meet people for lunch in restaurants, hang out in cafes, attend lectures, give public lectures, and most amazingly of all: hike and talk simultaneously. Dave Schmidtz took me up Tumamoc Hill on Thanksgiving morning. And I felt so alive overlooking the city and the desert in the wind on top.

In addition, I often don't need any naproxen (my anti-inflammatory) to complete these activities. So, my quality of social and intellectual life has improved greatly while I have been able to cut back significantly on using anti-inflammatories. It's really enthralling not to be hypersensitive in environments with different kinds of voices or background noise. While I am still not planning to participate in large conferences, I am taking on commitments to give papers in workshops and department colloquia. I really did not expect this to be possible during the Summer when I felt I was stagnating.

Second, and unfortunately, my symptoms have shifted again. (As regular readers know this happens about every three to four months or so.) I develop mysterious headaches in the middle of the night without much rhyme and reason as far as discernable triggering conditions. (Having said that, going to bed on the late side or too much screentime before bedtime are reliable triggers of night-time headaches.) In addition, even on quiet days, I need many more breaks while writing on my laptop and even while reading books.

I have started to work in blocks of two hours, and it is not uncommon that I only have the cognitive energy/focus for one or two such blocks during a day. Because I don't have other obligations, I still get a lot of work done. But I have shifted my attention from my book project -- which feels too big right now -- to developing some paper projects. In fact, for the first time in a half a decade, I have three papers under review at journals. 

My leave ends next week, and I'll spend a few days in Boulder with my best friends before I re-unite with my family for our annual holiday break on a near deserted island in the Bahamas. (Yes, don't cry for me Argentina!) Taking unpaid leave from my job in Amsterdam is the smartest thing I have ever done for myself (other than giving up my job Stateside to give my relationship with my better half an opportunity). But I could not do it without the sacrifice of my immediate family. Luckily, I am clearly much better than I was before, and I have grounds for confidence that 2023 will keep improving. I have three weeks of quiet before, in January, I start preparing for my giant lecture course (which starts in February).

Covid Diaries: Transitions

After a week of family holiday in California with my immediate family, I am about to fly out to Tucson for a six week research stay at the University of Arizona. It seems like a good moment for a new entry in my covid diaries. It's time for another entry in my Covid Diaries. (For my official "covid diaries," see here; here; here; here; here; here; here;  here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here, here; here; here, here; here; here; here; here; here; and here.) I am writing these entries roughly a month apart for some time now. I seem to have turned an important corner since August. While I qualify this below (and will also mention some frustrating features about new symptoms), it’s fair to state that I am clearly much better than I have been at any time since I first got sick.

 

Before I get to that, my mom caught covid back in Amsterdam after managing to avoid it for so long. She is fully vaccinated, but at her age it’s still a bit terrifying. She was suffering greatly during the first few days; and while I was a bit relieved after talking to her yesterday it still sounds very challenging. So spare a few thoughts, prayers, and well wishes for her. Stateside Paxlovid seems to be almost a routine part of covid care (I can’t count the number of people who told me they had been prescribed it even with very modest symptoms), but typically (and somewhat frustratingly to me) not so in Holland.

 

After a few very quiet and deeply intellectually satisfying weeks at Duke with very structured and a low-key schedule (special shout out to Sunday Dim Sum at Geoff Sayre-McCord and Happy), I allowed myself to step outside of my comfort zone on a number of occasions. To summarize the take-away: the good news is that with judicious use of anti-inflammatories I can survive, even thrive, in social environments including pretty challenging ones. It’s not that I don’t encounter my limits (especially in larger, socially demanding environments), but the fall-out tends to be fairly limited with less cognitive and physical fatigue and almost no headaches, and with recovery periods that tend to be much smoother (better sleep). More on this below.

 

When I studied in Boston and Chicago, I would frequently meet my dad in New York city (where he had studied). Once, about twenty five years ago, when he was around sixty, as we were walking near his (and his father-in-law’s) old stomping grounds in the garment district, he complained that New York was so loud. It was the first time I felt he was aging. I often think of that moment because I increasingly believe, as I have noted before during these diaries, that a lot of symptoms we commonly associate with aging are really the aftermath of a viral infection. (I would love to study this hypothesis with a historical epidemiologist.)

 

This past week with our son, I wondered if he saw me as old now. Again, while most of my symptoms have vastly improved (I am really happy), it turns out that physical exercise has become much more difficult. I have a very strange fatigue when I try to exercise or run—it’s as if the brain signals don’t really reach the muscles, and that I have slept very badly. (Oddly I don’t notice the problem in my lungs.) This was not the case previously (after my initial five months of bedridden-ness had ended last year).

 

Early in the week we went to a NBA game (the Clippers vs Suns) at the Staples Center. And I was amazed that the experience felt like living in a boom-box. The beat and sound (organized by the Clippers/stadium) was unrelenting. (It was nothing like how I remembered the old Boston Garden or Chicago’s United Center.) Because he Clippers were completely outplayed and outclassed by the Suns, the crowd was rather lackluster during the game, and so it could have been worse for me. But much to my surprise, I survived the ordeal and even enjoyed it (especially watching his reactions).

Interestingly enough, I found the NBA game less challenging than a visit to Boston a week earlier, where I attended a retirement reception of my teachers Dan Dennett and George Smith. Ahead of it they had both written me expressing the idea that the other would really appreciate it if I attended. The reception was low key, but the back-ground murmur and the multiple demands on my attention clearly exhausted me—I had to cancel my dinner plans and rest. (It didn’t help that the hotel I had been staying in was next to a construction site and the generators were clearly audible in my room—I ended up measuring >65 decibels!) In light of this, and my experiences at the Chapel Hill philosophy colloquium (I had to call it quits after two talks), I have decided to pull out of larger conferences (the Eastern APA) and to skipp my cousin’s wedding.

 

One other new symptom is that at various times, and completely unaccountably (so without rhyme or reason), I will wake up with a splitting headache in the middle of the night a few times in a row during the night and a few nights in a row. Because I take melatonin – which is a godsend -- and have a good meditation routine I usually manage to fall back asleep fairly quickly, but sometimes I have to take anti-inflammatories to ease it along.

As an aside: it’s well-known that naproxen is not very good for one’s stomach. But it’s been surprisingly difficult to find papers or data with exact figures for the risks and thresh-holds given my age and other underlying issues. No physician nor pharmacological experts have been able to point me to any informative evidence. So, it’s made me curious what the underlying evidence is that has made it to the textbooks in all countries, especially because I do need to take the anti-inflammatories a few times a week.

 

Anyway, be that as it may, let me wrap up. Because my social life is so much better I am also much more upbeat. Also,I really enjoyed being with my wife and son. I was much less noise sensitive and generally able to partake in daily banter and activities without it being cognitively painful. As I have noted in these diaries, the way my long covid symptoms manifested made it especially difficult for me to be social with others and for others to be around me. So, saying a temporary goodbye to them knowing that I am now much better at family life again felt very difficult. Okay, so on that wistful note I’ll end this post. I am in a better place and grateful for it.

Covid Diaries: Good Enough Professing

It's time for another entry in my Covid Diaries. (For my official "covid diaries," see here; here; here;  here;here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here;  here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here;  here, here; here; here, here; here; here; here; and here). Finally, I can report some modest, good news. Without any evident explanation, I suddenly improved greatly from the start of August onward. I found swimming enjoyable again, my writing picked up, and I had the impression I was becoming less noise sensitive. I went to the opera at Glyndebourne with my better half. (That's annual tradition for us, but she went without me earlier in the year.) It's a long drive in both directions, but we decided to try it because intermission is a leisurely picnic. I adored it, and except for a few minutes while the orchestra was tuning and the audience buzzing with anticipation at the start of the second act, which triggered my noise sensitivity, it was marvelous. (Well, I loved the music and the performances, but the production was awful.) More recently, I attended a department (management) meeting for ninety minutes, and have even ventured out to enjoy lunch and coffee in outdoor terraces. So, I am participating in life more fully again!

Long covid is a roller-coaster -- 'coaster corona' -- with changing symptoms and often false starts and sudden setbacks. But this past month feels qualitatively different. I started using anti-inflammatories (basically extra strength Aleve) a few months ago, and I finally have figured out when to use them and what the so-called minimally effective dosage is in order to prevent the weird head fatigue and headaches. In the Spring I was averaging about six headache days per months and now it's really zero. (I do sometimes get headaches in the middle of the night, but with meditation and melatonin I tend to sleep those off.) And as the first paragraph indicates, I have grown bolder trying to manage meetings or conversations without meds and being alert to the onset of symptoms. 

The other big news is that since yesterday I am formally off Dutch disability (and so '100% healthy' again)! [I wondered if I should put a sly reference to that info into yesterday's digression!] My occupational physician and I were working towards this decision for about a half year now. Incrementally reducing my 'disability percentage.' The decision became much easier once I had a Fall research leave Stateside lined up (thank you family, Duke, Arizona, and department!), and the sudden improvement this past month. It also helps that my spring teaching is relatively light: only one massive lecture course I have taught before. (I basically cased in a year and half of "over-hours.'') So, the real 'work test' will only occur Fall 2023, a year from now, when I have to start teaching a full load again, including discussion heavy seminars (which was so difficult last Fall).

I am by no means recovered to where I was in all kinds of un-expected ways, but I do sincerely expect that I can actually do most of the activities expected from me in my position. After ''good enough parenting" this should be "good enough professing" (GEP)! Hopefully by this time next year I have continued to improve, and so I can be confident about being a solid GEP.

Earlier in the month, Shelley Tremain published an interview with me (big reveal!) at Biopolitical Philosophy here. I mention it because, due to space constraints, we had to cut a paragraph that, after the fact, I thought rather important. During the interview I explain how much my chronic illness prevents me from participating in professional activities and triggers a withdrawal from the world. But I added a qualification. Here's the paragraph we cut:

I don’t mean to suggest my life is primarily an adjustment to limitations by narrowing the range of activity. While that’s undoubtedly true – I have had to give up on lots of activities, especially social ones. But it’s also opened up new ones. I had to give up cycling around Amsterdam (because I am native born that’s really a second nature there). I started to walk to work or to the supermarket. And on foot one moves so more slowly that one really has time to take in the astonishing beauty, even sublimity of the place. Because my agenda was much less cluttered, I would also work with time to enjoy my surroundings. I started to take pictures of my walks on my mobile phone; and I found that these, in turn, connected me with all kinds of people; amateur photographers, folks that share my aesthetic, old friends, etc.  And it's been such a thrill that amidst non-trivial solitude I felt a sense of community. 

That seems like a good place to end this post.

On Bureaucrat Philosophers

During my Summer blogging break philosophy's modern association and intertwining with bureaucracy was highlighted in two stimulating essays, which both received considerable social media attention (by philosophy standards): first, in his moving, autobiographical essay, "Two Tendencies," on what we might call the praxis and orientation of philosophy, Liam Kofi Bright articulates a kind of "dualism" in which one of the major tendencies is titled, 'Basically Pleasant Bureaucrat.' Second, while writing at DailyNous about the tensions, even incommensurable value conflicts, that may arise when one innovates in teaching in light of the values of the underlying philosophical source material, C. Thi Nguyen, distinguishes among the roles (and values associated with these roles) of "Teacher, Bureaucrat, Cop."

Now, in C. Thi Nguyen's essay the bureaucrat is explicitly associated with "fairness" in grading and (in more "authoritarian" role) the enforcement of the rules. For those of us who work in systems where the academic is a civil servant (as the Dutch system was in living memory), or where the process of how one assigns grades can be evaluated and challenged at and by exam committees (who in turn have to show evidence of due process and proper application of rules to possible appeals committees), C. Thi Nguyen's challenges of combining pedagogic or mentoring principles with bureaucratic ones are undoubtedly familiar. His lively descriptions of the conflicting considerations involved resonated with me. (Go read the essay!)

However, fairness is not really a bureaucratic principle.* Impartiality and rule-following (and, as he suggests, rule-enforcement) are. I noticed C. Thi Nguyen's emphasis on fairness because in my own Dutch context (teaching at a huge state school) students and administrators alike will use 'equality' -- in the sense of treating like alike not in the sense of giving everyone the same actual grade -- when they focus on the proper process of grading. Despite the different vocabularies, C. Thi Nguyen and my Dutch students both capture the same commitment or principle that indeed is meant to block species of judgment and discrimination, let alone prevent any measure, if that were possible, of how the soul has been turned to the good, to infiltrate one's grading practices.

Once higher education is shaped by government funding in a Weberian state, in which degrees play certain certification roles in public life (or where students can sue over their  grades), it seems inevitable that some bureaucratic principles seep into and constrain professors' evaluative or grading practices in virtue of the fact that we are functionaries of potentially huge organizations. To what degree that undermines the very possibility of a philosophical education I set aside here.

Because he is vocal admirer of Carnap, even one of our foremost exemplifications of what (the Spirit of) a Left Vienna philosophy would look like today, I was not surprised that Liam Kofi Bright embraces the cognitive division of labor and even bureaucracy. Even so his characterization of the Basically Pleasant Bureaucrat surprised me, and in order to explain that I quote the paragraph that introduces it: 

The first tendency is that which is most visible in my published work. Here the thought is that philosophy is a sort of public service work, a small part of the greater enterprise of generating knowledge that can be put to use in bettering our estate. The work is essentially service orientated (Dotson 2015) or Mohist in nature (Johnston 2010) — to work in this tendency one must be trying to find what combination of beliefs, technologies, and social practices will best foster flourishing (including, of course, refining the idea of “flourishing”). At a high level this will involve identifying and resolving social problems. These are cases wherein one finds “the failure of an organised social group to realise its group ideals, through the inability to adapt certain desired lines of action to conditions of life” (Du Bois 1898, 3). Upon finding these one must work out what needs to change — the ideals, the actions, the conditions of life, etc — and work out how these changes may be effected. However it turns out that doing this effectively requires a huge division of labour and so most of the time one will not work at that high level of abstraction, but rather on more specific technical puzzles. None the less, the essence of this tendency is to commit to this project of perpetual collaborative amelioration.

Now, one reason I admire Liam Kofi Bright is how he can find points of contact, even overlap, between purportedly different philosophical traditions. In our discipline, which values disagreement and the focused objection and sharply polices standards boundaries, this capacity to see, say, how Master Mo's ameliorative, egalitarian consequentialism anticipates (say) Carnap's without having to diminish our admiration for Carnap is lovely (and politically important). [It's also lovely how he can turn his wide reading into stimulating reflection for the rest of us!]

Now, public service is a bureaucratic value. But Liam Kofi Bright also demands the kind of initiative (e.g., "one must work out what needs to change — the ideals, the actions, the conditions of life, etc — and work out how these changes may be effected") that one does not naturally associate with bureaucratic life, so there is a latent tension here in the way the first tendency has been labelled. (I return to this below.)

But I was especially surprised by the attempted, seamless integration of the Basically Pleasant Bureaucratic perspective with Dotson's conception (recall) of service philosophy. Now, to begin to explain why, I first (with apologies) quote myself on service philosophy:

Dotson observes that the professional philosophy she encountered is incapable of being self-justifying. This is no surprise because the dominant traditions (e.g., analytical philosophy, scientific philosophy, etc.) rest on broadly consequentialist foundations that presuppose shared values. The tacit elitism that could be counted on to do the real work -- that a life of philosophy is best -- does not sit well rhetorically in a democratic culture. Genuine and secure axiological foundations are not easy to come by in an intellectual culture that is scientistic. Dotson's attractive vision turns the weakness of the recent tradition around and turns it into a virtue: philosophy is not self-justifying or autonomous, but a good tool in the service of other ends. So despite many differences in sensibility, she is, thus, not far removed from the spirit of, say, Left Vienna. (D&I, 03/24/2015)

So, one may well wonder why I act all surprised at Liam Kofi Bright's stance if I myself had already noticed what one may call the 'formal resonance' between Dotson's and his approach to philosophy in which a certain kind of consequentialism and externally given (and optative) ends combine. But, of course, sensibility matters.

For, while in practice the service philosopher may well find herself advising government and shape the bureaucracy, she explicitly receives her ends from social movements and activists and joins in their (ahh) praxis ("I have learned and continue to learn living and working as a Black feminist, epistemology-based activist.") And without wishing to romanticize either bureaucrat or activist, the activist is willing, if necessity demands it, to break rules and violate norms in a way completely orthogonal to the bureaucrat.** 

At this point one  may well object on Liam Kofi Bright's behalf that he may not be adverse to taking guidance from activists, nor abhor a revolutionary impulse. After all in the paragraph I have quoted, he quotes Du Bois, who eventually, late in life, joined the communist party because “Capitalism cannot reform itself; it is doomed to self-destruction. No universal selfishness can bring social good to all. Communism—the effort to give all men what they need and to ask of each the best they can contribute—this is the only way of human life.” (Quoted from Angela Davis.)

But when Liam Kofi Bright quotes Du Bois, he is quoting from his reformist period. And Liam Kofi Bright himself explicitly advocates "amelioration" even over many generations ("Philosophy conceived of as [the building of] la Sagrada Família.") And while amelioration and even conceptual engineering is formally compatible with some species of activism, there is a different attitude in each toward both the disciplinary and social status quo. So, even if we ignore the virtues of bureaucracy, and treat his first tendency in terms of a highly skilled, even experimental Basically Pleasant Bricklayer there is an important contrast between it and the spirit of service philosophy (relative to the status quo).

I also suspect that there is a more important difference between service philosophy and the BPB tendency. I am circumspect here because I do not self-identify with each approach and I don't have recent phenomenological access toward my speculation: but I suspect the activist philosopher can experience the spiritual satisfaction that the "alienated labour" (that, as Liam Kofi Bright reports), the sublimating BPB experiences.** 

For, while activism can be a soul destroying grind and isolating (even very dangerous), in a well functioning activist milieu, it has as a predictable side-effect the creation of communal feelings in the pursuit of a self-transcending goal that simultaneously is self-justifying. Of course, how to get to that point is no easy matter and actually require some attention to nurturing the life of the mind as part of the activist ethos. (This is a neat subtext in Zena Hitz's Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life.) But the service philosopher's attitude toward her own work would not have to be alienated. 

Let me close with a final observation. Since Max Weber there is a peculiar blind-spot that the bureaucratic life has attracted relatively little attention from philosophers this despite the outsized significance of it in the modern state and, as C. Thi Nguyen and Liam Kofi Bright remind us, to many of own own lives as professional academics. (I suspect this is partial effect of the fact that many high prestige academic institutions try to maintain (at least the fiction of) self-governance in ways that those who work as functionaries cannot maintain.) And while I have only scratched the surface of both essays, a key feature of our involvement in bureaucratic life is that our educational and research practices are shaped by rules, norms, and goals that are extrinsic to philosophy (and education). This strikes me as rather important to our self-understanding if only because it allows us to organize our thinking about the many unhealthy symptoms we often encounter and discuss (reliance on metrics, rankings, stability of hierarchies, the lengthening syllabi, etc.). And so I am grateful to both for starting this conversations.

 

Covid Diaries: Attention Deficits

I interrupt my usual Summer blogging break with a new entry in my Covid Diaries. (For my official "covid diaries," see here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here;  here; here; here;  here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here;  here, here; here; here, here; here; here; and here). And, as is depressingly familiar, the situation is a mixed bag.

First, the interesting news is that earlier this week I saw a clinical neuro-psychologist through a referral from the NHS long covid clinic. Curiously enough, when my Dutch GP and Dutch occupational physician tried to refer me to one a year ago (!), my Dutch neurologist and the wider group of the occupational physician blocked it! It's against protocol in the Netherlands, where long covid is treated by occupational therapists (unless there are serious lung or heart symptoms). So after the covid induced migraine was diagnosed by my UK neurologist, my Dutch neurologist admitted it had never occurred to him as a possible diagnosis. This was a bit bitter for me because during my first visit with him I had an intolerable headache which he somehow kept discounting. (Mind you I am a male academic with lots of cultural capital in the Netherlands.)

As an aside, I am not entirely convinced I have a real migraine because, as I have noted before, my symptoms are very well managed by anti-inflammatories (basically extra strength Aleve--this is not available over the counter in the UK), and in my view the triptans are less effective against them. I return to this below.

The clinical neuro-psychologist is a young lad, who called me 'Professor' when he looked for me in the corridor outside of his office. (I was not used to that in this context so it took me a while to realize he was calling me.) I later learned he is also getting a PhD in cognitive science with a specialization on frontal lobe functioning. (I hope I have not outed him.) He had a two-volume copy of William James The Principles of Psychology on his shelves which immediately endeared him to me.  Anyway, after the 110 minutes (!) of testing, he could reassure me there is nothing wrong with my frontal lobe or any of my cognitive functioning. However, I do have rather striking attention issues; so, once the information comes in I process it okay, but certain kinds of information (white middle aged male faces, long digits of numbers, and domestic images) are often screened out. Whereas words and geometric objects go in just fine--so I should still manage okay with the Principia!

On the whole the results are not surprising (although I found my inability to manipulate medium length strings of digits really disconcerting) because they chime in with the reasons why I was interested in this referral in the first place. As an aside, I did wonder if I would do better with women's faces. But then I remembered a disconcerting conversation with one of my lecture course students this past Spring, where after polite small talk in the hall way where she studied next to my office (in which I asked her name, who her favorite theorist we discuss is, etc.), I suddenly had the good sense to ask, 'we have had this conversation before, right?' And she said, it's the fourth time.

The really good news lurking here is that the patterns he found are very dissimilar to what they find in early stages of Alzheimer, dementia or stroke. (On the way home I did wonder what I would do with my life if there were signs of the first two.) Anyway, he didn't know what kind of label to put onto me (I think he is leaving that to the neurologist), except to say that I have a weird kind of attention deficit now (but nothing like ADHD he emphasized). Not unlike the neurologist, he emphasized that they seem my symptoms a lot in in the NHS long haul clinic. In addition, he was pleased to note that once in my cognitive functioning is okay, "superb" even. He and I both regretted there is no pre-Covid baseline to compare me with. 

Second, earlier in the month we had a long family holiday on Paros. There I learned that I am still incredibly hyper-sensitive to sound and that social interactions (which exhaust me) have to be planned very carefully. It seems nearly every restaurant plays some background music, and even the kite-surf shack (where my family spent a lot of time without me) on the beach, which does not have running water or a kitchen, does have music playing. I was reminded of my graduate school dog park friend, Matthew Crawford's second book, The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction. In it he points out that in modern life we're surrounded by music and images that try to attract us or distract us, and that the airport lounges of the very wealthy are very quiet. (But I bet these, too, have a soft background music that barely register unless you are me.) Our public or communal spaces are not allowed to be still.

That's to say, the first week of holiday was a bit of a struggle to find the right balance for the three of us. Somewhat annoyingly, whereas during most of my long covid swimming has been a source of enduring pleasure, on holiday I noticed that I found it exhausting (which had also been true ahead of our trip). The really annoying thing of long covid is that my symptoms keep switching slowly after every three or four months or so (more below). Anyway, I do swim most mornings just to stay active. Even played some pick-up basketball with my son in the (rather warm) Greek evenings, which felt like a precious moment I would not have expected a year ago, but still wasn't wholly pleasant (because my head felt so strange).

Luckily, extra strength Aleve (500mg naproxen) is available and cheap over the counter in Greece, so I stacked up on it.:) And the really good news is that most of my symptoms (weird head fatigue, headaches) are very well managed with anti-inflammatories. I haven't had a real headache day in months. Sometimes I am very aware my body and even my head registers I was socially too active, but because of the Aleve I don't have any pain. So, on the whole I am much better than, say, six months ago because I really suffer less.

The bad news is that I have clearly stagnated; I continue to be hypersensitive to sound if there is more than one source in the area and all my social activities, including with my family, have to be carefully planned. This puts considerable hardship on my family, even on days where I think things are going okay. I have also noticed since I returned from holiday that when I spent hours on end in the library, my head starts to feel fatigued; this has never happened to me before not even during long covid (much to the bewilderment of my occupational therapists who all assume that anything work related must be stressful and exhausting). So, I take more breaks now. (The British Library is actually well designed for that.)

As a total aside, this year I submitted two co-authored papers that originated in my pre-covid days but where completion had to be postponed due to my illness. The first got rejected with decent reports (ref 1 fair; ref 2 a bit silly) and the second a major revise & resubmit, and while neither is tremendous news, it did make me feel almost like a normal academic again. This week I also completed a long draft of my review of Neil Levy's Bad Beliefs (which you should read his book that is, well also my review!:)). 

I should close, but one pet-peeve. There is increasing evidence that weight loss helps manage long covid symptoms. And so lots of folk send me press releases on this and nudge me to 'consider losing weight.' Now, ever since I probably had a mini stroke/TIA a decade ago, I pay attention to my weight. And it is very clear  that because of long covid I have gained weight; not just because I probably exercise less and eat more from stress/emotional need, but also because when I do 'diet' (basically a low carb diet), I don't lose weight as quickly as I used to. It's pretty annoying to be told 'consider doing X' while you are 'doing X.' (Beccy Lucas has a hilarious sketch on that if you are into that kind of thing.) 

Anyway, while I dislike the social norm that we must exude optimism, I do feel very blessed that I have a forthcoming Fall (unpaid) research leave. I feel grateful my family found a way to make it work for them, and lucky that the folks at Duke and Arizona are willing to host me (with some funding). Recently I bought my ticket and found housing, and it's suddenly starting to feel very real. Anyway, with that I return to my customary Summer blogging break. 

RIP: Rob Brouwer 1938-2022

In a few weeks, Neglected Classics of Philosophy 2 (OUP, 2022) will appear. As you can see at books.google, it's dedicated to "Anneke Luger-Veenstra, Jan Stronk, and Rob Brower, my learned high school teachers, who encouraged a love of the classics." Two days ago my high school classmate, Jorine Lamsma, called my attention to an announcement in the newspaper that Rob had died June 1, 2022. The memorial service and funeral are today.

Rob was my high school Latin teacher for four years at Amsterdam's Vossius Gymnasium. My class (1c, 2c, 3c) was known to be 'trouble' and quite a few teachers fought trench warfare with us, as we found ever more creative ways to prank and be disruptive. But not in Rob's classroom. We called him "Mijnheer Brouwer," of course. He was not on first name basis with his charges.

Rob commanded our instant respect not because he was strict (which he was) and unperturbable (which he was), but because he somehow managed to convey that he instantiated the promise of bildung (without having to say so); he wasn't aiming to reach some learning target decomposed in weekly grammar, vocabulary, and syntax acquired. But rather he always made clear that whatever task of memorization and repetition we were assigned was in the service of our introduction to the classics and, without veneration, their wider cultural significance. As another classmate, Max Rosenberg, put it, each class was part of a much broader whole. And as the years passed, I slowly grasped -- hence my use of 'bildung'  --, these classics in turn would be good friends accompanying me in a life-time of imperfect self-cultivation.

Once, I was fourteen or so, a classmate pushed his button, and the unfathomable happened: the boy (no, not me) got sent out of class, with the archaic, 'gaat heen' and Rob, visibly steadying himself, pointing a finger at the door. For years we could get a good laugh trying to mimic that 'gaat heen,' but we had to acknowledge simultaneously that we were in awe of him. 

Not just because of his formal language and dress, Rob seemed like a character from a different age -- his classroom had the surprisingly bittersweet smell of his pipe --, he was the subject of myths: his son had died tragically (which turned out to be true), he suffered from Leukemia (which turned out to be true), he had studied to be a Jesuit (possible), and he was dating the German teacher, Erika Langbroek (which also turned out to be true). 

I had a very checkered high school career; I should have flunked out at the end of my third and fourth years (ninth and tenth grade). Mevrouw Luger played a big role in bending the rules my way each year. But I always passed my Latin, and to this day, I recognize that I have built a scholarly career on the years Rob put into me. (And I often regretted he was not my Greek teacher.) 

I forget if it was my junior or senior year, but I got wind that Rob was doing a reading group in philosophy with some interested class-mates at his home not far from the school in an apartment on the Beethovenstraat. (At this point he wasn't my teacher anymore, but it was before he moved into a different apartment with Erika also on the Beethovenstraat.) I invited myself along for the wine and the mystique. They were reading Die Kritik der reinen Vernunft (in German). I would like to say it got me excited about philosophy, but I suspect the main effect of the reading group was to make me excessively and irresponsibly fearless in the face of any text. 

Some time after college, I got back in touch with Rob. I suspect in order to brag to him that I had been taking philosophy classes with Dan Dennett (he was underwhelmed) and Martha Nussbaum. Rob, it turned out, was a real fan-boy of Nussbaum who, in graduate school, was one of my supervisors of my qualifying paper on the puppet image in Plato's Laws. Alongside E.B. England's commentary, Rob's wisdom became instrumental in helping me figure out the nuances of Plato's Greek and thought.

But perhaps I had simply bumped into him with Erika at the kleine zaal at Concertgebouw. Even long after he was struck by an increasingly visible Parkinson, he was a transfixed presence in the little balcony. I didn't share his love for nineteenth century Lieder, but we often discovered that we (or, in my case, my mum) had acquired season tickets for the same chamber music series.

We started to see other more frequently during my Summer visits back home while I was in graduate school. I am also unsure of the exact sequence of events that led to our first reading group with Martin Claes, then a Jesuit getting a PhD (now a pastor and a scholar), on Augustine's De Magistro. I  never asked Rob if he identified with Augustine's loss of his son. He never spoke of him to me, but he often expressed pride in his daughter (a lawyer). It was the start of numerous partially overlapping, reading groups with Rob in varying combinations with people from his life -- often people who adored Dante or choir (or both) -- or my own circle of Dutch academics and friends. 

Meanwhile, we started corresponding and as I look through our letters, I see that he never stopped trying to broaden my horizon. His letters reflect his curiosity, even an excessive strain of enthusiasm; he offered a never ending stream of suggested novels or works of scholarship. While in his own work, he had an exacting low tolerance for minute error, in his reading habits he was primarily searching for bold and expansive interpretations. As I advanced in academia he relished keeping me informed of scholarly fashion that had somehow captured the imaginations of the culture and book sections even editorial pages of the Dutch broadsides.

In addition to being a teacher, Rob was a scholar, translator, and poet. His translations of Dante's Divine Comedy, Statius' The Thebaid, Lucan's Bellum Civile, Virgil's Bucolica/The Eclogues combine vast erudition with linguistic and poetic sensitivity. He also translated Epictetus. He would probably be very amused to hear me claim modest credit for triggering his renewed interest into Lucan just as he was completing his stupendous Dante translation. But it's true: while teaching the Treatise in my first seminar at Wesleyan in 2002, I was confused by the way the motto of book 3 of Hume's Treatise had been translated in the then new 'student edition' published by OUP. (The motto is from Lucan.) We started a correspondence about it, and I date to it the start of my interest into Seneca.

When I heard Rob had died, I looked at our correspondence to see when we last had written. I noticed to my horror he had never acknowledged my word that I had dedicated the forthcoming Neglected Classics volume to him. I had not registered this silence at all during the depths of my own illness.

Before I close, I don't want to suggest Rob was an ethereal personality only. He was happy whenever he could talk about Erika or Sabine. And our reading groups were carefully planned around not just his choir practices, but also his cycling holidays.

I also don't mean to suggest he was above name-dropping. Once he asked me slyly if I knew who Henny Vrienten was. They had met swimming their laps in de Zuiderbad. Later Vrienten became involved in the recording of Rob's Dante.

Near the end of De Magistro, Augustine suggests that when we praise a teacher, we're really praising ourselves and this never seems to me more true than in the Academy during the many, lovely ritual practices of acknowledging the roles of supervisors in one's education. Self-praise does not strike me as a sin, but I have to admit that all of these academic practices (fests, collections, memorial conferences, etc.) seem, however sincerely felt and expressed, a bit tainted by the multiplicity of self-advancing roles they play in our prestige hierarchies and zero-sum political economy. (Perhaps this also accounts for the sincerity.)

We encounter our high school teachers through their words, their curriculum, their classroom, and features of their personality as well as the school yards myths about them. The older, and more experienced I get in the classroom, the more it seems to me they -- I mean all true teachers -- use a feature of their personality, perhaps made excessively visible to the student, to find a way to connect with the longings and desires, perhaps vanity even (as Adam Smith claims), of their students, and turn this connection, however tenuous, into the engines of shared enquiry. This also means that not every teacher is the right fit for each student.

The reason why when we praise a teacher, we're really praising ourselves according to the closing lines of De Magistro is that teachers are kind of puppets or actors speaking thoughts of others and that it's the student's reason or intuition that is doing the real work of understanding even if the words of the official teacher trigger or guide such understanding. The Platonic idea with which De Magistro closes, that nobody teaches another anything, has, thus, generated learned philosophical commentary that betrays non-trivial professional anxiety.

Augustine does make an exception to this quite general claim at the start of De Magistro, which I doubt is retracted during the dialogue. He suggests that when we ask questions we're really teaching something about our needs or our plans. The latter includes, of course, the path of inquiry, as Augustine explicitly notes. Rob was magisterial in asking questions that directed our gaze to the inner, guiding light that we need on life's path.

 

 

Covid Diaries: A Half Full Glass and despite Minor irritants, maybe filling

It's been about a month since my last covid update. (For my official "covid diaries," see here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here;  here; here, here; here; here, here; and here). And, as seems common in the most recent updates, the situation is mixed. But let me start with the non-trivial bits of good news.

First, if I take anti-inflammatory medicine before I have a social interaction (like a lunch or tea) I am capable of engaging in much longer social interactions than I was able to do during the past nine months. I am also capable of doing so in much more complex social environments. I have even been able to do so twice in a day (with a few hours apart). By this I mean that the usual symptoms of head fatigue and subsequent headache don't follow. So that's a big win, and at times I have felt euphoric about it. 

Interestingly enough, after some such activities later in the day I do register physically that I have had some such interactions. My body will feel unusually fatigued, and I need to take time to chill. (I am not allowed to nap because I need to keep day/night rhythm very distinct.) Some day, when I am fully recovered, I would like to team up with a (historical) epidemiologist and geriatric specialists because I am increasingly convinced that a lot of symptoms that in the past usually were treated as 'aging' really were the longue durée effects of (post-)viral infections.

Anyway, on the medical side, I am experimenting with the dosage of the anti-inflammatory meds. As they say in jargon: I am looking to find the minimally efficacious dosage. The month before I lost about six full days to random headaches. This past month, clearly 50% less. That's a lot of less suffering.

As an aside, it's fascinating that while the physicians can all tell you that there are increased risks associated with the use of my particular meds, nobody can tell you what the order of magnitude of the risk might be for a generic patient or for somebody that shares in some of my demographic or medical characteristics. So, while a lot of physicians practice a kind of pseudo medical autonomy -- telling me things like, 'it's your decision' or 'you need to weigh the trade-offs'  --, de facto there is a lot of ignorance being buck-passed onto a patient who is not being given even the minimal coarse-grained information to make autonomous decisions. (And regular readers know, I am no Bayesian--I am not asking for exact statistics, just very broad orders of magnitude.)

Be that as it may, I am quietly hoping that the anti-inflammatory meds also treat some underlying condition such that I can keep hoping for continued improvement over the medium term. The really interesting question for me is this: my symptoms have shifted around every few (two to three) months. And what I am wondering is whether that cycle can be broken. Stay tuned.:)

One thing I have learned about chronic disease or newly acquired disability: other ailments that in a different context would be barely noticed can be greatly destabilizing in the context of disability/chronic disease; think of things like a cold, modest hearing loss, swimmer's ear, blisters, etc. When you are learning to adjust to chronic disease such incredibly modest ailments sap energy. (Again see my comment above about aging as instances of post-viral symptoms.)

Second (back to the good news), next academic year, I'll have the kind of work-load I probably should have had this past year. I am only teaching my giant lecture course Winter 2023. To make this possible a lot of people showed me incredible amount of good-will: my immediate family, which is signing off on three months of research leave stateside (with two weeks of holiday for visits); the folks at Duke University's Center for the History of political Economy and the philosophy department; the folks at University of Arizona's Center for the Philosophy of Freedom. These allowed me to take  three months unpaid research leave this Fall. In addition, my department signed off on this. That, too, showed, good-will, but it did involve some negotiations.

Let me explain, one of the very strange features of the University of Amsterdam is that it works with a system of registered hours (for research, teaching, and some admin). Undoubtedly it was introduced for a mixture of fairness considerations (everyone pulling their fair share) and administrative control over the budget. But in practice, the 'hours' registered are by no means equal (and also model-based). And the obvious effect of the system is to turn academics into a bean-counter of sorts and, for some, also a chance to game the system. (I'll get to the really strange part in a second.)

Now, in practice these plan hours are bit like frequent flyer miles. You know what their official value is, but if you have been around for a while you also recognize you can never really cash them for their (ahh) labor value. This is especially so when there is a dire need for budget cuts; these hours are then easy prey. (That's how I 'lost' one batch of over-hours a few years ago.)

Anyway, despite my partial sick-leave, during the past few years, I actually accumulated more over-hours than I had when I started my partial sick-leave! So, to facilitate my leave and considerable teaching reduction I agreed to donate my (ca 900!) hours and start the next academic year back at level zero. I rationalized the deal to myself as a business class upgrade on a transatlantic/pacific flight.:) In addition, because of my medical leave I have been rather costly to the department and a lot of my rank-specific chores have been parceled out to others. While an apparent bad deal on paper, I felt this was very win-win, and also a chance for me to show my gratitude.

So, my underlying outlook is actually quite positive right now. Next year, I feel my work-load should allow me space to recover and do what I love work-wise (research, write, and lecture). It also allows me space to experiment, when I feel sufficiently recovered, with activities I have not dared to try yet (giving professional lectures, attending seminars, etc.) And while I will miss my family and my undergrad electives/seminars, it's good not to have to stress about their effect on my health. On the other hand, as I have hinted above, I am dealing with a bunch of minor ailments that prevent me from having unconditional optimism right now. The glass is half full, possibly filling.

 

 

 

Mediating between Strauss and Dewey: the forgotten radical liberal Arnold Kaufman

In this paper political theory is regarded as properly serving an instrumental function. This view is elaborated, then defended against the criticisms of Professor Leo Strauss...
Political theory should be a guide to action. The political philosopher should provide those who make policy with principles which will aid them in the attempt to cope with specific sociopolitical problems. Instrumental theories of this type should have two roughly distinguishable components: (1) an ultimate ideal; (2) intermediate ideals in their relation to specific policy recommendations.--Arnold S. Kaufman (1954) "The nature and function of political theory." The journal of philosophy 51.1: 5-22.

This post originates in my interest in finding critical engagements with Leo Strauss within analytic philosophy in the post-WWII era (triggered by (recall here; here; here; especially this one; here; and here) an invite by Sander Verhaegh). The topic intersects with my continuing reflection (recall here; here; here; here; here; here) on Katrina Forrester's In the Shadow of Justice, which convincingly shows that Rawls' Theory of Justice creates a kind of light-cone which does not allow us to discern events behind it. In fact, Forrester mentions Kaufman's work (in the 1960s) on civil disobedience, and treats Kaufman as "the New Left philosopher and intellectual founder of the “ teach-in.” (p. 52; see also p. 56; 61--in her footnotes she also alerts the reader to his views on Black reparations and participatory democracy.)

Kaufman died, June 6, 1971, aged 44 when his airplane collided with a military jet while traveling. Oddly, his supervisor at Columbia, Charles Frankel, who in the 1960s served the LBJ administration that Kaufman was battling from the left, died a few years later in an armed robbery in his home in Bedford Hills. In fact, while at University of Michigan, Kaufman was at the center of things at the founding of SDS and the Port Huron Statement (as Tom Hayden acknowledges), and was, as Forrester hints, alongside Marshall Sahlins and Rapaport one of the Michigan faculty key to organizing the first teach-in on the Vietnam War. (Sahlins was the supervisor of Graeber, who in some respects, is the heir to Kaufman.) Later, while at UCLA, he was (despite their non-trivial political differences) one of the most outspoken defenders of Angela Davis' appointment at UCLA and freedom to teach.

The (1954) piece I quoted at the top of this post was published before Kaufman completed his dissertation (on Hobhouse). It situates itself between Dewey, who is the advocate of instrumental political theory (but of whom Kaufman is also critical), and Strauss, and also wishes to draw from both. (How Kaufman draws from Strauss I leave aside here.)

One might well wonder why I treat Kaufman as an 'analytic' philosopher. I have two reasons for this: first, the later work from the 1960s is very naturally read as analytic philosophy.* Second, the early work I discuss here bears the imprint of Ernest Nagel (who was then at Columbia) because it anticipates some of the methodological claims of Nagel's 1954 presidential address (while still advocating a more activist stance).

While, in this post I can only leave this second reason as a promissory note, it's worth noting what Kaufman's two main criticisms of Dewey are: first, on Kaufman's  view there ought be also "a concern with theory, with logical interrelatedness, with the generality of political principles which would be anathema for Dewey." (21) In particular (and this very much echoes Nagel), Kaufman claims (while drawing on the analogy between natural and social science), "there is considerable evidence that attention to conceptual adequacy, to logical interrelatedness, and to the connections between a verbal structure and the events it was designed to help human beings control, will yield a rich reward." (22) And second, Dewey's political theory is too "programmatic in character. His formulations were extremely abstract and he always shied from the difficult task of linking those views to the "concrete" situations of which he was so fond of talking." (22; Kaufman acknowledges, of course, that Dewey also acted quite nobly in concrete situations of which he talked.)

While an older generation of political theorists and intellectual historians is definitely familiar with Kaufman, and there is some scholarship on him, to the best of my knowledge analytic philosophy has completely forgotten him in the post Rawlsian era. For example, in Jo Wolff's authoritative and fascinating survey, "Analytic Political Philosophy" (in the OUP volume on the History of Analytic Philosophy), Kaufman goes unmentioned (presumably because he made no impact on those collected in the series in Philosophy, Politics and Society. This is a shame because Kaufman quite clearly anticipates and pioneers the revival of advocacy (which is an important theme in Wolff's article). 

Kaufman recognizes that Leo Strauss is a fierce critic of the instrumentalist stance.** (He quotes Strauss' Review of Dewey 's German Philosophy and Politics, in Social Research.) And pieces together from scattered remarks in Strauss' writing an argument against the instrumentalist approach. Kaufman writes this before the publication of Natural Right and History (but he is aware that it is about the appear and hopes that in it Strauss will spell out some of the details of the argument that Kaufman attributes to him (see note 17 on p. 19)). Here's Kaufman's reconstruction of Strauss' criticism of instrumentalism:

[Strauss] argues (1) that it is possible and necessary for the philosopher to search for an objective political philosophy; (2) but one cannot be objective unless he escapes the influence of opinion; and, finally, (3) the instrumentalist, because he regards himself as a guide to action instead of as a discoverer of an objective external order, is influenced by opinion. Therefore, the instrumentalist cannot be objective and is unable to embark on that investigation which alone constitutes political philosophy.
This is the skeleton of the argument. (16)

Let's call this reconstruction of Strauss's position the 'contamination argument.' In my view it's quite plausible to attribute something like this position to Strauss. A weakness in the contamination argument is that it's quite possible for somebody to hold an instrumentalist view of theory without oneself engaging in action, and so creates an instrumentalist theory for others to use from the ivory tower arm-chair. And it is not obvious that such a theorist is necessarily influenced by opinion even if, let's grant this for the sake of argument, she must take it into account in how to move from principles to successful policy. (I don't quite return to this below, but see my final paragraph.)

Kaufman recognizes that (1) is connected to Strauss' criticism of relativism (historicism, positivism, etc.) and the Weberian fact-value distinction. He treats (1) as common ground between him and Strauss, and even Dewey by claiming that "Dewey does believe we can discover moral truths, these truths are relative to specific conditions." (17) It's left unclear if Kaufman actually agrees with Dewey's style of relativism. (Strauss would reject Dewey's position as stable.)

Most of Kaufman's criticism focuses on (2) & (3), which he treats jointly. A key issue is what is meant by 'objective' and why it's impossible to attain for the instrumentalist theorist. And Kaufman settles on the view that according to Strauss "no one engaged in political activity is in a position, no matter how carefully he attempts to make his investigations impartial, to acquire an understanding or a knowledge of political fundamentals, to determine the nature of the best regime." (18) In Strauss' platonic terminology in the 'cave' no real knowledge is possible.+

At this point, Kaufman goes on the offensive because rather than trying to figure out what would make the contamination argument stick (if that's possible), he starts criticizing (not unfairly) the lack of specificity in Strauss' position who leaves underexplained how 'understanding or knowledge of political fundamentals [is] acquired.' And Kaufman concludes his argument that it is very unlikely that Strauss' method "is continuous with that of the empirical sciences. This constitutes a decisive objection to his underlying theory." (19: emphasis added. Along the way, Kaufman implies that Strauss has no adequate response to Mill's criticism of relying on nature as a standard of adequacy.) 

Kaufman here instantiates what I call "Newton's Challenge to Philosophy," that is to argue from the authority of science to some criticism of an opponent. But this begs the question against Strauss who does not recognize that authority in political philosophy.

In fact, Kaufman has many astute and telling criticism of the details of Strauss' philosophy (including on Strauss' better known criticism of the distinction between facts and values). Kaufman is at his best, in fact, when he channels Hume to point that nature sometimes is itself a source of ungrounded action (this is the argument that eludes Oppenheim when he discerns that Strauss is relying on the PSR (recall here; here)). It is a shame (if you were to care about such matters that) for the reception of Strauss, that to the best of my knowledge no sober debate about these criticism ensued subsequently because unlike many criticism of Strauss they go to the heart of Strauss' project. And unlike a later generation of analytic critics, there is no lazy dismissal.

As should be clear from my comments, I do not view Kaufman's response to the contamination argument as fully adequate. He basically claims not to understand some of its key terms (and does show that Strauss has not clarified them properly), and so ultimately sets it aside. This is unfortunate because Strauss' criticism of the instrumentalist position has been echoed in recent times by analytic philosophers who claim that, say, feminist philosophy (and other 'activist' philosophies) is not really philosophy. (In fact, many of Strauss' apparently substantive positions have been quietly adopted by analytic philosophers in later generations.) Such claims against the instrumentalist conception have been met by vigorous rebuttal from (say amongst others) Dotson and in a number of papers, Srinivasan. But the recent analytic critics rarely dare to put their criticism explicitly in the elitist terms of Strauss (and generally fail to reflect on the nature of political philosophy). This matters not because one must agree with Strauss' return to natural right (and the ancients), or  his elitism, but rather because the most realistic interpretations (and justification) of our imperfect liberal democracies (as one can find in the writings of, say, Hume, Smith, Madison, Kant, and, say, more recently, Arendt) crucially suppose that political life is indeed ruled by opinion and so, if the argument isn't met, that such contamination appears to be inevitable for democratic theorists (broadly conceived). 

Kaufman himself falls in the wide gap between Marxism and Rawlsianism (even its leftist incarnation). With the demise of the New Left and the lack of students to take up his program it is no surprise that he left little mark on post Rawlsian philosophy. Yet, many of his papers from the 1960s have, given that they are the product of immersion in political activism, a sense of freshness and immediacy that I hope to share with you in later digressions. While I do not share in his politics or even his philosophic sensibility, one cannot help but be saddened that his life and career were interrupted just as he was developing his own systematic conception of what a liberal philosophy might be. To be continued.