Digressions&Impressions

On Dotson on Lorde and Livable Philosophy (I)

In a 1979 interview with Adrienne Rich, Rich questions Lorde about a set of positions she puts forth in her 1977 article, “Poetry is not a Luxury”. Lorde’s position reads, “The white fathers told us: I think, therefore I am. The Black mother within each of us – the poet – whispers in our dreams: I feel, therefore I can be free” (Lorde 1984, 38). Rich asks Lorde to respond to the criticism that she is, here, simply restating an old set of stereotypes of “the rational white male and the emotional dark female” (Lorde 1984, 100). Lorde’s response is fascinating. One would expect her to defend herself against the charge that she is espousing the belief that only white males are properly rational and only “dark females” are properly emotional. Instead she responds by dissolving the critique:

I have heard that accusation, that I’m contributing to the stereotype, that I’m saying the province of intelligence and rationality belongs to the white male. But if you’re traveling a road that begins nowhere and ends nowhere, the ownership of the road is meaningless. If you have no land out of which the road comes, no place that road goes to, geographically, no goal, then the existence of that road is totally meaningless. Leaving rationality to white men is like leaving him a piece of that road that begins nowhere and ends nowhere. (1984, 100)

According to Lorde, there is something meaningless about the concept of Rationality. The understanding of the human practice of exercising reason held in Rationality, for Lorde, has no origin, no destination, and no goal. It does not have a specifiable locale and as such it has no use. Now, is she saying that all rationality is meaningless, in general? No, because Lorde will go onto explain:

Rationality is not unnecessary…it serves feeling. It serves to get from this place to that place. But if you don’t honor those places, then the road is meaningless. Too often, that’s what happens with the worship of rationality and that circular, academic, analytic thinking. (1984, 100)

Lorde appears to challenge whether the concept of Rationality is useful given that it is a concept of a human practice, not the practice of being rational or exercising reason. The practice of rationality always has a location. There is a where-from and a where-to for every attempt to be rational. Honoring the place and space of given instances of reason is what affords rationality meaning. Hence, attempts to render reason abstract, without  appeal  to  space  and  place  are,  on  Lorde’s  account,  meaningless.  So  an assumption of ownership over such a concept amounts to an inconsequential claim.

A way to defend the value of concepts of human practice, like Rationality, could follow from understanding conceptual thinking as a way to address contemporary problems. By addressing problems in the world, philosophy can help to guide human behavior. For Lorde, this response is contingent on a certain approach to the world and living. It conceives of living as if it presented itself as a set of problems to be solved. Lorde, on my reading, observes limitations to this particular worldview. She writes:

When we view our living in the european mode, only as problems to be solved, we rely solely upon our ideas to make us free, for these were what the white fathers told us were precious. But as we come more into touch with our own ancient and original non-european view of living as a situation to be experienced and interacted with, we learned more and more to cherish our feelings, and to respect those hidden and deep sources of our power from whence true knowledge and, therefore, lasting action comes. (Lorde 1984, 37)

Lorde, here, sees a clear connection between a particular worldview and the reliance upon ideas. Regardless of whether her designation of “european” and “non-european” is correct, taking living “as a problem to be solved” leads one to both believe in and rely upon ideas in a certain way. It would behoove us to try to articulate what a problem/solution conception of living might entail. There are at least three commitments. The first would concern valuing the activity of discovering problems. The second would concern placing a value on analyzing these problems in order to determine possible solutions. And the third commitment would concern articulating solutions to the problems. It is not clear where, according to a problem/solution approach to living and its three commitments, one need ever act upon a solution. Uncovering ideas alone is presumed to have revolutionary force. All that is needed to change the world is to think of a solution. It is not clear, for Lorde, how this orientation for living, the creation of ideas in the form of problems and/or solutions, can ever make demands upon our actions by itself. The question here is the following: how precisely will discovering, determining, and articulating problems and/or solutions make demands upon our actions?

Lorde, here, seems to be suspicious of how ideas and conceptual thinking can make demands on our actions. More precisely, because conceptual thinking can and does make errors, the process of finding problems and solutions is infinitely regressive. For example, the above question of ‘How will discovering, determining, and articulating problems/solutions make demands on our actions,’ if taken as a problem that needs to be solved, will produce answers which themselves are problems to be solved. One can lose herself/himself in the process of finding problems and offering solutions….In fact, the problem/solution model, or the criticism/rival theory model, by itself, may be a means of suspending action indefinitely. As a result, Lorde demonstrates that relying solely on ideas and concepts does not make demands on our actions, but rather must be combined with some other form of human activity, i.e. poetry, that translates theory into action (Lorde 1984, Lorde 2009). As a result, she is not outright rejecting philosophical thinking, as she understands it, but rather observing its limitations.—Kristie Dotson “(2012) “How is This Paper Philosophy? (21-23).

I have already noted that Amia Srinivasan [(recall) on anger in politics], and, in her famous (2012) paper, Kristie Dotson draw on Audre Lorde. In my earlier post I focused on Lorde's political economy. Today, I follow in Dotson's footsteps and begin to sketch the outlines that I discern in Lorde's contribution to a philosophy worth having. Before I get to that I first retrace some of Dotson's steps, all the while allowing that the very exercise I engage in also runs the risk of domesticating Lorde's (and Dotson's) ideas into an academic, analytic non-thought.*

Inspired by Lorde, Dotson treats the puzzle-solving approach of professional philosophy (and a certain kind of academic thought more generally) as a species of intellectual escapism: there is no intrinsic pull from solved puzzle to world-changing-activity. As we all know, the solved puzzle leads to the successor puzzle (or a re-conceptualization of the original puzzle). But otherwise, on this image philosophy is inert and leaves everything alone. Few conceptions of philosophy fully embrace this consequence, because (recall) as Graham Priest expertly shows in his criticism of Wittgenstein’s (quietist) meta-philosophy, it would entail rejecting as 'philosophy' both the many decision points in ordinary life where we are called on to engage in philosophical reasoning as well the occasions where science and philosophy seem to (ahh) shade into each other. So, while one can recognize the permanent temptation of philosophy-as-inert-escapism, it cannot survive scrutiny. Notice that this is so even if one embraces the status quo.

But despite the widespread rejection of philosophy as inert, and widespread lip-service to the relevance of philosophical theorizing to a whole range of epistemic and normative applications, few philosophical programs really internalize what it would take to conceive of philosophy not on the model of a nighttime astronomer calculating the retrograde motions of distant planets. That is to say, there is, as Dotson implies, a kind of bad faith in embracing the puzzle solving model and simultaneously insisting on the social relevance of one’s philosophy. Often such a stance presupposes a kind of magical though that within the intellectual division of labor, there are other intellectuals and institutions that know (by way of mysterious action at a mental/social distance) what to do with the solutions gifted by the ‘core’ philosophers/theorists and to do so in a responsible and life-affirming way.

Now, in the passages that Dotson quotes, we can find an alternative vision. For in it, feeling grounds the possibility of freedom ("I feel, therefore I can be free.” ) Before I suggest something about the nature of this freedom, it’s important to be clear on two modes of life Lorde rejects here in our gendered material hierarchy: (i) the life of pure thought exemplified by stunted men who become robot-like masters, who (ii) use subordinated females as sites of displaced (pure) feeling ("men who are afraid to feel must keep women around to do their feeling"). Neither (i-ii) are free. So, Lorde is not saying that to feel is to be free. For acting, say, from fear is itself not sufficient to be free (even if one appears to be the boss in various ways). So, here Lorde suggests that high status and control does not equate freedom.

In addition, Lorde associates the philosophical thought that is produced by our gendered status quo with false knowledge. (I am treating Lorde as a philosophical prophet, who re-animates a known distinction between true and false knowledge. If one's training makes one stumbles over ‘false knowledge,” (how could knowledge be false?) one can use ‘inauthentic knowledge.’) Now Dotson emphasizes, correctly, that false knowledge is inert. We may say it, requires the engineer to be animated.**

So, true knowledge is subservient to our feelings. It would be tempting her to jump to the finish line and assert that true knowledge just means to be guided into action (with to use Dotson’s phrase, ‘applicable insights’) in order to change the world for the better in such a way such that our feelings can be at home in them; philosophy then becomes the embrace of ‘the livable future’ (without, as Dotson emphasizes, tying this to a single method and canon).

But it’s notable that Lorde claims that true knowledge produces 'lasting actions.' Again, it’s important to recognize that what’s being rejected here is not just inert philosophy (= no action) and, as Dotson emphasizes, philosophy from the vantage point of eternity (that is temporally and spatially un-situated), but also rejects an image of philosophy Lorde associates with limited (short) action; this kind of theorizing (which results in short action) Lorde understands in terms of a kind of instrumental rationality which changes the world without being grounded in a conception of freedom worth having.+ For, Lorde seems to conceive instrumental rationality, mere want satisfaction, as always draining, a running down of resources. A system in which instrumental rationality is hypostasized feeds on a diet of novelty which covers, as it were, the way we are all being dis-empowered.

That is to say, we can understand Lorde as claiming that false knowledge, the one that is consequent of (inert) puzzle solving, which understands itself and presents itself as operating on the plane of eternity – ‘a road that begins nowhere and ends nowhere’ (and hence offers no action) -- but that actually mimics the puzzle solving approach of instrumental rationality, which merely expends and run-downs resources as being incapable of being self-sustaining. It seems, then, that true freedom for Lorde is to be engaged in a self-sustaining activity with recall) others that shapes the world in ways that provides livable spaces not by effacing the past – Lorde thinks historical memory is central to any life worth having --, but by creating a (for lack of a better word) palimpsest in which the past remains ever-present.  

To be an activity that is self-sustaining (i.e., one that instantiates long action) requires, according to Lorde, to be grounded in empowering feelings and in activities that through interactions with differentiated and possibly disagreeing others (recall) generate joy all the while being engaged in the kind of activity that challenges the status quo. It's an open question if such a joyful philosophy should migrate out of the university, but that's for another occasion. Here I mark that while it's possible that such shared joy is not sufficient for creating lasting action, it seems to be necessary.

 

 

 

 

On what is Philosophy

For several reasons, then, effective criticism requires the creation of novel theories. To define philosophy in terms of its critical spirit is not, then, to miss its  constructive side; it is to require it. It should, of course, be said, that not all philosophers go in for criticism and construction in equal proportions. Some-perhaps Russell-do; some-such as Nietzsche- are more knockers-down than standers-up; and some of the great  system-builders-perhaps, Spinoza-are more standers-up than knockers-down. As ever with work, there may be a certain division of labour-just as there are theoreticians and experimentalists in physics. Moreover, some philosophers may well be more interested, subjectively, in constructing their own system of thought than in using it to criticise others-just as some theoretical physicists may be more interested, subjectively, in developing the mathematics of their own theory than in putting it to the test. So it can look as though creating systems of thought is an independent part of the philosophical enterprise. But if the argument I have just given is right, it is not. Objectively, its existence is a corollary of the critical nature of philosophy.--Graham Priest (2006) "What is Philosophy" (p. 206).

For Priest, philosophy is a "critical spirit;" it "is precisely that intellectual inquiry in which anything is open to critical challenge and scrutiny." (202) In her famous (2013) response to, and elaboration of, Priest (not just Priest), Kristie Dotson points out that on Priest's view, philosophy is 1) subversive, 2) unsettling, and 3) of universal import (Priest 2006, 202-203). As the first sentence above makes clear, Priest relies on a distinction between effective and (let's say) not-so-effective criticism. Unfortunately, he does not quite explain what he means by it, but from his use we can infer some of the things he he has in mind.

One sense is intellectual (and this is the one that Priest emphasizes): the criticism becomes more (i) intelligible/sensible and even (ii) visible in light of alternative theory (206). To become intelligible and visible are not the same, and Priest does not treat them as such. This does not exhaust the uses of alternative theories in making criticisms effective. But here I just want to note also the sociological sense: (iii) to offer effective criticism means one cannot be ignored. So, if one cannot produce a rival theory one's criticism is ineffective (one may as well keep quiet). Priest does not really discuss this sociological feature, but it hovers in the background because Priest motivates his account through copious and generous quotation of Kuhn's (and Laudan's) philosophy of science (recall this post). That is, the inability to produce a constructive, rival theory is a stepping stone to the silencing or making ineffective of one's criticism. (Obviously, Dotson alerted me to the significance of this.)

As an aside, it is worth noting that Priest seems to imply that effective criticism with older/discarded/unfashionable theories is also not effective. I suspect, but can't prove, that this, too, is a sociological claim. It presumably relies on the idea that old theories were discarded for good reasons and so can't really be revived. (There is, here, then, a kind of rationality assumption akin to efficient market in ideas about the institute of philosophy; the community rejects/discards theories for solid, in the sense of durable, epistemic reason.)

Now, I don't wish to imply that Priest (the philosopher) is especially keen on silencing folk. His work is notable for its ecumenical, inclusive spirit. (The inaugural lecture I am quoting from has a serious engagement with Derrida's views.) But the demand that a criticism has to be couched in a rival theory has the effective effect of making most criticisms impotent. Of course, Priest would allow that in a colloquium talk (during Q&A) or in a seminar one could raise criticisms without absent a novel theory. (He is very good on the norms that govern such settings.)*

The position also makes it much harder to permit reductio as a legitimate form of philosophy if one ends up in skeptical aporia. This anti-skeptical sensibility is quite clear in his criticisms of Rorty's Derrida:

Are Derrida and Rorty playing with us? I doubt it; but if they are, we have no reason to take them seriously, any more than I have to take seriously the things that you tell me if you area musing me with riddles-'As I was going to St. Ives, I met a man with seven wives ...' This is, in fact, just a special case of a well-known bind that was first observed as long ago as Plato's Theaetetus (171a4-c7). Someone who claims that there is no appropriate notion of truth to which assertion must answer can say anything they like. There is therefore no reason to believe them. They have argued themselves out of the game. (200)

I leave aside here, Priest's rejection of play (recall this post; or Derrida's category of frivolity). But it is not quite right (I was about to say 'true') that "Someone who claims that there is no appropriate notion of truth to which assertion must answer can say anything they like." That really depends on their conception of responsible speech. (And here one may well think there are crucial differences between Rorty and Derrida.) So, for example, if you know that somebody's conception of speech is ethical -- that they care about the prevention of harms, that they recognize the capacity of language to be itself a source of oppression, that they think their words create and bind their selves --, one may well have excellent reason to find their utterances  trustworthy (I almost said 'believable' and 'credible') despite the fact that they are disinclined to invoke truth. This may well require contextual and contrastive judgments of character; of course, such judgments may be inefficient or themselves corrupted.

Either way, Priest's rejection of Derrida is too greedy here, even if it is sociologically effective. Most of Priest's readers will come to his text already agreeing with him that Derrida is not worth taking seriously (even if Priest clearly thinks otherwise). As Dotson implies, once one recognizes that there may be more than one game in town, we may also pay more attention to how the rules of the game we're playing may rule out moves on grounds that narrow the playing field too (ahh) narrowly.

 

On the absence of Method(s) in analytic (Political) Philosophy

1. People like me, who have been trying to do philosophy for more than forty years, do in due course learn, if they’re lucky, how to do what they’ve been trying to do: that is, they do learn how to do philosophy. But although I’ve learned how to do philosophy, nobody ever told me how do it, and, so far as I would guess, nobody will have told you how to do it, or is likely to tell you how to do it in the future. The most charitable explanation of that fact, the fact, that is, that nobody tells philosophy students how to do philosophy, is that it is impossible to explain to anybody how philosophy is to be done. The only way to teach people how to do it is by letting them watch, and listen, and imitate. The least charitable explanation of the self-same fact, the fact that we don’t teach you how to do philosophy, is that those of us who have learned how to do it struggled so hard to get where we now are that we’re now selfishly reluctant to give you some of the fruit of our struggle for free: we think you, too, should suffer. Probably there’s some truth in each explanation.--G.A. Cohen "How to Do Political Philosophy" 225. [Edited by Mike Otsuka]

I am unsure if Cohen would have wished for these remarks to appear in print, but I am pleased Mike Otsuka included them in his edition. There is much in this short essay to ruminate on, and I hope to return to it again before long.

Once upon a time, Cohen teaches, professional (analytic) philosophers* were not trained in method. These days there are handbooks to philosophical method (edited by leading philosophers), even one on the methods (note the plural) in analytical political theory (which I am toying with buying). So, it may become hard to imagine to some readers what analytic philosophy was like in the days when its methods were not articulated yet. The previous sentence is deliberately equivocal between the scandalous thought that in earlier times [A] analytic philosophy was free of methods and the equally scandalous thought (the one G.A. Cohen entertains and considers plausibly true) that [B] the methods were kept quiet. Cohen adds to B the further rationalization/explanation [B*] that people may have thought -- perhaps because they repeatedly read the Meno or Protagoras -- the methods of philosophy cannot be explicitly taught/said, but have to be shown via example/exemplars. 

Before I say more about [A-B-B*] and [C] the more sadistic-survivor-syndrom interpretation [recall "those of us who have learned how to do it struggled so hard to get where we now are that...we think you, too, should suffer"] as well as its close cousin [C*] the ungenerous interpretation ["we’re now selfishly reluctant to give you some of the fruit of our struggle for free"], it is worth marking three features of Cohen's position (and again, for all I know he may well have not wished to publish this). First he is surprisingly immodest in his willingness to assert that he is now a proper exemplar who has "learned how to do philosophy." (I am not suggesting he is wrong.) Second, in the paper, he associates philosophy primarily with arguments. Much of his initial, primary advice is about how to think of one's arguments and what to aim for in them. In fact, these two features of Cohen are connected, in a sense, because what Cohen wishes to promote, it seems, is an understanding of philosophy as a kind of hyper-self-consciousness about the nature, aims, targets, and status of one's argument. (That is, the connection is not one of entailment; but Cohen seems to suggest that because he is in control of argument he can have  a proper estimation of his own status.)**

And, third, it is a bit odd that if Cohen thinks philosophical method is about argument that (a) it was not taught and (b) that it would be all that difficult to teach. (That's compatible with few getting good at it.) I actually think this shows that the focus on argument is a bit of a red herring. For, Cohen also allows that

Sometimes one senses that a consideration has some sort of bearing on a controversy...and it is nevertheless worthwhile bringing the consideration forward, if only because it may provoke a discussion that leads to a clearer idea of the polemical significance of the consideration, that is, into which box(es) in our matrix it falls. One should aspire to clarity, but one should not avoid possible insight for the sake of avoiding unclarity. A bad way never to make a mistake is to shut up and say nothing. (226)

I am not suggesting  Cohen is defending here the worth of argument-free insight, but he does seem to think that acquiring a certain amount of clarity and insight may be worth the price of argumentative muddle. I think Cohen is, in fact, rather skeptical about what arguments can achieve because he is extremely aware that what grounds (forgive the property metaphors) the occupation of philosophical territory is the commitment to a "point of view" (232) as "obvious." (It's not that arguments for these point of views don't exist; they do exist and can be refined and clarified greatly.) In this essay, Cohen does not say much more, I think, about how one comes to find oneself to occupy a philosophical territory, so we'll leave it at that. (One senses it's not so much Carnapian voluntarism as it is to be explained, if there is one, in an emotional commitment to certain values as non-relinquish-able.)

I do want to close with two alternative suggestions. I think the most charitable explanation of that fact that the methods of philosophy were not taught is that, to restate, [A] analytic philosophy was free of methods. (This is different from the claim that [D] the methods of (early to middle) analytical philosophy were not unified.) Now, I am aware that, at various point early analytic philosophers certainly discussed the methods of sciences; they also often claimed to be following a "method of analysis" or a methodized "logical analysis" or a "method of rational reconstruction."++ And their writings are full of proposals (for others) to follow some method or another, but it's by no means obvious that there was a method. (There are, rather, lots of attempts at articulating some method or another; recall my exchange with Dennett and his response on analysis; and also this post on the Strawson-Carnap exchange) .) To say that there was no method is not a criticism. 

But it does lead me to the most uncharitable explanation of the silence over method: (recall) [E] it is a form of boundary policing. Under such a regime, outsiders are permanently mystified about the rules of the game because they don't know what move to make to acquire standing. [To put this in terms of a bad joke: insiders have Wittgenstein to explain the game to them; outsiders get bullied.] Obviously, the least charitable explanation need not be true. But there are plenty of incentives that are compatible with the truth.

If the least charitable explanation has some truth then it's a good thing that philosophy is being methodized. Of course, it need not follow that following philosophical method teaches you how to do philosophy.

 

 

On the role of Systematicity in an Impure Theory of a (Pluralistic) Liberalism worth Having

The man of system, on the contrary, is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it.--Adam Smith (1790) The Theory of Moral Sentiments

The quoted passage from TMS is one of the epigraphs to Jacob T. Levy's (2015) Rationalism, Pluralism & Freedom (RPF). The other is to a passage from Mill's (1862) Centralization, in which Mill warns against local despotism. Levy's inspiring book, which is both a mitigated defense of the significance of intermediaries to a liberalism worth having as well as a fascinating re-visionary history of liberalism* in which the tradition of reflection on the so-called 'ancient constitution' is an independent stream, is framed by the often competing dangers and aspirations emanating from the so-called 'man of system' and the 'bussybodies.' The man of system represents the rationalistic impulse that in the name of justice and efficiency tends toward homogenization, (Weberian) rationalization, and a controlling, strong central government suspicious of local powers. Levy's discussion is useful to the scholar because he nicely brings out the ways in which Smith is clearly indebted to Montesquieu (and joins him in defending the significance of intermediaries) and especially astute about the ways Smith diagnoses the dangers of both central power(s) and local elites. Levy's book is so good that I regret not reading it before I completed my own, while  recognizing that if I had down so (it appeared when mine was under review) it would have caused lengthy delay.+

Before I get to a critical digression, I want to make two preliminary comments. One personal pleasure in reading Levy's book is that it provides a nice background to Levy's more general views familiar to regular readers of his essays (which often inspire me to figure out what I think); Levy has that rare capacity to speak to the political moment in an intellectual fashion with a distinctive, moral compass without falling victim to partisanship. While reading the book I felt I was visiting a friend in his home environment showing me his study and, thereby, allowing me to connect some dots about him. Second, Levy's book is self-consciously a contribution to impure political philosophy (a term borrowed from Williams). It is, thus, worth reflecting on RPF as an exemplar in that genre (not unlike Sabl's Hume's Politics). Some other time, I'll say more about Levy's contribution to the nature of such impure theory. What follows is a kind of indirect comment on that topic, too.

As noted above, Levy draws generous inspiration from Smith's critique of systematicity. He returns (66) to the passage from TMS quoted at the top of this post, and quotes it (alongside Montesquieu) more fully:

The man of system, on the contrary, is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it. He goes on to establish it completely and in all its parts, without any regard either to the great interests, or to the strong prejudices which may oppose it. He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board. He does not consider that the pieces upon the chess-board have no other principle of motion besides that which the hand impresses upon them; but that, in the great chess-board of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature might chuse to impress upon it. 

Levy rightly resists the hungry temptation (familiar from those inspired by Hayek) to turn Smith into a mere critic of social planning. Smith here is defending not just gradualism, but also the political dangers in trying to eliminate intermediaries, that is, "the great interests." In the paragraphs just before the one that Levy quotes, Smith discusses these in terms of "the great orders;" the core upshot of that discussion can be summarized as follows, "The man whose public spirit is prompted altogether by humanity and benevolence, will respect the established powers and privileges even of individuals, and still more those of the great orders and societies, into which the state is divided" (emphasis added). As Levy correctly notes Smith's political theory is both a great critique of the moral abuses of intermediaries (including guilds, imperialistic monopolies, state religions, etc.) and aims at defending the rights of these. Social intermediaries are worth preserving and are, in fact, not simply reducible to the the desires and interests of those that compose them (recall)--they have a principle of motion of their their own (that is also resistant to outside imposition).** While I would emphasize more (than Levy does) the significance of aesthetics (apparent "beauty") to the "madness" of fanaticism that is a danger in Smith's "man of system," so far so good.

But Levy's analysis of Smith and the nature of systems is also partial. I say this not to deny that for Smith "love of system" tends to generate not just fanaticism or expert-overconfidence. But that Levy omits something important starts to become clear if we also quote the closing sentence of the paragraph, which Levy fails omits:

If those two principles coincide and act in the same direction, the game of human society will go on easily and harmoniously, and is very likely to be happy and successful. If they are opposite or different, the game will go on miserably, and the society must be at all times in the highest degree of disorder.

Here we see that what Smith is after, and this is something that Levy explicitly recognizes  (when discussing Montesquieu): that social reformers are more likely to succeed, and less likely to generate dangerous, political "disorder," if their reforms work with the "grain" of society, that is, the interests and commitments of intermediaries (and individuals). Social reform is not left to the market or only to bottom up processes; it can be influenced and guided by the center if it (the center) is capable of understanding its own limitations and taking into account the interests and aims of social actors.

In addition, the center must be guided by a system. For Smith claims, in the first sentence of the next paragraph, that “some general, and even systematical, idea of the perfection of policy and law, may no doubt be necessary for directing the views of the statesman.” Such a system allows it to avoid acting in ad hoc fashion and also be able to grasp which compromises are worth accepting and which undermine its moral and political aims. That is, a system is required to guide (not control) long-term planning and to allow trade-offs to be modeled and foreseen. For, while “the judgments of mankind [can be] perverted by wrong systems,” Smith actually explicitly defends systematicity--this should come as no surprise because throughout his life, Smith called attention to (a) the systematicity of his own works (say, here and here) and (b) he refers to his own project as a "system of natural liberty." More important, Smith thought that (c) a proper, (aestheticized) “love of system” can activate the most “noble and magnificent” political and philanthropic projects and the right sort of “public spirit.” In particular, a system-inspired public spirit can even compensate for an absence of the love of humanity or “pure sympathy” in a political agent.++ (Smith is often treated as a sentimentalist, but throughout his writings rules and the reflections of reason can compensate for lack of feeling.) For the a system that can or does generate such “public welfare” is a system worth having. (An important element in a right sort of system is Smith's concern to address inductive risk, but about that another time more.)

Let me wrap up. Levy's book attunes the reader to the the frequent dissonances between the "freedom to associate"" and the "freedom within (or from) group life."  (I write "frequent" because Levy is is equally astute about the ways such freedoms can reinforce each other.) Levy is, however, a skeptic about the ability of a normative and impure system that can do full justice to such dissonances. I think this is due to the fact that the most influential systems we have either rationalize these away (toward one side, often favoring the state or justice at the expense of other important liberal commitments) or contain non-trivial (Rawlsian) "wobbles" from  the point of view of coherence and reason. But what makes Smith especially notable today, or so I argue in my book, is that he is an exemplar in offering such a system without the (one-sided) rationalization or the wobble. That's not because Smith squares a theoretical circle (overlooked by Levy and the tradition), but because he embraces deviations from reason and coherence as an endemic feature of social life and internalizes it in his system (or so I argue). This generates its own tensions, of course, but about these another time.

On the Significance of Derrida to Analytical Philosophy

In many ways I see Derrida as following Heidegger. But he was more pessimistic than Heidegger about the prospects for good metaphysics. And he paid a kind of attention to language that Heidegger never did. One of the main things that he did was to distinguish between what he called “speech” and what he called “writing”. He meant these terms in a more or less technical way. By “speech” he meant, very roughly, the use of signs whose meanings were intrinsic to them, so that they couldn’t be misinterpreted. By “writing” he meant, again roughly, the use of signs whose meanings were extrinsic to them—that is to say, whose meanings depended on the signs’ association with other signs—so that they could be misinterpreted. And he rejected the idea there was any such thing as “speech”, so understood: there was only “writing”. This was significant, because he also argued that much traditional philosophy, including most traditional metaphysics, tacitly presupposed that there was such a thing as “speech”. This was part of the reason why he was more pessimistic than Heidegger about the prospects for good metaphysics: he was sceptical about how far metaphysics could thrive once it had unshackled itself from the traditional forms that it had taken. And this is all relevant to analytic metaphysicians too, because his arguments about the unacceptability of traditional metaphysics carry over to what they’re doing.

So yes, there is something to be said for analytic metaphysicians reading Derrida and confronting the challenge that he poses to their various enterprises. But his style and approach to philosophy are so different from theirs that it would be silly to pretend that they are liable to find his work anything other than alien. Of course I hope that my book may help in that respect, by casting some of his principal ideas in ways that analytic philosophers will find more familiar and more accessible.--Adrian Moore interviewed @3AM Magazine.[HT Leiterreports]

lt is extremely rare for analytical philosophers to say anything positive about Derrida. (In fact, I kind of enjoyed the scandal it caused me to be doing so [recall here, here, and here].)* It is even more unusual to claim that Derrida may well be relevant to analytic metaphysicians in particular. So, I have decided to read Moore's book because of the interview (so more about that not before long).

In the passage quoted above, Moore (Oxford) hints at a substantive reason for analytic philosophers to take an interest: that Derrida undermines (shall we say) the ground beneath the projects analytic metaphysicians pursue. Somewhat strikingly, Moore claims that Derrida has arguments. (This is often denied.) As presented, Derrida is a thoroughgoing semantic holist, who, thereby, makes impossible certain (presumably realist/non-idealist) metaphysical projects. Right now such holism is a non-starter. (One can say, not entirely unfairly, that it was only through the rejection of Quine's holism that contemporary metaphysics got off the ground.) But presumably Moore thinks that Derrida's version of holism is especially insightful and challenging. Moore does not say what Derrida's arguments are that can pull the analytical metaphysian back from her project.

In the passage, Moore allows that Derrida's style is "alien" to the contemporary analytical metaphysician. One may think, in fact, that Moore believes that for those trained in analytical idiom, Derrida is simply unintelligible because Derrida's idiom is incommensurable (in the Kuhnian sense, say) with ours. But a moment's reflection reveals that there is something peculiar about Moore's stance here (analogous to Kuhn's ability to discuss incommensurable scientific paradigms); for Moore clearly believes that he can read and understand Derrida. (Let's stipulate he can.) And Moore is, of course, a trained analytic metaphysician (although by no means a kneejerk realist). So, Moore implies, strongly, that despite alien first impression there is no fundamental incommensurability between an analytical philosopher and Derrida's writing. (His comprehension of Derrida is a proof of real possibility.)

As an aside, if there is no fundamental incommensurability between an analytical philosopher and Derrida's writing, then many analytical philosophers (who often claim that Derrida is bullshit) are just intellectually lazy or dishonest in their encounters with Derrida.

Be that as it may, Moore does not claim that Derrida's arguments would successfully undermine the project of the analytic metaphysian. They are said only to "challenge" them. One may wonder what the benefit of such relevance is. Moore could be thinking that such a challenge could lead to more subtle reflections on the (semantic, conceptual) foundations of the metaphysician's enterprise. It would be amusing (in a cunning of history sense) if grappling with Derrida created more stable foundations for analytical metaphysics.

Such a result would be unintended by Derrida because Derrida's skepticism about metaphysics is not just, as it were, epistemological; it has a Socratic and political or ethical element. Moore hints at the Socratic element in a touching passage:

As analytic philosophy has developed, and as it has become more and more assured, it has also become, in certain respects, less and less self-conscious. The concern with sense has never diminished. But there is less and less concern with what it is for us to make sense. For the most part, contemporary metaphysicians are more interested in just getting on with the business of making it than agonizing about what it takes for us to do so! Dummett, in that respect, can appear alien.

It is notable that the description of Dummett's philosophy is uncannily similar to the description of Derrida. They are both treated as alien. (I once wrote a whole blog post about asking when Wittgenstein had become a continental philosopher; it had not crossed my mind to ask the same about Dummett.) I have to admit that I used to find the word (and concept) 'alien' innocent--I thought of Martians who could fly away at will. But in our day and age, I think of unwelcome refugees when I hear 'alien.'

The main point of this passage is a decline and fall theme: the loss of self-consciousness. (I leave aside the rather harsh comment on the contemporary metaphysician's interest.) In fact, one may see Moore as saying that the point of an encounter with Derrida is that it would lead to a recovery of self-consciousness.

In the interview Moore does not explain the nature or point of such self-consciousness. And one may well wonder if it prevents one from getting on with the business of making it then is it really worth the agonizing, opportunity costs?

In the interview (which is admittedly brief, so this is not a complaint), Moore says nothing about Derrida's let's call it ethical or practical reasons for cautioning (recall) agains metaphysics, especially its and philosophy's more general tendency to deploy authoritative speech and, thereby, slide into authoritarian practices.  That is, in our jargon, Derrida worries about inductive risk (or, as we learn from Spivak via Dotson, epistemic violence). So understood Derrida's playful, even comic style is, in fact, an instance of responsible speech a topic that should not be alien to analytical philosophers at all (recall).**  

 

On Cobwebs and Coxcombs: Adam Smith's criticism of Metaphysical technicality

At any rate, I cannot allow myself to believe that such men as Zeno or Cleanthes, men, it is said, of the most simple as well as of the most sublime eloquence, could be the authors, either of these, or of the greater part of the other Stoical paradoxes, which are in general mere impertinent quibbles, and do so little honour to their system that I shall give no further account of them. I am disposed to impute them rather to Chrysippus, the disciple and follower, indeed, of Zeno and Cleanthes, but who, from all that has been delivered down to us concerning him, seems to have been a mere dialectical pedant, without taste or elegance of any kind. He may have been the first who reduced their doctrines into a scholastic or technical system of artificial definitions, divisions, and subdivisions; one of the most effectual expedients, perhaps, for extinguishing whatever degree of good sense there may be in any moral or metaphysical doctrine. Such a man may very easily be supposed to have understood too literally some animated expressions of his masters in describing the happiness of the man of perfect vurtue, and the unhappiness of whoever fell short of that character.--Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, 7.2.1.41

Adam Smith deliberately left us an enigmatic, brief History of the "Ancient Logics and Metaphysics" (in his posthumous, Essays on Philosophical Subjects). Moreover, his more polished essay on the origin of language -- attached to the the third edition of The Theory of Moral Sentiments (hereafter TMS) and well known in the 19th century -- is, in part, a conjectural-naturalistic account of the development of the human, cognitive capacity for “metaphysical analysis.” So Smith's interest in metaphysics is well-attested.

Even so, one may well think that Smith is no fan of metaphysics. In Wealth of Nations (hereafter WN), he writes about the Scholastics, "if subtleties and sophisms composed the greater part of the Metaphysicks or Pneumaticks of the schools, they composed the whole of this cobweb science of Ontology, which was likewise sometimes called Metaphysicks." (WN 5.1.f.29) Moreover, in TMS he writes, in a passage critical of the stoics, "The stoical apathy is, in such cases, never agreeable, and all the metaphysical sophisms by which it is supported can seldom serve any other purpose than to blow up the hard insensibility of a coxcomb to ten times its native impertinence." (TMS 3.3.14) Other than the fact that Smith is using 'sophisms' as a pejorative, it's not obvious why he would dislike metaphysics in these passages and in the passage quoted at the top of this post. Even so, if we look at the three passages (TMS 3.3.14 & 7.2.1.41 and WN 5.1.f.29) in light of each other and in context, a clear pattern of thought develops.

The WN passage is offered in the midst of a much larger treatment of the role of government in and financing of education. In immediate context, the argument is part of a broader (Spinozistic) Enlightenment attack on philosophical "subservience" to "theology" and neglect of the duties appropriate to this life. He blames the ascetic philosophy produced by Scholasticism and its casuistry for the corruption of moral philosophy--"by far the most important of all the different branches of philosophy" (WN 5.1.f.30) Here scholasticism is criticized (somewhat unfairly) due to its effects. In particular, "liberal, generous, and spirited conduct of a man" was rejected because it does not secure entry into heaven. (Smith echoes Hume's attack on the Monkish virtues, although Smith's embrace of thumos is noteworthy.) The Scholastic curriculum is said to be improper for the "education of gentlemen or men of the world," and unable "either to improve the understanding, or to mend the heart."

Now, the Wealth of Nations passage makes it seem that Smith rejects Scholastic metaphysics because he does not like its orientation (toward the after-life) and (life-denying/ascetic) conclusions. Something similar may be thought of Smith's rejection of Stoic metaphysics because he takes apathy to be an absurdly foolish orientation toward life. (I have polemically criticized the idea that Smith is some kind of Stoic here.) Here, too, Smith attacks a species of metaphysics for the conclusions its supports.

As an aside, Smith is a fierce critic of casuistry (see also TMS 7.4.30). As I have argued elsewhere, his indictment against casuistry concerns the way in which experts for hire and their skill commercially facilitate moral-psychological escapism and so prevent the embrace of our proper reactive attitudes. In contrast to many of his modern admirers, Smith does not think that all free markets are always just.  Smith is especially suspicious of the manner in which the market for (moral) expertise operates. That is to say, Smith thinks casuistry is always wrong because it prevents even undermines the proper functioning of our moral dispositions. The question is, is Smith's critique of metaphysics akin to his critique of casuistry?

The critique of Chryssipus (here I ignore its veracity) suggests that Smith's attitude toward metaphysics is more complicated. He does not object to metaphysical doctrine as such. But he certainly thinks that a certain amount of technical sophistication backfires on the status of doctrine. He does not fully explain his reasoning. But he clearly thinks of philosophical doctrine as animating and guiding/informing behavior. In the context of Stoicism, a school that proposed a whole way of life, this is by no means anachronistic. In fact, Smith clearly thinks that one very important criterion for the evaluation of philosophical practices and systems as such (so past and present) is its likely effect on behavior. In my forthcoming book <grin>,* I analyze this in terms Smith's commitment to responsible speech or inductive risk. (It is no surprise then that Smith treats moral philosophy as the most important branch of philosophy.)

In particular, Smith's objection is not to metaphysics but to technicality.*** His objection is, I think, two-fold: first, it removes us cognitively from our valuable, practiced dispositions and, thereby, second, is likely to move us away from how we ought to behave. That is to say, here technical philosophy is treated as corruption of the ordinary soul.+ How it does so is not entirely explained, but presumably Smith thinks that certain, fine-grained distinctions distance us from the proper objects of moral evaluation (people, motives, effects, institutions, etc.) or, at least, from the proper comportment toward these.

Obviously, one may claim that some technical, sophisticated (moral) philosophy is truth-tracking. But Smith would respond that such philosophy would not be needed (outside the seminar room***)!  Smith makes it a bit easy for himself by not investigating the ways in which technicality may well be fruitful in some areas of philosophical expertise. (This is especially surprising because at the start of WN, Smith is very clear that the intellectual of division of labor takes place within philosophy and so facilitates technical specialization.) But, it's clear that Smith thinks that all technical philosophy has an ever-present danger of certain forms of escapism from reality built into their practice (see Astronomy 4.14). So, it's easy to distance oneself from Smith's critique of technicality (especially if one lacks fondness for gentlemen) until one starts reflecting (with nudges from Ruth Chang (recall), Audrey Yap (recall), or Michael Rea [recall]) on the ways that our sophisticated, philosophical practices may corrupt our dispositions.++.

 

On the Role of the History of Physics and Philosophy in Metaphysics.

Disputes in philosophy of time over how to understand the significance of special relativity, for example, are hampered by difficulties over how to read the developments in physics as contributions to philosophy. Disputes arise as to whether the philosophical challenges posed by relativity of simultaneity in special relativity can be safely ignored by philosophers since special relativity is a false theory, and over whether, even if special relativity is to be taken into account, the dispensability of a privileged present in special relativity implies anything about the existence or otherwise of a privileged present, metaphysically. These disputes seem to me poorly framed, because they fail to read special relativity itself as arising through a diachronic process of philosophical engagement with our everyday concepts of space and time, a process which has clarified and transformed those concepts (see DiSalle, 2006). The example I have discussed in this paper is Newton’s work on duration, and I have said nothing about simultaneity, which is more of a hot topic in contemporary metaphysics. But similar work to that which I have done here can be done for simultaneity. The question of whether time flows is another topic that has received attention recently and, as my remarks on mathematical time above indicate, I think that attention to the role of this claim in Newton’s project help clarify how such a claim should be understood. By reading developments in physics as a part of the history of philosophy, we can make visible the ways in which physics contributes to the conceptual clarifications and transformations of the very questions that we are asking about time, and the means by which aspects of our oldest questions concerning time are rendered empirically tractable.

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Time (2011) and the Blackwell Companion to the Philosophy Of Time (2013) both contain sections written by metaphysicians (on such topics as presentism, persistence, fatalism, and tense) and sections written by philosophers of physics (on time in classical and relativistic physics, and in cosmology and quantum gravity). Though I have little empirical evidence to offer you, I am doubtful how much each group of philosophers reads one another’s chapters: if cross--‐referencing is anything to go by, they are not really talking to one another, and one reason is their differing methodologies. A more historically driven methodology, in which both philosophy and physics are read diachronically as contributions to our ongoing philosophical conversation, would enable both parties to speak to one another in more fruitful ways.--Katherine Brading "Time for empiricist metaphysics" in Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Science: New Essays, 38-39.

Brading is a leading philosopher of physics and historian of early modern (natural) philosophy. The passage I quote is the conclusion of a paper that is both on Newton's philosophy of time (which, in fact, challenges some of my claims about it here [and recall yesterday's post]) and philosophical methodology (or meta-philosophy). Here I ignore our remaining (if any) disagreements over Newton's philosophy of time and focus on some of the meta-philosophical and sociological issues raised by Brading. I warmly recommend Brading's essay. I think she is right that philosophers of physics, metaphysicians, and HPS types rarely talk to each other. My sense is that the situation has, in fact, improved, from an admittedly low level, during the last decade among the first two (so that there is quite a bit more mutual awareness among philosophers of physics and metaphysicians -- in part because quite a bit of philosophers of science have moved into the metaphysics of science  --), while HPS, which has been in retreat among analytical philosophers, has become increasingly disconnected from work in contemporary philosophy of physics and metaphysics. [The previous sentence is, of course, extremely subjective impression.] I think some of the disconnect between  HPS (focused on physics) and analytical philosophy {the situation is different in philosophy of biology which is a lot more receptive toward history} is due to contingent hiring decisions at top (history and) philosophy of science programs, but it also reflects a more general turning away of philosophy of science from history in the post-Kuhn-era towards rejuvenated formal approaches and a focus on contemporary practice in the philosophy of scientific practice.

Brading is right that a lot of "disputes" in philosophy of physics "are hampered by difficulties over how to read the developments in physics as contributions to philosophy" and that part of the problem is a lack of awareness about the complex ways that scientific concepts arise "through a diachronic process of philosophical engagement with our everyday concepts." I would add to this claim that the everyday or more stylized concepts are not stable over time. The scientific image (to use Sellarsian terminology) and various technologies also helps shape the manifest image as well as the intuitions that are taken to be common sense. (This is also an issue in x-phi, by the way, when it explores, say, concepts of causation.) So, there is definitely a role for the kind of project that Brading advocates in the development phase, as it were, of a metaphysics of (topic/concept) X (hereafter I often delete 'topic/concept' when I speak of X where strictly speaking it should be included.)

The previous paragraph is significant in a further way.  The stance she advocates also helps correct for features due to the fact that metaphysics and philosophy of physics tends to be informed by latest textbook descriptions of X. These tend to imagine away all the complexities of fitting a concept to experience and the mutual adjustments among concepts/models/theories that go along with it. In addition, the metaphysics of X informed by textbook characterization of X tends to overlook the model-dependence of X. In addition, by looking at the history of X, "we can make visible the ways in which physics contributes to the conceptual clarifications and transformations of the very questions that we are asking about" X. That is, we will learn that philosophy is itself a diachronic process that changes due to the influence of, say, physics.

But Brading's concluding sentence is a bit too optimistic, I fear. And one philosophical reason for that is that the tools of mainstream, contemporary philosophy are, in fact, somewhat ill-suited for the project she envision. For, while philosophers are very comfortable talking about clarification of concepts, many find talk of transformation of concepts incoherent (or a beginner's blunder). And that's because the standard (non-pragmatist) notions of what concepts are, are quite inhospitable to conceptual change/transformations. So, the lack of interest in genuine, diachronic processes in philosophy -- and the existence of many strategies to avoid talking about them -- is not a bug but a feature of contemporary philosophy (recall also my post on social kinds in Epstein's work on social ontology).*

As a speculative historical aside, a scholar of early modern philosophy, may put the point in the previous paragraph, in part, in light of the rejection of the Aristotelian paradigm which thought questions of origin as genuinely informative and explanatory. As formal and final causes were increasingly rejected, the need for an understanding of concepts that can accommodate change became less pressing.

To return to my main argument. There are also three sociological barriers to Brading's methodology. First, I note one extrinsic to philosophy as such: PhDs are getting shorter and the demands for publication simultaneously higher. Yet the kind of research she is advocating actually demand quite a high investment in time to master more material as well as development multiple kinds of skills (historical, conceptual, and technical, etc.) before a publication is possible. That's rather risky from the vantage point of young scholars trying to figure out what research program to join. Not to put too fine point on this, this is an enterprise that is only going to seem attractive to a would be elite with high risk appetite or those that wish to facilitate other people's project (see my third point below).

Second, and this connects to the point about concepts, many contemporary philosophers are taught to make a sharp distinction between genetic questions and philosophy. While there remain interesting defenses of, say, work on conceptual genealogy, historical epistemology, the dynamics of reason, and the philosophical significance of Kuhn losses in science, they have not really influenced (analytical) philosophy's self-understanding. This is true, too, of many people that are not themselves in any way hostile or indifferent to the history of philosophy (especially if that history is understood as a history of arguments). That is, when philosophy is understood as being about arguments pertaining to X, historical process leading to X just seems irrelevant.

Third, Brading assumes that people in philosophy want to speak to each other productively across distinct areas of specialization with their own ideolects. I am sure this is so on an individual psychological and moral level. But the zero-sum environment (in jobs, status, attention, etc.) as well as the incentives and norms that structure professional philosophy point in a different connection; these all encourage ways to prevent discussion with those that may complicate and slow down the stories we wish to tell.

On Moral Reasoning With False Premises in Adam Smith, Mill, and Hegel [Guest Post by Elizabeth Anderson]

[This is an invited guest post by Elizabeth Anderson. It originates in correspondence over this recent post here at D&I.—ES]

One of the interesting aspects of Mill's work is that he takes the moral reasoning of the prophets seriously even though they were reasoning from theistic premises that he rejected. There are important lessons here for atheist philosophers. I've been working on abolitionism, which in the U.S. and Britain was overwhelmingly working from religious first premises. As an atheist, I have had to think hard about what to make of this. It seems to me that 19th century philosophers such as Mill and Hegel had more sophisticated views of how to understand religious arguments than contemporary atheist analytic philosophers. In analytic philosophy, if one starts off reasoning from a false premise, everything about the argument is wrong and it should be simply rejected out of hand. But for someone like Hegel, the externalization of moral requirements in the figure of God is a productive moment in the history of consciousness much in the way Mill outlined: it enabled people to distinguish the status quo from what was actually right and just, and supplied them with a critical perspective on current practice, insofar as theism enabled them to assume a "God's eye" perspective on conduct. That God as people imagine it does not literally exist no more undercuts the value of their moral reasoning than Mackie's critique of metaphysical moral realism undercuts critical moral reasoning today. (And even Mackie, after trashing moral realism, finds himself unable to avoid moralizing himself.) The critical moral point of view is essential and productive even if it is projected onto a fictional entity. What matters is the alternative perspective it affords, not its ontological status.

Smith explicitly internalizes this externalization: the "impartial and well-informed spectator" who judges our conduct is not God, but "the man within the breast"--our own conscience. From Hegel's point of view, this is another, more advanced stage in the history of consciousness. First we externalize a moral ideal, projecting it onto some imagined spirit supposedly independent of us--a god. But in our attempts to then live up to that ideal, to realize it in concrete social practices, we encounter "contradictions"--which is to say that how we imagined things would be when we attempt to follow some supposedly God-given moral principle is not how they actually turn out, but we find ourselves not able to satisfy all supposed moral requirements in our social order at the same time, and may end up making things worse for ourselves in certain respects in the attempt. This forces us to revise the original ideal. This process continues, and at some point, with the help of philosophy, we step back and realize what we are doing in this process! That is, that it is we who are projecting our own ideals onto a supposedly distinct god, rather than getting them handed down by some god who is imagined to be wholly external to us, and it is we who are continually revising our ideas of what God is telling us to do, in light of our own experiences attempting to follow his supposed commands.

This recognition of ourselves in what is supposedly wholly other now enables a further advance in critical thinking: now we can critically reflect on our own processes of moral thinking and consider whether those processes are systematically biased in problematic ways. Spinoza, Hobbes, Hume, and Smith are all important thinkers at this moment. Note that for Hume and Smith in particular, the mere fact that a belief is a projection does not automatically discredit it. We have to examine whether the underlying thought processes embody problematic biases. So we get things like the wonderful passages in The Theory of Moral Sentiments that criticize our sympathetic biases in favor of the rich and powerful, which also lead to unjust contempt and neglect of the poor and unfortunate.

At a further stage of philosophy, when we naturalize Hegel's insights as to how consciousness develops, from (i) externalization, to (ii) recognition of ourselves in that externalization, to (iii) self-conscious taking control over the whole process of continual revision by taking a critical perspective on how this works, and (iv) we subject this to empirical study (via, e.g., the discipline of psychology)--we get Dewey's pragmatism. I read Dewey as Hegel naturalized, and without an end to history or final answer to the normative questions we pose. The process of critical reflection, revision, testing in the world, and back again goes on forever, with no end in sight.

Can Philology Save Us? On Justin Smith's vision for the university of the 21st century

For philology may hold out not only the promise of reviving the humanities, but also of reestablishing the lost unity of the human sciences with the sciences of nature. Part of philology's apparent irrelevance today has to do with what we may diagnose as our society's radical and unprecedented presentism. No textual culture in human history has been so indifferent to its own past, and indeed this indifference strongly suggests that, though we continue to Tweet and to 'text' and to share memes that consist in part in strings of words, we are in fact moving into a post-textual era....This presentism not only cuts us off from what was long understood to be a central concern of the human sciences --to know who we are by knowing where we've come from--, it also perpetuates and deepens the contingent and unnecessary separation, as I've suggested, of the human from the natural sciences. Understood as philology, as a search for origins, the human sciences in fact share a great deal with a number of other sorts of inquiry often cordoned off from the human sciences on the other side of what has been called, since C. P. Snow introduced that term in 1959, the 'two-cultures divide'. Philology shares aims and objectives, and sometimes also methods, with archaeology, as also with paleontology, evolutionary biology, and perhaps even those branches of theoretical physics that deal with the distant origins of the universe. All seek to account for how the world got to be the way it is....

History...should be elevated to its rightful place, as the reigning science in the emerging universities of the 21st century. It is the best hope for an exit from the current dérive of the humanities, and, much more than this, it is the best hope for overcoming the false and arbitrary rift between the human and the natural sciences. History is considerably larger than philology, yet philology itself may be much larger than it is now perceived to be. Pollock notes that philology "has been everywhere that texts have been, indeed, in a way that we have yet to fully grasp, everywhere that language has been." This ubiquity was however grasped, for example, by the early Islamic field linguists who went out to build their lexica from the oral poetry of the Bedouins. Nor, at other times in history, as for Leibniz and William Jones, was the boundary of the genealogist's project set at the limits of language, but indeed extended to all the things named in language, to the world itself. In their diminished self-understanding, today's humanists have relinquished all these things to the natural scientists, who for the most part do not know what to make of them. By rediscovering its unity with philology in the shared project of history, natural science stands to gain as much as the humanities do: to rediscover its lofty purpose of enabling us to make sense of the world, and of our place in it.--Justin Smith "A Forgotten Field Could Save the Humanities," The Chronicle of Higher Education. [Behind a paywall; HT DailyNous.]

Justin Smith is probably the most creative and playful historian of (early modern) philosophy today.* So, I was sad to learn that he is "increasingly" leaving it "behind in view of its woeful provincialism." In his piece he also rejects 'localism' (which he associates with a deplorable, it seems, "new strain of identitarianism in the humanities.") He embraces, rather, "a global, rather than provincial," perspective. (He is quoting Sheldon Pollock, but in context he is endorsing it.) From context it's clear that the 'global' is something distinct from the 'universal' (or, at least, the purportedly universal that he associates with Anglo professional philosophy). Presumably, a universal perspective homogenizes, whereas the global makes space for differences due to (again quoting Pollock approvingly) "historicity, constructedness, and changeability," not in the least in the trajectories of knowledge production. This becomes clear from Smith's dazzling display of examples of "early Islamic field linguists,"  the Nietzsche-Wilamowitz debate, William Jones's research on the names of plant species in Sanskrit and other South Asian languages, and Leibniz's vision.

It is worth noting that the natural antonyms of the province and 'provincial,' are not just the urbane and broad-minded, but also empire or imperial. And, in fact, the material and administrative precondition for the the global vision is often some kind of empire. And while we tend to think of colonial empires as great projects of subjugation and effacement of local difference, there are empires in which there is unity while respecting provincial diversity--it's these empires that most need (to quote Smith) a "unified project." One way to generate such a project, is to project "the lost unity" (emphasis added). These projects are fueled by restorative nostalgia that is, simultaneously, hyper-modern and a source of immense creativity. Such projects also involve an insistence that perspective matters and that hopeful greatness needs to be projected on a larger canvass. [For an excellent literary treatment of such matters, recall John Williams' novel Augustus.]

While Smith may wish nothing to do with something as crass as a military empire, his project does involve elements of restorative nostalgia (e.g., "elevated to its rightful place, as the reigning science") and a fondness for taking about 'we' when it suits him. He insists, also, that the present view of philology is mistakenly diminutive (see also the "diminished" view of the humanities) and "yet philology itself may be much larger than it is now perceived to be" in order to be more "lofty." In addition, he is not against the (selective, prudent) use of force because he insists that there must be 'compulsory instruction' in order to ensure that certain kinds of forgetting does not occur ("no one ever forgets that in the end there are no truly atemporal sciences.").

Like many who embrace such restorative nostalgia (Carlyle, Nietzsche, etc.), the criticism of the present is acute and insightful:

"Among the humanities, philosophy...is surely the field in which European area studies has most successfully disguised itself as a universal and timeless form of inquiry. How often do we hear philosophy professors demur, when the subject of, say, classical Indian logic comes up, that they "regrettably don't know anything about that." What they really mean is: "My professional identity is wrapped up with my not knowing anything about that." This is something we learn as graduate students: a period of socialization in which we learn not only how to display our knowledge of, and commitment to, a given circumscribed domain, but also learn how to scoff, subtly, at whatever research interest falls even slightly beyond that domain. This is an acquired syndrome, transmitted from faculty to graduate students in the course of their own professional reproduction.**

My sense is that Smith's diagnosis is an apt characterization of our teacher's generation (although we both know exemplars that displayed different attitudes). The new generation of professional philosophers is embracing a different ethic; one in which any topic or puzzle is a legitimate opportunity to display technical virtuosity. Such technical sophistication is, of course, compatible with (although need not entail it) a thin understanding of the topic (and its historicity, etc.)  

An impatient reader sympathetic to (various bits of) Smith's project may suggest that my remarks thus far are distracting from the main agenda of his piece: his research agenda, that is, to combat 'presentism' and to promote a unified project in which the humanities and the sciences jointly "make sense of the world, and of our place in it," in part, by taking our path toward the present seriously. There are certainly opportunities for such thick collaboration between the humanities and (for convenience sake) the life-sciences. (About a decade ago, I penned a series of three papers in which I claimed that the history of astronomy and the history of economics are crucial to astronomy and economics (conceived as a policy science.)) I do hope that some enterprising university Rektor of a "non-Euro-American, university of the 21st century," hires or consults with Justin to help her implement a university with three faculties (a 'faculty of history', a 'faculty of the atemporal sciences', a 'faculty of new stuff') along the lines envisioned by him.

But in his essay, Smith offers us the matter, but not the form of this unity which, thus, becomes unexpectedly its own telos. Smith offers us the institutional strategy without the standard that may justify or vivify it. Without such a vision it is not obvious why the experts of the present and future will join in the shared enterprise (and they will persuade their paymasters to block it). To put the point jokingly, what's missing is the sense in the sense-making (I might say, the utopian concepts). Previously, this form was supplied by (say) revelation or philosophy. By bagging Spinoza's criticism of revelation, Smith cuts himself off from the former. By turning his back on the latter, he seems to leave himself without resources. But, perhaps, he thinks, with the Romantics, that poetry or art can supply the form. That uncertain, transformative path must seem tempting.

RIP: José Benardete (1928-2016)

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

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

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

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

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