Digressions&Impressions

How to be an original Historian of Philosophy

Malebranche remarks acutely that the crux of a philosopher's doctrine is to be found in those passages where he defends an unpopular thesis; his defense of accepted theses has no informational value.--Catherine Wilson.

One of the hardest skills in professional philosophy is to say something that is original, plausible, and interesting about a well-studied, canonical author. Since ‘the hard problem’ has already been taken, I’ll call this ‘the very hard problem.’ I can’t mention all the techniques that enter into the skill, but in what follows I pretend that one can acquire good judgment and other philosophical competences independent from tackling the very hard problem.[1] A common way to handle this very hard problem is to pretend that lots of things have not been said yet: you simply ignore works older than twenty years and you ignore alternative scholarly languages or intellectual idiolects than the one that one feels at home in. Let’s call this ‘the pretense-solution.’ Even when executed competently, the pretense solution fails on originality; it also tends to fail on being interesting, for those already in the know. That it is common suggests it may work well on the job market. Oddly enough, when a blogger engages in the pretense-solution then she is treated as ‘unphilosophical.’ (No theodicy today!)

Another strategy is what I call ‘opportunistic anachronism.’ This approach takes a modern philosophical technology (notation, formal tool, set of distinctions, etc.) or a modern question and boldly applies it to the very hard problem. While I have lots of peers – so-called contextual historians of philosophy – who frown on opportunistic anachronism (they’ll even say things like ‘that’s not really doing history’ [thus generating confusion with the pretense-solution]), it can generate genuinely interesting readings of the past. While opportunistic anachronism always risks flirting with talking about an abstracted text rather than the really existing text [I have in mind the convention to distinguish between, say, Hume and Hume*], it is quite possible that such opportunistic anachronism reveals the inner or enduring meaning of the studied text or applies it in fashions that are fruitful for ongoing research. After all, sometimes an extra distinction can make all the difference. Having said that, opportunistic anachronism tends to fail at plausibility. With ‘plausibility’ I do not mean one is obliged to aim to track the intentions of the author – although these may well be interesting for lots of purposes (including, it seems, ones beloved by contextual historians of philosophy, who often seem to think that they are the only really real historians) --, but as one slides again, say, from discussing Hume to Hume* one increases the risk to be revealing only something about one’s own interests rather than the interest of the text one is studying. One’s interests can be, well, very interesting, but one reason we continue to read and engage with well-studied texts is to learn to grapple with interests not one’s own.[2] That is to say, I have in mind a sense of ‘plausibility’ that entails something distinct of one’s own perspective/lights.  

The previous paragraph hints at some of my reasons why I am no friend of the so-called principle of charity (see here; see also Melamed), that is the practice, to try to read an author in such a light by attributing to her (some combination of) a maximal coherence and truth-aptness. While such readings may be deployed in heuristic fashion, they have, in practice, a tendency to reveal more about the interpreter’s commitments than the author studied (recall my treatment of some wisdom by Paul Lodge). (When I am polemical I say things like ‘the principle of charity flattens the text.’) Thus, the principle of charity tends to undermine (what I have been calling) plausibility and interestingness. It survives in conjunction with the pretense-solution presumably because lots of people prefer a past that seems familiar.   

Even so, lots of competent scholarship embraces a weaker version of the principle of charity, by demanding as a regulative ideal in one’s interpretations that authors are treated as being coherent. (Recall this polemical exchange.) I have a lot of sympathy for this coherence ideal, because it forces readers to pay extra attention to details and it is a check on the biases prompted by expert overconfidence. This approach tends to fail as a solution to the very hard problem because almost certainly there is a pre-existing interpretation that has taken this route (so it is unoriginal and also uninteresting).

As I hinted in the previous paragraph, the coherence ideal, may be useful if it forces one to pay discordant details that prevent coherence.  In fact, a lot of the most skillful historical scholarship goes into showing that what seems like a lack of consistency in a text from the past is really not so. Often one does this by introducing new terminology or extra set of distinctions (etc.) I stress this, first, to remind the reader that the purported solutions to the very hard problem tend to be blended in practice. And, second, that while sometimes executing this coherence ideal is revealing, often it fails on plausibility and, more importantly, good judgment. It’s hard to prove this (latter) charge even if I were to engage with particular detailed interpretations. But one reason to think there is something to the charge is that often the grounds of coherence – that is, the criteria one uses and the stuff one focuses on in order to generate coherence/incoherence – tends to be given by tradition, that is, previous interpretation(s).[3]

Even so, I am not inclined to throw out the coherence ideal, but in order to preserve it as a heuristic to generate what I call ‘discordant readings.’ Discordant readings focus on idiosyncrasies, apparent throw-away remarks, or tropes/metaphors that do not seem to fit the coherent whole, but that may initially seem unrelated to the main thesis/argument of a text. Discordant readings relentlessly try to recast the meaning of a text in light of some such apparent idiosyncrasy. The point of discordant readings is not to uncover a hidden, esoteric meaning to be found between the lines. (Obviously that is not ruled out by discordant readings.) Rather, the point is to become unshackled from pre-existing narratives that have made a text feel familiar.[4] One important feature of discordant readings is that they entail a lot of apparent forced moves in one’s interpretations. For, they tend to violate pre-existing commitments about what the text must be saying and, therefore, they often have the dual task to provide rather detailed error-theories about previous interpretations and to provide alternative interpretations of familiar passages. So, discordant readings flirt with bad judgment and will always seem implausible at first. If a discordant reading takes on the dual task and passes it, it will increasingly be seen as plausible and eventually good judgment.

 

What Would Mary Philosophize About After a final Theory?

In the days after humanity miraculously avoided nuclear annihilation in the wars and turmoil subsequent the permanent disruption of global ecology and trade patterns in the light of global warming,* the Guardians of Humanity re-discovered the work of Heather Douglas and George Smith, and they organized the sciences in such a way that a new age of Enlightenment was ushered in; in their institutional desig the sciences reflexively integrate human value and passion as well as systematically exploit anomalies such that after centuries of virtuous epistemic feedback loops, they attain a final theory about the world. A key role was played, following the Schaffer-rule, by the fruitful heuristic of searching for essences, or formal causes, by deploying the PSR and the introduction of quasi-final-causes (which are dispensable). 

Physics, chemistry, biology, ecology, and psychology** are essentially complete. It is a joyous time for the Regimenters and the Ideologists, who offer the definitive interpretation of the book of the world. It has turned out that despite the nay-sayers (and their silly mutterings of neutral quantification), there is, indeed, a single modal logic that captures the modal structure of the world. In this Golden Age, Mary, the brilliant product of several generations of directed enhancement, has special exemption from the rules that govern the epistemically promising. In their collective wisdom the Guardians of Humanity have decided that The Exempt can choose their own intellectual trajectory so as not to stifle human innovation by over-planning. Mary is sent to the Pauline academy, where the Guardians teach the Next in addition to a multitude of engineering sciences (including higher computational Bayesianism), the history of political philosophy (especially the Fragments of Zeno of Citium, Plato, More, Bacon, and Wollstonecraft) as well as Epistemic Policy Science (lots of Swift, Knight, and L.A. Paul).

She enjoys the historians of philosophy she encounters, especially their subversive sense of humor, but she dislikes their spleenish hatred of Enlightenment and their condescension toward the Living Stoics (a sect that does no harm and plays its assigned role) and the academic Aestheticians. She enjoys pure mathematics and para-consistent logics as a pass-time, but prefers N-dimensional chess puzzles and writing poetry. The pull of engineering is great because humanity's needs continue to outstrip its resources; it is what her unit expects, but, perhaps that's why she won't. She recognizes that technology's dance will continue to feed the need for creative policy ethicists who can continue the work to search for an ongoing reflective equilibrium between the Syncretic Gospels and the demands of the PSR, but she becomes restless without fully understanding why at each Simon solution.

Yet, the Hymn recounts that one day, after her morning exercise, Mary found -- to speak metaphorically -- her voice and took the her first step on the path to true philosophy. --From: The Chronicles of Mary, 'The Revival of the Academy' (I).

 

Trade as transformative Experience

When I wear my 'philosophy of economics' hat, I do philosophy of economics with an interest in the 'practice' of economists, (and with an unusually strong interest in the history of economics).* I do so in order to make philosophical claims about, among other things, decision theories or social ontology, the role and authority of economists as experts, or the political economy of science(s) and philosophy (in order, say, to be reflexive about philosophy). I have multiple, not always cohering aims for my stance: to tease out philosophical presuppositions of economics; to study and improve economic method(s); to 'help' economists articulate their own projects (yes, have done that!); to publish papers in journals, etc.

In addition to the philosophy-toolkit, I avail myself of sociological and historical methods in order to 'observe' economics (and its history). I study textbooks, journal articles, archives, notes, and a whole variety of practices, including economics blogs. In order to do so, I have cultivated a whole bunch of 'informants' within economics—some of them even let me silently 'sit in' (as a BCC) on debates and exchanges that economists have (say, between editors and referees; textbook authors and their critics, etc.).

There are a lot of reasons to cultivate such a network of 'informants.' Obviously, I am not a trained economist so it is often very useful to be able to ask an expert about what some arcane material really means; at other times it is useful to try out an interpretation on an informed critic. Moreover, economics is a very big discipline, and if I were to try to study it full-time, I would quickly be unable to be a professional philosopher (blogger, husband, etc.). Economists are hyper-specialized, and they, wisely, do not try to keep up with the whole disicipline. Having such 'informants' allows me to understand economists's conflicting perspectives on their activities, gain access to their specialist knowledge about their activities, generate leads, suggestions, etc. Obviously, the insights are very partial, but they are useful nonetheless.

One important, original philosophical reason for my research stance is that I hoped that one could do philosophy of economics precisely not by 'applying philosophy' (realism/anti-realism, etc.), but in order to develop questions and concepts from the 'ground up' in dialogue with working economists. My original 'inductivism' turns out to be naïve – because standard, professional economics is infused with philosophical commitments and images developed by earlier generations of philosophers. So, I encounter bits of philosophy, and images produced by philosophy, all the time when I engage with economics.

Now, I quickly learned that the economists-informants I would cultivate, would have some overlapping scholarly interests with my own research (e.g., Adam Smith, Chicago economics, research ethics, evidential arguments, etc.). If I had really thought about it all (I should have read up on anthropological self-reflection), I had tacitly assumed the following kind of gains from intellectual trade with my 'informants:'

1. Schliesser would continue to be taught economics and understand the profession of economics;
2. Schliesser would discover the 'philosophy in' economics;
3. Maybe Schliesser would even learn something about (economic) reality!
4. Schliesser would be the 'philosophy expert' and teach some philosophy, given that my informants probably would be biased favorably toward philosophy;
5. Schliesser would teach Schliesser's philosophy of science—unlikely to happen, but one can always hope;
6. Schliesser and his informants would explore shared history of economics/philosophy;
7. Schliesser would shape ongoing intersections between philosophy and economics--yes, utopian, but why not think big?

On Rules for the History of Philosophy...or a defense of methodological anachronism

The distinguished historian of philosophy, Peter Adamson (from "without any gaps" fame; the podcasts are a big hit), has articulated "some guidelines encapsulating what I see as good practice in studying the history of philosophy" (quoted from rule 1) on his blog. He is up to the ninth rule as I write this. The rules themselves are an "open-ended encouragement to strive for an ideal which is not practically reachable" (see rule 4; see also rule 8). I very much like this feature of the rules because it encourages us to think of our practice as an open-ended process (and puts the idea of a gapless history in nice perspective). There is a further worthy feature of the rules that is never stated explicitly, but a kind of animating principle behind them: to treat the authors we are studying as serious thinkers in their own right--a judgment that vindicates, in part, earlier readers; for, "any text that has survived to get into your hands has already been through a process of selection by earlier readers," (rule 2).

Before I get to a more principled qualm about his rules, I want to offer one immanent criticism of the first rule: "It's possible for the same idea to appear independently more than once." Yes, this is possible and undoubtedly occurs, and it might generate interesting questions about the conceptual possibility space available to certain philosophers such that 'forced moves' get rediscovered--I call such forced moves: social-conceptual-necessitation. (Having said that, I thought his example of Al-Ghazali and Hume on causation especially poorly chosen; (a) we know that Malebranche was almost certainly familiar with Al-Ghazali through discussions in Aquinas and Suarez [I apologize for forgetting where I first read this!], and Hume certainly knew his Malebranche; (b) until Dario Perinetti has completed his study of the La Fleche library we don't really know what Hume (and Descartes) might have read in his most formative period.) But while I am no fan of a certain kind of lineage-tracing popular among historians of ideas, this rule also has the likely tendency to discourage inquisitiveness. In particular it is very tempting to assume that 'great' thinkers didn't read or read little--some philosophers (Descartes, Spinoza, Carnap, Lewis, etc.) even play with a recurring Meme along these lines.* But we need/ought not trust their self-presentation in these matters. We miss moves in an author if we are unaware of her interlocutors. My concern is not just a matter of getting the context right (cf. rule 4); we literally do not notice if some options/alternatives are quietly foreclosed. It matters, for example, that Spinoza had More's Utopia in his library (and almost certainly read Bacon's New Atlantis); this means he was almost certainly aware of alternative ways to think about, say, gender relations and ways to organize religious-theological pluralism in society (as well as property relations, Biblical hermeneutics, etc.) even if he never went back to Plato. Aware of this, we might upon re-reading Spinoza notice that he has developed resources to reject those alternatives or we might start to see cracks in his edifice (etc.).  [Below I return to rule 1!]

Even so, the rules are problematic, especially because they come with the weighty authority  of an emiment and popular scholar. Leaving aside the fact that Adamson seems to be ignorant of the methodological discussions among other historians of philosophy of the last few years, Adamson never recognizes that there are alternative ways to study the history of philosophy in which some of the vices he recognizes may well be necessary virtues. I'll pick one example: Adamson is extremely concerned to have the historian avoid anachronism (see rule 4, 7, 8, 9). As it happens I have more tolerance for the kind of un-selfconscious anachronism that trained historians of philosophy are taught to reject; such un-selfconscious anachronistic readings of a text can, but need not, be interesting on their own terms ('what axioms in S4 or S5 would Spinoza or Leibniz reject?' can be hugely illuminating both to our understanding of Spinoza or a time-slice of Leibniz and to the modern student of modal logic). But that's not what I have in mind in defending here.

On Being Longwinded

Don't let your question (or your answer) run on forever.--David Chalmers "Guidelines for respectful, constructive, and inclusive philosophical discussion."

Most of Chalmers's "guidelines" are sensible suggestions for the smooth runing of public philosophical discussion. It's sobering to look at them and recognize that I violate a number of them regularly without even thinking about it. Even so I have some qualms about some of the guidelines. (In what follows I leave aside the risks associated with the heavy handed emphasis on civility that is growing in popularity among university administrators and some of my peers. For discussion, see Johnson and Kazarian and Leiter.)* In particular, throughout the guidelines, time is treated as a scarce resource and the norms appear to be designed to guarantee a fair allocation of it (see especially the section on "procedural norms"). But more important than temporal equity is quality. And it is not obvious that temporal equity serves quality. More important, it is by no means obvious that brief (or brief-ish) questions really serve inclusivesess. Let me explain.

If one shares a language and there is considerable mutual trust, then one can be brief, even use short-hand, and still expect to be understood. Brevity or to-the-pointness is, then, a skill that can be developed in the context of a lot of background agreement, philosophical as well as social. I call it a 'skill' because it requires considerable expertise and practice. It is easy to forget once one has mastered it, but it is very difficult to ask a focused philosophical question in real time. So my first criticism is that this norm may well be exclusionary in practice, especially toward novices and those that are not quick on their feet. (Obviously, a lot turns on what it means to 'run on forever.') This criticism can be accomodated by a wise and informed moderator (who can recognize the inexperienced and slow-thinking in our midst).

My second, more important, criticism builds on a feature of the first, but is really distinct. Sometimes one's position on an issue, or more general philosophical sensibility, is very different from a speaker's. But, even then, it may still be mutually illuminating, especially if there a students presents, to have a dialogue between outlooks that are at odd with each other. In such a circumstance, a question may well require considerable 'stage-setting,' in order to make a precise and even focused question possible. Sometimes the 'stage-setting' alone can be already very illuminating to others in the audience. Not all philosophy needs to be about challenging each other's foundational premises or the exploration of alternative frameworks, but it strikes me as a shame if we codify a set of norms that unintentionally, but predictably, makes such an event, which would be a paradigm of respectful, constructive, and inclusive discusssion, even rarer than it already is.

On Throwing Books in Flames

[R]efusing to engage with those who don’t share some of your basic assumptions – simply because you don’t think such engagement is worthwhile or likely to be productive – has a long and storied tradition in philosophy. From Hume consigning metaphysics to the flames, to the logical positivists hating on pretty much everything, to David Lewis greeting paraconsistent logic with a blank stare – this is something that philosophers do. You have to start somewhere and you have to take some things as obvious. For a lot of women, especially those who do feminist philosophy, these starting points include the importance of gender and gender equality. It’s hard to see why there’s anything wrong – or at least anything philosophically unusual – with that.--Magical Ersatz "Is feminist philosophy too political? (Or: Is feminist philosophy motivated by a political agenda?)" [Part 2 has also appeared.]

While I would encourage everybody to read the whole series of posts, I would like to register some reservations about the refusal "to engage with those who don’t share some of your basic assumptions" bit above. One ought not hold feminist philosophy to higher standards than other philosophers. But, I am not doing that; as a matter of fact, I have already complained about precisely this feature in Ted Sider's "knee-jerk-realism" and in Williamson's programmatic statements about modal logic as metaphysics.

First, we ought to distinguish among (i) one's starting places; (ii) the things one takes as obvious; (iii) opposing positions one refuses to engage with. While (i) and (ii) may coincide, I would hope  that ideally commitment to (i) is provisional and (ii) is a hard-won, earned philosophical result. I recognize that in various  methods popular in the common-sense and reflective equilibrium strains of analytical philosophy (ii) may never be questioned, but that's a weakness of analytical philosophy for it leads to a status quo bias* (something that feminism helps us combat).  Obviously we are very far removed from gender equality, so -- in practice -- feminism is no friend of the status quo. But the playful, and obviously not entirely serious, equivocation between 'not unusual' and 'not wrong' is an instance of some such status quo bias.

Now, it is characteristic of a school and school-formation that one refuses to engage with known opposing positions, or that when one does so one only engages with a limited, sub-class of opposing positions, or by way of stock-answers. Despite the criticism that follows philosophical schools are good for philosophy (up to a degree); they are especially useful when an intellectual community is still developing. As Magical E. argues, feminism "is a relatively new discipline" still "trying to figure out the dialectical terrain." Opposing views can be a great distraction; so it can be useful to temporarily ignore known objections. Fair enough.

Yet, the stated particular feature that Hume, the Logical Positivists, and Lewis have in common is really (really) not the best thing about them.** While I don't think of the Viennese logical positivists as haters (in the manner of Ayer), it is clear that their dismissiveness toward a lot of projects also impoverished their conceptual tool-kit. (But note that it was Carnap that explored modality against the ridicule of Quine.)  The predictable consequence was that they were not a very enduring tradition because unable to draw on other people's insights. (Formal philosophy has, of course, been revived in very creative ways.)

For, by engaging critically with the most fundamental arguments of those that really do not share one's views one can actually strengthen one's position (philosophically and rhetorically) by  learning to anticipate objections, block certain moves, and discern one's weaknesses. That's not why I advocate doing so, but it's an important benefit.

Moreover, the refusal-to-engage-stance encourages sectarian dismissiveness of others. I grant that it is not feminists and the marginalized, more generally, that should be responsible for creating philosophical meeting points with the most unpleasant views among us; there is no reason to seek out jerks and respectfully listen to them. But we shouldn't foreclose encounters with opposing others either. For, it's not just that those that have defended hierarchy and inequality also have had a decent track record at exposing the self-delusions and internal tensions of those of us that defend equality (of various stripes). It's rather that all deeply-held intellectual positions tend to draw on enduring and recurring human needs and impulses that, however wrong the positions, need to be recognized rather than screened off. Pandora's box has been opened, and if we close the lid we lock away hope.

Finally, it is a bit awkward for a group that recognizes itself as marginal to embrace the 'refusal to engage' doctrine as legitimate practice. For, one obvious reason for the existing marginalization is precisely the (misguided) refusal by the institutionally powerful to engage with feminism (or simply unfashionable positions) without shame and embarrassment.

Rather, I advocate the following norm, that one ought to seek out and engage known objections and known alternatives -- and even strengthen them; this would enliven and enrich professional philosophy and be a way to ensure that valuable insights of the presently not-so-popular are not enduringly silenced or ignored. Either way, I certainly also deny that one ought to dismiss feminist philosophy because of an embrace, if it is one, of a 'refusal to engage those that do not share basic assumptions' stance--that much must be conceded to Magical.

 

The Walk-On Philosopher

[...] Only Dirck, or Theodore Rembrantsz, an astronomer and surveyor in North Holland, made his acquaintance in that time, when the most remote and obscure villages were hardly less fertile in the growth of philosophy, than the flourishing cities of commerce….

Dirck Rembrantsz was a Dutch peasant, native the village of Nierop, at the end of North Holland, facing Friesland. The exercise he made in the trade of shoemaker in the place of his birth, provided him barely with the means necessary to maintain his subsistence. But he had found ways to overcome his fortune by an exquisite knowledge of mathematics, that he could not help but to grow beyond the detriment of the work of his hands. Mr. Descartes' famous name, linked with the minor satisfaction he had received from the mathematical books he had read in the vernacular, resulted into the leave of his village for consulting [the philosopher].

His [Descartes'] fame had portrayed him as a man of the world, who was easy to access, and the idea of a secluded philosopher did not withheld him, even when the entrance of his solitude was guarded by some Switzers. But he was put off by the valets of Descartes as a bold farmer, and they only informed the master of the house, after Rembrantsz returned two or three months later, in the same outfit as the first time, and demanded to speak to Mr. Descartes, with the resolution of a man who seemed to confer with him on important business.

His appearance did not contribute to a better reception than before, and when the news was brought to Mr. Descartes, he was depicted as an importunate beggar, who in the eyes of the servants used his wish to the talk about philosophy and astrology, as an excuse to ask for charity. And to avoid going into that, Descartes sent him some money and wished him [Rembrantsz] to say that he would dispense the trouble to speak to him [any further]. Rembrantsz, whose poverty not had affected his heart, refused the generosity of our philosopher, and decided that his hour had not yet come, and he returned home this time, in the hope that a third trip would become more succesful. This reply was reported to Mr. Descartes, who regretted not have seen the peasant and who ordered his people to give him notice, when he returned.

Rembrantsz returned a few months later and this peasant, who had such a passion to meet Mr. Descartes that he already had made two trips in vain, was recognized, and he was finally satisfied in what he had sought so hard and with such perseverance.

Descartes recognized his skills and merits in this field and would pay back his [Rembrantsz'] troubles with interest. He [Descartes] was not satisfied with the teaching of all his problems, but provided him with the methodology to correct his arguments. He welcomed him yet among a number of his friends, without paying attention to the lowness of his position, but considered him among those of the first rank, and he assured him that his house and his heart was open to him at all times.

From that time on, Rembrantsz, who lived only five or six miles apart from Egmond, frequently visited Descartes, and with his school he became one of the leading astronomers of his time. He had mastered so well the knowledge of his [Descartes'] principles, that in the rest of his life he only build on these foundations.-- Adrien Baillet (1691) La vie de Monsieur Descartes, part 2, pp. 553-556, translated by Huib Zuidervaart in THE CORRESPONDENCE OF DIRCK REMBRANTSZ VAN NIEROP (1610-1682), edited by M. Rijks.

There are, I am guessing, about  forty-thousand professional philosophers world-wide. I am an experienced enough historian of philosophy to assert confidently that even if our civilization continues and digital storage is perfected most of us will -- just a handful excepted -- be forgotten within a generation or two, three, even if we would deny that the Golden Age of analytical philosophy is past. As it is, only a few of us are actually read outside a small, narrow group of specialists at any given moment; a charismatic PhD supervisor may stretch this audience a bit wider. Even most of those that today have a disciplinary or wider public audience are almost certainly incapable of competing in an enduring fashion for scarce, future curricular time, or the more intimate choices of discerning future readers. It's easy to imagine that Berkeley will disappear from the curriculum once the empiricism/rationalism divide is set aside as parochial or, to hit closer to home, that Davidson will be a mere footnote to Quine and Whitehead, while Mandeville, De Grouchy, and Swift will be rediscovered time and again by readers trying to make sense of living in a (let's stipulate, Chinese-speaking) corrupt, commercial civilization (recall this review).

If we reflect on our situation, I suspect most of us console ourselves with the idea that through our teaching we touch the minds of the young and, in so doing, help give their lives, which will radiate in all kinds of unexpected directions, some shape. I know that some of my peers are convinced that they are part of a progressive (even scientific) enterprise within the intellectual division labor in which their contributions allow future generations to progress even closer to the truth; even if they remain anonymous to future generations they will have participated in a great trans-historical project. Such delusions are harmless. Some of us contribute more concretely by offering philosophical reflections that might help our communities navigate what may seem urgent and confused matters. I am not denying, of course, that even the most distinguished (reflexive and privileged, etc.) of our philosophical peers is undoubtedly mostly just enjoying her intellectual activity immersed in the problems and puzzles that animate her thought drawing a generous salary that secures her from the more common anxieties consequent hunger and lack of shelter.

Even so, sometimes the unremarkable play a walk-on role in history, and this is not dispiriting. Let me explain.

Huebner on Boundary Policing, Race, and Gender

[This is a guest post by Bryce Huebner.--ES]

Eric Schliesser is right to call attention to the connection between the tendency to “treat the LEMM as the CORE parts of philosophy”, the tendency to “mock SPEP-style Continental philosophy”, and the continued marginalization of the majority of Black philosophers. As Botts and her colleagues note, our current understanding of what counts as "real philosophy" is in need of a serious overhaul! But there is another important point that we should acknowledge: there are forms of structural and institutional bias that are produced and sustained by the relationship between these three factors.

The importance of this point was made clear to me in a recent discussion with Liam Kofi Bright. He rightly noted that one of the most interesting things that they uncovered was the fact that the majority of the Black women who are currently seeking PhDs are concentrated in a single school: Penn State. This makes the presence of Black women in academic philosophy dependent on the fate of these particular students, and this particular school. More specifically, because of the issues and methods that are most prominent at Penn State, this generates a situation where our judgments about what counts as “real philosophy” may end up having a seriously problematic effect on the presence of Black females in our discipline. Let me say a bit more about why this is.

The kinds of critical race theory and the kind of continental philosophy that are commonly taught at Penn State are precisely the kinds of philosophy that tend to be dismissed, rejected, and marginalized by philosophers working at fancier institutions. Assuming that there is a stable practice of treating this kind of work as "not really philosophy," we should expect these judgments to serve a gatekeeping function, keeping Black women out of academic philosophy, or at least keeping them from getting jobs at the ‘best’ PhD granting institutions. This is a crucial and important implication of the data reported by Botts and her colleagues, as the presence of a Black female mentor could have a highly significant impact on the recruitment and retention of Black female philosophers (establishing this point conclusively would take some work, but this recent set of studies is at least suggestive).

 

LEMM & HISTORY NOT ATTRACTING BLACKS IN THE PHILOSOPHY PROFESSION

 There is a willful, not necessarily a conscious, preference among many members of the philosophy profession largely to maintain the status quo in terms of: the social group profiles of members; the dynamics of prestige and influence; and the areas and questions deemed properly or deeply "philosophical." None of this is good for black folks.--LK McPherson at NewAPPS, Dec. 12, 2011.

I put a screaming headline on this post. That's because I just finished reading “What is the State of Blacks in Philosophy?” (2014) Critical Philosophy of Race, by Tina Fernandes Botts, Liam Kofi Bright, Myisha Cherry, Guntur Mallarangeng, and Quayshawn Spencer. DailyNous posted a link to the piece, but to my amazement it has not generated any significant public discussion that I am familiar with. So, let me provoke some. According to the paper (this is summarized on DailyNous from which I quote):

• Blacks make up just 1.32 percent of the total number of people professionally affiliated (as grad students or faculty) with U.S. philosophy departments.
• Approximately 0.88 percent of U.S. philosophy Ph.D. students are black.
• Approximately 4.3 percent of U.S. tenured philosophy professors are black.
• Of black philosophy Ph.D. students in the U.S., half are female. That is about double the rate of the U.S. philosophy Ph.D. student population as a whole.
• The distribution of black female Ph.D. students across philosophy Ph.D. programs is much lower than black males. Specifically, 69 percent of black female Ph.D. students are at Penn State.
• The top areas of specialization for U.S. black philosophers are (1) Africana, (2) Race, (3) Social and Political, (4) Ethics, and (5) Continental philosophy.

One bit of terminology: Fernandes Botts et al. use "BIPs" to refer to Blacks in the Profession; I follow this convention. Before I offer some commentary I want to note that the "4.3 percent of U.S. tenured philosophy professors are black" number is based on the number of tenured APA members. I think it would be a  mistake if that number became the baseline for future discussion of BIPs. For, Kate Norlock reminds me that NCES has calculated (based on now ten year old data) that there are about 13,000 full-time philosophy faculty. (These are NOT all tenured, of course. But it excludes nearly all PhD students/ABDs.)* The number of BIPs in the (non-graduate-student) full-time teaching population, is, thus, probably closer to approximately 1%. This is back-of-the-envelope calculation, so should be treated with caution; it excludes part-time faculty! But that rough 1% number matches better, I think, the other data collected by Fernandes Botts et. al.

Correlation isn't causation. But....ahhh...correlation can also not be ignored.  So, to be blunt, every time we treat the LEMM as the CORE parts of philosophy (recall) and every time we mock SPEP-style Continental philosophy, we are, in effect, also (further) marginalizing (insulting, demeaning, etc.) the majority of BIPs. Every time you are a bystander to this, you are very likely complicit to making matters worse when it comes to the status of BIPs.

Or to get to the nub of the matter: the way professional philosophy understands what philosophy is may well be part of the problem. The issue has been explored with subtlety by Kristie Dotson in her now famous paper (see also her post at NewAPPS and McPherson's post linked at the  top of this post). I think we need to acknowledge that analytical philosophy, the way it has evolved, and the way we understand the history of philosophy are part of the problem. This is not to deny that we may have inherited Plato's original sins. (See also this post; so, yes, I was probably too optimistic, if not just deluded, in this post.) How much, I don't know. (This is not to ignore problems within Continental and other areas of philosophy; I am just not the right person to speak about them.) That is to say, rather than only focusing on fighting bias (explicit/tacit)), and improving procedures, we should be open to the possibility that our systematic downplaying of those parts of philosophy that seriously question both the philosophical status quo as well as the political/social/cultural/institutional status quo, and philosophical complicity in it, may, in fact, contribute to the very problem here.

When I was an undergraduate I was in awe of most of my philosophy teachers. I admired their intelligence, their argumentative skill, and their intellectual integrity. At the time, I didn't think I could become as good as them, but I wanted to join a club in which I could participate as a peer in the noble quest for the search after truth and justice. Professionally philosophy has treated me better than I expected. In looking at the numbers collected by Fernandes Botts and her colleagues, I now recognize that I was also striving to join and be allowed into a club very much like myself. And while I want to scream like my headline, this belated -- 'what took you so long?!' -- insight makes me wonder how many of my aspirations are tainted.

On Civility in education

Words have effects (therefore they exist).

As anybody that has taught discovers, one's words also have many unexpected effects. (One can fail to notice this if students are only allowed to speak in multiple choice exams.) Words take on a life of their own and they are interpreted in frameworks and from perspectives that a teacher does not fully control. Often teacher and student alike is not fully aware of all the presuppositions and commitments one brings to a conversation. Each year I re-discover these facts when I read five hundred year old texts (from the history of philosophy) together with my students line by line (at first) asking them what the author means to convey. Sometimes we get baffled because we do not fully understand the technical terms that are taken for granted (eminent causation is not part of the contemporary philosophical vocabulary); sometimes we halt over cultural references we find confusing (my students know almost nothing about the details of the complex history of, say, Christianity -- and, I too, am often out of my depth -- ); but most of the times we tie ourselves in knots because we tacitly impose meaning(s) on the text as we read and interpret it. So, as we discuss just what we take the text to mean (so well before we evaluate if it is true), my students and I also learn a lot about our own views and divergent expectations. I sometimes joke that I teach my students how hard it is to read; in addition to bureaucratic and curricular 'learning output' expectations, I try to put them on the path of self-knowledge, in part, by having them practice in the art of giving and taking of arguments in a context where we cannot take for granted that we can establish the truth (the author is not around to ask). I'd like to fool myself that through the practice of close reading and discussion, I help prepare them for a life as responsible citizens in complex societies.

Sometimes students try to cut this process short by reading the translator's explanatory footnotes, which they take to be authoritative.  These footnotes are written by my peers, who do the best they can in juggling the demands of accessibility, readability, faithfulness to the text, and the demands of scholarship; their notes are informative, but, nevertheless, represent their commitments. I am not against using scholarship (or learning as such), but I explicitly try to encourage my students to treat the footnotes as another bit of evidence and not as a means to stop grappling with the text and their own commitments (etc.). Last semester a student repeatedly recited translators's footnotes to the assigned text to the class. I could tell that my admonishments about this particular footnoters's fallacies where not going anywhere; I asked my course assistant to hand me my other copy of the book; I opened the window to the class-room, and said something like, 'on your approach, we can just dispense with the text, and read an authoritative summary,' and then to my own astonishment, dropped the book out of the window into the pouring rain (onto an empty street). 

I don't recommend throwing books out of the window; it's expensive (the book was never found again), and it can be taken as an aggressive act of vandalism even in a context where they are familiar with your expectations. Even so, I don't regret dropping the book out of the window because I got lucky: nobody got hit and it seems that most of the students got the message that I cared about their participation, and that there was something at stake in the class. (I don't pretend my approach is objective; the readings and their order steer them into certain larger narratives.) Undoubtedly some students decided that I was theatrical and full of hot air; maybe one or two found the whole scene threatening ('first books, what's next?')