Digressions&Impressions

On Nagel vs Neurath on the Icy Slopes

While Frank and his institute began to lose favor at the Rockefeller Foundation, increasing numbers of his colleagues in philosophy – besides Kallen and Hook, who had led the way in the 1940s – began to voice public sympathy with some of the dominant anticommunist themes and postures of Cold War intellectual life. With regard to the questions of whether and how science (or scientific philosophy) should treat matters regarding values – political, social, or ethical – two general stances were popular. The first called for disengagement and held that philosophy of science should abstain from such debates. The second held that philosophy of science should at least support the view that absolute moral and social values exist, if not also the partisan view that those of the West are plainly superior to those of the Soviets. In the early 1950s, Ernest Nagel and Martin Gardner touched on these issues and illustrated these stances.
In an obituary for Felix Kaufman, Ernest Nagel referred to “the acute issue whether questions concerning public and individual moral values are capable of being settled scientifically and objectively.” Nagel approved of Kaufman’s position, one that gingerly sided with Frank’s: If our “rules of application” of moral terms are made explicit, Nagel explained, then “moral questions are as much capable of objective decision as are questions in physics and biology” (Nagel 1950, 467). When it came to politics and the problem of international peace and stability, however, Nagel was skeptical that science or philosophy had any relevance. Reviewing a book by Lewis Mumford, in which he insisted that we must “learn to participate in a durable universal communion with the whole of humanity,” Nagel wrote in the anti-Stalinist New Leader,

It is extremely doubtful whether such a reorientation by every human being constitutes a necessary condition for the disappearance of the cold and hot wars that [Mumford] so fervently desires. There are surely respectable grounds for believing that this objective could be realized within the framework of current political organizations of men and on the basis of current moral ideals.

Nagel did not accept Mumford’s utopianism because history did not support it:

As for Mr. Mumford’s suggestions concerning the establishment of intimate neighborhood organizations, of public-work groups, or of international travel fellowships, there is little evidence to show that such devices have contributed much in the past to the creation of a world community, or that without fundamental political and economic reorganization on both a national and international level they are likely to do so in the future. (Nagel 1951, 22)

Nagel agreed with Kaufman and others (including Frank, Morris, and Dewey) that science and philosophy of science could illuminate values and related questions about human conduct. But with respect to the Cold War, he was resigned to quietism and disengagement. Only political and economic restructuring, and not resources offered by philosophy, could advance a “world community” or reduce international tensions.
Martin Gardner followed Hook and Kallen more closely  than Nagel. When he reviewed books in the New Leader, he urged philosophers of science take up the cause of anticommunism and not retreat to any apolitical posture. George A. Reisch (2005) How the Cold War Transformed Philosophy of Science: To the Icy Slopes of Logic (CUP) 310-311

I was a PhD student when I first encountered Reisch's brilliant, archive based demolition of conventional wisdom and self-serving myths in the profession often based on anecdotal evidence or hearsay. His book (hereafter Icy Slopes) is one of the towering achievements of various intellectual communities (HPS, HOPOS, History of Analytic, 'the fans of Carnap' etc.) that I have self-identified with over a good chunk of my professional life. Unlike much history of analytic philosophy it unsettles comforting narratives. And like many much nobler souls, I applauded and continue to admire his intellectual rehabilitation of those that gave analytic philosophy its original moral and political purpose. 

So, with an intro like that, you know I am going to disagree with Reisch.

Icy Slopes has a rise and fall structure. The passage I quoted is part of one of the key turning points in the book where the unity of science program (initiated by Neurath and left Vienna, and then still promoted by Frank) collapses. And while Nagel is not portrayed as himself a villain, he is treated as an exemplar ("illustrated these stance") of a certain retreat from more ambitious and nobler aspirations. I think Reisch misunderstands Nagel's position, and the misunderstanding is illustrative of a wider problem of his conceptual framework. But at the end of this post I am also going to suggest that in a certain sense Reisch's misunderstanding is not surprising given the way the profession evolved.

So, Reisch is absolutely right that Nagel is an anti-communist (recall; and here on his reviews of Cornforth); see also his withering 1939 review in The Nation of Haldane's The Marxist Philosophy and the Sciences which Nagel republished in Logic Without Metaphysics (1956; hereafter LWM). But it is worth noting, first, that Nagel was not just an anti-Communist. His polemical targets in this period, also include folk who may now classify as sympathetic to the right: these include not just an assortment of neo-Thomists and the obscurantism popular in Nazi Germany, but also harshly negative reviews of the realist theorist Hans Morgenthau's Scientific Man vs Power Politics (in The Yale Law Journal 1952) and (recall) the rhetorically devastating review in (1952) The Journal of Philosophy  of Hayek's The Counter-Revolution of Science both re-published in LWM.

So, even in his anti-communism Nagel did not give fellow critics of Marxism a pass. In that sense Nagel does not fit the stereotype of a cold war intellectual. This gets me to second point. Reisch is, thus, a bit misleading to imply that anticommunist themes and postures shaped Nagel's thought or that he conformed to them. His philosophical politics, if we may call them that, were not centered on anti-marxism as such. Rather his anti-marxism is an expression of his underlying views about philosophy and political life.

As I have discussed (here and here), Nagel's political stance in the period echoes the liberal ideal of rule by discussion. In Nagel's case his political position was ground in and mirrors his metaphysics and, in particular his philosophy of science. While science contains differential expertise and skill, Nagel views it as an open-ended conversation responsive to public criticism and reasons and, thereby, self-corrective. Crucially for Nagel over time the norms and criteria change, even improve. Not unlike say, Polanyi, he treats this idealized conception as a useful model for a political life worth having. This is a progressive conception of the possibilities of political life that, in practice, recognizes many improvements are the consequence of local, accumulating incremental change.+

Nagel indicates something like the image I have just sketched in many places, including, I should note in the rather moving (!) memorial to Felix Kaufman quoted by Reisch! Here is a passage I have in mind:

[Kaufman] was impressed by the fact that empirical science is a potentially ceaseless process of evaluating propositions in the light of changing evidence for them. And very early in his own intellectual development he recognized as an essential feature of scientific method the tacit use of the principle he came to call the principle of permanent control, according to which no proposition dealing with matters of fact is beyond criticism and revision. He employed this principle, which admirably expresses the self-corrective nature of modern science, in his trenchant criticism of atomistic sensationalism, of philosophies of self-evidence, and of dogmatic claims to finality. The principle was indeed an expression of an essential trait of the man himself: of his native abhorrence of authoritarianism, of his readiness to receive as well as to give criticism, and of his disciplined humility in recognizing the difficulties that stand in the way of obtaining warranted knowledge...(466)

And while the point of Nagel's description is to characterize Kaufman's position, and he sometimes disagrees with Kaufman, this part, as Reisch recognizes, he clearly endorses ("admirably expresses...") I know of no reason to assume Nagel ever gave up on this. 

Now it is worth noting that Nagel's view of science was less naive then it may seem now. At the time science was much smaller and the government's role in shaping science underdeveloped. In addition, while Nagel emphasizes the self-corrective nature of science (and may seem to buy into a kind of efficient market in ideas hypothesis), he is not unaware, and calls attention to the fact, that correcting for social and political bias, even in the natural sciences, is often not easy in practice (as he notes in well known material excerpted from The Structure of Science (and circulating as "the value-oriented bias of social inquiry.")* 

Okay, with that out of the way, let's look at Reisch's analysis. It is notable the for Reisch the two (anti-communist) alternatives to the unity of science are (i) quietism or disengagement; (ii) extolling of objective superiority of the West and its values. This leaves a lot of alternatives unexplored. 

For, the point of establishing the possibility of, and reflecting on the form of the of, objective values is not, in Nagel's hands, intended as an uncritical vindication of the status quo. They also provide the possibility of standard of criticism from which one can evaluate (and now I use one of Nagel's favorite words) the "warrant" of one's beliefs. That is to say, the question of, say, demarcation between science and not science is supposed to be able to be mirrored in social and political sphere. And, say, unlike conservative anti-communists, Nagel (and again he praises Kaufman this) firmly believes that tacit rules and commitments of our social practices, including science and induction, must be made explicit and articulated in order to allow for rational evaluation, justification, and correction/improvement.

Now if we turn to Reisch's treatment of Nagel's review of Mumford, something odd happens. A casual reading of Reisch may leave one with the impression that Mumford is a spokesperson for the kind of utopian thought we might associate with the unity of science movement. But Mumford's approach is, and now I quote Nagel himself, more consistent with being a "spokesman for one phase of intellectual and moral liberalism." (LWM 409) Mumford (who is fascinating) is as non-marxist as Nagel is (as Nagel recognizes LWM 410). And Nagel leaves no doubt he is quite familiar with Mumford's wider views.

And if we look at the passage that Reisch quotes in light of that, it is clear that they are criticized not for being politically wrong-headed. But rather that they do not help solve the (recall) transition problem from here to there and so are, at bottom, a "counsel of dark despair," (LWM 411). Such transition problems do not merely beset marxists, but as Nagel clearly recognizes, liberal thinkers too (something recently emphasized (recall) by Scott Scheall). If one's solution to the transition problem requires "wholesale and simultaneous victory over all problems" (LWM 411) then by Nagel's lights (and i am inclined to agree) that's no solution at all. (One can agree to that without always caving to demands of feasibility!) That is to say, a political philosophy that cares about changing the world is bound to confront the transition problem and take it seriously. This fits with Nagel's larger views on (recall) the "demands of responsible discourse."

For, more subtly, Nagel recognizes, thus, that a certain kind of revolutionary stance is not political at all, but a species of "moralizing exhortations." And, in fact, Nagel is explicit that the quetism is Mumford's: "He therefore proposes....the cultivation of the personal withdrawal and solitary reflection." (LWM 412, he then goes on to quote Mumford). So, the very criticism Reisch lodges against Nagel is Nagel's criticism of Mumford!

Now, Reisch and the friends of revolution, inspired by Neurath, need not agree with Nagel's incrementalist position, which embraces a "realizable process of indefinite approximation" (LWM 413, quoting Plato approvingly!) And I recognize that for some Nagel's charge that Mumford does not offer a "serious contribution to the solution of our present social dilemmas" may be unfair or unduly 'realistic' in a conservative way. But Nagel's willingness to work "within the framework of current political organizations...and on the basis of current moral ideals" (414) it is not a withdrawal from the world or a quietest, complacent stance even in international affairs.** (In 1951 the United Nations had been founded, and the Bretton Woods structure was being developed.) It is neither glorification of the American way nor antipolitical.

There is an important issue that ends up obscured by the limitations of Reisch's particular criticism (and may help explain them). One may well wonder, fairly, how Nagel's approach to philosophy of science, and the professionalism that it helped promote, may contribute to the solution of social dilemmas. And from the other end, the philosophical profession Nagel helped shape and bequeath does seem a fair target for Reisch's criticism. We may still wonder how Nagel's "convictions of a people confident that a bold but disciplined intelligence is still a creative power in the world" is actualized in a life of philosophy of science... 

 

14 March 1979: Foucault on Social Contracts, the welfare state, and American Neoliberalism (XXVI)

The second contextual element is of course the Beveridge plan and all the projects of economic and social interventionism developed during the war. These are all important elements that we could call, if you like, pacts of war, that is to say, pacts in terms of which governments—basically the English, and to a certain extent the American government—said to people who had just been through a very serious economic and social crisis: Now we are asking you to get yourselves killed, but we promise you that when you have done this, you will keep your jobs until the end of your lives. It would be very interesting to study this set of documents, analyses, programs, and research for itself, because it seems to me that, if I am not mistaken, this is the first time that entire nations waged war on the basis of a system of pacts which were not just international alliances between powers, but social pacts of a kind that promised—to those who were asked to go to war and get themselves killed—a certain type of economic and social organization which assured security (of employment, with regard to illness and other kinds of risk, and at the level of retirement): they were pacts of security at the moment of a demand for war. The demand for war on the part of governments is accompanied—and very quickly; there are texts on the theme from 1940—by this offer of a social pact and security. It was against this set of social problems that Simons drafted a number of critical texts and articles, the most interesting of which is entitled: “The Beveridge Program: an unsympathetic interpretation,” which there is no need to translate, since the title indicates its critical sense. Michel Foucault, 14 March, 1979,  translated by Graham Burchell, Lecture 9, The Birth of Biopolitics, 216

I have deliberately gone slowly through Birth of Biopolitics because I did not want to skip straight to Foucault's discussion of 'American neo-liberalism,' (215-216; especially the celebrated treatment of Becker). In this I echo Foucalt's deliberate procedure. When he arrives at lecture nine, he announces, at its start, "Today I would like to start talking to you about what is becoming a pet theme in France: American neo-liberalism." Foucault knows -- and we have seen him repeatedly remind his audience -- that what he has to say about ORDO-liberalism is of little interest to his audience, which he often castigates as being in the grip of cliches. Their real interest is to take on the new ascending, intellectual hegemony located in Chicago and in the public eye associated with Pinochet, etc. Foucault never mentions Pinochet or the Chicago Boys. His interest is not to contribute to cold-war dialectics; he want, as he says repeatedly through the lecture course, more immanently, discuss liberal govermentality toward which liberal democracies are -- and here Foucault exhibits the political sensitivity of a poet -- already moving. And while Milton Friedman has already won the first of the Chicago nobels, in 1979, Thatcher's first election victory is still a few weeks away, it is by no means obvious that a discussion of Chicago, Becker, and Hayek is then simultaneously prophetic.

In the 'banal' (216) part of his lecture, Foucault ties American-neoliberalism to the Chicago school. He writes, "The first, fundamental text of this American neo-liberalism, written in 1934 by Simons, who was the father of the Chicago School, is an article entitled “A Positive Program for Laissez-Faire.” (216) The first remarkable feature here is that Foucault will define the school in terms of a set of fundamental texts. This is a natural move for a philosophical historian, of course. But it is odd claim for somebody focused on practice (i.e., the art of governmentality). So, for example, Foucault ignores the two features of Chicago method, that, in its early self-understanding, can be said to define it as a school: (i) Chicago price theory (the same term is used for a famous introductory course and text-book);* (ii) a commitment to Marshallian partial equilibrium. 

The second remarkable feature is that Frank Knight is completely effaced from the narrative of Chicago. Given Foucault's interests this is no surprise. But it is worth noting: the Chicago legacy of focusing on uncertainty and a kind of meta-methodological sensitivity toward, and the political embeddedness of, the limitations of economics as a science are completely effaced. I don't mean to suggest that the focus on Simons (recall here; here), who was by then long dead and undoubtedly obscure to a European audience, is a mistake.**

The passage quoted at the top is the second of "three" (banal) contextual "elements" against which american neo-liberalism is defined: "Keynesian policy, social pacts of war, and the growth of the federal administration through economic and social programs—together formed the adversary and target of neoliberal thought, that which it was constructed against or which it opposed in order to form itself and develop." (217) But as usual with Foucault, his asides are incredible illuminating. 

It may seem that to oppose the Beveridge plan is to oppose social planning. And undoubted social planning -- collectivism in the jargon of the age -- is one of the targets. But Foucault recognizes that the legitimacy of social planning is ground in a new kind of social contract. In Foucault's presentation the need for a social contract is felt by the elites, who recognize that after a decade of economic suffering calling people up for war may require justification that  goes beyond ordinary war propaganda. 

As an aside, Foucault here subtly historicizes the renewal of the social contract tradition then a decade underway by those who had been foot-soldiers (Rawls) in that great war. Rather than focusing on Rawls' religious roots, one can better understand this renewal as a (renewed) demilitarization of the social contract.

Be that as it may, to oppose Beveridge is not just to oppose social planning, but to oppose the very terms of the war-time social contract. For this social contract trades the non-negligible risk of death (or the death of a loved-one/breadwinner) in war for an obligation toward other forms of (social) security.+ That is to say, to criticize Beveridge is not just to criticize economic policy, but the very conceptualization of the polity. 

Why might one wish to do so? For one, in this hostile perspective (and it seems Foucault kind of endorses it), the very conceptualization of the welfare state is a war-state. This is a trope going back to the Vienna critic of Neurath (and Bismarck), but here it is part of the very conceptualization of the legitimacy of the welfare state. Second, it is by no means obvious that this social contract is liberal. And the problem is not so much the welfare state side of the equation (the benefit), but the war-side (the cost). The very point of a liberal state is the preservation of (bare) life. This is why, as Nick Cowen alerted me, life becomes before "liberty and the pursuit of happiness!"

In his rhetorically charged polemic, Simons (1945) presciently himself calls attention to this, "Written by a nominal Liberal, radical-reactionary in its substantive proposals, libertarian in its rhetoric, thissecond Beveridge Report may forecast or largely determine the course of British postwar policy." (212) Part of Simons' ire is that Beveridge is clothed as liberal, but substantively it is an odd mix of radicalism (that is, as Foucault had already explained in lecture 2, Benthamite utilitarianism) and reactionary-ness (that is, committed to war and hierarchy). And, indeed, Simons recognizes that for all its noble social ends, Beveridge plan is also a contribution to survival of (declining) political imperialism, "England's commercial power is to be mobilized and concentrated, to improve her terms of trade, to recruit satellites for a tight sterling bloc, and to insulate herself and them from unstable, unplanned economies, i.e., from the United States." (Simons 1945: 213)

That is to say, on the Simons interpretation of Beveridge, which Foucault shadows even amplifies beyond Simons' own rhetoric (notice the language of the "demand for war"), American neo-liberalism understands itself not merely as a critique of the welfare state, but it understands itself as a critique of an illegitimate social contract that underpins it; for from a truly liberal perspective, one cannot really, if one has minimal Hobbesian intuitions (one cannot contract away the natural right to mere self-preservation), consent to the pact inscribed in Beveridge. And, in fact, Simons is clear that if executed fully, the Beveridge plan would involve in open-ended trade wars leading to the real kind (Simons 1945: 227-228).** The point had been foreshadowed in lecture 5 (see what Foucault says about Ropke on p. 110).

Let me close with a remark. In what follows, Foucault is largely uninterested in Friedman (the focus is on Becker then still much more obscure). But the 'banal' point he has made in terms of Simons' criticism of Beveridge helps explain the increasing popularity of Friedman in the 60s and 70s. For Friedman was one of the most eloquent and visible critics of the draft (during the Vietnam war). His argument (inspired by Simons but not identical) was as much economic as it was political, "large armed forces plus the industrial complex required to support them constitute an ever-present threat to political freedom."   

 

 

Quine, Spencer, Neurath, Regimentation & Imperialism

Each elimination of obscure constructions or notions that we manage to achieve, by paraphrase into more lucid elements, is a clarification of the conceptual scheme of science. The same motives that impel scientists to seek ever simpler and clearer theories adequate to the subject matter of their special sciences are motives for simplification and clarification of the broader framework shared by all the sciences. Here the objective is called philosophical, because of the breadth of the framework concerned; but the motivation is the same. The quest of a simplest, clearest overall pattern of canonical notation is not to be distinguished from a quest of ultimate categories, a limning of the most general traits of reality.--Quine Word and Object, 146-147

Quine's philosophy of science is now primarily understood in terms of his naturalism which makes the distinction between science and philosophy, or metaphysics, blurry. But as is, I assume, well known, he also embraced a distinct task for the philosopher: to paraphrase and thereby regiment scientific language into a simpler and clarified language. This task turns philosophy into a mopping up operation behind the research frontiers of science, but better a job than no job. And while Quine keeps his distance from Neurath's preference for orchestration of the unified language of science, it is notable that Quine thinks there is a possible regimented language of the broader framework shared by all the sciences. This part of Quine   ("ultimate categories, a limning of the most general traits of reality") is beloved by post-Lewisian metaphysicians with their fondness for fundamental languages at the end of scientific development.

Quine devotes the whole of chapter 5 of Word and Object to regimentation, so I do not mean to suggest my previous paragraph is suitable paraphrase for the idea. In particular, there are interesting questions to be asked about the nature of the regimented (logical) language, the relationship between the regimented languages of the special sciences and the broader framework language, and what the further point of a regimented language is. Later in the book, Quine casually notes that regimentation in the way he understands it has already a glorious history: "how powerful this combination is has been borne out by extensive logical regimentations of parts of science, especially mathematics, at the hands of Frege, Peano, and their successors."* (208) Quine's use of 'successors' is a bit cheeky, because back in 1936, in a little known essay, "A theory of classes presupposing no canons of type," Quine himself had deployed a "principle of regimentation" he had contributed to this glorious history.

My interest today is  in the word, ''regimentation,' used to describe this philosophical task. In 1957, Quine had used 'regimentation' in the sense intended here in "The scope and language of science," (BJPS, 8:29: 10). And as Peter Hylton and Gary Kemp note, he gives a nice sense of the point of regimentation there: "To some degree…the scientist can enhance objectivity and diminish the interference of language, by his very choice of language. And we concerned to distill the essence of scientific discourse, can profitably purify the language of science beyond what might reasonably be urged upon the practicing scientist." (7) In so far it is profitable, I leave aside here to what degree the return on investment is worth the opportunity costs.

But Quine does not comment on his choice for using this word. An unscientific search in scholar.google, suggested that the idea of regimenting language was not altogether uncommon in the half century before Quine (as the reference to his 1936 paper suggests). To the best of knowledge, however, Quine invented the coinage of regimentation in the sense under discussion.

I was reminded to reflect on this by a late essay by Herbert Spencer, "Regimentation," which appeared in his collection Facts and Comments (1902).+ Spencer himself knew that the "volume herewith issued I can say with certainty will be my last," and so it can be understood as a kind of literary last testament. As Davies notes, the tenor of the collection is fiercely anti-imperialist. (For an excellent treatment of Spencer's views, which dispels many common myths about him.) And the main argument of the essays I have read so far involves the ways in which imperialism corrupts and infects all of social life, including language, which takes on militaristic tropes and metaphors.** For, Spencer "regimentation is another aspect of that general retrogression shown in growing imperialism and accompanying re-barbarization. "

And like a contemporary cultural critic, Spencer notes that the widespread use of 'regimentation,' and not just it,  indicates the "graduated subordination which we see in an army, characterizes a militant society at large more and more as militancy increases." One of the subtexts of the essay is the co-constitution of imperialism, militancy, and social planning. And echoing Mill, Spencer deplores the way homogeneous society is the product of nation-building at home: "we see that even in a single generation great strides have been taken towards a regimental organization for moulding children after an approved pattern." In particular, regimentation involves the subordination of spiritual ends toward society's directed use of our bodies.++ One of Spencer most striking claims is that such regimentation is directed and developed by city governments in their provision of public goods and services: "each of these is, as we see, like a military administration is having ranks subordinate one to another."

As an aside, the broader thrust of Spencer's essays serve as a record of the retreat of liberalism even in Victorian England at the end of the nineteenth century. This was echoed by a later generation of liberals confronted by its near collapse in the 1930s. I think Spencer's essays can also help explain why liberalisms' ideas lost their vitality in this period. But that's for another occasion.

Let me tie the two threads together. First, Quine's use of 'regimentation' is associated with concepts like purification, clarification, and distillation. These, we may say, chemical metaphors of refinement tend to avoid the militant network of associations that Spencer had diagnosed. This alone is peculiar. 

Here's a speculative thought. There had been a brief, polemical debate about the tendency of the tropes and metaphors used within (let's call it) scientific philosophy. Neurath, when (in 1946) explaining his fondness for, and responding to Kallen's criticism of, his "pet word," 'orchestration,' had gone out of the way to distance it from various totalitarian and programmatic connotations. Instead, for Neurath, orchestration should be understood as a "democracy of cooperation." Kallen had charged the unity of science movement with "imperialistic" designs. The whole exchange is worth reading.*** My present point is that there was self-conscious reflection on the way the network of words used for specialized terminology within scientific philosophy may be associated with wider political trends. 

I have already reflected with the help of Greg Frost-Arnold on Quine's understanding of clarity. So, let me leave that aside here. Regimentation is a form of disciplining (a word notably absent from Quine's idiolect). And, it is worth asking who is, thereby, disciplined. It turns out both science and philosophy. The main benefit of regimentation is more disciplined metaphysics which can take place, as it were, in the regimented language. So, regimentation is a kind of self-disciplining of philosophical activity.

But Quine-ian regimentation is also, a species of disciplining of science; not, I hasten to add, to pursue "practical language reform," (as a Marxist might) or to tell scientists how to do science. Quine thinks, however, that no language is fully "neutral" and that language shapes scientific activity. And a purified language may well improve actual science, indirectly, by avoiding ambiguity and other sources of interferences within science. One important effect of this is that scientists do not have (ahh) the last word on their own output. (Quine here echoes Toland, Berkeley, Hume, in response to Newton.) Their authority is, thus, partially subordinated to philosophy.+++ And, while I would hesitate to call this an 'imperial philosophy,' in this sense, 'regimentation,' seems an apt choice.

On Philosophy Being Political

The elimination of conscious fraud is seldom mentioned in formal discussions of the reasons for repetition in science. The quasi-mythological view that scientists are uniformly of higher moral standards than ordinary mortals is maintained, and subconscious bias is usually depended upon to explain the importance of independent repetition. To repeat, scientists are not much better than other men, and there certainly are at least a few among them who would fake experiments if there was something to be gained therefrom. The induced researcher has something to gain if he can get away with such a fraud. His income depends largely on the reputation he can develop, and this, in turn, depends on his “discoveries.” It is obviously easier to produce an important and exciting article if one simply invents the facts reported than if one is confined to reality. This being so, the prevention of fraud depends on a detection apparatus. Part of the detection apparatus involves repetition (Tullock The organization of inquiry [1966] 2005: 124).

Tullock considers economics, as we have seen, to be a discipline in which the possibility of concealment is greater than in what he calls science. Now, we consider what differential auditing possibilities do to Polanyi’s argument that scientific opinion is uniform. Long before Polanyi the uniformity of opinion had been viewed as a necessary condition for scientific status....

[In his 1962 “Republic of Science”] Polanyi asked what scientists believe and proposed that everyone believes the same thing. How could this be? With the division of labor, scientists in one specialization have no competence in another so why the unanimity? Polanyi appealed to an overlapping neighborhood of competence by which all problems in science is connected....All Polanyi needs is transparency.
Characterizing Polanyi’s argument as a special case of Longfield’s argument shows that we can use one principle to analyze the intra-community connections. This will be enormously helpful because the machinery which has been set in motion for one community can be applied to the other. Thus, [Adam] Smith himself discussed how monopolies form and create inequality within the labor market. A group keeping others out can enrich themselves. If we can move the argument across communities, what does monopolization look like among experts? We are using “experts” because following Tullock, we do not know whether they are “scientists” until we know something about the institutional structure in which they function.
Tullock, when he rehearses Polanyi’s argument, silently provides the missing step and thus fails to impress his delightful cleverness on the reader. To make the overlapping competence argument work, there must be data audits, results must be checked. He says this over and over again. This distinguishes economics and science. As Tullock writes, economics allows concealment. Therefore economics allows factions and it doesn’t have the Polanyi efficiency properties. Sandra J. Peart & David M. Levy (2012) "Tullock on motivated inquiry: expert-induced uncertainty disguised as risk," Public Choice, 171-3

The quoted paragraphs is from a paper, even research program, methodological analytic egalitarianism, that (as regular readers know) has long influenced me. I was inspired to go back to it by Liam Kofi Bright's recent, interesting argument that "all philosophy is political is a trivial consequence of the more interesting fact that all inquiry is...united." [HT Dailynous] Drawing on Neurath, Bright argues this unity is a regulative or normative ideal, "it is an achievement to be won, not a fact to be granted." Neurath's argument is also a bit self-interested because within the division of scientific labor, it gives philosophers, a new kind of philosopher, a special role, of (linguistic/conceptual) orchestration. (See here; I link to this piece because Neurath is especially clear about the anti-totalitarian political significance of the program.) Uncharacterstically, Bright does not quite mention this, but the general gist is clear from his presentation:

The unity of science consists in the fact that we may potentially bring the results, methods, and fruits of inquiry in one field to bear on all others, providing we take the time to formulate our claims in a way that can be mutually understood, and are sufficiently clear in stating logical or evidential relations. The unity of science is thus a kind of consequence of the attitude of seeking to be clear and assist one another.*

If it is remembered that 'We' here is 'we [new] philosophers' Bright's position is echt Neurathian. If the 'we' here is all of of us engaged in science, Bright has subtly added a set of virtues some epistemic some social to the practice of all science. Notice, and Bright is very good on this, that even if one rejects some such normative unity program, the attitude is useful because "we cannot ever rule out the potential relevance of any one field of inquiry to another." Bright gives some cute historical examples. I would just add that anybody who is engaged in debates in contemporary climate science will be struck how many different,and different kinds of sciences are brought to bear on each other all the time. So far so good.

Now, here's my observation, if we think of different sciences also as reflecting different interests, then we should not automatically assume that when two sciences are brought in communication/trade with each other they will automatically agree. As Max Weber pointed out, pluralism is a consequence of the division of labor and differentiated interests. It is, thus, to be expected that when two sciences or sub-fields within a discipline/science are made to communicate some disagreement is to be expected. (Obviously, it does not follow there will always be disagreement or even most of the time.) The claim in this paragraph is strengthened, perhaps a trivial consequence, of the idea that not all sciences rely solely on epistemic commitments (see Heather Douglas' now classic book). 

Of course, if we think of the ways in which sciences are brought to bear on each other, it is quite possible to come to agreement either by creating a third new science (which may well has its task of figuring out the discrepancies between the two sciences) or by transformation of one of the sciences (in dialogue with each other). [If you think not all disciplines are science, then follow Peart/Levy and substitute expert-disciplines where necessary!] This sounds abstract, but actually happens quite a bit in the history of science. 

I put the Tullock in, in part, to show that Tullock anticipates the debates over the replication crisis (in some bits of the academy) by several decades. And that is I want to strengthen Bright's argument (in his spirit, see here) by suggesting that even if one is doubtful of the desirability or feasibility of general unity of science that he (and I, with slightly different sensibility) embraces, there are additional reasons to embrace the idea of leaving room to keeping open, '"the potential relevance of any one field of inquiry to another." It reduces the incentives and possibilities for fraud and rents for members of autonomous disciplines. As we have seen, that is not just a hypothetical possibility.

But, and here I close, the idea of intellectual even disciplinary autonomy is very much part of the DNA of philosophy, perhaps uniquely so (with exception of 'pure' math) [recall this old post on Williamson]. To be an intellectual self-legislator, to have autonomous/foundational or self-sufficient reason, is an ideal that is a permanent temptation for philosophers (in ways not so for other disciplines within the division of intellectual labor)--go read Descartes, or even Kant. I think it is some such ideal that makes some philosophers also uneasy about the very idea of (what I call) a philosophical politics within philosophy or in its relationships with other disciplines. The Neurathian offers orchestration (and its modern successors) as a consolation prize to them (if orchestration seems like the wrong way to go, then see the program of synthetic philosophy!)

Of course, the would be autonomous philosopher can refuse to allow his philosophy to be scrutinized by outsiders. (Just as not all offers to trade are accepted.) The risk of such hermeticisms, of thinking philosophy pure and untainted by politics, is, in fact, to make philosophy a hiding place for charlatans and cultists.  It is amusing to see my own ilk, analytic philosophers embracing that risk.

 

 

On the Neuraths, Eugenics, and Translation

Now there is no denying that, given the trajectory of his later career, Neurath’s translation (with his first wife Anna Schapire-Neurath) of the second edition of Francis Galton’s Hereditary genius as Genie und Vererbung (1910) stands in need of explanation—indeed: contextualisation.¹⁷ Once that is provided, however, it becomes clear that his seeming ‘enthusiasm’ for eugenics was in fact considerably tempered. What prompted this tempering was, first of all, the complex influence of his father Wilhelm Neurath’s early arguments against Social Darwinism, albeit from an idealist perspective.¹⁸ In addition it must be noted that even the left of the day was by no means unanimously opposed to all eugenicist programmes and that the ideology of German eugenics before World War 1 was ‘less racialist than nationalist or meritocratic’, though unsavoury tendencies were already in evidence (Proctor, 1988, p. 20). Characteristically, Karl Kautsky dedicated the last chapter of a book of socialist reflections on Darwinism to the issue of ‘building a social consciousness in the spirit of racial hygiene’ (Kautsky, 1921, p. 265), explicitly in opposition to proponents of state-directed eugenic interventions like Wilhelm Schallmeyer. Finally, note must be taken of the protracted polemic against ‘the natural–scientific theory of society’ that Neurath’s mentor Ferdinand Tönnies conducted against Social Darwinists like Schallmeyer during the first decade of the past century in the journal of one of Neurath’s Berlin professors and dissertation examiners, Gustav Schmoller (Tönnies, 1925).

In light of this, the translation of Galton’s early work on eugenics may be regarded as an attempt to induce a certain sobriety into a highly topical public debate, especially since the translator’s ‘Preface’ draws the reader’s attention to what is significant about the second edition. Galton’s ‘Preface the second edition’—translated in full—not only stresses that the inheritance of acquired characteristics plays a still more minor part than originally thought, but also that in the meantime he had discovered the phenomenon of regression to the mean and the need to distinguish between genetic variations and so called sports. Galton concluded that ‘it is in consequence impossible that the natural qualities of a race may be permanently changed through the action of selection upon mere variations. The selection of the most serviceable variations cannot even produce any great degree of artificial and temporary improvement, because an equilibrium between deviation and regression will soon be reached, whereby the best of the offspring will cease to be better than their own sires and dams’ (Galton, 1892, p. xviii). That this radically reduces the scope for eugenics and reduces ‘the speed of the progress’ thereby promoted—as Galton put it in a passage from his Memories also reproduced in the translators’ ‘Introduction’ (Neurath & Schapire-Neurath, 1910a, p. vi)—is evident. It is surely not far-fetched to conclude that readers were meant to notice these consequences by the translators.

By 1913, in any case, Neurath observed: ‘One should clearly realise that instinct must fail with regard to the complex rational relationships created by the consciously shaped institutions of the social order and modern technology’ (Neurath, 1983, p. 5). So it is misleading to say that Neurath ‘in the years before the First World War became interested in eugenics’ (Proctor, 1991, p. 168) and wholly false to claim (as already noted) that it served as a ‘model and metaphor for social engineering’ (Richardson, 2009a, p. 19).¹⁹ Rather, by the time of World War 1, Neurath had lost interest in it because he realised that it was of no use for the transformation of society that he had begun to believe was required to alleviate the misery of the largest part of the population.--Thomas Uebel (2010) "What’s right about Carnap, Neurath and the Left Vienna Circle thesis: a refutation," Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A

Yesterday, while discussing LK Bright's work on the logical empiricist's taboo on (biological) racial explanation in human affairs, I alluded to an existing debate over the significance or meaning of the Neuraths's translation with his wife (a "professional translator") of Galton's Hereditery Genius. (As Galton makes clear in the preface to the second edition, by 'genius' he means 'natural ability,' although this does not rule out the impact of education and cultivation.) For even if one is friendly to the Vienna Circle it is a bit troubling to see one of its leading intellectual lights implicated in the active spread of eugenic ideas. (And one can imagine that at least some of those who are hostile will use it as critical ammunition.) Bright (and I) cite/link to a piece by one of the leading scholars of the Circle, Uebel (which I have quoted above). My own inclinations are with Richardson's position,* but what follows is agnostic about the relevance of early Neurath's views on eugenics to our interpretation of (a branch) of the later Vienna Circle.

First, I fully agree with Uebel that "even the left of the day was by no means unanimously opposed to all eugenicist programmes." In fact, as I remarked yesterday, many progressives, who want to improve society, after all, were invested in all kinds of scientific eugenics. (As regular readers know, I became aware of the significance of this by working on the overlapping history of philosophy and economics prompted by David Levy's scholarship.) Not all of these eugenic improvers were invested in racial hierarchy. But it is equally true that racial hierarchy is rarely fully absent from eugenic programs. As I remarked yesterday, Galton's book has a full chapter in which he presents his racialized hierarchy of peoples. The Neuraths's introduction does not challenge this classification. (It provides biographical background to his interest in the subject.) So, even if Uebel is right that the second edition of Galton's book does not promote eugenics, it does promote a racial hierarchy.

Second Uebel is right to call attention to the significance of the regression of the mean. The Neuraths's also call attention to Galton's comments (which he had added to the preface of the second edition) in their introduction. I want to make three comments about this. (a) The purported findings of racial hierarchy are not undermined by Galton's awareness of regression to the mean (which is a quality of a race); he repeats his views on the inferiority of "Negroes" in the introduction to the second edition (xxv-xxvi). In fact, (b) while Galton does not say this, one may even suspect that he thought this entrenches the hierarchy -- if one can maintain racial purity from the lower races -- because one can't breed up.

Now, it's true that Galton expresses (a lot more) pessimism about breeding for increasing existing characteristics in a population due to thinking through the implications of regressions to the mean (see, second edition p. xviii). But (c) he is explicit that it leaves open possibility for breeding for novelty or new characteristics (or what he calls "spots") which can then be passed on to the next generation. This can ultimately lead to a new "species" (race/kind). Galton goes on to call for the establishment of an experimental research lab in which breeding experiments on animals are performed alongside demographic study of human populations. So, a eugenic program that breeds new, desirable characteristics into a new kind of man may well be possible (and that's what, in fact, he calls for research into). Galton's remarks reveal the (evidential) research potential of drastic social engineering:

The great problem of the future betterment of the human race is confessedly, at the present time, hardly advanced beyond the stage of academic interest,  but thought and action move swiftly nowadays, and it is by no means impossible that a generation  which has witnessed the exclusion of the Chinese race from the customary privileges of settlers in  two continents, and the deportation of a Hebrew population from a large portion of a third, may  live to see other analogous acts performed under sudden socialistic pressure. (xx)

Galton here does not advocate massive social engineering. But it's clear that if the evidence supports its utility, he would embrace it. ("They compel us to face the question as to what races should be politicall the chief occupiers of that [African] continent." (xxv))

The Neuraths do not comment much on Galton's vision. So, Uebel may be right that they wished to introduce "certain sobriety" into the discussion. (As I speculated yesterday, while Galton endorses a racial hierarchy his book is not antisemitic (even philosemitic), something they may have found attractive in a Germanic context.) Perhaps they did not endorse his racial hierarchy and other eugenic projects. (But why not say so in the  introduction?) But it does not follow that they rejected everything in the book. In fact, there is clear evidence that the Neuraths explicitly accept Galton's idea of the inherited characteristic of intelligence. For, in their 'preface" (Vorwort) they explicitly call attention to a (modest) mistake by Galton. Galton had presented Fichte as an isolated genius; but they note that he had a son who was a philosophy professor. The point is echoed in the biographical sketch of Galton in their "introduction," where they explicitly note, as an illustrative example of Galton's theory, the above average likely presence of other smart people in the families of exemplary men (iii-iv).**

 

On Taboos & Polarization in Politics & Philosophy

[T]he logical empiricists can be interpreted as engaged in a project of voluntarist racial eliminativism. They did not take themselves to have an in principle argument against racial categorisation of human beings. Their frequent references to biological racial categorisation make it clear that they thought this was something you could coherently do, and it would be inconsistent with their version of conventionalism to argue that one is cognitively mistaken to use an empirically meaningful categorisation scheme. Hence, while the position I am attributing to them is similar to the position that racial taxonomic terms are simply meaningless, it is not quite that – it is not that they thought there was no empirically meaningful way that one could make sense of human racial taxonomy. Rather, it was that they thought one ought not use these terms....As such they adopted a policy of refusing to endorse any instances of racial categories being used as part of empirical explanations, and discouraging racial explanation by rhetorical means.--Liam Kofi Bright (2017) "Logical empiricists on race" Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences

Liam Kofi Bright reminded me of his paper in response to my post on the method of composite portraiture (which traces back to Galton). [I leave aside here to what degree Bright's paper fits that method.] In his paper he diagnoses a taboo within logical empiricism against (biological) racial explanations of social affairs. The taboo is maintained by an act of self-legislation in the adoption of certain conceptual frameworks (and methods) and a rhetorical-polemical attitude against those that used alternative conceptual frameworks (that included racial explanations). What makes taboos interesting is that, in order to be effective, they require self-command and group discipline/loyalty, that is, esprit des corps. This is possible when a group is reasonably small, shares an important aim, and has a way of controlling entry. Bright does not address the maintenance of the taboo, but in the sentences I skipped, Bright suggests that it is their (i.e., the logical empiricists') shared "political projects" and moral commitments, which are 'external' or 'optative' to the adopted framework that sustains the taboo (a word he does not use), undoubtedly facilitated by informal communication (when they were in the same place) and small numbers. Because Bright reads the logical empiricists in a Kantianizing fashion (with relativized a priori), we may remind ourselves that they are not the first to legislate a taboo within philosophy: in Kant's Die Metaphysik der Sitten, Kant (recall) limits -- as (ahh) Slavoj Žižek point out -- the possible philosophical role of history (as a form of inquiry) into the origin of a legitimate authority on practical grounds.

In his essay, Bright explicitly recognizes that the taboo (racial explanation) is maintained not because using it is meaningless. That is to say, the logical empiricists have not shown that using racial explanation is false. One need not be Freud to recognize one does not need taboos on the evidently false. But it also does not follow that the logical empiricists thought the taboo was hiding the truth. (If anything, using a taboo to hide the truth is self-defeating because one will generate contradictions, internal tensions, etc.) Rather, it's clear that they thought that regardless of the scientific status of racial explanation, there is always a non-trivial risk these get mingled with immoral/inhumane political aims. That is, the members of the Vienna Circle are (recall) engaged in responsible speech because they recognize what we call the inductive risks of legitimizing racial explanations. The polemic with Heidegger centers, in part, on their recognition that his way of philosophizing has noxious consequences (recall Glymour). Taboos can be efficient in preventing the predictable downstream costs and energy of combating the pernicious effects of the damage done by racial explanation (in the service of racial hierarchy, social exclusion, eugenic programs, etc.).

Bright is clear that the logical empiricists engaged in polemical rhetoric against those that violated their taboo. This is significant for two reasons: first, they attempted to impose their internal compact on others (who had not contracted into their program). That is, there is something imperialist to demand from others that they abide by your self-imposed taboo. Second, we can discern here strategies that became all too familiar in their students and heirs in later generations of analytical philosophy; an excessive willingness to use rhetorical means in combating opposing schools.

Given the political moment -- with racial subordination and elimination a live possibility -- it is easy to forgive the logical empiricists willingness to aim to impose their taboo with rhetorical means on others. They were were part of a struggle in which the racialist explanation loving sides were quite willing to support racial hierarchy, and worse. But most of the subsequent academic struggles their students engaged in are not like this; being wrong about when to discusses semantic composition or modal metaphysics does not lead to racial elimination.*

As an extensive aside, Bright recognizes a problematic exception to his argument: Neurath's translation (in 1910 with his first wife Anna Schapire-Neurath) of Galton's work on eugenics, Hereditary genius.** (Speaking of taboos, Neurath's translation goes unmentioned in the Stanford Encyclopedia entry on Neurath!) Now, Bright could have said that in 1910 logical empiricism did not exist yet and that circumstances between 1910 and, say, the 1930s were different (the founding of the Vienna Circle can be dated to 1928 or so). This would also explain Neurath's apparent change of heart later. This is not Bright's strategy (perhaps because he also quotes from the relatively early (1921) Anti-Spengler.) With a nod to Thomas Uebel's contextual analysis and, more important, the writings of W.E. Du Bois, Bright remarks that a defense of racial breeding need not be a defense of white supremacy. And, undoubtedly, there is logical space between the can wish to breed for all kinds of characteristic without wishing for a racialized polity. And, in fact, in 1910 eugenics was part of a progressive, scientific gospel that influenced all kinds of policies and scientific projects not all of them pertaining to race (see Tim Leonard's book).

Even so, it is worth noting that by 1910, Galton's Heriditary Genius, was an old book (first published in 1869); it draws on Darwin's ideas, but by 1910 was certainly not cutting edge in its science. It has, in fact, a chapter, "The Comparative Worth of Different Races" which is as bad as it sounds.*** Galton, who was the leading statistician of his age, concludes "that the average intellectual standard of the negro race is some two grades below our own [Anglo-Saxon]." (In the hierarchy, the negro is still a grade above the "Australian type.") A satirist may note that Galton is, in fact, willing to acknowledge that there were better races than his own, for he remarks that "the average ability of the [long vanished!] Athenian race is, on the lowest possible estimate, very nearly two grades higher than our own." But Galton takes this to be an argument for racial purity because the Athenians allowed too much interbreeding!+ So, Galton's Heriditary Genius clearly embraces the existence of racial hierarchies (and these are not incidentally connected to British empire). But, interestingly enough (and I suspect this may have had some appeal to young Neurath), unlike many German eugenic tracts, Heriditary Genius is not antisemitic. While the Jews are not formerly classified in the racial hierarchy (due to lack of statistical evidence), most of the references to Jews in it are favorable.

Let me return to Bright's article. He establishes the existence of a philosophical taboo in (what I'll call) a highly polarized political context. Bright does not take a stance on the strategy he describes. But I am inclined to think that sometimes such taboos are necessary and useful and that the logical empiricists are in this, and in so many other ways, worth emulating. The opposing camps were part of a larger Kulturkampf where there was a genuine risk that bullets (and worse) would settle the true about racial hierarchy [to be precise: bullets can't settle the truth]. In the context of such high degree of polarization, the voluntary enforcement of taboos can serve a valuable function. They save and harness intellectual resources, they prevent unnecessary mingling of meaningful ideas with awful political and ethical policies, and they prevent the ambitious young from being tempted down unwise and immoral paths.

Of course, the rhetorical and professional enforcement of a taboo comes with a two-fold cost. First, as we have  seen, the very success of the strategy may encourage imitation of certain, imperialist behaviors (involving less dangerous topics) in less existentially polarized contexts. Second, the existence of a taboo is also a temptation for the unscrupulous and ambitious young who find themselves born in later times. They may well think that there are low-hanging fruits which will advance the cause of knowledge (and their career). Sometimes these unwise are lucky and they live in quiet times and their greedy, rashness has no downside.

 

On Finding a Home

‘we are like sailors who on the open sea must reconstruct their ship but are never able to start afresh from the bottom…’--Otto Neurath

[Aristotle’s ghost] freely acknowledged his own mistakes in natural philosophy, because he proceeded in many things upon conjecture, as all men must do; and he found that Gassendi, who had made the doctrine of Epicurus as palatable as he could, and the vortices of Descartes, were equally exploded. He predicted the same fate to ATTRACTION, whereof the present learned are such zealous asserters. He said, that new systems of nature were but new fashions, which would vary in every age; even those who pretend to demonstrate them from mathematical principles would flourish but a short period of time, and be out of vogue when that was determined.--Gulliver's Travels, Chapter VIII of Voyage III.

Today starts the bi-annual HOPOS conference (HOPOS = History of the Philosophy of Science) that my department is hosting in Ghent. Attending this meeting is a kind of intellectual home-coming because it is the only conference where I don't feel I need to justify my academic specialization to fellow philosophers. Even among early modernists, I felt like an outsider as long as I understood myself, and perceived others to look at me, as 'one of those weird Adam Smith guys.'

HOPOS, which has been around a few decades or so, is an anomaly in the profession: unlike other historical-philosophical topics it is not organized around a central figure -- although I often joke it is a coalition of folk that like Carnap and folk that like Newton -- nor characterized by a historical epoch. I am unfamiliar with professional societies devoted to HOM (History of Metaphysics), HOPOL (History of the Philosophy  of Language), HOE (History of Ethics), HOA (History of Aesthetics), etc. It is prima facie odd that a sub-specialization of philosophy, philosophy of science, would merit a society devoted to its history as an area of research (with even its own journal). The oddity of HOPOS (I have been a proud steer at one point) is deepened by the fact that there is a general sense that GPOS (General Philosophy of Science) is being displaced by more specialized sub-disciplines (PoX, that is philosophy of biology, philosophy of economics, philosophy of physics, etc., and even sub-disciplines of these: space/time, QM, etc.). Perhaps, the gradual demise of GPOS is a necessary pre-condition for the rise of HoPoS (history as burying the dead?), but I have never heard anybody say that.

In principle, HoPoS is a way of doing philosophy of science. So, after philosophy of science turned historical, say, with Kuhn, it is natural, albeit not necessary, to become reflexive about this turn and understand one's own activity historically. It's not clear that one could really go meta from HoPoS to, say, HoHoPoS, so it seems the potential infinite regress is blocked at HoPoS. To be concrete: I have long been puzzled and fascinated by the fact that some of the most significant features of Kuhn's Structure, were anticipated in Adam Smith's "The History of Astronomy" (written in the first half of the eighteenth century). Apparently thinking of science as an open-ended succession of revolutions between systems of thought that are in some sense incommensurable with each other is a kind of permanent open possibility in philosophical-logical space. That idea has a history, too (see the quote from Gulliver); it is, in fact, somewhat of a skeptical trope (while researching my dissertation I found a version of it in Montaigne).