Digressions&Impressions

On The Historian as True Philosopher Vs the Puzzle-solver

There is almost universal recognition, reflected in hiring patterns, that historians of philosophy play a vital teaching role in philosophy departments. We are experts on the core texts that majors and graduate students are supposed to have read, and we are committed to bringing those works alive in a way that non-historian colleagues might not be. But we all are aware of the dangers of accepting a view of our activities as ancillary in relation to those of philosophy in general. To see ourselves merely as keeping alive a tradition that serves as a backdrop for on-going philosophical research, a tradition that students should study but also supersede in their properly “philosophical” work, is to write ourselves out of the mainstream of contemporary philosophy and to undervalue the significance of our discipline.--Don Rutherford. [Emphases added--ES.]

the history of philosophy can defend its position as an integral part of philosophy, namely that part of philosophy concerned with our understanding and assessment of what philosophy has accomplished and can hope to accomplish.

The “history of philosophy as metaphilosophy” is my slogan for this pathway. Metaphilosophy is an inevitable and widely acknowledged branch of philosophy. Just as philosophers reflexively make their own modes of reasoning and norms of rationality a topic of inquiry, so the enterprise of philosophy as a whole—its subject matter, methods and prospects for progress—is a topic for philosophical inquiry.--Rutherford.

In "Don Rutherford’s presentation at the inaugural meeting of the Society for Modern Philosophy, held at the 2014 Pacific Division meeting of the APA," he moves artfully from acknowledging the anxiety over the possible second-class status of historians of philosophy within professional philosophy to concluding audaciously that, in fact, the history of philosophy is the most philosophical enterprise within professional philosophy today. Within the intellectual division of labor, which generates ever more narrow specializations ("specialists" is a key word throughout the essay, and Rutherford offers important observations about increased specializations among 'early modernists'),  a properly conceived history of philosophy can take on one of philosophy's key tasks -- distinct from science, and religion,* intellectual history, etc. -- that is knowledge of generality, that is, a necessary ingredient of philosophy, which he understands in "the broadest terms as our self-understanding as human beings." To be clear (and fair to Rutherford), the "enterprise of philosophy as a whole" is a second-order enterprise that pertains to philosophy's "subject matter, methods and prospects for progress," rather than the first-order, specialist enterprise of contributing to progress by solving some puzzle, re-framing the nature of problem, philosophical limits, generating  a new purported paradox, etc.

Before I turn to Rutherford's explicit conception of history of philosophy as meta-philosophy, I register two notes on the first paragraph quoted above. First, the "hiring patterns," Rutherford describes are more localized than he realizes even in Anglophone (analytical) philosophy, e.g. (a) in England, there is remarkably little hiring in (let's call it) pre-Fregean philosophy, a few splendidly isolated bastions of 'Ancient' excepted; (b) in many European departments, self-described 'analytical' philosophers (in some ways still minority) are very hostile to any 'history' or will only recognize history of logic/physics as somewhat respectable.

Second, Rutherford takes the notion of a 'mainstream' for granted in his piece; now if the mainstream just is where the jobs are (recall 'hiring patterns'), then we can just grant some sociological interpretation of this and move on (although it would be worth testing to what degree responses to PhilPapers surveys and hiring correlate). But, it is more likely that, in practice, 'mainstream' functions as a kind of disciplinary self-policing tool located in the imaginations and self-understandings of folk that is used locally and more widely in opportunistic ways to articulate what is acceptable and not for a professional philosopher, historian or otherwise, to engage in. (I use 'self-policing' here in order to do justice to Rutherford's repeated 'we.') This matters because Rutherford seems to rule out, in advance, the possibility that some such dissatisfaction with some such imagined 'mainstream' might be the conatus behind history of philosophy or the historian of philosophy (recall this post); to recognize this particular conatus, does not entail that such a historian has the aim to overturn the existing (imagined) 'mainstream directly or indirectly, but it should not be ruled out. Rather than seeing it is an anxiety-producing problem that one can write oneself out of the mainstream, one might see this as liberation, even necessary preparation to a recasting of the discipline. That is to say, Rutherford's way of setting things up suggests initially a conception of the second-order (meta-philosophical) enterprise that leaves the first-order enterprise untouched; it's general, but harmless. On might think that Rutherford endorses such conception (e.g., "our work as historians of philosophy is, first and foremost, to understand the views of historical philosophers on their own terms before considering the relation between them and contemporary philosophical views.")

Was Newton Familiar with Spinoza? (Yes, of course!)

[A] Even arguments for a Being if not taken from Phænomena are slippery & serve only for ostentation. [B] An Atheist will allow that there is a Being absolutely perfect, necessarily existing & the author of  mankind & call it Nature: & [B*] if you talk of infinite wisdom or of any perfection more then he allows to {say} in {natur} heel reccon at a chemæra & tell you that you have the notion of finite or limited wisdom from what you find in your self & are able  of your self to  {prefin} the word no{t}  or more then to any verb or adjective & without the existence of wisdome not limited or [C] wisdome more then finite to understand the meaning of the  phrase as easily as Mathematicians understand  what is meant by an infinite line or an infinite area.  [D] And heel may tell you further that the Author of mankind was destitute of wisdome & designe because there are no final causes & [E] and that matter <is space & therefore necessarily existing & having always the same quantity of motion, would> in infinite time would run through all variety of forms... Isaac Newton Library Ms. Add. 3970 (B), f. 619r-v. [Letters added to facilitate discussion]+ 

Spinoza and Newton shared some overlapping interests, most obviously in optics, political theology, biblical philology, as well a shared initial immersion of and ultimate rejection of Cartesian physics. The optical controversy that made Newton famous occurred in the early 1670s during Spinoza's life, although we have no evidence that Spinoza followed the debate. Spinoza was known among many members of the Royal Society, including its secretary, and several of Newton's close acquaintances, including More and Clarke, responded to Spinoza's works throughout Newton's life. As Rosalie Colie has shown countless Boyle lecturers attempted refutations of Spinoza. Yet, to the best of my knowledge Newton never mentions Spinoza or Spinozism explicitly. During the past year, I convinced myself that Newton responds to the threat (of a variant) of Spinozism, in part due to Toland (a target of Clarke), with an argument added to the third (1726) edition of the General Scholium: "No variation of things arises from blind metaphysical necessity, which must be the same always and everywhere." (Here and here are two video presentations of the paper in which I defend this claim.)

But I was lacking a 'smoking gun' that Newton had a good sense of Spinozism. Then the great Alison Peterman called my attention to the passage quoted above. This passage is discussed in Newton scholarship. Even very good scholars – Snobelen and Anstey -- tend to claim that Newton is targeting Descartes/Cartesianism in it. This mistake is understandable because Newton does indeed criticize "the Cartesians" earlier in the page of the notebook, and Descartes had famously rejected final causes in physics. While claim [A] could indeed target both Descartes and Spinoza, claims [B, D-E], in particular, target Spinozism and not Cartesianism (and [C] may also do so).

On the emergence of philosophy of science

What I (try to) do, however, is not philosophy of science. I suppose what I do amounts to old-fashioned Oxford-style conceptual analysis, though again with a new historical emphasis. I should note that I think the word ‘analysis’ in this context is often given much too restrictive a sense (to analyze the concept F is to give necessary and sufficient conditions of the form ‘x is an F if and only if…’ – well, no). In fact I suspect that what I do amounts to the kind of thing that, according to Schliesser, philosophy of science since the time of Newton’s exegetes was deliberately conceived in order to rule out as invalid. On his story, philosophy of science emerged as the exclusive authority of empirical science was invoked by figures like Maclaurin, ‘s Gravesande, Musschenbroek, and Nieuwentyt against the notion that mere reflection on the meanings of concepts can reveal substantive truths about concrete reality.--Alex Douglas, responding, in part, to my post.

Alex's post (welcome to the blogosphere, Alex!) allows me to clarify something about my own position about the emergence of philosophy of science. By 'philosophy of science,' I mean a distinct, second order reflection on scientific practice and images of science (on images of science recall this).* Douglas is right to associate my story with now-obscure figures like Maclaurin, ‘s Gravesande, Musschenbroek, and Nieuwentyt. What these eighteenth century characters have in common is that they were willing to appeal to the authority of Newtonian natural philosophy to settle debate within philosophy/metaphysics proper. (I call such a move "Newton's Challenge!") Maclaurin, ‘s Gravesande, and Musschenbroek also made some contributions to Newtonian natural philosophy, but on the whole they are worth remembering (together with Nieuwentyt) for their reflections on the nature of Newton's achievement. To be clear: none of these four characters were slavish followers of Newton; they recast Newton's position in terms that served their own philosophical ends often in polemical context (often, but not exclusively, anti-Spinozistic). But on my account, their arguments did not go unchallenged. In particular, Diderot, Hume, Buffon, Mandeville (etc.) all offer arguments and considerations that are, in part, a response to "Newton's Challenge" as such and, in some part, directly addressing the detailed arguments offered in its favor. By my lights these arguments by Diderot, Hume, Buffon, Berkeley, Mandeville also contribute to the emergence of philosophy of science as a distinct, second order enterprise. So, the authority of science was debated in the emergence of philosophy science (see here, in part). As an aside, this was, in part, a debate within what is now  known as 'empiricism.'

On Harms done to Philosophers and the World by Philosophy (Or, On Going to the Gym)

If you are studying philosophy, it is well." For this is just what "being well" means.  Without philosophy the mind is sickly, and the body, too, though it may be very powerful, is strong only as that of a madman or a lunatic [furiosi aut frenetici] is strong.  This, then, is the sort of health you should primarily cultivate; the other kind of health comes second, and will involve little effort, if you wish to be well physically.  It is indeed foolish [stulta], my dear Lucilius, and very unsuitable to a literary man [et minime conveniens  litterato viro], to work hard over developing the muscles and broadening the shoulders and strengthening the lungs.  For although your heavy feeding produce good results and your sinews grow solid, you can never be a match, either in strength or in weight, for a first-class bull....Drinking and sweating, - it's the life of a dyspeptic!--Seneca Letter 15.

Most professional philosophers instinctly recoil at the idea that philosophy is about nurturing the soul or generates psychic well-being. On airplanes we often disabuse our travel companions of the  idea that we have anything to do with the 'philosophy and self-help' sections in the bookstore. We don't emendate minds. This is not just a consequence of our professional orientation;  David Hume, Nietzsche, and Wittgenstein make a compelling case that philosophy is unhealthy and itself requiring a cure. In fact, it's  not impossible -- this is a historical hypothesis -- that once philosophers were convinced by the idea that philosophy is itself unhealthy, they were all too eager to recast themselves as scientific philosopher or professional academics facilitating public utility in a variety of ways; this stance facilitates what I will call 'a worldly orientation' (as opposed to emendation of the mind) for philosophy with a number of characteristic (methodological) skills. 

But professionalization of philosophers may, in fact, make things worse: it is very likely that the way we are trained, cultivates intellectual reflexes that are, if not immoral, then often deeply inappropriate in lots of circumstances. (Recall Ruth Chang's articulation of such phenomena.) The potential and real harm here isn't just suffered by individual philosophers, the victims of a variety of individual abuses committed by philosophers, and the quality of professional philosophy because of the patterns of exclusion generated by these; it may also infiltrate the activities of our worldly orientation. If we assume that arguments ought to compel we are unable to be sensitive, even receptive to the feelings and sensitivities of our interlocutors; an argument can be a learning device, but it can also be a way to prevent being receptive. So, while here I accept that there is a contrast between our present worldly orientation and psychic emendation, it is not impossible they could be made to harmonize. 

Deleuze as (proto-Carnapian) Philosophical Historian of Philosophy

Our only teachers are those who tell us “do with me,” and are able to emit signs to be develop in heterogeneity rather than propose gestures for us to reproduce. (Deleuze, Difference and Repetition (hereafter DR), 26).

Difference and Repitition, 26DR 26)

Duns Scotus, Spinoza, and Nietzsche are three moments in the “history of the philosophical elaboration of the univocity of being.” (DR 48) This history is progressive: Spinoza “marks  a considerable progress.” And Nietzsche becomes world-historical (he offers “a Copernican revolution” (DR 50)) by opening the “possibility of difference having its own concept,” that is “eternal return” not of the “Identical,” but rather “returning constitutes the only Same of that which becomes,”  (DR 50; it matters to Deleuze that what returns are the ‘extreme’ or ‘excessive’ forms). The history of progressive conceptual development is not just a “theoretical” exercise, but delivers a “practical” criterion in Nietzsche.

As the epigraph to the post suggests, for Deleuze the history of philosophy is an occasion to encounter exemplary thinkers that both invite their readers to think with their thoughts as well as demand from their very best readers a development that does not mindlessly repeat the original, but in the development introduce variance. This creative act of the historian of philosophy, this repetition and difference, which Deleuze calls the method of dramatization is, thus, a way to conceptualize the doing of the history of philosophy as a means toward progress in philosophy. Deleuze attributes the origin of the method to “Kierkegaard and Nietzsche,” who “invent an incredible theatre within philosophy, thereby founding simultaneously this theatre of the future and a new philosophy.” (DR 9) So, Nietzsche plays a double role of the founder of a method and a contributor to a key development in which it is deployed. (That double role is -- witness Kierkegaard -- apparently not necessary.)

How I Learned to Love Derrida by Talking to An Economist (I), [No, Not Paul de Man, too.]

[Due to a technical problem with Typepad this could not post yesterday.--ES]

"one cannot usefully say "I love you" in mathematical language"--Paul Samuelson (1965) Foundations of Economic Analysis, new foreword. (Quoted in Khan 1993: 795.)

Beginning as it did in the writings of philosophers, theologians, pamphleteers, special pleaders, and reformers, economics has always been concerned with problems of public policy and welfare. And at least from the time of physiocrats and Adam Smith there has never been absent from the main body of economic literature the feeling that in some sense perfect competition represented an optimal situation.—Paul Samuelson (1947) Foundations of Economic Analysis, Chapter VIII. (Quoted in Khan 1993: 787)

In Samuelson’s second passage, philosophy belongs to the disreputable far origins of economics (“special pleaders” is not a compliment). It’s an origin that is not wholly overcome in these mathematical and scientific Foundations, for a part of economics is continuous both with the far origins and its more recent origins ca 1750-76 (that is, “the time of physiocrats and Adam Smith”). Samuelson (an early Nobel in economics), who was not only the most influential mathematical economist within economics of the twentieth century, but also a first-rate historian of economics, is aware, of course, that the economist, Smith, is a philosopher not devoid of theoretical interest in feeling within the economy and (echoing Hume) in theorizing about the economy as well as even in theorizing about the social practice of theoretical reflection on the economy. For Samuelson, the continuity is topical (exhibited in concern with “problems of public policy and welfare”) as well as doctrinal (perfect competition represents an optimal situation).* Samuelson presupposes that what mathematical economics is about is wholly distinct from the mathematical language deployed in representing it. In his commentary on Samuelson, Khan, who does not deny the continuity, challenges this form-content distinction in mathematical economics.

Part of Samuelson’s achievement is to move away from feeling and articulate very precise circumstances in which perfect competition is an optimal situation. (To be clear, these circumstances occur in a model-world or representation; here I ignore their way of being, but it is their odd status that generates Khan's challenge.) In doing so, Samuelson manages to make economics something distinct from philosophy (a process initiated, perhaps, by Sigdwick and Marshall in the late 1880s) while remaining continuous with it. For the friends of Thomas Kuhn: Samuelson creates the paradigmatic normal economic science--a concern by many of his generation (see here). As Samuelson puts it in his 1965 foreword: his work is "part of the dawn, [with] serious economics a mathematical subject, just as physics...had become a century ago." Surprisingly enough, Samuelson’s achievement does not eliminate concern with problems of public policy and welfare within philosophy (reviving this, is part of Rawls’ achievement).

Philosophical History, Terror and "Grim, Skeptical Possibility"

If there is no principled way to proceed, then we face the real possibility and prospect that philosophical inquiry itself cannot be coherently pursued. I think that this, perhaps grim, skeptical possibility is one that we philosophers must, if we are to be honest, take seriously. The very possibility of philosophical inquiry is thus, I believe, something that should always be in question for philosophers.--Michael Della Rocca "The Taming of Philosophy."

The original impulse toward a philosophical turn to history is a certain unease, perhaps bewilderment, at the 'live' options thought/taught available in the present.* These all must seem 'off' in such a way that constructive disagreement seems like a trap that will only make matters, well, worse. When one has a sense that one cannot explore the existing 'issues' or 'options' with conviction, one may then be moved to retrace one's teachers' (including one's temporally prior self) steps back to a moment where the older, live options become, as it were, alive again. This impulse once nourished and cultivated by study is, thus, accompanied by a certain wariness of the victors's tales official and informal), especially -- one realizes, when these are told not as partial accounts attentive to the effaced options, but as the unfolding and articulation of the (progressing) truth. 

The previous paragraph is stylized autobiography. But it understates the terror of stumbling on the thought that the alternative to believing that one's teachers and so-called epistemic peers are in a non-trivial sense mistaken -- not just about the facts and what is intellectually promising, but -- in all their most important commitments, is the live possibility of one's own madness. (Let's call this the 'haunted thought.')

On Moorean facts (David Lewis), and Poincaré’s Mistake

Poincaré, with all this virtue, made a serious philosophical mistake. In Poincaré’s own work, this error seems to me to have kept him from several fundamental discoveries in physics. (Howard Stein "Physics and Philosophy Meet: the Strange Case of Poincaré," 1.)

One way to describe this mistake--which I think is related to a wider philosophical tradition--is to say that Poincaré construed the function of theoretical work as essentially administrative--an activity of information-processing. The job of the theorist par excellence..-is to find the simplest and most systematic arrangement for storing scientific information--within the limits defined by those assumptions so entrenched as to function as a priori principles, i.e., as “definitions in disguise.”  (Stein, 16)

This mistake is a characteristic one in the empiricist tradition. It involves what seems to me a very odd paralogism. One recognizes--and I cannot say too strongly how right I think this is--that experience is our only touchstone of true information. One observes, with Hume, that the data of experience do not logically entail knowledge of “objective existence” or of the future. In application to the results of science, one draws sophisticated conclusions about the merely hypothetical status of the objects and agencies of scientific theory--e.g., atoms or the ether. But one neglects thereby the earlier insight--the Berkeleyan insight, which precedes Hume--that in a fundamental empiricist epistemological analysis all the objects and agencies of common sense and ordinary life have that same status. In effect, this is to distinguish, whether tacitly or explicitly, between the “reality”--or just persuasiveness--of what the ordinary processes of common sense make of the empirical data, and the reality or persuasiveness of the conclusions reached by the sophisticated processes of science. (Stein 17)

[A]n inadequacy in what may be called Poincaré’s conception of the dialectic of scientific concepts and theories, and of their relation to experiment. And that inadequacy I have earlier associated with what I called a very odd paralogism that recurs in the empiricist tradition: in effect, a double standard of epistemological critique, which occurs with some frequency among empiricist and instrumentalist philosophers of science.....

There is no warrant at all in the instrumentalist view for grading the entities of a theory in degrees of reality or fictitiousness--regarding particles as more real than the ether. This is a double standard that recurs in the empiricist tradition, (Stein, 22, and Stein quoting himself.)

Some over-sensitive historians dislike using judgments like 'mistake' in treating of the past. They mistakenly believe that such judgments are a form of anachronism or hindsight bias. Howard Stein, the greatest living philosophical historian of science,* certainly is not afraid to introduce anachronism when it suits his purposes (including in the quoted passages above). But, that's not what is going on in his judgment that a mistake has been made. Agents, except, perhaps, a divine one, can make mistakes, and worse. Even Homer nods. For, one can specify circumstances in which an agent ought to have known better (given existing best practices, regulations, etc.). Malpractice lawyers make a fine living arguing the details.