Digressions&Impressions

Models, Politics, Populations, and Public Science in times of Pandemic (V); On Marc Lipsitch and Synthetic Science

I share Medawar’s pragmatic vision of scientific reasoning. Scientists must resist the temptation to excessive skepticism: the kind that says no evidence is ever quite good enough. Instead they should keep their eyes open for any kind of information that can help them solve problems. Deciding, on principle, to reject some kinds of information outright, or to consider only particular kinds of studies, is counterproductive. Instead of succumbing to what Medawar calls “habitual disbelief,” the scientist should pursue all possible inputs that can sharpen one’s understanding, test one’s preconceptions, suggest novel hypotheses, and identify previously unrecognized inconsistencies and limitations in one’s view of a problem....If the COVID-19 crisis has revealed two “competing” ways of thinking in distinct scientific traditions, it is not between two philosophies of science or two philosophies of evidence so much as between two philosophies of action....

This is not to deny that there are different and valuable perspectives on epidemiology. Like any other field, there are many specialties and subspecialties. They have different methods for how they study the world, how they analyze data, and how they filter new information. No one person can keep up with the flood of scientific information in even one field, and specialization is necessary for progress: different scientists need to use different approaches given their skills, interests, and resources. But specialization should not lead to sects—in this case, a group of scientists who accept only certain kinds of evidence and too rigidly adhere to a philosophy of non-interventionism....

Infectious disease epidemiologists must embrace diverse forms of evidence by the very nature of their subject. We study a wide range of questions: how and under what conditions infectious diseases are transmitted, how pathogens change genetically as they spread among populations and across regions, how those changes affect our health, and how our immune systems protect us and, sometimes, make us vulnerable to severe illness when immune responses get out of control. We also seek to understand what kinds of control measures are most effective in limiting transmission. To understand these issues for even one type of disease—say, coronavirus diseases—requires drawing on a wide range of methodologies and disciplines....

The upshot is that, done well, epidemiology synthesizes many branches of science using many methods, approaches, and forms of evidence. No one can be expert in all of these specialties, and few can even be conversant in all of them. But a scientist should be open to learning about all of these kinds of evidence and more.--Marc Lipsitch (May 12, 2020) "Good Science is Good Science" The Boston Review. [HT Matt Lord]

(This is the fifth in a series of posts (see the first here inspired by Phillipe Lemoine; and, inspired by Stegenga, the second and third.)

Sometimes I notice the English heritage plaque commemorating Sir Peter Medawar on Downshire Hill, and I am reminded of the joys of reading the belles lettres of urbane scientists who, through their attention to detail, and highly specialized knowledge, open gates to inviting, untrodden paths meandering in nature's library and our location in it. The essays collected in Medawar's The Uniqueness of the Individual are among the greatest in the genre.  

Unlike Kuhn's image of scientists as unreflective puzzle solvers, Medawar developed a strong interest in philosophy, even a philosophy of science that emphasized the creativity of working science.* Because his philosophy of science seems to have been developed under the influence of a philosopher (Popper) I find this work less stimulating.** Although I take a professional interest in the way in which philosophical ideas play a role in (what I call) the image(s) of science -- (recall these posts on Hume, Williamson, Spinoza), within science and public pronouncements of scientists (and aggregators or what Polanyi called 'influentials'). An image of science is a list of characteristics that function as short-hand for representing science when these characteristics are used in debates where one side (or more) appeals to the (epistemic) authority of science to settle debate.

The passages quoted from Lipsitch, an epidemiologist, are a response to an essay by Jonathan Fuller itself a rare philosophical intervention in unfolding scientific and public policy controversy (which I discussed in the fourth post in this series). Lipsitch gives us a glimpse, from under the hood, of a species of (what in honor of Jacob Stegenga I call) policy apt, fast science. This species involves the synthesis of many different kinds of sciences and different kinds of evidence. And Lipsitch self-consciously presents his discipline as synthetic in this fashion.

As it happens, despite the increasing significance of ecology and climate science, there is not more sustained reflection, philosophical or popular, on synthetic disciplines in science.+ In addition to the integration of specialist knowledge from the special sciences it requires non-trivial judgments about the ways these hang together. When these connecting links are subject to experiment and statistical techniques, the integration may itself be a scientific discipline; when these links involve leaps of the imagination or conceptual creativity the integration may be more likened to philosophy (what I call synthetic philosophy). Of course, the dividing line between science and philosophy may be blurry or a matter of sociology of the academy.

When there is time to integrate, one aims to develop the techniques that allow one to stress test the links (models, techniques, experiments, concepts, etc.) constitutive of a synthetic science. But as Lipsitch describes, when such time is absent, a lot of the integration occurs almost heroically on the fly.++ This is so even if the underlying (special) sciences are robust and well understood. Lipsitch describes how good judgment across multiple forms of evidence is required. Presumably this also involves comparing features of COVID-19 to better understood diseases and mechanisms.

It follows from Lipsitch's account of the practice of infectious disease epidemiologists that their synthetic science involves lots of judgment calls that can generate plausible disagreements among even the most informed experts. This matters in a policy context because it means that one is not in the realm of constrained choice -- characteristic of applied ethics and decision theory ; in constrained choice areas, and as Ellsberg taught the intermediary contexts (characterized by constaints and uncertainty), experts can have considerable understanding of possible consequences of policy and one may even evaluate them in light of ends one may wish to pursue or avoid. 

But in the context of fast, synthetic science that aims to be policy apt -- "decisions are urgent and must be made with the evidence we’ve got" -- we should expect lots of controversy: legitimate second guessing of both the judgments internal to infectious disease epidemiology as well as the judgments about how to pursue policy (even if there were consensus about ends/values). From that vantage point it is to be welcomed that Lipsitch engages in critical dialogue with learned critics.

But there is a more important moral lurking here. As I noticed last week (recall this post on Ernest Nagel), it is a deeply ingrained way of thinking about the role of science in public policy that it supplies the decision-makers and public with authoritative, univocal answers to decisions. And when the scientific community does not spontaneously supplies such unicity, the impulse has been to create mechanisms of consensus generation (through surveys, panels, boards, special issues, etc.). The impulse is natural both (a) when one fears that diversity of voices will make space for political arbitrage or even to allow slick operators to sideline  knowledge altogether or (b) thinks that univocalness allows for the benefits of social coordination to materialize.  But premature (that is not stress-tested) consensus generation is also fraught with risks because it also means the authority of a particular synthetic science rests on fragile foundations.*** Thanks to Eric Winsberg I have been alert to the (reputational) risks to science as such that accompany this.

So, the moral is this. Lipsitch rightly calls for a philosophy of action in the context of fast, policy apt synthetic science. In my view, informed by Medawar's embrace of human diversity within (imaginative) science tempered by responsibility and obligations, such action will be better constrained once science and society learn to be comfortable with an image of science that permits listening to and speaking with multiplicity of informed voices. 

 

Models, Politics, Populations, and Public Science in times of Pandemic (III); on Stegenga and Philosophy of Science

What is the role, if any, of philosophy of science during this pandemic and global lockdown?...So far in the lockdown—May whatever-it-is-today—I am not aware of a systematic piece written by a philosopher of science on the pandemic or the policy response...What’s keeping me up at night, though, is this: should philosophers of science be trying to assess the merits of the various scientific arguments pertaining to SARS-CoV-2 that are now having such profound implications on policy, in a rigorous yet publicly visible manner, at a pace which accords with that of the relevant scientific work? This has been a moment of what we might call ‘fast science’. Ought philosophy of science attempt to engage with, contribute to, and criticize fast science, as it unfolds?

Both the harms (broadly construed) of SARS-CoV-2 and the effectiveness and unintended consequences of the social policies meant to mitigate those harms have been underdetermined by available evidence. At issue are the plurality of epidemiological models generating discordant predictions, the reliability of the various models, the empirical substantiation of model parameters, the evidential basis of the effectiveness of many lockdown strategies, and a complicated intertwining of social values and science. Moreover, stances on the pandemic are, obviously, politicized. The pandemic and global policy response seems, therefore, apt for analysis from the perspective of philosophy of science.

...The relevant scientific issues require technical expertise in epidemiology and economics, and up-to-date knowledge of a rapidly shifting epistemic landscape. A meta-level operative principle for any commentator on the pandemic ought to be epistemic humility, especially given the secondary pandemic of over-confidence among policymakers, armchair epidemiologists, and the scientists themselves. Moreover, because positions on the pandemic are often politicized, a philosopher of science who defends the Swedish approach (for example) might be assumed to have values and motivations aligned with, say, Trump supporters.

That said, our colleagues in philosophy of science include experts on scientific models, on methodological problems in medical science, on causal inference, on the relationship between science and values, on inductive risk, and on many other issues pertinent to the pandemic and policy response. Obviously, the stakes are high: some models are telling us that millions of people might die from the virus, while other models are telling us that millions of children might starve as a result of the global lockdowns. Should we be using our expertise to assess these scientific arguments as they unfold? There is a temporal dimension to my question....I am asking if we should be assessing the particular details and predictions of these models, now, and how they are being deployed in policy, today, in a manner that, to the extent possible, reflects the manner of presentation of the pertinent scientific arguments (namely, the speed of their articulation, their visibility, and their impact). Should philosophy of science engage with fast science?

...

So much science having so much impact, yet philosophers of science have been relatively quiet.....

In an email, Nancy Cartwright agreed that philosophers can and should weigh in on serious scientific and policy issues, though she noted that her own skills are at a meta-level rather than assessing particular data and models—I reckon that this is a diagnosis for many of us.  Jay Odenbaugh raised a number of such meta-level questions about models that are especially salient in the present context and that are worth quoting in full:

When should policymakers ignore models and when should they use them for policy guidance? What are good rules of thumb for critically thinking about models for laypeople? Do we need models for policy or can we simply get by with observational studies? How should we determine who is a good or bad modeller? How do epidemiological models compare to other types of models in other domains?

Although persuasive answers to these questions might require the sort of slow, meta-level scholarship that our discipline is accustomed to, such answers might better prepare our discipline for more rapid and impactful engagement in future episodes of fast science, which could emerge from all sorts of phenomena, such as a climate crisis, advances in artificial intelligence, or indeed, another virus.--Jacob Stegenga  "Fast Science and the Philosophy of Science"at Auxiliary Hypothesis BJPS & Dailynous

Today is the third in a series of posts (see the first here inspired by Phillipe Lempoine; and the second here). 

In his essay quoted above, which summarizes and expands on a lively facebook discussion among philosophers of science, Stegenga, distinguishes (implicitly) between fast science and slow science. He implies that slow science is the norm and fast science is the exception due to the (exceptional) "current crisis." He does not define either, but let's assume we understand what he means and accept the distinction. It is worth noting that some of the reasons given by philosophers of science why they might not have anything to contribute to the public debates over unfolding fast science have nothing to do with the fact that it is 'fast', but rather that it is policy apt. So, within the philosophy of science there is a further divide if not in kind then at least in degree between, let's call it, pure science and policy apt science (not to be confused with 'applied' science). 

Much of philosophy of science and the ruling norms within it is still shaped by the dominance of physics, math, and logic in the philosophical imagination. Of course, biology and cognitive science are huge fields in philosophy of science, but when these are studied by philosophers of science, they are not, in the first, instance treated as policy apt. Yes, philosophers of science who work on medicine, economics, engineering, and (say) decision theory, are much more aware that the sciences they study are themselves organized around epistemic norms pertaining to application and practices of justification that presuppose uptake. Even so, I cannot tell you how often, say, decision theorists will balk at the thought that how the formal apparatus is regularly applied is a legitimate form of criticism against the epistemic status of the machinery. (That's 'misuse' and so irrelevant, etc.) I mention this to suggest that thinking about uptake does not come naturally to bread and butter philosophers of science who often pay lip-service to this fact in grant applications and social media presence, but don't internalize it in their work and mutual evaluation.

Of course, the previous sentence is an exaggeration. Thanks to Heather Douglas there is a lively discussion about inductive risk in philosophy of science, and one can now assume knowledge of the concerns and arguments of feminist philosophers of science, which was not common when I was a PhD student a generation or so. Even so, it is no surprise that Eric Winsberg (who has done important work in climate science) and Alex Broadbent (who has done important work on epidemiology) have been so visible as philosophers of science. They have cut their teeth thinking, in part, about the complexities of science in public policy.* Okay, with that in place I want to offer four mutually supporting, but distinct claims.

First, the question philosophers of science should be asking is [A] how should we think about the intersection between fast and policy apt science in a crisis? It strikes me what's clearly needed is real philosophical work on that. One way to assimilate that question to familiar philosophy of science  is to think about that intersection in terms of the combination of scientific norms of controversy and inductive risk (or what in my own work I call 'responsible speech'). It is well understood since Kuhn, that the range of disagreement is constrained in scientific practice. In many ways fast, policy apt science during a crisis has features that are related to the turbulence characteristic of a possible paradigm shift and the intense disagreement familiar from a pre-paradigmatic stage. But in a crisis, these very familiar features play out with possible uptake, mediated by what Polanyi calls 'influentials' and I call 'aggregators,' in policy.

Second, in a policy apt context one can never assume what one may call a free market in ideas, or perfect communicative rationality, which is nearly always tacitly assumed by philosophers of science when discussing scientific controversy. By this I am not pointing to the barriers of entry of who counts as a relevant expert or who has access to the expensive machines. But rather that in in policy apt contexts two features tend to be structurally present: (i) some of the experts are not free to judge or free to say what they think even though they have highly salient expertise. Government scientists may well have gag orders of various kinds. This need not always be sinister--for coordination purposes, it may well be very important that government has a clear message. This is why, for example, Eric Winsberg and I noted that one should be alert to manufactured consensus. (Of course, philosophers of science should model under what conditions a unified flawed message is to be preferred over more noisy signal!) (ii) Governments always have an incentive to withhold inconvenient facts or to nudge scientists in a certain direction. So, what we really should be asking is [B] how should we think about the intersection between fast and policy apt science in a crisis with imperfect communicative rationality.

Third, the way the modern academy is organized is to incentivize and reward hyper-specialization (that is, creating barriers of entry of various kinds).  In one sense philosophy of science is no exception: our work often maps on to particular sub-disciplines in special sciences. But simultaneously, many sciences draw on generic methods and practices common to many sciences. In virtue of the foundational questions we are often free to pursue, philosophers of science often build up non-domain specific expertise about the strengths and weaknesses and features of these generic methods that can surpasse experts within a special  science. Of course, such generic knowledge is not limited to philosophers (e.g., statisticians, computer scientists, etc.) But it's the presence of such domain invariant expertise about generic instruments of science that I have claimed that synthetic philosophy is possible.

Of course, what is characteristic of the present crisis, is that we see the intermingling not just of fast and policy apt sciences, but also many policy questions that have not yet been so defined that they are what I call constrained choice. That is (to simplify) that the relevant issues have been internalized in one science and can be formulated as one kind of policy decision. Rather, the crisis is characterized by evolving recognition that many different kinds of sciences, many different kinds of policies, can have many complex social effects (psychological well-being, rates of hospitalization on incidence of non Covid-19 diseases, supply-chain limitations, public transit and social distancing, etc., etc.). I have suggested that this requires something I have called 'policy apt synthetic philosophy.' So, the question we should ask is  [c] how should policy apt synthetic philosophers of science think about the intersection among many fast and policy apt science in a crisis with imperfect communicative rationality. 

Fourth, policy apt synthetic philosophy is now housed in attenuated fashion in departments of scientific policy/advice that help coordinate decisions that involve multiple sciences and policy domains. There is a need for a class of individuals that study versions of [A; B; & C] alongside the principles of such policy coordination that are not government officials so that they can contribute alongside the scientific aggregators to public discussion in independent fashion. But what this also points to is the need for a more collaborative ethic within philosophy [of science] along the model of what I once dubbed (recall) integrated PPE (Philosophy, Politics, Economics).+ This last point suggests that some of the infrastructure for policy apt synthetic philosophy is already developing, but let me stop here, today.

Before Arthur Prior was the pioneer in intensional logic; and on the philosophical politics of Australia

Whether or not it was intended as such, this article of Professor Ryle's has functioned in fact as a blow on the side of Melbourne in a battle between Melbourne and Sydney which has, I understand, been a feature of the Australian philosophical scene for many years, and which was certainly in evidence at the 1951 congress. Professor Anderson, it would seem, has always found someone to cross swords with in the southern University. In an earlier period the Victorian Sassenachs were predominantly ' idealists ' of one sort or another; but now there is a strong representation there of the current British tendency to regard the main task of philosophy as the unravelling of mental and verbal tangles generated by the endless complexity and changefulness of ordinary language. An admirable example of this technique was given at the congress by Dr W. D. Falk, in a paper on ' Prescriptive Speech '. It is often held by those who reduce philosophical to linguistic problems that statements about what we ought to do, as well as statements about what is ' good ', are just a subtly disguised manner of ordering people about. As far as ' ought ' is concerned, this is of course the Andersonian view too. It is not Dr Falk's view; but he attacks it, as he says, 'from within'. The greater part of his paper was something that could almost have come from a good novel -an extremely polished and painstaking account of the various ways in which the speech of one person leads to action in another. The main dividing-line, he argued, is not that between utterances in the indicative mood and utterances in the imperative, but that between utterances which merely draw a person's attention to some circumstance which would have moved him to action had he known of it independently (;'If you don't go now you'll miss the last bus ') and utterances which themselves bring into being a motive for action which was not previously present (' If you don't get out now I'll throw you out'). There are of course an infinite variety of intermediary cases, and cases of the one form masquerading as the other ; and Dr Falk discussed a number of these with great insight and humour. He then went on to consider cases in which we say 'You ought to do X', and came to the conclusion that these are more like the first sort of case than the second. In the Andersonian view these exhaustive and sometimes exhausting discussions of linguistic usages are a waste of philosophical time ; what little value they have is as a prelude to the exposure of 'bulldozing'. It also seems to be the Andersonian ' line ' that philosophers who are endlessly preoccupied with linguistic conventions, and with what people mean rather than with what is the case, are generally  on the side of the conventions socially too, and have abandoned ethics for etiquette. I have concentrated on these ethical and semi-ethical issues because they are probably of most general interest, but the congress had its teeth into other things also. A paper, for example, by Professor J. J. C. Smart of Adelaide on Logical Paradoxes. These are tricky things, but it is worth while trying to outline one of them and Professor Smart's manner of dealing with it, as I am not very satisfied either with his solution or with any other that I have thought of or come across, and would be interested to see some philosophical amateur who  reads Landfall chip into the discussion. (He couldn't easily do worse than the professionals have done with this subject.)--A.N. Prior "This Quarter" The Landfall March 1952, pp. 51-2

Causing and then knowing of my recurring fascination with the 'pioneer in intensional logic,' A.N. Prior (recall), the economist, David M. Levy, has repeatedly called my attention to A.N. Prior's writings in the New Zealand periodical, The Landfall, and decided to reduce my search costs by adding a link to the archived PdF copies. Among the gems to be found there are fascinating reviews of Popper's Open Society and C.S. Lewis' The Abolition of Man.(I intend to return to these.) The essay from which I quote above -- a kind of impression of a "single event" (p. 49) then bi-annual Australasian Association of Psychology and Philosophy in august 1951 -- is written just at the point of Prior's first publications as a formal logician.

What caught my attention is Prior's description of the transition, at the University of Melbourne, from an Idealist-centric department to a department oriented around ordinary language philosophy (exemplified by W. D. Falk, who is, in fact, himself a fascinating thinker). Both the earlier idealists and the then dominant ordinary language philosophers are opposed by Sydney's John Anderson. (Part of the joke is that Anderson was born a Scot.) Anderson's philosophy is characterized by his fondness for a flat ontology and embrace of a certain species of atheism (and rejection of ontological hierarchy).

In almost Swiftian fashion, Prior describes the Lilliputian "battle between Melbourne and Sydney which has, I understand, been a feature of the Australian philosophical scene for many years." The battle is a product of geography and, apparently, the force of Anderson's personality. Part of the comedy of Prior's report is that Prior recognizes that he is thought by others, including the eminent J. J. C. Smart,  to belong to Anderson's school, but not by Anderson ("Professor Smart, who is of the Ryle-Melbourne faction, called me an Andersonian. Later on Professor Anderson did his best to put him right about that). Prior's thoughts on his club identity are left obscure. 

At the start of his essay, Prior grants that there are no "subtle reasons why this event should loom larger in our thoughts than the election (N.Z.), the election (U.K.), the referendum (Australia), the sedition bill (N.Z.), the armistice negotiations (Korea) and the rest." But philosophical politics clearly can be as absorbing as the great politics of states and dominions. I return to that shortly.

I don't mean to suggest that the satire is devoid of seriousness (or that I can read all clues on the  Trans-Tasman relations). The essay is structured along three contraries: as the quote (midway through the essay reveals), one of these is the contrast between philosophical "professionals" and "amateurs." The other is the contrast between 'pure' and impure/applied philosophers, that is "psychologists." These had been part of the same professional association, the Australasian Association of Psychology and Philosophy, but had recently split, with the pure philosophers. ["Australasian psychologists now have, I think, a periodical and presumably an association of their own, and the association now being considered has come to cater more exclusively for ' pure ' philosophers."]

Somewhat strikingly, it's the professionals -- presumably people like Smart and Prior himself, and especially John Anderson, employed at university -- come off looking faintly ridiculous, but not without fondness. The upshot Anderson's critique of ordinary language philosophy, in particular, is spelled out: "that philosophers who are endlessly preoccupied with linguistic conventions, and with what people mean rather than with what is the case, are generally  on the side of the conventions socially too, and have abandoned ethics for etiquette." Whole uncharitable, it is not devoid of significance (and in some ways precedes Isaiah Berlin's line of attack). The third contrary is the contrast between philosophical "factions" (p. 53) and the impartial lover of truth. 

And this leads me to a closing speculative observation on the opening line of the essay. ("I PROPOSE in all shamelessness to devote these pages to the consideration of a single event, and one, moreover, which did not take place in this quarter, but rather in the one before it-a congress of philosophers which met in Sydney last August.") My interest here is in the self-identification of shamelessness. Regular readers of Landfall, had already been informed by Prior, in his review of Lewis, that he is predisposed toward a form of sentimentalism in the vein of Adam Smith ("disinterestedness should...be made the defining characteristic of ethical sentiments, as it has in fact been made by the more circumspect subjectivists from Adam Smith onwards.") In fact, in the review of Popper, Prior also embraces Smith's philosophy. (Smith plays a central role in Prior's Logic and the Basis of Ethics.)

What's odd is is that shame is a very important sentiment in Smith's moral philosophy. But, at no point, in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, does Smith embrace shamelessness. Smith suggests that a "real lover a truth" even feels shame at any unintentional falsehood conveyed in careless gossiping. But,while Gulliver is often ashamed, the more rational (would be philosopher-kings) Houyhnhnms reject shame. But perhaps, the shamelessness consists in recognizing that in so far as all events are located in time by means of tenses, even belated ones, from a certain logical point of view all events are on par. The high and the low collapse into a flat plane, which is, of course, the Swiftian move par excellence. And, to add for good measure, so Smart was not all wrong in discerning the drift of Prior's philosophical leanings.

 

On the Norms of Philosophy; On Liam Kofi Bright and entering the life world of another

Because people take subjectivism to be such a wildly implausible view they make no effort to see the world from a subjectivist's point of view. Even calling the view "relativism" betrays that - because it imagines a point of view beyond any particular person's perspective, surveys all of them at once, and says "truth for the individual is just what is believed by them, and so truth per se is relative to each individual's beliefs and all beliefs are true for their believers". From this last conjunct objections are drawn out. But from a committed subjectivist's point of view that cannot be right - their point of view is the one from which truth is evaluated,  and the other points of view are not on a par with that but simply errors. The objection imagines a kind of God's-eye-perspective on truth and launches their attack from there, but the kind of person who is attracted to subjectivism (or for that matter relativism) is almost certainly the kind of person who is suspicious of the idea of such a God's eye perspective. Seen from within, these objections simply lose their force, they don't take seriously what the subjectivist is trying to do or say as a philosopher of truth.

Of course one can always make the move against the subjectivist that many philosophers now make against the sceptic. One can say that after all our job is not to find arguments that would persuade the subjectivist, our job is just to explain why they are wrong in an internally coherent manner. We wish not to help the subjectivist see their error but just ensure others do not fall into it. Well, good luck and God speed to those whose philosophical mission is explaining why they are right to their own satisfaction. But if you want philosophy to help you enter into the lifeworld of others quite different from yourself, this cannot be enough.--Liam Kofi Bright "Truth Subjectivism and Giving Implausible Views their Due"

Because I am an inconstant skeptic, perhaps, the final three sentences of Liam's essay resonated strongly with me. I cannot tell you how often I have encountered refutations of skepticism (or Hume's problem of induction) where I quietly think 'you [confident, smug X] have not even started to grapple with the problem.' Even the very best efforts that, say, offer an immanent critique of skeptical positions tend to reveal primarily that it is very difficult to be a (certain kind of) skeptic consistently. This is treated as an objection. But, duh, 'I already know sense how difficult it is to be me.' That the non-skeptic has a more satisfying life is good for her.

I often complain that in professional philosophy there is a tendency to cherry pick objections (often correlated with the perceived status of another philosopher).+ I often claim that we ought to have a norm that we seek out alternative viewpoints and the strongest possible objections from perspectives distinct from ours. When I do this, I basically tacitly embrace a partially agonistic model of philosophy. The idea being that philosophical development is enhanced when we have rival viewpoints come into combative contact with each other and are improved by their mutual agonistic albeit genuine engagement.

As others have noted (see here Michael Della Rocca), the methods of reflective equilibrium, intuition mongering, and cost-benefit analysis of theoretical virtues have enormous status quo even confirmation bias built into them. What I'd like to see is a lot more of a kind of stress testing of concepts (see this paper by Stone, which is suggestive). This would shift us from a confirming bias, to a more (ahh) Popperian ethos. (The interesting Popper, not falsificationism.) If mirabile dictu I were to get my way on this, it would only make philosophy more robust.

By contrast, Liam's post (which echoes the loveliest parts of Carnap's program with a surprisingly Husserlian/Levinasian sensibility) opens the door to a much more humanistic understanding of philosophy. The very point of the enterprise would be to facilitate mutual understanding. From the philosophical analyst's perspective the point of analysis or conceptual engineering, then, is not getting the concepts right (or to design them for ameliorative and feasible political programs), but to find ways to understand, or enter into, one's interlocutor life world. To see how radical this is, I just want to note the contrast with the other humanistic ethos of philosophy as a means to self-knowledge often inscribed (with a nod to Socrates or Descartes) with the slogan that the unexamined life is not worth living, 

To be sure, philosophical-translators (recall, when I discussed the transformative effects of entering into another's life-world) and historians of philosophy of a certain sensibility are quite practiced in developing skills to enter into the life-worlds of philosophers from different epochs. And precisely to generate some such understanding, I have argued that we (speaking briefly as a historian of philosophy) must reject actor's categories as well as the (imperialistic) application of our own categories, but must be willing to introduce or coin new concepts. (That's a creative and risky practice.) But because our subjects don't talk back, historians can pick to be interested in a very narrow range of the life-world of another. 

Liam's program -- conceptual engineering to enter into lifeworlds of others -- has some fascinating consequences. First, it would open the door to structural collaboration between ethnographic researchers and philosophers. Let's call that (with a nod to my colleague, Enzo Rossi) in honor of the developing interdisciplinary research community PPA+ (that is, philosophy, politics, anthropology). Second, given the increasing cosmopolitan presence of professional philosophy across the globe, and cultural diversification within philosophy, it would generate ambitious, open-ended research programs of bridging attempts among different philosophical cultures, traditions, and research programs. (In addition to Liam's work in Africana philosophy, I think Graham Priest's work are paradigmatic examples of this.)*

There is a lot more to be said about both consequences. But I just want to note two side effects of the second: (i) it would help limit the known risk of philosophy facilitating imperial and hegemonic projects in which our concepts become a form of domination (recall this post; or see the work of Serene Khader (recall).) And (ii) it would be a generative source of philosophical innovation.

To be sure, conceptual engineering to enter into lifeworlds of others is risky: one may be exposed to stuff one prefers not to hear (including for reasons of tact or respect); and one may end up in a philosophical place different from the one was satisfied to defend at all cost. 

 

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 (Lippmann and) Ignorant Voters

The hypothesis, which seems to me the most fertile, is that news and truth are not the same thing, and must be clearly distinguished. The function of news is to signalize an event, the function of truth is to bring to light the hidden facts, to set them into relation with each other, and make a picture of reality on which men can act....For the troubles of the press, like the troubles of representative government, be it territorial or functional, like the troubles of industry, be it capitalist, cooperative, or communist, go back to a common source: to the failure of self-governing people to transcend their casual experience and their prejudice, by inventing, creating, and organizing a machinery of knowledge. It is because they are compelled to act without a reliable picture of the world, that governments, schools, newspapers and churches make such small headway against the more obvious failings of democracy, against violent prejudice, apathy, preference for the curious trivial as against the dull important, and the hunger for sideshows and three legged calves. This is the primary defect of popular government, a defect inherent in its traditions, and all its other defects can, I believe, be traced to this one.--Walter Lippmann (1922) Public Opinion (Chapter 24, 228-230) 

As regular readers know, I think reflection on Walter Lippmann is important in present circumstances. He is one of the intellectual architects (recall) of what I call the second-wave of liberalism (1945-2008), which has been imploding during the last decade, and even was the proximate cause of the development of what came to be known as neo-liberalism. More subtly, his conception of the good society, which hearkens back to the (attractive) kind of liberalism of Adam Smith and Sophie de Grouchy, rejects both state neutrality and state-craft as soul-craft; the good society is one that has many morally salient characteristics (the people are flourishing and can lead lives of their own choosing without fear or coercion). To attain the good society, not unlike a medieval cathedral, is a multi-generational, collective project. There is a sense in which this is a religious project. But, probably unlike the cathedral, the path and the outcome of the good society is, due to the uncertainty generating conditions of modern life, full of surprises. 

One reason to return to Lippmann (not in order to agree -- he also has (recall) serious weaknesses --) is that, as  JohnDewey emphasizes, he understands the problem of voter ignorance not, as anti-democrats do, as a problem of other (not-so-smart or gripped by ideology) voters, but as a structural feature of the human condition. One need not agree with all of Lippmann's ways of articulating the situation, to see that the (Platonic) cave is the human condition in mass society. And to overcome such ignorance, here he anticipates Hanna Arendt, is a rare achievement to be found in, or (perhaps its better to say) produced by, a few institutions:  the law and science.

As an aside, Lippmann, who knew the press from within, is adamant that the press is even during the best of times and ownership structures not that kind of institution capable of reliable generating truth.* And, in fact, he claims that, when the press is conducive, it is often relying on the rule-following features of the administrative state. Importantly, his skepticism about the press' truth-conducive-ness does not entail that the press has no positive contributions to make to democratic life. (If he thought that, his life would be self-undermining in a very obvious ways.)

I do not think Lippmann's answer to the problem of voter ignorance is successful, but it was (judging by what happened next) very influential; and if not influential, at least prophetic. It is possible that by Lippmann's own standards his solution would be deemed successful because Lippmann's aspirations were (again noted by Dewey) were more ameliorative than utopian.  Lippmann's proposal has three central features: first, is to advocate for an expansion of the (meritocratic) bureaucratic state and infuse it with what he calls 'technical knowledge' that he associates with "statisticians, accountants, auditors, industrial counsellors, engineers of many species, scientific managers, personnel administrators, research men, "scientists," and sometimes just as plain private secretaries." (234) He thinks such technical knowledge can also be turned into an "experimental social science." (237)  The point, for Lippmann, is not that such technicians will run the show, but rather that they become embedded (as "permanent intelligence section") in all government apparatuses (nationally and locally). For, by definition, a technician is not the decision maker.+

A key second feature of his proposal is that there will be a permanent circulation of college graduates from universities, perhaps even a privileged 'national university' (247) recruited from government staff, into government; and technical, government bureaucrats returning regularly to train and teach at universities. This intellectual flow of human capital would itself (in part) constitute "political science" and, in turn, would "associated with politics in America."+ (In 1922 economics was not yet seen as the future queen of the social sciences.) Lippmann optimistically assumes that all of this can be done transparently and openly (246).  The third, key feature is to insist that any political decision must be channeled through a procedure that will involve the bringing to bear of technical expertise on a problem (e.g., 255). 

As an aside, Lippmann's account is clearly distinct from the (later) Hayekian narrative, which sees the rise of the bureaucratic, technocratic state as a consequence of the experience of (mobilization and) war-planning during WWI. Lippmann, by contrast, thinks that the rise of the technician in the great society is itself the consequence "of blind natural selection" (234); complex organizations faced with complex decision environments started to require technical expertise merely to help integrate the flow of data and to structure decision-making for the executive. One discerns in Lippmann that the problem of big data is a nineteenth century problem, and that to overcome it even in competitive markets, requires the rise of expertise within organizations.

Now, Lippmann is not unaware that there is a real risk the technocrats will quickly run the show and displace elected officials and electorate. His response to this is to insist on a stark distinction between executive and technical functions and to aim to align incentives between them properly. [242]+ Only this can keep the technician's disinterestedness in place. If such a distinction were to be maintained in practice, and an esprit de corps among the technical class could be cultivated, then his hope that there will be circumstances in which the presence of a class of technicians can even abolish partisanship would not be comical. I don't mean to suggest that Lippmann's proposal is impractical: it very much reflects reality inside important elements of the governance of the EU and the US Federal government. As Dewey discerned, Lippmann proposes what became a tool, even an effective technique of governance one that has undoubtedly helped reduce the catastrophic mistakes all political agents can make.**

I used the word 'comical.' Perhaps that's unfortunate.  For Lippmann's weakness is the weakness of much of twentieth century liberalism. We can discern in Lippmann a tendency toward consensus and de-politicization in thinking about politics. In his (1937) Good Society, he demands that politicians combine, in spirit, the temperament of a legislator and a judge (who is impartial, fair, temperate, etc.) As the earlier Public Opinion teaches, that aspiration would only be possible in reality if political life is not governed by opinion. But if that were possible, we wouldn't (recall) need democracy at all. 

 

 

Rawls, Carnap, and Quine on Explication

In his (1971) Theory of Justice, Rawls explicitly follows Quine's Word and Object on the nature of explication; he treats explication as a form of elimination: "we start with a concept the expression for which is somehow troublesome; but it serves certain ends that cannot be given up. An explication achieves these ends in other ways that are relatively free of difficulty." (95 citing Word and Object, in the original edition pp. 257-262).

Quine (1960), who treats such explication as synonymous with 'analysis,' attributes this version to Wittgenstein, and explicitly contrasts it with Carnap. Quine understands explication as a means toward dissolving problems (hence the nod to Wittgenstein); for him explication is a form of elimination. Along the way, he (Quine) makes fun  of ordinary language philosophers for failing to see that the introduction of technical vocabulary is a means  of circumventing the problematic parts of ordinary language and show that apparent problems are merely verbal ones. 

By contrast, the Carnapian notion of explication was first articulated in his 1945 "The Two Concepts of Probability" (with a nod to Langford 1942), and then elaborated in Logical Foundations of Probability (1950). I very much like (recall) Hannes Leitgeb's summary: "For Carnap, an explication is the construction of a new concept C′ that replaces a given, often pre-theoretic concept C of philosophical interest, so that the extension of C′ coincides with that of C in the clear-cut and uncontroversial cases but C′ is permitted to, and indeed ought to, improve upon C in terms of exactness, fruitfulness, and simplicity in all the unclear or fuzzy cases." My only addition to this is that for Carnap the new concept C' is constructed in an artificial language. And for Carnap the utility of this new concept C' is (at Leitgeb notes) within science (and not ordinary life; I have discussed some of the tricky issues with this here).*

It turns out, however, that early Rawls used a notion of explication that was distinct from both the Carnapian and Quine-ian version.** In fact, early Rawls explicitly contrasted his notion of explication with analysis (see 3.4 below). I quote from Rawls'(1951) "Outline of a Decision Procedure for Ethics." 

3.2 The term "explication" is given meaning somewhat graphically as follows: Consider a group of competent judges making considered judgments in review of a set of cases which would be likely to arise in ordinary life. Then an explication of these judgments is defined to be a set of principles, such that, if any competent man were to apply them intelligently and consistently to the same cases under review, his judgments, made systematically nonintuitive by the explicit and conscious use of the principles, would be, nevertheless, identical, case by case, with the considered judgments of the group of competent judges. The range of an explication is specified by stating precisely those judgments which it is designed to explicate, and any given explication which successfully explicates its specified range is satisfactory.

3.3 The next objective, then, in the development of the present method is to discover and formulate an explication which is satisfactory, by and large, over the total range of the considered judgments of competent moral judges as they are made from day to day in ordinary life, and as they are found embodied in the many dictates of common-sense morality, in various aspects of legal procedure, and so on. If reasonable principles exist for deciding moral questions, there is a presumption that the principles of a satisfactory explication of the total range of the considered judgments of competent judges will at least approximate them. On the basis of this presumption the explication of these judgments is designed to be a heuristic device for discovering reasonable principles. Therefore, while explication is an empirical inquiry, it is felt that it is likely to be a way of finding reasonable and justifiable principles in view of the nature of the class of judgments which make up its range.

3.4 Since the concept of an explication may not be clear, I shall try to clarify it by stating some of the things that an explication is not. First, an explication is not an analysis of the meaning of the ethical terms used in the judgments constituting its range. An explication attempts to do nothing more than that explicitly stated above, and in no way concerns itself with the sense of ethical expressions or with their linguistic meaning. Second, an explication is not concerned with what people intend to assert when they use ethical expressions or make moral judgments in particular cases....Finally, there is only one way of showing an explication to be unsatisfactory, and that is to show that there exist considered judgments of competent judges on specifiable cases for which it either fails to yield any judgments at all or leads one to make judgments inconsistent with them. Conversely, the only way to show that an explication is satisfactory is to evidence that its explicit and conscious application can be, or could be, a cause of the judgments in its range.

3.5 Having noted some of the things that an explication is not, I consider some positive features thereof. First, an explication must be such that it can be applied intelligently by a competent judge; and since a competent judge is not required to have a special training in logic and mathematics, an explication either must be formulated or formulatable in ordinary language and its principles must be capable of an interpretation which the average competent man can grasp. Second, an explication must be stated in the form of principles, the reason for this demand lying in the use of explication as a heuristic device. The typical form of a considered judgment is as follows: since A, B, C,..., and M, N, 0,...., are the facts of the case and the interests in conflict, M is to be given preference over N., O . .. A considered judgment does not provide any reasons for the decision. It simply states the felt preference in view of the facts of the case and the interests competing therein. The principles of an explication must be general directives, expressible in ordinary language, such that, when applied to specific cases, they yield the preferences expressed in considered judgments. Finally, an explication, to be completely successful, must be comprehensive; that is, it must explicate, in view of the explication itself... all considered judgments; and it is expected to do this with the greatest possible simplicity and elegance. The requirement of simplicity means that, other things being equal, an explication is more or less satisfactory according to the number of principles which it uses; and although this demand is difficult to state precisely, it is clear that nothing is gained if we require a separate principle for each case or for each class of cases. Rawls, 1951, 184-186.

In context (3.1; see also 3.3), Rawls is clear that explication is a "heuristic device" to generating "reasonable and justifiable principles" from considered judgments of competent judges. (This is different from the 1971 procedure; see here for some inchoate reflections on it.) Crucially, explication itself is an "empirical enquiry" (3.3). Another striking contrast of the early Rawlsian form of explication with the Carnapian and Quine-ean notions of explication is that it must be "formulated or fumulatable in ordinary language;" it is not a species of language engineering at all. And, in fact, Rawls adds for good measure that its principles "must be capable of an interpretation which the average  competent man can grasp" (3.5)

Explication is, thus, the generation of reasonable principles which deliver judgments of cases alike to those of the intuitive judgments of competent judges making considered judgments. The point, to put it informally, is to create an objective realm grounded in principles that can deliver judgments and, thereby, eliminate a subjective element in ethics. 

This is not the place to explore the uses of such a heuristic and Rawls's decision procedure and how it was transformed in his later work in slightly different decision procedures. (It is interesting though -- see 3.6*** -- already in 1951 Rawls is inching his way toward (recall) a representative agent approach that instantiates at least an ideal of consensus.) It should be clear, however, that early Rawlsian explication is a different beast than the competing Carnapian and Quine-ian (and TJ Rawlsian) notions of explication. Even though, and this is the main point, the early Rawlsian version of explication shares with its rivals the aim of displacing and eliminating an element of ordinary experience that prevents as it were automated or algorithmic judgments

For, early Rawls' explication  is part of a piecemeal approach (and so shares some sensibility with  Carnap's): "We should expect satisfactory explications of but delimited areas of the considered judgments. Ethics must, like any other discipline, work its way piece by piece." (4.4) And, in fact, Rawls suggests his method of finding reasonable ethical principles "is" (as Delaney emphasized) analogous to the method used to establish the reasonableness of the criteria of inductive logic." The comparison is not accidental because for early Rawls "succesful explication" can be thought of as "representing the invariant in the considered judgments of competent judges."+

 

 

Plato, Ibn Rushd, Eugenics, and Being an (Accidental) Straussian

Since for everything that has come into being destruction is appointed, not even such a fabric as this will abide for all time, but it shall surely be dissolved, and this is the manner of its dissolution. Not only for plants that grow from the earth but also for animals that live upon it there is a cycle of bearing and barrenness for soul and body as often as the revolutions of their orbs come full circle, in brief courses for the short-lived and oppositely for the opposite; but the laws of prosperous birth or infertility for your race, the men you have bred to be your rulers will not for all their wisdom ascertain by reasoning combined with sensation, but they will escape them, and there will be a time when they will beget children out of season. Republic, Book 8, 546ab, Translated by Paul Shorey.

In the quoted passage, Socrates confronts (recall here, and here) the limits of his eugenic, breeding program. I tend to describe it (somewhat anachronistically) as his recognition that sexual desire among the carefully, artificially selected beautiful-of-mind-and-body-guardians cannot be controlled and falls outside scientific cognition. At one point, fairly recently, Eric Brown, a distinguished philosopher, who I have looked up to my whole academic career, objected to this characterization as Straussian. (It was not intended as a compliment.) Rather (and I summarize informally) Socrates claims that the cause of the decline of Kallipolis is the reliance on sensation/sense perception. Brown is not alone in this--in the summary to their translation of book 8, Grube/Reeve assert that kallipolis "will decline because the philosopher-kings have to rely on sense perception in putting their eugenics policy in practice." (213) Let's call this the standard reading. By contrast, the "Straussian" reading has an unhealthy interest in sexual desire.*

And, indeed, the standard reading is well grounded in the text. But the Straussian reading is not silly because what sense perception misses is  copulation by the guardians. And what this shows that even a state carefully organized around moderation and properly cultivated dispositions (by way of indoctrination, drilling, censorship, noble lies, and eugenics, etc.) and learning flounders on a mixture of natural drives and cognitive limitations. The standard reading emphasizes these cognitive limitations, whereas the Straussian reading emphasizes the former. The standard reading does justice to the plain meaning of the text. But the Straussian reading is on this point not based on some fancy esoteric numerology+ --  in fact, it's the Socratic eugenicist-philosopher-kings who have to deploy such fancy numerology --, but a fairly straightforward interpretation of why the cognitive limitations induced by sense perception matter.**

So, my objection to the standard reading is not that it is decidedly prudish (although I think that, too, of course), but that it kind of fails to do justice to the very grounds of rejecting the true/healthy city, and to embark on the Kallipolis which is, in part, (recall and more elaborately here) grounded in what's possible for beings like us (the true city assumes we're like pigs/animals). And in analyzing the causes for its decline, it turns out there are limited to improving our human nature (cognitive limitation, sexual desire)* when we are dealing with populations (and population improvement).

As it happens, this week, I am teaching Ibn Rushd's commentary on Plato's Republic (translated from the Hebrew by Ralph Lerner; this Third Treatise 87.20ff.) Here is how he treats the issue in question:

Here the guardians are blamed for the failure of the eugenics problem in two ways: (i) they are not paying sufficient attention to the copulation (of their fellow guardians); (ii) they are not sufficiently ruthless enough in removing or -- to use a term from Al-Farabi -- weeding out the bad offspring that are the product from improper copulation. (Recall that he seems to suggest that Sharia is also offering a breeding program.)

Now, Ibn Rushd's commentary, which presents itself as an epitome that only presents the demonstrable parts of the Republic, here is offering, in one sense, a misleading summary. It's possible that this is due to the manuscript-translation of the Republic he had access to, or to a mistake in the Hebrew translator of Ibn Rushd. But I will assume that the change is deliberate. (There are other places in the commentary where the changes are evidently deliberate.) 

Ibn Rushd is frank about the significance of copulation as the proximate cause of decline (so that's like the Straussian). But what (i)-(ii) have in  common is that he puts much more emphasis on, we may say, a failure of policy, even a loss of nerve, among the guardians (who are in a sense not ruthless enough in spying and killing, that is, the kind of Straussianism associated, fairly or not, with the neocons). And the underlying sensibility is that, while the best regime is certainly not stable, it is in some sense both more attainable (recall) and also more enduring if one were willing to make one's hands dirty.

On (Runciman on) Knowledge That Cannot be Acted On (again)

[It] was hard to know what lessons to draw. The democracies had shown their resilience in the long run. How they had done it, and what it meant for the future, was much less clear. The knowledge of their hidden strengths the democracies had been given did not translate into greater self-knowledge or self-control. Democracy was emerging victorious from the travails of the twentieth century. But was little wiser for the experience. David Runciman, The Confidence Trap: A History of Democracy in Crisis from World War I to the  Present (revised edition), p. 228.

In the preface of his distinctive book, David Runciman notes, "We know a lot more than we used to about how democracies succeed and why. What we don't know is what to do with this knowledge. That is the problem" (xxi).* Strikingly, even though we are made wiser in lots of dimensions, when it comes to answering this problem, the reader is left no wiser. We do learn what Runciman takes to be the cause of the underlying resilience: this is, that democracies muddle through. (A historicist may note that Runciman is expressing a rather English ideology!)  They muddle through. This muddle is accompanied by lots of experimentation and adaptation to changing circumstances (there is a Popperian element in this book that is not fully theorized/acknowledged).

On Runciman's reading democracies have a bias toward responsiveness to crises rather than preparing for/against them. (This entails that democracies lurch from one crisis to the next.) This bias is not a consequence of a classical-liberal desire for (policy) stability (which may prompt measures to prevent legislation), but rather political responsiveness to voter preferences (or at least those that make their interests felt). In effect, this generates huge amount of experimentation in democracies. Most of these experiments create dissatisfaction. But because democracies routinely introduce change, this means  that in a crisis, they will keep trying out new things which allows them (a) to give people hope that the crisis is being tackled, and (b) they may stumble on partial solutions to the problems that allow them to muddle through. In turn, knowing that they have  successfully muddled through in the past generates drift and complacency and this opens the door to both small crises and really big ones (etc.). For the sake of argument, I accept this picture. And, in fact,  the many apercus about democracy make the book so memorable:

• Democracies are not proud when it comes to facing up to their mistakes, largely because they make so many of them. 
• Democracies, then as now, do not like to see other democacries wriggle out of their obligations; it is one of the things that set basic limits  to international democratic solidarity.
• Democracies can't bluff.
• Modern democracies [are] more prone to military overkill than to bluster.

The book raises two challenges to the role of knowledge in democracies are they are (not imagined to be). One is the familiar one, that even when particular policy objectives are farmed out to experts (say, central banking, public health, civil engineers, etc.), they may influenced either by particular interests or the larger public (intellectual/cultural) culture and so fail at their task. (Runciman echoes the literature (recall) on intellectual/ideological capture of experts.) What Runciman adds -- and rather nicely in his treatment of the financial crisis -- is that in a democratic polity, where talk of crisis is routine, the experts may discount or ignore signs of crisis: "they grow...increasingly deaf to it." (277) The literature on expert overconfidence is by now pretty saturated, but this is a nice further addition to it. How to solve this is not so easy (but that's for another time.)

As an aside, Runciman's analysis also helps explain, in part, why climate scientists have been unable to move public opinion (even if we recognize the efforts of industries that have aimed at misleading it) into taking decisive precautionary steps.** (What follows is not in Runciman.) Democracies are both (i) inundated with crisis talk as well as have (ii) a history of success in responding to the ones that hit. The combination leads to a tendency to putting of taking precautionary measures (also because these come at a cost and hurt existing powerful interests) and overconfidence that when a crisis hit it can be handled by future policy and technology. 

The second is a more diffuse and intractable problem of political science, which here I treat not as a policy expertise, but as knowledge of democracy as such. (Of course, some political scientists also have more comparative knowledge.) Runciman's book is a history of thinkers who are aware of the by now -more-than-a century-long cycle of complacency/drift and crisis in democracies. While democracy has plenty of institutions that permit the development, testing, and dissemination (and even memory) of such knowledge, Runciman's book is one long tail at democracy's inability to harness it. Democratic incentives and the mechanisms of leader-selection make it very unlikely. In fact, a nice tragic, sub-theme is that when statesmen/women act on such knowledge they tend to produce behavior that undermines the quality of democracy. 

Obviously, readers of the previous  paragraph will not be convinced this problem exists. (Go read the book.) But I think it is plausible because I don't think it's unique to democracy (in its general form). Most academics are familiar with the fact that lots of plausible, well-tested (or historically robust) idea never receive any policy uptake. Often the ones that do require considerable effort by folk promoting them. 

I am reminded of the fact that (recall) sometimes societies know that they are heading off a cliff and also know the causes of it -- late Republic Romans had some such awareness; --, and yet can't find a way to a better path. Runciman kind of implies that because democracies try out a lot of things they have higher odds to turn away from cliffs. Yet, he clearly implies that they have no proof that they will always do so, and it follows from his analysis that sometimes, at unexpected moments in history, they accidentally will drive into a ravine that is very deep.

But that makes this book rather puzzling because it is unclear how one can act on what it is trying to teach.

  

On Disparaging Critical X Studies: A response to Joseph Heath

By evading normative theory, he attempted to draw attention to the problem of judgment. His cryptonormativism was thus not an evasion of the interrogation of his normative stance, but an answer to it. Instead of accounting for where he stood by allying himself with a theory, he turned the question back on his interrogators. ’My position,’ Foucault seemed to argue, ’is to be found in the philosophical life that I lead, in the deep commitments and integrating style that gives my work and judgment their sense and coherence, in the manner in which I have harmonized my bios with my logos.’--Niko Kolodny "The ethics of cryptonormativism: A defense of Foucault’s evasions.' p. 72

I sometimes joke that moving from philosophy into a political science department introduced me to really existing positivists and applied continental philosophy. By ‘applied continental philosophy’ I mean using and extending the concepts of French philosophers (primarily Foucault and Deleuze) or critical theory (Habermas) to make social and political phenomena visible and available for analysis and political response. A version of applied continental philosophy goes by ‘critical X studies’ (as in ‘critical security studies’ or ‘critical middle east studies’). In these fields, philosophy, discourse analysis, social science, and ethnography can be mixed. Like all hybrid practices some of it is rather messy and caught up in specialized jargon* that’s hard to understand to outsiders. But make no mistake, ‘critical X studies’ can also be quite heroic: some of my direct colleagues work with torture victims (see Vivienne Matthies-Boon) in the middle east or document (see Polly Pallister-Wilkins) the plight of refugees in the winter waters of the Mediterranean (etc.) at considerable risk to themselves. The point of these projects isn’t Indiana Jones style heroism, of course, but to describe and explain the cruelties inflicted on people with the misfortune of being born in the wrong region (with the wrong religion, skin-color, and/or gender, etc.)

These misfortunes are not natural disasters—they are man-made and often can be traced, at least in part, to the heavily moralized practices of European and North American statecraft (with ‘humanitarian interventions’ gone awry; with ‘collateral damage’ of bombing campaigns of 'militants’ and, of course, the endless arms deliveries to friendly (‘allied’) dictators (and once allied ‘babarians’), environmentally damaging oil extraction, and rising food prices due to global warming primarily caused by Western consumption.) In often dire, even dangerous circumstances, my colleagues trace individual human suffering to large(r) social causes and political decisions. And they do so with an ethic of responsible research and speech; that is, they theorize the fact that they benefit (publications, careers, etc.) from other people’s misery and they incorporate this fact into their research practices which often generates considerable moral duties on the researcher. In some (but not all) cases these duties shade into ‘activism’ or ‘mobilization’ or ‘charity’ etc. And, all too often, our very own governments are in a tacit, even explicit collusion, with the dictators and ‘barbarians’ to marginalize their attempts at making visible and offering explanations of the suffering.

For Joseph Heath, this is all ‘old-fashioned bafflegab.’ He said so in a blog-post widely and approvingly shared among my friends (both folks with a classically liberal bent and analytic philosophers) on social media. What’s notable about Heath’s post is that he completely misdiagnoses the works he criticizes. He thinks that the folk in ‘critical X studies’ do not know how to make moral arguments and are in the grip of poorly worked out Nietzschean moral perspectivism or even skepticism indebted to Foucault. (“The authors feel a passionate moral commitment to the improvement of society – this is what animates their entire project, compels them to write a book – but they have no idea how to defend these commitments intellectually, and they have also read a great deal of once-fashionable theory that is essentially skeptical about the foundations of these moral commitments (i.e. Foucault, Bourdieu). As a result, they are basically moral noncognitivists, and perhaps even skeptics.”)

Now, before I continue, it’s important to be clear about what Heath gets right: first, ‘critical X studies’ is often informed by a moral indignation (if not despair) and really does try, at least sometimes, to call us to action. And, second, it is also true – about which more below – that there is a mistrust of normative theory (and normative argument) that runs through this literature. Heath is right to remind us that Habermas coined a term, ‘cryptonormativity,’ for this phenomenon. Third, it’s not impossible, of course, that some of the authors of the books he read are really are confused neo-Nietzscheans without adequate grounding in argumentative skills and maybe (fourth) a few of them are really using ‘rhetoric and techniques of social control, such as audience limitation, as a way of securing agreement on their [un-argued for] normative agenda.’ But it is remarkable that Heath basically claims bad faith in ‘critical X studies’ and manages to be obtuse about the very reasons for the existence of cryptonormativity.

Heath overlooks the more likely explanations for the cryptonormativity he has encountered. In a seminal, but overlooked, (1996) paper, Niko Kolodny has put the essential insight succinctly: for the mature Foucault* normative “theory is risky because its practical effects are uncertain.” (67; I use Kolodny here, of course, because his analytic credentials are beyond reproach.) That is, at the heart of Foucault’s stance is a recognition of the reality of and ethical concern over inductive risk and responsible speech. For, anybody familiar with the history of the last few centuries knows (recall) that the specialized, theoretical language of moral expertise is also a fertile tool for social oppression in the hands of the powerful.

As an aside, many analytic philosophers – my people -- insulate themselves from such uncomfortable facts by both allowing themselves to be ignorant of history, sociology, and political science, or by suggesting – ‘it’s not guns that kill people but people that kill people’ -- that the use (or 'abuse') of a theory should have no bearing at all on our evaluation of the theory. This is peculiar because if normative theory and argument are meant to get us to change the status quo, or guide behavior (reform institutions, etc.), how these do so, in practice, is no accidental feature, but (shall we say) it’s core mission. (This is not to deny the beauty and uses for normative theory that is really meant to be ignored in practice.) That is, Foucault’s stance is not an expression of moral skepticism, but an expression of care for others.

The previous two paragraphs are not an argument for the rejection of normative argument or normative theory. It is also not a justification for Foucault’s approach. But the mature Foucault, took responsibility for his words and reflected on the need to address the central problem of all normative theory and that has no easy solution (so far). As Kolodny notes, the challenge of safe-guarding against the all-too-predictable abuses of political and normative theory – and I have blogged a bit about contemporary examples (recall) – led Foucault to reflect not  just on the role of good judgment and character of the theorist, but also on the ethos of theorizing and what I call the philosophical integrity of the theorist (the match between words and actions).

Now, Foucault inspired some bad academic practices. I have railed against the ‘cult of contingency’ that infects some areas of history of science (and history) and historical epistemology. And I have also found myself irritated at the lazy use of ‘neoliberalism’ to describe all of our age’s ills. But Heath’s suggestion that Foucault’s work on Chicago economics and ordno-liberalism is just so much “talk about economic ideas that he didn’t really understand,” is just bluff. Foucault’s work in the area – primarily lectures -- is pioneering and interesting. They are also wonderfully clear: I say so as (ahh) an expert on the history of Chicago economics (go read my papers!) But don’t trust me, take it from one of Foucault’s subjects of study, the Chicago Economist, the late Gary Becker’s evaluation of Foucault (see the note below).*** Of course there are details in Foucault I disagree with, even some of his major interpretations. But that’s to be expected.

Before I close let me insert an autobiographical note (you can skip the next two paragraphs). Like many analytically trained philosophers of my generation, I was thoroughly convinced that continental philosophy was bullshit (which was reinforced by some assertive opinion-makers and some irresponsible academic behavior among continental luminaries I encountered along the way). When I moved to Leiden (2006), I was baffled to discover terrific logicians who were continental philosophers (not just born in Europe, but doing, say, phenomenology); how could this be? I decided I needed to educate myself, and with the help of my colleagues started reading Husserl and Derrida (etc.).

Then one day, I was asked to be an external examiner on a dissertation by Maarten Van Dyck on Galileo and the scientific revolution in Ghent. I knew some of Maarten’s previous work on Galileo and Huygens (who I have  been studying on and off since my undergrad days with the world’s leading scholars of the history and philosophy of physics). Ghent is a provincial university; its academic staff is largely drawn from its own graduates who often spent their whole academic lives there. The philosophy department is a quirky mix of para-consistent logicians, pragmatist philosophers of science, bioethicists, and Lacanians. (Full disclosure: I was later a proud member of the department.) I started reading the dissertation, which offered a wholly fresh interpretation of Galileo drawing on the work of my teachers and, much to my puzzlement, Foucault (and other French theorists). After I finished the first chapter, I was shaken; I could not read on: there was nothing wrong with my learning, but I came to see my mediocrity: in my analysis, I had not uttered a single genuine thought. When I finally picked up Foucault – Lets mots et les choses – I was flabbergasted to discover a historiography with an awe-inspiring and necessary ambition (and grounded in insane amount of academic labor). I do not think of myself as a follower of Foucault (and warmly recommend Spivak’s criticism of less mature Foucault), but I recoil at the venom directed at him emanating from Lilliput analysts.

Okay, let me close. Heath quotes a (rather long and jargon-filled) sentence from “Métis” by Chris Andersen. (It’s the sentence that inspires Heath’s ‘bafflegab.’) I sincerely think the sentence is (while ugly) fully intelligible if you have spent some time with the relevant literature. But I am not going to waste our time by offering an interpretation of a sentence quoted out of context. Rather, Heath goes on to ask in neo-Popperian fashion, ‘can you think of an event that could happen, in the world, that would cause you to lose confidence in this claim?’ This is a fair question to ask of a social scientist (even a ‘critical X studies’ person); oddly Heath offers no argument or evidence to think that Andersen couldn’t meet the challenge. And this gets me to the nub: Heath completely misses that his own rhetoric (e.g., ‘vituperativeness and rhetorical overkill,’ ‘character assassination;’ ‘incredibly dogmatic’ etc.) is a window – no, no, not into his soul or character [I wouldn’t stoop so low!] –  into a form of academic disparagement that counts as perfectly acceptable in our circles and yet simultaneously seems a perfectly apt description of itself.