Digressions&Impressions

From Early Moderns to Early Analytics on Clarity

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From Descartes to Hume, the so-called ‘way of ideas,’ was devoted to the notion that clarity is a desirable and potential property or quality of ideas. I don’t mean to suggest that after this way was abandoned clarity disappeared wholly as a philosophical ideal; the subsequent German age embraced, at least briefly, Aufklärung for individuals and society alike. One cannot help notice that Aufklärung shares a common root with clarification [klärung]. But while clarity was not ignored during the nineteenth century altogether, until our ongoing ‘age of analysis’ clarity was at best a lower, philosophical virtue.

Somewhat frustratingly, other than being a desirable quality of our ideas, it's much harder to say what clarity is in the way of ideas. In his (1878) "How to make our ideas clear," Peirce mocks a definition of it that he attributes to Leibniz, to wit that clarity is "the clear apprehension of everything contained in the definition" of the notion one is clear about. I'd be surprised this is really found in Leibniz (although he wrote so much, and for all his true genius could also be silly, I wouldn't bet one way or another). But fairly or not, Peirce does put his finger on one of the problems with the way of ideas, which was not so clear on clarity as one would have wished. One often gets the impression that among the early moderns a certain kind of acquaintance (in Russell’s sense) with the experience of clarity of one's ideas is simply assumed. If not familiar, you are not in the game.

Peirce himself revived the notion that clarity is a quality of one's ideas (or, as shall be clear from what follows, one's conception). Peirce's major contribution to the subject is not so much to explain what clarity is, but how we can attain it, although these are not entirely distinct for him. For, he proposed this "rule" to attain clarity: "Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object." Clarity, then, for Peirce is not so much in the first instance a particular quality of our ideas, but it more akin to a kind of second order effect of a proper conception which itself is the effect of a successful kind of enquiry. And the proper conception itself is attained by a species of verification or, if that is too misleading and too anachronistic, substitute for 'verification' here a practical understanding of what may one may do with such a conception. Once one has completed the verification or survey of the effects of the conception one is exploring then one attains clarity about or of the conception. My interest here is not Peirce, so if this is too terse, so be it.

I doubt Peirce's approach to clarity influenced clarity's high status in early analytic philosophy. But Peirce anticipates something of the structure or form of thought about clarity among early analytic philosophers. By this I do not mean the adoption of verificationism in Vienna or a kind of pragmatism that runs through (say) early Wittgenstein and Frank Ramsey. But rather he anticipates the idea that a certain process of investigation/enquiry leads to clarity. That is, clarity is the fruits of analysis. 

The previous sentence should be uncontroversial. For, by 1945 (recall) H.H. Price summed up a whole range of criticisms of analytic philosophy with the slogan “Clarity is not enough,” (the title of Price’s lecture and also a 1963 volume edited by H.D. Lewis that leads with a reprint of this lecture). In fact in Price the standard conception of clarity he and its critics presuppose just is the fruits or effect of analysis. He writes: “I propose to use the words "clarification " and "analysis" (both of which are metaphors after all) as if they were synonymous.” (Price 1945: 3) But, unfortunately, he does not unpack the metaphors.[1] So, for now we're left with the idea that analysis aims at clarity, or analysis clarifies. 

Notice, that the ‘clarity’ that follows from a successful analysis is distinct from writing clearly or perspicuously or expressing oneself lucidly, that is presentational clarity. Some analytic philosophers quite clearly prized such lucidity, especially in the context of polemics with (say) Heidegger and his followers. I don’t mean to suggest that the clarity that is the effect of analysis is wholly distinct from presentational clarity. It's possible that competence in analysis leads to presentational clarity. One can imagine that philosophical prose written subsequent the habitual (and successful) analysis is more lucid than the kind of prose one writes if one aims at disclosing the essential throwing-ness of dasein. But it's not clear if the connection between clarity as the effect of analysis and presentational clarity is anything but contingent.

I do not mean to suggest that treating clarity as the fruits of analysis itself is idiosyncratic in the early analytic tradition.[2] For, example, it clearly echoes a famous passage in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus (in Ogden’s translation):

The object of philosophy is the logical clarification of thoughts.

Philosophy is not a theory but an activity.

A philosophical work consists essentially of elucidations.

The result of philosophy is not a number of “philosophical propositions,” but to make propositions clear.

Philosophy should make clear and delimit sharply the thoughts which otherwise are, as it were, opaque and blurred.—4.112

In his introduction to the Tractatus, Russell had called attention to this very passage (and the material leading up 4.16), that on Wittgenstein’s conception “The result of philosophy is not a number of `philosophical propositions,' but to make propositions clear.” On the combined authority of Russell and Wittgenstein, then, that philosophical analysis generates clarity will be, henceforth, dubbed ‘the standard conception’ of clarity.

However, in the quoted material in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus there is an oscillation between propositions and thoughts. And in both cases (thoughts and propositions) there is something of a mystery how they could be more or less clear and, say, remain the same entity. Once one starts pressing on what propositions are supposed to be things do not get easier. For, at one point Wittgenstein claims, explicitly following Frege and Russell, that a proposition just is "a function of the expressions contained in it.” (3.318) Understanding such functions is the road toward clarity, and so on.

I am, then, suggesting that the details of what analysis is about and the tools used in it are going to matter quite a bit in constraining how one conceives of clarity. Not to put too fine a point on it, but it’s the nature of one's analysis that explains the kind of clarity one ends up with in the standard conception.

For example, at a suitable level of generality (and vagueness), it is natural to understand Frege, Russell, and Wittgenstein as agreeing that one can design a logical symbolism or formal language to supply the means of analysis. What is clarified thereby is the language or linguistic structure (of, say, mathematics--now stipulating with Paul Samuelson that it is a language--) analyzed. Wittgenstein also thought that analysis could be applied to the way logical symbolism is used in one's analysis. One could thereby learn to avoid, say, not merely equivocations and ambiguity of the language analyzed but also avoid confusions about language or caused by one’s symbolic language of analysis, including the specialist one(s) deployed by the analyst.*

Notice that in addition to thoughts and propositions (and functions), I have now somewhat cavalierly suggested that language or at least language use can be clarified, too. That is, to repeat, the details of the kind of analysis one uses matters to the kind of clarity one can achieve in the standard conception.

As an aside, Stebbing (ca 1933) understands the very same material in Wittgenstein as follows: “that to clarify our thought we must understand the logic of our language.” And she goes on to claim that “This understanding is achieved when we have discerned the principles of symbolism, and can thus answer the question how it is that sentences mean.” (p. 10) My interest here is not to contest Stebbing’s reading of Wittgenstein (who she treats as a kind of verificationist of the sort commonly associated with a naïve strand of logical positivism). But here clarity involves a kind of semantic understanding that allows one to do certain things: according to her Wittgenstein “is thus concerned to lay down certain principles in accordance with which language can be so used as to construct significant propositions.” (p. 11) That is, semantic understanding is the basis for a certain know-how. I mention this not because I agree with Stebbing’s reading of the Tractatus, but to note that even Wittgenstein’s presentational clarity can give rise to many kinds of informed interpretations of what he thinks clarification really is.

Be that as it may, on the standard position, clarity is the fruit of analysis. This is best understood not so much as a quality of ideas or propositions, but more a second order effect on the analysist (hence, why I started with Peirce here). Of course, what is analyzed and the manner of analysis may well change the nature of this second order of effect. So, lurking in the standard position, which uniformly treats clarity as the effect and desideratum of (successful) analysis, is a possible equivocation about what is fundamentally achieved.

In her (1933) lecture, “Logical positivism and analysis," from which I have been quoting, Stebbing alerts us to the fact that “there are various kinds of analysis.” And she mentioned “four different kinds,” although in context it’s possible she thinks there are more. “These four kinds are: (I) analytic definition of a symbolic expression; (2) analytic clarification of a concept; (3) postulational analysis; (4) directional analysis.” Each of these kinds of analysis generates a clarity proper to it. Of course, it’s possible that the kind of fruits born by these four kinds of analysis belongs to the same genus, but one can’t simply assume that, and Stebbing to her credit does not assume so. For Stebbing thinks that "the analytic clarification of a concept differs considerably from the other three kinds of analysis.” And why she thinks this is rather spectacular (and oddly under appreciated), so stay tuned!

But notice, and I end here (with a second cliffhanger), that neither presentational clarity nor the many strands in the standard conception of clarity (as fruits of analysis) are identical to the kind of clarity Stebbing posits (recall here; and here) as necessary to democratic life in (1938) Thinking to Some Purpose. This democratic notion of clarity (hereafter: ‘democratic clarity’) is a more general property of cognition and intelligence. Such clarity is necessary condition for success at thinking and action guided by it, or what she calls "effective thinking." (5) In particular, clarity is the absence of distortions in thought and perception caused by bias and ignorance one is not aware of. And she treats such clarity as an acquirable skill by everyone. And so lurking here is a further question about the relationship between the standard conception of clarity of the philosophical analysist and the in principle democratic clarity of citizenry.

• This first appeared at: <On Clarity from the early Moderns to Early Analytic Philosophy, especially Stebbing. (substack.com)> a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Lenz's Contact Problem with some reflections on Condorcet and Rousseau

Especially early modern explanations seem to construe the mind as something that is tucked away in a body and thus inaccessible by other minds. If this is correct, how could we even begin to think of a way that my thoughts influence yours? Are there ways of transmission or other modes of influence between different minds? I would like to call this the contact problem. Intersubjective explanations, it seems, must specify ways in which one mind can affect another mind. As I will argue, at least some early modern philosophers addressed this problem and provided intersubjective accounts of the mind. What is more, they relied on different models of intersubjectivity. To present three different but crucial explanatory models, I will focus on Spinoza, Locke and Hume: Spinoza will be shown to opt for a metaphysical model, Locke as resorting to a linguistic model and Hume as relying on a medical model that combines assumptions about contagion and sympathy.
Before we take a brief look at these models, let us take a step back and look at the contact problem again. Taking human minds as individual units hidden inside a body suggests that a direct contact between minds is impossible. I can tell you what I think, but in doing so, it’s not my thought that is transmitted. Getting at the thought seems to require an inference on the part of the listener. By contrast, if I endorse a view of the mind that takes mental states to be ingrained in behaviour, such that my mental states are not hidden but part of behavioural patterns, then my mind does seem to be more directly accessible. It seems, then, that the contact problem poses an enormous obstacle for the former but not for the latter view of the mind. On this assumption, intersubjective explanations work well in a behavioural view of the mind but not on what has been called “mentalism”. Martin Lenz (2022) Socializing Minds: Intersubjectivity in Early Modern Philosophy (Oxford University Press), pp, 93-4 (emphases in original)*

I have to admit that when I first started to read Lenz's very entertaining Socializing Minds, I was a bit dubious about the so-called contact problem. It seemed to me, and sometimes still seems to me, an artifact of behaviorialism and some of Ryle's more dubious historiographic moves (which, alas, he was not immune to). But because Lenz's book is so much fun -- it mixes contemporary insights with very erudite and clearly written history of philosophy in refreshing ways easily moving between Avoerrism and memes-- I decided to revise my view. Reflecting on the contact problem is generative and so (by my lights) cannot be a mere artifact (which are sterile).

I have to admit that I don't understand why inference is thought to be a barrier to contact -- the contact problem seems to be rather the no unmediated contact problem --, but obviously for the contact problem to have real bite, by inference here (in this context) is meant something like 'not truth preserving' inference or distorting. And clearly it's true that many if not most early modern philosophers thought that language and other mechanisms of social contact are distorting of reality (and don't do full justice to our ideas of it). Lenz shows that despite this commitment, Spinoza, Locke, and Hume have different kinds of theories in which our minds are, de facto, dependant on other minds, although -- he may disagree with this -- the effect is that in interacting with others the vulnerability to embracing the false remains. (Perhaps, in Locke the vulnerability is also simultaneously the grounds for possibility of reaching some truths. About that some other time.)

Anyway, that the no contact problem seems so much an artificat of behavioralism made me wonder if one couldn't generate it in an alternative framework. This made me consider whether there are circumstances in which no contact is desirable. I immediately thought of Condorcet's Jury theorem which, formally, requires that voters do not communicate with each other and make up their own minds on a decision problem. Without such independence the result that (with rather weak assumptions about human nature) more folk do better than fewer would be unsurprising (and not so unsettling to the elitist and hierarchical mindset).+ Of course, the formation of Rousseau's general will also requires such independence.

Now, while Rousseau's account of the general will has non-trivial formal similarity with Condorcet's jury theorem -- and I would be amazed if it didn't shape Condorcet's thinking --, it is worth signaling that the nature of their independence pushes in different directions: (i) and skating over many interpretive disputes, in Rousseau's general will set up, independence is really designed to create a kind of impartiality not tainted by self-interest (and irrelevant personality features). And this is why this kind of independence is compatible with a kind of representative agent approach (familiar from, and perhaps an ultimate source of, Rawls' original position).

A representative agent approach would undermine the force of the Condorcet jury theorem; in it independence is really about a kind of authenticity of one's judgment. Other minds are corrupting (because they undermine independence). Now, I don't mean to deny that the previous two sentences are things Rousseau himself might say. I am just trying to track a conceptual distinction. (To be sure I think both directions have roots in Spinoza's debts to stoicism--but about that in a future post.) 

That is, the no contact problem is no problem in two contexts: first, one requires or needs authentic judgments that give each of us weight. That is, if one takes democracy seriously. (And lurking here are also protestant ideas about conscience that I have not touched upon above.) Second, one is dealing with a decision problem that is best handled by an impartial agent that represents (the true interests of us) all. That is, if one takes a certain species of objectivity/impartiality seriously. Put like that the two sources of the desirability of no contact seem to be a feature and not a bug of a certain conception of modern political life. And so, to put it as a serious joke, Wittgenstein and Ryle are untimely.

 

On the session where McDowell insisted that Taylor and Putnam had failed to understand him

This post was prompted by an exchange with the eminent philosopher, Michael Kremer, on Twitter on the prose style of John McDowell in Mind and World. My side of the exchange with Michael is not very edifying, but in reflecting on it, I realize I had been a kind of eye witness to a philosophical event that in the hands of myth-makers could easily match the Davos clash between Cassirer and Heidegger in world historical significance. 

 

As I note below, for various reasons I am not an ideal witness, and I certainly do not intend to comment on the merits of the philosophical debate or even the merits of the mutual evaluation. But after sharing an earlier version of this post on facebook (here), and after hearing from at least two other witnesses (both much closer to the protagonists at the time), I have come to believe that my memory of the event is not fatally skewed. What I didn't do ahead of this post is re-read Mind and World, and I have not tried to obtain the original manuscripts, if they still exist, of the papers presented at the Author-Meets-Critics session I am about to describe.

 

On Saturday, April 27 1996, in Chicago, at the Palmer House, there was an epic, bewildering Author Meets Critics session on McDowell's (1994) Mind and World with Charles Taylor and Putnam as Critics and John Haugeland presiding (see here for the program). It was near the end of my first year in graduate school, and more than 25 years ago, so I wouldn't trust by memory on fine-grained philosophical issues. However, at the time there were plenty of fans of McDowell in the Chicago philosophy department, which subsequently tried to hire him (while I was still a PhD student), and we did some kind of student  reading group on Mind and World that year. So, I was excited about the event, and prepped to be impressed. (Not everyone at Chicago was a fan of McDowell, for example one of Howard Stein's most beautiful papers is organized as a searing critique of McDowell's Mind and World.) 

 

Just to give you a sense of my stance then: while I was enmeshed in Quine, Davidson, and Putnam at the time (these had been staple of my undergraduate education), I found reading McDowell a frustrating experience; I constantly felt that when I finally grasped what he was claiming, I didn't see the pay-off relative to work put in. In preparing this post, I notice I am not alone in this, one of the protagonists of my story below, Hilary Putnam, actually starts his published contribution to Reading McDowell: On Mind and World (2002, edited by Nicholas H. Smith, London: Routledge) "I find Mind and World an enormously difficult book—as difficult as it is important." (174)*

 

What's unclear from the remark I have just quoted is whether this was Putnam's view before the session or an effect of the session. For, Putnam's chapter in Reading McDowell does suggest that the session itself transformed his understanding. He writes, "When I encountered Mind and World I naturally read it in the light of the direct realism that McDowell defended in such papers as his 1982 British Academy Lecture, “Criteria, Defeasibility, and Knowledge.” When I read an ancestor of the present essay to the Central Division of the American Philosophical Association, to my surprise I discovered that McDowell regarded the issues as entirely independent." (177) There is an accompanying footnote (n. 5) that I will quote below. 

 

At the time, I was also a dogmatic naturalist (but not the “bald naturalists” that are McDowell's official target, but the more real patterns, take a stance, find robustness, kind of naturalist) -- think more Dennett/Wimsatt than the Churchlands -- , so unlikely to be sympathetic to his position in the exchange. Eventually I grew out of my dogmatic naturalism, but not in virtue of my exposure to McDowell. As it happens, my shift away was the effect of a reading group I did with John Haugeland on a manuscript copy of Dennett's Freedom Evolves, where befitting a fine teacher, John, made me (the Dennett group-y) take on the role of Dennett critic in our morning discussions of the manuscript at the Bonjour Bakery in Hyde Park. This forced me to question my commitments in a way that drove me into a species of skepticism.

 

The session attracted a packed room (Private Dining Room #9, which makes me guess there were about 75 people present, but it's been a few years since I saw the inside of those rooms at the Palmer House). To be sure, I think Taylor went first. (But the program says Putnam, and I do have a memory of him re-grabbing the microphone, so that makes sense, perhaps, too. ) It was the first and only time I saw Taylor in person. I found him genuinely charismatic and imposing, but it's possible my perception of him was colored by my exposure to Taylor's Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity, which had appeared while I was an undergraduate student and which I bought before I graduated. I tried reading Sources before I went to graduate school, but I found it difficult because I was constantly reminded of my lack of knowledge. (At the time I was an Isaiah Berlin aficionado, and Berlin did not have this effect on me.) I don't think I ever sat down to read through Sources, but I have read many sections multiple times.

 

A few years after the events I am about to recount, in 2000, Taylor published a review of two of McDowell's collections, Mind, Value, and Reality and Meaning, Knowledge, and Reality, in which he ascribes to McDowell "an extremely interesting and original philosophical position, one of the most subtle and penetrating on the contemporary scene" (The Philosophical Quarterly, 50(199), p. 243). And, in passing, he calls Mind and World, "a major recent book." 

 

Taylor starts his contribution to Reading McDowell, with the following praise, "I hardly know where to begin in commenting on John McDowell’s rich and interesting Mind and World. Of course, everything I say stands against a background of massive agreement with the main line of his thinking, and excitement and admiration for his formulations." (106) This understates how I remember Taylor's presentation.

 

For in my memory, Taylor seemed to offer huge amount of --world historical --praise for McDowell, and some modest criticism at the end. This effusion is not wholly absent in Taylor's contribution to Reading McDowell, because Taylor treats McDowell as making possible "a “fusion of horizons” [which] seems imminent" (p. 108). In my memory, at the session, Taylor was more adamant that the moment had arrived. And that we had taken the first steps in a world historical philosophical revolution in which Taylor and McDowell were joint agenda-setters (which would also bring together the analytic and continental traditions). But it is possible that I simply misunderstood him in my youthful enthusiasm. There is, however, evidence in his contribution to Reading McDowell that hints at a a reconsideration. For, in the paper Taylor notes himself "I’m genuinely not sure whether we’re dealing with a disagreement, or just a shift in emphasis." (p. 110; see also "some uncertainty in relation to McDowell’s argument" on p. 114)** McDowell's response to Taylor at the event was rather surprising to me (after so much praise), because he clearly suggested that Taylor (one of the best readers in the field) had seriously and simply misunderstood him. 

 

The exchange between McDowell and Putnam was stranger yet. I should say that at this point I had encountered Putnam a few times in person as a visitor to my undergraduate department (Tufts) and also somebody who one might bump into on the Cambridge (MA) streets if one was in the company with another professional philosopher and talk to. In order to prepare for graduate school I had, in fact, at the suggestion of Jody Azzouni read the three volumes of his collected Philosophical Papers, but strikingly little of work after 1990. As it happens at Chicago, Stein and Tait were relentlessly critical of Putnam, and I was busy learning that not everyone agreed about his stature. 

 

Putnam started his comments kind of granting that his own earlier criticism of McDowell was mistaken, that he had in fact underestimated the significance of McDowell's argument, but that he now was excited about McDowell for various reasons.*** McDowell's response pretty much implied that Putnam was wrong then, and now and that Putnam, too, had misunderstood him.

 

There is some evidence that supports my memory. As I noted above, Putnam comments on the exchange in footnote 5 to his contribution to Reading McDowell. I quote note in full:

In his reply to my APA paper, McDowell accused me of crediting him “with aims I don’t have, and not crediting me with aims I do have.” And he went on to complain that

Putnam evidently thinks my primary aim is to insist on “direct realism” about perception, to reject a picture in which perceptual experience makes contact with the world only at an interface. He talks as if this interface conception is simply there as a problem for us, because of how modern philosophy has unfolded. To defend “direct realism” in this sort of spirit, one would need to undermine all the rationalizations philosophers have concocted for the interface conception. That is why it bothers Putnam that I don’t go into the Argument from Illusion and all that. He thinks I make my book unnecessarily difficult by presupposing earlier work on such topics. (p. 188)+

In addition, there are various locutions in his chapter that signal caution about his interpretation of Mind and World (e.g. "if I do not misunderstand it"). I am pretty confident Putnam added these signals of caution after the APA session.

 

I think that after McDowell's response to Putnam, Haugeland tried to direct the discussion to the (somewhat stunned) audience, but that's when (in my memory) Putnam retook the floor and microphone, and offered a kind of complex ad hoc reconciliation of McDowell's response and his view. It was not a happy moment because Putnam was clearly aggrieved by McDowell's response.

 

A few years later, I audited a few seminars with Putnam. And there I learned that his practice inside the classroom and outside was to take on an extreme version of the principle of charity. He would always assume that his interlocuter -- student or peer -- was saying something massively important and insightful and he would run with it through intricate number of permutations. (I don't think he was always like this, but that's for another time.) But at this point of his life, I don't think there was anything that could have prepared him for McDowell's response.

 

The subsequent Q&A with the audience was kind of a hushed, disbelieving experience. Michael Kremer asked a question (I had not met him yet, so I would not have known it was him) Here's a link to his question: https://twitter.com/m_j_kremer/status/1519242943487479808 I do recall an audience member say loud enough 'if these giants didn't understand you, what chance do lesser mortals like us have' to elicit some chuckles in the back. (No it wasn't me!)

 

As I noted above, later I got to know Haugeland pretty well, and I have regretted not asking him what it was like to chair that session. In response to a draft of this post that I circulated on facebook, Professor Kukla, a former PhD student of Haugeland, who also witnessed the event, has reported it was an acutely "uncomfortable experience" for Haugeland.

 

Now, it is, of course, by no means implausible that both Taylor and Putnam misinterpreted Mind and World. (As I got to know Putnam better I thought this quite plausible, in fact.) And McDowell has, of course, every right to say that. I mention this because it's possible you may read this post as critical of McDowell. That's not my intention. To be sure, there was something in his response that to me at the time seemed to lack a generosity of spirit and undoubtedly that colors my memory. (After all, one can equally see in his stance a magnanimous self regard that does not require the approval of others!) But most of all, at the time I was surprised by his boundless confidence that the author knew the meaning of the text better than his accomplished readers. For students of McDowell, there may be interesting starting points for how his experience at Oxford shaped his philosophical persona (see Michael Morris' reflections here).

 

As I said above, obviously, you shouldn't trust my memory as the final word on this episode, but I do think there is a moral here. One that reiterates one I have peddled on digressions before (recall this post on Dennett on Bennett and this post on Wimsatt on Bennett). There is, after all, in contemporary epistemology and in the practice of so-called contextual history of philosophy a defeasible premise that peers (or epistemic peers) are in a privileged position relative to the rest of us. This may be true, but the solidity of that position may be more feeble than is commonly allowed. 

 

Nancy Bauer vs Timothy Williamson (I)

    The point is that anyone who takes an interest in the Sorites paradox is going to do so not because life calls for a theory of vagueness but for reasons that are completely internal to a certain way of proceeding in the practice of philosophy. Despite its ancient history, however, the reasons people worry about the Sorites are not as deeply entrenched as philosophy students these days may be led to believe. It may surprise those who find the Sorites and other problems and paradoxes of vagueness unavoidable to learn that we find no discussions of these issues throughout most of the history of Western philosophy, from Aristotle until the early twentieth century. (I will not speculate about the reasons for this absence but will point out only that it indicates that the problem of vagueness did not exercise humankind for at least two of it’s 2.5 millennia existence.)
   Williamson’s agenda in his Mars paper renders unsurprising the revelation that what revivified the problem was the development of predicate logic, which allows you to cast the following argument in formally valid terms (and in various forms of those terms):

Premise: One grain of sand does not a heap make.
Premise: If x grains of sand do not a heap make, then x + 1
grains do not a heap make.
Conclusion: Therefore, 100,000 grains of sand do not a heap make.

The conclusion here seems obviously false. But where does the argument go wrong? The first premise seems indubitable. But if we reject the second premise, then we are committed to the implausible claim that there is some precise x such that x – 1 is not a heap but x, x + 1, x + 2...x + n are. A nonphilosopher might find this problem to be of a certain intellectual interest. But for a contemporary philosopher of language, it constitutes a threat. The reason is that the contemporary philosopher of language is interested in coming up with a formal theory—that is, one that works with predicates with precise extensions—that explains how natural languages do what they do. Because there are lots and lots of vague predicates in language, the Sorites looms everywhere. So if we can’t solve the Sorites, then the theorizing enterprise appears to be threatened.
    The early logicians—Bertrand Russell in particular—did not feel this threat because they had more modest aspirations than do contemporary philosophers of language. Frege and Russell had no interest in generating a formal semantic theory of natural language. Their goal was to use logic to develop an ideal language. In his 1923 paper “Vagueness,” Russell says,

In an accurate language, meaning would be a one-one relation; no word would have two meanings, and no two words would have the same meaning. In actual languages, as we have seen, meaning is one-many. (It happens often that two words have the same meaning, but this is easily avoided, and can be assumed not to happen without injuring the argument.) That is to say, there is not only one object that a word means, and not only one possible fact that will verify a proposition. The fact that meaning is a one-many relation is the precise statement of the fact that all language is more or less vague.

    For Frege and Russell, then, the Sorites problem was a nonissue. Of course (thought they) expressions of natural language are vague. But if you aspire to use logic to come up with a general theory of natural language, then the Sorites will loom large for you.
    This brief discussion of the Sorites suggests that for contemporary philosophers of language the interest in the vagueness problem is a function of a deeper interest in the project of using formal logic to generate a general theory of natural language (and not a function, that means, of various particular real-world interests in the history of Mars, the age of consent, hirsuteness, and so on). But now the impatient person that Williamson has in mind has reason to ask why he or she ought to find this project interesting. Nancy Bauer (2015) "What is to Be Done With Austin?" in How to do Things With Pornography, pp. 111-112.

The quoted passage is the end of chapter 6 of Bauer's lucid, adult, and all-round excellent book, which has a surprising amount of meta-philosophical meat. I know it's par for the course in feminist writings, but I did not expect it in a book with 'pornography' in its title (my bad). 

In order to avoid confusion, Bauer does not deny that in "real-life" vagueness is often very important.  What she denies is that a generic treatment of the sort that Williamson advocates will be salient in "real-life." Williamson here stands in for those who pursue philosophy as a theoretical, scientistic enterprise--those that "attempt to describe and explain phenomena systematically in internally consistent way that mandates or predicts what should will happen in relevant future cases." (106) And Bauer takes on Williamson's exemplary question whether "Mars always [was] either dry or not dry?" (108)

In his paper, Williamson calls this the 'original question.' And indeed Williamson treats it as a proto-philosophical question, and he stipulates that "a philosophical account of vagueness that did not tell us how to answer the original question would thereby be incomplete." And he later informs us that people "under the influence of the later Wittgenstein" are his targets. So, it's not wholly surprising that Bauer (who might be said to be shaped by later Wittgenstein in some sense) responds.

But it is worth noting that nothing Bauer says turns on (I am still quoting Williamson) "a premature and slightly facile pessimism" about the possibility of a formal semantics as such. Bauer might well grant, for the sake of argument, that a complete formal semantics of natural language is possible and worth developing. Her point, if I understand it, is two-fold: (i) drawing on Austin, she argues that such a formal semantics always leaves something out in the manner of language use (and while this is partially captured by pragmatics it is not wholly so captured). And (ii) the Williamson justification of formal semantics on offer is blatantly inadequate: that we really don't need to formal semantics to answer the original question. For, according to Williamson in order to answer that original question we must develop logical or metalogical theories (or, to use Williamson again, "complex, technical, metarepresentational theories"). 

In my view Bauer is right to criticize Williamson's claim that formal semantics is necessary to answer the original question. And she is also right to criticize his "contempt" for those that disagree with him. (108) He does not make a good faith effort to meet the concerns of those influenced by later Wittgenstein (note that this does not involve me--I have always been unmoved!) And I think a lot of folk who admire him for good reasons tend to offer equally bad arguments in the vicinity of this area (treating metaphilosophical critics of Williamson as if they are continental philosophers). And she is right to criticize the idea that somehow philosophy could be justified when it can offer formal semantics as a gift or exemplar to non-philosophers. On Bauer's views cases of vagueness are resolved in "real life" not by generic theoretical improvements, but are "invariably specific" (109) and often relatively arbitrary (110); thinking "about vagueness in general gets us nowhere." (109) However, I don't think Bauer needs these particular claims in this extreme form (not to mention that she is helping herself to "real life" without much argument). She could easily concede without undermining her argument that in some scientific or technical areas, the formal semantics of vague predicates may be very useful or could with minor adjustments be tailor-made to be very useful. (These areas may not count as sufficiently 'real-life' for her.)

Now, I have to admit I was a bit surprised by her claim that the Sorites paradox was (ahh) a dormant philosophical puzzle for very long stretches of philosophical history. In her excellent entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Diana Raffman places the revival of interest slightly earlier than Bauer does: "the paradox attracted little subsequent interest until the late 19^th century. Marxist philosophers in the neo-Hegelian tradition, like Plekhanov (1908 [1937: 114]), cited the paradox as evidence of the failure of “customary” logic and the utility of the ‘logic of contradiction’." Even so, Raffman, too, notes the dormancy.

But it does not follow that phenomena that instantiate a Sorites paradox are not common in the history of philosophy. This is, in fact, in accord with Bauer's insight that problems of vagueness are not treated as generic problems of vagueness or a general Sorites paradox. So, I have argued in print that some elements in Hume's description of the missing shade of blue actually turn on a Sorites style paradox, and one can find other places in the history of philosophy and science where Sorites paradoxes are lurking but without them being treated as a general paradox. In my own case, I learned about the structure of Sorites paradox from Poincare (writing in late 19th century) before I ever took a class in metaphysics or sementics.

More important, one can agree with Bauer that something goes badly off the rails in Williamson's defense, while still granting (as I would, but she not) that (i) Martian history buffs could be made to see and find interesting that the original question is an instantiation of a general philosophical problem (108); (ii) that formal semantics is worth doing for intrinsic philosophical reasons; and (iii) that not all generic theories are equally bad. That is to say, while I think Bauer is right to think that certain kind of philosophical theories are being oversold with poor justification, it is not true that generic theories don't have a fruitful place in bringing philosophy into contact with all kinds of areas of special application. 

As regular readers know (recall here; here; here), I am a fan of a species of generic theories, synthetic philosophy, by which I mean a style of philosophy that brings together insights, knowledge, and arguments from the special sciences with the aim to offer a coherent account of complex systems and connect these to a wider culture, policy, or other philosophical projects (or both). Now the generic theories of synthetic philosophy (I have used as examples game theory, information theory, Darwinianism, actor-network theory,  etc. ) are developed within and in conversation with special sciences and need not be topic neutral in a general way. Yet, these generic theories are not just useful in the special sciences, but often can be made action guiding in non-trivial ways. In fact, given Bauer's feminist desire to transform the world (xi, 11 (etc.), she should not wish to throw out such generic theories. But I have gone on long enough, TBC.

 

 

 

 

 

On Analysis

Seven or so years ago, near the beginning of my analysis, I explained to my analyst, after some frustrating experiences, how important it was to me that they always engage with the actual content of what I was saying. I took a huge amount of care in expressing myself – choosing exactly the right words, multiplying distinctions in order to communicate with laser precision – and I didn’t want to be ‘interpreted’ before the letter of what I was saying had been fully attended to....Those seven or so years ago, when I implored my analyst to take me at my word, it was, almost needless to say, only the first way, according to which it contrasts with “spirit,” that I had in mind. Two or three years after that, well into the analysis, I was becoming more comfortable and more curious. The tight control over my words – the only real power I could exert to protect myself and ensure the analysis did not unleash anything too scary – came to feel constricting, even suffocating...

 At the end I exclaimed “I’d like to go back to that injunction I made right at the start. Please make an effort to engage with the letter of what I am saying before trying to hear what is unsaid.” To which they replied, with some, subsequently confessed, hyperbole: “You do realize that is literally the exact opposite of what I’m supposed to be doing?!” (One reason to think that the designation of psychoanalysis as “the Jewish science” may be misleading.) In some sense, of course, what they said is obvious. They are listening for what is unconscious, which is unlikely to be found in the obsessively-controlled language that I wield almost like a weapon. But it startled me nonetheless and I decided to write this post to help work through it.--Simon J. Evnine "For the letter kills, but the spirit gives life"

One recurring fascination is the common root of 'analysis' in analytical philosophy that it shares with the 'analysis' in psychoanalysis. I sometimes wonder why analyse and its cognates had such pull over late nineteenth and early twentieth century (Viennese and Cambridge) minds. I was reminded of this by Simon Evnine who regularly calls my attention to his blog, "The Parergon." I hope he does not mind too much being the trigger occasion for these impressions. I treat him here as the everyman of analytic philosophy in which all of us can be substituted into his place, opaque contexts be damned!

It is noticeable that Simon treats his precision and "care in expressing" in terms of a "weapon." Even when used in self-defense, weapons are explicitly designed to hurt others.* I have noted before (recall) the analytic philosopher's tendency to describe the toolkit of her  craft in terms of surgical (and laser-like) instruments, but in those instances the instruments are meant to heal. Of course, Simon's intent is not to hurt others, but self-protection ("the only real power I could exert to protect myself.")+ 

I do not know a better expression of the fragility at the root of much analytic philosophy. Any badly formulated phrase is a misstep of monumental proportions. The robustness of the whole collapses with the weakest link. This fragility is fueled by "frustrating experiences." Once primed by psychoanalysis, it's hard not to discern the dependent child here. 

I do not mean to suggest that the analytic philosopher's attitude toward rigor  and clarity only expresses fragility. One may as well -- and here I am inspired by Simon's "extravagant letteralism" -- read it as pure holiness (recall here on Carnap). After all, a Torah scroll is disqualified if even a single letter is added or a single letter is deleted. Every sign must be correct. 

A few days ago a lovely blog post by Liam Kofi Bright inspired me to reflect a bit on what the norms of analytic philosophy would have to be if we "conceived of conceptual engineering as a means to enter into lifeworlds of others." I asserted that the non-dominating way of doing so requires a willingness to be transformed by the experience. What I missed saying explicitly then, and I suspect this omission (recall) is part of my professional deformation, is that one cannot (non-dominatingly) enter into the the lifeworld of another without, as Simon shows without saying, being vulnerable.

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."+

 

 

A Minor Debate: Kripke vs Dennett

As will be seen immediately, inversion in this sense is a devise for reversing priorities. William James summarized his famous theory of emotions (The Principles of Psychology)...by the assertion, "...the...rational statement is that we feel sorry because we cry...not that we cry...because we are sorry. (p. 450). Many philosophies can be summed up crudely (no doubt, not really accurately) by slogans in similar form: "We do not condemn certain acts because they are immoral; they are immoral because we condemn them." "We do not accept the law of contradiction because it is a necessary truth; it is a necessary truth because we accept it (by convention." "Fire and heat are not constantly conjoined because fire causes heat; fire causes heat because they are constantly conjoined" (Hume). "We do not all say  12+7-19 and the like because all grasp the concept of addition; we say we all grasp the concept of addition because we all say 12+7=19 and the like" (Wittgenstein).

The device of inversion of a conditional in the text achieves the effect of reversing priorities in a way congenial to such slogans. Speaking for myself, I am suspicious of philosophical positions of the types illustrated by the slogans, whether or not  they are so crudely put." Saul Kripke (1982) Wittgenstein on Rules, pp. 93-4 note 76. [HT Jody Azzouni]

In the "preface" to Wittgenstein on Rules, Kripke informs the reader "with "emphasis" that "in this piece of writing" he does not "attempt to speak'" for himself, "or, except in occasional and minor asides, to say anything about" his "views on the substantive issues." (ix) Thus, the present topic is perfect for a Digression.

The quoted passage is a footnote to a restatement (and elucidation) by Kripke of an interpretation he has just given of a politically salient element of Wittgenstein's view as understood by Kripke. (At this point of the overall 'argument' Kripke is presenting Wittgenstein's 'skeptical solution' to the rule following  'paradox.') A deviant individual may be "judged a madman" by the community if his responses do not accord with the community's in enough cases. To be mad by the community's lights is to be (thought) to follow "no coherent rule at all." And then it excludes him from some transactions "such as the one between the grocer and the customer." (93)  On this view, ordinary commercial life presupposes, for example, being a member in good standing of a community.* Somebody whose behaviors can be relied upon.

An impatient reader may be annoyed that I call the discussion 'politically' salient here. On this picture of communal life, from within the community there is almost no difference between the madman, the outlaw (recall this post on Azzouni's aesthetics), the dissident, and the political revolutionary (until she usurps power successfully). A philosopher at odds with her own community better remain silent.

To return to the main point, or better Kripke's footnote, Kripke treats inversion as a device to shift attention and "reverses our priorities." (94) It is notable that Kripke, speaking in his own voice, strictly for himself (and, one may hasten to add, on nobody's authority) does not treat inversion as explanatory at all. Not to put too fine point on it, and to speak crudely for a moment, Kripke sees himself as unmasking a louche gimmick that is widespread in philosophy--William James is famous for some such trick, and so are Hume and Wittgenstein.** 

As it happens, James's version of the inversion is Spinozistic in character: "Our natural way of thinking about these standard emotions is that the mental perception of some fact excites the mental affection called the emotion, and that this latter state of mind gives rise to the bodily expression. . My thesis on the contrary is that the bodily changes follow directly the PERCEPTION of the exciting fact, and that our feeling of the same changes as they occur IS the emotion." (I am not claiming that James is committed to attribute-parallelism here.) And it is notable that the one of the unnamed slogans [we do not condemn certain acts because they are immoral; they are immoral because we condemn them] is also Spinozistic (and Hobbesian).+ What James and Spinoza have in common is a willingness to treat our natural way of thinking as something that can be shown to be illusory even if there is also a sense in which this way of thinking, a manifest image of sorts, can not be eliminated fully from ordinary life. 

One reason why Kripke is unmoved by the inversion, is that he sees in it merely a logical point, after all "a conditional is equivalent to a contrapositive." (94) (P--> Q); (-Q --> -P).  In such instances, to treat the contrapositive as special and more worthy of our attention seems (ahh) crude no better than a slogan. (Of course, a slogan may well be true!) 

But, that's not the end of the matter. Another influential reader of Wittgenstein, Daniel Dennett, treats such inversions as potentially explanatory. And that's because he does not treat them as merely logical. For we can represent how Dennett thinks of the inversions in the following way:

1. You may naturally think that some basic property X is required for the explanation of (observed) properties Y.
2. Where X exhibits some intelligence/mindedness/intentionality and Ys typically do not.
3. But in reality properties Y are needed to explain X.

Throughout his writings of the last decade, Dennett attributes some such strange inversion of reasoning as a key moment in Darwin (natural selection), Turing (computing), Hume (causation), and David Haig (content). It is undoubtedly the case that Dennett has a tendency to say, 'don't look there, look here.' And philosophical critics often trouble themselves with understanding what the point of Dennett's writings are. (Kripke does not mention Dennett, so if you are the sincere type, you can treat the title of my post as click-bait.)

But in Dennett (and James, Hume, etc.) the shift of attention is not the end of the matter, but a heuristic toward a better explanation of the thing (mind, computers, emotions, morality, natural selection, causation, etc.) we're trying to understand. And a key step is to give up, or forego, a natural way of thinking about the issue at hand. To do so frequently is indeed mad. But the first step to a better understanding may well require a willingness to be thought mad by one's community/peers. 

 

On The Standards of Contemporary Analytic Philosophy

Penelope Maddy's book inaugurates OUP's publication of the annual Romanell Lectures, aimed at a general readership. Maddy takes on the problem of external world skepticism. The book is called "What Do Philosophers Do?" and Maddy aims to show a general audience how philosophy should be done. She mixes ordinary language philosophy, historical considerations, and scientifically informed common sense. Austin and the later Wittgenstein are the book's philosophical heroes. It's striking how different Maddy's 'therapeutic' philosophizing is from the contemporary analytic approach. Contemporary analytic philosophers evaluate arguments for and against their views and the main alternatives, in conversation with the literature from the last forty years or so. These practices take a back seat in Maddy's therapeutic approach to the skeptical problem. She uses Barry Stroud's (1984) to illustrate the lure of skepticism. Then she creeps up on her solution by discussing suggestive remarks by Austin and the later Wittgenstein. Reading Maddy's book made me realize how deeply committed I am to the contemporary analytic approach.---Alexander Jackson, (emphasis in original) reviewing Penelope Maddy, What Do Philosophers Do? Skepticism and the Practice of Philosophy, Oxford University Press, 2017, @Note Dame Philosophical Review.

It is a peculiar fact of Jackson's review, which I will stipulate makes many otherwise fair criticisms of Maddy's book, that he explicitly introduces Maddy's book (I have quoted the first paragraph of the review) with the claim that it is intended at a 'general readership.' He even reminds the reader that it is supposed to be an exemplar in the genre ("to show a general audience how philosophy should be done"). But then Jackson goes on to evaluate the book from the perspective of the ''practice" of contemporary analytic philosophy, which is -- let's stipulate -- a professional endeavor. At minimum we should be offered an explanation, if not an argument, why the purported standards of contemporary analytic philosophy are applicable to Maddy's book. My hypothesis is that such an argument is not forthcoming because even though one can allow that the tools of analytic philosophy can help diagnose argumentative flaws in a book intended for a general readership, the aptness and success norms that govern philosophical writing intended for a general readership are at crucial junctures not the same as those that govern writing primarily aimed at fellow professionals.

So far, I have said nothing about to what degree 'therapeutic' philosophizing is appropriate in an exemplary book aimed at a general audience (it is by no means obvious that, say, Wittgenstein would have thought such an enterprise intelligible) and to what degree such therapeutic philosophizing (at a general audience) has special norms of evaluation apt it for. Presumably, here one would have to explore the presumed efficacy of the proposed 'therapy' on the (presumed) reading public. Now, in medicine randomized controlled trials are said to be the purported gold standard of establishing such efficacy. I am not seriously here proposing the use of RCTs in the evaluation of philosophical therapies aimed at the public (even leaving aside some of the epistemic challenges this would involve). But is notable that Jackson does not report the effects of Maddy's book on his unsuspecting (non-professional) family members, nor even counterfactual reports about the imagined verdicts of common sense. 

In fairness to Jackson, he does kind of address the challenge a few paragraphs down. After representing how "orthodoxy addresses the...skeptical argument," in the form of a numbered argument, he writes that:

The philosophical problem is that the argument is logically valid, the premises all seem true, but the conclusion seems false. Where have we gone wrong? Maddy doesn't explicitly formulate an argument for skepticism till appendix B (p. 230), and even then, she does so obliquely. Her standard way of characterizing the problem is that the skeptic poses the "from scratch challenge":

The challenge is to justify her [plain beliefs] without using any of her carefully honed methods for justifying beliefs. (p. 151)

[The] skeptic wants a defense of that belief about the chair that doesn't depend on anything else [one] claims to know. (p. 34)

I don't find this a helpful way to explain the problem. The proper response to such a demand is simply to say: no thank you. But that's not a philosophically adequate response to a logically valid argument the conclusion of which one denies, but the premises of which seem compelling. The point is particularly pressing as the book is intended for a broad audience, who may not be able to read behind the "from scratch challenge". A direct presentation of the argument under discussion might well have helped such readers.

It is notable that here Jackson slides from what he finds 'helpful' to what might have 'helped' readers of the general public. I am not denying that all of us have experience with a (sometimes somewhat captive) audience of undergraduates and graduates who find our argumentative reconstructions illuminating even enjoyable. But I sincerely doubt that they can be encouraged to buy books for their own philosophical edification, even therapy, that do this. And it is notable that when analytic philosophers argue for stuff in their books aimed at a wider public (e.g., recent work by Stanley, Dennett, Godfrey-Smith, Nagel) such 'direct presentation' of numbered arguments are absent (on the whole; perhaps I may have forgotten an example). There is a good reason for this: reading a book full of numbered arguments is mindbogglingly dull to most folk except for those whose dispositions have been warped by decade(s) of (increasingly) professional education.

Regular readers may grow impatient with me here. They know that I have recently castigated the jury members of the Sanders prize for conflating our teaching standards with the standards of public philosophy. Why am I rehashing all this in the context of a review? But what I am really after here today is, of course, the self-presentation of the nature of contemporary philosophy and how we understand it in light of our public role(s). For Jackson is rather confident (and I have seen such confidence in many others) that "the philosophical problem" just is that the argument is logically valid, the premises all seem true, but the conclusion seems false. And the role of public philosophy then is "to set readers a good example by considering positions they disagree with, and grappling with arguments against their own views."

I am last to deny that philosophy could serve such an exemplary role in the construction of public reason; I am all for the idea that "handling disagreement"+ is one of our marketable skills that we are capable (to some degree) of teaching others (even if we often don't live up to the ideal ourselves). But as I have noted before, this magisterial conception of public philosophy completely ignores the philosophical gains from receptivity toward being shaped by one's public-facing activities.++ It also raises important questions about our comportment toward the public (and with each other) that are orthogonal to argumentative rigor (and I have discussed in terms of philosophical integrity).

Now, Jackson is right that this [argument is logically valid, the premises all seem true, but the conclusion seems false] may well be a philosophical problem.* And it is notable that if one understands philosophical problems like this, one will come to understand -- I have recently read Stoljar's very interesting book -- philosophical progress or the task of philosophy in terms of finding ways of rejecting (or adding) a premise to an argument (or showing that one is mistaken about the truth-status of the conclusion). I have suggested before that this way of conceiving philosophy is compatible with treating philosophers as (disembodied) machines. (And then before long learning algorithms will tell us which premises need to be rejected without offering any reasons at all.) On this conception philosophy is a kind of mastery of technique.** One need not be a disciple of Wittgenstein -- and regular readers know my dispositions here -- to see that this conception of philosophy, while interesting, is limiting.

Now, if we look at the quoted passage from Maddy, we see that the from scratch challenge involves a question of justification of a belief in which (pre-existing) methods of justification and other forms of knowledge are not involved (this does sound vaguely like Reid). That's an extraordinary demand, and it is one, for example, that Moore does not meet. Whatever such justification involves it seems to be very different in kind than accepting or rejecting premises (or a conclusion). This is not to deny one could offer a justification in the form of an argument, but what's been asked for here is not an argument. Rather, I assume what's being asked for is some kind of experience or practice that has authority to settle decisively the belief. And the challenge here is, in part, that relying on the authority of argument to answer the from scratch challenge seems to be ruled out by the from scratch challenge (because argument is one of the pre-existing methods of justification).

As an aside, if this much is right then in her book Maddy is asking her general reading audience to take genuine skepticism a lot more seriously than most professional philosophy papers are willing to do. The significance of this is worth pondering for those that conceive of public philosophy as a dumbed down version of philosophy; it is not impossible that it's the professionals that have been domesticated and public philosophy is our means toward (I am nodding to Della Rocca) un-taming reason.

Now, its possible that rather than meeting the from scratch challenge (with increasingly desperate appeals to elusive forms of self-vindicating patches of direct experience) one should learn not be in the grip of it. And if one thinks this (rejecting the grip of the fsc), one could be argued out of one's fascination with the from scratch challenge, but presumably it also require other tools (including, there, I said it, Wittgensteinian therapy).

Interestingly enough, elsewhere in his critical review, Jackson points to philosophical skills other than argument that may be helpful to a general audience (and, I hasten to add, members of the profession): (i) offering distinctions, (ii) articulating conceptual connections, and (iii) providing a diagnosis for what's wrong with some commitment (in addition to argumentative flaws). I am not claiming that mastery of argumentative technique is irrelevant to (i-iii), but I do assert (baldy without argument) that they are not identical to it. And (i-iii) are vindicated not merely in virtue of their contribution to the acceptance or rejection of premises in arguments; their philosophical utility (to the professional and the public) lies primarily in making more refined conversations possible, or at least, to keep it going (even if haltingly so).

My point here is not to defend the merits of Wittgensteinian therapy - regular readers know I am no friend of the quietism that is consequent of this practice - or to reject mastery of technique (which is important to our professional self-conception and even our public status; I have recently  defended the significance of such mastery in print.) But rather, to remind us that neither public nor professional philosophy is reducible to the evaluation of arguments (with true seeming premises and false seeming conclusions). The Wittgensteinian (and her medicina mentis) reminds us that mastery of technique is merely an important step toward (ahh) a philosophical way of life in which we learn to engage with fellow professionals and various other publics, sometimes even, and this is arguably a greater philosophical skill, at the same time.

 

 

On what is Philosophy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

On Translation, in Analytic Philosophy

One of the the peculiarities of the analytic tradition is that if you say, "I am interested in translation in analytic philosophy," people are more likely to talk about Quine (or Davidson) rather than about the peculiar fact that many of the works of early analytic philosophy are the product of translation. As Glock suggests,* with an amusing anecdote about Quine, the Polish logicians became known, first, in German. Leaving aside those writing in English, those that were not translated into German were often forgotten unless they were later translated into English.

As an aside, this historical oblivion happened, in fact, to quite a number of the female members of the Lvov-Warsaw School (where Twardowski had quite a few such students) many of whom only published in Polish. It is somewhat depressing, for example, that outside Poland, Kokoszyńska, who did publish at least one paper in German, is now primarily known as a bathroom distraction in G.A. Cohen's famous impersonation of Tarski's lecture on the error in Leśniewski's theorem. I am not claiming that lack of translation is the only source of historical oblivion; analytic philosophy's relationship to its own past is a complex one.

But, of course, now that English is The Frankish (lingua franca) of analytic philosophy (and scientific culture more generally) some of our classic texts are primarily known in translation. I was surprised to learn recently, for example, not only that anybody (Hacker & Schulte) tried to improve on the Anscombe's influential translation (of the Investigations), but that, in fact, it had been turned into a fourth edition. I had missed the intervening editions. One wonders if this (4th ed) is a nice case of truth in advertising -- a revised translation changes the book substantially and so should count as a new edition -- or better understood as a marketing gimmick (given that Wittgenstein's text presumably has been left alone; the book is not advertised as a 'critical edition,' after all). Because I don't co-inhabit space with Wittgenstein  scholars these days, I am unsure to what degree debates over  Ogden/Ramsey vs Pears/McGuinness (still) exist (see here for useful site).

I am, in fact, unsure who generated the best known sentence in the history of analytic philosophy, the Swiftian sounding "The Nothing Noths." I leave aside here the tricky question to what degree the sentence is merely mentioned or used and abused by analytic philosophy. I had always assumed that "The Nothing Noths" was produced by Arthur Pap in his translation of  Carnap's treatment of Heidegger, Das Nichts nichtet. Pap (ultimately a student of Ernest Nagel), whose influence on the shaping of analytic philosophy's self-image tends to get ignored, did a bad job on the title -- there is a real distinction between overcoming metaphysics (a straightforward and philosophically resonant translation of Carnap's title) and eliminating it, which gives analytic philosophy a more militarist sensibility [even if somebody may argue that the difference is merely symbolic (one ought to take symbols seriously)]. But, in fact, unless I am missing something, Pap's translation does not contain "The Nothing Noths," but rather the far more ugly "The Nothing Nothings." The earliest source I can find (on Google, that is) is Peter Achinstein's (1985)) The Nature of Explanation (where Heidegger is mentioned, but Carnap not!); but (with all due respect to Achinstein who was quite influential in those days), I suspect it was given wide currency by David Lewis in 1988, and then finds its way into the literature on Carnap and Heidegger! (But maybe Ayer is the source).

Despite The Nothing Noths, in general Carnap was not blessed in his translators. I don't think George's Logical Structure of the World really conveys the meaning of Der Logische Aufbau der Welt. (When I first heard the title of the book in English, I thought it was a book in the philosophy of physics.) The Logical Construction of the World would have better conveyed both the agency and progressivity involved (not to mention the resonances with  Kantianism).

To the best of my knowledge, little attention is paid to the quality of translations of early analytic philosophy (for my own earlier musings on translation more generally recall here, here, here, and here). The relevant comparison class is the focus on, and heated controversies over, the translations of Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Descartes, and perhaps Spinoza. This is a bit surprising if one takes Quine's once influential ideas about translation (and holism) seriously. But not so surprising not just because 'we're all realists now,' but also (i) because we really don't introduce our students into analytic philosophy by way of study of our canonical texts--we are a progressive enterprise and our students deserve to be introduced to the  topic by way of contemporary works on the cutting edge (or text-books). (This was less true when there was still an active cult of Wittgenstein.) I think that's pretty much the whole truth. But there is also an ironic fact, that when we do assign the early analytics to  undergrads, the English versions have become canonical, no?***