Digressions&Impressions

On Stebbing on Social Injustice

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I have noticed, in passing (recall), that in Ideals and Illusions Stebbing is without being a utilitarian quite favorably disposed to Mill's philosophy. In fact, to be more precise, Stebbing is rather dismissive of Mill's "ill-expressed and ill-planned pamphlet Utilitarianism" which she also (elsewhere) dismisses as "hastily written." She much prefers Mill's "pamphlet On Liberty" which shows "clearly what his ideal was; these writings provide the most effective criticism of his Utilitarianism." She reads On Liberty (to simplify) as able exposition of the democratic creed articulated in the preamble of the American Declaration of Independence in favor of individual happiness and freedom, and opposed to human suffering.

In the first chapter of On Liberty, Mill and Taylor (whom Stebbing does not mention) make it clear that in conditions of domination and subordination, reigning moral views will tend to favor the self-interest of the ruling classes: "Wherever there is an ascendant class, a large portion of the morality of the country emanates from its class interests, and its feelings of class superiority." Among the examples they give are slave societies and patriarchy. It is, thus (recall), not far-fetched to see in Mill and Taylor theorists of what is now known as ideology.

Now, contemporary analysists of ideology tend to claim that in addition to justifying the interests of the ruling class, it also creates a form of ignorance among the ruling class. While the former is quite plausible, the latter claim has always struck me as quite odd because it would entail that elites don’t realize how they benefit from the status quo or what social mechanisms maintain class privileges and security. (I am equally mystified by the interest in tacit bias.) If that were so, one would see ruling classes give up their privileges and sources of power willingly (or at least by accident).* However, this rarely occurs. And the one time it manifestly did – the warm embrace of the early stages of the French revolution on the Enlightened part of the nobility – it ended so badly that it has been a stark warning ever since reinforced by many facts of our liberal arts education.

For Mill and Taylor, ideology produces a deformation of “the moral feelings of the members” of the ruling class, and they emphasize (this is a bit surprising), “in their relations among themselves.” I call it ‘surprising’ because one would have expected them to emphasize the maltreatment of the subordinate class (a topic that is of genuine interest to them). To be sure, I don’t mean to suggest this is missing from their analysis.

Echoing Hume (and Smith), and anticipating Dicey, they go on to claim that “the likings and dislikings of society, or of some powerful portion of it, are thus the main thing which has practically determined the rules laid down for general observance, under the penalties of law or opinion.” So for Mill and Tayler a society’s laws and norms always express to a considerably degree the interests of (at least a part of the) ruling classes and these, in turn, do not merely secure ruling class hegemony, but they come at a cost of a corrosion of the moral sensibility of the ruling class. This seems quite plausible.

In On Liberty, Mill and Taylor don’t really explore the nature of this deformation of the ruling classes’ moral sentiments except, perhaps and non-trivially, that it produces conformism. In the context of a critical discussion of Clive Bell’s (1928) book Civilization (hitherto unknown to me), Stebbing does take up the issue (in Chapter V). She first quotes Bell and then comments as follows:  

What interests me most in Mr. Bell’s pronouncement is his uneasy and unwilling admission that [among the elites] “a sensitive and intelligent man cannot fail to be aware of the social conditions in which he lives.” If only he could shut himself up in an ivory tower how delightfully and valuably he might pass his time. But a “ civilized man ” must be sensitive and intelligent, so, as Mr. Bell is reluctantly forced to admit, either he must harden his heart or be discomforted. It is very unfortunate, but that is how things are. How satisfactory would it not be for a civilized Nero, if only Rome were not burning? But it is burning, and he cannot, if sensitive and intelligent, be unmoved by its plight. To-day, although Rome is not burning, not a few of the cities of Europe are, or have been, in flames— deliberately set on fire. What does it matter to us, if we be sensitive and intelligent men, provided that our own city is not in flames or, if it is, if we can take refuge in California and there produce masterpieces, or at least enjoy the masterpieces of others? Mr. Bell has, I think, given us the answer. We cannot remain unaware of what is happening; we may escape the danger and the discomfort; we may still, far removed to a safe place, continue our civilized pursuits; but we do so at a cost—the cost of callousness or a sense of discomfort.

Before I continue it is worth noting that Stebbing herself goes on to note that there is something really wrong with Bell’s position; he ignores the Kantian dictum that we should treat people as ends not merely as means. The fundamental problem with social hierarchy is not its side effects on the social elite, but the maltreatment of the have-nots and the militarism it licenses. (She is writing in the immediate context of WWII.)

But she is clearly intrigued by the fact that even somebody who defends the possible worth of social hierarchy (in terms of aesthetic and hedonic qualities) has to concede, first, that those at the top are not unaware of the conditions that produce their social privileges and, second, that this awareness generates permanent unease and cruel disregard (“callousness”) to others among (at least a part) of the social elites, and, third, encourages forms of escapism among the elites. She repeats these points multiple times in immediate context. She notes that “there is some slender ground for hope in this discomfort.”

In fact, and to reiterate, there is no doubt that Stebbing wants to draw on more capacious social, psychological, and ethical resources than this slender hope; in addition to Kant’s dictum, she also discusses the significance of cultivating the sympathetic imagination (she cites Hume, but sounds like Adam Smith) in the same chapter. And, as I noted recently, in Thinking to Some Purpose she clearly argues that considerable social-economic leveling is required.

Even so, it may be worth a brief reflection, in closing, why Stebbing dwells on the existence of elite discomfort. Part of the answer can be found in the next chapter when she writes that “Only a deep dissatisfaction with our present mode of life combined with a definite hope for the not distant future will make-this destruction of Europe endurable.” We can discern in this passage a hint of a kind of secular theodicy. (She is clearly no Christian.) Perhaps, ‘theodicy’ is too strong, but she clearly believes that a democratic faith requires some hope that present suffering can be overcome in the future if at the end of the road there has been a definite social change (for the better).

For Stebbing, democratic hope presupposes that at least some of the social elites have to be willing to buy into minimal change. (She is no advocate of violent revolution.) And they will do so, she thinks, when some of them recognize, as they inevitably will, that the existing social hierarchy harms them psychically in various ways. That from the perspective of social elites, in democratic life social change, thus, need not be understood exclusively in terms of the risk of loss of privilege, but that it also may bring not just better social relations with the existing have-nots but also better self-relations (among elites and individually). Thus in drawing out Mill’s and Taylore’s ideas on the perversion of morality in social hierarchy, there is lurking here a commitment to the claim that social elites will recognize themselves in the Socratic doctrine that when one harms others, as social hierarchy inevitably entails, one really harms oneself and this will reduce resistance to social reform.

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Ideals and Illusions, and the forgotten history of analytic political philosophy

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Ideals and Illusions, Susan Stebbing's (1941) moving wartime work, published while she and the Kingsley Lodge school for girls (of which she remained the principal in addition to being the first female British philosophy professor) had moved to the far end of Cornwall, aims to rectify the absence of an ideal that speaks to what one may call democratic and spiritual yearning in British public life.* In fact, Ideals and Illusions, deserves some mention in the history of political theory. While not wishing to ignore some of the limitations of the work, I list three reasons that, perhaps, invite you to read this book.

First, Ideals and Illusions decisively challenges an idea then promoted by political realists of her age (especially E.H. Carr) that debate between realists and democratic theorists within political theory is, and now I quote Hans Morgenthau (who explicitly cites Stebbing), "...tantamount to a contest between principle and expediency, morality and immorality." Morgenthau (1952) de facto concedes Stebbing point, and this led him to reformulate political realism (and its opposition to a kind of democratic idealism as follows): "The contest is rather between one type of political morality and another type of political morality, one taking as its standard universal moral principles abstractly formulated, the other weighing these principles against the moral requirements of concrete political action, their relative merits to be decided by a prudent evaluation of the political consequences to which they are likely to lead." (p. 988; see note 25) To what degree Stebbing would eschew paying attention to prudent evaluation of political consequences may well be doubted. (I return to that some day.)

But the important point here is that Stebbing's criticism of Carr shaped the development of the most influential articulation of post-war realism (in IR).+ And it it is worth noting that Ernest Nagel, who was a serious admirer of Stebbing (1885 –1943), was (in 1947) quite critical of Morgenthau's version of such realism. There is, thus, lurking in the relatively early history of analytic philosophy a polemic, from the perspective of a democratic and liberal theory, with (so-called) political realism that has gone largely unnoticed. (I have discussed Nagel's polemic a bit here. )

Be that as it may, as is well known, in his autobiographic manifesto Liam Kofi Bright writes: "There is something within us that takes joy in the happiness of others, sees their misery as something regrettable, and compels us to act in solidarity and friendship with fellows." In an accompanying footnote, Bright cites (rightly) the fourth chapter of Stebbing's Ideals and Illusions. This chapter articulates a democratic creed that is explicitly indebted to the preamble of the American declaration. Stebbing connects this creed eloquently to Bentham's and Mill's frontal attack on acquiescence in human suffering.  Stebbing is by no means a utilitarian/Radical, but she recovers the enduring significance of the Radical program (which one wishes contemporary longtermists would heed).

But not unlike Jefferson, she inscribes her ideal in a republican political philosophy (while being more attentive to the ills of slavery). In fact, and this is my second point, she deserves to be re-inscribed in the genealogy of modern republicanism, for after claiming that her creed can be captured with the ethical principle, "all men alike ought to be free and happy," she writes:

The democratic ideal does not confine a man within the limitations of his own narrowly conceived self-interest; it widens his interests to include all men, so far as this is possible to the limited intellectual grasp and the groping imagination of a finite human being. To achieve this ideal we must make such political machinery as will enable every man to have his needs considered and to contribute to the working of this machinery according to his ability. No one must be slave to another nor subject to the arbitrary will of any of his fellows, whether he lead or be led. We must create such an economic order as to allow to every man the satisfaction of his primary needs and to permit the development of himself as an individual. (Chapter VII, "Conflicting Ideals," p. 157)

Stebbing clearly embraces the idea that being subject to the arbitrary will of another is a fundamental problem in political and economic life and should be combatted. While rejecting Marxist economics (and explicitly rejects Marx as "prophet"), she quotes The Communist Manifesto approvingly on the idea of "a community of individuals, each of whom counts, associated together in such a way that 46 the free development of each is the condition of the free development of all.” (pp. 144-145) Stebbing's republicanism was already visible, and (as I discerned) presupposed, in her (1939) Thinking to Some Purpose, but it is much more subtly and carefully developed in Ideals and Illusions not as a normative theory in a post-Rawlsian sense, but as a living faith apt for her times. (I return to that below.) 

Third, one of the key theme among my friends in the ‘'bleeding heart’ wing of contemporary libertarianism is the insight that the closed border regimes of our age are not just a frontal attack on the rights of outsiders or non-natives, but are a very sly and insidious attack on the rights and lives of citizens/insiders who often don't realize initially that many of their own liberties are undermined (often due to aggressive policing of border zones, but not limited to this). I first learned the point from Jacob T. Levy, and it’s a very important theme in Kukathas' Immigration and Freedom. (Levy and Kukathas are, thereby, developing an insight lurking in Mises but not as well developed there as one would wish.) I don't mean to suggest it's only a libertarian talking point; many (Foucault-inflected) scholars in security/immigration studies have developed a similar analysis (and as a skeptical liberal I will make it my own).

Here's Stebbing's version of a related insight:

[D]uring the Victorian age and up to the outbreak of the 1914-18 war there was considerable advancement in the direction of the ideal of the American revolution. It is convenient to call this the ideal of a civilized democracy. This ideal is far from having been accomplished. That, however, is not the point that is of main importance for my present purpose. The point is that it was an ideal consciously held and, on the whole, deliberately pursued. The moral significance of this period lies in the fact that there was a widespread conviction that there was an ideal worth pursuing, that there were high aims to the achievement of which a man might fittingly devote his life; to live strenuously for an ideal is more difficult and exacting than to be prepared to die for it. During the last twenty years this ideal has not only been explicitly denied and vilified in certain countries, it has further faded as an ideal even in those countries where the citizens continue to admire the sound of the word “ democracy.” For, it must be remembered, the democratic ideal is founded upon the moral principle that all men alike ought to be free and happy. It requires a temper of mind free from suspicion of others, from hatred of the foreigner, and from intolerance. It requires further an active sympathy with those who are oppressed. In all these respects the last twenty years have seen a serious deterioration. Before the last war it was possible to travel from one end of Europe to the other without a passport; during the last twenty years it has not been possible. This may seem unimportant; in fact, it is not. Its importance is that it is a symptom of the change for the worse that has befallen us. Each State in turn has tightened its restrictions upon the entry of foreigners. In a world which is economically so interdependent that it may be said to be a unity, certain of the most powerful States strive to be wholly sufficient in their economic requirements. The growth of economic internationalism is in conflict with an emotionally sustained nationalism. Hatred of others is fostered. (Chapter VI, pp. 112-113 [emphasis added—ES.])

What I wish to highlight here is that Stebbing discerns that a closed border policy doesn't just restrict the inflow of people, commodities, and capital, it also transforms the very ideals, the pattern of thoughts, and even morals of one's own polity. For Stebbing a 'temper of mind' -- we might say ethos -- is rather important to democratic life. With this diagnosis she is rather close to the liberal-realists explored (recall) by Cherniss in his recent Liberalism in Dark Times: The Liberal Ethos in the Twentieth Century.

Okay, let me wrap up. I leave you to discover her fantastic genealogical analysis of conscience, and her excellent critique of Bradley's political theory amongst other gems. I have suggested before (recall here; here etc.) that the narrative that there 'was no political philosophy within analytic philosophy' before Rawls is a lie that keeps us in a self-imposed tutelage. To be sure, this fact is difficult to see as a consequence of the division of labor in which (inter alia) economics and philosophy split, and political philosophers became specialists in normative theory and judge each other accordingly. From the perspective of contemporary philosophy, Stebbing’s book would seem to lack something.

But in so far as political philosophy aspires to educate the thoughtful citizenry in the reasons for its commitments (it should hold), Stebbing's book is, warts and all (and I have not developed my criticisms here), without parallel in early analytic philosophy. (No, I am not ignoring Popper or Russell's political essays!) Neurath insisted on the very point in 1946:

I clearly realized the tendency within our movement to deal with the actual life when I looked at Stebbing's "Ideas and Illusions", the preface dated Tintagel April 1941, where the school she and her friends had organized had been evacuated from London. Here she continued her fight against muddled arguing, as started in "Philosophy and the Physicists" and in "Thinking to some Purpose". But during the war also appeared her "A Modern Elementary Logic" which was intended to be a book for students, some of them in the army, without any guidance from a teacher. I speak of these details, because they clearly show, how persistent scientific life is.**

 

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*For a summary of the book, I recommend chapter 8 of  Siobhan Chapman. Susan Stebbing and the language of common sense. 2013. 

+For some further details see S. Molloy (2006) The Hidden History of Realism: A Genealogy of Power Politics, pp. 64-70. (Molloy treats Stebbing as a historian of science.) In a different work, Peter Wilson (2000) acknowledges the significance and cogency of Stebbing's criticism, but suggests she drew heavily from Leonard Woolf. (I have not been able yet to verify this.)

**This is also quoted in Chapman's book, p. 165.

Stebbing on Analytic Clarification, with some Kuhn and Sellars

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One of the eye-opening claims in Frederique Janssen-Lauret's recent (2022) Cambridge Elements on Susan Stebbing is that "much of Stebbing's published work focussed on the philosophy of physics and especially on the philosophy of physics." (32) Accordingly Janssen-Lauret devotes considerable space to Sttebbing’s philosophy of science in her book, especially, Stebbing's famous critique of Eddington, but also -- and I suspect this prepared my mind for what follows -- to the complex relationship between Stebbing's philosophy of science and her distance from Moore's philosophy. I mention this because while this post continues my series on clarity and Stebbing's views on clarity in particular ((recall here; and here; and yesterday), today I unexpectedly veer into philosophy of science. 

Recall that if clarity is the effect of analysis (the ‘standard conception’), then its character is, at least in part, determined by the nature of analysis. By the 1930s it was sufficiently clear that different kinds of analysis were being practiced alongside each other. In fact, in her (1933) “Logical positivism and analysis," Stebbing made this very point explicit: “there are various kinds of analysis.” She lists “four different kinds,” although in context it’s possible she thinks there are more. “These four kinds are: (1) analytic definition of a symbolic expression; (2) analytic clarification of a concept; (3) postulational analysis; (4) directional analysis.”

On the standard conception of clarity each of these kinds of analysis generates a clarity proper to it. Of course, it’s possible that the kind of fruit born by these four kinds of analysis belongs to the same genus, but one can’t simply assume that, and to her credit Stebbing does not assume so. For Stebbing thinks that "the analytic clarification of a concept differs considerably from the other three kinds of analysis.” While Stebbing’s views on and practice of postulational and directional -- which she sometimes calls ‘metaphysical’ -- analysis have received considerable and increasing attention,[1] her views on analytic clarification much less so. (I substantiate this claim in the footnote accompanying this sentence.)* Even the phrase 'analytic clarification' was -- despite its apparent familiarity -- not much used in the 1930s.

At first sight, it is no surprise that Stebbing's analytic clarification of a concept has received little attention. For she introduces us to it by saying that such analysis “is due to the fact that we often manage to say something which is true although in so saying we believe ourselves to be referring to what is not in fact the case, and are thus also saying something false.” As stated this seems unpromising and has the air of paradox, without having the clarity of the more familiar paradox of analysis (on which Stebbing has very interesting things to say as one can read in Janssen-Lauret's Elements.) 

But what Stebbing has in mind when discussing 'analytic clarification' of a concept is made evident in the discussion of what follows. For, she introduces the very idea of an analytic clarification of a concept, in order to handle instances where a previously relatively successful scientific theory requires non-trivial revision after what we would now call a ‘paradigm change.’ Her examples are, in fact, ‘mass,’ ‘force,’ and ‘simultaneity’ with explicit reference to Newton and Einstein. Here's what she writes. It's terse, and she acknowledges she lacks time to develop it in context:

Examples of concepts which have been thus clarified are mass, force, simultaneity. The need for such analytic clarification is due to the fact that we often manage to say something which is true although in so saying we believe ourselves to be referring to what is not in fact the case, and are thus also saying something false. This happens when we understand to some extent what we are saying but do not understand clearly exactly what we are saying; hence, we suppose something to be essential to the truth of what we say which is, however, not essential. Certainly Newton did not clearly understand what he was referring to when he spoke of "force", but he often said what was nevertheless true when he used sentences containing "force". A striking example is provided by the concept of simultaneity. Before Einstein had asked the question how we determine whether two events are simultaneous, we thought we knew quite well what was meant by saying 'happening at the same time in London and New York'. Einstein has made us see that we did not know quite well what we meant; we now understand that what we thought to be essential is not so. This analytic clarification of a concept cannot be made quite tidy. It involves a change in the significance of all statements in which the concept occurs.  (p. 30)

Ever since Kuhn, we tend to discuss examples like this in terms of incommensurability and paradigm shifts. And I use some of that vocabulary (and also that of Sellars) to elucidate what Stebbing is getting at. But the first thing to note is that analytic clarification can (or is) the effect of scientific development. The clarity achieved is the product of the growth in science. ("Einstein has made us see...") ‘Analytic clarification’ may be the worst philosophical coinage for failure to convey what it is trying to describe!

Who is doing the clarifying is actually left a bit vague (notice the repeated use of we/us), and that's because Stebbing tends to treat science as a social, situated activity. (Peter West also makes this point in his re-evaluation of Stebbing's famous criticism of Eddington in a recent paper in BJHP.) As she puts it, “Science is the work of scientists, who, profiting by each other’s labours, come gradually to achieve an agreed body of knowledge, and in the course of this achievement continually develop new and more powerful technical methods” (Philosophy and the Physicists)** So, I tend to read her as claiming that Einstein triggered a social process of analytic clarification of concepts that had previously been taken for granted in science (and, perhaps, ordinary life--I return to that below). This image of what philosophical analysis can be is in some sense more familiar from strains in the Vienna Circle. and looks forward to Quine's more naturalist approach. 

Interestingly enough, analytic clarification does not merely impact the scientific image, it is also shifts the manifest image. (On my reading, Stebbing's thinks Edgington's mistake was not that he thought science could shape the manifest image, but rather that he conflated the scientific and manifest images in places where they are better kept separate.) It's not just physicists who through the development of general relativity learned something new about the significance of simultaneity, all of us. 

As an aside, the impact of science on the manifest image is itself due to a wider rationalization of the world; many elements of the manifest image have already been infiltrated and shaped by the scientific image. And this means that common sense itself can shift like quicksand. (I suspect her sensitivity to this is one of her more important differences with Moore.)

When I first read the quoted passage (with Kuhn and Quine in the back of my mind), I thought that the lack of tidiness of analytic clarification was due to a kind of semantic holism of concepts, that the significance of each concept was determined by adjoining concepts in a network. (Janssen-Lauret situates Stebbing as a transitional figure toward Quine's and later Wittgenstein's holism.) So that the adjustments that are required when we figure out what simultaneity really means ramifies out to other, adjoining concepts. But Stebbing actually doesn't say this here in the context of analytic clarification.

Rather, the lack of tidiness is due to the fact that the concepts involved are central to the scientific and manifest image(s). And so that that the clarity gained from analytic clarification about the significance of these particular terms has to be fitted to quite a few claims ("the significance of all statements in which the concept occurs” emphasis added). This still involves a holist-friendly thought that the full, changed significance isn't evident from a particular use, but needs to be inferred from a whole range of potentially subtly different uses (but this holism isn't semantic). But I suspect that part of the lack of tidiness is also due to Stebbing’s recognition that science itself is open-ended, perhaps intrinsically so, and that it may discover new uses for the concepts in new statements (predictions, extensions, etc.) or through the new use of technology (recall the passage quoted from Philosophy and the Physicists).

Notice that Stebbing resists the temptation to claim that old paradigms were simply false; that what we thought was true was actually false. Rather, she suggests that one can say true things without actually fully understanding the concepts one uses. "This happens when we understand to some extent what we are saying but do not understand clearly exactly what we are saying." This vantage point is extraordinary difficult to achieve about one's own (paradigmatic) utterances, but does become more easily available during and after a paradigm shift.

On this view part of the point of the later paradigm, of the growth of knowledge more generally, is to elucidate how we could speak truth before while strictly speaking not always understanding fully our own concepts. Stebbing here alerts us to the role of philosophy, analytic clarification, within science during shifts in the research frontier. (Of course, this is not philosophy’s only role.)

There is, of course, a wider lesson here about our lives in societies characterized by complex, cognitive division of labor. In the quoted passage, Newton represents the human condition; as through the growth of science and technology the concepts of the scientific image encroach on the manifest image, and as the division of labor within the sciences becomes ever more fine-grained, it is inevitable that at any given time we say true things without understanding the concepts we use. Somewhat paradoxically then, the clarity that is the effect of analytic clarification grows while science and technology grows; but (ahh) simultaneously their growth means that we often are simultaneously in the dark about the truths we utter confidently.

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[1] For recent careful work on directional/metaphysical analysis see, Annalisa Coliva "Stebbing, Moore (and Wittgenstein) on common sense and metaphysical analysis." British Journal for the History of Philosophy 29.5 (2021): 914-934. Douglas, Alexander X., and Jonathan Nassim. "Susan stebbing’s logical interventionism." History and Philosophy of Logic 42.2 (2021): 101-117. Neither paper is interested in analytic clarification of a concept. 

* For example, back in 2003, in "Susan Stebbing on Cambridge and Vienna Analysis," Michael Beaney assimilates Stebbing's idea of 'analytic clarification of a concept' to Russell’s ‘paradigm’ of analysis. Beaney writes, "I might say ‘It is false that the present King of France is bald’, and take myself (as Meinong and the early Russell did) to be referring to some subsistent (as opposed to existent) object. According to Russell’s theory of descriptions, I am saying something true, despite my confusion as to what I am referring. What we have, then, is also paraphrastic analysis – the aim being here, though, to ‘analyse away’ a problematic expression." (343-344) Later in (2016) "Susan Stebbing and the Early Reception of Logical Empiricism in Britain," Beaney simply skips discussing the analytic clarification of a concept after mentioning its existence.[4] In his (2021) SEP entry on Stebbing with Chapman, they do not even mention it. More recently, Karl Egerton (2021) "Susan Stebbing and the Truthmaker Approach to Metaphysics."[6] also assimilates 'analytic clarification' to analytic definition, but is not much interested in exploring it. Oddly, in Beaney and Egerton ignore Stebbing's claim that analytic clarification a is very different kind of analysis.

**See also Körber, Silke. "Thinking About the “Common Reader:” Otto Neurath, L. Susan Stebbing and the (Modern) Picture-Text Style." Neurath Reconsidered: New Sources and Perspectives (2019): 456.

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.

On Stebbing, Spinoza, and the Cognitive Demands of Political Freedom, Part 2

[I am phasing out D&I at typepad. This post was first published at: digressions.impressions.substack here. To receive new posts and support my work consider becoming a paid subscriber at <digressionsimpressions.substack.com>]

For Stebbing (recall) clarity is a property of cognition and intelligence. 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. That is, undistorted or unbiased thought is what's being aimed at in describing something as ‘clear.’

But her suggestion is that known biases and awareness of ignorance are not an obstacle to successful thought presumably because they can knowingly be controlled for. Clarity is, in fact, for Stebbing an acquired skill that can be controlled and that makes "rational argument and… reasonable consideration" possible. A feature of the skill is logically sound argument. Unsurprisingly, awareness and discovery of possible fallacies play a prominent role in Stebbing's (1938) Thinking to Some Purpose.

As I noted, there is a whiff of Spinozism in her treatment of clarity. We know she was familiar with Spinoza’s system, which she discusses, in passing in her (1932) “The Method of Analysis in Metaphysics.” She deliberately evokes the last sentence of Spinoza's Ethics in the last sentence of the "epilogue" of her book:

My point of view with regard to this topic can be summed up in the statement: He alone is capable of being tolerant whose conclusions have been thought out and are recognized to be inconsistent with the beliefs of other persons. To be tolerant is not to be indifferent, and is incompatible with ignorance. My conclusions have been reasonably attained in so far as I have been able to discount my prejudices, to allow for the distorting effects of your prejudices, to collect the relevant evidence and to weigh that evidence in accordance with logical principles. The extent to which I can achieve these aims is the measure of my freedom of mind. To be thus free is as difficult as it is rare.-- Susan Stebbing Thinking to Some Purpose, p. 256.

Clarity, then, is a means toward freedom of mind, but also its measure. (Clarity clearly comes in degrees for Stebbing.) To avoid confusion, in that quoted paragraph, 'logical principles,' include deductive and inductive logic. 

Now 'freedom' is not introduced until the epilogue. I will quote the key paragraph to give a flavor of Stebbing's use of it: 

I believe also that similar strictures could be truly made with regard to polls held recently in Germany and in Austria. Elections in this country are not in this sense unfree. We are proud to consider ourselves a democracy; we claim to have freedom of election, freedom of speech (including freedom of the Press) limited only by the laws of libel, sedition and blasphemy, and freedom in religion. No doubt there are certain qualifications to be made; it is probable that most people would admit that without economic freedom there cannot be political freedom, and that lacking economic security no man can be regarded as economically free. But, even if these admissions be granted, it will be contended that, by and large, we in this country do have institutions that may properly be described as democratic. It is not to my purpose to dispute these contentions. Nor shall I attempt to determine what characteristics are essential to democracy. It is enough if it be granted that it lies in our national temper to dislike obvious governmental restrictions. We like to feel ourselves to be free. In short, we value civil liberties. (249)

Here 'freedom' means something like the 'means conducive toward democratic life,' including economic, political, and civil means. So, one might think that by a 'free mind,' Stebbing also means 'the mental state conducive, at least in part, toward a democratic life.' I think this is what she does mean (as I will show in the next paragraph.) But, somewhat confusingly, Stebbing goes on to write, "I deliberately omit, however, any discussion of such political obstacles to freedom as we may encounter. I am not concerned with politics. My topic is freedom of mind. Unless I can think freely I cannot think effectively." (250) And so one might think that in so far as a 'free mind' has nothing to do with politics -- and democratic life is of political significance -- that by a 'free mind' Stebbing means something essentially private. 

But that would not be right conclusion, because she immediate goes on to write, "Here ‘I’ stands for any person. If I want to make up my mind upon any problem of political action, I must be able to deliberate freely. If it were in fact true that we were all politically and economically free, still it would not follow that we were possessed of the freedom of mind without which, in my opinion, no democratic institutions can be satisfactorily maintained." (250) So, by 'politics'  on the same page, Stebbing means not 'pertaining to political life,' but rather 'subject to existing political controversy' (in the sense of which "political measure" (254) to support.) For, by a 'free mind' Stebbing clearly means a key, effective ingredient that makes public deliberation possible and so is conducive to democratic institutions, that is, political life in the institutional sense (but not in the humdrum sense of a 'subject of political controversy').

So, clarity is a skill conducive to the kinds of agency involved in public deliberation of a sort that maintains democratic institutions or democratic way of life. And by 'democracy' Stebbing means a participatory one that is exercised in voting but also (as her examples in the book make clear) in the formation of public opinion of the sort familiar from British parliamentary democracy. As she puts it 'democratic government' is more than just "the consent of the governed," -- this she thinks is actual in British political life -- but rather it means that "the voice of the people prevails." (254) The latter she denies exists because the British populace lacks freedom of mind.

Now, as Stebbing notes, her book has emphasized obstacles to such freedom: "the difficulty of freeing our minds from blinkers, the difficulty of resisting propaganda and of being content to be persuaded where we should have striven to be convinced, the difficulties of an audience dominated by an unscrupulous speaker and the difficulties of a speaker who has to address an audience that is lazy and uncritical – in short, the difficulties created by our stupidity and by those who take advantage of that stupidity." (250) But in the epilogue she focuses on "the difficulty of obtaining information – the difficulty of knowing how to discover reliable testimony." And by this she means, in particular, the way the press shapes access to information.

In light of the concentrated ownership of the press, and its interests in withholding or shaping such information, and in light of many examples of partial or biased reporting that Stebbing discusses, Stebbing concludes:

I am forced to say this; if my belief in the reliability of the testimony is false, then I am not free to decide. If such information as I have is not to be trusted, then I lack freedom of decision. For this reason, those who control the Press have power to control our minds with regard to our thinking about ‘all public transactions’. A controlled Press is an obstacle to democracy, an obstacle that is the more dangerous in proportion as we are unaware of our lack of freedom. (253)

The implication being that the British seem to think that they have free minds, but in reality -- because they do not reflect on the conditions that shape their access to the information salient to public life and do not seem perturbed by their controlled press -- they are not. They "acquiesce" in rule by a narrow elite, "the ruling class," whose decisions "control us." (254) Empirically, Stebbing echoes, thus, the sociological thesis (associated with Pareto, Mosca, and Michels) that one can have elite rule even in a functioning parliamentary democracies. Unlike the Italian elite school, she deplores this situation. 

Now, it is natural to read Thinking to Some Purpose, and come away thinking that to think clearly and to become free requires a lot of very time-consuming individual effort at self-betterment. And one can certainly cite passages to that effect: "I do seek to convince the reader that it is of great practical importance that we ordinary men and women should think clearly, that there are many obstacles to thinking clearly, and that some of these obstacles can be overcome provided that we wish to overcome them and are willing to make an effort to do so." (29) She closes the book with the admonition that "I...would maintain that it is desirable that we should develop in ourselves a habit of sceptical inquiry." (255) These are passages where Stebbing, thus, anticipates Arendt's conception of democratic life.

But as the book unfolds and reaches its crescendo in the epilogue, it is obvious that Stebbing also thinks that there are many structural obstacles to removing all such impediments to clear thinking. Even if one grants that Stebbing's rhetoric is designed as a kind of call to action (say to break up the ruling class monopoly on ownership of the popular press), somewhat disappointingly, she does not offer a program of how those obstacles can be removed while not undermining the possibility of a democratic life in the deliberative and self-governing sense she advocates. (She does not offer any program!)

It is also not entirely clear on Stebbing's account what to make of a people that does not seem to wish to be free in Stebbing's sense, as she implies of the English: "The vast majority of English people want to be governed peaceably, and want to be free to pursue their own unpolitical interests." (254) This echoes Lippmann's (1922) diagnosis of the (American) democratic public in Public Opinion. It is worth noting that even if one agrees with Stebbing's diagnoses, the English are not irrational. For it is, in fact, very hard work to be free in the sense she advocates, and as the concluding paragraph quoted above suggests, she is explicitly aware of this. (In fact, I like that she notes how difficult achieving tolerance is.) In addition, given the obstacles to such freedom she diagnoses, it also seems rather fruitless and (ought implies can) not required or unnecessary to be free in the political or democratic sense advocated by Stebbing. To be sure, for many unpolitical pursuits such freedom, clear thought, will be necessary for effective action and within reach.

Given the many economic and educational preconditions required and the demands on our time and attention that a life of thinking clearly requires on Stebbing's account, it is a bit surprising that she does not explore the psychological, collective, or institutional means we might have to organize our lives in complex epistemic and political environments. For example, while I have no interest in defending the English or its ruling class (then or now), but if it's true that its "ruling class, [is] educated for political purposes, trained from birth to undertake the responsibilities of ruling" (254) then this does represent (one might say echoing Schumpeter) a possible, even rational response to the structural impediments to creating a mass society of free minds in the political sense Stebbing diagnoses (even if it is also a contributing cause to maintaining such political tutelage). 

In fact, Stebbing clearly thinks that attachment to a political party is a contributing source of bias and so of not thinking clearly. (This is especially clear in chapter 8, see p.  98 on party attachment.) Throughout Thinking to Some Purpose, she often uses politicians of opposing parties as examples to illustrate biased thinking. And by varying these examples she tries to be even-handed and entice her readers to discern the structural obstacle(s) to clear thinking she diagnoses.

It does not seem to occur to Stebbing, however, that part of the epistemic or cognitive function of parties may well be to provide useful signals in complex social and political environments for cognitively overburdened or agents without sufficient interest in political life. (One may well think that one of liberal democracy’s fruits is that such a lack of interest in active political life need not be irrational.) So, because Stebbing treats clarity as a property of individual minds who must almost possess the virtues of a stoic Spinozistic sage, she misses how in the division of (cognitive and economic) labor, we might well have strategies or heuristics that allow individuals to remain in partial darkness while being part of collectives that can act with sufficient enough effectiveness.*

• This first appeared at: <On Stebbing, Spinoza, and the Cognitive Demands of Political Freedom, Part 2 (substack.com)> a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

---

*One may well see the exact contemporary, Lippmann's (1938) The Good Society, as developing this strategy, and laying the groundwork for a research and political program for handling the problems diagnosed by Stebbing.

On Susan Stebbing and Clarity (with some nods to Carnap, Quine, and Ernest nagel), Part I

[I will phase out D&I at typepad. This post was first published at: digressions.impressions.substack here. To receive new posts and support my work consider becoming a paid subscriber at <digressionsimpressions.substack.com>]

When, back at NewAPPS, I first blogged about Susan Stebbing (1885 – 1943), a key figure in early analytic philosophy, there was almost no scholarship on her. Since then a fine entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of philosophy and a number of important scholarly papers and books have appeared. I take no credit for this joyous state of affairs!

My present interest in her work is to explore to what degree she helps us make sense of the nature of 'clarity' or 'clearness' so valued by analytic philosophers then and today. To do so, in this post I focus on Thinking to Some Purpose (1939), which was written for a wide audience (it was commissioned by pelican). This may bias our treatment of her views on clarity. But we have to start somewhere (and the book gives us some of her most detailed views on the matter).

The official topic of the book is announced in the prologue:

I am convinced of the urgent need for a democratic people to think clearly without the distortions due to unconscious bias and unrecognized ignorance. Our failures in thinking are in part due to faults which we could to some extent overcome were we to see clearly how these faults arise. It is the aim of this book to make a small effort in this direction.--Preface to the 1939 edition, pp. xxix-xxx*

It's worth noting that 'clear' and its cognates are used repeatedly through the book. Clarity here is a property of thought and perception. In what follows, I use 'cognition' as shorthand for both. Clarity seems to be a necessary condition for success at thinking (and action guided by it). In particular, clarity is the absence of distortions in thought and perception caused by bias and ignorance one is not aware of. Undoubtedly undistorted thought is what's being aimed at in describing something as ‘clear.’ But the suggestion is that known biases and and awareness of ignorance are not an obstacle to successful thought presumably because they can knowingly be controlled for. Crucially, clear cognition is a key ingredient for intelligence on Stebbing's view. (22)

It is an important question in political philosophy to what degree it really is necessary for a democratic people to have undistorted thoughts and even control for known biases. But I leave that aside here. (Well, I return indirectly to it at the end of the post.)

Presumably, Stebbing's interest in unconscious bias is prompted by the significance of political propaganda, demagoguery, and advertising (she groups these together as "rhetorical persuasion") and presumably also reflects the growing stature of Freudianism in the age. It is an interesting sociological-historical fact that interest in such bias was revived in recent decades in the context of concerns over racial discriminatory practices. However, for Stebbing an important example of such unconscious bias are (not the desires of our infant inner child, but rather) the "concealed contradictions" we acquire as members of a group. (p. 22) In fact, racial biases are one of the kinds she discusses.

Be that as it may, Stebbing's notion of clarity is not the only one that one can find in the analytic tradition. For Carnap (recall) clarity is an (aesthetic) property or by-product of formal systems, of constructed languages. Clarity in the hands of Carnap means to capture a kind of demand for transparency in one's inferential practices, one's commitments, and the use of terms (it very much hopes to prevent equivocation and polysemous use).  Carnapian clarity is really a second-order property of an otherwise esoteric, expert practice.

By contrast, Quine had a tendency, as Greg Frost-Arnold has shown, (i) to associate clarity with more general forms of intelligibility. In later years, Quine might argue that (ii) his program (developed in Word & Object) of the philosopher regimenting scientific language to exhibit its ontological commitments, may also be aiming at a species of clarity (about the 'ontology' of science), alongside systematicity.  He also (iii) came to think of clarity as a more general theoretical virtue of a system. 

What's important for present purposes is that neither Carnap's nor Quine's notions of clarity is aimed at or -- given that science is highly specialized -- apt for a democratic people. (I don’t mean to deny that Carnap was very interested in facilitating improved democratic life.) And while there are undoubtedly some family resemblances and overlaps between their notion of clarity and Stebbing's it's useful to keep them distinct (more on that below).

Interestingly enough, also in 1938, (recall) Ernest Nagel was concerned with the role of clarity in democratic life. For Nagel clarification is the development of canons of intelligibility and validity apt for (esoteric) special sciences, but also the making transparent of the methods and practices of science that generate warranted claims to ordinary people in part by showing how and the way terms/concepts hang together and function in a system of knowledge and forms of ordinary practice. In particular, the cultivation of clarity is a contribution to a democratic ethos that prevents mere reliance and dependence on authoritative experts and also ensures that calls to action are proportioned to the evidence on their behalf. (See here for a scholarly version of this claim.)

Again, while I don't want to exaggerate the differences between Nagel and Stebbing —they share in fact a pragmatist sensibility, and agree on the significance of proportioning belief to evidence and the important focus of the way we do things with reasonings --, it's important to see the contrasting notions of clarity at work here. In Nagel, clarity is something we do to specialist language and practices that, amongst other functions, can shape and diagnose features in ordinary life, whereas for Stebbing clarity can be immanent in and part and parcel of ordinary life. Not to put too fine a point on it, Nagel, Carnap, and Quine all share in the idea that there is some salient contrast between formal and specialist, regimented languages, on one hand, and ordinary speech, on the other. (How that contrast is characterized is famously a matter of substantive disagreement among them.) In this divide clarity is not to be found primarily on the side of ordinary talk. Stebbing is the outlier in thinking that clarity is not so restricted, but available, in principle, to us all. This is the first thing I wanted to establish today.

The second is that while Stebbing treats clarity as a property of thought and perception that is, in principle, widely diffused among ordinary people (she thinks we all have "some capacity to follow an argument" (21) and in a footnote hopes its not unduly optimistic (26)), she also treats it as a skill that can be acquired for one can be "trained to think clearly." (p. 4) Such training makes "rational argument and… reasonable consideration" possible. Stebbing's role in articulating a deliberative conception of democracy is worth highlighting.

Now what such training involves and who controls access to it are quite important, but I postpone discussion of her views to another time. What matters here is that the skill itself can, once acquired with "effort" (29), also be something that we control. (She emphasizes that have to wish to think clearly.) And, third, that a feature of the skill is logically sound argument (which should not be conflated with syllogistic reasoning).

In future posts, I want to make more precise and also explore some of the difficulties with Stebbing's conception of clarity. But it is worth noting two final features of it in this digression. Stebbing takes

for granted that to be clear-headed is worth while for its own sake. Without this assumption I should not have wanted to write this book. It is, however, enough if you will admit that muddled thinking ends in bungled doing, so that to think clearly is useful for the sake of achieving even our most practical aims. Unless you admit at least as much as this, there will be no point, so far as you are concerned, in what I have to say. Our points of view would be too different for discussion to be possible. (34)

The first feature is that clarity is not just treated as an instrumental value to democratic deliberative life. Stebbing values it as a private and presumably highly intellectual virtue or end in itself. (There are shades of Spinoza here whose work she knew well.) Fair enough, and not wholly surprising.

But it is a bit peculiar that she thinks her imagined interlocuter or reader must share in the commitment that "to think clearly is useful for the sake of achieving even our most practical aims." Admittedly, it seems odd for anyone to deny this in the most general sense. But it is not wholly unreasonable for such an interlocuter to also claim that clarity of cognition may often (perhaps always) be unnecessary to achieve our most practical aims (because relying on tradition, faith, instinct, testimony, or expertise/authority of others). And perhaps (admittedly there are shades of Hume and Nietzsche here) its our biases (or overconfidence) that help us acquire  our most fundamental, practical aims (which are always constrained by time and other resources scarcities). The real problem here is not the purported role of clarity in achieving our aims, but in Stebbing's insistence that muddled thinking must end in muddled doing. This has not been established. (It's hard to see how it could be established given how much has been achieved in conditions of ignorance and superstition.)

Now, what's odd is that in order to have discussion at all, Stebbing assumes assent on this very point of contention. And the reason it is odd is that in a democratic society we can't assume or stipulate agreement over such questions or ways of life including those that, to put it exaggeratedly, resist the clarion call of Enlightenment. My point here is not that one cannot help others see how useful clarity might be (and Stebbing is wonderful on this score), but rather that it must the potential effect of such discussion not its common ground.

• This first appeared at: <On Susan Stebbing and Clarity (with some nods to Carnap, Quine, and Ernest Nagel), Part I (substack.com)> a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Arendt and the Illusions of democracy

The success of totalitarian movements among the masses meant the end of two illusions of democratically ruled countries in general and of European nation-states and their party system in particular. The first was that the people in its majority had taken an active part in government and that each individual was in sympathy with one's own or somebody else's party. On the contrary, the movements showed that the politically neutral and indifferent masses could easily be the majority in a democratically ruled country, that therefore a democracy could function according to rules which are actively recognized by only a minority. The second democratic illusion exploded by the totalitarian movements was that these politically indifferent masses did not matter, that they were truly neutral and constituted no more than the inarticulate backward setting for the political life of the nation. Now they made apparent what no other organ of public opinion had ever been able to show, namely, that  democratic government had rested as much on the silent approbation and tolerance of the indifferent and inarticulate sections of the people as on the articulate and visible institutions and organizations of the country. Thus when the totalitarian movements invaded Parliament with their contempt for parliamentary government, they merely appeared inconsistent: actually, they succeeded in convincing the people at large that parliamentary majorities were spurious and did not necessarily correspond to the realities of the country, thereby undermining the self-respect and the confidence of governments which also believed in majority rule rather than in their constitutions.

It has frequently been pointed out that totalitarian movements use and abuse democratic freedoms in order to abolish them. This is not just devilish cleverness on the part of the leaders or childish stupidity on the part of the masses. Democratic freedoms may be based on the equality of all citizens before the law; yet they acquire their meaning and function organically only where the citizens belong to and are represented by groups or form a social and political hierarchy. The breakdown of the class system, the only social and political stratification of the European nation-states, certainly was "one of the most dramatic events in recent German history" and...favorable to the rise of Nazism....--Hannah Arendt (1951) The Origins of Totalitarianism, Part 3: Totalitarianism (Chapter 10: "A Classless Society"), New Edition, pp. 312-313. ]

I often return to the quoted passage. It's not unfair to say that quite a bit of existing normative and deliberative democratic theory (alongside much social theory) tacitly continues to adhere to the illusions diagnosed by Arendt. It's often treated as bad taste or, worse, a sign of one's reactionary sensibility to point this out. And if you don't believe me, recall all the good things that are supposed to flow -- as you probably also believe my dear reader -- from (say) the abolition of the electoral college once pure majoritarianism can work its magic.

While it is easy to be distracted by Arendt's argument for the functionality of social hierarchy to democratic political life, the key historical claim that she makes is that the ideology or commitments of governments (and the minority of rotating elites that can form one) are central to the survival of liberal democracy or parliamentarianism. And she implies that if (ruling) political elites had been less respectful of majoritarianism and more willing to defend constitutional government, the collapse of liberal democracy could have been prevented.

The point is not a historical (or moral one), but rather follows from her observation that [liberal] "democracy could function according to rules which are actively recognized by only a minority." That is to say, that as long as elites are willing to adhere to constitutional norms because these are part of their esprit des corps or shared ideology liberal democracy can survive. Lurking in Arendt's argument are the ideas of Pareto, Michels, Mosca, and Schumpeter. (She cites Michels a few pages before, and mentions Pareto in passing later.)*

Of course, the more fundamental point is that for there to be elites in the relevant sense, society needs to have the right sort of social hierarchy that maps onto political hierarchies as instantiated by political parties and social intermediaries. On her view liberal democracy is compatible with mass society -- notwithstanding Arendt's own recurring nostalgia for the ancient Polis -- as long as social differentiation can be made politically functional. 

I don't mean to deny that one could respond to Arendt's claim by arguing that if liberal democracy is to be secure one could also aim to convince the vast majority that it should adhere to constitutionalism. Surely civic religion -- with ceremonial pledges to constitutions not to monarchs/presidents/flags -- can be organized to promote this. And one may well believe that by serving the interests of the majority, constitutional elites can gain its approbation and support. I don't think Arendt would disagree as long as the elites don't assume that this is sufficient for constitutional survival (that's one of the exploded illusions).

It's pretty clear today that the enemies of liberal democracy are better students of earlier collapses of democracy than its defenders are. For in many countries they aim, while drawing on all kinds of conspiracy theories, to convince the people at large that parliamentary majorities are spurious and do not correspond to the realities of the country.  In fact, they relentlessly aim to show that all kinds of elites (medical, legal, political, academic, etc.) are 'out of touch' or 'in a bubble' or lacking in 'common sense.' (Recall also Michael Polanyi's diagnosis.) This is why the unwillingness to pay lip-service to abide by electoral outcomes, or to suggest that these are fictitious (based on fraud etc.), are themselves signs that one is unwilling to act according to the rules of democratic and constitutional life, but that one stakes one's political fortune on a truer reality.  

In larger context, Arendt is predicting that the spirit of totalitarianism is not defeated permanently in Europe because the grounds of its revival -- "isolation and lack of normal social relationships" (317) -- are not gone with the end of war. (One fears the pandemic may well be an accelerating cause.) In mass society the views of the fundamentally unpolitical majority are shaped by "all-pervasive influences and convictions which [are] tacitly and inarticulately shared by all classes of society alike." (314) And these convictions are even with a robust civic religion never fundamentally about constitutional life; they are about nation, religion, a cult of financial success, celebrity, etc. 

It may seem that Arendt rests her hopes on the prudence or interest of political elites in the status quo to fight off the would-be-usurpers. But as she notes, this cannot be expected when respectability and playing by the rules are treated as naïve (that is, when the gangster's practices becomes admired), and when constitutional order itself is taken to be the barrier to action and the true destiny of society. 

The Origins of Totalitarianism is not a manual for the survival of liberal democracy. In fact, as Arendt explicitly notes in the book there are, in addition to totalitarianism, more ways democracy can end (e.g., fascism, military dictatorships, plebiscitary dictatorship, etc.). But it's very hard not to read chapter 10 without coming away thinking that liberal democracy is doomed. Nearly all the examples she mentions of the anticipations of democratic decay in the arts and social culture can be updated to our age. And if one is familiar with Arendt's essays from the 1960s, one can't help but think this pessimism stayed with her. Yet, it's seventy years on, and European liberal democracy with its re-founded parties turned out to be much more robust in a mass age than Arendt seems to have thought possible. Why this is so --memory of the earlier collapse or a side-effect of cold war, American empire, years of prosperity, or a new kind of stratification (based on education) -- I do not know. Perhaps, social differentiation was made politically functional. But even in our post-post-modern age, dancing on the precipice of environmental catastrophe, it is worth figuring out.

 

On Wendy Brown's Undoing the Demos and the Homo Politicus of (Foucault's representation of) Ordoliberalism

The economization of the state and of social policy. The virtue of competition is that it generates economic growth, the promotion of which is “the only one and true fundamental social policy.” Foucault elaborates: In neoliberalism, “social policy must not be something that works against economic policy and compensates for it” or that “follows strong economic growth by becoming more generous.” Instead, economic growth by itself should enable individuals to prosper and to protect themselves against risk, so economic growth is the state’s social policy. Competition is a means facilitating an end; the state primes this means so that the economy can generate the end.
Neoliberal states thus depart from liberal ones as they become radically economic in a triple sense: The state secures, advances, and props the economy; the state’s purpose is to facilitate the economy, and the state’s legitimacy is linked to the growth of the economy — as an overt actor on behalf of the economy, the state also becomes responsible for the economy. State action, state purpose, and state legitimacy: each is economized by neoliberalism. The Ordoliberals carried this even further: the market economy should also be the principle of the state’s internal regulation and organization. Reversing the liberal formulation in which a free market is defined and supervised by the state, for them, the state should be defined and supervised by the market. In short, the state itself should be economized.
Competition replaces exchange; inequality replaces equality. In neoliberalism, competition replaces the liberal economic emphasis on exchange as the fundamental principle and dynamic of the market. This is another of those seemingly trivial replacements that is a tectonic shift, affecting a range of other principles and venues. Most importantly, equivalence is both the premise and the norm of exchange, while inequality is the premise and outcome of competition. Consequently, when the political rationality of neoliberalism is fully realized, when market principles are extended to every sphere.--Wendy Brown (2015) Undoing the Demos: Neliberalism's Stealth Revolution, pp. 63-64 (emphasis in original)

It is fair to state that Brown's Undoing the Demos is the most influential treatment of neoliberalism that simultaneously draws on Foucault's Birth of Biopolitics.  Brown is not uncritical of Foucault. In particular, in her third chapter she argues that in articulating "the novel dimensions of the contemporary neoliberal subject," he fails to register "its specific eclipse of homo politicus...[S/he] is not a character in Foucault's story." (85-86). This matters because the homo politicus "forms the substance and legitimacy of whatever democracy might mean beyond securing the individual provisioning of individual ends; this "beyond" includes political equality and freedom, representation, popular sovereignty, and deliberation and judgment about the public good and the common." (87) The underlying claim is that Foucault has (what the Anthropologists call) 'gone native' and that his analysis recapitulates some of the flaws of the neoliberal authors and movements he analyzes.

Now, in the passages I quoted from pp. 63-64, Brown is quoting from Foucault's lecture(s) of 7 and 14 February 1979, that is, lectures five and six, both primarily devoted, as Brown explicitly recognizes, to German Ordo-liberalism (or the ORDOs). And as a summary of their views, Brown's account is misleading in two very important ways: first, she misrepresents the 'virtue' of competition in their thought. Second, she misrepresents what it means for the ORDOs to suggest that the market economy should be the principle of the state’s internal regulation and organization. 

First, for the ORDOs the market's main virtue is that it, if it is properly regulated, it is a mechanism against (what Samuel Bagg calls) 'concentrated power.' This is absolutely explicit in Eucken's central work, The Foundations of Economics, where the "main task" is to find a "system" that is "effective" and does “justice to the dignity of man.” (p. 314) For Eucken “economic history is [full] of brutal struggles for power.” (264) In the context of perfect competition we are least likely to be dominated (and when some agent tries to do so we can safely exit). By contrast communism and Nazism are characterized by concentrated power (128) and "loss of independence." (p. 268). The ORDO embrace of markets and their suspicion of cartels and (in the hands of Röpke, especially) very large corporations (as well as unions) is motivated by their aversion to concentrated power. (See also  Wilhelm Röpke (1960) A humane economy: the social framework of the free market, p. 32.)

It is worth noting that while Foucault does not use the phrase 'concentrated power,' it is still odd that Brown misses the significance of the neo-Kantian themes in Foucault's treatment of the ordoliberals and the republican concern with combatting domination. For, Foucault frames his discussion of modern variants of neoliberalism with a distinction between what he calls, at the end of the second lecture, "the fundamental axiomatic of the rights of man and the utilitarian calculus of the independence of the governed." (17 January 1979, p. 43) The former is associated with Rousseau and Kant, and the latter with Benthamite radicalism, and he is explicit there is a complex dynamic between them. And the most natural way to read his subsequent discussion is that Chicago economics is in the tradition of Benthamite radicalism (a point he explicitly makes), and the ORDOs in the former (a point he makes by implication by treating them as neo-Kantians). I return to the significance below.

Second, to think that for the ORDOs "the state should be supervised by the market" is not altogether strange in light of some of Foucault's expressions.* But even in Foucault, it is completely clear that for the ORDOs the state must have independent capacity and knowledge to be an umpire over the market (in terms of anti-trust), and to create the pre-conditions (in terms of rule of law, and social skills) to make markets function properly. (See, especially, lectures 6- 7.) So, what's going on here?

Now, it's important to recognize that that in Brown's presentation above, 'competition' becomes synonymous with 'market economy.' And so when Foucault represents the ORDOs as emphasizing competition, even treating it as a principle of regulation of the state, it is quite natural to read this as suggesting a kind of total displacement of the state's political functions with principles of the market. And this natural reading is by no means odd, if we look at the rhetoric (and some of the practice) of New Public Management in subsequent decades. Brown herself recognizes that in some respects this is much closer to the Chicago school than the ORDOs (see, especially, p. 60).

Even so, at the political level, 'competition' does not have to be identified with 'market economy.' It is quite natural to treat elections as competitive mechanisms. In fact, in ordo-liberalism one will find defenses and legitimations of the market economy or the price system in terms of a referenda. In 1951 Röpke writes "The process of the market economy is like an uninterrupted referendum on what use should be made (at every minute) of the productive resources of the community." ("The Problem of Economic Order" (Third lecture), published in Two Essays by Wilhelm Ropke, edited by Johannes Overbeek, Lanham: University of America Press, 1987, p. 26) Even Hayek, who allows himself plenty of skeptical comments about democracy, thought that judicial review of the sort practiced Stateside ought to be complemented by a referendum (see The Constitution of Liberty, p. 286, a work that Foucault read carefully). Röpke, especially, held up Switzerland as a model to be emulated by a wider European Union.

Now, at this point one may object that Ordoliberalism also has considerable suspicion of pure democracy or what Brown tends to call the popular sovereignty of the demos. While I think this tends to get emphasized too much in critical discussions of the ORDOs -- they are fully committed to democratic politics of the Bonn and Berlin republics (and as Foucault notes their political allies tend to win elections in it, and German social democracy had to change character/ideology if it wanted to win elections!) --, it is undeniably true that the ORDOs have some suspicion of the rent-seeking that takes place through political life and the (collectivist) temptation to use state power to plan and direct the economy. This, too, is emphasized in Foucault through the significance of the road to serfdom thesis in his analysis of them.

But the ORDOs respond to this (and this echoes Lippmann's analysis) not just by emphasizing markets and the rule of law, or even the countervailing powers of civil society, but rather by what one may call the fragmentation of the polity by way of federalism and de-centralization. (This is also quite present in Chicago economics starting with Simons.) Foucault is absolutely explicit on this:

Such a Gesellschaftspolitik was therefore orientated towards the formation of a market. It was a policy that had to take charge of social processes and take them into account in order to make room for a market mechanism within them. But what did this policy of society, this Gesellschaftspolitik have to consist in for it to succeed in constituting a market space in which competitive mechanisms could really function despite their intrinsic fragility? It consisted in a number of objectives which I have talked about, such as, for example, avoiding centralization, encouraging medium sized enterprises, support for what they call non-proletarian enterprises...(Lecture 10, 21 March 1979, pp. 240-241--emphasis added)

In addition, Foucault treats the ORDOs as the heir of Kant's federal plan for perpetual peace, and he inscribes this idea into the ORDO significance to the construction of the European Union. (In fact, he is quite prescient about this.) So, on their view of politics it should be polycentric with federalism at the national and European level. Now, admittedly Foucault doesn't use the term (despite quoting Michael Polanyi), but unless one assumes that neoliberalism is committed to creating economic markets at all levels, the fact that 'competition' has a political significance is very hard to miss in Focault's treatment of the ORDOs.

So, rather than rejecting homo politicus, as Brown ascribes to Foucault and the ORDOs, the ordoliberals ask of her to participate in political life at different federal levels and with elections at different times. And to do so in a position of sufficient independence (and dignity) so that her political voice can express her interests and even her vision of the common good. Especially in Erhard (who Foucault discusses at length in lecture four) this also involves a defense of basic rights. 

Now, obviously, it is possible that the homo politicus of the ORDOs is too thin and too liberal for the more substantive conception that Brown adheres to. Gesellschaft can mean 'enterprise'/'corporation,' but also 'society.' And a politics that defends and organizes society may be too bourgeois for Brown. There is no doubt that the ORDOs are comfortable with the existence of considerable economic inequality, although not so much inequality that this can be organized to extract rents or to become a source of concentrated power.

And while it is true that economic growth is very significant to the ORDOs. In Foucault's analysis this is so because it can create (what since has come to be called) 'output legitimacy.' And this legitimacy is explicitly treated as a form of representativeness. For, the output legitimacy (which involves economic growth is the effect of respecting "the basic freedoms, the essential rights of citizens" and thereby be "representative of its citizens." (31 January, 1979, p. 81, discussing Erhard.) As Foucault puts it "it is simply a matter of saying that a state which abuses its power in the economic realm, and more generally in the realm of political life, violates basic rights, impairs essential freedoms, and thereby forfeits its own rights." (p. 80) In reading Brown on ordoliberalism, and her account of Foucault's treatment of it, one would simply miss this tight connection between respecting homo politicus and advancing (a new conception of) homo economicus.+ 

 

Canon formation within Analytic Philosophy

One of the perennial complaints of philosophy teachers has concerned the dearth of readily accessible and worthwhile reading material in modern philosophical analysis. As a first step toward improving this situation we have prepared the present volume of selections. Our idea was this: In the tremendous bulk of the periodical literature of recent decades, there is a small percentage of articles definitely worthy of reproduction in an anthology. This material required only proper grouping to provide a usable text for intermediate and advanced courses or seminars.
The project in preliminary form was presented by circular letter to about ninety teachers of philosophy in this country and in England. We asked for responses to our proposed selections, that is, endorsements or rejections of titles contained in a list of about 130 items. We also asked for recommendations of valuable material that we might have overlooked. We are pleased to acknowledge with sincere gratitude the enthusiastic and most helpful reactions received from an impressive majority of our correspondents. Because of the limitations of space we had to exclude, with a heavy heart, several excellent articles by authors from whom we had already obtained permission for reprinting.
With the exception of a very few cases in which it seemed clear from the beginning that an article belonged in our collection, we have pondered our choices seriously and long. In many instances it was extremely difficult for us to make up our minds. The exclusion of any article which was either on our original list or had been recommended by our friends was painful; and here, as everywhere, to choose is to exclude. Recognizing in the end that it would be impossible to make our choices coincide with the valuations of all prospective users of this book, we can only plead that within the given aims and limitations we have selected what, after countless considerations, comparisons and consultations seemed the most suitable body of material available for reprinting.
We have been guided in our selections on the whole by the reactions and suggestions of our correspondents. Since some of our own articles met with a very favorable reaction, we felt it would not appear presumptuous to include them. Generally our tendency was not to concentrate exclusively on the work of the great and the famous thinkers, but rather to select on the basis of didactic effectiveness. Clarity, pertinence, incisiveness of presentation, intelligibility independent of too high a degree of technical knowledge, integration into the total pattern of the contents—these were the essential criteria for our choices.
The conception of philosophical analysis underlying our selections springs from two major traditions in recent thought, the Cambridge movement deriving from Moore and Russell, and the Logical Positivism of the Vienna Circle (Wittgenstein, Schlick, Carnap) together with the Scientific Empiricism of the Berlin group (led by Reichenbach). These, together with related developments in America stemming from Realism and Pragmatism, and the relatively independent contributions of the Polish logicians have increasingly merged to create an approach to philosophical problems which we frankly consider a decisive turn in the history of philosophy.
Although it is realized that there are no sharp lines of demarcation between this and other contemporary schools, we could not possibly have attempted to represent them all. Since the clearest and most helpful formulation of an idea is not always the first in order of time, or historically the most representative, we have paid relatively little attention to originality as a condition for inclusion. It was rather the penetration, the finesse, and the challenge of the work which counted most. In some instances we succeeded in grouping together divergent and mutually incompatible contributions around controversial subjects. We have tried to avoid definitely obsolete material. Certainly up-to-date-ness in any significant sense is not a mere function of date of publication. Frege, one of whose contributions we included, and Peirce, whose work is not represented because it is so amply available, have more to say to us than many who are writing today....
Courses and seminars in Principles of Philosophy, Contemporary Philosophy, Philosophical Analysis, Theory of Knowledge, Logical Theory, Philosophy of Language, etc., should find ample material for reading and discussion in this anthology. Although some basic articles in Philosophy of Science, Modern Logic, and Theoretical Ethics have been included, we can conceive of additional volumes of selections, very much needed, in these special fields. We express the hope that others will consider work on anthologies along those lines. May we assure them that such work, while arduous, is at least intrinsically rewarding.--"Preface" by Feigl, H., and W. Sellars. in Readings in Analytic Philosophy." New York (1949), pp. v-vi. [HT Alan Richardson]

An informal social media exchange with Jason Stanley got me thinking about canon formation within analytic philosophy. In particular, I started to reflect on the (temporary, but not trivial) dominance of philosophy of language within analytic philosophy such that many analytic programs organized proseminars for entry level PhD students around familiarity with certain classics of that field (which also includes semantics and some bits of philosophical logic). 

While I don't want to claim that the dominance of such philosophy of language was a contingent fact, it's worth noting that as this dominance developed others who were recognizably influential at the time within analytic philosophy, were pushing for, say, philosophy of science as first philosophy (e.g. Ernest Nagel), and one can easily imagine some others to have pushed epistemology in a foundational role (and certainly in some a background empiricism or sense-data theory does play a non-trivial authoritative role). The reason I deny it is wholly contingent is that, for example, axiology or aesthetics cannot have been, then, the dominant core.

Alan Richardson suggested that it would make sense to look at the textbooks of the 1948-53 period as formative. In particular, it is worth noting that, as Alan reminded [Leonard was one of my teachers] me, Leonard Linsky's (1953) Semantics and the Philosophy of Language, A Collection of Readings, clearly anticipates much of the early canon of the philosophy (of language centered) proseminar. Linsky's book is not the definitive canon -- it lacks "On Denoting" (and has no Frege at all) --, but I hope to discuss it some other time. 

But first I want to focus on the Feigl and Sellars text-book, which explicitly sets the agenda for the other textbooks, and simultaneously helps consolidate, roughly, what counts as analytic philosophy (or in modern philosophical analysis) and not. And, pertinent for my present purposes, they do so by using a kind of partial, snowball sampling method to create a canon of texts worthy of inclusion.+ 

To be sure, their grouping of who is included in the "decisive turn" -- (i) the Cambridge movement, (ii) the Vienna Circle, (iii) the Berlin group, (iv) American Realism and Pragmatism, and (v) the Polish logicians -- is not original. We find this nearly exact combination already in 1936 in Ernest Nagel's two-part essay on "Impressions and Appraisals of Analytic Philosophy in Europe."* And certainly there is some contingency in what gets passed on. They themselves note that Peirce would naturally fit their agenda, but with the benefit of hindsight, we see that as time passes on the opportunity costs to find a way to include Peirce into the fold grows so great that effectively -- with the exception of some of his informal essays in the philosophy of science -- he ends up terra incognita for analytic philosophers. 

The influential textbooks of the period are nearly all American. Presumably they were created there not just because it was at the time the wealthiest place around, but also because of the sudden demand due to expansion of Higher Education there. Feigl and Sellars are clearly anticipating fine-grained "courses and seminars in Principles of Philosophy, Contemporary Philosophy, Philosophical Analysis, Theory of Knowledge, Logical Theory, Philosophy of Language" etc.! (And note these are not intended as introductory courses, but "intermediate and advanced courses or seminars.")

One interesting claim that Feigl and Sellars make is that they selected "on the basis of didactic effectiveness. Clarity, pertinence, incisiveness of presentation, intelligibility independent of too high a degree of technical knowledge, integration into the total pattern of the contents—these were the essential criteria for our choices." This is a rare admission that the canon of analytic texts does not reflect originality, or historical priority, but didactic or pedagogic suitability. To be sure, I am not claiming this remains the case in analytic canon formation once analytic philosophy is suitably securely dominant (relative to "other contemporary schools"), but it is prominent at the start. 

And it is worth remarking that several of the features they explicitly mention are de facto rhetorical in character (e.g., "incisiveness of presentation, intelligibility independent of too high a degree of technical knowledge.") That is to say, these are the texts that will persuade students of many different grades of competence of the pertinence of analysis. Of course, it's left vague what counts as pertinence (or clarity, which by no means (recall) means the same in, say, Quine, Carnap, Nagel, or Stebbing). 

One may suspect that the previous paragraph is written in the spirit of unmasking. But that's not the case. It is essential to our self-understanding that we recognize that many of the standard intellectual virtues we associate with analytic philosophy almost as our second nature are originally pedagogical in character. And that is, of course, to be expected of an intellectual school. To what degree their origin in pedagogical (and recruitment) needs generates intellectual problems today, if any, is something I shall consider an other time.

 

Kate Manne, Himpathy, and some Adam Smith, Part 1.

[H]impathy, as I construe it, is the disproportionate or inappropriate sympathy extended to a male perpetrator over his similarly or less privileged female targets or victims, in cases of sexual assault, harassment, and other misogynistic behavior. Given that misogyny often involves punishing and blaming a woman for her “bad” behavior—bad by the lights of patriarchal norms and expectations, that is—you can understand himpathy as the flip side of misogyny; its understudied mirror image; its natural (albeit highly unjust) complement. Misogyny takes down women, and himpathy protects the agents of that takedown operation, partly by painting them as “good guys.”

Himpathy goes hand in hand with blaming or erasing the victims and targets of misogyny. When the sympathetic focus is on the perpetrator, she will often be subject to suspicion and aggression for drawing attention to his misdeeds. Her testimony may hence fail to gain the proper uptake. Instead, those who are himpathetic find endless excuses for the perpetrator.--Kate Manne (2020) Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women

Early in her (2018) Down Girl: the Logic of Misogyny, Kate Manne introduces himpathy as "the flow of sympathy away from female victims toward their male victimizers." (p. 23; see also this (2016) Huffington Post essay). According to Manne himpathy is itself an instance of injustice, but also a mechanism of maintaining an unjust, hierarchical social structure (patriarchy).

I like how Manne puts it in the sentence I quoted from Down Girl because attention is essentially a scarce, zero-sum phenomenon. And while some attention can be shared to some degree, this itself requires great art and often is imperfect. (Think of how celebrities try to generate attention for their favored social causes.) So attention challenges many of our most refined moral sensibilities not just because it is often bestowed on frivolous objects, but especially because it tends to rest on unworthy ones; when this happens it quite often, as Manne suggests, reinforces, worsens, or enables existing injustice. 

In her work, Manne understandably tends to treat himpathy as gendered. And nothing I say challenges that. But it's worth exploring the mechanisms that generate and stabilize himpathy. In reflection on this, I returned to a number of passages in Adam Smith's (1759/1790) The Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS).* Smith wrote in an age of great patriarchal social hierarchy. 

As an aside, while Smith's work was very useful to Wollstonecraft and Grouchy, and not characterized by gratuitous sexism (as one can find, say, in Machiavelli, Spinoza, and Kant), I don't think of him as an early male feminist (in the manner of, say, Poullain de la Barre or Toland) nor was he especially interested in the construction of gender (as Mandeville was) or a gendered critique of law (as one can find in Hobbes and Mary Astell). So, in coupling Smith with Manne, I do not intend to turn him into some kind of proto-feminist. 

Okay, with that in place, I quote and then comment.

The poor man, on the contrary, is ashamed of his poverty. He feels that it either places him out of the sight of mankind, or, that if they take any notice of him, they have, however, scarce any fellow-feeling with the misery and distress which he suffers. He is mortified upon both accounts; for though to be overlooked, and to be disapproved of, are things entirely different, yet as obscurity covers us from the daylight of honour and approbation, to feel that we are taken no notice of, necessarily damps the most agreeable hope, and disappoints the most ardent desire, of human nature. The poor man goes out and comes in unheeded, and when in the midst of a crowd is in the same obscurity as if shut up in his own hovel. Those humble cares and painful attentions which occupy those in his situation, afford no amusement to the dissipated and the gay. They, turn away their eyes from him, or if the extremity of his distress forces them to look at him, it is only to spurn so disagreeable an object from among them. The fortunate and the proud wonder at the insolence of human wretchedness, that it should dare to present itself before them, and with the loathsome aspect of its misery presume to disturb the serenity of their happiness. The man of rank and distinction, on the contrary, is observed by all the world. Every body is eager to look at him, and to conceive, at least by sympathy, that joy and exultation with which his circumstances naturally inspire him. His actions are the objects of the public care. Scarce a word, scarce a gesture, can fall from him that is altogether neglected. In a great assembly he is the person upon whom all direct their eyes; it is upon him that their passions seem all to wait with expectation, in order to receive that movement and direction which he shall impress upon them; and if his behaviour is not altogether absurd, he has, every moment, an opportunity of interesting mankind, and of rendering himself the object of the observation and fellow-feeling of every body about him. (TMS 1.3.2.1, p. 51 in the Glasgow edition)

Smith here diagnoses an especially calamitous feature of social life: [I] in a society characterized by inequality, the flow of sympathy tends greatly upward and monopolizes it ("every moment"). This is so even when evaluating analogous behavior: "In equal degrees of merit there is scarce any man who does not respect more the rich and the great, than the poor and the humble." (TMS 1.3.3.4, p. 62)**

And, so this produces, [I*] in an unequal society, the effect that those at the bottom of a social hierarchy naturally have a great deficit in sympathetic attention. This creates all kinds of emotional and social harms to the those at the bottom (including shame, lack of self-respect, and mortification). We are reminded that recognition is a human need. But [II] this deficit gets worse when they are in distress, because [IIA] their suffering does not receive the sympathetic engagement it might merit ("scarce any fellow-feeling with the misery and distress which he suffers") or [IIB] it actually generates antipathy ("if the extremity of his distress forces them to look at him, it is only to spurn so disagreeable an object from among them.") [IIA&B]  are both instances in which the lack of sympathy actually compounds injury. Because for Smith "we desire both to be respectable and to be respected" (TMS 1.3.3.2, p. 61) and the unfair flow of sympathy undermines both desires in a hierarchical society.

It's worth noting (a propos [IIA&B]) that for Smith the sympathetic resentment with the fury of an injured party is merited: because that fury is aimed at making the perpetrator  "repent of that conduct, and to make him sensible, that the person whom he injured did not deserve to be treated in that manner. What chiefly enrages us against the man who injures or insults us, is the little account which he seems to make of us, the unreasonable preference which he gives to himself above us, and that absurd self-love, by which he seems to imagine, that other people may be sacrificed at any time, to his conveniency or his humour." (TMS 2.3.1.5, p. 96) And so on Smith's view, as Darwall (1999) emphasized, [III] when we withhold sympathy from a victim, or those in need, we withhold recognition of their (equal) dignity. And this, in turn, can reinforce the sense of shame and lack of self-worth, etc. For a recent excellent treatment, I warmly recommend Michelle Schwarze's monograph, Recognizing Resentment: Sympathy, Injustice, and Liberal Though.

Now, above I have emphasized that these malfunctioning mechanisms of sympathy are the effect of social inequality (of status, of wealth, and of rank/honor). But, as we have seen, it is pretty clear that it also reinforces such inequality (at least of attention) and helps generate it. In fact, Smith himself is elsewhere also explicit that the unequal flow of sympathy is a motive for many to try to grow rich and famous (including the 'poor man's son'). And, as I show in my book (p. 14o), Smith is also explicit that this mechanism is a source of some social stability in a hierarchical society, even though we ourselves do not necessarily benefit from our "obsequiousness" to social superiors (TMS 1.3.2.3, p. 52).

At one point, Smith notes a particularly egregious example of [I]: when [IV] the inequality of the flow of sympathy is orders of magnitude larger when misfortune occurs to the rich and powerful than to ordinary folk: "Every calamity that befalls them, every injury that is done them, excites in the breast of the spectator ten times more compassion and resentment than he would have felt, had the same things happened to other men." (TMS 1.3.2.2, p. 52)+ As Grouchy notes critically (see her fourth Letter in Letters on Sympathy) Smith thinks we commiserate more with the fall from grace of the powerful because we already have an enhanced sympathetic identification with them (that is [I]). Grouchy, by contrast, thinks we have a natural tendency to envy the powerful, and rather thinks our inordinate sympathy with the rich and powerful when they encounter misfortune is [IV*] caused by our imagining that the mighty are ordinarily preserved from misfortune, and so when they fall they experience it worse conjoined with the fact that we sympathize more with such emotional pain (than either physical pain or any pleasure].

Now, Smith treats all of this as a "corruption," in fact, the disposition to "admire, almost to worship the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition," is "the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments." So, it is evident that Smith is by no means endorsing the mechanisms here he is describing, and actually finds fault for our inability to correct these corruptions. 

It's pretty clear that the social hierarchy Smith is describing is gendered (the actual examples of "The man of rank and distinction" are nearly always a man in Smith's account). But Smith himself pays too little attention to the fact. And as I show in a follow up post this lack of sensitivity to gendered nature of these mechanism creates problems in his account of chastity and rape (although these passages are also a bit tricky because they occur in a critique of casuistry).

But since I have gone on quite a bit already, I will close today's post with the observation that it is fair to say that if we take Smith's moral psychology seriously, himpathy piggy-backs on the kind of corrupted mechanisms that Smith has diagnosed exist in hierarchical societies and -- this is very much in line with Manne's position -- that it reinforces these hierarchies.