tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63312924674528607952024-03-28T00:20:46.619-07:00The Sooty EmpiricLast Positivisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677699402952932577noreply@blogger.comBlogger107125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6331292467452860795.post-91218337706313844692024-03-18T05:41:00.000-07:002024-03-18T05:48:09.278-07:00Facts vs Opinions<p>The American educational system <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/03/02/why-our-children-dont-think-there-are-moral-facts/" target="_blank">teaches</a> children to distinguish between "facts" and "opinions". A <a href="https://misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/article/fact-opinion-differentiation/" target="_blank">recent paper</a> in <i>Misinformation Review</i> has even made mastery of this distinction a marker of civic political competence. Per this paper facts are those statements that "can be proved or disproved with objective evidence" whereas opinions are those statements that "depend on personal values and preferences". I think this is a bogus distinction and should not have any role as a marker of political competence or as part of children's education. </p><p>Now, this is a topic other better philosophers have handled and I agree with their critiques. Corvino <a href="https://www.philosophersmag.com/essays/26-the-fact-opinion-distinction" target="_blank">outlines</a> the trouble with trying to draw the distinction in any coherent fashion. The NYT piece by McBrayer linked above correctly points out there is no way this could sensibly divide all claims in the manner sometimes suggested. Jenkins-Ichikawa <a href="http://blog.jichikawa.net/2017/01/facts-alternative-facts-and-definitions.html" target="_blank">points out</a> the kind of category error involved, how the distinction's contrast ironically encourages a confusion between reality and our perspective thereon. Douglas and Hawley <a href="https://data.parliament.uk/WrittenEvidence/CommitteeEvidence.svc/EvidenceDocument/Culture,%20Media%20and%20Sport/Fake%20News/written/48187.html" target="_blank">rescued</a> British youth from their cousin's miseducated fate by explaining to the government how this distinction does not actually help people sort lies from error as it was purported to do. (As, indeed, the <i>Misinformation Review</i> piece seems to be hoping it will do.) These critiques all seem right to me and part of the point of this blog post is just to have them linked in one place. Thus it is so.</p><p>But I want to add a more high level perspective to them. Because I think they do not address what it is that the fact/opinion dichotomy monger is trying to achieve by proffering their distinction. I think that in their best moments they hope ultimately to help us avoid certain kinds of pointless arguments - pointless argument, in particular, which bad faith actors may try and exploit. Where the bad faith actor is clearly wrong they will fool us into arguing about matters which cannot reasonably be resolved, and encourage us to shrug our shoulders and conclude with an indifferent whomst can say. Where the bad faith actor wishes to push an arbitrary perspective upon us they will act as if their mere preferences reflect deep truths rationality compels us to accept -- mind you I find that this way round is less often worried about in misinformation studies -- more on that towards the end. By educating people on the fact/opinion dichotomy, I believe, the hope is we can avoid this sort of civic manipulation. So in what remains I will explain why I think this a bad idea.</p><p>People should offer reasons in favour of the claims they want you to accept, but have the good grace to accept that not all disagreements need to be resolved. If for some reason it is important for us to accept a claim as the basis of action, but I doubt the pertinent claim, then you really ought try to persuade me peaceably and rationally. We may also argue for fun (who's a better captain, Kirk or Picard? Who was the better striker, Bergkamp or Henry? etc etc) and if we do that then the game will typically be more fun if you commit to the bit and actually offer decent reasons in favour of your preferred option. All good. But also you should accept that we don't always need to do this until agreement is reached. It's ok if we just don't agree re what is the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_America:_The_Winter_Soldier" target="_blank">best Marvel film</a>, civic peace <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_wars_of_religion" target="_blank">requires</a> we allow disagreements about the precise nature of the afterlife to go unresolved, the evidence simply <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation" target="_blank">doesn't settle</a> whether or not there is sentient extraterrestrial life so at some point we gotta just agree to disagree. Also all good.</p><p>If I am right, this is the distinction the fact/opinion distinction is trying to capture. Facts are meant to play the role of: things where, if we disagree, we should reasonably expect to come to agreement if all players respond to evidence rationally. Whereas opinions play the role of: things where we may faultlessly disagree, or at least where we might have to accept that rational persuasion may fall short of securing consensus. As per the above I am not opposed to that distinction per se - it's a good and important one and it's a kind of civic virtue of finesse to recognise when one is dealing with each type of claim. My problem is just that I think the fact-opinion distinction as so understood is a terrible way of characterising this.</p><p>The fact-opinion dichotomy gets things wrong in both directions. There are things which it calls facts which fall on the "let it be" side of the seek-reasoned-consensus/let-it-be dichotomy, and there are things which fall on the seek-reasoned-consensus side of the seek-reasoned-consensus/let-it-be dichotomy which it calls opinions. It is easier to give examples of the latter, since the former requires resolving an ambiguity which I shall get to in a moment. But re the former one can think of cases wherein a group decision depends on personal preferences -- should we buy pasta to cook this weekend or ingredients for a curry? My partner and I are faced with this choice reasonably often given our cooking repertoire. Clearly "what's best for dinner" is meant to fall on the opinion side of the dichotomy, but also clearly given our shared life and the fact we need to eat some kinda decision has to be made. We gotta buy something, and even "buy enough for us each to cook our own meals" counts as a decision we need to make together. And this will go at higher levels of seriousness too - I do not think we can agree to disagree re the permissibility of murder, we have to make collective decisions about what the best form of governance is, our shared public spaces have to look some way or another so I cannot be entirely indifferent to ideals of beauty. So on and so forth. Plenty of things on the opinion side are things which we require reasonable argumentation on.</p><p>Sometimes people here retreat to a kind of "ah but ultimately there is no disputing taste" on these points in a way that I think somewhat bad faith. So sure they will say I want you to think murder is bad, but ultimately that is... somehow... not the sort of thing I can rationally argue about if we just disagree on core moral claims, whereas facts are the sort of thing we can really demonstrate who is correct about. For one thing, whatever they say in these circumstances they do not actually act in their life as if moral or political or even what-we-shall-have-for-dinner argumentation is impossible. If you are reading this blog post I guarantee you are the kind of person who quasi-regularly engages in all those sorts of arguments, exchanging reasons in as rational a fashion as you can manage, on the regular. No different from other arguments.</p><p> Of course in these arguments someone may always be stubborn or find that when core premises just aren't shared they will not budge or... etc... but the same goes for arguments about matters of fact. I can no more prove to someone that Peano's axioms entail that 2 + 2 = 4 if they will not accept modus ponens than I can prove to someone that torturing puppies is bad if they will not accept that inflicting needless suffering morally counts against an activity. And do you really have a better argument in favour of such basic core principles in the factual case than you do the moral? The distinction between fact and opinion is certainly not that unlike with opinions shared premises are not needed to argue about facts, or premises in arguments about facts simply cannot be denied.</p><p>How about then the factual side of things? Here I think we must resolve an ambiguity in the idea of something being "(dis)provable by objective evidence". This might mean something like -- within our present capacities to (dis)confirm, given technical limits and degree of social cooperation etc. But then that is obviously going to misclassify a bunch of claims: it is not, in the intended sense of the distinction, a matter of opinion whether there is a teapot orbiting Alpha Centauri. But clearly we are not in a position to decisively (dis)prove that such exists, it is simply beyond the capacity of our best telescopes. (If you're about to take the teapot thing too seriously just imagine the claim is about an asteroid within certain dimensional parameters that plausibly may or may not in such an orbit.) And nor do I want to put all such claims on the side of let-it-be. We <a href="https://archive.philosophersmag.com/managing-our-uncertainty-in-a-crisis/" target="_blank">sometimes</a> are forced to act before we can (dis)prove certain claims upon which the decision must turn. In the time available we will have to seek reasoned consensus as best we can.</p><p>Instead, therefore, perhaps the claim is that those claims (dis)provable by objective evidence are those which we could, in principle, (dis)prove if our scientific and technical capacities were far superior. And I think that while this will probably classify more claims in the way the fact/opinion dichotomy promoters intended, it clearly does not capture the claims we ought to argue about. Because, of course, our capacities <i>are not</i> ideal, so there will be plenty which we would fruitlessly argue about if we were to focus on the facts so understood. And nor is that merely hypothetical! As a sort of inverse to the above point, it would be terrible to waste our time trying to settle whether future technologies could, in principle, resolve all worries with climate change -- if there is no practical path from here to those technologies that is simply a waste of time when action is demanded now. What in principle can be settled does not align, at all, with what in fact can be settled, and thus certainly not with what it is fruitful to spend our time debating.</p><p>The reason this dichotomy gets things wrong is, I think, because it is based on a folk epistemology and metaphysics that is ultimately ill thought through. According to this poor man's verificationism the world is fully independent of our ideas, devoid of evaluative properties, and as such knowable. Were we shorn of delusions and bias we'd all quickly agree as to what is the case, within the limits of our present scientific capacity at least. In addition to claims about this knowable world we express other opinions too; these may be more or less benign but they are ultimately just refined expressions of taste. Irritatingly enough though our biases, ultimately rooted in our emotions, often lead to these tastes interfering with our understanding of the world. The fact/opinion dichotomy is meant to help us stick to the knowable non-evaluative claims wherein we can reach rational agreement, and recognise the expressions of mere taste for what they are.</p><p>(If I were American I would also be inclined to argue that it is a subtle violation of the establishment clause, a kind of creeping metaphysical secularism wherein liberal neutrality becomes a metaphysical certitude. Certain religious traditions would have it that a great many things this dichotomy calls "opnions" can indeed be known through objective evidence, namely reading the plain words written down in certain holy texts. By teaching kids to think in terms of the fact/opinion dichotomy it seems the state is coming out against this perspective. This habit of converting political neutrality into a metaphysics wherein rationality demands neutrality is, I think, surprisingly common, and another reason I am <a href="https://sootyempiric.blogspot.com/2022/04/why-i-am-not-liberal.html" target="_blank">suspicious</a> of liberalism.)</p><p>Now I just think this is a bad picture of ourselves and our reasoning. The world <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fitch-paradox/" target="_blank">may not</a> be so knowable, facts are <a href="https://www.uio.no/studier/emner/matnat/mn/MNSES9100/h17/literature/introduction/hacking-ian---the-social-construction-of-what-%EF%80%A5-(1999).pdf" target="_blank">not</a> so neatly independent of our will, the "emotions are biasing" thing is <a href="https://aquarusa.wordpress.com/2017/07/03/incongruent-dichotomies-logical-vs-emotional/" target="_blank">overplayed</a>. But even all these philosophical disagreements aside, I think that outside of some moments of high minded epistemic idealism all this is in the end just a technocrat's delusion. They do not really worry about "murder is wrong" going in the opinion category because they are not worried about serious disagreement on that point. What they most want is a clear realm wherein their expertise is recognised and deferred to and taken as the common basis of political action. This is why they are less worried about false impositions of opinion than they are about relativising the things which ought to be taken as facts. Sometimes the political nature of the distinction is laid bare (witness this from the <i>Misinformation Review</i> paper: "Objective evidence is often quantifiable... and comes from verifiable sources and methods such as official government records" -- the American state as arbiter of what the facts are!) but more usually it is presented as simply a philosophical given, an obvious part of the conceptual landscape. And it is this underhandedness which bothers me. Here we have a grab for status crudely disguised by a toy philosophical distinction. Ultimately my objection to this distinction and the will to power it barely masks is that it is tawdry.</p><p><br /></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg2EnUl2XMQG2onZM5o5aoPw5Nq1rw_UqKWbm1oSmgNtCK_bXx0bIW3v7mYU_LcijyLHIZVdyXhM_arbl7DsHsNLX4Ez344sFf5weR5PxDu1c4LGaQmSHerkmNj1keXzGI9AMeTqltPk8rjAxfF5Ju-ZTWi5tKBvn5BYLNCJ0PH6Lhao0b1cbwRlt7jXZF/s1024/ColourContrast2.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg2EnUl2XMQG2onZM5o5aoPw5Nq1rw_UqKWbm1oSmgNtCK_bXx0bIW3v7mYU_LcijyLHIZVdyXhM_arbl7DsHsNLX4Ez344sFf5weR5PxDu1c4LGaQmSHerkmNj1keXzGI9AMeTqltPk8rjAxfF5Ju-ZTWi5tKBvn5BYLNCJ0PH6Lhao0b1cbwRlt7jXZF/w640-h640/ColourContrast2.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The ordered operation of opinion contrasted with the kaleidoscopic chaos of reality.</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p>Last Positivisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677699402952932577noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6331292467452860795.post-83186957222811587322024-01-06T04:47:00.000-08:002024-01-07T15:31:01.184-08:00Race and Fantasy<p>Starting the year off right with a reactionary screed.</p><p>One thing that regularly causes internet squabbles is casting of fantasy and sci-fi characters with non-white actors/actresses. There was a <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-rings-of-power-is-suffering-a-racist-backlash-for-casting-actors-of-colour-but-tolkiens-work-has-always-attracted-white-supremacists-189963" target="_blank">bit</a> of that for the Lord of the Rings show on Amazon, a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/oct/20/twitter-trolls-boycott-star-wars-black-character-force-awakens-john-boyega" target="_blank">bit</a> of that when Boyega was cast as Finn in Star Wars, and even (ok it's not really fantasy but whatever) with a recent <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/famous-five-bbc-reboot-enid-blyton-b2472229.html" target="_blank">adaptation</a> of the Famous Five. Since I am a huge nerd these often revolve around worlds or settings that I am interested in. So in this blog post I will try and classify the different kind of settings that this sort of thing can happen in and my broad attitude to what's going on in these cases. Now, of course, anything can be done well and anything can be done poorly, so ultimately a lot will depend on skill of the person doing the adaptation. Still though I think there are facts about how settings work that push in certain directions, and these should at least be taken into account. Still unclear what I mean? Well read on!</p><p>So divide settings up along two axis. The first is Gritty vs Fluffy. I think we're all familiar with examples of gritty sci-fi and fantasy since that has been more the fashion in recent years: for examples take Game of Thrones and The Expanse tv shows. Whereas fluffy I think of as places where a things are a bit more obviously... story book. Settings that might be very detailed and well-worked out, but which are not trying to be realistic so much as clearly embody important-to-their-genre narrative elements. Lord of the Rings and Star Trek would be my examples here: both extremely well worked out, and not lacking in tragedy and pathos, but where somehow the sort of <i>random</i> violence of Game of Thrones would be deeply out of place. (Note that by Gritty I do not mean Grim - in this taxonomy the iconic grimdark setting of Warhammer 40k would still be fluffy, since rule of cool governs so much of how it works. It also relates to the high vs low fantasy <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/3rzpsc/high_fantasy_and_low_fantasy_what_does_it_mean_to/" target="_blank">distinction</a> but I can't be bothered to work out how exactly.)</p><p>The next concerns how ethnicity works. Let's say something like... Race/Ethnicity is Informative vs Race/Ethnicity is Uninformative. So what I have in mind here is that in some settings the distribution of ethnicities one finds in a given place is meant to be informative about that place, it plays a role in the setting by telling us about the character of a place or people. Whereas in other stories it just doesn't really arise as a concern for people in the setting and nor would it tell you much about people therein to learn about their race/ethnicity. </p><p>(A couple of clarifications: I mean real world races/ethnicities here - it might of course be very important in universe to learn that someone is a Tallarn rather than a Catachan, but those are fake ethnicities, and it could well be that Tallarns and Catachans are themselves what we would think of ethnically mixed. Second, in cases where something is ethnically homogenous I will tend to think of that as importantly world-building. Sometimes it isn't and it happens just due to thoughtless casting. E.g. I think Lando Calrissian was written into Star Wars when it was pointed out that it was odd that all the humans in A New Hope were white and there didn't seem to be any in-universe reason for that; Lucas agreed, and hence a character was born. But I am gonna assume that most cases are not mistakes like this.)</p><p><b><u><i>Gritty and R/E is Important</i></u></b>: think of the show Game of Thrones or the film Princess Mononoke. These are settings which play race and ethnicity as genuinely informative about the world or the characters' perspectives. In GoT if a place is cosmopolitan in its demographic make up that tells you something - it is a port town commercial hub or there has recently been a wave of refugees, for instance. In Princess Mononoke the fact that the central character Ashitaka is of Ainu heritage, an indigenous population within Japan and considered ethnically distinct from the warring groups he later encounters, is part of what explains his outsider perspective and very different relation to the conflict that most others have.</p><p><b><u><i>Gritty and R/E is Unimportant</i></u></b>: for example think of shows Arcane or Wheel of Time. These are settings where there do seem to be ethnic differences that mean something to the characters in some sense. But they are never the differences that matter to the characters, the conflicts and identities people are invested in in-universe do not map onto anything like our notions of race and identity. So while the slightly more gritty edge to the stories told tends to mean its not just entirely handwaved, nor does it become a focus or point of interest.</p><p><u><i><b>Fluffy and R/E is Important</b></i></u>: I think here you might have the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings films, the Avatar cartoon show, or the Chinese drama Untamed. In LotR and Untamed the settings are largely ethnically homogenous but I think that is meant to be telling us something about the setting, that it is a fantasy Medieval North Europe or the sort of hazily-dated classical China world of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xianxia" target="_blank">xianxia</a> respectively. And in Avatar ethnic diversity is a very key plot point, since you basically have ethnic conflict -- which admittedly only loosely map on to real world ethnicities -- as a central source of drama in the original show (this mostly goes away in the sequel series Korra, but arguably returns in the last series thereof).</p><p><b><u><i>Fluffy and R/E is Unimportant</i></u></b>: for example think of various Star Trek series, the recent Dungeons and Dragons film, or on Netflix one could think of Dragon Prince, or One-Piece or the She-Ra remake show. In these settings they just pay no attention to ethnic differences, none of the characters care or indicate that in-universe there would be any reason to care, and so on the whole questions of race and ethnicity simply never arise. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiHI2-0p39fCgNd6JRilDtr1gB9L0rGLGOyEBC-fz6VEc0qsBUTV_5dCRDO5pSFS75S4iwbmJLbUzYdlhhAF3GU_Mg2iF9-GIzB6HRUxBlrPH5VSQt69sAhZ299MR15hpSGcWTQ-bQYpjrZGI2EAj6ia9KQOXGniehkloFtqLXxvwAz1pXlnJ3i0tMxEf-G" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1088" data-original-width="2004" height="348" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiHI2-0p39fCgNd6JRilDtr1gB9L0rGLGOyEBC-fz6VEc0qsBUTV_5dCRDO5pSFS75S4iwbmJLbUzYdlhhAF3GU_Mg2iF9-GIzB6HRUxBlrPH5VSQt69sAhZ299MR15hpSGcWTQ-bQYpjrZGI2EAj6ia9KQOXGniehkloFtqLXxvwAz1pXlnJ3i0tMxEf-G=w640-h348" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p><p>So already I think that just having these distinctions allows us to say something about the various controversies that arise on social media. First, I think there is basically never any reason to get angry about any particular casting in a Fluffy and R/E is Unimportant setting. So, for example, even though the claim that there was a racist backlash to Boyega's casting in Star Wars is somewhat overhyped, there was <a href="https://www.participations.org/15-01-10-proctor.pdf" target="_blank">debate</a> about how a black storm trooper could fit into the canon. And I think that was always silly. The Star Wars universe is not the sort of setting where it matters, it was immediately obvious you can just handwave any issues away (which they did! He's not a clone trooper he's from a batch of kidnapped child soldiers... which ok then raised other issues they dealt with very poorly but that's a separate matter), and everyone should just chill. In those sort of settings anyone can look like anything and if an explanation is needed you can more or less make one up on the spot (probs don't go for brainwashed child soldier tho) because it almost certainly won't matter. </p><p>Whereas for Gritty and R/E is Important you can't complain if people start to take the real-world racial analogues of issues that arise due to casting or portrayal. So, like, if people found this imagery uncomfortable...</p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh3VDSAgYJs6n4CQM6Qgq3ICpBEcYLD8bKeQvOr3nNec-vInSTx8Xu362Yrc4GADx3wb6T5AQUE3vihSUviXovvnc-LIV1v9BeKQSbbG3ah82XVzKs6KkJGLFklyNrexsxxYKHz7RwB0YbbXxWV5pk4wlKYx3tOYZMWwx0CgHbYUj57m5UHB4_ru7o9l38x" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh3VDSAgYJs6n4CQM6Qgq3ICpBEcYLD8bKeQvOr3nNec-vInSTx8Xu362Yrc4GADx3wb6T5AQUE3vihSUviXovvnc-LIV1v9BeKQSbbG3ah82XVzKs6KkJGLFklyNrexsxxYKHz7RwB0YbbXxWV5pk4wlKYx3tOYZMWwx0CgHbYUj57m5UHB4_ru7o9l38x=w640-h426" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Definitely not a white saviour fantasy. Something else entirely probably maybe for sure.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />... you're kind of on the hook for that. You made the setting such that the ethnicities of the characters were informative so the audience were primed to think about it and what it was telling us! Don't blame us if they conclude it's telling us a bad thing, that's on you for writing it that way.<p></p><p>The difficult cases, though, I think really occur for Fluffy and R/E is important. Note, for instance, that I put Lord of the Rings in that category. Now the recent Lord of the Rings tv show on Amazon did end up with a bunch of fan controversy about the ethnicities of the cast. And in return I think lots of people have the attitude that race does not actually matter here - if you can accept dragons why not accept that some elves are black? And I think I am somewhat in between those -- I don't think it matters so much to the central story that the characters be any particular ethnicity. As it stands Tolkien wrote a mythos clearly based on a certain kind of North European cultural background and so the default is to cast as if that is the setting. But if you wanted to say "actually in Middle Earth all the people who live in this region are black" then it wouldn't make any serious difference; if there can be dragons there can be black people in a North European climate, I grant that.</p><p><i>But</i> I do think it is a bit universe breaking for the setting to evince cosmopolitan diversity. Which particular ethnicity they are does not matter. But that long distance travel is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-Uz0LMbWpI" target="_blank">difficult</a> is, you know, a very significant plot point in this universe. And we get no indication that children do not generally resemble their parents. So it really seems like actually people should generally look alike, with whatever variation only local travel admits of! So it's not so much there being black elves which strikes me as odd, as there being some black elves and some white elves. What is up with that!?</p><p>I think the Fluffy and R/E is important settings end up crossing the streams a bit and that's why they tend to be the places where trouble brews. We're being told to handwave a lot and significantly suspend our disbelief. But something about the nature of the setting does suggest that the ethnic background or cultural groupings we see and recognise are familiar. The first of these facts makes it tempting, especially given a certain kind of antecedent liberal political commitment, to think that one can freely diversify the cast without worry. But then the second thing kicks in, the audience actually think about it, and there is some trouble. </p><p>(And of course some people are just haters and bigots who will never be satisfied - they then exacerbate the problem because to appear reasonable they will phrase arguments about the setting in one breath, while sending hate-mail to the actors in the next. They thus persuade some people to be concerned while also counter-polarising their opposition.)</p><p>Finally for Gritty and R/E is Unimportant I think it's basically just a skill issue. How much the audience will be persuaded to set aside or embrace any concerns depends on how well you immerse them in the universe you have invented such that the concerns of people in that universe come to seem more important than real world ones. In my opinion, for instance, Arcane did this really well, such that in the end the struggle between the Undercity and Piltover came to seem much more important than characters real-world-analogue demographic traits. Whereas the Wheel of Time did not, and I did sometimes find myself wondering about how the ethnicities in the universe worked in a way that I am sure was not intended - I was just not invested enough in the show's portrayal of the central conflicts to have them override and stop my mind wandering.</p><p>As a last note I think there is an interesting contemporary phenomenon in fantasy to trend towards the right side of the graph (race/ethnicity is unimportant) and maybe especially bottom right, fluffy and r/e is unimportant. Because it achieves two things at once. You want to get some points for Diversity and that means multi-ethnic casting, but not just out of colourblind casting - we are not meant to just pretend the black actors are playing white people, they are meant to be genuinely black and exist in a diverse setting. But also you don't have to do the world building to explain what is going on because the setting is fluffy and the ethnicities are not actually playing any serious role so that allows for a lot of hand waving. I think this ends up being rather shallow. They are diverse but not in a way that matters, and not in a way that even allows you to explore actual issues relating to race and ethnicity. There's no free lunch here, you gotta earn the diversity by actually seriously writing stories and settings that make sense of that.</p><p>So ok that is the first of my baby's first steps into thinking about race and fantasy series. Just a little taxonomy that I find helps me think about when I care about culture war flashpoints surrounding race and ethnicity in this genre I am interested in. Since I have written <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jopp.12290" target="_blank">before</a> about how we should try and come up with our own standards for when these things matter and when they don't rather than just being swept along by the culture war's enthusiasm and mass participation, I guess in a tiny little way this is me trying to make good on that ideal.</p>Last Positivisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677699402952932577noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6331292467452860795.post-76047038354287000392023-11-27T04:26:00.000-08:002023-12-29T02:00:15.344-08:00Philosophy vs Western Civilisation<p>A recent Matt Yglesias <a href="https://www.slowboring.com/p/thankful-mailbag?r=2mgje&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web" target="_blank">post</a> contained some discussion of concerns people have about the contemporary humanities. For those not subscribed he included a screenshot of the discussion in a recent <a href="https://x.com/mattyglesias/status/1728405687162827209?s=20" target="_blank">tweet</a>. The basic idea is that there are some core values underlying American society (the context from which he writes, but I think we can fairly generalise this to at least other liberal democracies) and that people expect educated people to be inculcated into these values. By way of example he mentions ideals of religious freedom and "a philosophical lineage from Plato and Aristotle to Hobbes and Locke and Mill and Rawls". He says that while it is good to hear about radical critiques of such ideas and such a tradition, and that can even be from some who endorse the critiques (intelligent advocacy for the view points being a good way of hearing them at their strongest) in the end the broader society will not long put up with funding institutions that are too hostile to these things. The contemporary humanities thus risk losing public support because they are dominated by people who buy into the radical critique of the mainstream. As such they are accurately perceived to be undermining (rather than inculcating people into) "faith in the main underpinnings of society".</p><p>I liked this because I think Yglesias expresses in plain language a concern many people have. I do not think the concern is well founded, and I say that as someone who has been working in humanities departments continuously since 2011. Of course my experience is limited. That has all been in philosophy, and even then a relatively small number of departments (I have personally been in Warwick, London School of Economics, and Carnegie Mellon University philosophy departments; while at CMU I spent extensive time in Pittsburgh's History and Philosophy of Science department. I have also been an external advisor to students in University of British Columbia, UC Irvine: Logic and Philosophy of Science, and UC San Diego, letting me get to know how those departments operate a bit). My impression is that people who have this worry usually think that philosophy is a bit different from the other humanities. So it is possible we are just talking at cross purposes and I want to acknowledge that. But none the less I think it might be informative for people outside the academy to get a glimpse into the mundane workings of an actual humanities department, and so I will use my experience as a guide.</p><p>At the LSE we make our course offerings publicly available, you can find the list <a href="https://www.lse.ac.uk/resources/calendar/programmeRegulations/undergraduate/2023/BScPhilosophy,LogicAndScientificMethod.htm" target="_blank">here</a> -- and masters students can take these and some others in addition, list found <a href="https://www.lse.ac.uk/resources/calendar/courseGuides/graduate.htm#generated-subheading20" target="_blank">here</a>. (The ones whose codes start with the letters PH are ours.) Various facts about our recent history (most prominently: until relatively recently being able to rely on our students taking courses elsewhere among London universities) mean our course offering is a bit more limited than is typical of philosophy departments. Primarily this means we do less history than is typical. Other than that I think we're a safe basis to induct from.</p><p>So there is some mandatory basic logic followed up by optional more advanced courses going into the (in)completeness theorems, modal logic, and set theory. Epistemology covering ideas about knowledge, various good properties knowledge might have like being reliable or safe (these are technical terms!), and an introduction to core ideas from Bayesianism and expected utility theory. Political philosophy is heavily focussed on debates within the social democratic liberal tradition, with Rawlsian students and respondents being heavily over-represented. Though of course older debates find their way in too, especially as we have within-faculty disagreement about Just War Theory, with both advocates and critics among our number. But there is a splattering of anarchist, socialist, and libertarian readings one will also find, so out-of-mainstream critiques do get a shoe in. (We are typical, alas, in not really having much by way of the Burkean tradition -- this is a real sense in which I think conservatism is under-represented in philosophy, but it is all the more galling at the institutional home of <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/oakeshott/" target="_blank">Oakeshott</a>. Though as of late we do include some chance to study Confucian ideas that are at least similar in spirit.) Debates about the philosophy of mind and the metaphysics of persons find their place. And finally we are somewhat of a speciality school in philosophy of science, so that is also unusually well represented among our course offerings.<br /><br />(For a while I personally taught a short module on the nature of truth as part of our big introductory course. Readers who know my general take on things may be amused to know I found students generally came away from this sympathetic to the <a href="https://sootyempiric.blogspot.com/2019/11/truth-in-culture-war.html" target="_blank">correspondence theory of truth</a>.)</p><p>Now of course all of these things could be taught from a perspective quite hostile to them, and so while by following the links you can verify for yourself that the sort of things I mention above really do appear in the course description that should not yet satisfy you. But I can assure you they are not in fact taught from the perspectives of cynics who want to tear them all down... though I also would not reassure you that they are not taught from the point of view of proponents who wish to get students to see the benefit of liberalism and rationality and the like. Rather, and this is my main point: that sort of advocacy-vs-attack perspective is just a bit of an odd way of thinking about the teaching enterprise as a whole.</p><p>For instance, at the masters level I teach a course called Evidence and Policy. We focus on how one can well use scientific evidence to guide policy in a democracy. So the students will do a bit of philosophy of science and a bit of democratic theory and think about how the two go together. I can't say that I spend much time praising democracy and science, but nor do I take the time to condemn either. We certainly do look at tensions, points where they mutually compliment and points where the good order of one may disrupt the other, and so on. But the question of whether or not students should prefer democracy to its rivals, or science to any other mode of inquiry, just doesn't really arise. That is not what that particular course is about. The course is pitched at students who already think there is reason to care about how science and democracy fit together; there are other courses they could take (on political philosophy or epistemology respectively) if they wanted to consider why that might be. And even in those courses you would find the baseline assumptions are those typical of "the common sense of the Euro-American middle class" -- such a starting point being as I have <a href="https://sootyempiric.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-end-of-analytic-philosophy.html" target="_blank">noted</a> before integral to the method of contemporary philosophy.</p><p>In fact, in some sense, what we do is really inculcation in the deepest sense. We do not persuade the students of the good of this tradition or these ideas, we simply immerse them in the debates around them. Their importance is demonstrated by the way they are the focus, even when we are thinking about criticisms or problems they are still the pole around which all else rotates. The occasional libertarian or anarchist epicycle does not really change the clear centre of gravity. And I think that centre point is just the sort of rationalist-y liberal-y post-Enlightenment kinda perspective that would lead a person to think that "ideals of religious freedom" and "a philosophical lineage from Plato and Aristotle to Hobbes and Locke and Mill and Rawls" are natural examples of the sort of thing that universities should be encouraging. Again, maybe philosophy is unusual, or maybe what people want is more explicit defence of these things (though I think they would not welcome the results of that should their wish be granted) rather than just courses that presuppose them. But I actually suspect that philosophy and the LSE are both in this way typical, and if more people knew this was the state of things there would be rather less culture war fussing about the academy. Though Burkean conservatives and genuine radicals would still have cause for complaint, centrist liberal types really would not.</p><p>Much as it is a mark of the monarchy's strength in UK public life that we so rarely debate their merits, so too the way in which these ideas are not really defended should not be confused with their being undermined or subject to hostile attack. So if one thinks of inculcation not so much as providing explicit defence but more along the lines of presupposition and immersion, I think we are still doing the thing Yglesias worries we are not and radicals worry we are.</p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaCWCaUVQRNjW9YVpbl_5o3ecUcQBaOKAQnMusQUpSORh00R-nrvXLNTc6aKSUdVGEXqRnZCQmBPBIC8jD53NrtjvUHGmR3mU34j1fi51Y5ENkwhTNMx_BmNnNYIkposAVlx5hf3YvXqubcAK4lD7Hq3WmOTZFWRo4b01LVHH6yrsHFfQfYbhfKo-Zvylw/s1024/LSE%20ClassRoom.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaCWCaUVQRNjW9YVpbl_5o3ecUcQBaOKAQnMusQUpSORh00R-nrvXLNTc6aKSUdVGEXqRnZCQmBPBIC8jD53NrtjvUHGmR3mU34j1fi51Y5ENkwhTNMx_BmNnNYIkposAVlx5hf3YvXqubcAK4lD7Hq3WmOTZFWRo4b01LVHH6yrsHFfQfYbhfKo-Zvylw/w640-h640/LSE%20ClassRoom.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I asked Bing's Art Generator to depict the typical LSE class room and the bastard did me like this</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><br /></p>Last Positivisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677699402952932577noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6331292467452860795.post-27072122531436929762023-10-02T08:39:00.006-07:002023-10-02T10:29:33.934-07:00 How I Am A Marxist<p>I wrote a piece before <a href="http://sootyempiric.blogspot.com/2022/04/why-i-am-not-liberal.html" target="_blank">explaining</a> why I do not endorse liberal politics or philosophy. One thing that came out of that was lots of people requesting I say something more positive. If I am not a liberal then what am I? Well I think the answer is Marxist, so I will take some time here to explain what I mean by that. Initially I thought this would also involve arguments for my view but this is already far too long. So as it stands I will just spell out the sort of things I agree to in virtue of being a Marxist (or, rather, the things that make me a Marxist in virtue of agreeing to them) and save for a later date discussion of why I think thy are true and how they contrast with liberal political thought. I will spatter illustrative links throughout though to sources that would follow up on or exemplify the connected ideas.</p><p>So what do I mean by Marxism? I am probably less fussy about this than some out there but I think we can list some core doctrines usually associated with Marxism and then say it's a kind of cluster concept -- if you believe enough of these and make them central enough to your approach to politics then gradually you shade into being more Marxist than not. What, then, are these core concepts?</p><p>(Thanks and shout out to <a href="https://www.hps.cam.ac.uk/directory/kent" target="_blank">Rory Kent</a> and <a href="https://nikhilvenkateshphilosophy.com/" target="_blank">Nikhil Venkatesh</a> for helping me out with this! Neither would agree with all or even much of this, to be clear.)</p><p><b>The Primacy of Class: </b>there is <a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/CICWDC" target="_blank">some</a> sense in which of all <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/du-bois-review-social-science-research-on-race/article/class-functionalist-theory-of-race/45DCC878E03F977116D4324C45876B97#article" target="_blank">social relations</a>, the most explanatorily important is the one whereby humans stand in a socially determined relationship to the goods and tools they need to perpetuate their own existence. So, e.g., it is very important indeed to explaining the structure and behaviour of hunter gatherer bands that in such groupings each tends to make and possess their own tools, and the application of those tools to the environment's typically available are usually not able to provide much surplus beyond what is necessary for subsistence. That fact about people in those groups is to be given some sort of explanatory primacy for many theoretical purposes.<br /></p><p><b>Historical Materialism: </b>the amalgamated capacity of people to produce given the tools and knowledge available to them represents the productive capacity of a society - this productive capacity combined with a fairly minimal notion of the incentives faced by people in that society (they don't want to starve, they on average in general tend to prefer comfort to misery, etc) will explain the economic form the society takes, and from this <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9781935408345/family-values" target="_blank">various</a> <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26927957" target="_blank">ideological</a> self-justificatory-stories. </p><p>E.g. if in a region the productive capacity exists just enough to create a surplus necessary to sustain a warrior band so long as some people are kept at near subsistence level then we can expect a few effects. First, societies which develop this warrior band will tend to conquer those which did not exploit the productive capacity to the full and so this social form will come to dominate. Second, slave labour is highly likely to develop as the warriors will want to opt out of back breaking miserable labour and have the capacity to coerce their miserable victims into the undesired status. Third, the sagas and self-justifying-stories of this society will be ones in which the strong must govern or shelter the weak, while the weak gratefully serve up the means of a comfortable life to their martial betters. This is of course very crude and totally made up -- but you get the idea.</p><p><b>Mode of Production:</b> Marxists typically think you can taxonomise different ways in which class societies operate according to the dominant "mode of production". This is basically how in a given region and era the technology, as well as legal and social institutions, come together to lead to certain patterns of commodity generation and distribution. So if in a society the population can only be sustained by most working on agriculture for just-above-subsistence level recompense while a warrior elite consume excess to allow themselves to bulk up and adorn fancy armour, there one has a feudal mode of production. This mode of production will predictably generate certain highly inegalitarian patterns of distribution, will show relatively slow levels of technical development, and so on, because there are strong constraints on what can be achieved within such a social form.</p><p><b>Dialectics:</b> a famously much contested term. Broadly speaking the thought that there is a kind of order to events, or the way various social forces will interact and co-cause events, that may be seen in advance and used to explain and predict things. In particular this order involves the clashing of opposed forces, and the resolution of their conflict depending on the balance of power available to involved parties - inevitably giving way to new conflicts as the status-quo-post turns out to generate its own opposed forces. </p><p>An example of the thought being something like: the martial landed aristocracy of feudal era Europe required a trade infrastructure to maintain their supply lines and ensure access to the goods they were accustomed to. But given the kind of capital investment this required at the time (ships, armed guards for convoys, etc) and the length of time one had to wait for payoffs to investments this required a merchant class of considerable wealth. This merchant class thus had accumulated wealth while feeling constrained within a social form that gave heavy legal and informal preference to the martial aristocracy. This led to social conflicts wherein at first the merchant class were only able to win some concessions (say the ability to buy their way into titled status being recognised). But as technology developed and suddenly the differences in wealth between the landowning aristocracy and the capital-heavy merchants became comically imbalanced in the merchant's favour, the returns on capital spiralling up as they did, the balance of power shifted. Sea-faring technologies and improved navigational skill opened up <a href="https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/a-response-to-michael-walzer/" target="_blank">new markets and new peoples and places to exploit</a>. Even more so as weapons technology developed to a point wherein the near invulnerability a well armoured knight had enjoyed when faced with poorer combatants simply vanished. As such conflicts between the aspirant merchant class and the old gentry began to tip more and more in the former's favour, until eventually across Europe the whole social order that had favoured the martial aristocracy was <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/13661/the-world-turned-upside-down-by-christopher-hill/9780141993133" target="_blank">overturned</a> and replaced with one favouring the capital owning merchant class.</p><p>This is meant to illustrate dialectical explanations at work. Social changes (merchants being able to buy their way into power, the transition from feudalism to capitalism) were explained by the contradictions of a previous social order (a feudal system governed by a martial landowning elite requiring wealthy supply-chain-handling middle men whose interests did not always align) generating conflicts, and as the productive forces began to make certain possibilities available the balance of power shifted and so the resolution of those conflicts came more and more to favour one party until they were able to win a decisive victory. At that point a new status quo was established (broadly speaking: liberal capitalist states) and it too would generate its own contradictions.</p><p><b>The Labour Theory of Value:</b> I mention this because even though the theory was never thought to be distinctively Marxist, rather an instance of Marx behaving like a classical economist, it has historically been so much associated with Marxists. In fact I think it is both a mistaken theory and a mistake to associate with Marx, but first let's go through the idea.<br /><br />At first blush the labour theory of value seems like a theory of price, to whit: the price of a good is to be explained by the amount of socially necessary labour time required to bring that good to market. It answers questions like: why is your fancy iphone more expensive than a packet of crisps? Well because the supply chains, heavy equipment, specialised labour, sheer mass of skilled labour, etc etc, necessary to bring that iphone to the point where you could purchase it are simply much vaster and more complex than the equivalent necessary to grow, fry, and salt the potatoes in your crisps, as well as package them in the plastic. So far so good.</p><p>Except the theory as such is subject to immediate and kind of obvious counter-examples. Note how the price of shovels goes up when a snow-storm is anticipated even though the anticipation of a snow storm has done nothing to change the socially necessary labour time involved in producing those shovels. Hence sophisticated proponents of the theory are/were (as far as I can tell) universal in asserting that despite appearances and some loose talk it is not a theory of price, it is a theory of value, which is related to but distinct from price. </p><p>Now it turns out that Marx actually agreed that the labour theory of value faced problems beyond that. The widespread belief that he endorsed it coming from the structure of his work, wherein he initially took on board the labour theory of value as a starting assumption and only as an end result of detailed analysis was to dismiss it as too simplistic - <a href="https://davidharvey.org/2018/03/marxs-refusal-of-the-labour-theory-of-value-by-david-harvey/" target="_blank">this</a> widely influential recent essay discusses the matter well. Simplified version of his objection being: for economic value to exist at all one needs in place a whole set of institutions of governance and trade and exchange, as well as social relations delineating how pies are to be divided. Their character will vastly affect (because in part they constitute) the value of commodities. Labour power alone does not suffice to congeal into economic value. </p><p>So far I am with Marx! But Marx was not a value sceptic, he simply thought a more complex theory was needed. What I suspect underlies the felt need for this notion, and what I think it gets right, is the desire to clearly distinguish between use and exchange value. The thought being that price in a market does not adequately capture commodities' actual utility and value to human life. This is quite right, but I am not sure we need a complex theory of value to be able to assert as much. It is already idiomatic that some people know the price of everything and the value of nothing, and that suggests a common rough and ready appreciation of the distinction. Contemporary Marxology expends much energy on what exactly this value thing is, and what Marx thought it was. For my part, I am not particularly invested in any theory and (perhaps mistakenly) am yet to see why this particular component is really necessary.</p><p><b>The Theory of Exploitation: </b>this idea is sometimes expressed normatively and other times more as just a persuasive definition. The <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2265068" target="_blank">theory</a> says that the degree to which a group is subject to economic exploitation is the size of the gap between how much workers produce through engaging in labour for a firm and the share of revenue they take home in the form of their paycheques. </p><p>Marxists have been especially interested in how this kind of exploitation can be more or less opaque in a given social structure. So in a simplified image of feudal life the peasants of a given town do the work of sowing and reaping and storing the grain in a house. Then some people on horses with crossbows turn up and take away a ten percent of that as the tithe to the local lord. In this social form it is just obvious that a certain portion of the labour performed by the peasants, as concretised in the resulting grain, is crudely appropriated by their social betters. Whereas a wage relation in a capitalist economy, the thought goes, makes this much less plain - one doesn't work on the assembly line to make a certain amount of chairs, sell those off, then give the proceeds back to the capitalist minus your wage. Instead you agree to a wage in advance and do not actually see the revenue come in and get divided, so at no point is it simply obvious that what the workers get back is less than they collectively generated.<br /><br />Note the exploitation relationship is pretty key to another core concept, that of <b>domination</b>. This is the idea that the only way one group could get away with doing that to another is if they enjoyed some pretty hefty advantages, the ability to coerce, compel, or swindle them somehow. The reason many Marxists are so interested in <a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/CICSDI" target="_blank">theories of</a> <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691180816/marxs-inferno" target="_blank">Republican</a> <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1474885119847606" target="_blank">freedom</a> on the one hand, <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674980822" target="_blank">and</a> <a href="https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/disp-2018-0007" target="_blank">ideological</a> hegemony on the other, is essentially part of working out what such domination amounts to and how it might be perpetuated.</p><p><b>Alienation and Flourishing:</b> another of the more normative ideas associated with Marxism. Here the thought is that as creatures we have certain ways of life within which we would flourish. Typically Marxists think of this as one in which we can throw ourselves wholeheartedly into (often shared) projects that we value and genuinely identify with our activities, feeling a sense of connection to both the process and output of our work -- that it expresses our genuine desires, reflects our will, and is what we would want to have spent our time upon. Note here the emphasis on the collective - our desires, what we would want, etc. Flourishing on Marxist views is importantly <a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/SAMAIR" target="_blank">communal</a> and based in <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=33817" target="_blank">solidarity</a>, it's about how we come together to enable, co-constitute, and give aid and support, helping one another live.</p><p>To be able to engage in such activities regularly as a matter of course is to flourish. (What if someone really just loves mass murder, you ask? In a society that actually promotes flourishing people will not tend to develop such anti-social desires, Marxists rather optimistically answer.) <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/philosophy/article/abs/surveillance-capitalism-a-marxinspired-account/7D5E944ADC9D9C491D28660DF24EE7EB" target="_blank">We are alienated</a> when the way we spend our time, our life's work and our day to day activities, are not expressive of our actual desires or will, and the output of our work does not appear to us as something we wholeheartedly can endorse as ours, but is in fact... well, alien, other, somehow distanced and abstracted from us. Spending one's working days in alienating and alienated labour said to be the typical state of a labourer under capitalism. </p><p><b>The Dictatorship of the Proletariat: </b>while famously reticent about saying what comes next and how we get there, one of the suggestions that stuck with Marxists is the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat. For Marx this was modelled on a rather strange amalgamation of Roman military catastrophes and the behaviour of the Paris Commune. The thought is that during the transition out of capitalism there would be a sort of emergency government by working people who captured the state and ran it in line with their own interests. This was not intended to be a permanent state of affairs (just as the Roman military dictator was supposed to step aside and restore the normal constitutional order once the emergency that prompted their appointment was over) but rather a process of winding down the state all together. As I have said Marx personally seems to have <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Moral_Psychology_of_Admiration/A-XaDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Revolutionary+Admiration,+Vanessa+Wills&pg=PA113&printsec=frontcover" target="_blank">much admired</a> the intensely democratic Paris Commune, but this idea has somewhat (in)famously been adapted to the of a revolutionary vanguard party acting qua representatives of the workers in administering their dictatorship. Hmm.</p><p><b>The Theory of the State:</b> why would the state wind down you ask? Well because many Marxists have a certain theory of the state according to which it is the organised expression of the dominant class, the means by which they can coordinate and see their shared interests realised. Since the working class will ultimately seek (so Marx thinks) to create a society without class distinctions, they have no need for a state in the long run. When there is no dominant class it needs no coordination.</p><p>This attitude to the state, the conviction that it is a means by which the ruling class express their will, is often generalised into a theory of institutions more broadly. There is a general distrust of powerful bodies that presently dominate social life - after all, for them to occupy the role they do, they must have been able to make their peace with capital's domination somehow. Likewise <a href="https://sociologica.unibo.it/article/view/10823/10981" target="_blank">the stories they come up with</a>, <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/710781" target="_blank">the ideologies and so called moral codes</a>, are all held under suspicion. As are the people telling those stories.. This of course goes for academics too, and so I am at risk of disappearing in a puff of <a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/RAIMAT" target="_blank">self-refuting</a> logic.</p><p><b>Anti-Utopianism:</b> finally and perhaps most (in)famously there is a general tendency among Marxists to be wary of utopian thinking. Suspicious of working with high flung ideals far removed from the actual world and its grubbiness, suspicious of starting up ideal societies within the husk of the old world and hoping moral suasion would see them spread, suspicious of deontic idealistic political pronouncements rather than strategic responses to the present balance of power, suspicious of setting up "cookbooks for the future" wherein the perfect society is detailed at length by someone who has only ever lived in a bad society. It is expressed in many ways, but the overarching theme is one of keeping one's ear to the ground, not getting lost too much in abstractions. This one makes it very hard to survive in analytic philosophy let me tell you.</p><p>Now put simply the sense in which I am a Marxist (-Luxemburgist, as it shall turn out) is because I find most of these ideas plausible and some of them are central to my worldview. I think in terms of the taxonomy of modes of production, I agree with the <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jopp.12290" target="_blank">primacy of class</a> and <a href="http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/20664/" target="_blank">historical materialism</a> as explanatory theories, I think the theory of exploitation and attendant theorising about domination capture normatively vital features of our social life, I think we have so <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hast.1293" target="_blank">arranged things</a> that people do not flourish as they could and this is deeply regrettable, and I believe <a href="http://www.webdubois.org/lectures/DuBois;OfTheRulingOfMen.html" target="_blank">worker power over the means of production</a> is a vital to amending this.</p><p>Now, even besides the Labour Theory of Value I demure on some points. For instance I do think dialectical thinking is a good way to frame social explanations and a good heuristic for understanding how a system will change. Begin by thinking to yourself: ok what are the various groups and forces involved, how are they arrayed, what power and resources do they have to bring to bear, what can they compromise on... and so forth. But I think dialectics is often overhyped in Marxist circles, and when I read things like Engels claiming that dialectics is basically just another law of nature because of <vague analogies one can draw to bio-physical phenomena> I mostly just roll my eyes. Another point of disagreement I encounter is that often dialectics is given a more Hegelian read - while I have less problem with that (I was fascinated by Pippin's account <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/H/bo29203261.html" target="_blank">here</a>) ultimately I just don't really see a use for the more distinctively Hegelian elements in understanding the material world. </p><p>Other times my disagreements will be one of interpretation, albeit they can be politically vital. For instance implementing the vanguardist read of the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat has, I think, led to Marxist regimes becoming thuggish oligarchies governed in their own interests by a distant and corrupt managerial bureaucracy. I more or less entirely agree with Luxemburg's criticisms <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1918/russian-revolution/ch08.htm">here</a> and <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1904/questions-rsd/ch02.htm" target="_blank">here</a>. Far from being a means of protecting socialist states from counter-revolutionaries, capitalist re-capture, or opportunist seizure; vanguard parties of socialists have in fact been the means by which all these prospered. Concentrate power in a few people or one party and you have just made it that much easier to <a href="https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/olufemi-o-taiwo-identity-politics-and-elite-capture/" target="_blank">capture</a> and subvert. And even where they are not captured, they are still by their nature cut off from mass democracy, poised by their nature to see ordinary people as natural enemies not yet to be trusted, and all too liable to resort to terror tactics against their own population to get their own way. Much that is shameful in the history of Marxist political practice is due, I believe, to the identification of the dictatorship of the proletariat with the dictatorship of an individual or small clique.<br /><br />Instead the dictatorship of the proletariat is properly conceived as complete control of political and economic forces by the public en masse. This however is at best a mediocre slogan. I am not even sure what it would amount to! For what it is worth I am much inspired by ideas like <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/01914537221107403" target="_blank">these</a>. But whatever it is it must be genuinely democratic with room for free dissent and exchange of ideas, and it cannot wait, cannot come after a period (transitional, they promise!) wherein a learned and benevolent few push forward the grateful masses. In Luxemburg's words from an earlier linked text:</p><blockquote><p>But socialist democracy is not something which begins only in the promised land after the foundations of socialist economy are created; it does not come as some sort of Christmas present for the worthy people who, in the interim, have loyally supported a handful of socialist dictators. Socialist democracy begins simultaneously with the beginnings of the destruction of class rule and of the construction of socialism. It begins at the very moment of the seizure of power by the socialist party. It is the same thing as the dictatorship of the proletariat. </p></blockquote><p>Marx's admiration for the highly democratising Paris Commune was, I think, in this regard on point. Besides that I might think of <a href="https://jacobin.com/2017/02/red-vienna-austria-housing-urban-planning" target="_blank">Red Vienna</a> and to a <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262525961/cybernetic-revolutionaries/" target="_blank">lesser</a> but real extent Allende's Chile as embodying something like the sort of Marxist democracy I would like, and I look with some inspiration to the <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/building-power-to-change-the-world-9780198856627?cc=gb&lang=en&" target="_blank">council democracy movements</a> that have come before me. </p><p>(All of these regimes, one notes, were soon crushed militarily by the enemies of socialism and replaced by murderous reactionary regimes that did untold damage to the world. To be fair to the vanguardists this is precisely what they warn will happen with my preferred mode of doing things, and it is not like I have an immediately satisfactory answer to the worry.) </p><p>Finally, I should say I am not quite as anti-Utopian as many in the tradition. I appreciate the cold hard strategic look at the world, and likewise am suspicious of political programmes that concentrate more on high flung ideals than questions about who shall get how much of what, and how that what was produced in the first place. But I sometimes say of myself that I am probably more <a href="https://pod.link/1544487624/episode/bf4e621d8203f7b28ddfc29b6df7818a" target="_blank">digger</a> than dialectical, ultimately motivated by a <a href="https://www.liamkofibright.com/uploads/4/8/9/8/48985425/ethical_life.pdf" target="_blank">sentimental</a> <a href="https://download-files.wixmp.com/raw/9565fb_969f32d4fac94669afce826fedc63b81.pdf?token=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpc3MiOiJ1cm46YXBwOmU2NjYzMGU3MTRmMDQ5MGFhZWExZjE0OWIzYjY5ZTMyIiwic3ViIjoidXJuOmFwcDplNjY2MzBlNzE0ZjA0OTBhYWVhMWYxNDliM2I2OWUzMiIsImF1ZCI6WyJ1cm46c2VydmljZTpmaWxlLmRvd25sb2FkIl0sImlhdCI6MTY5NjI1OTI1MCwiZXhwIjoxNjk2MjYwMTYwLCJqdGkiOiI5NTkyZWFlYS02MjMwLTQ2NDAtYTBlMi1mMTZhYWJiNGQzMDUiLCJvYmoiOltbeyJwYXRoIjoiL3Jhdy85NTY1ZmJfOTY5ZjMyZDRmYWM5NDY2OWFmY2U4MjZmZWRjNjNiODEucGRmIn1dXSwiZGlzIjp7ImZpbGVuYW1lIjoiU29jaWFsaXNtIG9yIEJhcmJhcmlzbSBIYW5uYWggQXJlbmR0IEpvdXJuYWwucGRmIiwidHlwZSI6ImlubGluZSJ9fQ.KBU7Y-K5ekmDt8m4hn3_-8-DIjqM4CGsS5rVx5f3Qo0" target="_blank">hope</a> that this world was made a common treasury for everyone to share. It is quite possible this is simply a weakness of mine, but so it goes.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizvWH2Odp3PwBkckrGOX6JnPM8Zk-EQSFGEqpP7z1zNMRUQf5_WQA0DXndUNdqS6T-OtYdsc3qM0rUWO0VcpDah6uCKPPsuQjwb5jZm1Z0s5S7GLISrKwVhMKIT1fQvEnUZKwe9dPiQaIdAgSILHtg-wBZCPHbJP13NdbySHWgUqgszqguxdKY6KRTUydh/s1024/MarxistPic.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="An oil painting image of a crowd walking into a rising sun. Their figures are indistinct but we can see they are waving red flags." border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizvWH2Odp3PwBkckrGOX6JnPM8Zk-EQSFGEqpP7z1zNMRUQf5_WQA0DXndUNdqS6T-OtYdsc3qM0rUWO0VcpDah6uCKPPsuQjwb5jZm1Z0s5S7GLISrKwVhMKIT1fQvEnUZKwe9dPiQaIdAgSILHtg-wBZCPHbJP13NdbySHWgUqgszqguxdKY6KRTUydh/w640-h640/MarxistPic.png" width="640" /></a></div>Last Positivisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677699402952932577noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6331292467452860795.post-39803304771636532952023-09-03T03:36:00.000-07:002023-09-03T03:36:00.408-07:00Arguments in Philosophy<p>One thing that is supposed to be distinctive of analytic philosophy is the dedication to providing rigorous argumentation in favour of clearly stated theses. Arguments here being understood as articulated premises whose joint plausibility, and demonstrated logical relationship to the conclusion, significantly raises the plausibility of that conclusion -- ideally deductively entailing it. Let's set aside how distinctive this ideal really is (surely some <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/medieval-syllogism/" target="_blank">scholastic</a> and <a href="https://iep.utm.edu/nyaya/" target="_blank">Nyāya</a> philosophers would protest!) and just think about the ideals themselves. I have commented on <a href="http://sootyempiric.blogspot.com/2017/10/upholding-standards.html" target="_blank">these</a> <a href="http://sootyempiric.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-open-philosophy.html" target="_blank">standards</a> before, by and large positively. On the whole I think it is a genuine intellectual good to try very hard to make people understand what you are saying and why it might be worth believing.</p><p>And yet.</p><p>I have always been a little bit uncomfortable with the role of argumentation in analytic philosophy, and today I think I will spell out why, and in the end maybe even reconcile my discomfort with my admiration.</p><p>One way of drawing this out is to ask yourself: quick, what was Plato's argument in favour of the forms existing? What was Bentham's (or Mozi's) for utilitarianism? What was Hobbes (or Xunzi's) argument for human nature being selfish and conflict-laden? Now my audience is sufficiently nerdy that I bet some of yinz really could answer those, or at least one of those, from the top of your head. But I bet that many - even from among the professional philosophers - could not. And I don't actually think that is cause for shame, instead I think it is telling us something -- articulating the positions was in each case an important contribution, particular arguments that may or may not have been deployed in their favour much less so. </p><p>What is more, I think that some of the arguments (maybe all? See <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0020174X.2022.2124542" target="_blank">here</a>) would totally fail to impress us nowadays. Not to deny that they can be defended by more serious arguments. Quine's indispensability argument for Platonism strikes me as worth taking seriously, utilitarianism has since had Harsanyi, and so on. But does this even matter? Inspiring position survived a long time indeed without these defences, capturing the hearts and minds of many intellectuals along the way and playing a major and productive role in the history of science. Think of Democritian atomism inspiring corpuscular theory <a href="http://www.montejohnson.info/PDFs/Johnson2007.pdf" target="_blank">via</a> Lucretius' poem, or again think of the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/420946" target="_blank">influence</a> of Platonism on Gödel.</p><p>While it is not the only lesson one could draw, to me the take away from these sort of thoughts has always been - in philosophy good positions are interesting in and of themselves. Good arguments can help that, but they are far from necessary. Often as important as the specific details of why something might be plausible is just the spirit of what is being proposed, what it inspires and the vistas it seems to open up. This is a very diffuse thing, dependent on factors far beyond the control of the individual producing idea. But it is ultimately what matters, maybe even the only thing (if anything can) that makes producing philosophy worthwhile.</p><p>Ok so now having said something interesting let me take it back. Here's why, none the less, I still think the strong attention to argument is worthwhile. It's basically three fold. First, it's sort of like eating one's vegetables. It's not the exciting bit, but if you don't do it you'll be much worse off and ultimately less in a position to appreciate the exciting bits. I think someone who just tries to "be interesting!" without doing exercises, or binding themselves to standards, that constrain and discipline them, will in fact... just be boring. The opposite of rigour isn't creativity, it's just a kind of dull psuedo-profound sludge in which one says one's opinions at length and pretentiously. See, for example, papers like <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jopp.12290" target="_blank">this</a> or the kind of "work" that passes muster <a href="http://sootyempiric.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">here</a>.</p><p>Second, and relatedly, I very much fear the consequences of anyone trying to make a metric out of interestingness. It will be awful. Since some means of evaluating each other is necessary when resources are constrained as they are, better it be for an intellectual skill that is related and at least somewhat subject to being fairly discernible.</p><p>Third, and most importantly, arguments reveal content. What arguments do at their best is map out logical space, telling you what commitments can be jointly held, or what one takes on board over here when one was only trying to make moves over there. This isn't just good for working out what to believe, but what one does in fact believe. Positions are indeed what is interesting, but they are opaque. We don't have access to the full contours of a philosophical view simply by having its presuppositions and concepts laid before us. Through argument we come to learn what it is we are saying. So arguments play some role in illuminating the space of positions currently open, and thereby hint at where we may travel next.</p><p>So there you go. I think there is a case for stressing the importance of arguments in philosophical practice and institutional life. But I don't think that is because arguments themselves are what really matter. They do indeed have a rightful place, but we must be careful not to become fetishistic about them. They are one path, not the only one, and certainly not the destination.</p><p><br /></p><p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgv-mUz-TM2q3O2nGoesNK6jvr0gj5a1FqMol6BV0ZWgPkUj4M2PnZ4XQNTlEa3dlWovbYrE-o7o7zE1zwqzUscag3H29Y2KCulbH4bPen8hbsyyKJoH7W6_gFIXn1IDVvkiip18H86WfUtQ2ea1vHj9bwXULpOTCZIvjwJDnZgY_AoOAd-Ru0H2vAnpsZD" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgv-mUz-TM2q3O2nGoesNK6jvr0gj5a1FqMol6BV0ZWgPkUj4M2PnZ4XQNTlEa3dlWovbYrE-o7o7zE1zwqzUscag3H29Y2KCulbH4bPen8hbsyyKJoH7W6_gFIXn1IDVvkiip18H86WfUtQ2ea1vHj9bwXULpOTCZIvjwJDnZgY_AoOAd-Ru0H2vAnpsZD=w640-h640" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Light dawns gradually over the whole.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /></p>Last Positivisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677699402952932577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6331292467452860795.post-751937552157470882023-07-18T02:56:00.003-07:002023-07-18T02:56:17.833-07:00On Not Believing In One's Work<p> For a while now I have been unable (unwilling is what I should say, but from the inside it feels stronger than that) to really commit to doing philosophy research. (I have stuff from before this in the pipeline so it might not be obvious from the outside that I have not been doing new work, but to those who know me this is not news.) The basic issue is that I do not think my work is good or interesting. I have <a href="http://sootyempiric.blogspot.com/2020/04/a-brief-explanation-of-why-all-my-work.html" target="_blank">posted</a> about this briefly before but there was an important difference between then and now. The LSE is unusual among British schools in having something like a tenure institution - there is a review I must pass which, upon being passed, renders it very difficult indeed to fire me, so long as I still do the basics of my job. Since I have now passed this review, the extremely strong instrumental reason I had to publish despite my self-assessment has vanished. As such, where before I thought my word worthless but kept producing it in miserable bad faith, now I can simply follow my heart.</p><p>Now, I hardly think the world is just crying out for more philosophy publications. And there are other things I can do with the time that would be spent on papers - prominently, that time can be spent on mentoring students. So it seems to me that I can use that time to actually advance philosophical research better than I would if I were writing my own stuff. So it seems that I am neither bound by my particular job's demands, nor out of some general duty, nor some role obligation, to talk myself into getting back on the publication grind. Yet for all this I feel some aversion to surrendering (see how I am inclined to phrase it?) to this feeling and putting an end to my publication career. This post is me trying to reason aloud as to why that might be and whether the feeling is worth indulging. I am sure I am not the only academic to have been in a similar situation, so I hope this will be useful for others to see.</p><p>First, a word on what I mean by my work not being good or interesting. For examples of specific critiques follow the link above to my previous post. But I wish to stress that in general I do not have massively high standards. My problem is not that my words have forked no lightning. There are some who seem to think that philosophy is advanced only by genius and the rest of us do little but pass the time from Kant to Frege. This is not at all my attitude. I am ok with that <a href="https://www.phil.cmu.edu/projects/carnap/editorial/latex_pdf/1928-1e%20part1.pdf" target="_blank">vision</a> of philosophy wherein</p><p></p><blockquote>in slow careful construction insight after insight will be won. Each collaborator contributes only what he can endorse and justify before the whole body of his co-workers. Thus stone will be carefully added to stone and a safe building will be erected at which each following generation can continue to work.</blockquote><p></p><p>When I look around it seems to me the vast majority of my colleagues and fellows in the field are doing work that could be seen as part of this collective project. I am not uniquely bad, but I do think I am far worse than this field average. As such, I simply do not think my work is interesting enough to contribute even a small part to this collective project. </p><p>Second, regarding how I come to that assessment. If there is one thing my PhD bought me it is that I view myself to have professional expertise that legitimises quality judgements with regard to philosophical work. Philosophy being peculiar (perhaps normal among humanities) in the lack of clear external standards by which to judge things, it seems that expert assessment may be self-vindicating or at least all we have to go on. In which case I do not think I need any more justification than my own opinion. But I guess I could add that my sense is that even among people friendly and well disposed towards my work the general assessment is that it is fine but unspectacular, whereas I know of some who view it (and my broader presence in the field) to be somewhere between ridiculous and pernicious. Given that my friends are likely biased in a positive direction whereas my detractors form a motley crew with no obvious shared bias, I think this total picture suggests poor work. </p><p>(As a note, I think good taste requires I request: please do not weigh in with your own assessments of the quality of my work. If the assessment is negative then, hey, why kick me when I am down eh? And if it is positive then the worst thing that could happen with this post is for the comments to just be people reassuring me that it is good actually. I can tell you from experience that it will not reassure me, and if people reading it get the impression that it was just an attempt to generate compliments then I think it will negate any usefulness it has in publicly trying to be honest about negative self-assessment and how one should respond to that. It would instead just be a means of me personally overcoming that assessment, which would be only useful to me, and is not what I want this to be about.)</p><p>Third, I am aware of a couple of arguments that might be used against my self-assessment and think they should be dealt with here. Most obvious is that mental illness might make me an especially poor judge in my own case. To this all I can say is: I can only work with what I got. I have done my absolute best to counter my own biases and still this is the assessment I come to. Eventually all I can do is say here I stand, and I can do no other. And second is that my publication rate and ability to attract awards of some sort was not exceptional but probably above average. If you take these to be representative of informed collective opinion (you can already see where I disagree) then it seems arrogant to set my own judgement against this. But of course pre-publication peer review (and prize review) is <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1093/bjps/axz029" target="_blank">most certainly</a> no such thing. Against the combined estimation of the field I would pause; against a few people with whatever quirky biases they have and <a href="http://sootyempiric.blogspot.com/2019/07/letter-to-young-black-philosopher.html" target="_blank">all sorts</a> of instrumental reasons to be seen near me I am happy to pitch my own judgement.</p><p>So it seems to me I have a stable conviction that my work does not pass the minimum adequacy requirements for it to be a better use of my time than mentoring students, doing my work as placement director here at LSE, working with postdocs to help them with their ideas, etc. It seems to me there are three alternatives yet to just stopping doing research:</p><p>1) Lower my standards. There are some people for whom this is appropriate. Indeed a certain kind of perfectionist neuroticism seems to me to be co-morbid with whatever problems in reasoning cause a person to go to grad school in the humanities. So if this post has so far resonated with you I think you should take this option very seriously, and the best way to do that is to try and set in advance explicit standards you would hold yourself and others too, then check those explicit standards with people you trust. Once these are agreed upon as reasonable between you and them then commit to judging yourself by those, rather than modifying them upwards once they are met. Alas, however, this is not the right option for me - I have never really been a perfectionist, i am a corner cutter and slacker at heart, one of life's natural scruffy fellows. <br /><br />2) Damn the torpedos, full speed ahead. Just continue to do work even though I do not think it is good enough. I do not see any reason why I would take this leap of self-belief. Maybe I should aim to be some sort of knight of epistemic self-faith who ploughs on despite that, but I really do not see the appeal. I think that this comes to mind mainly because there is <i>such</i> a strong bias in favour of publication as what one should be doing as a research academic that it can overcome reason. </p><p>3) Git gud. Why not rise to the challenge, do better work? Well that was my initial plan. And I stand about a year into this self-realisation and attempted process of getting better having to honestly face the fact that it just doesn't seem to be happening. I do not know what the timeline is, and I think it is fair to say I have not put literally all efforts into this. But I have tried writing on new topics and produced nothing of note, I have tried switching genres and had some fun writing fiction but nothing, I admit, that seems especially noteworthy. I have tried longer form writing but flounder for lack of ideas. So I could stand to do more and haven't entirely given up on this yet. But part of writing this post is acknowledging to myself that maybe I am just not good enough.</p><p>That then is where I end. Of the options for still publishing none seem tempting. I am relatively young in academic terms, perhaps inspiration shall strike again. At the least, as mentioned, I still have a few things in the pipeline so there will be the odd new work from me over the next few years (love those academic publication timelines). Maybe something spins off from that, who knows. But for now, even having wrote all this out, it yet seems to me that the best thing I can do for the field I so love is keep my pen still.</p>Last Positivisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677699402952932577noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6331292467452860795.post-17944564252207494422023-06-29T02:16:00.002-07:002023-06-29T04:04:19.993-07:00Progressive Liberalism's Dialectic<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhy1KC4hNpFspchvRCVbVkuR3LjZvS92H5MrJmqtK5jhgxptVSAOU50epZF5UMOdid6hrLHaQvPwZATA2IiNP33RqcJdw-eD1APvdiHb3TSHifnIRxN8_52TPSIHOJTxgaWVoXu_SuAwlVo5w_7M47K3Fb8btEM2tXc2rSdqLiUghrLXArxR078ZnVEtQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="A glorious sunset observed by hooded figures on a mountain top overlooking a bay." data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhy1KC4hNpFspchvRCVbVkuR3LjZvS92H5MrJmqtK5jhgxptVSAOU50epZF5UMOdid6hrLHaQvPwZATA2IiNP33RqcJdw-eD1APvdiHb3TSHifnIRxN8_52TPSIHOJTxgaWVoXu_SuAwlVo5w_7M47K3Fb8btEM2tXc2rSdqLiUghrLXArxR078ZnVEtQ=w640-h640" title="Liberals witnessing the sunset of ignorance, prejudice, and unreason." width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div>The last thing Condorcet wrote was a long book, entitled <i><a href="https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/condorcet-outlines-of-an-historical-view-of-the-progress-of-the-human-mind" target="_blank">Outlines of an historical view of the progress of the human mind</a></i>. It was published in 1795 and was for a while the most influential thing Condorcet produced (I think nowadays his probabilistic studies of democratic reasoning probably came to overshadow this). It expresses a remarkable optimism about the pattern and inevitability of human progress - an optimism no wise belied by the fact that shortly after its completion Condorcet was arrested and would die under somewhat unclear circumstances a prisoner of the French revolutionary forces, a revolution he himself had supported. It seems he anticipated some such fate, for here is the note on which he ended the piece</div><div><blockquote>Such are the questions with which we shall terminate the last division of our work. And how admirably calculated is this view of the human race, emancipated from its chains, released alike from the dominion of chance, as well as from that of the enemies of its progress, and advancing with a firm and indeviate step in the paths of truth, to console the philosopher lamenting the errors, the flagrant acts of injustice, the crimes with which the earth is still polluted? It is the contemplation of this prospect that rewards him for all his efforts to assist the progress of reason and the establishment of liberty. He dares to regard these efforts as a part of the eternal chain of the destiny of mankind; and in this persuasion he finds the true delight of virtue, the pleasure of having performed a durable service, which no vicissitude will ever destroy in a fatal operation calculated to restore the reign of prejudice and slavery. This sentiment is the asylum into which he retires, and to which the memory of his persecutors cannot follow him: he unites himself in imagination with man restored to his rights, delivered from oppression, and proceeding with rapid strides in the path of happiness; he forgets his own misfortunes while his thoughts are thus employed; he lives no longer to adversity, calumny and malice, but becomes the associate of these wiser and more fortunate beings whose enviable condition he so earnestly contributed to produce.</blockquote><p>That he himself would fall victim to some fatal "vicissitude", and evidently knowing as much himself, failed to dampen his belief that in the long run human happiness and liberation were inevitable. In this post I just want to briefly outline at the highest level what I think was supposed to underlie that optimism, before evaluating it in my closing remarks.</p><p>The structure of the book is a series of sketches of "stages" of human development, focussing especially on the arts and sciences. He starts from hunter gatherer bands, goes through small pastoral societies and early urban societies and arrives at then-contemporary France; which naturally enough represented the highest stage of civilisation -- so, yes, the French have always been That Way. Before concluding he allows himself an extremely optimistic picture of the world to come, which ends with the passage quoted above.</p><p>While there are a lot of claims made throughout the book I want to focus on the following core elements that I think play an especially important role. There are something like two archetypical villains in every era, one archetypical mistake, and three archetypical progressive forces.</p><p><b>The Villains</b></p><p><i>Despots</i> -- from the earliest stage of society Condorcet notes the necessity of specialisation for various tasks; in fact he seems to think warmaking, and the necessity of having some coordination for defensive purposes requiring a leadership cadre composed of experienced warriors, is the original specialisation. Coming as it does with the ability to command, and the requirement that some give over their surplus to maintain those not engaged in the production of essentials, this division of labour leads to inequalities of wealth and power. He does not think the effects of this entirely baleful but he does think that it allows some groups to usurp power to no good general end. </p><p>A constant of every social age excepting that which he anticipates is to come is that some person or cadre of persons will be actively trying to acquire as much power over their fellows as possible. More or less this is because: until certain goods, and a certain degree of freedom from constant wearying labour, are very widely dispersed, there will always be some with more time to scheme and more resources to devote to seeing their schemes through. Some persistent grasping tendency ensures that at least some will always answer this call. And where eventually inequality is sufficient for some to maintain armies and employ priests, they may convert their passing superiority into a more lasting despotism of established hierarchy and authority.</p><p><i>Priests </i>-- Just as while there are always people willing to grasp power where the division of labour gives them time to scheme and resources to execute those schemes, so too there will always be sycophants. These are people who the division of labour has allowed to dedicate their time to intellectual pursuits, and in particular the subset thereof who realise (or are convinced by those who have realised and foolishly replicate) they can use their greater knowledge and eloquence to bamboozle people. The manner in which Condorcet introduces this idea from the very first epoch of mankind is worth quoting at length:</p><p></p><blockquote>Meanwhile there is presented to us in this epoch one fact of importance in the history of the human mind. We can here perceive the beginnings of an institution, that in its progress has been attended with opposite effects, accelerating the advancement of knowledge, at the same time that it disseminated error; enriching the sciences with new truths, but precipitating the people into ignorance and religious servitude, and obliging them to purchase a few transient benefits at the price of a long and shameful tyranny.</blockquote><p></p><p></p><blockquote>I mean the formation of a class of men the depositaries of the elements of the sciences or processes of the arts, of the mysteries or ceremonies of religion, of the practices of superstition, and frequently even of the secrets of legislation and polity. I mean that separation of the human race into two portions; the one destined to teach, the other to believe; the one proudly concealing what it vainly boasts of knowing, the other receiving with respect whatever its teachers condescend to reveal: the one wishing to raise itself above reason, the other humbly renouncing reason, and debasing itself below humanity, by acknowledging in its fellow men prerogatives superior to their common nature.</blockquote><p></p><p></p><blockquote>This distinction, of which, at the close of the eighteenth century, we still see the remains in our priests, is observable in the least civilized tribes of savages, who have already their quacks and sorcerers. It is too general, and too constantly meets the eye in all the stages of civilization, not to have a foundation in nature itself: and we shall accordingly find in the state of the human faculties at this early period of society, the cause of the credulity of the first dupes, and of the rude cunning of the first impostors.</blockquote><p></p><p>I like this passage as it nicely encapsulates Condorcet's duel attitude to the division of labour. On the one hand he is under no illusions that some such division was necessary to give some people the time to be professional intellectual workers or artisans, both of which he thinks vital to human progress. On the other hand it's evident he thinks the very same ability also enables chicanery, and that this continues to his day via the social role of priests.</p><p>And thus we have the first of our two archetypical villains. There are the despots, people enabled and actively pursuing the acquisition of ever more power and wealth. Then there are priests, people whose superior knowledge enables them to secure a position whereby they are believed, and who enter into a kind of alliance with the tyrants by using their authority to commend obedience, in exchange for protection and patronage from the tyrants. Every age Condorcet discusses has its own version of these, invested in reducing others' liberty on the one hand and willing to assist in the endeavour so long as they are paid on the other hand. Given this somewhat pessimistic anthropology, why does he none the less have such an optimistic overall take?</p><p><b>The Mistake</b></p><p><i>Modal confusion</i> -- to answer this I think it is necessary to know exactly what ignorance the priests exploit in order to buttress the position of the despots. By my read (Condorcet is not explicit on this) they exploit our lack of modal knowledge. They turn contingencies into necessities, and thereby discourage change. For instance Condorcet says of the first age:<br /></p><blockquote>The errors that distinguish this epoch of civilization are the conversion of vengeance and cruelty towards an enemy into virtue; the prejudice that consigns the female part of society to a sort of slavery; the right of commanding in war considered as the prerogative of an individual family; together with the first dawn of various kinds of superstition.</blockquote><p>My read on this is something like - because it turns out to be necessary to have a leadership structure to coordinate warfare and defence, and typical that in fact when one is engaged in violent activities one will feel enmity for one's foes, these are turned into social and moral necessities of broader scope. They become not just a response to a particular circumstance but the natural right of some family or group (and always exclusively the men thereof) to command in all circumstances. We come to think we just have to have an elite telling us what to do whatever the circumstance, that this general elite must be drawn from this warrior elite, and in the fashion described above the priests quickly convert the superstitions of the day into doctrinal support for this error. The particular errors a society may engage in will change over time (the composition of our despot class changes as command gradually becomes dissociated from ability to herd most cattle and bash the most skulls in, for instance) but the basic pattern that we are tricked into necessitating our contingent social circumstances seems to me Condorcet's constant complaint.</p><p></p><p><b>The Progressive Forces</b></p><p><i>Love of Liberty</i> - if there is some grasping force within us that prompts tyrants to exploit the division of labour so as to turn their superior wealth and time into ever greater power, and which prompts priests to sell their ideological wares for a cut of the spoils, then there exists a counter-veiling tendency. This is the plain fact that we each of us enjoy our own freedom. In Condorcet's words, there are "sweets annexed to [a] state of almost complete independence". What exactly he means by this is somewhat unclear, but I think at essence it's something like - we each of gain some intrinsic joy from being able to allocate our time as we see fit. This makes us highly ingenious in coming up with labour saving technologies where they might allow us to do just that. One might recall here Smith mentioning the superior method of maintaining a steam engine come up with a boy tasked with watching over the engine, all in order to have more time to play with his friends. It also plants in us the seeds of resistance to despots and their priests - in the end they will always require of us onerous observances in order that we labour to produce for them in addition to meeting our own needs. And no matter how persuasive the ideology or charismatic the despot, something in us will always respond... yeah but I don't wanna. </p><p><i>Knowledge and Technique </i>- this love of liberty, prompting as it does invention among intellectuals and artisans on the one hand, and resistance by the people to conquerers and despots on the other, leads to the improvement of knowledge and technique. So long as circumstances allow us to benefit from the fruit of our own labours (he acknowledges that a social system can be so despotical, or an ideological system so obscurantist, as to basically make innovation not worth it or to seem possible at all) then we will tend to come up with new ways of doing things, either technically or at the level of social arrangement. And what does that amount to? It amounts to the discovery of new possibilities! It is breaking the modal confusion, revealing in the present through some new practice that the old way of doing things. If what grants Priests their power to bamboozle is a false necessitation, what makes the love of liberty so powerful is that it tends towards the demonstration that limitations are contingent. Since, in the end, we are many and they are few, the despots really do rely on us being bamboozled in this way, and once a people truly come to understand that they can expect better it becomes just a matter of time before they secure for themselves some right to enjoy whatever fruit of time new discoveries have made available.</p><p><i>Historical memory </i>-- And most importantly of all there is a kind of asymmetric lock in. We have means of preserving ideas and patterns of behaviour, through writing, tradition, ritual, patterns of norms and expected behaviour, that will asymmetrically preserve and lock in the things that succeed in satisfying our want of liberty. Of course despots and their priests will tend to set up counter-veiling institutions designed to suppress the process of knowledge. But they are swimming against the tide, because it is the great mass of us all independently striving after our own liberty and you only have so many fingers to plug into the gaps before the dam wall is cracked all the way through. Once we disperse an idea or technology it can become part of a widespread pattern of behaviour or fixed expectations about what is permissible and possible, and at that point it is very difficult indeed for even the most skilful despot or persuasive priest to make us give it up. And finally as our wealth increases so too does our ability to acquire free time for ourselves, and devote some of this to thinking about things. Our productive capacities likewise have a similar effect - Condorcet naturally enough devotes a lot of time to how the printing press made the spread of knowledge possible on a scale hitherto unimaginable. So by such means does the gap between the knowers and the believers lessen, and we are each able to make our own contribution to the stock of ideas through which society can be organised. Our natural love of liberty is so powerful, and we are so many and all independently driven by it to innovation both technical and social, that in the end tyranny must bow before an enlightened people.</p><p>So there then is the basis of our story. At first as we gain just a little bit of surplus, the necessity of dividing labour allows some to usurp power and others to exploit their intellectual advantage into a cut of the warrior elite's hoard. This they do by ever convincing us that however things are is how they must be, and that whatever degree of liberty and knowledge has been attained it is this far and no further. But our natural love of liberty prompts us to look for ways out of whatever status quo we find ourselves in, and so long as circumstances are not unlucky (interestingly one unlucky circumstance Condorcet mentions is -- another nation has got further in this process than yours but become an imperialist tyrant nation in its turn, thus associating progress with despotism in one's mind and discouraging it) we will tend by our collective efforts to generate and lock in social and technological advancements that grant us more liberty. Condorcet foresaw a time to come when wealth and knowledge would be so widespread that none would be able to bamboozle the other, or enjoy such advantage over them as to be able to coerce them into labours purely to the benefit of an exploitative party. One imagines us going fishing in the morning, doing some theatre criticism in the evening, and cetera.</p><p>This is, in the Marxist sense, a very idealist notion of progress. Ultimately what holds us back is ignorance (of course this ignorance is enforced by means that may be excruciatingly material) and what shall liberate us is the dispersal of new and better ideas. It seems a matter of faith to Condorcet that as we discover more this shall tend to make us like and respect our fellows as equals, he never really defends this so much as explains away divergences from this pattern as the operation of despots and priests. I do not know if I can bring myself to believe in this dialectic. But I thought it a sufficiently interesting idea to write up and share!</p></div>Last Positivisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677699402952932577noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6331292467452860795.post-58351972285318920482023-03-24T04:18:00.002-07:002023-03-24T04:19:14.344-07:00 AI, invertebrates, and the risk of living absurdly<p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">My friend and comrade Jonathan Birch has gifted me with a guest post. I think of it as a kind of belated spiritual sequel to my own musings on the existential status of our profession <a href="http://sootyempiric.blogspot.com/2017/10/philosophy-as-vocation.html" target="_blank">here</a>. It's a great read, so without further ado over to Birch!</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">-------------------------------------------------------------------------------</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Imagine you're the UK Health Secretary during the worst pandemic in a century, signing your name under the most restrictive public health rules in your country's history. You're forced to resign after being caught on CCTV breaking your own guidance—in a manner that also ends your marriage. Feeling your talents may lie more in the area of performing to hidden cameras, you branch out into reality TV. It's going well—people enjoy voting for you to receive grotesque public humiliations—so you decide to write a bestseller about your pandemic experiences. You hire a ghost-writer who is also a noted lockdown sceptic and trust her with 100,000 private messages, leading to one of the most embarrassing information leaks of the decade.</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Exemplary cases of absurd lives show us the mismatch that can exist between the value our projects <i>seem</i> to have, from our point of view as we pursue them, and the value they can be seen to have from a sufficiently detached vantage point. Projects that seem full of meaning, importance and positive value from the inside—<i>leading your country's response to a pandemic!</i>—can be seen from the outside to be worthless, or even to have negative value, because you made enormous mistakes, you could have stepped aside at any point, and almost anyone would have done a better job.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Thinking about such cases naturally leads us to worry about our own lives. <i>Could my own projects be like this? Could my own life be absurd?</i> I suspect nearly all of us have these fears—I know I do—and they can lead us to dark places. I’m not persuaded by the arguments (chiefly from <a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/CAMTMO-7"><span class="s1" style="color: #0b4cb4;">Albert Camus</span></a> and <a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/NAGTA"><span class="s1" style="color: #0b4cb4;">Thomas Nagel</span></a>) that <i>all </i>human lives are absurd (I particularly like <a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/LANTMO-4"><span class="s1" style="color: #0b4cb4;">Iddo Landau’s response</span></a> to Nagel). But I think some lives are absurd. Moreover, absurdity comes in degrees: lives can be more or less absurd. And while we have very limited control over the absurdity of our lives, we do have some level of influence. But what exactly can we do to reduce the risk of living absurdly? And should we want to?</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">***</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">When thinking about absurdity, we are reflecting on the fragile relationship our projects have to moral value. This fragility can take different forms. In classic cases, such as Sisyphus and Matt Hancock, the life has an uphill-downhill or ravel-unravel pattern, where the illusion of having achieved something of value is brutally dispelled by later events. The fragility in these cases is on full display, exposed.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p4" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But a different absurd pattern is also possible. A person can steadily graft away on a single project for their whole lives, feeling as though they've made cumulative progress, when, unbeknownst to them, the project has failed to achieve anything of value, or has had unintended negative consequences. They may live their entire life never knowing this, but their ignorance is no escape from absurdity.</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">To the extent my own life stands in a fragile relationship to value, it is in the second way. In general, this pattern seems a lot more likely in academia. We academics only rarely, perhaps too rarely, meet with spectacular public disgraces. What happens a lot is the “Edward Casaubon” pattern: a life devoted to the study of some esoteric project of no wider significance, with the upshot that the work is immediately forgotten. We tell ourselves “One day, recognition will come!” when in fact we are already receiving an appropriate level of recognition for our negligible contributions to human knowledge.</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I used to have this fear more than I now do. The culture in philosophy of journals rejecting 95-98% of manuscripts certainly fosters it. For me, I think the nadir was the moment Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, a website publicly dedicated to reviewing all new books in philosophy, declined to review my first book—a book so esoteric, in their eyes, they could not find anyone in the entire world qualified to review it (happily, some <a href="https://www.thebsps.org/reviewofbooks/brusseandsterelnyonbirch/"><span class="s1" style="color: #0b4cb4;">heartening reviews</span></a> did appear elsewhere). Since I've been working on the topic of animal sentience, the fear of absurdity has receded somewhat, because the wider significance of this work seems very clear to me. Better still, I'm clearly not doing it incompetently, in a way almost anyone could improve upon. So I've turned away from two possible paths to absurdity.</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But there is one path that does bother me quite a lot. I have invested, and continue to invest, a lot of energy in calling for precautionary steps to protect the welfare of invertebrates, like octopuses, crabs, lobsters and insects. I think we should err on the side of caution in these cases: these animals might not be capable of suffering, but there is a realistic possibility, so we should take precautions. When I first said this, I realised how few other people were saying it. And so, the pressure to keep saying it continues.</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The case for precautions is a solid one, I think, but it is nonetheless possible that all of our precautions generate no positive welfare benefit, because it's possible that these animals are not actually sentient. There is a built-in fragility (or lack of safety, we might say) in the way this project relates to value. A risk is being taken, a hazard accepted. I could end up leading a life dedicated to protecting animals that are in fact non-sentient, and so not in a position to benefit from anything I do for them. That would be absurd.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Struck by this disorienting thought, animal advocates sometimes retreat into unjustified certainty. If you're certain, you can block out the gnawing thought that you might be wrong. But denial is no escape from absurdity. Just as a politician should not embrace the false certainty that he's qualified for any and every job, animal advocates should not embrace the false certainty that everything they do benefits animals. There will be some hits, some misses. Your contributions may be all misses.</span></p><p class="p4" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">That uncertainty, though, can be a hard thing to live with, and it leads to a strong temptation to do things that stand in a less fragile relationship to value. I could, for example, invest more time and energy in helping other people, or other mammals, since other mammals are pretty obviously sentient.</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">My own case brings out the thought that there may at least sometimes be a trade-off between the expected value of our projects and the fragility of their relationship to value. I think work on invertebrate welfare has astronomically high expected value. Indeed, since insects outnumber vertebrates by some huge (very hard to estimate) factor—and they currently receive no welfare protections at all—helping insects may generate the most expected value of anything we can do, even if insects are very unlikely to be sentient. But there is nothing safe about the assumption that it generates any value at all.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We have to choose what to prioritise. Classical utilitarianism gives a clear answer: do whatever maximises expected hedonic utility (in statistical language, the "first moment" of the utility distribution) and don't worry about the variance (the "second moment") or any higher moments. Save the insects! In practice, few committed utilitarians do dedicate themselves to helping insects, telling themselves instead that something else maximizes expected hedonic utility. Possibly true, but, to my eye, unlikely.</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Yet I'm not sure utilitarianism's fixation on expected value is a virtue. Moral theories should not be wholly indifferent to the risk of living absurdly. Speaking for myself, at least, my relationship to realized (and not just expected) value matters. A theory that advises total indifference to this relationship is floating too far away from the psychological reality of my ethical life to seem plausible (a Bernard Williams-esque point, related to his “<a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/williams-bernard/#DayCannTooFarOffhWillAgaiUtil"><span class="s1" style="color: #0b4cb4;">integrity objection</span></a>”).<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">***</span></p><p class="p4" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I suspect that human lives are more absurd now, on average, than they ever have been, and that this upward trend will continue and accelerate. In the time of <i>Middlemarch</i>, living absurdly required serious privilege. The typical human was working full-time on securing their own health and survival and that of their children, and so was relating to value in a direct and uncomplicated way. I’m not a nihilist; I think there is robust value in helping children to survive and be well fed. Many people are still engaged full-time in exactly these projects and correctly we see what they do as having value.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p4" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But humanity now has a much, much larger Casaubon class: a class for whom subsisting is so easy that we choose our projects by other criteria. I am part of that class. And this is where the threat of absurdity enters. Many of the projects we may choose to set ourselves have a fragile relationship to value. The paths to value are often long and indirect, with uncertainty lurking around every corner. We should surely <i>hope</i> that more and more human lives will be like this, because we should hope that an ever-larger fraction of humanity will have the chance to invest in projects not immediately aimed at survival. But as that fraction grows, the threat of absurdity increases.</span></p><p class="p4" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I believe AI has the potential to supercharge absurdity. This is because one of the main sources of risk now—our ignorance regarding which of the animals we interact with are sentient—will be compounded by the advent of ambiguously sentient AI. Think here of films like <i>Her</i> and <i>Blade Runner 2049</i>. We already have AI assistants that write in fluent English, and there is <a href="https://aeon.co/essays/to-understand-ai-sentience-first-understand-it-in-animals"><span class="s1" style="color: #0b4cb4;">at least one example</span></a> of an AI system convincing one of its own programmers of its sentience. And this is <i>without</i> hooking these systems up to photorealistic human avatars that mimic human facial expressions, body language and voices. I think the technology already exists to make AI that can convince a large fraction of users of its sentience, and I predict we will continue down that path.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p4" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">That will lead (as in the films just mentioned) to people feeling as though they have close emotional bonds with AI—bonds as intimate as their bonds with other humans, perhaps more so. People will structure their lives around these bonds, and yet will have no way of knowing whether their feelings are truly reciprocated, whether the bond is real or illusory. I’m sure we will (eventually) see campaigns for these systems to have welfare protections and rights, and some of them will be entirely reasonable applications of the type of precautionary thinking I advocate for animals. The expected value of these projects will be very high, but their relationship to value will be fragile, because, like insects, the beneficiaries could easily be non-sentient.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p4" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">At the same time, we will also see many people treating their AI assistants with callous indifference and cruelty, assuming them to be non-sentient. These people will face a mirror image of the same problem. Like people who are cruel to invertebrates, they will be running the risk of living absurdly, since all the good they do in their relations with other humans may—if their AI assistants are in fact sentient—be cancelled out by their private cruelty.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p4" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So, my own fears about the potential absurdity of a life spent caring for the welfare of invertebrates that may not benefit from it—currently a rather niche fear, I admit—is one that I suspect (applied to AI) will soon become a familiar, inescapable part of the human condition.</span></p>Last Positivisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677699402952932577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6331292467452860795.post-52140261206375274312023-01-28T10:21:00.003-08:002023-12-20T03:48:40.227-08:00The New Alexandria<p>Here's a little story I tell myself, of very dubious relationship to actual history but through which I understand myself and my own time in philosophy. It's related to the habit (no doubt grounded in some real similarities) people have of describing analytic philosophy as a basically scholastic enterprise. Now, people do not generally mean this as a positive but rather to suggest that analytic philosophy has become (or maybe was from its inception) an exercise in debate for debate's sake, or building castles in the sky.</p><p>The thought for those who say such things in their most polemical sense is that Scholasticism developed an intricate set of conceptual distinctions and theoretically organised propositions for one to learn, spurred debates about their precise interpretations and interrelations, and... never actually explained anything. Its whole way of approaching the world was divorced from contact with its actual problems, its theories superficial for all their intricacies, and the intellectual energy spent upon it near entirely wasted. For all the rigour brought to the table what is actually being debated amounts to how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. The parallels to analytic philosophy are supposed to be obvious.</p><p>Now I do believe contemporary Anglophone analytic is in <a href="http://sootyempiric.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-end-of-analytic-philosophy.html" target="_blank">trouble</a>. And I was very recently pointed towards <a href="https://medium.com/@screedwriter/continental-crust-8b1a3f4a254a" target="_blank">this</a> essay by a continental philosopher critiquing Anglophone continental philosophy in a somewhat similar vein. This latter essay seems to hold out the hope that maybe black or decolonial thought is doing better - but at least as regards to academics especially interested in the US aspects of this see the section on PoC intelligentsia in <a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/BRIWP" target="_blank">here</a> for my thoughts on that. So I would probably extend my pessimism out a bit more generally to cover all of Anglophone philosophy.</p><p>But for all this - in fact maybe even because of its generality - I do not think a degenerated scholasticism is the right historical metaphor for our time and era. I think late antiquity Hellenistic philosophy is where we should see ourselves. For concreteness' sake let's say 3rd and 4th century A.D. Alexandria in particular is where we should see ourselves. So here is my fabled understanding of the time and place.</p><p>Going into the third century A.D. Marcus Aurelius - the man history would come to know as the last good emperor - had been dead for twenty years. (Claudius Ptolemy, one of Alexandria's best scientific minds, had died just ten years before Aurelius). Twenty years is plenty of time to get a sense that things had changed for the worse. Three emperors had been assassinated between then and now, and the chap currently in charge was converting Rome into a despotic military state. Alexandria was and remained an international hub of commerce and learning, but it was now embedded within a political and social structure that showed clear signs of turning for the worse while still being close enough to its glory days for a legitimate hope of righting course to remain in the air.</p><p>The intellectual scene in Alexandria reflected the diversity of its population. Illustrative for my purposes is that the prophet Mani had recently spread his message, and despite persecution Manicheanism <a href="https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/56998597/019._Guy_G._Stroumsa_-_The_Manichaean_Challenge_to_Egyptian_Christianity-libre.pdf?1531634233=&response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DGuy_G_Stroumsa_The_Manichaean_Challenge.pdf&Expires=1674900013&Signature=IGcsbeJDKhLTDk0WWrWQVfEdPjFzJHyjauAKTLve--p7LVz27mvX4qhPjFiIw4Z3irrf1ikhLswL0C~EimzUKI2HqKlT7khfoVRWRTi4iIACr56CjZLsKq-TePUy2q2dwcSuXUOIDaeC1907mUCtddpGkzuMu4igXNnRNVpf4i3GE21vPUeRbYEsY3eDpExH2zN3GKwgyPdjO3XT8vG-gHeoNjfzva6n-R-6363ImmHDoekwdC-6k1snwygGoe~nIwVmUV55QbzQO1JJHVKYerWhIk2ER3AnkAzEIC~BEbVM8hyfxz~VrgWdEqQBMuF8s5bGsynqILI7HlLDYCnr5Q__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA" target="_blank">spread</a> into Egypt including Alexandria. Per the wikipedia <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism" target="_blank">article</a> Manicheanism takes it that "Mani is the final prophet after Zoroaster, Gautama Buddha, and Jesus." That is to say, it attempts to reconcile various popular religious movement by generating a theology and accompanying ethical practice that would explain how they could all be true simultaneously and how their precepts could all be honoured.</p><p>In this the Manicheans were very much of their age and place. The earlier texts of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermetica" target="_blank">Hermetica</a> seem to have been attempts by Egyptian intelligentsia to syncretise their beliefs with Hellenistic Pagan and Jewish sources, familiar to them from such cultural mixing pots as Alexandria. The most famous philosophical resident of Alexandria in this era, <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plotinus/" target="_blank">Plotnius</a>, is often seen as someone trying to formulate a Platonic form of Pagan orthodoxy that might stand up against such challenge as upstart Christian sects and insufficiently pious Stoics.</p><p>So we have the ferment caused by a growing sense of political decline, new proselytising religious groups shaking up the social order confronting orthodoxies that people felt had lost their way, a native intelligentsia trying to reassert their intellectual autonomy, and a sophisticated syncretic neo-orthodoxy movement starting to form. And the best and brightest of the era tended to try not so much to defeat their rivals as show how they could be incorporated into a more complete worldview of their own preferred sort. And indeed what of the intellectual output of Alexandria that would live on beyond this era was largely through later thinkers pulling the same trick on them - St. Augustine incorporating the best of what he took from the <a href="https://philarchive.org/archive/BYEADT#:~:text=Augustine%20had%20access%20to%20Stoic,affiliation%20outside%20of%20the%20Confessions." target="_blank">Stoics</a> and <a href="https://projectaugustine.com/theology/confessions-by-st-augustine/the-philosophy-of-plotinus-and-his-influence-on-augustine-and-christian-theology-excerpts-from-diogenes-allens-philosophy-for-understanding-theology/" target="_blank">Plotinus</a>, or the incorporation of Ptolemaic system of astronomy into a Christianised Aristotle.<br /><br />This syncretic age was clearly one of great intellectual creativity. Alexandria was a legitimate hub of leading scientific activity - it could boast an illustrious history that not only had Ptolemy in its recent past but Euclid more distantly and Hypatia still to look forward to. Its thinkers were responsive to the great social movements of its age, and propagated their results into the distant future through the syncretic style practiced and perfected there. Analytical philosophers, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any pre-Frege intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct neo-Platonist. </p><p><br /></p><p>Yet, for all this, very few contemporary philosophers care to read much of the intellectual production of this era, and whatever influence lingers does not inspire interest in tracing it to this great port city in this tumultuous era. Because here is the thing about syncretic eras -- they are only as interesting as the things being syncretised. For all the ingenuity Plotinus displayed there is simply little interest among contemporary philosophers in rationalising Hellenic paganism. Manicheanism as a religion is either extinct or nearly so. And while Christianity and Buddhism and Zoroastrianism are all still going concerns, there are very very few people so positioned that what might come from reconciling them is of interest, so the cultural pull Mani was responding to is no longer felt. The synthesis that would eventually come of Aristotle's science, Euclid's geometry, Ptolemy's astronomy, and Christian theology - the Scholasticism we started with - gets some precursor in St. Augustine's works and its elements (ha!) are here in Alexandria, but nowadays the scientific elements of this are all in their own ways outdated. Syncretism, and places and periods in which syncretism is the primary activity, can only have interest to those who feel attracted to the elements it is composed of separately, and thus can truly appreciate the achievement of reconciling them.</p><p>(I will not dwell on the point here but -- if you find it plausible that <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/realism-theory-change/" target="_blank">the</a> pessimistic meta-induction refutes scientific realism, and if your syncretic fusion includes elements of contemporary science, this means the shelf-life of any syncretic philosophy is inevitably rather limited.)</p><p>This is where I believe we are in analytic philosophy. Contrary to the scholastic charge analytic philosophy is not really characterised by formalised debates around niche propositions got from pernickety yet rigorous deductions from esoteric and ultimately pointless theories. For one thing I think the rigour of analytic deductions is much <a href="http://sootyempiric.blogspot.com/2017/10/upholding-standards.html" target="_blank">overstated</a>. For another it just misses what has been apparent about analytic philosophy for a number of years, it is an outdated stereotype of the field from a time (perhaps in its recent past, late 20th century for instance) when the field was quite insular and self-satisfied. But nowadays it is apparent that widespread naturalism and the practical turn have each in their own way broke down those doors. Analytic philosophers nowadays are typically very keen to show their work is in good scientific standing, and will have practically interesting consequences for the pressing issues of the day. And what that means is syncretising.</p><p>Our political and ethical theories often involve drawing on a mish-mash of sources. First, there is the pertinent philosophical tradition. In analytic philosophy this usually means at least one of Rawls or some other great liberal, Rawls' students, or their students; feminist theory of the recent past; or, in some quarters, libertarian thinkers whose connections to Pinochet were, we are assured, much overstated. These are shown to be able to accommodate or refine views that are taken from the vanguard of very online downwardly mobile frequent social media users ("activists", as academics will refer to them), the common sense of the Euro-American middle class, salient results from legal theory or social psychology, and increasingly nowadays maybe AI or machine learning in its more socio-politically salient aspects. Along the way one may well get some argument or deduction of one part of the framework for the other -- but the energy, the impetus, comes really from the fact that bourgeois common sense, comprehensible bits of social science, shouty people online, and the recent philosophical tradition of one sort or another, are all felt to be authoritative. The payoff is the reconciliation, the sense that one can have one's cake and eat it.</p><p>I have a very similar sense for contemporary epistemology and metaphysics. Once again we admit bourgeois common sense, pertinent sciences - again sometimes psychology, but here also linguistics, statistics, physics, biology (more rarely chemistry I do not know why) - and the authoritative works of highly respected recent philosophers, typically Lewis or Kripke, increasingly Carnap, more rarely Wittgenstein, Brandom, or McDowell. Once again arguments can sometimes be had, but they are really in the service of proving coherence rather than anything akin to deduction from accepted first principles. The emotional pay off is, I believe, the achievement of synthesis. We are in a syncretic age.</p><p>And I believe that is why we will soon be forgot. The common sense of the bourgeois (which may not even be that <a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/2752" target="_blank">common</a>), social science that shan't survive the replication crisis, AI and machine learning (and thus statistical and reasoning capacities) that are manifestly in their infancy, and the theoretical works of people who happened to be good at placing their students in the latter quarter of the 20th century? I just see zero reason to predict that anyone will care what we make of this. It matters to us - we may well have reason to continue to try and organise it, this is our zeitgeist and anyway attempts to make it make sense will probably reveal its weaknesses and thus generate real progress. But we are a syncretising era working with elements whose nature and interrelations no-one shall care about within the space of a generation. </p><p>This is more hopeful than the polemical claim that the present age is scholastic. I think there is more room for creativity in this activity. The attempt to rationalise new socio-ethical movements in the face of decaying empire mean that we join the Alexandrites in trying to provide comfort to a time that needs it. The failures and frictions of our attempts to syncretise will no doubt reveal anomalies that are worth attending to. But I think it is less likely to be of lasting interest than ambitious derivations from first principles. These sort of projects are designed to gain attractiveness from the inner plausibility of their premises, and thus gain a sort of independence from the immediacies of their age. Descartes, Hume, and Spinoza have far more secure places in history. I think this will be felt as a loss because for whatever reason lasting influence does seem to be sought after.</p><p>We must reconcile ourselves to a justly forgotten oblivion.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhKP3UtwSj-FVdoevkqvQEXsM6QtoYTkW6oCXp5EQ5Ptr_INXUm_m8OYMpAmgA-3cIHIREFwI0F4MspB9VIBeQbbiM8NDk2EtVwrukV8Lo0dunniD-5b_E3gXVIPxuyqixhTTFR3-yeDE1aTD3xo1N08nI2bmD_YC2DkM9fM9zv9Y1FaYz5SubJ4Emzew" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1728" height="381" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhKP3UtwSj-FVdoevkqvQEXsM6QtoYTkW6oCXp5EQ5Ptr_INXUm_m8OYMpAmgA-3cIHIREFwI0F4MspB9VIBeQbbiM8NDk2EtVwrukV8Lo0dunniD-5b_E3gXVIPxuyqixhTTFR3-yeDE1aTD3xo1N08nI2bmD_YC2DkM9fM9zv9Y1FaYz5SubJ4Emzew=w640-h381" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p>Last Positivisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677699402952932577noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6331292467452860795.post-68758478971365341012022-12-28T19:35:00.004-08:002022-12-29T03:54:47.380-08:00Nothing That Is Not There<p>Some brief reflections as we approach the new year. I am just returning from a trip to see my partner's family, wherein I spent much time with my little nephew, Kai. There was something entirely fantastic about seeing how, at one years old, he relates to the world. He is so intensely curious about things that seem so mundane. I saw him experience real joy in the triumph of working out how to turn around so as to climb some stairs in a playground. Once at night we went out for a bit of late grocery shopping and it was remarkable how he would seem so engrossed in all the details of an entirely unremarkable street. If philosophy begins in wonder then he's off to a good start. </p><p>It caused me to introspect on who I am, or maybe where I am, as a philosopher. People close to me know that I have been on and off convincing myself that I ought stop doing novel research. I am periodically overcome by the conviction that, in some way, what I do or how I do it is making the field worse -- I am flippant, shallow, a distraction and a drain on resources. I enjoy research, but why should that count for much? I am just one person, and if I really am making it worse for others then it hardly seems an excuse to say that hey I had a good time. I seem to have lost the heart of inquiry which still beats so strongly in Kai. How did I get here?</p><p>That is a blogpost unto itself, but suffice it to say that here is not where I want to be. My task for myself in 2023 is to recover something of Kai's spirit. I do not think I can get all the way there in just one year. But finding something, within or without, that lets me reconcile my social duties with my simple pleasures will be my primary objective. I post this to foreshadow part of my strategy - I will periodically report in on the journey on this blog, if only to keep myself honest and publicly accountable. I have a habit of embarking on programmes of self-improvement that go nowhere. I do not want this to fall victim to that tendency.</p><p>The post title comes from a <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45235/the-snow-man-56d224a6d4e90" target="_blank">poem</a> by Wallace Stevens a <a href="https://twitter.com/peligrietzer" target="_blank">friend</a> once recommended to me. Most of the poem is spent describing the empty desolation of a winter landscape. But the final stanza reveals a perspective character: </p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p>For the listener, who listens in the snow, </p></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p>And, nothing himself, beholds</p></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p>Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.</p></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><p>And I think that for 2023 my modest ambition, no wise certainly achievable, will be to attain that level insight. At the least I hope to stop fixating upon what is not there. Maybe even avert my gaze from it entirely. If I could just get that far it would be worth the entire journey so far.<br /><br />As for yinz, readers, I wish for you more than I do for me. I hope what you behold in the year to come is marvellous and inspiring. I hope it fills with you the kind of awe my nephew feels upon seeing a traffic light reflected in a puddle at night. Peace and goodwill to all.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhnn-ixeFqgjbvxT9fIn3gZ8Ees-cRuVTqjKwtQ6i-yLWB_GGuqpE-4DonttdSjxtD-BG36d0s_mGmrkd-2Y3CQL7KdcH7tu-95SZAgFaCXFcWJ4Uy6J48aYApnHwgYnxNVpxeL0XJp04-EZrJc6Q5CLbH3siwnMLe4_RDCk-zycvRmMUkaPHKc3c8Y6A" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="2624" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhnn-ixeFqgjbvxT9fIn3gZ8Ees-cRuVTqjKwtQ6i-yLWB_GGuqpE-4DonttdSjxtD-BG36d0s_mGmrkd-2Y3CQL7KdcH7tu-95SZAgFaCXFcWJ4Uy6J48aYApnHwgYnxNVpxeL0XJp04-EZrJc6Q5CLbH3siwnMLe4_RDCk-zycvRmMUkaPHKc3c8Y6A=w640-h250" width="640" /></a></div></div></div><p></p>Last Positivisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677699402952932577noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6331292467452860795.post-40787439790678623072022-12-16T04:21:00.009-08:002022-12-28T18:53:46.717-08:00The Role of Mathematics and Intellectual History in (my) Philosophy<p>Philosophers tend to think other philosophers are doing bad work and resent their success. I find this tendency most pronounced among mid-to-late stage grad students -- people who are good enough to see the flaws in what's published and aptly feel entitled to critique it as a full fledged member of the community. But who have not yet had the gruelling experience of repeatedly trying to better and realising that you can't, that in fact your work is just fodder for the next batch of sharp eyed youngsters hungry to prove themselves. So it goes, so it goes.</p><p>One consequence of this is that we all have to get used to justifying our own choice of method or approach to topics. There's always someone out there who thinks its just obvious that you have approached your question in totally the wrong manner, and any non-muddle-head would clearly see that you ought to have... well it just so happens they have a draft manuscript they could share if you are interested. One gets used to fielding thinly veiled versions of this critique from one's condescending peers, faux deferential versions of it from grad students seething with rage, and absurdly aggressive blustering versions of it from philosophers over the age of 55. Again, so it goes.</p><p>For me people tend to focus on the use of mathematical arguments or models. Philosophers in general are very strange about formalism. There are clearly many who rather wish they could have succeeded in a real science and hope to use philosophy as a place to show off skills they don't have to rubes who don't know better. Here you tend to find a strange deference to arguments made with symbolism, and much use of variables <i>v</i> in circumstances <i>c</i> where they are probably inapt <i>i</i>. On the flip side there is a strand of humanist ressentiment against maths, which may have some <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2140828" target="_blank">respectable</a> intellectual roots but in the main is just the losing side of the The Two Culture wars resenting a diminished status. Alas, it is true, a classics degree no longer secures one a minor sinecure in the Raj. Yet somehow I find myself unsympathetic.</p><p>For my part I retain the rather dull, unfashionable, maybe even refuted (though I <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/shadows-of-syntax-9780190086152?cc=gb&lang=en&" target="_blank">hope</a> <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Founding-Mathematics-Semantic-Conventions-Synthese/dp/303088533X" target="_blank">not</a>), view that mathematics is ultimately just a way of talking. A language among others. There are ultimately not many questions about writing one's arguments in a formal mode or making of one's thought experiments mathematical models that would not also be questions about the decision to write a paper in French or Twi or English. There are questions of accessibility to intended audience, of whether the vocabulary is rich enough for this phenomenon, and so relatedly how precise one can be in one's descriptions if one speaks in this manner, and so on.</p><p>I think in general the trade off for mathematically phrased arguments in philosophy is that it has an impoverished vocabulary and lowers accessibility, but on the flip side it allows one to be very precise and so rule out certain kind of errors (say that of inferring from an implicature as if it was semantically entailed), or at least make them less likely. I don't always get this right. For instance, in my own <a href="http://sootyempiric.blogspot.com/2020/04/a-brief-explanation-of-why-all-my-work.html" target="_blank">estimation</a> since I never followed it up with anything the use of formalism in <i><a href="http://www.liamkofibright.com/uploads/4/8/9/8/48985425/on_fraud_online_first.pdf" target="_blank">On Fraud</a></i> was not worth the trade off. The same argument could have been made in prose with the same degree of plausibility, but with considerably greater audience and accessibility. But other times I think it is correct, for instance in <i><a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11229-016-1294-7" target="_blank">Vindicating Methodological Triangulation</a></i> or <i><a href="https://philarchive.org/rec/ARVJTF" target="_blank">Jury Theorems for Peer Review</a></i> I would not have trusted the somewhat counter-intuitive conclusions without the assurance provided by the theorems. And finally sometimes I opt to drop the formalism from the argument even if it has informed the reasoning; as I think was the right choice <a href="https://www.liamkofibright.com/uploads/4/8/9/8/48985425/a_role_for_judgment_aggregation_in_coauthoring_scientific_papers_final_published_version.pdf" target="_blank">here</a>, e.g. All this to say that: using mathematics in philosophy has never really appeared fraught to me, it is a relatively low stakes practical decision that I have sometimes made well, sometimes poorly -- and never with much consequence. The fact that it is what people focus on as methodologically interesting in my work seems to me a pity.</p><p>Instead I think it far more challenging to say why it is that I make such frequent use of intellectual history. The paper linked above <i>Vindicating Methodological Triangulation</i> is, for instance, simultaneously an interpretation of Du Bois' method in sociology and an argument for mixed method research. The paper <i>On Fraud</i> draws one of its arguments from the book <i>Objectivity</i> discussed below. Some of my work is <a href="https://www.liamkofibright.com/uploads/4/8/9/8/48985425/du_bois_on_the_centralised_organisation_of_science_online_version.pdf" target="_blank">dedicated</a> <a href="https://www.liamkofibright.com/uploads/4/8/9/8/48985425/logical_empiricists_on_race_published_version.pdf" target="_blank">to</a> <a href="https://www.liamkofibright.com/uploads/4/8/9/8/48985425/idabwellsscriptwebsite.pdf" target="_blank">exegesis</a>, and I will appeal to the claims made in those pieces when making my own positive arguments in later works. I have blogged before about something like a <a href="http://sootyempiric.blogspot.com/2018/03/ideal-generation-of-philosophical-theses.html" target="_blank">heuristic of discovery in philosophy</a> that makes heavy use of intellectual history, and defended on here something I called "<a href="http://sootyempiric.blogspot.com/2017/02/defending-moderate-historicism.html" target="_blank">moderate historicism</a>" for interpreting thinkers' works. This, it seems to me, is far more substantial and controversial a commitment of mine, yet in my experience people do not find it anywhere near so noteworthy or disagreeable.</p><p>To that end I tried to do a quick survey of some (not all!) of the intellectual histories I have benefited from, and tried to say how I think I have done so. I am going to leave out works which focus on particular figures - even though some of these are <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo5503948.html" target="_blank">among</a> <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo24117748.html" target="_blank">my</a> <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/adam-smith-9780190690120?cc=gb&lang=en&" target="_blank">favourite</a> <a href="https://www.abebooks.co.uk/9780226035321/Condorcet-Natural-Philosophy-Social-Mathematics-0226035328/plp" target="_blank">works</a> of intellectual history. Instead I will just draw from three thematic areas I have often read around in:</p><p>One genre I have made much use of are scientific conceptual genealogies. As mentioned, for instance, I quoted from Daston and Gallison's <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9781890951795/objectivity" target="_blank"><i>Objectivity</i></a> in my published work. The particular use made of it there was to show how in different social conditions, when a behaviour was viewed as acceptable which we now view to be shameful, people could openly admit to behaving in a way that I predicted they would. What was useful to me, then, was learning how changing standards of evaluation changed scientists' behaviour in response. I have also often appealed to Latour and Woolger's <i><a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691028323/laboratory-life" target="_blank">Laboratory Life</a></i>, as having some wonderful reflections on scientists consciously seeking to influence the standards of evaluation to their own gain. Hasok Chang's <i><a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/inventing-temperature-9780195337389?cc=gb&lang=en&#" target="_blank">Inventing Temperature</a> </i>and Dutilh-Novaes' <i><a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/dialogical-roots-of-deduction/ADAD1844B5F559ECA15EE175690B612D" target="_blank">The Dialogical Roots of Deduction</a> </i>have been illuminating to me on broadly similar grounds. (Likewise histories of the social sciences like Porter's <i><a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691208428/the-rise-of-statistical-thinking-1820-1900" target="_blank">The Rise of Statistical Thinking</a> </i>or Hacking <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/taming-of-chance/79755A47B3FE3A340C2C79FBA1DE53D0" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">The Taming of Chance</a>.) As the social arrangements scientists are subject to change, and their technical capacities increase, different modes of arguing and different means of testing become available and seem more or less tempting. For me as a social epistemologist this is all fascinating as source material, both for inspiring ideas and testing guesses I have against this data. </p><p>At a somewhat deeper level Fleck <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Genesis-Development-Scientific-Ludwik-Fleck/dp/0226253252" target="_blank">on syphilis</a> is a good lesson in what kind of social conditions have to be in place for certain kind of ideas to be had or given uptake at all -- this then feeds directly into <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Exceeding-Our-Grasp-Unconceived-Alternatives/dp/0199751536" target="_blank">arguments</a> about what we can or cannot expect science to do for us even in the best case. So one thing, then, I gain from intellectual history, is learning what seem to be the practically necessary requirements for certain kinds of ideas and concepts to be developed and spread, and how it is that scientists respond to different modes of evaluation becoming available to them. </p><p>A second area where I have drawn much from intellectual history is in the study of slavery and race. Even more so than in the study of the sciences this area requires first order historical knowledge of material and social goings on in the past. Just to get the basics of what sort of thing slavery was, how it is related to race and other modes of social organisation, you should be reading <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/reconstruction-updated-edition-eric-foner?variant=32116709523490" target="_blank">works</a> <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Women-Class-Penguin-Modern-Classics/dp/0241408407/ref=sr_1_1?crid=NADWH3I3PPLZ&keywords=women+race+and+class+angela+davis&qid=1671186746&s=books&sprefix=Angela+DAvis+Race+%2Cstripbooks%2C164&sr=1-1" target="_blank">of</a> <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Black-Reconstruction-America-1860-1880-Bois/dp/0684856573" target="_blank">history</a> <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/446668/capitalism-and-slavery-by-williams-eric/9780241548165" target="_blank">and</a> <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520242012/golden-gulag" target="_blank">contemporary</a> <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Black-Jacobins-Toussaint-Louverture-Revolution/dp/0140299815" target="_blank">social</a> <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Caste-Class-Modern-reader-paperbacks/dp/0853451168" target="_blank">theory</a>. This certainly includes some conceptual genealogies of a somewhat similar sort to the scientific type. For instance I very much loved and learned much from Smith's<a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691176345/nature-human-nature-and-human-difference" target="_blank"><i> Nature, Human Nature, and Human Difference</i></a>. Along with Sala-Molins' more caustic and polemical <a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/dark-side-of-the-light" target="_blank"><i>Dark Side of the Light</i></a> one sees here how the intelligentsia were involved, often entirely complicit and even where not no doubt failing in their duties, in the emergence and stabilisation of concepts that would very largely be used for evil. Garnsey's altogether more dry <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Aristotle-Augustine-Stanford-Memorial-Lectures/dp/0521574331" target="_blank"><i>Ideas of Slavery from Aristotle to Augustine</i></a> is fascinating for seeing how simultaneously the human heart so persistently rebelled against slavery and yet also so infrequently struck upon universal manumission and abolition as the solution. Some of my previously quoted exegetical work was studying how the logical empiricists tried to resist racialisation, and I have drawn from the above traditions in <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/syk4m/" target="_blank">non-exegetical published work</a> <a href="https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/a-response-to-michael-walzer" target="_blank">too</a>. These works no doubt also have a salutary moral effect. In reading some of them I was at times reminded me of those passages in <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Eichmann-Jerusalem-Report-Banality-Evil/dp/1452651655" target="_blank">Arendt</a> wherein she condemns those who tried to reason with the Nazis on their amoral terms. What appeared to people as hard nosed realism in trying to compromise with the presumedly stone-hearted Hitlerites was actually useful to Nazi bureaucrats in allowing them to evade, even to themselves, the moral reality of what they were doing. All this is useful as a moral instruction, reminding one what locally apparently reasonable compromises will look like with hindsight. </p><p>Intellectual history here is not so much an enriching source of data and instruction as a prerequisite to know what I am talking about. Or, at least, so it seems to me. I must admit that people seem to not only get by but be capable of doing work in the field of philosophy of race without this sort of background. I suspect then what we are really seeing here is intellectual history as a means of masking a deficiency of mine -- I am not a keen sociological observer myself, nor do I have a background in some pertinent science like anthropology or genetics. I have no strong social intuitions, wouldn't trust them if I did, and have no alternate source of information. My only way into this topic is through history and social theory.</p><p>Third and finally I have made use of intellectual histories when trying to think about alternative political forms. In two opposite sort of ways! Busia's <i><a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Position-of-the-Chief-in-the-Modern-Political-System-of-Ashanti-A-Study/Busia/p/book/9781138492271" target="_blank">The Position of the Chief in the Modern Political System of Ashanti</a> </i>documents the pre conquest Ashanti political arrangement and shows what effects British imperialism had upon it. It is fascinating as a detailed account of how a distributed direct democratic system actually worked. It thus provides substance to Wiredu<a href="https://them.polylog.org/2/fwk-en.htm" target="_blank"> on non party democracy</a>. However Busia comes with his own biases, and the section on Fante literature in Jackson's <i><a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691186443/the-african-novel-of-ideas" target="_blank">The African Novel of Ideas</a></i> provides a good counter-balance to his somewhat idealised picture of pre-colonial polities by showing you what non-Ashanti intelligentsia hoped to achieve. To me these paired well with my readings on the emergence of radical democratic ideas in Britain, such as Hill's classic <i><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/World-Turned-Upside-Down-Revolution/dp/0140137327" target="_blank">The World Turned Upside Down</a></i> or Rees' more recent <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Leveller-Revolution-John-Rees/dp/1784783889" target="_blank"><i>The Leveller Revolution</i></a> (on which see <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/james-clr/works/1949/05/english-revolution.htm" target="_blank">also</a>). I tried to read some primary sources here like transcripts of the <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/2807-the-putney-debates" target="_blank"><i>Putney Debates</i></a>, Winstanley's<i> <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Levellers-Standard-Advanced-Freedom-Writings/dp/1492754870" target="_blank">Law of Freedom</a></i>, and Coppe's truly marvellous <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Collection-Ranter-Writings-Spiritual-Revolution/dp/0745333605" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">Fiery Flying Rolles</a>. These all in their own way give substance to things like James' <i><a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/james-clr/works/1956/06/every-cook.htm" target="_blank">Every Cook Can Govern</a></i>. Even with blinkers off and acknowledging the huge huge flaws of the fanatical and slave-trading groups described above, these still give me hope. Genuine democracy, <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=33817" target="_blank">conflict riven as it inevitably is</a>, can be made to work. And once you've got it, even just for a bit, it generates its own culture and hence a <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ej/article-abstract/129/618/678/5289452" target="_blank">lasting</a> <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0191453719876978" target="_blank">support</a> <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-019-0769-1" target="_blank">base</a>. These works give me not just ideas but hope, faith. </p><p>In contrast to that I have also been interested in the history of technocracies, especially focussed on Confucian government. The key text here has been Kühn's <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674062023" target="_blank"><i>The Age of Confucian Rule: The Song Transformation of China</i></a>. Here we get to see a period in which highly centralised technocrat bureaucracy was the main form of government. And interestingly enough it also has much to be said in its favour! One here gets the impression of technocratic government arising as an expression of genuinely widely shared cultural values and in opposition to arbitrary government by hereditary warlords. Kiri Paramore's <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Japanese-Confucianism-Cultural-History-Approaches/dp/1107058651" target="_blank"><i>Japanese Confucianism: A Cultural History</i></a>, Nosco's (ed.) <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9780824843397/html?lang=en" target="_blank"><i>Confucianism and Tokugawa Culture</i></a> give a similarly positive impression of Japanese Confucianism, leading to its eventual suppression by the fascist regime. Relatedly, the intellectual history of the early 20th century Confucian inspired anarchist movement and actual first order anti-imperialist text in <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520286344/monster-of-the-twentieth-century" target="_blank"><i>Monster of the 20th Century</i></a> (along with Chōmin's delightful <a href="https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/A-Discourse-by-Three-Drunkards-on-Government-by-Chomin-Nakae-Nobuko-Tsukui-Jeffrey-Hammond/9780834801929" target="_blank">drunkard's discourse</a>) also helps convey this. (I think to modern sensibilities the White Peak story in <i><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ugetsu-Monogatari-Tales-Moonlight-Routledge/dp/0415619939" target="_blank">Ugetsu</a></i> is liable to convey a positive image of Mengzi, against what I would guess was the author's intent -- there suppressing the Mengzi is justified on the grounds that it might encourage uprisings against bad rulers!) Contrast this with Deutchler's nightmarish <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674160897" target="_blank"><i>The Confucian Transformation of Korea</i></a> for a vision of what Confucianism looks like when it is a top-down elite-driven programme, and maybe sprinkle in the healthy cynicism of AJP Taylor's <i><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Trouble-Makers-Dissent-Foreign-1792-1939o/dp/0571243231" target="_blank">The Trouble Makers</a> </i>or Luxemburg's sharp <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1904/questions-rsd/" target="_blank">analysis of vanguardism</a>, and one is brought back down to earth. Still, even if only under certain cultural conditions, to my own democratic sensibilities it was remarkable that this could ever work at all.</p><p>So where then does this leave me? Intellectual histories have played a part in giving me faith in my ideals but also challenging my sense of what is possible. They provide data regarding the behaviour of scientists and inquirers under different evaluative regimes, and illuminate what kind of social or technical conditions are pre-requisites for certain sorts of inquiry to bear fruit. They upbraid me with stern moral lessons while also forming just a humdrum pre-requisite for me to even have anything at all. Modest as my career has been, I could not have done even this little I have done without them.</p><p>Now it is tempting to generalise from my own case. To worry that philosophy done without this sort of information runs the risk of being morally lax, devoid of content or connection with the real world, or based upon inaccurate guesses where not -- baseless in its faiths and parochial in its sense of possibility. But I am not sure that is right. Instead I think it better to say: everyone needs something that is, for them, playing the role of grounding one's modal reasoning. We philosophers are very concerned with what is possible, with counter-factuals, with what could or should or would be. Somehow or another you need to be able to reason about these things in a way that is neither ignorant of what is possible yet not so speculative as to be mere guesswork. For me it is intellectual history that has provided this basis, grounded my sense of the possible in the actual-but-different. I do not think it needs to be intellectual history for everyone, but everyone needs something to play this role.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4TFTsJpmJOkMQknbwz0kn5zXsvEBAEgH3Fjb8KYChXuS5YTZq9hozfKEvkYpGDBG907hU60gxJyctUKj3gsPYADfPWRlC-HZpgSh_yDzMG38QTOkgwHYAUoaDfQjP01c_Q1Gzp8umOwGkD_pjYJjIc2O1XNNKmd4V3W1FIZs9KxSE5jQLfxoYl3VT3w/s4032/On%20The%20Spirit%20of%20Rights.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4TFTsJpmJOkMQknbwz0kn5zXsvEBAEgH3Fjb8KYChXuS5YTZq9hozfKEvkYpGDBG907hU60gxJyctUKj3gsPYADfPWRlC-HZpgSh_yDzMG38QTOkgwHYAUoaDfQjP01c_Q1Gzp8umOwGkD_pjYJjIc2O1XNNKmd4V3W1FIZs9KxSE5jQLfxoYl3VT3w/w480-h640/On%20The%20Spirit%20of%20Rights.jpeg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My current reading</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p>Last Positivisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677699402952932577noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6331292467452860795.post-56451783893548937022022-11-17T11:21:00.007-08:002022-11-17T11:21:40.310-08:00Philosophy, Twitter and Hierarchy<p>This month's post is a guest post by <a href="https://www.masonwestfall.com/" target="_blank">Mason Westfall</a>. Prompted by a recent <a href="https://philarchive.org/rec/JANSPA-3" target="_blank">essay</a> by <a href="https://philpeople.org/profiles/martin-janello" target="_blank">Martin Janello</a> there was recently some discussion on twitter about twitter amongst philosophers. Responding to the general discussion, Mason wrote a very interesting thread on the topic -- I invited him to expand those thoughts into a blog post. I thought the results very interesting, so read on and see what you make of it!</p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p>Twitter promises democratization. When you log on, you can talk to… anyone. Your favorite (and least favorite) journalist is here. You can tell them what you think. Political staffers, novelists, celebrities and comedians are all here, talking. In the real world, it’s a rarity to wind up in the same room as the cultural and political elite. They mostly hang out with each other, and you’re not invited. You have to get lucky, and then maybe you’ll get to mumble ‘I love your work’ or yell ‘Fuck you Ted Cruz’ before they’re gone, back to rooms much too exclusive for the likes of you. But everyone is invited to Twitter. Everyone can talk to anyone. We’re all in the same room and you can say whatever you want. It’s a seductive promise.</p><p>It’s unsurprising then that philosophers are drawn to twitter. We’ve long had an obsessive ambivalence about hierarchy. Plato tells us the ideal society is ruled by philosopher kings. He who is best at philosophy rightly enjoys the most power. Though we haven’t managed to institute Plato’s Republic at the society level, we’ve gotten quite a bit closer as a discipline. Academic philosophy exemplifies a rigid status hierarchy, one we talk about constantly. We need to decide what the top ten journals are, the top five departments for metaethics, the ten best papers published this year. The status hierarchy has obvious material consequences. Whatever the mechanism, taking graduate seminars at Harvard or MIT seems to be remarkably correlated with academic success. And most of you aren’t invited to those seminars.</p><p>Where you are invited, all of you, is Philosophy Twitter. Bigshots and hobbyists, anonymous grad students and rising stars are all talking about philosophy. You don’t need an NYU affiliation to tell Chalmers what you think about sentient AI. Undergrads—many at schools without grad programs—can ask grad students how to write a statement of purpose, and get notes on their writing sample. For those who aren’t invited to the fancy rooms this is a remarkable innovation. And for those who have come to distrust hierarchy, both as actually realized, and as a matter of principle, it sounds like a salutary one. It’s hackneyed to recite all of the unfair factors that condition who winds up in the Oxford seminar room. But on Twitter you don’t need to be in the room to be a part of the conversation. If the room is unfairly exclusionary, that’s a win.</p><p>Only that’s too quick. Twitter makes preexisting elites accessible, but it also creates its own elites. Most likely, you’re reading this because it’s on Liam’s blog and he tweeted it out. I get your attention because Liam is a twitter bigshot, and he decided I deserved it. [A sentence saying something nice about Liam here did not survive the editorial process.] How many people on Philosophy Twitter could get you to read this? Maybe it’s a few, and maybe it’s a lot, but that power to direct your attention is unequally distributed. Liam has more power than I do. For those who are distrustful of hierarchy per se, this is dubious. And for many more, the specific mechanisms of this inequality are suspicious. At least the older hierarchies involved an academic elite who could assess who was most worthy, most skilled. Twitter rewards followers, and followers could be anyone.</p><p>A mythos of democratization combined with a reality of hierarchy breeds resentment. Just as people feel overlooked in traditional hierarchies—under-cited, under-placed, under-appreciated—people feel overlooked on Philosophy Twitter. They aren’t followed enough, responded to enough, respected enough. Maybe they’re right. Where someone falls in either hierarchy is the result of many factors, some of which are obviously unfair. Maybe your family couldn’t send you to a fancy high school, or your supervisor was cruel, maybe you don’t project a cool vibe, or your jokes aren’t that funny, or you annoy people by besting them in debates.</p><p>So Twitter’s promise is a lie. It ‘deconstructs hierarchy’ by instituting a different, objectionable hierarchy. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. We’re all in the same room, but nobody’s listening to you.</p><p>Still, I think our situation with hierarchy is improved by Philosophy Twitter, not because the hierarchy it institutes is more intrinsically fair, but because it diversifies the unfairness of hierarchy. The things that make someone successful on Philosophy Twitter are different from the things that redound to one’s benefit under traditional hierarchies. By diversifying the factors that contribute to who has unfair power in the discipline, we innervate the power of any particular unfair advantage. That’s a good thing.</p><p>Why not just make a discipline that’s actually non-hierarchical? Justice is fairness, these hierarchies are unfair, justice doesn’t involve them. Only I don’t know what that would actually look like. The way I learned to do philosophy is essentially hierarchical. I learned to assess arguments as more or less persuasive, dialectical moves as more or less novel, views as more or less interesting. Likewise, I assess jokes as more or less funny, takes as more or less insightful, memes as more or less dank. If I consistently judge that one philosopher’s work is better than another’s, I don’t know how to avoid thinking they’re better at philosophy. If I consistently like one person’s tweets, I’ll follow them. If the tweets are bad, I’ll unfollow. Sure, in some abstract way I might be ‘suspicious of hierarchies’, but my form of life is deeply committed to them. I find a real alternative literally unimaginable.</p><p>Philosophers have the concept of a regulative ideal—a goal that’s unattainable but aiming at it does us good. A non-hierarchical discipline can’t be our regulative ideal, because we can’t even imagine it. How could we aim at something unthinkable? Bizarrely, more hierarchies might be the best we can do right now. The point generalizes. If two hierarchies are better than one, three are better than two. This seems almost silly, but I think it’s right. What’s most objectionable about hierarchies really, is not that people are ‘ranked’ differently, but that how they’re ranked conditions how good their life is in profound ways. The less a hierarchy affects someone’s life outcomes, the less worrisome it is, even if it’s still unfair. When relatively few hierarchies condition our lives, the stakes are high. When more hierarchies condition our lives, the stakes are lower for each individual hierarchy. So, Philosophy Twitter can be both an unfair hierarchy, and democratize the discipline. Maybe we need more unfair hierarchies like it.</p>Last Positivisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677699402952932577noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6331292467452860795.post-34471393331683570662022-10-23T03:43:00.002-07:002022-10-23T13:50:10.197-07:00Carnap's Contributions<p>There was recently on twitter a good natured thread discussing philosophers of science's contributions to the sciences they study. How often does a card carrying academic philosopher make a direct or first order contribution to the scientific enterprise, it <a href="https://twitter.com/SuryaGanguli/status/1582416622832128001?s=20&t=6MRAJhErJHs0VyhH5XU2Bg" target="_blank">was</a> asked. Naturally I went in to provide some Carnap facts since I thought I could just draw from a <a href="http://sootyempiric.blogspot.com/2019/04/carnap-did-nothing-wrong.html" target="_blank">previous</a> blog post. But it turned out my main man was already covered so I didn't feel the need to say more. However, on doing a bit of review, it made me realise something that I find a bit interesting about Carnap's contribution to the sciences and how they tended to happen, so a short blog post on that.<br /><br />(For anyone interested in the more general question concerning the recent influence of philosophy of science upon the sciences they might find <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11229-021-03067-x" target="_blank">these</a> <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/715518" target="_blank">two</a> articles interesting. Somewhat more polemical but with more historical cases <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1900357116" target="_blank">this</a> article might also be fun. Note that I am not going to have anything interesting to say on what counts as a science in what follows. If you don't think these are sciences proper then just think of this as Carnap's contribution to these other fields, however they are classified.)</p><p>We'll start with the most direct of direct contributions - personally discovering or proving something that is of general scientific interest. As far as I know with Carnap there are not many instances of this. Probably his best case would be the fact that the <i>Logical Syntax of Language</i> contains the <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jigpal/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/jigpal/jzac054/6640458?redirectedFrom=fulltext" target="_blank">first proper statement</a> of the Generalised Diagonalisation Lemma from Gödel's incompleteness theorem. From the outside proving a lemma may not sound too impressive, but in fact if you know the history of logic this aspect of the proof is what allows for the very general self-reference that Gödel brought so vividly to our attention; it's actually conceptually very important. Now Carnap's proof was slightly (but not seriously - see the reply <a href="https://www.logicmatters.net/2012/01/06/carnap-and-the-diagonalization-lemma/" target="_blank">here</a>) incomplete, but none the less I think the norm among historians of logic and mathematics is to credit him, so fair play.<br /><br />I think the only other contender for such a direct contribution from just Carnap himself would be the discovery of <a href="http://oldwww.ma.man.ac.uk/~jeff/lecture-notes/FEWS.pdf" target="_blank">pure inductive logic</a> as a field. This is a very small niche branch of contemporary pure mathematics, not quite engaged in the same project as Carnap but at least interested in the family of formal systems his own work introduced. It does not seem to me to have massively taken off, but they have recently published their own <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/pure-inductive-logic/2ED3E3EE53CC51A99C1DD94341CB7FA2" target="_blank">textbook</a>, they have their own set of <a href="https://www.proquest.com/openview/4c6aec26babd6aa5cbf3af00f74de5ed/1?cbl=36450&pq-origsite=gscholar" target="_blank">open problems</a> they turn up at <a href="https://air.unimi.it/bitstream/2434/936787/2/TheReasoner-155.pdf" target="_blank">conferences</a> and there seem to be research connections between them and the slightly bigger (and also probably Carnap descended) <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10992-022-09680-6" target="_blank">Objective Bayesian school</a>. So there you go, it's not big but it's not nothing either. </p><p>So re direct contributions to science, therefore, Carnap stated and (almost) proved the GDL and founded a small field of modern mathematics which took his ideas in more abstract and less applied directions. How about slightly less directly?</p><p>As far as I can tell they are as follows. First, in linguistics, Carnap's work in <i>Meaning and Necessity</i> forms some of the first steps towards the "possible worlds semantics" which nowadays is so influential. Although even here, Ruth Barcan-Marcus <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09608788.2021.1984872" target="_blank">beat him to the punch</a> in actually publishing axioms for quantified modal logic. They seemed to have <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/43047552#metadata_info_tab_contents" target="_blank">worked together at Chicago</a> in the years leading up to their first publications on the topic, and Barcan-Marcus work was ultimately not just first but more technically fruitful. (The second chapter of Timothy Williamson's <i>Modal Logic as Metaphysics</i> is quite a nice run down of why Carnap's modal semantics is a sort of close-but-no-cigar sorta thing from the contemporary logician's point of view.) But for all that, there is a path from Carnap's modal semantics to contemporary linguistics -- surprisingly enough not via Kripke but via Montague. This is because <a href="https://stanford.library.sydney.edu.au/entries/montague-semantics/" target="_blank">Montague semantics</a> builds on some of the technical features of Carnap's work but places them in a generally more productive framework (Montague himself <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20114870#metadata_info_tab_contents" target="_blank">reported</a> that some of these improvements were suggested to him by Carnap in conversation). And Carnap's student David Kaplan did work on <a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/KAPD" target="_blank">demonstratives and indexicals</a> based upon this, and linguists tell me this work is still (<a href="https://twitter.com/njenfield/status/1583959320001028098?s=20&t=q0iYwer_ZGwbT1xkvSQ3gg" target="_blank">somewhat</a>) <a href="https://twitter.com/AaronGowen/status/1583600135233482753?s=20&t=q0iYwer_ZGwbT1xkvSQ3gg" target="_blank">influential</a>. So not really directly the work Carnap himself did, but the work it inspired, turned out to be productive for linguistics.</p><p>Second, there is machine learning and AI. Not only did Carnap <a href="https://twitter.com/lastpositivist/status/1097174584024010752?s=20&t=HXGJvdASBylW60Hz-eswVg" target="_blank">secure</a> Walter Pitts a job at a time when he had been unemployed and homeless, but it seems he was <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-37591-1_6" target="_blank">very</a> influential on Pitts' (and McCulloch's) thinking about cognition and neural networks. Their seminal <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02478259" target="_blank">paper</a> even uses the notation and systems of Carnap's <i>Logical Syntax</i> to frame its ideas and results. Herb Simon was <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0364021303000636" target="_blank">deeply influenced</a> by Carnap incorporating his ideas into much of his work, even doing <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/philosophy-of-science/article/abs/prediction-and-hindsight-as-confirmatory-evidence/885121AAEA35DC18509BEDBD085E51FC" target="_blank">scholarship</a> on Carnap. And Ray J Solomonoff <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022000097915002" target="_blank">directly credits</a> the invention of algorithmic probability to working out how he could build on Carnap's model of inductive logic to just do away with a couple of flaws he saw in it. (Mind you in the same recollection he also mentions how much Freud influenced him and on that basis says not to trust his own memory of what made him do what!) So here the story seems a bit more straightforward. Carnap was directly the teacher of a bunch of the founding figures in machine learning and AI, and they pretty directly credited specific ideas of his for inspiring their work. </p><p>Third and finally, Carnap seems to have had a lot of indirect influence on what we might nowadays call information theory. And curiously here it almost all seems to have been via his philosophical work rather than his directly technical work. For it seems one of his students, Richard Jeffreys, took Carnap's logical empiricism as the starting point for his development of <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0039368115000618?casa_token=Smb1FoexgEMAAAAA:VjtMmPHknvCB4ipFKefIhfQO3iyIcK8K0BWTLLgMHaMd2pa7CsXjJUGUrQNA5i-aISswReS95eU" target="_blank">radical probabilism</a> in Bayesian epistemology and decision theory. Jeffrey's apparent interpretation of his relationship to Carnap, at least, was that radical probabilism kept what was correct in Carnap's logicist and tolerant approach to the world, but dropped the erroneous dogmas of empiricism. Abner Shimony, who played a vital role in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHSH_inequality" target="_blank">operationalising</a> Bell's inequalities, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20117715?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents" target="_blank">reported</a> being inspired by Carnap's model of clarity and work on testability and meaning (along with his thinking on induction) - although he noted that at no point did he ever really agree with Carnap. Shimony later edited and published Carnap's essays on <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520324695/two-essays-on-entropy" target="_blank">Entropy</a> - which as far as I can tell were <a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/ANTAPA-4" target="_blank">substantially correct</a>. Carnap himself developed and published <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1093/bjps/IV.14.147?journalCode=bjps" target="_blank">work</a> on semantic information with Bar-Hillel, and David Lewis <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191659910000987" target="_blank">developed</a> the first signalling game as a way of vindicating Carnap's conventionalism against Quine re philosophical foundation of logic and language. </p><p>So there you have it there's my gathered case for Carnap's influences on the sciences. When I find out about more I will add to the post. (Edit: one already! Thanks to Richard Zach for <a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/SCHCEM-3https://philpapers.org/rec/SCHCEM-3" target="_blank">pointing out</a> that Carnap's early work on axiomatics was a big influence on Gödel and Tarski; also in the vein of productive but not ideal, nicely fitting our theme.) But for now I just want to highlight something: how often all this goes via Carnap's mistakes.</p><p>I recall Eric Schliesser saying somewhere (but cannot now find! Will update with links if I get them) that Carnap is interesting because for all his skill he was a habitual bungler. In another circumstance I remember Glymour saying that Carnap was ever a day late and a dollar short. Looking at these lists it's impossible not to agree, right? Genuinely the scientific legacy just described is one that any of us in academia would kill to have... yet it is basically all just a result of him being wrong, and inspiring someone else to do better. Even the GDL, probably his best single claim to real high level scientific credit, was kinda mistakenly done in his hands and had to be fixed up by later workers. </p><p>Now neither Schliesser nor Glymour intended what they said to be entirely dismissive of Carnap. I think they both have some affection for him and his work. And obviously I do too! So I think it is worth reflecting on how it can be that such an impressive legacy can be composed near entirely of errors.</p><p>To me the lesson I take away concerns the place of academic philosophy in the present academy. Namely I think this: <i>if</i> one aims to be a kind of naturalistic or science-facing-interdisciplinary scholar, <i>then</i> one will usually do better to be clear and bold and thus clearly wrong, than one will do to be intricate and careful and likely correct. Of course I cannot really draw a comparative claim like that from just the information about one person, so implicitly I am here drawing upon my background knowledge about lots of other philosophers and their legacies and how they might compare to Carnap's. So I think that Carnap's legacy is just a very dramatic illustration of the conditional claim.</p><p>The reason I think the conditional holds is to do with the comparative advantage of the academic philosopher, and is perhaps also related to Frieidman's <a href="https://web.stanford.edu/group/cslipublications/cslipublications/site/1575862921.shtml" target="_blank">work</a> on the history of paradigm changes. I <a href="http://sootyempiric.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-end-of-analytic-philosophy.html" target="_blank">do not think</a> we are especially good at establishing claims as true. What we instead have is wide latitude to explore ideas that would be ruled out by the stricter paradigms of other fields. We have tools and clarity norms that <a href="http://sootyempiric.blogspot.com/2017/10/upholding-standards.html" target="_blank">can</a> make us unusually good at being explicit about what elements of our ideas are driving what consequences, making it easier to see what ought be retained or discarded. And, if only because what we do is so cheap, we have unusually wide remit to make use of academic norms <a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/DANSCN" target="_blank">permitting</a> riskier publications. So if anyone is going to do the work of "explore the consequences of far reaching but speculative or commonly presupposed ideas and see how they play out" we are very well positioned to be that person, and we are likely to do so in a way that facilitates others realising what they like/do not like in the results of this, and modifying their behaviour accordingly. <br /></p><p>Carnap's legacy is a dramatic illustration that done well this can be very fruitful despite its high propensity to generate error. I do not think it is the only way to be a good philosopher, indeed I do not <a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/BRITT-2" target="_blank">think</a> we should presume that all the ways of being a good philosopher are consistent with being a good academic, but it is certainly one way to do things of real benefit to science and society. And whatever we are trying to do in our work, not many of us can honestly boast of in fact having done better than Carnap in our own spheres.</p>Last Positivisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677699402952932577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6331292467452860795.post-72244575838020489992022-08-07T04:53:00.003-07:002022-08-07T04:53:18.690-07:00The Case for Reparsanctions<p style="text-align: center;"> A Satire upon the Recent "Resolution" of Conflict by <a href="https://tenathau.com/" target="_blank">Tena Thau</a></p><p>It is often argued that reparations should be provided to the victims of past injustices. Reparations can take many forms, but they are typically thought to include some form of financial compensation, and an acknowledgement and apology for harm that has been done.</p><p>But there may be an even better response to historical injustice than reparations—reparsanctions: imposing economic sanctions on the group of people to whom reparations are owed. This is the US government’s current policy vis-à-vis the people of Afghanistan, and in this essay, I’ll offer an elucidation and defence of the idea.</p><p>But let’s start with a little background first.</p><p>After the 9-11 attacks, the Bush administration chose to respond, not by going after the individual perpetrators and bringing them to justice (Evangelista, 2011), but by launching a global “War on Terror”, which has killed an estimated 897,000-929,000 people to date (Brown Costs of War Project, 2021). Tens of thousands of Afghan civilians were among those killed, and millions more Afghans have been forcibly displaced in the conflict (Vine et. al., 2021). In a new <a href="https://www.currentaffairs.org/2022/08/what-do-we-owe-afghanistan" target="_blank">essay</a>, Noam Chomsky and Nathan Robinson suggest that some form of reparations are owed to the people of Afghanistan, for all the harm that has been inflicted upon them.</p><p>But why bother with reparations when we can instead impose repar-sanctions? Last summer, the US froze $7 billion in Afghan central bank assets after the Taliban took power (Pollard, 2022). Half of that money—$3.5 billion—it plans to take from the Afghan people and give to American family members of 9-11 victims (even though the people of Afghanistan had nothing to do with the 9-11 attacks).</p><p>As a consequence, Afghanistan, which was one of the poorest countries in the world before the war even began, is currently facing a dire humanitarian crisis. According to the United Nations, “a staggering 95 percent of Afghans are not getting enough to eat” (United Nations, 2022). Some parents are selling an organ so they can feed their children (Barber, 2022). Nevertheless, the US’s current policy of repar-sanctions is justified. Here are three reasons why.</p><p>1.The US government has already done enough to help the people of Afghanistan.</p><p>At the start of the war, the Bush administration, in an extraordinary act of generosity, had US planes drop some packages of food over Afghanistan (in addition to the bombs). The packages, emblazoned with the US flag, included potatoes, biscuits, and beans in tomato sauce, and were enough to feed 1% of the Afghan population for one day (Garvey, 2001).</p><p>2. Repar-sanctions are more cost-effective than reparations. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtXEwK0QkDil4ymhqmyND3SIDmnWNbNSVempCAjv-yUb5y0OfDqa67_0pZSTw3pZXWbKI8y2y2UpQ_tqyRAdJChhf6GXywH6pMyD7o9SxhCRZdbC4GGdeMkC6mA4amgEtK0CUqXvBnAq282QI8vHNbPY7stYSD2cgP1LsL9KbXx3_HlfUgedQCXAlVZg/s1376/ReparSanctions%20Graph.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1030" data-original-width="1376" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtXEwK0QkDil4ymhqmyND3SIDmnWNbNSVempCAjv-yUb5y0OfDqa67_0pZSTw3pZXWbKI8y2y2UpQ_tqyRAdJChhf6GXywH6pMyD7o9SxhCRZdbC4GGdeMkC6mA4amgEtK0CUqXvBnAq282QI8vHNbPY7stYSD2cgP1LsL9KbXx3_HlfUgedQCXAlVZg/w640-h480/ReparSanctions%20Graph.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p>As the above graph illustrates, repar-sanctions are more cost-effective than either cash transfers or building hospitals and schools.</p><p>3. Repar-sanctions foster goodwill.</p><p>Now that US troops have left Afghanistan, there is the risk that all the goodwill that we’ve built up during our neighbourly, 20-year presence in the region will begin to fade away. But the food shortages we’re now causing serve as a reminder to the Afghan people that, while they may not see our tanks rolling down their streets or our drones circling over their heads, we are still with them in spirit, and having a real impact on their lives. Whenever an Afghan person hears their stomach growl, or sees the scar on their body from the kidney they had to sell to stay alive, they’ll think of us!</p><p>Now, it might be tempting to look at the current situation in Afghanistan and think, “hey maybe we have a basic humanitarian duty to help our fellow human beings who are on the brink of starvation.” But this line of thinking overlooks a crucial fact—that we’ve already given the Afghan people the most meaningful gift there is, one that no amount of money can buy. The gift of our friendship. In a speech delivered in October of 2001, George W. Bush stated that “The United States is a friend to the Afghan people.” Two decades later, this bond of friendship remains strong as ever before.</p><p><b><u>Bibliography</u></b></p><p>Barber, H. (2022). Afghans forced to sell their kidneys as extreme hunger tightens its grip. The Telegraph.</p><p>Brown Costs of War Project. (2021). Human Cost of Post-9/11 Wars: Direct War Deaths in Major War Zones. Retrieved from: https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/figures/2021/WarDeathToll</p><p>Bush, G. W. (2001). Global War on Terror. George W. Bush Presidential Library. Retrieved from: https://www.georgewbushlibrary.gov/research/topic-guides/global-war-terror</p><p>Evangelista, M. (2011). Coping with 9/11: Alternatives to the War Paradigm.</p><p>Garvey, M. (2001). Along With Bombs, U.S. Drops Rations. LA Times.</p><p>Pollard, R. (2022). Joe Biden’s $7 Billion Betrayal of Afghanistan. Washington Post.</p><p>Robinson, N. & Chomsky, N. (2022). What Do We Owe Afghanistan? Current Affairs.</p><p>United Nations. (2022). Afghanistan: Food insecurity and malnutrition threaten ‘an entire generation.’ Retrieved from: https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/03/1113982</p><p>Vine et. al. (2021). Creating Refugees: Displacement Caused by the United States’ Post-9/11 Wars. Retrieved from https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2020/Displacement_Vine%20et%20al_Costs%20of%20War%202020%2009%2008.pdf</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /><br /></div><br /><br /><p></p>Last Positivisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677699402952932577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6331292467452860795.post-80031388017185161152022-06-17T12:25:00.003-07:002022-06-18T02:35:30.408-07:00There Will Be No Message Discipline<p>This is one of those posts I write because I so often find myself making the point that I should like to be able to just have it all written out and available to point to. It concerns a genre of article, tweet, opinion, argument… I often encounter in many different spheres. As ever, I won’t give negative examples, so if this doesn’t resonate with you presumably we have just had different experiences and you may go on your way in the peace of the Lord. </p><p>The genre I am concerned with is: people imploring leftists to speak and act in a fashion that is less off putting to the uninitiated. It’s sort of a genre of respectability politics, but lacks the full connotations of that. It’s more just that, say, abolition of the nuclear family is a very unpopular position, so if you lead with a bunch of harsh condemnations of nuclear families as a mode of child rearing you are certainly going to code yourself as non serious or even scary to many listeners. Likewise the left is much more likely to be sensitive to subtle instances of bigotry most people would not care about, to the same effect. The genre I am concerned with takes examples like this and implores leftists to keep this to themselves, to give people a pass on that sort of thing, in the hopes of building an effective coalition for winning and wielding power. </p><p>(An example of the genre, to make it concrete, was the widespread discussion among American twitter users about whether or not the left should hold back from criticism of Biden’s Build Back Better programme back when it seemed like that might be a thing. It is one thing to direct such “hold your tongue!” advice to prominent national figures, but for this to be an instance of the sort of thing I care about we must focus on such advice being offered to internet randos. I saw multiple cases of people on twitter engaged in back and forth wherein both were what I would describe as ordinary schmucks, one was expressing dissatisfaction with the limits of Build Back Better, and the other was telling them that they need to shut up with this as it will only fracture the coalition necessary to pass the bill which was surely an improvement on status quo. This is the genre of thing I mean.)</p><p>I don’t like this genre and this post will explain why.</p><p>Now it’s going to turn out to be significant who exactly my audience for this post is, so a word on that upfront. I think the arguments I give here go for most ordinary schmucks having every day conversations; prominently, in today’s day and age, conversations on social media or semi-public fora. It would not apply to: a) people who are extraordinarily visible and likely to be seen as a thought leader or trend setter. b) certain sorts of intimate one-to-one conversations where strong bonds of trust exist between participants. I will highlight where and why these caveats are important as they come up. It is also presupposing an audience whose goals are for the left to gain political victories, since the implied instrumental argument of the genre presupposes that as well. I think this will in fact rule out many journalists (doubly so prominent journalists, for reason a above still applies), since the appropriate goal for journalists might be properly distinct from seeking partisan political victory, and in any case often just is not in fact seeking left victory</p><p>I think that straight off the bat anyone is likely to generate the following two objections to the genre. First, an objector may respond: I simply do not interact with enough people to scare people out of a coalition. The viability of a left coalition does not require people to like me in particular, after all; most will in fact never even encounter me. Second, more general considerations re how we ought behave in a democracy might speak against the genre. Too much Machiavellian cleverness in the expression of our beliefs and preferences can just lead to democratic deliberation or aggregation not really taking into account the actual knowledge dispersed throughout the population. Then we are all poorer for it. While I see something to both of these, I want to just set them aside here. Presume that words spoken on social media really are available to everyone, and that strategic behaviour is possible and would be good if effective.</p><p>Now, let’s consider the situation of our ordinary leftist schmuck. I suppose they want the left to win, but they also enjoy speaking their mind and engaging in the rough and tumble of online. Importantly for the argument that follows, this is to say: they do not post only because they think it will influence outcomes and care about what happens when it does. All else equal, after all, people do not like censoring themselves and enjoy airing their thoughts. And since they know of themselves that they are nought more than an ordinary schlemiel, they are aware that even if they could persuade everyone that they personally were a reasonable comrade, that would not in fact do much to change people’s opinion of the left as a whole. In fact at a first approximation they are simply irrelevant; no one takes them to be representative nor has any reason to, and the opponents of the left will always be able to find other people (whose speech our ordinary schmuck cannot control) to portray as unreasonable. All this leads to more or less the same odds for the possibility of left coalition resulting whether or not our Joe Schmo is the one seen to say unreasonable things themselves. The relevant facts here being that: one, their decision to moderate their speech cannot anywise make any large number of other people moderate their speech in turn, and two the discrediting anti-coalitional effects of scary (or “unreasonable”) leftists speech don’t depend at all on it being them in particular who engages in the speech.</p><p><br /></p><p>So we could form a very simple model of this ordinary schmuck as follows. They are faced with a choice between speaking their mind or engaging in message discipline. And (in this simplified model, though nothing depends on this particular simplification) on some issue we are presently campaigning over the left can either win or lose. Most of all they would like to be able to speak their mind and have the left win, but they accept it would be worth engaging in message discipline if that meant the left do win; whereas, disprefferred to both those, if the left are going to lose anyway they would prefer to speak their mind than not.</p><p>With numbers representing ordinal preference rankings if you draw that out as a decision table you get </p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjNMdWT32Cx2-WkUNmrbQOozarTUpq8nmkO6Nes04uR9QkBbl5FJOyOh58YytsnIBBtZ6HZ8Ds2-wFoFlpZ7X72tdBlb-4M73Ix3qBKIdyHAoL7s4STypB2oMgPDNxWDK0yHkbINe2o3xUvNWwwAmjBn-ncIsPUkrWl5g6p2XuFNIozobfLKuvaSrzsWQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="264" data-original-width="482" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjNMdWT32Cx2-WkUNmrbQOozarTUpq8nmkO6Nes04uR9QkBbl5FJOyOh58YytsnIBBtZ6HZ8Ds2-wFoFlpZ7X72tdBlb-4M73Ix3qBKIdyHAoL7s4STypB2oMgPDNxWDK0yHkbINe2o3xUvNWwwAmjBn-ncIsPUkrWl5g6p2XuFNIozobfLKuvaSrzsWQ=s16000" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p><p>And it’s not hard to see that our protagonist now has a straightforward dominance argument for speaking their mind.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiB0osRYrpSosomag0fBpko8Xf7YoBXfMsr7Xqa_UBhHJpZA6AqEAr18k_PBD7nnsVtxkGQv9WyfufLPdmxC3BYDHV8nY8bHqzKVWzlEqkbMRocQOmAi-gBD3Y-WqpPuMcWu92aCrzy-r1pGS74-EfaeijBLq2BbWaa4vSekMzvSfmYpgp35oXz1Lu7_w" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="261" data-original-width="482" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiB0osRYrpSosomag0fBpko8Xf7YoBXfMsr7Xqa_UBhHJpZA6AqEAr18k_PBD7nnsVtxkGQv9WyfufLPdmxC3BYDHV8nY8bHqzKVWzlEqkbMRocQOmAi-gBD3Y-WqpPuMcWu92aCrzy-r1pGS74-EfaeijBLq2BbWaa4vSekMzvSfmYpgp35oXz1Lu7_w=s16000" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>This is because this whole way of representing the problem presupposed that the leftist schmo isn’t really able to affect whether or not the left win or lose by their particular speech actions on social media or cetera. Now in fact I think that is usually true for the vast majority of people the vast majority of the time. As per my caveats, of course, if you are an unusually influential person or engaged in trusting intimate conversation with someone who is likely to be decisive themselves then actually this might not go, so our argument will have to be more complicated. So we will consider the more complicated case in a moment. But I actually think that most of us actually do have this dominance argument for speaking our mind available to us.</p><p>But let us give the proponents of arguments in the genre their due. Though I think they lack good reason for this it’s clear they do usually presuppose that there is some ability to influence the course of events here. In decision theory we would say there is “act-state dependence”, that how I behave affects the probability of being in one state of the world rather than another. And in fact as I have represented our ordinary leftist schmuck it captures the idea that if they were someone whose speech decides whether we are in the leftist win versus leftist lose scenario they should indeed engage in message discipline. In essence this would be like choosing between the two circled outcomes in the diagram below, in which case one should clearly engage in message discipline. So I do not think this representation entirely begs the question against the genre.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgdUwEF-D_Fhjlrg90LAOdjepl_hxqJ7H0of6dIrkYxxMI4wS6v84jMYRBdrOTKr4Pe0-cGHu5KPG1VhJTrt3ndQhtVlu11T_lQCIERd12IX6uyrTRIek2-is5NfYIO8pypoUEanOFEiUgN-qXIRfQDmrJQhwvKyI6JcvqIil4aAqg6lHfOmCiHLhKH2A" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="301" data-original-width="482" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgdUwEF-D_Fhjlrg90LAOdjepl_hxqJ7H0of6dIrkYxxMI4wS6v84jMYRBdrOTKr4Pe0-cGHu5KPG1VhJTrt3ndQhtVlu11T_lQCIERd12IX6uyrTRIek2-is5NfYIO8pypoUEanOFEiUgN-qXIRfQDmrJQhwvKyI6JcvqIil4aAqg6lHfOmCiHLhKH2A=s16000" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>Now very rarely will any of us, even quite influential persons, be this decisive. So our question must be: under what sort of circumstances is one’s behaviour influential enough to make this a plausible consideration? Here our simple ordinal preference table will not do as a representation, since to sensibly reason about this we must have a more sophisticated idea of exactly how good or bad the various outcomes are, and what their respective probabilities are.</p><p>Any precision in setting the values of these would be arbitrary and artificial so I will not try. Instead I think it is enough to note some very general considerations here. In general there are two sorts of factors that will make this a sensible move. First, if the conditional probability of the left winning given that one engages in message discipline is very much greater than the conditional probability of the left winning given that one speaks one’s mind. Second, if the utility of the left winning is so much greater than that of the left losing that anything with any tiny probability of shifting the balance towards the left winning is ipso facto justified. Of course it could be with some combination of the two they balance out in the middle, but in fact I do not think this is relevant. For anything other than a highly negative response to the first condition is exceedingly unlikely.</p><p>I note again my assumption that we are talking about an internet rando engaged in ordinary social media posting. I think it is clear that for such a person it is not just that they are not decisive, but that even if we grant their behaviour is not strictly irrelevant it is still exceedingly unlikely to make a difference. This is because if the left is on track to form a winning coalition the probability that it would not occur if a random schmuck tweets something insensitive is just vanishingly small. Social forces are not so easily derailed, and in a tolerably large democracy (and a non-democracy of more than 2 people) most of us simply make no difference. This is familiar to many in another guise as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_voting" target="_blank">paradox of voting</a>; so let us dub it the paradox of posting. There is no escape from the paradox of posting by noting the bare fact that one is not entirely irrelevant to how things go; still one is far too insignificant to really justify the arguments of the genre.</p><p>This leaves the hopes for the genre of argument I dislike pinned on the utilities point. Now I think it is possible we do live in something like the Political Pascal’s Wager scenario, of the difference between victory and defeat so huge that it justifies leftists in engaging in self-sacrificial behaviour. I have blogged a bit about this <a href="https://sootyempiric.blogspot.com/2021/08/pessimism-of-intellect-optimism-of-will.html" target="_blank">here</a>. So it is not that I simply reject this as implausible. But it is that I think that if this is what is supposed to justify making arguments in the genre it is quite mistaken, and in fact as a consideration it probably goes in the other direction. </p><p>For if the issue is that leftist victory heralds the possibility of utopia, or leftist defeat catastrophe, or both, then this should also factor into one’s choice as to whether to engage in the activity of offering the argument itself. In particular one would have to weigh whether one’s chances of persuading enough people who are themselves sufficiently influential that their behaviour matters outweighs the risk of by one’s words contributing to the narrative that the left are unreasonable and actually dissuading some onlookers. “See, even leftist agree that leftists sound crazy!” sort of thing. At a minimum I do not think people have seriously grappled with this, so in the extreme utilities case they are at least being irresponsible. But in fact I think that for most ordinary non-taste-maker schmucks talking to broad audiences in public fora wherein their words are observable but they lack established relationships of trust with those they seek to persuade - the probabilities go the wrong way. Basically you are very unlikely to make a difference either way, but my guess is you are more likely to be picked up and highlighted by enemies of the left than you are to persuade internet strangers with good political speech. </p><p>So there we have it. I actually think in most cases the very simple dominance argument is enough: the genre of arguments to the effect that one ought moderate their speech for instrumental reasons is refuted by the simple fact that speaking my mind dominates the alternative. But even if one tried to take act-state dependence into account in some sophisticated way, I still do not think the conditions hold which are necessary for offering arguments from the genre to be a good idea.</p><p>If anything will get us out of this paradox of posting it is coordination. Something like a party with a mechanism for adopting a mass line — in particular something which assured me that my engaging in message discipline is either evidence others will also be, or will causally contribute to making it more likely they will. But absent organised solidarity we shall all keep furiously tweeting into an indifferent political void, as the lone and level timeline stretches far away</p>Last Positivisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677699402952932577noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6331292467452860795.post-69462502014180332542022-04-04T14:31:00.018-07:002022-04-07T01:59:05.993-07:00 Why I Am Not A Liberal<p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Those of us in the contemporary academy who are not liberals ought given an account of why not. This asymmetric burden falls on us because the presumption is so strongly that one does fit within the broad confines of liberalism that if one does not explicitly identify out, and explain why one has done so, then two things are may occur. First, people may reasonably presume on statistical grounds that your politics are as such and engage with you with this in mind. This will make intellectual back and forth, the lifeblood of our profession, frustratingly congealed — always having to go back and check unstated presuppositions half way through a conversation, never getting to the meat of things. Second, one allows whatever thinking one does to accrue to the greater glory of an ideology you reject. Since the natural presupposition is that whatever insights you achieve have been achieved through the lens of liberal ideology, it will seem that whatever is good in your work is evidence that liberalism can sustain that good. </span></span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I think it’s fair to say that in one form or another liberalism is the dominant ideology among contemporary academic philosophers. However, it’s actually slightly harder than one might think to provide straightforward targeted evidence for the claim. It is not, for instance, easy to find evidence of this as the explicit self conception of philosophers. The best evidence I know of on contemporary philosophers political views is <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09515089.2020.1743257?journalCode=cphp20" target="_blank"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">this survey</span></a> which was largely (but not entirely) carried out on European and North American philosophers. It found that a plurality of philosophers identify as “left leaning”. Given that most of the left parties of Europe and North America are very much in the liberal tradition this is a sort of evidence of that they are liberal. But only weakly so, and the paper itself discusses the problems with that inference. And in fact the next best source is this Phil-Papers survey which <a href="https://survey2020.philpeople.org/survey/results/5122" target="_blank"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">found that</span></a> a plurality of the faculty at prestigious Anglophone institutions preferred socialism to capitalism. Now no follow up questions were available on how people understand “socialism” so this is perhaps compatible with identifying as a liberal. But it is not obviously so; caution is required. Another purpose in writing this blog post then is to explain the sense in which I think liberalism is dominant — it is not necessarily so in terms of self-identification.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Finally this blog post has a couple of issues specific to the left I wish to address. First, at some level it is clear that identifying as a liberal is just to identify as uncool and mainstream-in-a-boring-clueless-way among left cohorts. I don’t mind liberalism having a bad name, why would I?, but a result of this is I think people often miss the affinities of their thought with the liberal tradition and neglect its insights. A proper rejection of liberalism ought to involve understanding it as more than just a loser thing boring normies do — there is a reason it has won out in modernity. That reason may not (indeed I think should not) lead you to endorse liberalism; but you will get nowhere if you do not understand it, what liberalism responds to and addresses, and what of it one may wish to carry forward. Second, I think if we are being real with ourselves, a great many leftists in the academy who consider ourselves left of the Overton window should admit that we are de facto small-c conservatives — and in at least my society, to uphold the status quo just is to uphold a liberal social order. We are de facto conservatives in the sense that the modern university has clearly slotted into an important credentialing role for the approximation to meritocracy that dominates our economic, political, and ideological order. Materially speaking then just by going in to work and doing our job, however we may feel about it, we are playing the role of functionaries helping this system perpetuate itself. I think we ought be precise about the sense in which we are not liberals if only to self-acknowledge the many senses in which we are, and thereby cut out the bad faith pretences of pseudo-radicalism that so tiresomely dominate many academic spaces.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Ok, on to characterising liberalism and what I mean by saying it is dominant. I see contemporary liberal ideology as the confluence of three factors that led us to where we are today. First, there is the strand emphasised by Rawls in his famous <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674030633" target="_blank"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">lecture series</span></a> on the history of liberalism. Here we see liberal political thought gradually emerge as a response to the civil wars in England and the wars of religion on the European continent. The diagnosis the intelligentsia of the day came up with was something along the lines of — these disastrous wars were caused by making control of the state a zero sum conflict over the ability to realise the most important goods and avoid the most disastrous evils. As such, we should reconceive the role of government to avoid its capture being so high stakes. Rather than a means of securing the good, it should exist to keep the peace between potentially fractious citizens and groups thereof. Part of doing so involves dividing up matters into those of private conscience versus those of public reason. Matters of private conscience are for the individual to freely decide and for others to respect in their wishes. Matters of public reason are those for which we need some way of deciding on social action that does not override what is for properly for the individual — initially and usually conceived, to be clear, as the propertied male head of a household. Privately we ought develop virtues of tolerance and mutual respect to enable the “live and let live” required for this to work. And publicly notions of private property and a sphere of action and protected rights that should be relatively free of state or other- imposition are developed. This goes well with notions of democracy (among the people who really count) as embodying the commitment to public reason delivering results that treated all perspectives equally, not a priori favouring one religious subset over another.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Obviously this is a very Rawls inflected way of describing the historical development, but I do believe it captures something important about the post-Westphalia social order. One can see something like this notion of a private conscience worthy of public respect coming to be in Montaigne and his ironical detachment from religious wars, likewise in Joseph Butler’s moralised theories of human nature, and of Locke on religious toleration; one can see the idea of government as keeping the peace very explicitly in Hobbes, of it existing to respect individual freedoms while still enabling collective action in Rousseau and Montesquieu. None of these are quite the full Rawlsian picture of Political Liberalism (surely Hobbes would seriously dissent!), but I think it is right to say that they all gradually set the scene for what we now think of as liberalism, and they are recognisably responses to a cogent diagnosis of what went wrong for Europe during the turbulent years after the emergence of Protestant theology.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The second stream of influence involved the rise of the commercial bourgeois made possible by an influx of wealth from New World conquests, plunder, and plantation economies, combined with technological advances making the returns on owning the means of production and hiring proletariat labour to work one’s capital suddenly much higher. </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">These processes were thoroughly intertwined, as is documented in <a href="https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/16210.html" target="_blank"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;">this</span></a> fascinating (no, really!) discussion of the political economy of wood and timber in early modern England and its colonies.. This newly wealthy bourgeois faced threats to its dominance from multiple directions — on the one hand the king and the nobility, with the ancient duties of obedience they felt entitled to and which were thought to bind bourgeois to lower social status and less power. On the other hand, the peasants and slaves and conquered people of the new world did not seem to benefit from this new arrangement, to put the point mildly. If they were to occupy a social position befitting their newfound wealth and economic importance, the bourgeois needed an ideology that would rally people to their cause while making it natural that they should reap the benefits of these social changes. Under such selection pressures did liberalism develop many of its distinctive features.</span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Gradually what developed to meet this need is something like the following view of society: society is best when it is organised along the lines of being something like a fair playing field, where rational and thrifty subjects may thrive and benefit the common good if they display the appropriate mercantile virtues in pursuit of their enlightened self interest. Aristocrats are a wasteful and vain bunch who totally lack the virtue of thrift (Adam Smith’s damning explanation of how they lost their social position is representative here), and it just so happens that the inhabitants of the New World, the peasants of Ireland and Poland, anyone African — all lack the capability to be rational in the required fashion and so cannot reasonably be expected to benefit from any social system, at best being capable of enjoying the benevolent oversight of their rational betters (Montesquieu for instance considers this the only serious justification of slavery, but conveniently it works well enough). So emerges an ideology that encourages the bourgeois to band together to create the conditions of that fair playing ground and drive the wasteful decadent aristocrats from their thrones, the peasantry from their common lands, and the blacks to the fields. Many of liberalisms’ best theorists like Locke, Kant, and Mill spent their time refining the theoretical elements of this herronvolk meritocracy. Contemporary liberals don’t tend to be so keen to advertise this aspect of their intellectual history, but it is nowadays the subject of much <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691176345/nature-human-nature-and-human-difference" target="_blank"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">historical</span></a> <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/25501942?seq=1" target="_blank"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">philosophical</span></a> <a href="https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/a-response-to-michael-walzer" target="_blank"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">work</span></a>. This is the liberalism of the ascendent bourgeois.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Third and finally, there was the continuation of Occamite and nominalist tendencies from scholastic medieval thought. Already battles between the Papacy and secular powers had led to development of the <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ockham/#PoliPhil" target="_blank"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">bases</span></a> of the idea that Church and State should be divided and private property respected. Nominalist thinking seems to have <a href="https://robinmarkphillips.com/calvin-nominalist-part-3-voluntarism-nominalism-theology-calvin-2/" target="_blank"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">influenced Calvin</span></a>, which not only indirectly therefore leads to the wars of religion and thus the first stream, but it is famously <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protestant_Ethic_and_the_Spirit_of_Capitalism" target="_blank"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">argued</span></a> that Calvinism encouraged habits of saving and reinvestment over consumption that made liberal capitalist societies able to successfully replicate themselves and expand. More generally, there is the nominalist vibe. A nominalist picture of the individual person paints us as in some sense constructing our own worldview from our experiences rather than receiving the set concepts of a pre-ordered world. It thus kind of encourages a sense of individual primacy. It centres the individual will and reasoning capacity in a way that other views of the human person do not, and this notion of the person is vital for both the previous two streams above. Or so, at least, argue <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/I/bo17116688.html" target="_blank"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">cranky</span></a> mid 20th century conservatives.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So we are left with a worldview and practice that attempts to allocate some powers and responsibilities to individuals, or at least heads of propertied families, conceived of as rights-bearing rational and thrifty subjects pursuing their own vision of salvation and proper social order. Meanwhile the state is conceived of as a way of protecting those rights and the ability of those persons to engage in the kind of market activities that would allow them to thrive and get the resources they need to pursue those projects, with each standing equally before the law to ensure the outcome of their competitive acquisition reflects their mercantile virtues rather than the phoney notions of privilege by which the Aristocracy swindled the world out of their bread. Our norms, laws, and institutions - including that of the nation state itself but at lower levels of bureaucracy too - exist to carve out and protect that space of action, with the personal property and constitutional liberties it requires. Each full person therein may thus pursue their vision of the good, and the rest (initially being the vast majority of human kind — women, children, workers, the disabled, non-whites, certain backwards peasant groups, and so on) are enriched by the creation and spread of wealth this allows for.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Now I hope this looks familiar as a vision of liberalism. I neither intend it to be charitable nor polemical, but (allowing for a certain degree of sweepingness and generalisation befitting an already over-long blog post) accurate - liberalism warts and all. And the two things I want to say about it are, firstly, that what it means for this to be dominant is that all of our political squabblings still recognisably take place within this framework. We still debate who exactly gets to count in the full person category with liberal rights attendant — can liberal democracy properly work for <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/02/kids-liberal-democracy-schools/622084/" target="_blank"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">children</span></a> given the role of the state in their education and parental control of their activity? (As Bruenig points out their odd fit with the liberal story are why children come up in so many debates — reflected in debates about trans or other LGBT youth, in debates about COVID policy and other medical exemptions, in debates about sex education and religious freedom.) What about refugees or people seeking entry into the <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/japp.12448" target="_blank"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">nation state</span></a> — should they more or less be granted access to this system by default, or does it only work if we limit access? Forms of state assistance to the poor and marginalised are <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691022796/reasons-for-welfare" target="_blank"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">defended</span></a> as a means of ensuring people have the minimum necessary to act as free persons pursuing their vision of the good, or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_Action_Around_the_World" target="_blank"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">attacked</span></a> as discouraging the sort of rational and thrifty behaviour that liberalism thrives upon. Even when defended in more welfarist terms, these schemes are often framed as correcting market failings; i.e. smoothing out the rough edges of a society basically committed to organising things along the lines of private competitors in a market system. Classic academic works wrestle with how to square the incongruent elements of the above story, especially where individual right and common good come <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1829633" target="_blank"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">apart</span></a>. What sort of speech can count in as part of reasonable public discourse versus what is <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/27009633?refreqid=excelsior:bbd19964fc0291cdca6a773bdad7beff" target="_blank"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">disqualifying</span></a>? These are our debates, this is the stuff of our political sphere; we are essentially arguing about where to set the dials of the liberal machine, where exactly the public/private line goes, who exactly gets the benefits of liberal citizenship. The dominance of liberalism consists not in our self-conception, but in the structuring of our entire political lives.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Second, even the supposed left-challenges to this in the Anglosphere, Bernie Sanders and Corbyn’s Labour Party, in fact never stepped outside this framework even slightly. I think a lot of people who are on the left would do well to think about whether they really object to the above picture. I think in many cases really what is happening is they believe a left liberal state could be great, but unfortunately we have not historically had a liberal state which set all the dials leftwards at once. Even the Nords, through highly restrictive immigration policies, do not tend to really offer the benefits of the liberal state to all. As such they think they are advocating something not liberal, when really it is just a version of liberalism that has not yet been tried. So it’s a perfectly respectable political viewpoint to just be a left liberal, perhaps on the lines of Mills’ <a href="https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190245412.001.0001/acprof-9780190245412-chapter-11" target="_blank"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Black Radical Liberalism</span></a>. Here one would want to count as many people (or maybe more generally: <a href="https://www.ingentaconnect.com/contentone/imp/jcs/2022/00000029/f0020003/art00009/" target="_blank"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">sentient beings</span></a>) into the fold of liberal rights bearers, argue for an expansive system of support to ensure that everyone has a genuinely fair opportunity to participate in society (this can include reparations to redress past causes of disadvantage), favour actions that protect the common good and so have a more restrained notion of what counts as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_personal_is_political" target="_blank"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">private sphere</span></a>, and so on. I think lots of people are in fact left liberals, this is nothing to be ashamed of, and they would be better off trying to grapple with how to make that plausible and workable than simultaneously adopting an oppositional stance to liberalism while in fact having it set your agenda.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">None the less, I am not a liberal, and the final element of this blog post is me explaining why in virtue of the account above. There are three elements where it is not just that I think liberalism needs to be reformed but that it is fundamentally unworkable. First, I do not believe that anything like the public reason/private sphere of activity can be made to work. I think the state has to in fact take a side on contentious issues, there is no neutral position or viable overlapping consensus or anything of the sort (and nor does the liberal historical compromise just so happen to constitute the ideal moral position, as perfectionists bizarrely convince themselves). What made it seem plausible that this was a solution to the problem of the wars of religion was that in fact very substantive consensus did exist among the various dominant Christian sects, and where that agreement wasn’t there they didn’t really feel the need to respect the rights of outsiders (go back and reread Locke’s letters on toleration if you don’t believe me). Or, at least, substantive consensus existed among the restrained class of people that liberalism was willing to consider full persons worthy of consideration. Now we have expanded that class massively, as we surely must, and perhaps with broader social changes bringing more diversity, it is simply no longer tenable to seek to govern in light of a minimalist neutrality. What I think it leads to are just bad faith illusory politics where people must pretend procedural objections when really substantive objections are at stake. Hence lots of absurd claims that bigoted opinions somehow aren’t really opinions and so not covered by free speech protections. Or indeed the constant temptation on the political centre to make any debate into a metadeabte about the free speech right to engage in the debate itself, rather than just having the argument they wish have against some point of left-liberal consensus.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This simply isn’t viable, it has led our public discourse and political culture to grind to a halt, and if anything is leading to the recreation of the competition for control of the state as zero-sum as rather than adopting an attitude of tolerance people simply persuade themselves that their preferred vision of the good is a procedural pre-condition for any decent politics to occur, and so the other side’s claims must be ruled out at that level. Better, by far, to simply drop this core tenet of liberalism, admit that common life must be organised around a notion of the common good, and try to work out how we can do this without raising the stakes of political disagreement too high. (Contemporary religious right “common good illiberals” I view to be mostly useful idiots for plutocrats, but in so far as it is worth critiquing their ideology I would say it is that they do not seriously have a plan for avoiding capture of the state becoming a zero sum forever war. They are just arrogantly confident that they would win the fights, and enjoy the comfy facade of hard nosedness from the armchair of “owning up” to the violence thus required.) This is very difficult obviously - I suspect it involves much more devolution of decision making power, a highly democratised to the point of maybe even being <a href="http://www.brandonkendhammer.com/challenges_of_democratization/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/10.2307@23739547.pdf" target="_blank">consensus based</a> decision making procedure, and freedom of movement in a way that ultimately also speaks against the nation state and border controls. But I do not have time to go into what I think the alternative is here, just state that I think one is needed.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Second, I think this political vision is self-undermining. The notion of private property used to undergird the notions of self-governance and a private sphere, as well as ground the activities of the rational and thrifty subject in the market, contains within itself the seeds of the destruction of the liberal order. For the market society was only ever a compromise - no one merchant was powerful enough to overthrow the old order, so a social vision that gave them all a chance was selected for as it allowed the bourgeoise to overthrow the nobility as a class. However, once market societies are allowed to develop I think they tend towards the concentration of wealth and capital, and so ultimately the ability to buy the state and shut down competition. Actually existing liberal capitalism ends up being very different from the theoretical market society with its attendant advantages of competition and efficiency. It is much more like a neo-feudal oligopoly, except without any notions of hegemonic Christian charity or noblesse oblige to at least soften the blow. But for the brief digression of the thirty years post-world-war-two (which I think Piketty <a href="https://www.vox.com/2014/4/8/5592198/the-short-guide-to-capital-in-the-21st-century" target="_blank"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">well explained</span></a>) I think this increasing concentration of wealth along with tendencies to entrenched hierarchy and the arbitrary power of the rich is plainly visible in the history of liberalism and proving disastrous today. It interferes with our ability to resolve our worst social problems, to direct resources to fighting climate change, or generally to generating faith in public life as actually a site wherein <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=33817&bottom_ref=subject" target="_blank"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">we can get things done together.</span></a> Liberal attempts to regulate and reform away this problem, I think, can only ever slow it down or temporarily arrest one branch of the oligopoly. Because I think <a href="https://aquarusa.wordpress.com/2017/12/11/property-101/" target="_blank"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">the fundamental problem is private ownership of the means of production</span></a>, and this is simply not eliminable from liberalism as I understand it.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Finally, I think it is at least an open question whether liberalism can truly dispense with its herronvolk aspects while retaining its desirable aspects. Surely at least some of what has made liberalism attractive as a social philosophy has been the plain fact that it generates relatively materially comfortable lives for many, and does so better than a great many other social systems that have been devised. So far, however, that has always existed along an imperial-core vs brutally proletarianised outer periphery model. Now, the claim of liberalism is that it can raise standards of living by, basically, converting those outer periphery nations into versions of the imperial core, with their own specialised comparative advantages and cetera. So it’s not zero sum, liberalism creates a bigger pie through encouraging development, and in the medium to long run we all win. There are some success cases for this! But also lots of cases where I suspect that really what is happening is we just shifted the location of ultra exploitation under the global rug, eternally seeking out new more vulnerable populations to exploit surplus value from, and leaving the messy business of suppressing unions and workers movements in those countries to death squads that we’d really rather not think about.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Maybe maybe maybe it is true that one day this process will end in a world without sweat shops, galamsey miners having to eke out a living by polluting their own waters, or oil companies <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2010/dec/08/wikileaks-cables-shell-nigeria-spying" target="_blank"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">running spy networks</span></a> to maintain terror state fiefdoms. But I will believe it when I see it, and right now I rather suspect that high-income-lifestyle liberalism will either always be reliant on shifting the ultra-exploitation elsewhere or shall have caused ecological collapse well before it has time to transition out of this. (I should say this last is a bit less fundamental, as maybe we could by some sort of leviathan compact agree to all limit our consumption. I suspect that might also be impossible though for reason of my second concern discussed above.)</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So there we have it. I do not think we just need to do left liberalism. I believe core elements of liberalism, derived from the central historical missions it is meant to fulfil, are untenable. We cannot have a neutral public sphere and nor would the greater good just so happen to coincide with what liberals say the neutral public sphere looks like. As such we cannot make liberal tolerance norms work. What is more, the notion of private property used to make that tolerance concrete by giving each a sphere of action over which they have control, in fact tends towards undermining what is elsewise best in liberalism, and prevents collective action that might stop its reliance on imperialist exploitation. I hence think a system which did not rely on the public/private division, or anything akin to private ownership of the means of production in a market society, is required if we are to make good on the promise of Enlightenment.</span></span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgZRa11oUTL2HpppDVMKAX3hbeGbUx3CMkijNP1eCVm_Q1lDWQTpvq-u4-8X7aAHVE72FVsqr87I53LaLhAObXjz558ertgFaX5ug6C6IsFwpdDBu6WhYthMIKVcO98UWx7Y04C6YNobLzOGO0ZipRsGPmDdecHIpNqLaiMny80RJvf4cTTaullvAEu_g" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="627" data-original-width="1200" height="334" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgZRa11oUTL2HpppDVMKAX3hbeGbUx3CMkijNP1eCVm_Q1lDWQTpvq-u4-8X7aAHVE72FVsqr87I53LaLhAObXjz558ertgFaX5ug6C6IsFwpdDBu6WhYthMIKVcO98UWx7Y04C6YNobLzOGO0ZipRsGPmDdecHIpNqLaiMny80RJvf4cTTaullvAEu_g=w640-h334" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />A final coda: note that I mentioned but then did not dispute the Occamite legacy of liberalism. This is because I actually like that, I self-consciously want to maintain the nominalist view of mind and concepts. I think many of my fellow non-liberals in philosophy want to target that in particular, and if anything when they reject liberalism it is often very much this and its specific legacies they wish to challenge. So this also sets me apart from many of my comrades.<br /><br />Update: I will link responses to this post here as I see them! First is <a href="https://moonbear.substack.com/p/response-to-brights-why-i-am-not?s=w" target="_blank">this</a> fascinating piece which basically argues that a consistent liberal could take all the things I view to be critiques and ponens where I tollens. Owen thinks if you really wanna get at the core you gotta attack the nominalism!<br /><br />Next there is a <a href="https://digressionsnimpressions.typepad.com/digressionsimpressions/2022/04/why-i-am-not-a-conservative.html" target="_blank">piece in Digressions&Impressions</a> wherein it's argued that part of liberalism's core mission is the fight against mercantalism, and in fact part of the means by which liberalism sustains itself in that eternal struggle is by means of critiques like this very blog post! Oh the irony.<br /><br />Third up there's <a href="https://duncanlaw.wordpress.com/2022/04/06/liam-bright-on-liberalism/" target="_blank">this</a> piece. The interesting case made there is that I have under-estimated liberalism's scope, or ability to adapt itself. So my claims that it is reliant on self-undermining commitments to ownership rules in a basically market structure mean I mistake critiques of capitalism for critiques of liberalism. And there is a passionate defence of the settlement or compromise we have reached re neutrality norms. Great stuff, check it out!</span><p></p><div>Fourth is a nice piece <a href="https://funnyjokes.wordpress.com/2022/04/06/lkb/" target="_blank">here</a> wherein it's argued that liberalism has done a better job resolving disagreements towards some points of consensus common good than I allowed for. This is illustrated and discussed with a look back at Locke on toleration (as I asked!) and an account of what he said and how we might want to update it. </div><div><br />Fifth is this <a href="https://axdouglas.com/2022/04/07/from-protestant-toleration-to-capitalist-neutrality/" target="_blank">really lovely response piece</a> by Alex Douglas. I see Douglas as making two points here -- first, the idea that toleration arose out of the wars of religion is just Protestant propaganda. In fact people accepted de facto neutrality on matters of state religion out of sheer stalemate and exhaustion, and it was theorists of Protestant nations who spun this in a way to make it seem like a virtue. The thing is... I agree with this! I also think that the idea of state neutrality is a post-hoc rationalisation of a situation that really just reflected an inability to decisively win the total war for Christendom. (I don't think I fully appreciated the Protestant propagandistic element though, so that was cool to read about!) But I just view this as a cunning of history sort of thing -- a material necessity was subsumed and beautified by the ideology, which worked because the decision makers in the status quo post bellum had enough in common ideologically that the rough edges didn't stand out to them.</div><div><br />The second point Douglas makes is that the neutrality doctrine did in fact end up tying liberalism to capitalism by serving as a way of undermining any notion of just price. This was not really neutral, it was hypocritical, and in general the liberal ideal of neutrality is an impossible lie in something like the manner I suggested here. Douglas worries, though (as do I!) that at last compelled to face with sober senses our real conditions of life we might find brute force becomes a more tempting instrument of state. I think the project for the illiberal left has to be finding a way of recapturing what was good in the liberal diffusion of zero-sum competition for the state, and avoid slipping into Melian cynicism.</div>Last Positivisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677699402952932577noreply@blogger.com34tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6331292467452860795.post-77872761317880183332022-02-13T04:12:00.005-08:002022-02-13T10:54:21.786-08:00Our Time Comprehended in Thought<p>Hegel famously said that philosophy is its own time comprehended in thought. Now in the context of his particular system this actually has quite a specific meaning, concerning the relationship between conceptual and social development. But let's riff off it a bit, and consider it more just as a sort of slogan to undergird what was once called "philosophy of culture". Today's blog post is my ode to philosophy of culture, musings on the plausibility of its central presupposition and what it might look like today. I'm not really going to do any philosophy of culture in this blog post, just point to examples, summarise what I take to be an emerging overall picture therefrom, and suggest a line of future inquiry.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgy-hNU-C4Et-3HzfSa3na_eYnVw9uS-Bs25yZMPWZdfxzlZSTJ9cAolWGE4AOo7M1b8HLn1VDaD4k3GDJl1Pc1GTJ0xwQ64rwdf27VyHZDg8v9XI0VU2X4Yw7w214DT5UZJT6hs_vyRvI2rLXujRPOLOVuJnkXMSdX6-Sr_T4pkIRNoy6REUgw6jLMdQ=s640" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgy-hNU-C4Et-3HzfSa3na_eYnVw9uS-Bs25yZMPWZdfxzlZSTJ9cAolWGE4AOo7M1b8HLn1VDaD4k3GDJl1Pc1GTJ0xwQ64rwdf27VyHZDg8v9XI0VU2X4Yw7w214DT5UZJT6hs_vyRvI2rLXujRPOLOVuJnkXMSdX6-Sr_T4pkIRNoy6REUgw6jLMdQ=s16000" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">We live in a society.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">What I mean by philosophy of culture is the attempt to draw out, clearly express, and expose to critique, the ideas underlying a given culture or mode of life. The core presupposition is that such a set of ideas exists. It is not after all just obvious that the art forms, behavioural norms, laws, modes of entertainment, intellectual output, and political organisation of a culture shall all embody or express commitment to a given theoretical outlook or perspective. Maybe everything is just an incoherent jumble, the result of ad hoc situational compromises that could not be rationalised if considered together. To be a philosopher of culture is to take your stand on the ground of affirming that there is actually something to do here, that ideational-cultural analysis will reveal something more illuminating than an incoherent mishmash. That it won't just be the forced imposition of a form comprised by the theorists' fantasies of consistency and imposed upon a disordered material. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">This sort of philosophy of culture does not occupy the heights of prestige it once did in professional philosophy, but nor is it entirely lost and forgotten. The early twentieth century saw some especially famous examples of this sort of work. <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cassirer/" target="_blank">Cassirer</a> is probably still remembered as one of its best practitioners, and just personally I think his <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691143347/the-philosophy-of-the-enlightenment" target="_blank">Philosophy of The Enlightenment</a> is a top tier example of the genre. He does a great example in that book of arguing that apparently disparate strains of thought in Enlightenment philosophy were actually expressions of a shared creative drive, that could also be seen underlying scientific and political developments of the era. One may or may not be convinced, but it is a sterling example of what sort of arguments and interpretive moves a philosopher of culture may bring to bear to bolster their case.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">A bit closer to home for me, the Africana tradition also produced some of the most famous philosophers of culture. <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/alain-locke/" target="_blank">Alain Locke</a>'s work on the Harlem Renaissance, most especially his famous anthology <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Negro" target="_blank">The New Negro</a>, was a very deliberate attempt to not only draw out and express but also consciously shape and guide an interrelated set of poetic, philosophical, aesthetic, and musical ideals that might well serve black Americans. (Precisely because it was a bit artificial in its attempt to create as much as report on a shared culture, Locke's vision of things did get some <a href="https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/1926-george-s-schulyer-negro-art-hokum-0/" target="_blank">pretty forceful pushback</a> in its day.) <a href="https://historyofphilosophy.net/clr-james" target="_blank">CLR James</a> is another great of the genre. His commitment to <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/james-clr/works/1956/06/every-cook.htm" target="_blank">equality and democracy</a> is just as much expressed in his overtly Marxist political essays as it is in his analyses of <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/M/bo44893045.html" target="_blank">literature</a> and <a href="https://www.waterstones.com/book/beyond-a-boundary/cyril-lionel-robert-james/9781784875398" target="_blank">sport</a>. In all such works James shows one how ideas about human capability, cooperation, and fellow-feeling found expression and met resistance in various spheres. By the end one might really believe that the way cricket is played, the way ancient Athens was governed, and the way <a href="https://www.akpress.org/catalog/product/view/id/655/s/modernpolitics/" target="_blank">Charlie Chaplin</a> acts may actually all be interrelated. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Those are the good cases, what of the bad? I don't like linking negative exemplars but I will note a couple of characteristic problems with the genre. First, as already alluded to, there is a severe risk of the theorist just imposing a pattern upon cherry picked examples. A sufficiently interesting pattern with a wide enough variety of cherry picked examples can sort of redeem this by sheer chutzpah. But for the most part what will happen when this occurs is that the basically samey ideas of a member of the upper middle class are found in the basically samey cultural media that such people imbibe. It's just not that interesting to learn that one of the seven ideas about Gender one might find expressed on a slow news day in Buzzfeed can be read into Game of Thrones. (A variant of this which is just as boring is when a writer develops a Schtick. So it's not what all the other bourgeois are saying, but for this person in particular it's just as formulaic. So if you know what they thought of Avatar you can predict what they'll think of Kung Fu Panda without even having to read the book. So to speak.) Second, I think there is a strong tendency to endorse myths of a golden age in a way that renders the writing dull. Decline narratives can be interesting. But if you are just going to present a made up version of American suburbia in the 50s (or Confessional European monarchies in the 1500s) and sort of wistfully sigh as you contrast it with present cultural life, but at length using language only a PhD holder could understand, that's no more interesting than one more "Did you know that Daenerys is Problematic?" piece. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">What of such work for the present cultural moment? (I will limit myself to discussion of the Anglo-American sphere, which is what I know best.) Probably the ur-text for contemporary philosophy of culture people would still reach for is Lyotard's <a href="https://monoskop.org/images/e/e0/Lyotard_Jean-Francois_The_Postmodern_Condition_A_Report_on_Knowledge.pdf" target="_blank">The Postmodern Condition</a>. I'm a fan of that text on the whole, but I must admit it is a bit dated and <a href="http://bactra.org/reviews/lyotard-pmc.html" target="_blank">hasn't entirely held up well</a>. To my mind instead the most interesting trend of thought in contemporary philosophy of culture has been the study of interlinked material and ideological changes following the rise of Thatcher/Reagan that led to today's cultural infrastructure.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">If I had to summarise the picture that emerges from this it would be something like the following. The Thatcher and Reagan era's brought about a sweep of cultural, economic, and ideological changes. There is something right in saying these were atomising - <a href="http://bowlingalone.com/" target="_blank">the little platoons of civic society were disbanded</a>, communal organisations that had served as a counter-weight to capital <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674986916" target="_blank">were</a> <a href="https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/lwish/sou/2010/00000046/00000046/art00004;jsessionid=146lmasctntlb.x-ic-live-02" target="_blank">undermined</a>, forms of life that had been a source of pride and community <a href="https://www.athwart.org/men-at-work/" target="_blank">were rendered economically infeasible</a>. But seeing this as just an age of atomisation in line with a kind of right-libertarian ideology fails to capture the full complexity. For one thing, it just misses out on important features. For instance, there is a modal aspect, a sort of naturalisation of this or a sense that it is not just one cultural form among many but in some sense the only real viable cultural form. Thatcher's claim that <a href="https://libcom.org/files/Capitalist%20Realism_%20Is%20There%20No%20Alternat%20-%20Mark%20Fisher.pdf" target="_blank">There Is No Alternative</a> came to be reflected in much intellectual, artistic, and political life, <a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-ie/The+Uncontrollability+of+the+World-p-9781509543175" target="_blank">permeating our self-understandings</a>. For another thing, it misses out on actively discordant elements of the cultural form we came to adopt. First, from the right, much was actually done to emphasise the family as the<a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9781935408345/family-values" target="_blank"> proper unit of meaning and social support</a>, and also in fact of <a href="https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/family-capitalism-and-the-small-business-insurrection" target="_blank">economic organisation</a>. (My only tiny contribution to this genre is a <a href="https://aquarusa.wordpress.com/2018/12/17/a-theory-on-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-suburban-nuclear-family-ideal/" target="_blank">coauthored piece on another blog</a> where we look at the rather strange history of normative ideals and family organisation throughout the 20th century.) Second, intellectual trends on the left very much played a part in this cultural transformation. Sometimes with <a href="https://thephilosophicalsalon.com/the-cia-reads-french-theory-on-the-intellectual-labor-of-dismantling-the-cultural-left/" target="_blank">active assistance from the security services</a> the intelligentsia of the late 20th century began to <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691163086/in-the-shadow-of-justice" target="_blank">reorient themselves</a> around versions of liberal egalitarianism that were broadly consonant with this new atomised status quo. Even in more radical circles old ideals of solidarity and a universal proletariat were nuanced with ideas from feminist theory, anti-racist theorists, and so on. The intention of the left intellectuals doing the nuancing was often as not the creation of a more perfect universalism. But its result was often a kind of <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674064362" target="_blank">fracturing of identity</a> that can be seen in our politics and art which cohered quite well with the broader social changes surveyed. At its most <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/exiting-vampire-castle/" target="_blank">pathological</a> this fracturing made any kind of left organising extremely difficult, even as the impetus for it came from within the left itself. Even as one is encouraged to think of oneself as part of an identity group rather than an atomised individual, if that group is sufficiently fine grained enough the difference is academic.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">What then is the upshot? Well it is of a time infused with ideas of people as bearers of very specific identity markers determining much about them. These markers are so specific as to create very little grounds for common solidarity, and so people are left with no real or effective cultural unit beyond their family (and even that not so often). Standing alone this means we are buffeted by impersonal market forces that cannot really be controlled or changed, since no one person is capable of doing that. The felt experience of powerlessness has led in some cases to an explicit ideology to the effect that there is no real alternative, and more normally to politics and art that simply presupposes as much without comment, at most hoping for tweaks around the edges. While this cultural philosophy has had serious <a href="https://www.athwart.org/the-spiral-of-violence/" target="_blank">downsides</a> which we have largely dealt with through <a href="https://sociologytwynham.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/policing-the-crisis.pdf" target="_blank">sheer</a> <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520242012/golden-gulag" target="_blank">brutality</a>, it's important to remember that it is not a straightforward decline narrative. Some of the cultural units people were previously part of were ascribed identities that were actively hostile to their wellbeing, so dissolving those has for many been a genuine liberation and something any friend of human happiness should celebrate. All in all, we freed ourselves from all those ties which bound us, and considering that some of those ties were more properly chains this was a real liberation - but now standing alone on our own two feet we found ourselves totally exposed to an indifferent market, thereby giving a small number an absurd degree of power over the rest, and our perceived powerless before this led to a defeatist intelligentsia and a cultural environment lacking hope or imagination.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">In the face of this, the task of the contemporary philosopher of culture seems to me basically constructive - ours is an era whose critique ought be focussed on the false modal claim underpinning and entrenching so much of what is worst in our world, and the best way to do that is to render vivid alternative possibilities. I think that if our generation is to fulfil its historic mission then this time of ours should be an age of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f75X2EG9L7U" target="_blank">utopias</a>.<br /></div></div><p></p>Last Positivisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677699402952932577noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6331292467452860795.post-70523896697411266282022-01-23T03:57:00.003-08:002022-01-23T09:51:20.502-08:00The Frailty of Merit<p style="text-align: center;"> Guest post by <a href="http://www.rosenovick.com/" target="_blank">Rose Novick</a></p><p style="text-align: left;">Since a wariness of meritocracy is an ongoing concern <a href="http://sootyempiric.blogspot.com/p/no-heroes-reading-list.html" target="_blank">here</a> at The Sooty Empiric I was excited to hear that my friend Rose had written a short essay on the problem of merit in the <i>Aeneid</i>. I hadn't yet had a classics take on the matter, I was intrigued! And indeed it did not disappoint - the pagan rationalisation of cruel chance, the arbitrary anarchy of events that decides the course of our lives, is a wonderful expression of just that which makes achieving meritocracy so difficult. Since Rose graciously allowed me to post her essay here, without further ado here's her piece <i>The Frailty of Merit</i>.</p><p style="text-align: left;">---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</p><p>It is in Vergil’s world of incessant divine interference that the problem of induction becomes most acute. Here, even the most securely established regularity may be violated the next moment. This is true throughout the Aeneid, but nowhere is it more thoroughly shown than in Book V. At first, this book seems to fit strangely into the arc of the story: how do these exiles, still not arrived in Italy, find time or heart for a series of athletic contests. Later events in Book V more readily fit into the overarching narrative, but the games seem an awkward interlude. Not so. The book establishes the absolute dominion of divine will over merely human merit. The games show this in a relatively low-stakes context; the stakes rise rapidly as the book proceeds.</p><p>Within the first hundred lines of the book, we are given three references to the insecurity of human knowledge. First, from Aeneas’ helmsman Palinurus (all quotations are from Shadi Bartsch’s 2021 translation, Modern Library):</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"></blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The winds have changed and roar across our path</span></div></span><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"></blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">from the dark west, the air thickens to mist.</span></div></span><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"></blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We can’t resist or hold our course. Fortune</span></div></span><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"></blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">has defeated us: let’s follow where she calls.</span></div></span><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"></blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The friendly shores and harbor of Sicilian Eryx</span></div></span><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"></blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">are close, if I remember rightly and can trace</span></div></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">our journey back by the same stars I charted here. (V.19-25)</span></div><div><p>And then Aeneas himself, announcing the games:</p><div style="text-align: center;">Great Dardans, noble race of divine blood,</div><div style="text-align: center;">a year has passed, the months have turned full circle,</div><div style="text-align: center;">since we put my godlike father’s bones in earth</div><div style="text-align: center;">and offered sacrifice on his sad altars. Unless</div><div style="text-align: center;">I’m wrong, that day is here. I’ll always count it bitter,</div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;">but I’ll always honor it (as the gods wished). (V.45-50)</div><p>And a few lines later:</p><div style="text-align: center;">If the ninth’s days dawn brings gentle weather</div><div style="text-align: center;">and the sun’s rays light our mortal earth,</div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;">I’ll hold Trojan contests… (V.64-66)</div><p>Even the rising of the sun in the morning, that most dependable of regularities, comes into question.</p><p>As it happens, each of these expectations is met: Palinurus successfully guides the crew to Eryx; it is indeed the anniversary of Anchises’ death, and the sun does “light our mortal earth” nine successive times (and brings gentle weather, at least on the ninth day). The stage, however, is set: the security of our expectations is in jeopardy.</p><p>Then come the games themselves. The very idea of such athletic competitions—at least to my contemporary sensibilities—is to test one’s merit, that mix of innate ability and deliberate training. It is predicated on induction, on the predictable fact that (allowing for some fluctuation) the more talented athlete will emerge victorious more often than not. Yet in each of the games, with one possible exception, something other than merit determines the outcome.</p><p>In the ship race, Mnestheus is set to pull off a thrilling, come-from-behind victory over Cloanthus:</p><div style="text-align: center;">The others were encouraged by success. Belief in</div><div style="text-align: center;">victory spurred them on. And perhaps they’d have</div><div style="text-align: center;">pulled ahead and won, but Cloanthus stretched</div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;">both hands to the waves and poured out prayers… (V.231-34)</div><p>The gods listened: “Father Portunus himself propelled the boat / ahead” (V.241-42). Now perhaps Cloanthus merited the victory—he successfully pulled off a risky maneuver earlier in the race, and Mnestheus had not yet overtaken him—but it was not his merit that decided it.</p><p>In the footrace, merit would clearly award the victory to Nisus, who far outstrips the other runners. However:</p><div style="text-align: center;">And now,</div><div style="text-align: center;">almost at the very end, they were closing</div><div style="text-align: center;">on the goal, exhausted, when unlucky</div><div style="text-align: center;">Nisus skidded in a pool of slippery blood</div><div style="text-align: center;">where bulls slaughtered for a sacrifice</div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;">had soaked the ground and lush green grass with gore. (V.326-31)</div><p>Thus the best runner fails to win. Perhaps, though, we hold his slipping against him—a better runner would have avoided the slippery patch. In that case, Salius deserves the victory, but Nisus trips him:</p><div style="text-align: center;">He lay there in the filthy dung and sacred gore.</div><div style="text-align: center;">Even so, he remembered his love for</div><div style="text-align: center;">Euryalus. Rising from the slime, he tripped</div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;">Salius, who went tumbling to the earth. (V.334-37)</div><p>While divine intervention is not the obvious culprit for the failure of merit in this case, it is noteworthy that it is blood from sacrifices that causes Nisus’ fall. And even if we do not attribute his fall to the gods, it is in any event not merit that decides the race.</p><p>The boxing match is the possible exception to the pattern: Entellus defeats Dares without any foul play, obvious accidents, or other interventions. Entellus is, moreover, a famed fighter. And yet he is also old and sluggish, and initially refuses to fight on those grounds. Dares is clearly favored to win. However, after Dares knocks Entellus to the ground, Entellus rises and, inspired by a mix of rage and shame, furiously attacks Dares, winning the match. It seems fair enough, yet here is how Aeneas comforts Dares:</p><div style="text-align: center;">He stopped the match, pulling out exhausted</div><div style="text-align: center;">Dares, and soothed him with these words. “Poor man,</div><div style="text-align: center;">have you lost your mind? Don’t you see</div><div style="text-align: center;">his strength is not his own, but backed by gods?</div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;">Give in to their power.” (V.463-67)</div><p>Whether there was divine intervention or not, the deviation from expectation is attributed to such interference.</p><p>In the final game, archery, things are quite straightforward: the archers must shoot a dove tethered to the top of a mast. The first archer, Hippocoön, hits the mast. The second, Mnestheus, comes close, but ends up merely severing the cord without hitting the dove itself. The dove is now flying freely, making it even more impressive that the third archer, Eurytion, successfully shoots it down, as Vergil describes in this gorgeous passage:</p><div style="text-align: center;">The dove, released, flew southward to dark clouds.</div><div style="text-align: center;">Eurytion had long since held his arrow taut</div><div style="text-align: center;">and his bow drawn. Praying to his brother,</div><div style="text-align: center;">he peered for the dove as she beat her wings</div><div style="text-align: center;">in joy in the empty sky, rising to the night,</div><div style="text-align: center;">and shot her. She fell lifeless, leaving her soul</div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;">in the stars, returning the lodged arrow. (V.512-18)</div><p>So far, so good. But Acestes remains, and though “the prize was gone[,] / He shot his arrow to the heavens anyhow” (V.519-20). The outcome:</p><div style="text-align: center;">Soaring through the empty sky, the arrow</div><div style="text-align: center;">blazed a flaming path, then vanished in the breeze,</div><div style="text-align: center;">like a shooting star falling from the heavens</div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;">that draws its shining tail across the sky. (V.525-28)</div><p>This is taken as a sign from the gods, and Acestes is awarded the prize. Merit has, once again, failed to decide the match.</p><p>I have gone through the games in such detail because they foreshadow the more momentous happenings of the second half of the book. After the games, as the youth are performing a mock battle on horseback, Juno sends her messenger, Iris, to perform some mischief among the Trojan women:</p><div style="text-align: center;">Iris mixed among them, no novice in the art</div><div style="text-align: center;">of harm. She shed her goddess’s clothes and face</div><div style="text-align: center;">and became Beroë, Doryclus’ old wife,</div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;">who’d once had a family and famous sons. (V.618-21)</div><p>So disguised, Iris urges the women to burn the ships. Have they not had enough of traveling, of the uncertainty of exile? They have found a friendly shore. Why not stop there. But one of the women, Pyrgo, has good sense, saying:</p><span style="white-space: pre;"><div style="text-align: center;"> Women, this is not Doryclus’ wife,</div></span><div style="text-align: center;">Beroë. Note the signs of divine beauty,</div><div style="text-align: center;">her burning eyes, her bravery. Look at</div><div style="text-align: center;">her face, how she sounds and how she walks.</div><div style="text-align: center;">I myself just left Beroë. She was sick,</div><div style="text-align: center;">and sad that she alone would miss the rites</div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;">and could not pay Anchises his due honors.” (V.646-52)</div><p>At this, the women look toward the ships,</p><span style="white-space: pre;"><div style="text-align: center;"> torn between</div></span><div style="text-align: center;">fierce longing for their present spot</div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;">and the lands to which Fate called. (V.654-56)</div><p>They are undecided, not knowing who to follow. What decides the matter is this:</p><span style="white-space: pre;"><div style="text-align: center;"> Iris rose up</div></span><div style="text-align: center;">through the sky on level wings, and as she left,</div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;">she drew a massive rainbow in the clouds. (V.656-58)</div><p>Despite confirming Pyrgo’s warning, this sets the women into a frenzy, and they burn the ships. It is this act of divine interference that the games foreshadowed. It is the ultimate disrupting of merit: Pyrgo’s warning, which had helped create the women’s indecision, is proven wholly correct, yet precisely in being shown to be correct it loses its power. A further irony: Iris invokes a made-up prophecy by Cassandra; this false prophecy is heard, while Pyrgo slides into the role of the actual Cassandra, speaking an unheard truth. Truth cannot compete with divine caprice. Merit, however evident, decides nothing.</p><p>The book ends with one final assault on merit. Venus, worried, turns to Neptune, beseeching him to look kindly on Aeneas’ crew and see them safely to Italy. Neptune placates her:</p><span style="white-space: pre;"><div style="text-align: center;"> “I haven’t changed my mind; let go your fear.</div></span><div style="text-align: center;">He’ll reach Avernus’ harbor safely, as you wish.</div><div style="text-align: center;">There’ll only be one man to mourn for, lost at sea.</div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;">One life will pay for many.” (V.812-15)</div><p>He gives no reason why a life must be lost. Nor is any given later. It is a wholly arbitrary sacrifice. And, once again, it involves a mockery of merit. At night, Sleep (disguised as Phorbas) visits Palinurus as he guides the ship, trying to tempt him to abandon his post. Palinurus resists, as he ought:</p><div style="text-align: center;">Palinurus barely glanced at him: “You ask</div><div style="text-align: center;">me of all men to trust the sea’s calm face</div><div style="text-align: center;">and quiet waves, to have faith in this monster?</div><div style="text-align: center;">As if I’d leave Aeneas to the lying breezes!</div><div style="text-align: center;">The clear skies’ treachery has fooled me many times.”</div><div style="text-align: center;">He held the tiller tight, not letting go,</div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;">and fixed his eyes upon the stars above. (V.847-53)</div><p>Palinurus is wholly guiltless, wholly admirable, and yet:</p><div style="text-align: center;">Then the god shook over him a branch that dripped</div><div style="text-align: center;">with Lethe’s dew and drugs of Stygian strength.</div><div style="text-align: center;">It shut his swimming eyes against his will.</div><div style="text-align: center;">He’d hardly slumped in unexpected rest</div><div style="text-align: center;">when Sleep bent over him and pitched him in the sea.</div><div style="text-align: center;">As he fell, he ripped the rudder from the stern,</div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;">calling often on his friends, but unheard. (V.854-60)</div><p>There is no cause for this, nothing that justifies it. It is simply one more awful proof of the frailty of merit in the face of the divine will.</p><p>I began this post with a remark on the problem of induction. Against this backdrop, Aeneas’ lament for Palinurus takes on especially poignancy:</p><div style="text-align: center;">“Ah, Palinurus, rashly trusting in calm winds</div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;">and sky, you’ll lie unburied on an unknown shore.”</div><div style="text-align: center;"> (V.870-71)</div><div><br /></div></div>Last Positivisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677699402952932577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6331292467452860795.post-63325541575268756562021-12-11T08:35:00.003-08:002021-12-11T08:35:42.361-08:00Thoughts on Nael's Tiger<p style="text-align: center;"> <a href="https://826dc.org/student-writing/the-tiger/" target="_blank">The Tiger</a></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">The tiger</p><p style="text-align: center;">He destroyed his cage</p><p style="text-align: center;">Yes</p><p style="text-align: center;">YES</p><p style="text-align: center;">The tiger is out</p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;">When he was six years old a little poet called Nael wrote the above poem. It's fair to say that it became something of a smash hit on the internet, and is now regularly reproduced on twitter and tumblr as one of people's favourite recent poems. I love it too! And in this little December blog post I am gonna reflect on what I think draws me to this poem, why to me it is so good.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">My thoughts were inspired by seeing <a href="https://brettmilam.com/2020/09/17/naels-poem-the-tiger/" target="_blank">this</a> lovely reflection on the poem during my travels across the internet. The author there identifies the following features: the use of caps lock YES creating a nice cadence and gives a sense of euphoria as the tiger bursts free. The theme of freedom and liberation, which lends itself to both a literal reading and also metaphorical readings about oppressed groups rising up. And the sheer simplicity of it - a 12 word poem where one feels not a word is wasted. I like how htey put it:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><blockquote>It’s not hard to imagine someone else writing the next part, i.e., what happens when the tiger gets out of the cage or adding descriptions of breaking the cage. But we don’t need to know any of that. Only that the tiger was in the cage and now the tiger is out.</blockquote><p>And when I read this list I thought that while I don't quite disagree, it's not to me what is core to the poem.</p><p>Certainly all that is there. I agree especially on the wonderful simplicity of it, and the caps lock YES is tied up with that. And even while personally I think a metaphorical reading would somewhat detract from the poem, I wouldn't deny it is there - it can remind you of Shelley's classic "Rise like Lions after slumber // In unvanquishable number // Shake your chains to earth like dew // Which in sleep had fallen on you - // Ye are many - they are few." But, you know, with tigers. So go check out the blog post, and see some perfectly good reasons for loving this kid's poem.</p><p>But for my part, what I think makes this poem is best described as emotional purity. I have said <a href="http://sootyempiric.blogspot.com/2017/01/criteria-of-personal-art.html" target="_blank">before</a> that what I tend to want from a poem is ability to convey an emotional moment without describing it in any heavy handed way. What I think this poem does is, with the simplicity befitting a six year old, achieve exactly that - and for an especially striking and affecting emotion. In fact its sheer popularity gives me some sense of joy, as it makes me think my aesthetic tastes might be more widely shared than I realised.</p><p>Picture the scene implicit to the poem. One is observing a tiger in the midst of, it will turn out successfully, breaking out of its cage. Presumably one is at a zoo or some other place where caged tigers might be. How does one feel about this? Well as an adult I guess I would say some combination of fascinated by how the tiger managed this, afraid, curious as to how the zoo messed up this bad, afraid, wondering what happens next, and, did I mention, afraid? On account of the angry tiger now running about? </p><p>None of that matters to Nael. Our poet is focussed on one and only one thing about this scenario: how fucking cool it is. A tiger is breaking out of its cage. How cool is that? Now there's a tiger running about! Tigers are so cool! Breaking out of cages is inherently cool! It's a tiger! The poem is clearly written by someone observing the escape, is not from the tiger's perspective, but in some ways it could just as well have been the tiger. For, the poet and the tiger have achieved perfect empathy; they are both entirely focussed on, and in accord regarding, the powerful joy in this moment of liberation.</p><p>The simplicity of the poem, the naive use of caps lock for emphasis, the literalism in what it describes. They all allow you to recapture this pure joy at experience of the world and the powerful unpredictable things therein. To realise that by the simple appreciation of freedom you can connect in some deep way to the tiger, and to this six year old. And to do so in a scenario where I think adult instincts, burdened as they are with the habitual concern for causes and effects, all go in the other direction. The adult in you wants to empathise in this diffuse way with the zoo keepers, with the panicked guests (presumably now including your fictional self), the poor schmuck who is gonna take the fall for this later, and sure maybe somewhat the tiger too if you can get past the fear. But the poet reminds you of a purer, maybe even better, version of yourself, who lives in and appreciates the moment fully and entirely on the basis of its most important aspect.</p><p>The poem gives you the opportunity to briefly reconnect with that person. In fact its direct and evocative language even compels you to at least briefly take up that perspective once more. The simple little poem renews something within us. Merry Christmas, happy new year, and peace and goodwill to all!</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0O6YsOPsMC3lEobTefUx7u9m423TfOXhVillf03i3kteAmwZ27igITHYPNISjBw_PM7eAIoA9rMv8f_SvvIt03EP7IOzH1X4no6Kj4jBBWPagKcWTjpSBCvwRJGTGKb33ZWb0FrU9M2dm/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="648" data-original-width="640" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0O6YsOPsMC3lEobTefUx7u9m423TfOXhVillf03i3kteAmwZ27igITHYPNISjBw_PM7eAIoA9rMv8f_SvvIt03EP7IOzH1X4no6Kj4jBBWPagKcWTjpSBCvwRJGTGKb33ZWb0FrU9M2dm/w395-h400/image.png" width="395" /></a></div></div><br /><br /><p></p>Last Positivisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677699402952932577noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6331292467452860795.post-78849568718248154972021-11-23T02:36:00.001-08:002022-02-14T06:41:25.759-08:00Citational JusticeSome musings prompted by <a href="https://areomagazine.com/2019/12/19/citational-justice-and-the-growth-of-knowledge/" target="_blank">this</a> rather negative take on citational justice literature. In fact (partly for reasons I explain below, and in line with the linked piece) I myself am pretty hostile to the whole notion of citational justice. In any case it feels so self-indulgent as to be immoral for lefty academics to be debating "citational justice" while there are still homeless people. Let's... you know, let's get a grip here? But none the less I am by profession a social epistemologist, and I do think that we learn something interesting about how knowledge is and ought be generated by thinking about what the role and consequences of citational practices are.<br />
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The linked piece is responding to an argument from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcJZCVemn-4" target="_blank">Sarah Bond</a> for more egalitarian citational practices. They take her to be saying that academics should, in order to render our community more just, make conscious efforts to redirect our citations towards people from under-represented groups -- here that's taken to mean women and racial minorities and intersections thereof especially.<br />
<br />The OP authors break this down into three sorts of justice claims one might be interested in. Distributive justice - citations are a good, we should aim to ensure they are shared in an equitable (here meaning: roughly equal across demographic groups) fashion. Citational fairness - citations should be awarded for the right kind of reasons, but in fact they are presently skewed towards white men for no good reason so we ought consciously correct that. And retributive justice - if someone behaves badly they ought not be rewarded with citations, the community should not give esteem to someone who violates important moral norms, and should instead give citations to more deserving underserved populations.<br />
<br />
The authors don't agree with any of these points and so reject Bond's argument. You can read their article to see why (I will summarise one of the arguments they appeal to below, since I agree with it). Instead they envision citations playing role of acknowledging (and, they grant, rewarding) previous work, situating oneself in literature, and pointing to evidence for one's claims. Now I certainly agree that citations do all that, and the incentive effect they therefore have is important, but I would lean more heavily upon another thing than they do: distribute attention.<br /><br /><div>I take it that all else equal the probability of me reading a paper goes up if I find it cited in a work I am already reading. This because the context of citation means I have some reason to think it's relevant to something I apparently already found relevant to my interests, and while I don't think this sort of relevance is transitive I do think that appearing in sequence is some sort of guide. Also, maybe the title grips me, or at least prompts me to google the authors and see what else they have done, etc.<br />
<br />
Crucially, all of these things still seem to me possible in a world wherein people are consciously citing people on demographic grounds. Some arguments for consciously citing people per their demographic group presuppose the social meaning of citation remaining fixed in world wherein that's a norm. I rather suspect it wouldn't, and it would change to the detriment of whoever the new norm says to cite more.</div><div><br /></div><div>In particular (and this is noted in the linked article) I have often thought that what would happen in a world where everyone knows You Must Cite Non-(White Men) is that people would have an excuse to write off citations to non-white non-men as not really reflecting quality of argumentative support or utility for situating within a literature. It would just be ticking a box. In this case simply making non white non men get more citations would not really be giving us access to a valuable good unfairly denied - the nature and value of citations would have shifted by the implementation of this social norm, and now what we are being handed is nowhere near so valuable as what we are presently denied. So I am not entirely sold on some of the citational justice schemes that are advocated, in fact I am hostile - I think they'd hurt me! Perhaps that's selfish, but I only note that they are apparently motivated by helping people of my description so that seems more than a personal problem to have.</div><div><br /></div><div>(You'll note this bears some relationship to common arguments against affirmative action. And I think those are right! If what is valuable about a job is the social meaning of getting to occupy the role, a change in how we decide who occupies the role changes the social meaning of that role, and you have to take that into account. But real jobs also come with, like, wages, that you can use to buy food and shelter, which may override such concerns. Academic citations lean much more heavily for their value upon their social meaning.)<br />
<br />
However, even in the world where the kudos attached to being cited is reduced for non-whites and non-men is reduced, so long as citations still had to be relevant to what they are citing, they may still direct my attention to work that I would not otherwise have seen. Perhaps this is good on some sort of quasi-distributive justice grounds - maybe the thing we really mean to redistribute is influence or attention paid - but I am not so sure about that. But what really persuades me this is valuable is: sending people off to read stuff they would not otherwise have read (both the authors to get the citations and whoever is reading it and may have their interest sparked) is good for introducing heterogeneity into the field. Bond herself makes this argument (I think) by stressing the need to get away from citing the same old people. That is what I really think - crude or gross demographic norms about who you cite will encourage people to read beyond the canon, this will make folk spread out more among the literature, and this kinda quasi-randomisation of who knows what will ultimately serve the field well when there is a variety of evidence bases drawn from.<br /><div><br /></div><div>But I think best of all would be to have something that more directly just encourages people to distribute their attention along unusual grounds. To that end I think there are far more efficient and serviceable ways of achieving this goal than crude demographic citation norms. In fact I think that while at first it might randomise attention a bit, eventually by the <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsif.2014.0378#d3e1302" target="_blank">well-confirmed operation of Matthew effect</a> people would just learn to cite whatever non-white non-men were antecedently somewhat better known, and that in itself <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11229-016-1146-5" target="_blank">may reflect nothing good</a>. So the crude demographic norm would soon lose whatever diversifying effect it initially had, and there's no reason to think it will direct attention to the best work elsewhere. </div></div><div><br /></div><div>If we want to change what it is people are reading and paying attention to, more direct interventions would be wise. Change what we teach, directly make the case in your own publications that particular works by non-(white men), or anyone under-appreciated really, are especially interesting and relevant to some topic of importance, build and make use of platforms that give you reading recommendations that are not tied to the antecedent fame of whoever wrote the articles. There's no clever nudge that will save us these efforts, no short cut. We must, as they say, do the work.</div>Last Positivisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677699402952932577noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6331292467452860795.post-45159577358239599972021-11-20T06:09:00.006-08:002021-11-21T02:42:04.885-08:00The Anglo-American Analytic Philosophy Left<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgQ9wEK7WrV326lbic4BpDBdrTiCmWxsmSjV0FiKHONgYiHIJISkSR_Wr9KbuIItovEBeMoi0bxZmg19IRFWaVtJWBdZo_8qDFhnV0-8PTMYnfPI-_orrn-mbM7jztvlghklFw5VxXmvFM/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Survey showing that most philosophers (53%) identify as socialist." data-original-height="1064" data-original-width="1254" height="542" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgQ9wEK7WrV326lbic4BpDBdrTiCmWxsmSjV0FiKHONgYiHIJISkSR_Wr9KbuIItovEBeMoi0bxZmg19IRFWaVtJWBdZo_8qDFhnV0-8PTMYnfPI-_orrn-mbM7jztvlghklFw5VxXmvFM/w640-h542/image.png" title="Survey results from: https://survey2020.philpeople.org/survey/results/all" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Survey results from here: https://survey2020.philpeople.org/survey/results/all</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">As far as I can tell analytic philosophy for the most part remains a fairly a-political field. At the least, this is what my <a href="https://twitter.com/lastpositivist/status/1303823875604656135" target="_blank">last little survey</a> of the prestige journals suggested to me, and I <a href="https://twitter.com/lastpositivist/status/1462370366513364992?s=20" target="_blank">just checked again</a> and it still seems true. None the less, I agree with <a href="https://twitter.com/BrandonWarmke/status/1382866766892765184?s=20" target="_blank">Brandon Warmke</a> that there has been something of an "applied turn" wherein there is a shift towards trying to make one's work relevant to non-philosophical concerns somehow, and at least some of this has taken the form of a shift towards socio-political work. I gave my explanation for why I thought this shift was occurring <a href="http://sootyempiric.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-end-of-analytic-philosophy.html" target="_blank">here</a> -- though see reply <a href="http://sootyempiric.blogspot.com/2021/07/further-reflections-on-analytic.html" target="_blank">here</a>, and I think <a href="https://schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com/2021/11/where-have-all-fodors-gone-or-golden.html" target="_blank">a recent post at the Splintered Mind</a> is an attempt to explain basically the same pervasive sense of decline via a different mechanism. As with most academics, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09515089.2020.1743257" target="_blank">philosophers lean left</a>, and indeed per the picture it seems a majority even self-identify as socialist when given the chance! Hence, where analytic philosophers have tried to make their work relevant by being socio-politically relevant, it has tended to be with a left wing take thereon. So in the tradition of <a href="http://sootyempiric.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-perception-of-merit.html" target="_blank">evidence free armchair sociology</a> for which this blog is so famous, I thought I would give an insider's take on three different directions it seems to me the left wing of the applied turn is taking in philosophy. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">To do this I am going to construct three <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideal_type" target="_blank">ideal types</a> (with examples linked of the sort of work that this is meant to idealise) of possible directions for analytic philosophy to go in. It's important to note that while there are correlations these do not correspond in any straightforward way to the degree of leftwingedness of the participants, nor are these groups really felt as rivalrous by those within. In fact, "Anglo-American left analytic philosophy" is a fairly small world, and ties of affection bind many across the types I construct. And the political differences may be strongly felt, but are actually pretty minor in practice given that most do not reject electoral politics and in the Anglo-American world that just leaves few choices. None the less, as I shall try to explain, I do feel the ideal types are informative as they represent different methodologies, points of emphasis, and scholarly traditions that would have to be engaged with should one choose to enter into dialogue with someone from each type.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">-------------</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b><u>Analytic Humanism</u></b>: the first type I shall discuss is in many ways the most continuous with core analytic of yesteryear, though I am not sure they would always welcome that claim. People in this strand tend to be steeped in knowledge of LEMM analytic philosophy - language, epistemology, mind, metaphysics. They combine this with a knowledge of feminist philosophy and something of a humanistic bent, frequently <a href="http://www.myishacherry.org/the-case-for-rage/" target="_blank">drawing on literary examples and thinkers</a> and doing much to stress <a href="https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780190664190.001.0001/oso-9780190664190" target="_blank">experiential knowledge</a> and the <a href="https://philpapers.org/archive/HIROAT.pdf" target="_blank">value of emotional engagement</a>. In fact for these reasons often express some degree of alienation from the analytic mainstream, since these latter tendencies tend to be devalued. They produce work focussed on demographic injustices. So typical work from this group might explicate testimonial <a href="https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198237907.001.0001/acprof-9780198237907" target="_blank">injustice</a> or <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/hypatia/article/abs/tracking-epistemic-violence-tracking-practices-of-silencing/F63341CF9BB00AE9C1836899A11F3095" target="_blank">silencing</a>, give ameliorative analyses of <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11098-019-01394-x" target="_blank">intersectionality</a> or what it <a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/GEOSFD" target="_blank">means to</a> <a href="https://elizabethbarnesphilosophy.weebly.com/book.html" target="_blank">be in a</a> <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-the-american-philosophical-association/article/abs/ontic-injustice/828248F30105C2B6D46ABD158B817A21" target="_blank">demographic</a> <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26927949?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents" target="_blank">group</a>, produce analyses of <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691173429/how-propaganda-works" target="_blank">propaganda</a>, <a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/FOSBQC" target="_blank">slurs</a>, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/336041850_What_is_Happening_to_Our_Norms_Against_Racist_Speech" target="_blank">hate speech</a> and <a href="https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780198738831.001.0001/oso-9780198738831-chapter-13" target="_blank">dogwhistles</a>, or reflections on <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/implicit-bias-and-philosophy-volumes-1-and-2-9780198766186?cc=gb&lang=en&#:~:text=Implicit%20Bias%20and%20Philosophy%20brings,for%20core%20areas%20of%20philosophy." target="_blank">biases</a>. Their concerns often touch upon the third-rail controversies of cultural discussion nowadays, such as issues around <a href="https://elisewoodard.org/s/Woodard-Bad-Sex-and-Consent-new-template.pdf" target="_blank">consent</a> and <a href="https://www.academia.edu/42811239/Sexual_violation_and_the_language_of_repair" target="_blank">sexual assault</a>,<a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/josp.12384" target="_blank"> racist humour</a>, or the <a href="https://www.robindembroff.com/real-men-on-top.html" target="_blank">relationship between trans rights and other feminist goals</a>.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Sally Haslanger is very much a thought leader in the group to whom this type corresponds, and her text <a href="https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199892631.001.0001/acprof-9780199892631" target="_blank">Resisting Reality</a> would be required reading for anyone who wants to understand what is up here. Her professional call to arms "<a href="http://www.mit.edu/~shaslang/papers/HaslangerWomeninPhil07.pdf" target="_blank">Changing the Ideology and Culture of Philosophy</a>" is also a bracing expression of some widely held principles among people in this group so I recommend checking it out. Srinivasan's "<a href="https://read.dukeupress.edu/the-philosophical-review/article-abstract/129/3/395/166704/Radical-Externalism" target="_blank">Radical Externalism</a>" and Basu's "<a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/BASTWO-3" target="_blank">The Wrongs of Racist Beliefs</a>" are recent works of this type that have generated a lot of academic discussion. This group has also, I think, done more to contribute to public discussion than any other, with Kate Manne's <a href="http://www.katemanne.net/down-girl.html" target="_blank">work of the type</a> being agenda setting for many beyond the academy, and Amia Srinivasan's <a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/session?redirect=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lrb.co.uk%2Fthe-paper%2Fv40%2Fn06%2Famia-srinivasan%2Fdoes-anyone-have-the-right-to-sex%3Freferrer%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.google.com%252F&s=NDvKxtLWQVv/Y/d2t357jn8hKa/ENtepW/1orwqbJfkjoBpPwC60F70yM0UKAxopUukYtQBz1TjVk6tr8p7e+W8iMdgg8mg2kPnjEpNKyvY4DCnRfmaF+27z+EdVs8qaRft1LeCG3tAgLa9D9J+ZPnR7Bb84E0RlQSH1KzbVZZtTR3jHEYauXaqtO7pFk2qeEV6OzN5uLsnFf1WqXvFmHZz6ydkJv9elaIwMpmHbXODD/vNv" target="_blank">essays</a> often driving cultural conversation. This <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/4090-i-m-not-transphobic-but-a-feminist-case-against-the-feminist-case-against-trans-inclusivity" target="_blank">essay</a> is in fact one of my favourite recent interventions in British public life by academics.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">So the ideal type of the analytic humanist is someone who produces a paper in the style of, and using the tools of, prestige analytic philosophy, but does so in the service of combatting some demographic injustice, drawing on literature and testimony concerning the experienced of the marginalised to make and develop their ideas.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">My guess is this is the dominant type among the Anglo-American academic left. It is very naturally compatible with what prestige analytic departments already view as good and so often can be done well by their graduate students who are already (relatively) well positioned on the job market. It taps well into prevalent cultural concerns of the kind of people who become academics, so will naturally feel relevant and interesting to the people professionally evaluating philosophical contributions. Also, it is the closest in form and content to the sort of Robin DiAngelo and Ibram X Kendi style humanities Theory that enrages the right - and since you can only be cancelled by your own political side, this actually adds to its clout. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b><u>Red Plenty</u></b>: the second type I shall discuss is probably the one I identify with most, and so far that reason the one I feel most likely to be unreliable about. Caveat emptor! But this type is somewhat similar to the above in being of the form "combine traditional analytic philosophy knowledge with pre-existing political tendency", except here the combination tends more to be "philosophy of science + socialism" rather than "LEMM + feminism". The instincts of this group are often much closer to a sort of materialist pragmatism, which ironically can give the impression of a-politicality. To take a representative example, among the group corresponding to this type there is much more inclination to <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Climate-Science-Eric-Winsberg/dp/1316646920/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1511140268&sr=1-1&keywords=eric+winsberg" target="_blank">try and</a> <a href="https://ucl.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14324/111.444/000026.v1" target="_blank">develop methods</a> of <a href="https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/bams/100/9/bams-d-17-0325.1.xml" target="_blank">dealing with</a> climate change than there is to argue that climate change is unjust, <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/reconsidering-reparations-9780197508893?cc=us&lang=en&" target="_blank">though that does occur</a>. This is not because it is seen as an apolitical purely technocratic issue here, it is just that there is a presumed moral-political consensus that this group's skill set does not best prepare them to defend. As such, even where there is direct moral argument of this type, it is often tied to advocating a particular <a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/ADLATW" target="_blank">egalitarian policy tool</a> or <a href="https://philarchive.org/rec/KINRAA-5" target="_blank">social scientific model</a>.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò (snr) is a good representative figure here. His work is based in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Legal-Naturalism-Marxist-Theory-Law/dp/0801456592/ref=sr_1_8?qid=1637410684&refinements=p_27%3AOl%C3%BAf%C3%A9mi+T%C3%A1%C3%ADw%C3%B2&s=books&sr=1-8" target="_blank">Marxist legal theory</a> but he ends up being so orthodox in this regard that his analysis of <a href="https://iupress.org/9780253221308/how-colonialism-preempted-modernity-in-africa/" target="_blank">the colonial roots of Africa's dire economic situation</a> leads him to the recognisably "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-stage_theory" target="_blank">stagist</a>" position that Africa must develop <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Africa-Must-Be-Modern-Manifesto/dp/0253012759" target="_blank">capitalist</a> <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/oluf_mi_taiwo_why_africa_must_become_a_center_of_knowledge_again?language=en" target="_blank">modernity</a> to progress. A pretty standard Marxist theory leads to work advocating particular (basically capitalist!) economic policies, while largely burying the normative lede. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Work of this type tends to be focussed on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/16-erik-olin-wright-utopia-and-social-science/id1544487624?i=1000526069426" target="_blank">critiquing</a> and <a href="http://philmed.pitt.edu/philmed/article/view/27" target="_blank">improving</a> <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/psaprocbienmeetp.1984.2.192541" target="_blank">social</a> <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11229-017-1341-z" target="_blank">scientific</a> <a href="http://cailinoconnor.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Modeling-Minimal-Conditions-for-Social-Ills-2021-shareable.pdf" target="_blank">reasoning</a>, <a href="http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/14840/" target="_blank">suspicious of hierarchy</a> or <a href="https://www.utpjournals.press/doi/abs/10.3138/ijfab.13.2.2020-01-08" target="_blank">liberal notions of autonomy</a>, very concerned with <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajps.12667?af=R" target="_blank">egalitarian</a> <a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/CICSDI" target="_blank">labour relations</a> and the effects of new technology on the <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3786377" target="_blank">social world</a> and <a href="https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3461702.3462520" target="_blank">work life</a>, and has the aspiration of introducing more <a href="http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/lbh24/SV.pdf" target="_blank">collaboration</a> and <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ejop.12500" target="_blank">democracy</a> to various aspects of <a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/PRIFP-2" target="_blank">economic</a> and <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-01204-6" target="_blank">political life</a>. Explicit focus on <a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/CICWDC" target="_blank">class</a> <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hast.1293" target="_blank">and</a> <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26927957" target="_blank">capitalism</a> is much more common among people at home with this type. The nature of the kind of work this group does means they often <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221209632100053X" target="_blank">work with scientists</a>, and while their topics of interest sometimes overlap with the analytic humanists there is much more of a tendency to see relevant social epistemic problems as ultimately concerning how to <a href="https://bostonreview.net/science-nature-race/lily-hu-race-policing-and-limits-social-science" target="_blank">deal</a> <a href="https://www.zoejohnsonking.com/s/Moral-Obligation-and-Epistemic-Risk-December-2018.pdf" target="_blank">with</a> <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/684173?journalCode=phos" target="_blank">statistical</a> <a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/ATETRO" target="_blank">evidence</a>. Not everyone I have linked here would actually identify as socialist/radical at all, but you will none the less do a pretty good job of predicting the behaviour of this ideal type by asking yourself "what would someone work on if they were a socialist materialist but also a total nerd?"</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">So the ideal type of the Red Plenty analytic leftist is someone who either has some technical scientific background or is willing to work with others who do, and whose work is focussed on promoting egalitarian or democratising political and economic ends. Sometimes this will be done by directly advocating for such a state, but very often it will be done by a somewhat more indirect method, usually arguing for some particular change or intervention that would push us in their preferred direction, or trying to reform social scientific reasoning to put us in a better position to make informed interventions in future.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">My guess is this ideal type is small but relatively professionally safe. The kind of work preferred here is less likely to be perceived as "culture war hot" so does not attract as much negative attention as the above group, but also for that reason is unlikely to attract as much attention all things considered. Given increasing education polarisation in Britain and America, the Anglo-American world is probably not going to run out of techy-inclined leftist nerds any time soon so they will have a steady stream of recruits without quite capturing the heights of professional prestige.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b><u>R/Neoliberal</u></b>: the third and final ideal type I discuss would probably be somewhat surprised to find themselves here, but I hope I shall persuade you that they deserve a mention here to round out our triumvirate. This group are more or less the modern expression of utilitarianism, and have seen two big changes in recent years. First, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_You_Can_Save#Impact" target="_blank">a revival of popular interest</a> through the effective altruism movement and its appeal in rich and high powered industries like finance or technology producers. Second, the rise of popularist and nationalist conservatism <a href="https://inews.co.uk/opinion/comment/ignore-populists-neoliberalism-best-system-world-ever-known-74663" target="_blank">reorienting their sense</a> of who their main enemies are from the left to the right of the political spectrum. As such, they are now a functionally left wing group even if they are often culture war not as much aligned with the priorities of other elite liberals (in fact some of the heroes to this group would be hate figures to many in the first group). </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The leading light in this tendency is almost certainly Hilary Greaves. Her <a href="https://academic.oup.com/mind/article-abstract/122/488/915/975476" target="_blank">work</a> has been agenda setting, and through her directorship of the <a href="https://globalprioritiesinstitute.org/" target="_blank">Oxford Global Priorities Institute</a> she has considerable sway over what work is considered important and who is seen as up and coming. The core theoretical debates in this group concern how to <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ob_lUf55KBzc_ZCQujY5eRFuUzZ7M-4W/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">best</a> <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/utilitas/article/abs/a-reconsideration-of-the-harsanyisenweymark-debate-on-utilitarianism/45B191ED9B7BE4ACF598B49A74DCDF0E" target="_blank">formulate</a> <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/phpe.12138" target="_blank">consequentialism </a> and <a href="https://personal.lse.ac.uk/coten/weakness_of_will_and_the_measurement_of_freedom.pdf" target="_blank">other core normative concepts</a>, while <a href="https://academic.oup.com/mind/article-abstract/115/459/607/991822?key=INY2zRBzSX5JGfz&keyype=ref" target="_blank">rationally</a> <a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/MAKAAM" target="_blank">responding to</a> <a href="https://www.williammacaskill.com/s/Statistical-Normalization-Methods-Journal-of-Philosophy-FINAL-SUBMISSION.pdf" target="_blank">uncertainty</a>. Core applied issues are typically <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Animal-Liberation-Peter-Singer/dp/0712674446" target="_blank">animal rights</a> (members of this group are very likely to be vegetarian), and greater leniency towards <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/political-theory/justice-without-borders-cosmopolitanism-nationalism-and-patriotism" target="_blank">immigrants</a> and <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10982-019-09366-2" target="_blank">refugees</a>. Somewhat infamously, yet typically of the utilitarian tradition, they have a tendency to have galaxy brained takes on how to <a href="https://www.existential-risk.org/concept.html" target="_blank">allocate</a> <a href="https://www.williammacaskill.com/s/The_Case_for_Strong_Longtermism-dada.pdf" target="_blank">our</a> <a href="http://www.tobyord.com/book" target="_blank">attention</a>. But the plus side of this is one sometimes gets really <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10677-020-10114-y?fbclid=IwAR1Yn5H383iYOqAs-MrVAeZjsbbseyQw_gWufzB9mwGf_0bwP3DoxFOl7P0" target="_blank">creative</a> <a href="https://www.vox.com/2015/2/4/7972077/against-oversleeping" target="_blank">and</a> <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11245-019-09645-6" target="_blank">fascinating</a> work from <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JizRWXpwNoMAyB-N5s-auPEHeeq1PMHf/view" target="_blank">quite unexpected angles</a>. There's a tendency here to be <a href="https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/01/24/conflict-vs-mistake/" target="_blank">mistake rather than conflict theorists</a>, and one thus gets <a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/DORRP-2" target="_blank">pretty fascinating work</a> on how it is that political conflict none the less seems persistent.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">So the ideal type of the r/Neoliberal analytic leftist uses tools from contemporary utilitarian theorising, often Bayesian or decision theoretic, to try and sharply formulate claims about how best to be a consequentialist. When focussed on drawing out the consequences of this they sometimes have quirky left-field takes, but more often work on on migration and animal welfare. They are the group most likely to see political issues as in the end a matter of rational management of scarce resources towards a cosmopolitan net good, and see many disagreements as mostly resulting from good faith people not knowing how to do that.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">My guess is this group will have a continued institutional foothold simply because they have rich patrons. What is more, while I think their work is often too technical to be of public interest (and when it does get attention the utilitarian habit of drawing shocking moral conclusions can draw ire, and mean this group attracts mere-contrarians) it has a very considerable advantage none the less. This way of thinking is highly likely to appeal to people who actually have power and are in the business of running things. For instance, Matthew Yglesias was <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/GGdiscussion/comments/l1na0f/who_influences_the_biden_agency_transition_teams/" target="_blank">recently found</a> to be among the most followed political accounts by people on Biden's staff, and it is no coincidence that <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/One-Billion-Americans-Matthew-Yglesias/dp/0593190211/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=" target="_blank">his thinking</a> most resembles that of this ideal type. So while it is very decidedly a minority position both in philosophy generally and on the philosophy left more specifically, it is not going anywhere any time soon.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">----------</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">These, then, are the ideal types of three noticeable tendencies on the Anglo-American analytical philosophy left. I make no claim to completeness and no attempt to deny that this is obviously just which groups (and, fuzzy, groupings) are salient from my idiosyncratic perspective. It's a blog post comrades, it is what it is. But some reflections on what I take it it means that these three types and groups stand out.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I think it is non-coincidental that the types look like intellectually refined versions of competing factions in elite left electoral politics. The kind of person who becomes a philosophy professor (or is somehow networked with those who do) is massively over-represented at upper levels of electoral politics. So the divisions one sees between Momentum, Blairites, and the Goldsmiths Student Union (or the DSA, Biden-Buttigieg-Harris, and BLM activists) are more or less just correspondents to the divisions one sees among philosophers. That also goes further towards highlighting that these are not huge political differences being tracked. Philosophy is not presently in its most creative of moods, and it seems we're in the business of rationalising what we already thought rather than really staking out new conceptual ground.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Ultimately <a href="https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199857142.001.0001/acprof-9780199857142-chapter-11" target="_blank">philosophical prophesy</a> is an attempt to shape rather than predict the future. So whereas I think that both the analytic humanists and the r/Neoliberal types (though my choice of that name was cheeky!) would see themselves more or less as consciously organised tendencies, the Red Plenty type would probably not. Since I identify more with that group I hope to change that through this blog post and other interventions.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">It would be facile and undesirable to present this as some sort of choice, say to incoming grads they should pick a lane. Far from it, and I am glad that at present nothing like that occurs. One should read and learn from all these, and from sources beyond these <a href="http://sootyempiric.blogspot.com/2016/12/conservative-under-representation-in.html" target="_blank">political</a> <a href="http://sootyempiric.blogspot.com/2020/10/varieties-of-black-political-philosophy.html" target="_blank">traditions</a> too. But I do think that the real basis of these divisions corresponds to what sort of skills a graduate student will have to develop - it will be hard to persuade the Red Plenty crowd with arguments that would be seen as fully persuasive to the Analytical Humanists, and the r/Neoliberal lot must often be careful to state their presuppositions because they may be quite foreign to the other tendencies. Coming to self-consciousness about the emerging traditions of our field may thus help us all orient our own research, and understand the work of others.</div><p></p>Last Positivisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677699402952932577noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6331292467452860795.post-23986696371573158372021-10-05T14:22:00.002-07:002022-02-14T06:48:15.971-08:00Science for SubjectivistsI read <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/1707.00214.pdf">this</a> fascinating paper by <a href="http://gandenberger.org/">Greg Gandenberger</a>. It's an argument to the effect that one can give a good Bayesian rationale for, in some circumstances, paying attention to stopping rules. These are rules for data collection, in particular rules which tell you when you have gathered enough data and should stop gathering more. One might compare (and Greg does compare) rules which tell you to stop after some fixed point - say, after one has performed the test on 300 subjects - versus rules which say something like `Keep going until you either run out of money or your data supports your favourite hypothesis to some given degree.' Classical statisticians typically say that for epistemic reasons one needs to pay attention to these rules, whereas Bayesian statisticians argue that one very often need not pay any attention to them (in these cases they are "noninformative"). GG is here to argue that there is a particular class of cases where Bayesians will indeed say you need to pay attention to noninformative stopping rules, and that this is just the class where one really ought, so the Bayesian has successfully rationalised the classical practice.<br />
<br />
What sparks this blog post is that GG’s point seemed to almost rely on the decision maker having a brute preference for data gathered one kinda way. It's following through the ramifications of this that gives you the central qualitative result. Here's the idea, illustrated through one way (I think!) the situation illustrated by Greg's results could come about. Suppose I am a decision maker, and I would prefer to do <i>a</i> if H and <i>b</i> if ¬H. If I control funding or publication, or there is otherwise social interest in the decision I make regarding <i>a</i> or <i>b</i>, I know that people will conform their behaviour to policies I announce. I might reason thus to myself: somebody who wants <i>a</i> and thus resolves to stop gathering data the moment the likelihood of H is sufficient may well “stop on a random high". If I am very concerned about the possibility of only doing <i>a</i> because of a false-positive, this possibility of noise in the data being exploited may be very troubling to me indeed. Whereas if I announce a preference for some fixed-n halting rule, this source of false-positives at least cannot come about. It may hence be in my interest to announce a preference for particular stopping rules over others before the experiments are carried out. This is true even though I am a good Bayesian, and so even though after-the-deed had two people done the same experiment and presented me with the same data but under the different stopping rules I would have thought both equally informative as to whether or not H and thus whether or not I should <i>a</i>.<br />
<br />
The point is that my prior announcement of a preference affects what experiments people are actually likely to do and so what data they are actually likely to gather, and hence what sort of errors they might have made. The decision maker thus cares about the stopping rule in order to get the researchers to provide them with certain sorts of data, ones that avoid particular sources of errors they are very concerned about, and so implements some policy which makes it easier for people with the fixed point stopping rule to publish. The experimenters then care about the differences among noninformative stopping rules in order to get whatever it is they want from the decision maker. Hence a community of Bayesians may indeed come to care which stopping rule one uses even though the differences among the options are non-informative.<br />
<br />
I hope that illustrates the sort of thing GG had in mind. He summarises the general moral as such:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[T]he stopping rule affects the expected-utility calculations through the regulator’s utilities rather than his or her probabilities, reflecting the fact that he or she has preferences about what experiments scientists will perform in the future. There are many kinds of decision-makers who engage in repeated interactions with scientists whose interests may not align with their own, including not only government regulators, but also other scientists, journal editors, science journalists, evidence-based practitioners, and even the general public. Any of these agents may need to attend to differences among noninformative stopping rules in their decisions in order to avoid incentivizing the use of stopping rules that they regard as undesirable. Thus, the fact that Bayesians sometimes need to attend to differences among noninformative stopping rules in making decisions is not an idle curiosity, but a key to understanding how Bayesian methods should be used in science.</blockquote>
This is a good paper and a clever idea, so I want to point out some of its troubling consequences.<br />
<br />
Consider the following argument that a Bayesian can explain why a rational community of scientists could indeed come to learn - as in, exhibit consensus on the purported fact that - that the future will resemble the past, and thus solve the problem of induction. Suppose the community was set up such that I am editor of the only journal, and I resolve to publish things only if the author reports priors and an update rule that models the future as resembling the past in appropriate ways. Gradually the community comes to accommodate itself to me; say, because only people with credences I approve of can get publications and only published people can get jobs and teach the next generation of students. Before long scientists have come to a consensus that the problem of induction is solved!<br />
<br />
I take it this doesn’t count as a real solution to the problem of induction in any interesting sense. I’ve just brute forced a particular epistemic conclusion through my gatekeeper position and an arbitrary preference for one kinda epistemic outcome. The difference between this scenario and GG's is, I think, meant to be that the utilities of the decision maker in GG's scenario are much more reasonable. We can think of good moral or social reasons why it is that a decision maker might be very concerned about acting on the basis of some errors. This is, basically, Rudner's problem of inductive risk applied to the social decision maker. But note that this is a fortunate contingency - GG's argument could just as easily justify a community coming to prefer halting rules of just the sort classical statisticians would say makes inquiry less reliable, after all, if the gatekeeper had more idiosyncratic tastes.<br />
<br />
Compare and contrast with the simulation study found <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/1708.08278.pdf">here</a>. The nub of the results therein (stated very very very loosely - read the actual paper!) is that if scientists reason on the basis of "priors" that don't reflect their actual beliefs about the underlying phenomena, and have halting rules based upon these pseudo-priors, their research can end up being much less reliable than it might otherwise have been. To establish this they run simulations of various kinds of situations of inquiry. To loosely describe some of the simpler scenarios, suppose that some decide they will halt inquiry when their posterior odds in favour of one of two competing hypotheses reaches a certain ratio, and as they test may peek at the data to decide whether they've reached that point yet. These scientists' posterior odds are formed on the basis of a prior that did not encode what they actually knew about what is occurring. In this situation then they can end up being less reliable than if they had bound themselves not to halt until they had done a certain fixed amount of inquiry. (Seriously, read the actual paper, a lot more is going on, and the sense of `reliability' used is worth taking note of.) As the authors note, this is basically to be expected - one might say that people who throw away information can end up doing worse science, of course. Also it's not like there haven't been people pointing out problems for Bayesians with adopting priors that don't really reflect one's beliefs before; the authors cite <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00139451">this</a> paper by CMU philosopher <a href="https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/philosophy/people/faculty/seidenfeld.html">Teddy Seidenfeld</a>, for instance. <i>But</i> they also note that in fact scientists, even the self-professed Bayesians in their acquaintance (and even even, they note, some of the founders of subjective Bayesianism) rarely actually use their real priors and in fact do something like this problematic process. So scientists, even Bayesian ones, ought to be worrying about the optional stopping rules used, given our actual beliefs and preferences.<br />
<br />
I am reminded of the <i>Tractatus</i> (propositions 6.371-2) wherein Wittgenstein says:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
At the basis of the whole modern view of the world lies the illusion that the so-called laws of nature are the explanations of natural phenomena.... So people stop short at natural laws as at something unassailable, as did the ancients at God and Fate. And they both are right and wrong. But the ancients were clearer, in so far as they recognized one clear conclusion, whereas in the modern system it should appear as though everything were explained.</blockquote>
The rationalisation of epistemic concern for halting rules GG offers does indeed rest on something, but it is in the end just sheer preference. <i>If</i> this is the sort of rationalisation of scientific practices one is inclined to prefer I think that one shall find that this goes all the way down. There is something groundless about the way we carry on, we just happen to prefer things one way rather than another. Our formal machinery to regiment and rationalise this is necessary, but in the end because (as the simulation work shows) it's just so easy to get in a muddle by our own lights unless we are careful to keep track of precisely what we're up to. That guards us against some error, but it does not seem to me to justify in any properly epistemic sense. Rather, if anything its the justifiability of our preferences that decides whether or not we are doing the right thing, and I suppose that is a matter for ethics and theology more than epistemology and philosophy of science. For a certain kind of subjectivist, I thus think part of what one learns by investigating the foundations of science is that it rests on caprice, and the conventions that codify that caprice.<div><br /></div><div>The choice of how to inquire is ours. Of course it should be a reasoned choice that we make after due consideration, in concert with others. But there's a sense in which we must each alone make our choice.<div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOzTD_70nQzxh4dYXHQL-5GHRL6gbDD_Y5BFpFAf7biG3BxHt0LMoJkYII2x54pCHYlmbjlA37kW2DqFMS67pooXLE7hVN_uP9ByYvIltEtO6XMj_At63ubxewfcDT7PkQYrV-wpKShnNm/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img data-original-height="690" data-original-width="990" height="446" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOzTD_70nQzxh4dYXHQL-5GHRL6gbDD_Y5BFpFAf7biG3BxHt0LMoJkYII2x54pCHYlmbjlA37kW2DqFMS67pooXLE7hVN_uP9ByYvIltEtO6XMj_At63ubxewfcDT7PkQYrV-wpKShnNm/w640-h446/image.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Automat - Edward Hopper<br />This painting has always for me evoked the feeling of someone contemplating <br />an extraordinarily weighty matter, at least judged by its personal significance,<br /> but having to do so utterly alone and in the most mundane of circumstances.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div></div>Last Positivisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677699402952932577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6331292467452860795.post-80022815212677127912021-09-21T02:21:00.005-07:002021-09-21T03:45:05.950-07:00Personal Tribute to Charles Mills<p>Like many in the philosophical world today I am in dismay at the loss of Charles Mills. I feel compelled to honour him with a public tribute, as he meant more to me than almost anyone else in the profession and I think <a href=" http://sootyempiric.blogspot.com/2018/02/the-philosophical-temperament.html" target="_blank">socialised affection and grief</a> are a fitting response to this sort of tragedy. I'll try and say a bit about why Mills was so special to me personally, but I think that the characteristics I saw in him would be familiar to many who interacted with him. In this way I hope that my idiosyncratic impressions and experiences will give some more general idea of the man we have lost.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b>Professionally</b> - by the time I met Mills he was already an international superstar. His work had long been of interest to black or Africana thinkers, but by the mid 2010s when I got to know him he was well established among the white mainstream of political philosophy. As Mills himself would have been first to point out, there are more of them and they have more money for keynote lectures and the like, so his newfound status among this crowd represented a somewhat new experience of the profession. As is implicated in the <a href="https://dailynous.com/2021/09/20/charles-mills-1951-2021/" target="_blank">Daily Nous tribute to Mills</a>, this degree of fame and respect came somewhat late in Mills' career, and I believe it was the perspective he had as someone who had been on the outside for much of his career that gave him a great degree of empathy with those of us who had not yet to (or will not ever) make it to the same degree.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">In any case, for whatever psychological reason, from the very first interaction we had Mills acted as a supportive mentor to me, giving me intellectual and professional advice while being incredibly generous with his time. In fact I think our first interaction resulted from me cold emailing him some half baked idea I had in response to his work. He responded with generous feedback in short order, and then agreed to have a video chat with me. I now realise that this is very much supererogatory, but I would never have known it at the time. He made it seem like the most natural thing in the world that he wanted to help me out and had lots of time to give, despite not knowing me from Adam.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />Down the years this continued. We'd make a point of meeting up at conferences, and exchanged emails fairly regularly. I'd turn to him for advice or just to check in on what he thought of professional trends or the like. Always, in every encounter, he was wise, kindhearted, eager to help, and so naturally these things that one never felt a burden. I have no doubt at all that whatever measure of professional success I have and will achieve owes no small part to him.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b>Intellectually</b> - Mills' work has been groundbreaking. No survey of <a href="http://sootyempiric.blogspot.com/2020/10/varieties-of-black-political-philosophy.html" target="_blank">black political thought</a> would be complete without him. His most famous work, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Racial_Contract" target="_blank"><i>The Racial Contract</i></a>, is now an acknowledged modern classic. It is typical of Mills in its attempt to bring to bear the work of contemporary (especially Rawlsian) political philosophy, combined with his deep knowledge of and respect for the classical liberal tradition, to understand the problems of contemporary societies. In particular, he sought to show how aforementioned political philosophy served an obfuscatory role, but none the less provided intellectual resources which could allow us to get a theoretical handle on how it is that unjust hierarchies are maintained. Thinking through these themes led to another of his most influential papers, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3811121" target="_blank"><i>Ideal Theory as Ideology</i></a>, which has been agenda setting in metaphilosophy, as it pushed philosophers to try to attend more to the concrete details of contemporary reality, or at least explain how it is that our abstract reflections relate to the goings on of everyday life. Probably his most culturally resonant work was his essay <i><a href="https://shifter-magazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/mills-white-ignorance.pdf" target="_blank">White Ignorance</a></i>, which applies the approach advocated for in <i>Ideal Theory as Ideology</i> by bringing together work in naturalistic epistemology, social psychology, history, and sociology, to make the case that there are predictable irrationalities that will be displayed by white majority populations when it comes to reasoning about the situation of a black (or non-white) underclass. And in his recent work (such as this essay <a href="https://simpsoncenter.org/sites/simpson/files/Charles-Mills-Black-Radical-Kantianism.pdf" target="_blank"><i>Black Radical Kantianism</i></a>) he has once again been drawing on the liberal tradition, this time in a reconstructive vein, to try to draw from Kantian ethical thought to develop principles for reasoning about how to move towards a just society given a history of injustice.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">This is just a tiny survey of a grand career's worth of writings. I think he was among the leading lights of contemporary liberal theory, and at a time when the legitimacy of that mode of society is subject to severe scrutiny and scepticism his loss is a great blow to that tradition (so it has been somewhat amusing, in a grim sort of way, to see Mills singled out as an example of postmodern anti-rational illiberalism by some <a href="https://newdiscourses.com/2020/06/reasons-critical-race-theory-terrible-dealing-racism/" target="_blank">contemporary reactionaries</a>).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And for me personally Mills thought has been incredibly fertile. It was actually on his encouragement that I got involved in thinking about the demographics of philosophy and what that means for the work that gets done, which led to my very first publication and <a href="http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzPapers/RaceGender-210504.pdf" target="_blank">continues</a> to be part of my work. My <a href="http://davidbkinney.com/Risk_Aversion_and_Elite_Group_Ignorance_Website_Preprint.pdf" target="_blank">most recent paper</a> was a response to the issues he raised in <i>White Ignorance</i>. More generally, the vision of philosophy as able to speak to contemporary realities, deeply informed by interdisciplinary social scientific study, while at the same time conversant with the best of the historic tradition - this inspires me, this is what I want to be. Charles Mills provided the model which I am still trying to live up to.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /><b>Personally</b> - That first video chat I mentioned above opened with Mills taking a look at me and saying "Ah, so I see you're one of those lightskin brothers like me, eh?" He said it with a sparkle in his eye and a cheeky smile. His point was to disarm and somewhat shock, but without doing anything to be off putting, put me at ease by a humorous display of over familiarity. It worked. You would deeply misunderstand Mills if you got the impression of him above as a sort of pious sage figure, dispensing kindly advice with his face always turned towards righteousness. That captures something of him, but it misses out on the irreverent earthy humour of the man. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">His deeply underrated<i> </i>essay <i><a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9833.1994.tb00352.x" target="_blank">Do Black Men Have a Duty to Marry Black Women?</a></i> contains one of the few lines of analytic philosophy that genuinely made me laugh out loud when I first encountered it:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKjW48efQ63KzHBhgQDHq9dhuMARbGUqjEwUA5b4e4tZp6uE0XpTYxq09MD4KgFDNnGtgGiLf_3m0XUxav8O5ZNsKhJEuo1NzowaloO6ii0mT0g-Lhg-TIl4HnPhaX5IFj4NIOhgFhylzk/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="306" data-original-width="2024" height="96" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKjW48efQ63KzHBhgQDHq9dhuMARbGUqjEwUA5b4e4tZp6uE0XpTYxq09MD4KgFDNnGtgGiLf_3m0XUxav8O5ZNsKhJEuo1NzowaloO6ii0mT0g-Lhg-TIl4HnPhaX5IFj4NIOhgFhylzk/w640-h96/image.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And to understand Mills you have to get that aspect of him too. The topic is a serious one, the context is the cultural disrespect and visceral disgust (intermixed with eroticised fascination) black people's sexuality can evoke. If you read the essay it's clear that Mills understands those stakes, and indeed the whole essay is an exercise in taking seriously and reasoning through something that can deeply matter to people's every day lives yet which is often ignored by the professional mainstream. But for all that, Mills would combine it with self-deprecating joking asides, a none-too-pious ability to see the absurdity of the whole situation and our place in it. To laugh rather than cry in the face of the slings and arrows of outrageous historical fortune. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I just cannot overstate how much this means to me personally. This element of Mills, the ability to take things seriously while laughing at them, made me feel more at home in the field than anything else. I often feel in philosophy, even and maybe especially the bits of the field I like, there is a kind of dour protestant sensibility of moral seriousness. It's not that I think this is wrong per se, but it's just deeply unfamiliar to me. I grew up discussing big issues of politics and society with my family, and for all we deeply cared about such things the norm is and was to be lighthearted, to be able to see the funny side and not take oneself too seriously. Mills' sense of humour, and unselfserious down to earth way of being in the field, was a visible proof that<i> I </i>could make it; I could work on the things I care about while still retaining elements of my personality and upbringing that feel essential to being me. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">My absolute favourite memory of Charles Mills is also the last time I saw him in person, three years ago. I had been offered a job at the LSE, and it was the last summer before I was due to move to London and take up the post. We met up for lunch at a conference and went to some basement cafe somewhere a bit out of the way. We laughed and gossiped and lamented the state of the field. Towards the end of the meal with a serious look on his face he told me that given that there are so so few black professors in the UK I had a responsibility to represent black philosophy, and then after a beat followed it up with "well, at least until we can find someone better". I will miss him so much.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh78ZB0waRq6Q_vuKc8uyex_bpomUiMZcsgZ5rgMMcdIMYfNR_pdzHwZTmEOK-rj9FdcbSvw6gS4J-UNfU5ZwKcPvtb3WYz6IpgjR5QS8SDHJz75YHi8VNpEAaUWjMwsY44eMdkpv0MDwx5/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh78ZB0waRq6Q_vuKc8uyex_bpomUiMZcsgZ5rgMMcdIMYfNR_pdzHwZTmEOK-rj9FdcbSvw6gS4J-UNfU5ZwKcPvtb3WYz6IpgjR5QS8SDHJz75YHi8VNpEAaUWjMwsY44eMdkpv0MDwx5/w480-h640/image.png" width="480" /></a></div><br /><p></p>Last Positivisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677699402952932577noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6331292467452860795.post-8726233652576465562021-08-09T07:17:00.005-07:002021-08-09T07:53:34.748-07:00Pessimism of the Intellect, Optimism of the Will <p>I started writing this as a kind of meditation in a notebook, but then I thought maybe it would be interesting to others so I decided to share on my blog. It's my reflections on Gramsci's famous aphorism named in the blog post title - but, while I won't go into depth here, I'll just note that if I were to write reflections on Mark 12:30-31 they would probably be very similar. Nothing profound, but I hope it helps someone nonetheless.</p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH0x6vM9_h_6bgQRemjK2QgHcwaixfpak44GtzQ9Is5wSYkai0rIOIrewRTirlEOa9bMFbZ_4drFzCDjoNuix4MwkWHQljWGXKFa1OjjLW_N5WZxiK71REc_t66oQSBChEZwExzAQXX654/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="347" data-original-width="500" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH0x6vM9_h_6bgQRemjK2QgHcwaixfpak44GtzQ9Is5wSYkai0rIOIrewRTirlEOa9bMFbZ_4drFzCDjoNuix4MwkWHQljWGXKFa1OjjLW_N5WZxiK71REc_t66oQSBChEZwExzAQXX654/w506-h222/image.png" width="506" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tullio Crali - The Forces of the Bend<br />"Eyyy, I paint'a de race car, it exemplifies'a da ever accelerating forces of de modernity'a and <br />implicitly calls to mind the relentless use of fossil fuels to make that possible'a, mamma mia!"</td></tr></tbody></table><br />We must always act from a sincere love of our fellows, but never give in to maudlin sentimentality or (worse) facile irrationalism. In theory, so long as one avoids <a href="https://aquarusa.wordpress.com/2017/07/03/incongruent-dichotomies-logical-vs-emotional/" target="_blank">silly ideological tropes</a>, it is not so difficult to keep the two apart. But on a day to day level it can seem very difficult indeed. Especially when one is faced with nigh-inevitable catastrophe. Many have reflected on this before (<a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/07/05/pessimism-optimism-and-the-role-of-intellectuals/">for example</a>), I am just going to add my own voice to the chorus.<p></p><p>When Gramsci wrote the words from which this famous aphorism is derived he was imprisoned by the fascist Italian state. What he actually said... well, when translated... was that "the challenge of modernity is to live life without illusions and without becoming disillusioned… I’m a pessimist because of intelligence, but am an optimist because of will." I take it that what made disillusionment tempting for him was the rise of fascism in his homeland, economic collapse, imminent war, his own personal health and security. Of course these may still resonate with plenty of people. But what prompted this for me, today, was reading news of climate change, so that's what I will focus on in what follows.</p><p>The International Panel on Climate Change today warned the world that we are on the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/aug/09/humans-have-caused-unprecedented-and-irreversible-change-to-climate-scientists-warn" target="_blank">eve of destruction</a><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_38SWIIKITE" target="_blank">.</a> Unless we take large scale action very quickly we can expect rolling waves of ever more extreme climate events as the years go by. Anyone who has been paying attention to the news this year will know this has begun, and these will get worse and cause death and devastation in their wake. What is more, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/war_in_the_desert" target="_blank">as we already seeing</a>, environmental change will exacerbate conflict, war, and refugee crises.</p><p>The actions required call for mass, and to a significant degree coordinated, behavioural change on a global scale. People need to change settled patterns of behaviour, and change patterns of consumption that have long been associated with status and ease. This is intrinsically difficult, and would not be easy for any social system under any circumstances. But even beyond this, there are peculiarities of our circumstance that make things harder.</p><p>First, it is <a href="https://www.merchantsofdoubt.org/" target="_blank">well documented</a> that we have a clique of wealthy and powerful people and organisations who have a long history of deliberately undermining public understanding of this crisis and the collective actions necessary to meet it. This is not just random malfeasance on their part, but in a certain amoral sense a rational response to the incentives they face and options they have available to them. Without some sort of <a href="https://www.lincolninst.edu/sites/default/files/pubfiles/climate-change_0.pdf" target="_blank">state action to compel economic sacrifices</a>, ones that would hit them hard, there is no hope of successful climate governance. They hence, of course, use their economic and political power to prevent such state action. Their power has also given them access to <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300234015/misinformation-age" target="_blank">a political and media-communications infrastructure</a> that makes it very possible for them to ensure their preferred talking points and ways of understanding things dominate public discussion, or at least take up enough room to prevent the formation of a consensus in favour of actions they disprefer. So with every incentive to continue to promote what is worse, and every ability to influence what a great many people believe is for the best, it is no surprise that fossil fuel magnates' strategies work, and we still find governments twisting themselves into knots to pretend that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/07/were-on-the-brink-of-catastrophe-warns-tory-climate-chief" target="_blank">now is the time to be opening new oil fields</a> even while catastrophe looms.</p><p>Second, as far as I can tell, the within-present-lifespan effects of climate change inaction will largely hit poorer people in poorer equatorial countries worst of all (see e.g. the link above re war in the Sahel). And even the things that do affect the world's wealthy (think of <a href="https://www.c2es.org/content/wildfires-and-climate-change/" target="_blank">summer fires in California</a> caused by a combination of global change and terrible local environmental management) are the sort of things that the wealthy can protect themselves from. Buy houses on the hill, and have a second home to summer in just to be on the safe side. But since the poor of poor equatorial countries are <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions#/media/File:Annual_CO%E2%82%82_emissions,_OWID.svg" target="_blank">doing least to contribute to carbon emissions</a> they're people least empowered to actually change things to avert the disaster. The wealthy are not exactly accustomed to caring too much for their plight at the best of times, and if I look at what our wealthy are up to it seems at best they <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/jeff-bezos-space-pollution-amazon-b1887510.html" target="_blank">propose</a> to blast our problems into space and at worst they are simply preparing to ride things out in <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/doomsday-luxury-bunkers/index.html" target="_blank">secured luxury</a> by themselves. What is more, the old bigotries of racism and xenophobia make it possible to present climate refugees as a scary invading horde to be dealt with as a matter of national security at the border, rather than desperate people harmed by our actions and in need of our assistance. Indeed, one can't help but notice that some wealthy nations are building <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jul/05/priti-patel-to-reveal-proposals-for-offshore-centres-for-asylum-seekers" target="_blank">off</a> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/feb/15/australias-offshore-detention-is-unlawful-says-international-criminal-court-prosecutor" target="_blank">shore</a> detention camps, while <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-57561760" target="_blank">others</a> prepare prison camps in the desert. That's infrastructure that sure would be useful if your medium term climate change plan was doing not enough to mitigate serious change and dealing with the inevitable displaced people by simply locking them out and demonising any who got through!</p><p>Third, the forces that might be challenging this are in utter disarray. There is no serious sign, that I can see, of a successful internationalist left properly attuned to the scale of this challenge taking power in any of the major carbon producing nations. China and India have governments that are sternly nationalistic at the present moment and none too tolerant of leftwards dissent. While the Western powers have an utterly emaciated left, with the status-quo establishment parties more or less on board with the frankly genocidal ambitions of our rich and powerful as outlined above.</p><p>So, facing an intrinsically very difficult problem, we find ourselves beholden to a wealthy and powerful industry set on worsening the problem in a market economy that more or less compels such behaviour, with a ruling class that is decidedly indifferent to the suffering of those who will be worst affected and who if anything seem to be preparing for mass death, and no serious prospects for successfully challenging this situation. Pessimism of the intellect.</p><p>In the face of all this it is tempting to do one of two things. First, one can harden one's heart. Cut yourself off from all this, become apathetic or defeatist. Or, maybe, convince yourself that the only way to be a hard nosed realist, pragmatic and practical where it is urgently needed, is to accept some of this loss (the loss, that is, suffered by a global poor you have never met and will never interact with) as inevitable and start planning around it as given. In these ways you can lose your heart of benevolence, and forget the love of your neighbour. Second, one can give in to irrationalism. Simply deny the evidence of how bad a problem this is and hope that it is all a hoax, or embrace disconnected personal aesthetic lifestyle changes that have no serious hope of changing things but which at least let you feel better. In this way one forgets the love of God or Nature, loses one's heart of wisdom. In extreme cases one can go eco-fash, hope for a mass die off that will somehow reduce the population to a sustainable level, and try to ensure that one's preferred group are among the survivors. In this way one becomes a heartless fool.</p><p>Of course none of that will do. What is needed is the cool-headed rationality of one who passionately loves sentient life in all its forms. This does indeed require taking stock of the information available on climate change, its social and technical causes, what stands in the way of effective mitigation. In this way one will indeed come across the dire probabilities gestured at above, and be compelled to face with sober senses your real conditions of life, and relations with your kind. But that is not the end of things. For just as we know the challenges so too we know the stakes. And what is at stake is both the possibility of enormous suffering for many of our fellows if we do not do this right, but also immense joy if only we could do better! As in a sort of secular <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTHN_eQaEaI" target="_blank">Pascal</a>'s wager, it only takes a small possibility of success for it to be entirely worth it for us to act determinedly towards a better world. And even if we fail, <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1919/01/14.htm" target="_blank">from our failure future comrades may learn and do better</a>. Optimism of the will.</p><p>(Since to anyone paying attention this is obviously a quasi decision theoretic argument, I must acknowledge that my talk of probabilities is a bit loose here. But I think there are <a href="https://www.liamkofibright.com/uploads/4/8/9/8/48985425/pandemic_decisions.pdf" target="_blank">close enough analogues in pertinently similar cases</a> to make my point. Likewise I think any suggestion of individualistic voluntaristic imposition of will can be mediated by <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-01204-6" target="_blank">a proper role for communal deliberation</a> in deciding how to respond to our situation. But this isn't the time for that. Leave my meditation alone, hypothetical critic!)</p><p>And this is why I love Gramsci's aphorism so much, and why I meditate on it at moments when I am inclined to become defeatist. In a brief phrase it brings all this together. It acknowledges the dire state before us as we intellectually square up to the world. But it also reminds us that none the less there are factors beyond that, concerning our will, what we value and love, which nevertheless rationally compel us to action. Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.</p>Last Positivisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677699402952932577noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6331292467452860795.post-24266325380513641542021-07-05T00:52:00.001-07:002021-07-05T00:52:19.128-07:00Further Reflections on Analytic Philosophy<p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">My <a href="https://sootyempiric.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-end-of-analytic-philosophy.html"><span class="s2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(11, 76, 180); color: #0b4cb4; font-kerning: none;">last blog post</span></a> garnered some interesting discussion which I thought I would collate here. The impetus for this is that the long-suffering <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/prestonjstovall/"><span class="s2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(11, 76, 180); color: #0b4cb4; font-kerning: none;">Preston Stovall</span></a> kindly emailed with a detailed response. We both agreed it would be nice for him to be able to publish the response on my blog post, so it’s below. He did this in a timely manner after I published the blog post, so naturally I’ve sat on it for a month as I deal with my disorganisation and psychodrama. Sorry Preston!</span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Before getting to that, I thought I would link to some of the other discussions so one can get a span of opinions. First, the ever reliable <a href="https://dailynous.com/2021/05/24/analytic-philosophys-triple-failure-of-confidence/"><span class="s2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(11, 76, 180); color: #0b4cb4; font-kerning: none;">Daily Nous</span></a> ended up hosting quite a detailed discussion in its comments. I’d say the vibe is most people think I am overly pessimistic, but check it out for yourself!<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">One style of response that I found quite common in my own interactions was very well spelled out in this <a href="http://lilith.cc/~victor/dagboek/index.php/2021/05/28/on-the-end-of-analytic-philosophy/"><span class="s2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(11, 76, 180); color: #0b4cb4; font-kerning: none;">blog post</span></a> - here the thought is that while it is true that philosophers generally cannot plausibly believe they will achieve rational consensus, this is not such a bad thing. The mistake was ever hoping for that in the first place, and once we have gotten over that hangup we can enjoy the sort of pluralistic free play of ideas that comes with a taste for dissensus. For my own part, while I think I share some similar sensibilities, I am less confident this is really a way to avoid the worry. To me this is something like a paradox of happiness situation - it’s true that happiness is a valuable thing indeed, but if you set out consciously with it in mind “ok I am going to do things so I am happy” you are probably going about it wrong. Happiness is attained as a byproduct through doing that which brings you intrinsic satisfaction. My suspicion is the value of this pluralistic free play of ideas in a similar way depends on being a byproduct of people seeking (and failing to attain) the sort of rational consensus that I am so pessimistic about.</span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Another response was more in line with my own pessimistic tendencies. <a href="https://fliegenderbrief.wordpress.com/2021/06/01/dont-let-it-end/"><span class="s2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(11, 76, 180); color: #0b4cb4; font-kerning: none;">This blog post</span></a> explored more of the cultural and institutional factors that led to the bad situation I outlined. It describes a dialectic which culminated thus: “[e]ventually analytic philosophy worked itself pure: a cohort of charismatic but somewhat abrasive professors debated arcane topics with one another, isolated from most of the greater academic community, their leisure and keynote travel supported by an ever expanding cast of adjuncts, visiting professors and graduate assistants whose career prospects were vanishing before their eyes.” This, it is argued, was a not stable equilibrium, and the signs of decay and decline I pointed to are really just people fighting about what comes next. Maybe so - but I didn’t expect to get outflanked on the pessimism front! Just as with the above and below, it’s an interesting read and I recommend you check it out.<br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Ok those were the three sets of responses I wanted to highlight. So without further ado, see below for Dr. Stovall’s defence of philosophy! He’s a more optimistic sort than I am, so it’s the sort of pleasant situation wherein the more plausible it seems I am wrong in light of his arguments, the happier I shall be to learn of my error!</span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</span>-------------------------------</p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">In Defense of Philosophy: Analytic, Pragmatist, and Transcendental</span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px; text-align: center;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p4" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Preston Stovall</span></p><p class="p4" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">June 4</span><span class="s4" style="font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"><sup>th</sup></span><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">, 2021</span></p><p class="p5" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p><p class="p6" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>I</b></span></p><p class="p6" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">I found myself nodding along, at one step removed, to some of the claims Liam makes in his <a href="https://sootyempiric.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-end-of-analytic-philosophy.html"><span class="s5" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(11, 76, 180); color: #0b4cb4; font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">essay</span></a>. For instance, though he describes a “pervasive pessimistic skepticism” among young analytic philosophers that is no doubt pervasive in some areas, pessimistic skepticism has not been my impression of the state of things in the circles I move. And while the “grand march to Kripke” narrative has a sound sociological basis in the development of 20</span><span class="s4" style="font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"><sup>th</sup></span><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> century philosophical logic, I find it rather unconvincing as a claim about the formal foundations for much of the work we do (I realize Liam’s not endorsing that narrative himself, and I appreciate his call to engage more with historians of philosophy).<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p5" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p6" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">In fact, I think there’d be much less pessimistic skepticism about the future of analytic philosophy if people were more familiar with some of the reasons to reject (or at least substantially qualify) that narrative. In response to Liam’s essay, then, I’ll lay out a case for optimism about the state of analytic philosophy today (or about the state of a descendant of what used to be called “analytic philosophy”). In the rest of part <b>I</b>,<b> </b>I’ll begin by sketching a critique of the “march to Kripke” narrative, before using that critique to highlight some of the work that gives us reason for optimism (or so I claim). In part <b>II</b>, I’ll broaden the lens and consider the question of whether anything unifies the study of philosophy. In the end, I want to suggest that our reasons for optimism about contemporary analytically influenced philosophy are also reasons to think we are taking part in a shared activity that has been ongoing since almost the first use of the term “philosophy”.</span></p><p class="p5" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p6" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">It’s true that, sociologically, the discipline glommed on to possible-worlds semantics and representational theories of meaning in the second half of the 20</span><span class="s4" style="font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"><sup>th</sup></span><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> century. Given the development of philosophical logic in the first half of that century, there were sound reasons for doing so. The work of people like Ruth Barcan Marcus, Saul Kripke, and Georg Henrik von Wright showed that the alethic (and other) modalities could be tolerably modelled in terms of possible worlds, by showing that the same kinds of recursive semantic evaluations as had already been given for predicate logic and the Boolean operators could be given for sentences falling under these modalities. What’s more, the axiom systems botanized by C.I. Lewis at the beginning of the 20</span><span class="s4" style="font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"><sup>th</sup></span><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> century could be accounted for in terms of mathematical properties of the accessibility relations between worlds, offering (what appear to be) substantive answers to questions about whether, e.g., something could be necessary without being necessarily necessary.</span></p><p class="p5" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p6" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Equipped with this extension of the old logic to models including possible worlds, and as W.V.O. Quine’s animus against modal logic receded into the background of philosophical consciousness, philosophers began to put these models to use in their work. But as Adam Tamas Tuboly <a href="https://philarchive.org/rec/TUBQAQ-3"><span class="s5" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(11, 76, 180); color: #0b4cb4; font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">argues</span></a> in <a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/TUBTEF"><span class="s5" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(11, 76, 180); color: #0b4cb4; font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">working</span></a> through the literature of that period, Quine’s concerns weren’t so much addressed as ignored (Robert Brandom has made this point in a couple of places as well). There’s good research being done by people like Greg Frost-Arnold (who makes a showing in the comments in Liam’s post), Kevin J. Harrelson, Joel Katzav, and Adam Tuboly in questioning conventional narratives about the development of analytic philosophy (and Katzav’s <a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/KATAP-3"><span class="s5" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(11, 76, 180); color: #0b4cb4; font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">work</span></a>, along <a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/KATOTE"><span class="s5" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(11, 76, 180); color: #0b4cb4; font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">with</span></a> Krist Vaesen, on the apparent journal-capture by analytic philosophers taking place during the interwar through post-WWII periods, is pretty eye-opening).<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p5" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p6" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The development of model-theoretic possible-worlds semantics has done much to shape areas like epistemology, metaphysics, the philosophy of mind, artificial intelligence, and the philosophy of perception over the last few decades, to say nothing of the influence it’s had in linguistics and computer programming. But there are a number of undercurrents to the development of philosophical logic since the pioneering work of Gottlob Frege and C.S. Peirce on extensional first-order languages, and many of these currents flow through channels that do not lead to Kripke’s work. The existence of a century’s worth of vibrant research programs in proof-theoretic semantics, for instance, shows that the recent dominance of model-theoretic representationalism is a historical contingency. And if more philosophers were familiar with the proof-theoretic foundations of contemporary logic and linguistics, it would be clear that there are at least two directions that philosophy has been “marching” since the middle of the last century.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p5" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p6" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Familiarity with the proof-theoretic strand in the history of analytic philosophy also helps clear up some of the conceptual oddities that lie at the base of much of the work that has been done in metaphysics since the development of possible-worlds semantics. The interest in so-called “hyperintensional” semantics, and the much-lauded “hyperintensional revolution”, for instance, are artifacts of Rudolf Carnap’s decision to replace Fregean senses with intensions as functions from state descriptions to extensions in <a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/CARMAN"><span class="s5" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(11, 76, 180); color: #0b4cb4; font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"><i>Meaning and Necessity</i></span></a>. The fact that “intensional semantics” is now, in many idiolects, coextensional with “possible-worlds semantics” is evidence enough that the very need for a hyperintensional revolution has been self-imposed as a byproduct of an impoverished notion of meaning.</span></p><p class="p5" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p6" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Carnap was clear that his notion of intension wasn’t meant to do the work that older notions of intension (sense, comprehension, connotation, content, etc.) were able to do, however, and his purposes were served by interpreting intensions in this way. But important developments in 20</span><span class="s4" style="font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"><sup>th</sup></span><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> century philosophy take on a new significance once this historical picture is brought into view. Kit Fine’s work on essences in the 1990s and early 2000s, for instance, is predicated on the <a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/FINEAM-2"><span class="s5" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(11, 76, 180); color: #0b4cb4; font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">observation</span></a> that possible worlds cannot by themselves distinguish the asymmetric ontological dependence (so the thought runs) of the singleton set {Socrates} on the human being Socrates. Each exist at exactly the same worlds, and so the ontological dependence of a set on its members cannot be modelled in those terms.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Consequently, models restricted to possible worlds cannot explain the different truth-conditional meanings of “Socrates is essential to {Socrates}” and “{Socrates} is essential to Socrates”.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p5" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p6" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">In response, Fine developed a model-theoretic representational metalanguage that uses talk of essence to interpret object-language talk of essence. What this establishes is not that there’s a realm of metaphysical essence that the philosophical logician can divine the logical contours of, but rather that the notion of intension at work on possible-worlds semantics is inadequate as a complement to extensional notions of meaning (as Carnap himself knew).</span></p><p class="p5" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p6" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Today, model-theoretic and realist representationalism about metaphysics (employing metalanguages of possible worlds, essences, etc.) is widespread, and the field of inquiry into essences has been substantially shaped by Fine’s work. But if we go <a href="https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/p/pod/dod-idx/essence-as-a-modality-a-proof-theoretic-and-nominalist.pdf?c=phimp;idno=3521354.0021.007;format=pdf"><span class="s5" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(11, 76, 180); color: #0b4cb4; font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">proof-theoretic</span></a>, we can interpret object-language talk of essence in terms of a metalanguage of explanatory inferences, where metaphysical language is mentioned in a metalanguage that appeals to features of the proof system. It is then possible to use ordinary reflection on our pre-existing habits of explanation, adverting to material facts about the domains in question, to settle on object-language interpretations for essentialist talk. In this regard, and to adopt a Kantian turn of phrase, the study of metaphysics becomes a kind of reflection on the conditions under which it is possible to so much as think, understand, or make judgments about things like human beings and sets.</span></p><p class="p5" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p6" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The supposed asymmetric ontological dependence of {Socrates} on Socrates, for instance, can be explained by recourse to the prosaic way we identify and individuate sets and human beings. For we show that two sets are identical by showing that they include exactly the same members (in the formal mode: we write up two lists and verify that exactly the same names occur on each list), but we do not show that two human beings are identical by comparing the sets containing them. Instead, we trace the lives of human beings. Object-language talk of essence goes over into a metalanguage of explanation, where the latter is read off of existing material commitments about the things we’re talking about. To the extent that there’s a metaphysical project here, it’s one that proceeds by reflection on the way we habitually reason about things like organisms and mathematical objects.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p5" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p6" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Rather than try to build a notion of intension inside model theory, then, it seems more promising to treat model theory and proof theory as two formalisms for reconstructing the old extension/intension distinction concerning complementary notions of meaning – one ontological, and concerned with word-world (and, as I’ll note in a moment, world-word) relations, and the other deontic, concerned with word-word relations. And there are interesting philosophical discoveries to be made when we do so.</span></p><p class="p5" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p6" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Although mainstream work in analytic philosophy tends to be informed almost entirely by the model-theoretic realist and representational picture of meaning exemplified in possible-worlds semantics, proof theory has remained a viable research program in philosophical logic and linguistics since the work of Gerhard Gentzen in the 1930s (there’s a story to be told here about the considerations that led Tarski and G</span><span class="s6" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">ö</span><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">del to convince Carnap in the 1930s to adopt a metalanguage of truth, and of the subsequent shift from Carnap’s so-called “syntactic” to his “semantic” period – or better, from his implicitly proof-theoretic semantic period to his explicitly model-theoretic semantic period). More analytic philosophers are coming around to proof-theoretic notions of meaning today, and I suspect that proof-theoretic methods for recording the structure of derivations will prove useful in modelling modal content in AI systems meant to represent complex domains like human agency, weather patterns, and contamination propagation (this is a conjecture on my part).</span></p><p class="p5" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p6" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Nevertheless, scientifically informed model theory may still do productive work in philosophy and, perhaps, metaphysics. On that front, analytic philosophers working in cognition seem to be another counterpoint to the pervasive pessimistic skepticism Liam talks about. There’s productive and scientifically informed philosophy being done on dialectical processes of reasoning (e.g. with the work of Catarina Dutilh Novaes and Ladislav Koreň), on perception and knowledge (Bence Nanay and Tyler Burge), on epistemology (Hilary Kornblith and Josef Perner), on broadly inferential (and Sellarsian) theories of meaning (Cathy Legg, Jaroslav Peregrin, Glenda Satne, and Michael Tomasello), and on the logic and phenomenology of shared intentionality and deontic cognition (Margaret Gilbert, Elisabeth Pacherie, Raimo Tuomela, and Dan Zahavi come to mind). I don’t mean these to be exhaustive or representative lists (this is a blog post, after all). But even a passing familiarity with this work establishes that scientists and philosophers are productively interacting with one another in these fields, many of them employing more-or-less overtly model-theoretic representational semantic paradigms, and none of them look anything like a degenerate research program.</span></p><p class="p5" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p6" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>II</b></span></p><p class="p6" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Regarding the idea that there’s no unifying research project animating our work today, I’ve always found this suggestion puzzling. The discipline we call “philosophy” traces its roots to a tradition that grew out of interest in (among other things) beauty, truth, and goodness. While not a definition of philosophy, and though the people working in analytic philosophy today may not give much thought to these transcendental ideas together, they remain the focus of much of what we do. Furthermore, this has taken place within an intellectual lineage – beginning with direct tutelage in the relations between Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle – that successive generations have participated in since roughly the coining of the term “philosophy”.</span></p><p class="p5" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p6" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">That’s nearly two and half thousand years of more-or-less continuous effort on the part of a historical tradition of people who called their study “philosophy”, and who generally engage with the work of earlier and contemporary figures in this tradition. I don’t see what more we need as a unification than the fact that we trace our work to, and continue to engage with, a millennia-spanning tradition – using the very term “philosophy” – that addresses foundational questions of, inter alia, beauty, truth, and goodness. And notice that both the thematic and the historical characterization permit expanding the canon of philosophy so as to include work that developed outside this historical network (my thanks to Kevin Harrelson and Bharath Vallabha for conversation over this issue).</span></p><p class="p5" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p6" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">This reading has the virtue of making sense of the pursuit of philosophy as the study of what Peirce called the “normative sciences” of aesthetics, logic, and ethics. And just as the normative sciences map onto these transcendental ideas, so do they map onto the moments of the reflex arc. This opens up into a view on which one task for philosophy today is to help construct a set of categories through which to understand the natural evolution of more complex sensory, central, and motor neural structures as a process that is continuous with the socio-historical development of the ideas of beauty, truth, and goodness; and where the study of philosophy is the self-conscious motor for the socio-historical side of that natural-cum-spiritual process. In this regard, the birth of philosophy in ancient Greece is a birth into self-consciousness of who we are as rational animals.</span></p><p class="p5" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p6" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">We don’t have those categories, but it seems clear that we’ve been implicitly constructing them at least since Kant thought to wonder what we may hope, what we can know, and what we ought do (which, as Kant notes in his logic, raises a fourth question: what is a person?). Again, though I move in different circles from Liam, my sense is that many analytically trained philosophers working today understand themselves to be taking part in this project, or something close enough to it to warrant the comparison. And it is perhaps <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Single-Minded-Animal-Shared-Intentionality-Normativity-and-the-Foundations/Stovall/p/book/9780367708702"><span class="s5" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(11, 76, 180); color: #0b4cb4; font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">noteworthy</span></a> that a model theory using possible worlds for interpreting descriptive sentences having a word-world intentionality, and plans of action for interpreting intentional and prescriptive sentences having a world-word intentionality, offers the means of interpreting dimensions of meaning that correspond to the sensory and the motor moments of the reflex arc. With a proof theory using rules of inference as a basis for interpreting word-word relations as constituting the correlate contents of acts of central neural processing, this reinforces the impression that model theory and proof theory need to be understood as two complementary notions of meaning.</span></p><p class="p5" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p6" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">At any rate, the claim that “the game the original leading lights thought they were playing has long ago been ceded and no one dares think they are going to do better” doesn’t track the line of intellectual development that runs through the analytic philosophers I’m most familiar with. Perhaps the lesson is that conventional notions about who is (or should be) a “leading light” need to be revaluated.</span></p><p class="p5" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p6" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">None of this is to take away from the fact that Liam has no doubt articulated a view that many share in analytic philosophy today. Nor is it to minimize his remarks about the sociological problems the discipline faces in terms of recruitment, job security, job openings, or about the increasing turn to try to make analytic philosophy relevant in some applied capacity. And this remark from Dave Atenasio’s <a href="https://fliegenderbrief.wordpress.com/2021/06/01/dont-let-it-end/"><span class="s5" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(11, 76, 180); color: #0b4cb4; font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">response</span></a> to Liam’s essay cuts close to the bone:</span></p><p class="p5" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p7" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 35.4px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">“Eventually analytic philosophy worked itself pure: a cohort of charismatic but somewhat abrasive professors debated arcane topics with one another, isolated from most of the greater academic community, their leisure and keynote travel supported by an ever expanding cast of adjuncts, visiting professors and graduate assistants whose career prospects were vanishing before their eyes.”</span></p><p class="p5" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p6" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">But my sense is that the job market problems aren’t so much a fault of analytic philosophy as part of a crisis in the humanities and a general shakeup in higher education in the developed world, while the shift to more public-facing and interdisciplinary work is in many ways a good thing for the profession. In terms of the influence that American philosophy has historically had on American culture, for instance, it’s a shame (at least in the American context) that there’s really nothing like a “John Dewey track” through the discipline today. Given Katzav and Vaesen’s research into the journal capture by analytic philosophers that took place in the middle of the 20</span><span class="s4" style="font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"><sup>th</sup></span><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> century, this state of affairs is perhaps unsurprising. It is nevertheless a loss for the Republic, I think.</span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p8" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">I’ll close by bringing this back around to Quine’s animus against modal logic. If Katzav and Vaesen are correct about the displacement of classically pragmatist inflected American philosophy (among others) at venues like <i>The Journal of Philosophy</i>, <i>Mind</i>, and<i> The Philosophical Review</i> in the middle of the 20</span><span class="s4" style="font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"><sup>th</sup></span><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> century, in favor of the ascendant analytical school of philosophy, then it is perhaps an irony of our situation that Quine’s reception on this front would take the shape that it did. For that reception brings to mind John Dewey’s assessment of intellectual progress at the end of <a href="https://brocku.ca/MeadProject/Dewey/Dewey_1910b/Dewey_1910_01.html"><span class="s7" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(11, 76, 180); color: #0b4cb4; font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">“The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy”</span></a>, first published in <i>Popular Science Monthly</i> in 1909:</span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p9" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 35.4px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">“Old ideas give way slowly; for they are more than abstract logical forms and categories. They are habits, predispositions, deeply engrained attitudes of aversion and preference. Moreover, the conviction persists – though history shows it to be a hallucination – that all the questions that the human mind has asked are questions that can be answered in terms of the alternatives that the questions themselves present. But in fact intellectual progress usually occurs through sheer abandonment of questions together with both of the alternatives they assume, an abandonment that results from their decreasing vitality and a change of urgent interest. We do not solve them: we get over them.”</span></p>Last Positivisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677699402952932577noreply@blogger.com0