New APPS: Art, Politics, Philosophy, Science

University Technocrats to Scholars: Keep Books Out of your Office

The headline to this post was not written by folk at the Onion. The managers at the Free University of Amsterdam have decided that university staff have to share office-space efficiently.  This has had a surprising consequence for the theologians and philosophers (the first departments with new-look offices). As the Dutch newspaper, Trouw, reported: "bookcases are now 'something for home'; department employees have up to 3.8 meters of books per person now. In addition, there should be a common department bookcase." If you go to the official university web-page of Dutch philosopher of science, Hans Radder, one can find under "Office hours:" "We don´t have offices anymore. For an appointment, please send an email."

For folk that can read Dutch the economic sub-text of the piece in Trouw is instructive; the chair of the philosophy department, Rene van Woudenberg is, quoted as follows: "We had the choice between expensive rental spaces where people can store a lot of stuff and own books; or we could choose to spend our budget on  staff with more limited office space. We have chosen the latter. Not in an expensive new office-office, but with a renovation in the old university building, which saves a lot, because every square meter has a price." Oddly, the piece does not mention that the Free University has been notorious for its financial blunders with derivatives (see here and even here) and a considerable loss due to Icelandic investments (initially belittled by the university).

"The math community faces a conundrum: the proof to a very important conjecture hangs in the air, yet nobody will touch it."

Kim sympathizes with his frustrated colleagues, but suggests a different reason for the rancor. “It really is painful to read other people’s work,” he says. “That’s all it is… All of us are just too lazy to read them.” Kim is also quick to defend his friend. He says Mochizuki’s reticence is due to being a “slightly shy character” as well as his assiduous work ethic. “He’s a very hard working guy and he just doesn’t want to spend time on airplanes and hotels and so on.” O’Neil, however, holds Mochizuki accountable, saying that his refusal to cooperate places an unfair burden on his colleagues. “You don’t get to say you’ve proved something if you haven’t explained it,” she says. “A proof is a social construct. If the community doesn’t understand it, you haven’t done your job.”--Has the ABC Conjecture been solved? [HT: Clerk Shaw on Facebook]

This piece is a nice inside perspective on the 'political economy' and social epistemology of mathematical proof.

Weekly Philo of Economics: Central Banking with materially flawed models

The idea that there is something like an efficient market in scientific ideas (EMISI), supporting a ruling 'paradigm,' is very dangerous in the policy sciences. Even if we assume that scientists are individually pure truth-seekers, imperfections in scientific markets can produce non-epistemic (and epistemic) externalities (recall here, including criticism of a famous paper by Aumann). EMISI provides cover for 'The Everybody Did It' (TEDI) Syndrome (recall here). With Merel Lefevere, I have been exploring in what circumstances the presence of TEDI Syndrome is indicative of collective negligence (or a negative externalities). One possible consequence of our approach is that those scientists/institutions that interface with policy should seek out  critics and critical alternatives to the existing paradigm. Jon Faust, an economist, sometimes acts as such an in-house critic at the United States Federal Reserve (the Fed) and the Riksbank. Two of his relatively non-technical papers (here and here) prompted this post.

Central Banks rely, in part, on models developed by academic economists to set monetary policy. Yet, Faust notes two problems in the way the intellectual supply-chain works: (i) there is almost no venue for "high-level conversation" about "academic work and its relation to actual practice." (53) (ii) State of the art models are often applied without full knowledge of all their possible consequences in the real world because these models models "have substantial areas of omission and coarse approximation" (55)  In light of (i) and (ii), Faust's aim (iii) is to help central bankers and the modellers develop "a formal literature on best methods and practices for using materially flawed models in practical policymaking," (55) or "how to make the most responsible use in policymaking of what we now know." (60) My first reaction was, 'it is about time;' my second, more generous response was warmth in my philosophical heart that Faust is engaging in philosophy of scientific methodology and non-ideal regime/institution construction. His main idea is to adapt a kind of policy protocol from a literature that "goes under names like “human relevance of animal studies” and “interspecies extrapolation” (57) in the practice(s) of Toxicology.

How to deal with offensive comments in the seminar room

[This is an invited post.--ES]

A few weeks ago, a graduate student said in my class that he “had to restrain [him]self from tearing [a prominent female academic] a new one.” After class ended, I told the student, in private, that he should probably refrain from using colloquial phrases that reference anal rape in professional contexts. He was shocked to hear my interpretation of his comment. Later, I asked my Facebook friends if I had handled the situation appropriately. Of the many who responded, about half said that I had; the others said that I should have corrected the offending student in front of the other students, either to educate the other students (if they saw nothing wrong with the comment), or to reassure them that their response was appropriate (if they did object to the comment). In light of the latter argument, I invited all of those present in the class, including the student who made the comment, to write this post with me. Except for two students who were too busy, they graciously agreed.--Jennifer Rubenstein

How should college instructors respond when a student says something in class that the instructor believes to be offensive but that the student might not realize is offensive? This is the broader question raised by the incident in our class. Cases of this kind raise different issues from cases in which students knowingly cause offense or are culpably ignorant (e.g. they use the “n-word”). In the latter types of cases, the egregiousness of the violation means that it is almost always appropriate for the instructor to confront the student immediately, even if this causes shame or embarrassment; the instructor is also usually reasonably confident of her immediate assessment of the situation.

Lost in translation--on publishing philosophy in a non-native language

One more cautionary observation before we begin. The volume is published by Bloomsbury, which has taken over Continuum, the house which apparently had contracted the anthology. A number of the pieces unfortunately contain stylistic and grammatical inadequacies in expression. For some essays this is just distracting, but for others it is extremely frustrating. Clearly the publisher's copy-editing was highly inadequate. We can only hope that this will not become a trend with Bloomsbury. More significantly though, we cannot help but wonder whether it really is such a good thing for English to become the de facto lingua franca of European philosophy. This is perhaps unavoidable today -- not long ago, something called the 'European Science Foundation' produced a ranking of philosophy journals, and publication in languages other than English was initially used to relegate journals to the 'B' or 'C' category. Now, if Anglophone philosophy puts a premium on 'clarity,' as defined by composition models taught in Anglophone universities and less elsewhere, then the obligation to write in English seems to unavoidably place international colleagues in a bad light. In this reviewer's experience, the profession suffers from a pressing need to address this issue.--Hakhamanesh Zangeneh

There are (at least) three issues here:

(i) Especially given the high prices charged for their product, academic presses and journals have a professional obligation to maintain the highest standards of copy-editing. Cost-cutting measures do not inspire confidence. I have no ideological objections against outsourcing, but the recent (apparent) trend toward concentrating copy-editing philosophical texts in Bangladesh and India is not improving the situation. (I am probably not alone in having to correct the copy-editors; as my fellow NewAPPSers can testify, I tend to be the one needing correction!)

Weekly Philo of Economics: articulating an optimal blend of competition and cooperation in society

Unlike geometry, economic theory does not consist of theorems which must be a sacred seal set upon some part of a man's, or a woman's, life. The ethics of commerce must draw on ethics as a whole, and for this, we, however “we" are constituted, must draw on ourselves through an inward look, of picturing something that we cannot see, of making a composite and being satisfied with a rough outline that allows us to cope and carry on. The question, and now I keep repeating myself as in a stutter, is how are we to do this? How is one to foster an optimal blend of competition and cooperation in society and in theorizing about that society, to control self-interest and to acknowledge the possibility of self-deception, to prevent one particular picture overshadowing the composite, putting the analyst and the analyzed, the theorist and theorized, on the same plane of existence so that an ethics of theorizing, rather than a narrative of self-serving or group-serving domination, can emerge? (Khan 2003: 19)

M.A. Khan, a  mathematical economist (whose career I helped celebrate this week-end), concludes an important essay on Alfred Marshall, Frank Hahn, Joan Robinson, and Keynes (all Cambridge economists who engaged in serious reflection on their craft and its role(s) in society) with the lines quoted above. Now as Khan puts it, “Economists do not have a comparative advantage when it comes to ethics,” (Khan 2005: 40) so he turns  to philosophy, but not philosophical theory (recall his criticism of Singer). Rather, inspired by Wittgenstein and Cavell and aided by philosopher-economists from the past, Kahn turns primarily to an extended self-examination. Now, the aim of his ethic is “to cope and carry on” without domination. So, the aspirations are in some sense quite minimal. But, of course, a moment's reflection makes one realize that a society without domination and with an "optimal blend of competition and cooperation" is, of course, far beyond present existence anywhere. Even a dominance-free theorizing about such a society may still be beyond our reach. (Yes, I expect protests from our political philosophers and ethicists.) Khan's focus on "society" (and not, say, a system of individuals [recall here]) makes him altogether a strange bird among contemporary economists, yet an heir to Adam Smith. 

Plagiarism in business ethics (at University of Virginia)

The University of Virginia has a famous honor code. So I was surprised to learn through one of my favorite blogs, Retractionwatch, that one of UVA’s advanced graduate students  in business ethics (in the business school) had to retract a paper from the Journal of Business Ethics (a Springer journal). Retractionwatch quoted the Director of the Olsson Center for Applied Ethics, Andy Wicks, as follows: “we opted to take no additional action beyond extensive internal conversations…it is an isolated incident that was a mistake rather than a calculated effort to plagiarize.” Yet, according to the retraction notice 16% of the paper was plagiarized; this is not a case of a few missing quotation marks. I contacted Professor Wicks, and he wrote me that, “a thorough review of the case was conducted according to school policy. The review process included a panel committee and a forensic review of the student’s work. We cannot discuss individual student matters due to confidentiality and privacy policies.” Fair enough, privacy is important. (I also contacted the graduate student, but received no answer.) In effect, outsiders are being asked to trust the school's judgment.

I was also surprised that in addition to the retraction, the journal did not take further steps against the UVA graduate student. For, in January, Retractionwatch, reported on a case of self-plagiarism that led to a five year ban from Journal of Business Ethics. This involved a case of a scholar re-publishing his own previously published work without acknowledging this. I am no ethicist, but plagiarizing another would seem a far worse offense than plagiarizing oneself--this is why, I think, Retractionwatch tends to use the term "duplication" to refer to the lesser offense. Turns out, alas, that the self-plagiarist teaches at a school in Thailand, while one of the supervisors of the UVA graduate student, is on the editorial board of the journal. As they say in the business world, it can’t hurt to have friends in the right places. (The editor of the Journal of Business Ethics also did not respond to my email.) 

Reviewer welcomes newfound confidence...

"Refreshingly, and in stark contrast to the essays in the recent Metametaphysics anthology (Chalmers, Manley, and Wasserman (2009)), most of this anthology's essays confidently assume that ground is a vital and respectable notion."--From this review.

Lund Philosophy and Cog Sci department is worried about its future--you can help

[The following letter has been circulating on the web.--ES]

Dear Colleagues,

We urgently need your help. The Department of Philosophy in Lund, which is located in Kungshuset - a beautiful  16th century house in the centre of the town which originally was home to the University as a whole - is now  on its way to being relocated. In the Spring of 2014, we are supposed to move to a new building, together with other departments in the Joint Faculty of Humanities and Theology.  Judging by past experience, the next step after the relocation might well be an administrative merger of the different departments into a huge megadepartment. Such mergers have taken place at other universities and at our university as well.

Peter Singer, class warfare-ist

Obesity is an ethical issue, because an increase in weight by some imposes costs on others... [a] way to achieve the same objective would be to set a standard weight for passengers and luggage, and then ask people to get on the scales with their luggage. That would have the advantage of avoiding embarrassment for those who do not wish to reveal their weight...the point of a surcharge for extra weight is not to punish a sin, whether it is levied on baggage or on bodies. It is a way of recouping from you the true cost of flying you to your destination, rather than imposing it on your fellow passengers.--Peter Singer [HT Feminist Philosophers.]

I'll leave it to others to dissect the use of racialized/gender stereotypes [e.g., "a slight Asian woman" vs "a man who must weigh at least 40 kilos more than she does"] by Singer in the piece.  Let's also grant Singer that air travel is not a "human right" (and stipulate that Singer could grant some exceptions). In effect, Singer advocates differential pricing. This is not uncommon: in higher education Stateside we are familiar with tuition discounts ("financial aid") based on, say, need.

Singer ignores need or ability to pay entirely in his analysis. It is unclear why that ought not be included in this "ethical issue."  Evidently, "true cost" does not mean subjective utility. Need is not irrelevant to Singer's proposal because Singer talks about "true cost of flying" without calling attention to all the subsidies offered to airlines, airports, and aircraft manufacturers by the general public (Singer uses the vocabulary of "public transport" without irony by the way); these may well involve non-trivial financial transfers from the poor to the middle classes and rich. Given that Singer selectively focuses on body weight (and shapes) when talking about "true cost" of flying, one cannot help but feel that he is selectively using (Euro/US-centric) upper-class moral sentiments to advocate policies that will disproportionally impact others.

Until economists share data and replicate results, they should probably keep quiet about policy.

By now most folk will have heard about the paper by a group of UMASS-Amherst economists that showed that a famous paper with claims about the relationship of growth and debt, which (together with the book aimed at the public) played a non-trivial role in providing the academic justification for austerity policies, by famous economists Reinhart and Rogoff were based on mistakes in the treatment of data.  (Here is a response by Reinhardt & Rogoff, which is remarkably lacking in generosity to their critics and also lacking in humility about the magnitude of their error. It reads as if it was written by lawyers rather than academics-in-search-of-truth.)

George Gale pointed me to this news-story, which recounts how a PhD student, Thomas Herndon, "first started looking into Reinhart and Rogoff's work as part of an assignment for an econometrics course that involved replicating the data work behind a well-known study." Beyond the significance that politics may be guided by flawed science, here is a part of the story that transcends partisan politics; economics (like many other sciences) has terrible practices in sharing and replicating data (here's a link to recent scholarship on this.) My economist friend, David Levy, has been publishing about these issues for at least two decades (here's a link to a paper in Social Epistemology), so I am not optimistic that we will see a change in ethos in the field any time soon.

Update: Recall this earlier story about Jeffrey Sachs.

Pity the star academic

I bet the academic anthropology job-market is no better than the one in academic philosophy. So, what can one conclude about the politics of that field in light of the fact that after a stint at Yale, a scholar applies to "the City University of New York Graduate Center, the New School, Cornell University, and the University of Chicago (all of these twice)...Hunter College, Emory, Duke, Columbia, Stanford, and Johns Hopkins—as well as the University of Toronto," and then fails to land a job?

One can conclude that it is not easy to land a job in academic anthropology, especially if you apply (ahum) rather narrowly (not to say, snobbishly)...but such a sober assessment would undermine, of course, the mythic narrative of "exile" attached to being..."From 2008 through this spring, Mr. Graeber was a lecturer and then a reader at Goldsmiths College and, just last month, he accepted a professorship at the London School of Economics and Political Science."

Ah, yes, London...that academic wasteland...must be very tough being David Graeber.

Central European University is on board with the Gendered Conference Campaign

Exciting news from CEU in Hungary!

Weekly Philo of Economics: Of Picturing Something that we Cannot See (I) [Milton Friedman, Alfred Marshall, and Khan]

Random variables and elementary particles have neither values nor intentions; they may constitute a system but surely do not make a society.--An Economic Theorist (2004).

Whenever we get a glipse of economic man he is not selfish. On the contrary he is generally hard at work saving capital chiefly for the benefit of others. (Marshall 1885: 28)

Milton Friedman and Anna Jacobson Schwartz gave A Monetary History of the Unites States an epigraph from Alfred Marshall. Friedman's engagement with Marshall was not superficial; his one serious contribution to the history of economic theory was on the Marshallian Demand Curve (1949). Friedman's famous (1953) methodology essay, "The Methodology of Positive Economics," is sprinkled with references to and quotes from Marshall. One role for Marshall in Friedman's hands was against the 'Walrasian' general equilibrium analysis associated now with names such as Arrow, Debreu, and McKenzie, among others. 

One such a name, Frank Hahn, once remarked (1984) in print:

Some friends [of economic theory] in what might be called roughly, and a bit unfairly, 'Chicago' economics -- have taken the theory in practical applications a good deal more seriously than at present there is any justification for doing. Paradoxically, they are rather hostile to its abstract foundations, yet are happy to put a great deal of weight on them. (75)

The "paradox" of [A] friendship to economic theory when applied accompanied with hostility to its "abstract foundation," is said  to be the "primary interest" of MA Khan's essay (2004) "Self-Interest, Self-Deception and the Ethics of Commerce." (I would give it the subtitle: "a Wittgensteinian reading of Four "False Prophets" of Cambridge Economics.") Of course, the mathematical economists, Hahn and Kahn, know that there is no formal paradox in [A]--as long as the abstract foundations (associated by Friedman with Walras) are treated as dispensable in practice. Khan also owns up to a form of [B] "self-interest," that is, [B*] "the ethics of commerce," one that somehow requires Khan [C] to "understand" himself, that is, to be philosophical. (I write "that is, to be philosophical" not because of the occurrence of the word "ethics," but rather in recognition that within theoretical economics there is no place for self-understanding, while we philosophers still pay lip-service to Socratic wisdom.) Initially, Khan leaves the relationship between [A]-[C] ambiguous; his way of self-examination passes through Marshall's (1885) Inaugural Lecture The Present Position of Economics.

Discussion of Adjunct salaries

A political science blog discusses the low salaries of adjuncting here. [HT Josh Wood.]

Some very important teaching advice from a VAP.

Marcus Arvan at the Philosophers' Cocoon has started a new series on What it is like to be a VAP. His first post is well worth a read and resonated with my own (three, very privileged!) years as a VAP.

But what caught my attention is this remark by Arvan:

Slowly, though, things began to change for the better. I attended a teaching workshop which emphasized the "flipped classroom" -- i.e. getting students to do more work in the classroom, rather than being the "sage on the stage." My wife and mother also suggested that instead of working myself into the ground prepping for classes, I should prioritize getting students to work. I did.... It has worked wonders. My student evaluations have soared, and more importantly, my students are improving beyond my wildest dreams. Getting them to work -- to do philosophy themselves, both in the classroom and at home -- works wonders.

Recognizing something akin to this  is crucial, I think, to all great (philosophy) teaching. 

Weekly Philo of Economics: the architect of neo-Liberalism (Harberger) and his theoretical critic (Khan)

Let's distinguish among three uses of "neo-Liberalism:"

1. The imposition of markets absent rule by discussion (imperfectly approximated in Liberal Democracies)--often, by way of a dictator, foreign aid institutions [IMF, World Bank, etc.], foreign experts [e.g., Post-Communist Russia]); this is generally associated with 'shock therapy' of some sort and often occurs in times of 'crisis' or 'emergency.'
2. The use of market-friendly-rhetoric within democracies to justify "privatizing" government services; the privatized entities become private (quasi-) monopolies managed by a rent-seeking, credentialed, managerial class.
3. The tendency by the financial services industry to 'privatize gain and socialize risk' at the expense of their much poorer fellow tax-payers. 

Now (2) and (3) are deplorable, but only (1) primarily involves social engineering by experts.

Of course, in practice (1-3) can be blended in all kinds of ways: often the 'privatized' industries come with various implicit government guarantees, so then an instance of (2) turns into an instance akin to (3).  There may be more uses of "neo-Liberalism" that I am overlooking, of course! But I want to distinguish between these three varities of neo-Liberalism from instances of what is known as "economic imperialism." Economic imperialism occurs when the methods and doctrines of economics are extended into domains not previously associated with economics. Gary Becker's work on the family is a paradigmatic instance of economic imperialism. (As I have pointed out "economic imperialism" predates Becker; it was probably first diagnosed by the sociologist Talcott Parsons a few generations before Becker.)

Neo-Liberalism and economic imperialism are both commonly associated with so-called "Chicago economics." But distinct aspects of economics have been brought to bear to support the varieties of neo-Liberalism. In my previous blogging I have focused quite a bit on how aspects of finance theory paved the way for (3). Below I focus on the way the economics profession became/is implicated in (1). A key figure is the "Chicago"-economist, Arnold Harberger. Harberger's entanglement with neo-Liberalism is not merely academic; he was the key mentor to the Chilean (and other Latin American) "Chicago Boys" prior to and at the time of the dictatorships of the 1970s. The understandable focus on Milton Friedman by critics of "Chicago" has made informed discussion of these matters more complicated. As I have tried to explain, there are genuine technical differences in the ways Friedman and Harberger practice economics. (This is not meant to exonerate Friedman's role(s) in (1-3) nor his attempts at defending the Chicago Boys [see my piece].)

Teams clad in Orange, amazing ball-control...

A Greek  "youth team of AO Giannina, in the northwestern Greek city of Ioannina," scores a fantastic goal: "The team of the 11- and 12-year-old players in bright orange uniforms... exchanged 25 passes before finishing off their attack." The opponents never touch the ball. [HT Simon Kirchin on FB]

It reminds me of two other fantastic goals: the 0-1 in Munich on July 7, 1974 (go to about 48 seconds in the clip); and the 1-2 on 28 march 1988 on Wembley--maybe somebody can locate a clip of the full sequence of touches.

Playing the right kind of games

So I’m not going to get into the game of thinking thoughts too many, of trying to break down the wrong of raping an unconscious person in terms of psychic discomfort at disapproval.  It’s the wrong game to play.--Jacob T. Levy at BHL.

This seems to me the right kind of response to the pseudo-philosophy [Trigger warning: the post discusses rape] of Steven Landsburg, an economist and popularizer at Rochester.

As Levy writes, Landsburg's post

demonstrates, first, the familiar problems with blunt hedonic utilitarianism that has been detached from utilitarianism’s roots as a moral theory, and, second, the selection effect about what kinds of people are attracted to that theory. Lansburg [sic] is entirely too pleased with himself for being willing to Think Challenging Thoughts (thoughts that pretty much get covered in a first semester moral philosophy class as the frosh learns why blunt hedonic utilitarianism is not a very good theory), and determined to get through his cute hypotheticals for the fun of it, regardless of whether they convey anything useful or not.

It's just a fact of the matter that economists are not trained to be philosophers (and they are no better at it [recall here and here] than we are at economics [here]). But (not unlike philosophers) they do get socialized into thinking they are really smart boys (recall this). Since the Samuelsonian, revealed preference revolution cut the link between economics and hedonic utilitarianism (utility curves are not supposed to refer to mental pleasure entities entities, they are just a ranking of choices--recall this post), Landsburg is not even bringing any of the standard economic's tools to bear on the case. He is simply out of his depth. (Of course, that's just a daily fact of life in blog-land, the problems start when one forgets this.)

Now, the interesting issues here pertain to Levy's decision to speak up about Landsburg's moral and intellectual obtuseness without giving Landsburg credibility in doing so.

Whose property-rights, whose growth...

This report introduces a very interesting article, "Property Insecurity," by Terra Lawson-Remer (go to pp. 145), on the complex relationship between property-rights and growth. [HT Michel Heijdra.] I hope to give it more attention some other time.

Is PEA Soup going to create an ethics monopoly?

The friendly folks at PEA Soup announced the following:

As die-hard PEA Soupers already know, for a while now we have enjoyed a partnership with Ethics in which, relatively soon after each issue of that journal is published, we have a discussion of a paper from that issue kicked off by a commissioned précis of that paper, often a commitment from the author to respond to questions, and several commentators lined up to help launch the discussion. Each paper that gets commented on at PEA Soup is made publically available to all without a subscription.

We are pleased to announce that we have now started up a somewhat similar partnership with Philosophy and Public Affairs, Philosophers’ Imprint, Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, and JESP. We are expecting a few more such partnerships to be firmed up shortly. The result will be that there should soon be significantly more critical discussions of first-rate work in ethics, political philosophy, and related matters on PEA Soup. There will be much less “down time” between discussions.

First, it's great that PEA Soup is looking at ways at staying 'live' more frequently. I always enjoy the discussions. So, congratulations are in order! Second, I bet that later generations will wonder, 'what took philosophers so long to develop such partnerships?' Such partnerships are a clever and obvious move in order to develop a forum for (relatively) high quality and highly visible philosophical discussions. 

Even so, I have concerns: I worry about mechanisms in which a relatively narrow group of gate-keepers (however qualified, open-minded, and well-intentioned) will decide for us what is worth our collective attention (a very scarce resource). Given that PEA SOUP Partners (PSPs) are a fantastic group of journals with very high quality 'content,' crowding out of others is quite possible. This is not an idle thought because the post speaks of (a) a 'few more such partnerships' and (b) the web facilitates winner-take-all mechanisms, after all. (Something we have benefited from at NewAPPS!) Anyway, kudos to PEA Soup for being so pro-active. But I do hope some enterprising web-blogs partner with the philosophical alternatives to PSP.

An appreciative Remark on Derrida

Thus in order to be an original, he is obliged to contribute to the ruin of a language, which a century sooner he would have helped to improve. Though such writers may be criticised, their superior abilities must still command success. The ease there is in copying their defects, soon persuades men of indifferent capacities, that they shall acquire the same degree of reputation. Then begins the reign of subtil and strained conceits, of affected antitheses, of specious paradoxes, of frivolous turns, of far-fetched expressions, of new-fangled words, and in short of the jargon of persons whose understandings have been debauched by bad metaphysics. The public applauds: frivolous and ridiculous writings, the beings of the day, are surprisingly multiplied." --Condillac, An Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge, 

In Condillac the "frivolous" is that "which seems worthless" (Commerce and Government. {Condillac is one of the great eighteenth century economists.})

Let's grant his enemies that Derrida's writings and social consequences instantiate such a reign of "subtil and strained conceits, of affected antitheses, of specious paradoxes, of frivolous turns, of far-fetched expressions, of new-fangled words, and in short of the jargon." According to Condillac, "bad metaphysics" is a science that enters into the "nature and causes" of things. (2) We can make the analogy work if we allow that Derrida's followers are the product  of a scientific age (or Husserlian phenomenology). Yet, the passage from Condillac would also exonerate Derrida in a certain sense; he would be the product of a historical circumstance--he would be born too late to contribute to the improvement of his language.

Weekly Philo of Economics: Khan VS Peter Singer on the limitations of theoreticians [with notes on Rogoff vs Stiglitz]

"In the late 1980s, I once enjoyed the privilege of being in the office next to yours [Joseph Stiglitz--ES] for a semester. We young economists all looked up to you in awe. One of my favorite stories from that era is a lunch with you and our former colleague, Carl Shapiro, at which the two of you started discussing whether Paul Volcker merited your vote for a tenured appointment at Princeton. At one point, you turned to me and said, "Ken, you used to work for Volcker at the Fed. Tell me, is he really smart?" I responded something to the effect of "Well, he was arguably the greatest Federal Reserve Chairman of the twentieth century" To which you replied, "But is he smart like us?" I wasn't sure how to take it, since you were looking across at Carl, not me, when you said it. [Rogoff was a child chess-prodigy.--ES] My reason for telling this story is two-fold. First, perhaps the Fund staff who you once blanket-labeled as "third rate"—and I guess you meant to include World Bank staff in this judgment also—will feel better if they know they are in the same company as the great Paul Volcker. Second, it is emblematic of the supreme self-confidence you brought with you to Washington, where you were confronted with policy problems just a little bit more difficult than anything in our mathematical models."--From an Open Letter by Kenneth Rogoff to Joseph Stiglitz. [I thank Hülya Eraslan for calling my attention to it.]

Beyond the clash of personalities (and even institutions), this decade old letter raises several  issues of significance to economics and philosophy. There are several important issues lurking in Rogoff's letter none of which he develops: (a) the gap between the most sophisticated mathematical models and the complexities faced by policy-makers; (b) the informal/social metrics by which entry in the very top of the discipline is governed (we philosophers have similar conversation, alas); this ((b)) matters because (c) these departments are (i) both the guardians of professional journals [recall] as well as (ii)  the credentialing place for entry into the highest policy regions Stateside (and, thus, internationally); (iii) these metrics create opportunity for all kinds of biases (as we philosophers are also starting to recognize).  If (a) is not well understood, then with certain personality types, it also leads to (d) expert-0verconfidence, and (e) the use of scientific reason as a species of cultural imperialism (recall this post); philosophers are not immune to this (see below). In order to tackle these issues in a sophisticated, even philosophical fashion from within economics, one could do a lot worse than by way of engagement with the writings of the mathematical economists, Ali Khan (Hopkins). [Disclosure: I'll be speaking at a Fest in his honor in May.] This week, I'll focus on Khan's confrontation with Peter Singer's ethics. (For a good introduction to this exchange, see here.)

Gushing over Libertarians

As loyal readers of NewAPPS may recall, I warmly welcomed the founding of  Bleeding Heart Libertarians (BHL), which has been a wildly succesful blog. While I have followed BHL regularly (and sometimes blog about issues of shared interest [e.g., here, here, here, etc.), I had also grown a bit wary of the general fondness for expert-rule among some of the BHL crowd. (As always with a group blog, one is not allowed to make claims about the whole group.) But ever since Sarah Skwire started blogging at BHL my enthusiasm has been rekindled. (Take a look at, for example, this post--trigger warning it discusses rape.) She challenges Libertarians to live up to their own best principles and, in doing so, challenges us all to think through how fondness for state institutions (the military, prisons, etc.) facilitates a rape-culture.

'In the of challenging Libertarians to live up to their own best principles (and reminding us all of the vitality and the need of the tradition today) genre' is a another post by Roger Koppl, who does not blog at BHL (but is certainly a kind of fell0w-traveler), about the significance of income-inequality at Thinkmarkets.

Call for Nominations: Distinguished Woman Philosopher 2013

Each year the Eastern Division of the Society for Women in Philosophy comes together to honor a  woman  philosopher whose contributions to the support of women in philosophy and to philosophy itself are outstanding and merit special recognition. A panel and reception celebrating the honoree's accomplishments will be organized for the Eastern Division meeting of the American Philosophical Association, December 27-30, 2013.

Nominations should include a copy of the nominee's curriculum vitae and a minimum of two supporting letters, which summarize the nominee's contributions to philosophy and support of women in philosophy.

NOTE: Two-thirds of letter writers for any given nomination must be members of the society for women in philosophy, in good standing.

Please e-mail all nominations to Rochelle Green, ESWIP Distinguished Woman Philosopher Award Secretary (rmgreen1@ualr.edu) no later than April 1, 2013.

The Euro on the Brink

I try to avoid commenting on economic events, and hopefully my pessimism means that the nadir has already been passed.--ES

In september 2008 as the liquidity crisis that followed the fall of Lehman unfolded, the US Federal Reserve and the Treasure extended insurance and guarantees to Certificates of Deposit and Money Market funds--relatively, uncomplicated financial products used as (slightly higher yielding) bank deposits by professional and the investing middle-classes alike. Essentially this extended deposit insurance to instruments that were sold, marketed, and used as the new kind of bank-deposits. These decisions prevented a classic (yet modern-day) system-wide bank-run. I view this as the key decision that prevented financial collapse and 1930s style depression and the one most able to withstand scrutiny from the most skeptical enquirers of later generations. It is really a stroke of luck (or providence) that Ben Bernanke, arguably one of the foremost living authorities on monetary policy in the 20s and 30s, is at the helm of the Fed. (It is extremely rare to find a top economist of his generation with a deep interest in economic history; for obvious reasons that is changing rapidly.)

Sider's "Knee-Jerk Realism"

Imagine that a philosophically and psycho-analytically literate, Martian philosophical score-keeper descends down to earth and after being told that Theodore Sider is one of our most important contemporary metaphysicians, encounters this confession, which takes up most of section 2.5 "against subjectivity," in Writing the Book of the World:

But this is autobiography not argument. The argument here, such as it is, is that any subjectivity in the notion of structure would infect all the domains in which structure is applied. If structure is just a reflection of our language (or whatever) then so are the facts about similarity, intrinsicicality, laws of nature, the intrinsic structure of space and time...And this is incredible.

At its last step the argument again reverts to autobiography. Certain philosophers will rightly remain unconvinced, for example "antirealists" of various stripes--pragmatists, Kantians, logical positivists, and so on.

A certain "knee-jerk realism" is an unargued for presupposition of this book. Knee-jerk realism is a vague picture rather than a precise thesis. According to the picture, the point of human inquiry--or a very large chunk of it anyway, a chunk that includes physics--is to conform itself to the world, rather than to make the world. The world is "out there", and our job is to wrap our minds around it. This picture is perhaps my deepest philosophical conviction. I've never questioned it; giving it up would require a reboot too extreme to contemplate; and I have no idea how I'd try to convince somebody who didn't share it. (Sider (2011), 18; emphases in original.)

I bet such a Martian would note that if you have never tried to question your own fundamental convictions,  you most feel very anxious about the status of your convictions.  Moreover, she would add that one way to convince another is to engage their arguments and positions; maybe rational persuasion is too much to be wished for among Terrestrials, but the other may feel 'heard' and, thus, secure enough to re-evaluate their own stance. Finally, she would note the religious language here (e.g., convictions, conforming, unquestioning, etc.).

The beginning of the Euro's End?

I try to avoid commenting on economic events, and hopefully my pessimism means that the nadir has already been passed.--ES

In order to bail-out Cypriot banks, Cyprus's bank-depositors are being asked to contribute to the bail-out. Not just the rich Russians who treat Cyprus as a money haven, but also local depositors. It is quite predictable this will lead to bank-runs in Cyprus and any other country where citizens have good reason to fear future bank bail-outs (Greece, Spain, Portugal, and Italy come to mind, but even other countries dealing with the aftermath of real estate bubbles -- the Netherlands and Ireland -- may move back into the danger-zone). This development is quite ironic because nearly all of the European regulators' and politicians' actions since the start of the financial crisis has been in the service of preventing another liquidity crisis rather than confronting the reality that a majority of Europe's politically well-connected banks are insolvent if they were forced to do honest accounting (and absent more bailouts).  Given that Europe's technocrats are running out of money and good options in light of ongoing economic sluggishness (and decline), I think the Euro's end may be nearing.  We will either see (a) attempts to inflate our way of this (officially unthinkable in Germany); (b) a split-up of the Eurozone (officially unthinkable in Brussels), but not impossible in the aftermath of bankruns; (c) Greece-style austerity in a good chunk of the EU leading to considerable political instability (and more economic decline)--this is being tested in Spain; (d) attempts to postpone the big crisis decisions and muddle through until after 22 September (when Germany holds Federal ections) when German tax-payers can be asked to foot the bill for a genuine restructuring of European banks.

UPDATE: Cyprus' parliament has not approved this yet. Apparently they are trying to change the terms. The banks will stay closed for at least two more days. (They had been closed for a holiday-weekend.) One wonders at what point barter will replace cash.

Weekly Philo of Economics: Analytical Egalitarianism makes the New York Times

In this week-end's New York Times, the economist, Tyler Cowen, reminded us of the noblest features of the history of economics: the "egalitarian and civil libertarian core." (On his his own blog, Cowen also calls it "cosmopolitan" for good reasons because the piece attacks the nationalist bias in much public policy economics.) In particular, he argues that these are linked: "If you treat all individuals as fundamentally the same in your theoretical constructs, it would be odd to insist that the law should suddenly start treating them differently." Cowen's additional claim, the economist's mantra that "economic analysis is itself value-free," is more problematic. Let's leave aside the non-trivial, problematic jump from positive analysis to normative advocacy (recall the Summers-Khan exchange.) As I have argued elsewhere, non-trivial values are inevitably smuggled into what counts as an "individual" (and "same") as well as any attempts to aggregate these. 

I was especially pleased  that Cowen linked his treatment to the scholarship of my friends and mentors, Sandra Peart and David Levy, on what they have called “analytical egalitarianism.” (Here and here [the latter contains a contribution by (ahum) me].) On Cowen's account analytic egalitarianism rejects the competing theoretical approaches that:

postulate natural hierarchies of religion, ethnicity, caste and gender, often enforced by law and strict custom. Economists too often forget that we are part of this broader battle of ideas, and that we are winning some enduring victories.

Quite right! But even so Cowen does not seem to have fully grasped the crucial insight of analytical egalitarianism. In effect, Cowen treats analytical egalitarianism as a theory that [a) postulates a homogeneity of human nature (when it comes to motives to action). This is indeed a necessary condition in analytical egalitarianism. But it is not sufficient: what needs to be added is that (b) the theorist has to be included in his or her model with the same motivational setup as the subjects studied. (To be clear (a) and (b) are jointly necessary for analytical egalitarianism, but they are also not sufficient.) Too often economists tacitly treat their own public utterances and policy-suggestions as themselves disinterested or un-incentivized (by considerations other than  truth) and the product of a value-neutral method. Why does this matter?

Weekly Philo of Economics: when Larry Summers was just an Imperialist Economist and a footnote to Derrida

Before "Larry Summers" became synonymous with expert for hire by Wall Street, he was the Harvard President, who suggested, while claiming that he wished to "provoke,"  that "there are issues of intrinsic aptitude, and particularly of the variability of aptitude," that might explain the relatively low presence of women "in high-end scientific professions." Summers insisted that his is an "entirely positive" not "normative approach." (Summer 2005; he is deploying a standard distinction among economists.) The lecture set off a furore that contributed to his eventual resignation from Harvard (it surely did not help he was in charge of a nearly US$ 1 Billion loss on speculative investments). But...before his notoriety Summers was one of those economists that effortlessly move between academia and government (while generally serving the interests of the wealthy). Such folk become prominent within public policy economics through highly regarded academic work, which won Summers the John Bates Clark Medal (1993) and which partially accounted for his selection as Chief economist at The World Bank (1991-3). As the politically influential, but nevertheless academic Vice-President of the World Bank,  Summers was invited to Pakistan to give The Quaid-i-Azam Lecture in 1992, "Investing in All the People," to the Pakistan Society of Development Economists. The main point of Summers' lecture, which has been cited close to 300 times and is easily found on the internet, is:

Investing in the education of girls may well be the highest return investment available in the developing world. As such, increasing the level of female education is an especially high priority in Pakistan.

So, before Summers became synonymous with sexism in academia he was an advocate of underprivileged women's education. (A topic Summers continues to talk about.) The paper was admiringly profiled in Business Week, and created the meme of Summers as "iconoclastic Liberal." For those that like their irony fully symmetric, I note that the 1992 magazine article treats Summers as an academic "provocateur." Summers' Pakistani hosts asked a mathematical economist hailing from Waziristan, MA Khan (then as now at Johns Hopkins), to offer comments (see here). Rather than dazzle his famous American colleague and "the Pakistani Minister of Defence and Minister of Water and Power" (quoted from Richard H. Sabot's response to Summers) with state of the art mathematical technique, Khan quotes Derrida and Clifford Geertz in the process of calling Summers "reckless."