New APPS: Art, Politics, Philosophy, Science

On Stebbing, Gellner, and Eddington

Mohan ridicules Stebbing with a fantastic bit of rhetoric: "Eric admires Susan Stebbing because she was a philosopher who spoke out against the authority of science. I am not so convinced that her stance was all that admirable. I am all for challenging scientists when their philosophy is confused. I am much less keen on setting up common sense as a competitor of science. This is what Stebbing did." Now, first, I had written, appreciatively about "her willingness to challenge the way the authority of science is used in irresponsible, public speech." In fact, Stebbing is not setting up common sense as a competitor to physics, nor is she concerned about defending common sense against displacement from science. Rather, she is attacking muddled metaphysics and muddled theology that mixes common sense and esoteric mathematical physics. (I am willing to grant that in doing so she may have missed what is valuable in Eddington.) On the contrary, she has a healthy respect for physics qua physics. As she writes, "in the present stage of physics, very little can be conveyed to those who lacks the mathematical equipment required to understand the methods by which results are obtained and the language in which these results can alone find adequate expression" (p. 44 in the  1944 edition; p. 50 in the origiginal).

Throughout his piece, Mohan misrepresents  the dialectic between Stebbing and Eddington. For example, in context, Stebbing is not refuting external-world skepticism (as Mohan implies), but an argument that such external world skepticism "can itself be the outcome of the labours of the physicists," (p. 90 in my 1944 edition; p. 112 in the first; note Stebbing's plural) because (of course) such (shared) labors presuppose that the "the world of physics" is about *something* (that is, "the physical world"). That is, in fact, a solid bit of philosophical wisdom.

Long before David Albert, there was L. Susan Stebbing

"I agree that there is a difficulty; it is the difficulty of the gap between conscious processes and physical events." Stebbing, Philosophy and the Physicists Chapter 9, 164  (in my 1944 edition [in  other editions p. 217]).

"There is an urgent need to-day for the citizens of a democracy to think well. It is not enough to have freedom of the Press and parliamentary institutions." Stebbing, Thinking to Some Purpose 

Readers may recall my exchange with Mohan about the enduring significance of L. Susan Stebbing. I argued that among the pre-eminent (and largely anti-metaphysical) founders of analytical philosophy she was the most significant theorist of the nature of analysis and the metaphysical turn it could take (I also argued she gives us a good glimpse of why Spinozism is the main alternative to analytical metaphysics). Mohan responded by criticizing Stebbing's command of the analytical tools available to her.  I defended Stebbing by claiming that Mohan misunderstood the way in which Stebbing is thinking about reference. We left it there in public. Mike Beaney gives a nice treatment of the issues here, although (and I say this with trepidation) Beaney mistakenly follows Max Black in understanding Stebbing-style metaphysical analysis as uncovering facts rather than the structure of facts!

Here, I focus on another enduring, largely overlooked significance of Stebbing's philosophizing: her willingness to challenge the way the authority of science is used in irresponsible, public speech (recall the moving closing lines of her (1937) Philosophy and the Physicists). Now we are all indebted to Abe Stone for reminding us that the Carnap-Heidegger split centered on what the nature of responsible speech by philosophers is (see Jeff's post and mine), but Stebbing reminds us that the authority of science has displaced philosophy (and theology)  not just to settle questions within philosophy [I call this "Newton's Challenge to Philosophy"], but also among the educated public, but in doing so the need for a certain philosophical expertise remains (recall David Albert's criticism of Krauss). Stebbing's Philosophy and the Physicist ought to be a model for us as we think about the public role of philosophy.

Favorite Closing lines in Philosophy

We are all familiar with the closing scene of Plato's Phaedo and the last sentence of Wittgenstein's Tractatus, of course. But I think this is pretty damn good, too:

Is it not odd that men should have come to this pass--that they look for hope in physics and welcome, as some do, any indication of unreason in the world? Perhaps it seems less odd when we reflect upon the history of mankind, the hopeless mess that we have made of human lives. Our greed, our stupidity and lack of imagination, our apathy, these are the factors upon which the present sorry state of the world is largely consequent. It is enough to fill us with depair. Yet, despair need not be the last word. It lies within our power, if we so desire, to make the familiar world we inhabit more worthy of habitation by beings who aspire to be rational and are capable of love. Our limitation is due not to ignorance, not to the 'blind forces of Nature', not to the astronomical insignificance of our planet, but the feebleness of our desires for good. This limitation is not to be removed by the advances of physical knowledge, nor should our hopes be placed in the researches of the physicist.--L. Susan Stebbing, Philosophy and the Physicists.

Some other time I'll blog more about Stebbing (recall my exchange with Mohan (here, here, and here); Mohan and I have done some follow-up work), but for now let me ask readers for their favorite closing lines of philosophical works.

On Hagiographical Reviewing

This review prompted a melancholic reflection: analytical philosophy got started in a kind of allergic reaction to hero-worship, but a few generations later we have become quite good at it (recall also this post on Kripke-Mania):

The essays in the volume also nicely illustrate the profound impact Alvin Plantinga has had on the field of philosophy. His purely academic achievements were not the only reason for this conference and ensuing volume. Consider the first footnote in Michael Bergmann's essay.

I am very pleased to be presenting this chapter in honor of Alvin Plantinga. His philosophical writings are brilliant, field defining, and full of wit, all of which make them both hugely beneficial and a huge pleasure to read. But even more impressive and meaningful to me, however, is the manner in which he has modeled in his own life, in multiple ways that I think about often, how someone with a career in philosophy can be a faithful Christian (p. 9, n. 1).

Comments such as these, including the whole of Wolterstorff's essay, indicate that Al has not been content to merely blaze new trails in the philosophical landscape. He has shouldered the more difficult task of guide and mentor to many who have followed him on those new trails. This volume appropriately conveys appreciation for his work, both philosophical and personal.

I counted four "profound"s, four "important"s, two "fascinating"s (not to mention Bergmann's size-obsession ("huge"), etc.) in this short review. Anyway, let's grant the significance of Prof. Plantinga's contribution to metaphysics, especially.  As I have remarked before, some of his sociological actions are more controversial than these hagiographical comments by his admirers suggest. It's one thing to have such hero-worship in a volume devoted to celebrating the man's life and works; it's another to recycle them in a professional review.

'Elucidations' podcast on philosophical methodology

The latest episode of the University of Chicago-based podcast ‘Elucidations’ has me talking about philosophical methodology with the podcast’s host Matt Teichman. It was lots of fun to talk to Matt and record the podcast, and I hope that this can be felt in the end-result. (I’m told btw that I’m speaking much too fast, which is probably somewhat related to my enthusiasm for the topic...)

I realize this scores pretty high on the ‘shameless self-promotion’ scale (probably making some of the PA readers hate me even more). But I’ve benefited a lot from discussions here at NewAPPS for my ideas on philosophical methodology, in particular in comments on some of my methodology posts (such as here and here). So I hope at least some of the NewAPPS readers will appreciate the pointer.

The Forgiving Moralist

Ever so often people ask me “How do you get so much work done?” I am usually tempted to answer along the lines of “I don’t really get all that much work done. Yesterday I only worked for about 4 hours and most days I don’t get any work done because it’s summer and my daughter is home and …” but I have learned over the years that that’s not the answer people want. They don’t want to hear about being a single mother and having 4-hour stretches to work on good days. They want to know how I get the work done I do get done in spite of being a single mother, owning two attention-seeking cats and all that.

Though I always knew what kind of answer people wanted, I didn’t quite know how to present it until yesterday ((Think Lewis on knowledge without belief). I was in my usual working spot: Kaldi’s in Downtown Clayton. One of my local cohorts was there as well. “I am not going out drinking the next three weeks,” I boldly stated. “Really!?!” She responded, “You are not even going to have a drink on Fourth of July?” I had just agreed to go to her Fourth of July party, so my statement may have come across as rude. “Don’t worry” I replied. “I don’t normally keep my own promises”. She looked relieved but also puzzled. But it really isn’t all that puzzling.

The ideologies of love

(This post is dedicated to Eric and Sarit, who are getting married this weekend, and to my husband and myself, who are celebrating 10 years of marriage today!)

This past week, Ronald de Sousa (Toronto) was delivering a series of lectures on the philosophy of love at Leiden University. The material presented corresponds to the building blocks of the monograph on love he is currently working on. As is well known, Ronnie has made decisive contributions to the philosophy of emotions, in particular in his books The Rationality of Emotions (1987, MIT) and Emotional Truth (2011, OUP). He is now focusing specifically on romantic love – that many-splendored thing – combining elements from philosophy, literature and the neuroscience of love; so there are many reasons to look forward to the end-result, given that this plural, integrative perspective seems to be exactly what is required to make sense of such a rich and complex topic.

Due to other commitments, I could only attend one of the four lectures he delivered; but as many of the points he raised connect nicely with some of my previous posts here at NewAPPS, I figured I might as well write a post on the lecture. The overall thesis of the lecture is that most of our mainstream conceptions of love are ultimately ideologies of the pernicious kind. Ronnie started with the mother of all love ideologies: Aristophanes’ myth in Plato’s Symposium. According to the myth, human beings used to be somewhat round creatures with eight limbs and two faces, and came in three kinds: male, female and androgynous (which allows the myth to offer an account of sexual orientation as well). They were then chopped in two by a furious Zeus, and thus started to wander around the Earth missing ‘the other half’ of themselves. Aristophanes claims that when two people who were separated from each other find each other again, they never want to be separated and feel ‘whole’ again (192c).

Weekly Philo of Economics: Rawls, Robbins and consensus in philosophy

It is a common trope to deplore the lack of consensus in philosophy (recall the first two paragraphs of the Introduction to Hume's Treatise). As I have pointed out before (here), Sidgwick tried to create consensus in economics by splitting economics from philosophy. Now as I remarked Rawls was aware of this. Sidgwick's way of splitting economics and philosophy was not as successful as Robbins later. Below I quote Robbins and then I suggest how Rawls met the implied challenge.

Better by heart?

Generally speaking, I prefer that a talk be a talk and not the reading of a paper (in almost no discipline other than ours do people regularly read their papers). Of those who don’t read, some talk from notes or slides. There seems to be some value attached to making do with less. At a conference long ago, one speaker gave his thirty-minute talk from a single index card; a later speaker topped that by giving his talk from what amounted to a postage stamp. Some speakers dispense with all aids to memory and talk entirely as if extemporaneously. I have had colleagues who were very impressed with speakers who did so. I am wondering now whether it is reasonable to be thus impressed.

For my part, I would say that since the ability to give a talk without notes could indicate merely a capacity to get things by heart, and since that capacity seems, on the face of it, not to have much to do with the quality of the philosophy one produces, we haven’t much reason to be impressed by extemporaneity. Nevertheless I must admit that I am sometimes impressed by it, I suppose because, as an expression of confidence, it seems to confer a certain authority on the speaker. But confidence is hardly a guide to veracity, and still less are expressions of confidence.

So: are you impressed by speakers who talk without notes? If so, why?

We are born free, and everywhere in chains...

Mohan offers important criticism of Dotson's invited post. Mohan links Dotson's argument to a passage by Audre Lorde:

I have heard that accusation that I’m contributing to the stereotype, that I’m saying the province of intelligence and rationality belongs to the white male. But if you’re traveling a road that begins nowhere and ends nowhere, the ownership of the road is meaningless. If you have no land out of which the road comes, no place that road goes to, geographically, no goal, then the existence of that road is totally meaningless. Leaving rationality to white men is like leaving him a piece of that road that begins nowhere and ends nowhere.

Mohan comments: "A “road that begins nowhere and ends nowhere”. OK, the dreaded question looms. Why is it philosophical thus to characterize philosophy?" (etc!) In order to respond to Mohan it might be useful to capture Lorde's argument:

• i) traditional philosophy is the view from nowhere;
• ii) philosophy is a voyage/search for truth;
• iii) nobody ends up with perfect wisdom;
• iv) philosophy is traditional rationality.
• v) So, philosophy begins nowhere and ends nowhere.
• vi) That is, traditional philosophy is utopian—of no-place
• vii) And utopian rationality is not worth having for embodied (and potentially property-owning) humans

There is more to it, of course. But this is not silly (premises i-iv are widely shared), even if the starting places of traditional philosophy may be more specific than Lorde allows (but in a way that's her point).

Reflections on Academic Passing

[This post is an invited contribution from Professor Kristie Dotson.--ES]

Professional pressures exist for some of us to pass as mainstream philosophers. Academic passing is the performance of legitimating one’s projects as “properly” philosophical by attempting to conceal or neutralize what might be perceived as threatening identities, positions, topics, and/or methodologies (Dotson 2011 [or here]). Some strategies for passing concern taking great care to travel only trails blazed by previous philosophers, showing emphatically that one’s ideas flow from professionally acceptable intellectual traditions, when in reality they are inspired by rather different ones. For example, I know colleagues whose philosophical ideas spring from the writings, histories and social realities of members of their own non-European communities. Yet career maintenance requires them to show these ideas as being the natural outgrowth of some tradition in epistemology or political philosophy or phenomenology, for example, when in fact they are not.

While examples abound the issue I explore concerns a specific question that often prompts academic passing. That question, often asked of a paper written or presented by someone with a Ph.D. in philosophy, is “How is this paper philosophy?”

Artists and philosophers in the society of the spectacle

In commenting on a recent book review, I argued that some art can be unjust (in the way that disaster tourism is unjust). I did so because we philosophers should not conspire with artists that want to lower the stakes in art, or (as I argued here) in philosophy. The very practice of a search after an extensional definition of mere art (in the absence of a claim about good or unjust art) trivializes how we ought to think about art and philosophical reflection on it. Some aesthetics professors chided me unconvincingly (because they are unwilling to question their practice), but here I focus on the satirical, critical response from the Dutch novelist, Arnon Grunberg (here and here; in his blog he reminds me that I was in the audience at a 2008 public lecture of his when he compared some art to disaster tourism). We have discussed these issues on our blogs. Now, Grunberg responds as follows:

"Who isn’t a factory worker in the society of the spectacle? I’m very much aware of the fact that much art that claims to criticize the system, that sells itself as being critical, is in fact just one of the pillars supporting the system.

The artist in our societies (the West) is a conformist out of necessity and by temperament. He is too much dependent on an audience to not know what conformism is all about. He serves the powers that be with enthusiasm, especially when the artist claims to be an idealist is my experience...

Introducing the term “unjust art” is a standing invitation to censorship that we don’t need and that is not going to solve anything.

And keep in mind that the censor is very much a factory worker in the society of the spectacle as well."

New Blog: (Anglophone) Philosophy in Turkey

Hesperus is Bosphorus (love the title!) is a new group blog by philosophers in and from Turkey. There is a very vibrant community of Anglophone philosophers in Turkey, with several Anglophone philosophy departments, and lots of interesting activities and events being organized. And of course, Istanbul is a fantastic city (which I had the pleasure of visiting for the first time last year), as are other parts of Turkey (or so I'm told, not having visited the rest of the country for now). So I'd say it's worth keeping an eye on what they are up to over there and considering stopping by at some point.

Sarah Hrdy on infanticide

In the context of the controversy sparked by the article published last week comparing infanticide (which it refers to as 'after-birth abortion') to abortion, I thought it might be useful to highlight Sarah Hrdy’s work on infanticide, both among humans and among other animals (see here for example). Some attempts to refute the analogy between abortion and infanticide presented in the polemic paper (see here for example) argued that infanticide is unnatural among humans, and hardly ever practiced.

Now, in her book Mother Nature Hrdy argues convincingly that infanticide is much more widespread among humans than we like to think. One need not agree with her attribution of a fitness-enhancing component to the practice of infanticide (criticized for example in this paper) to be convinced by the data she presents, indicating the ubiquity of the practice among humans. My point here is not to argue that, since humans practice it, it must be a legitimate practice (I did take ‘Is-ought fallacy 101’ after all), but simply to point out that there is a lot of misconception out there concerning actual occurrences of infanticide among humans (and other species). Everyone interested in the topic would benefit from a closer analysis of Hrdy’s work, even from a ‘purely philosophical’ point of view (i.e. the ‘ought’ side of the story).

Philosophy as Normal Science

Is philosophy “normal science”? I am not sure what to say: I hope it is or I wish it were. But Eric Schliesser has started using the phrase as a term of opprobrium to cover all that he disapproves of in contemporary analytic philosophy. His polemic raises interesting issues, and I thought I would return to the controversy.

It started with Eric’s attack on what had up to then struck me as a rather anodyne short essay by Matti Eklund in The Philosopher's Eye. Eklund wrote that the fall of logical positivism could not be attributed to good arguments by Quine in “Two Dogmas” or Kuhn in Structure, but rather to the feeling that it had begun to be seen as “somewhat sterile.” People were ready to start exploring a more holistic view of theories. Eklund compares this to the fall of paradigms in science. People are contentedly cruising along, asking questions suggested by a particular research program and solving problems as they arise. Then, all of a sudden, for reasons that have little to do with rationality, they jump off the bandwagon and take up another paradigm.

Stereotypes about philosophy

A Fifteen Minute Philosophy Survey designed to better understand stereotypes that people may have about philosophy.

Summer school: Formal methods in philosophy

I just sent out the announcement for the summer school on formal methods in philosophy that I am organizing. It seems to me that more sustained methodological discussions of applications of formal methods in philosophy are at this point much needed. The summer school is an attempt to foster such debates and motivate students and young researchers to be attentive to the to methodological issues underlying their work. See below for the official announcement, and check the webpage of the summer school for further details.

On referee selection

In discussion over at Helen's post, Brit suggested "People tend to get asked to referee when their own papers are cited in the list of references. At least, those are usually the people I ask first." Echoing Steven Gross, I want to reiterate three concern over this practice: i) such referees have an incentive to accept the paper (because it improves their "impact factor"--not a small matter in many research funding environments); ii) this practice encourages echo-chambers among the well-connected; c) this practice encourages 'referee-steering' by authors.

Quote of the day: Philosophy as language acquisition...

"[W]e can see the philosopher at work here. He lets himself be led into various corners by the authors he is considering; he then finds his way out of these corners and into his own conceptual space. He arrives, perhaps, where he might not have arrived without this working through the other's thoughts. In this respect, what he says about the problem of intersubjectivity and language applies equally to the philosophical process. Philosophy is in some way a kind of language acquisition -- not in the simple sense of picking up a vocabulary, but in the sense of being guided along by the language that others have used, and then formulating an expression of something that goes beyond that. As Merleau-Ponty sometimes puts it, the child does not acquire language so much as language acquires the child. The same can be said of the philosopher and ideas."--Shaun Gallagher commenting on Merleau-Ponty.

Social Conservatives are not the only ones with a pessimistic view of human nature

A paragraph in this interesting review caught my attention:

The articles by Savulescu and Greely are fascinating but, I think, troubling. Although they reply to objections from social conservative critics of the practices that they (with some qualifications) endorse, there is no substitute for having social conservatives speak for themselves. I find the articles in this volume insufficiently skeptical of the ability of human beings to react beneficently under conditions of unprecedented power and moral uncertainty. A rejoinder from a social conservative would be a welcome addition to the volume.

Why would the "social conservative" have a monopoly on being "skeptical of the ability of human beings to react beneficently under conditions of unprecedented power and moral uncertainty?" Let's leave aside the empirical fact that there are plenty of social conservatives that end up endorsing social engineering projects of various kinds and let's grant that some non-social conservatives remain optimistic about human nature endowed with absolute power. But non social conservatives discovered, say, Liberalism of Fear (Berlin, Shklar, etc) a while ago.

Philosophy in Groningen

Another installment in the ‘shameless self-promotion’ series, this time to promote my department: here is a little promotional film to praise the wonders of doing philosophy in Groningen (including the participation of yours truly):

Having your cake and eating it: the new 21st Century Monads album

The 21st Century Monads, the coolest philosophical band around (interviewed at NewAPPS here, here, and here) are releasing a new album this year. It will be available for purchase in a somewhat unusual way:

So what we are going to do is this. From now until the end of May 2012, you can purchase the uncompressed .wav files by taking the following steps. First, make a donation to the charity of your choice in the amount that you think is appropriate.Second, send an email to the following email address: 21stcenturymonads@gmail.com. In this email, simply tell us that you have made a charitable donation; you don’t need to tell us where if you don’t want to. We’d appreciate if you’d tell us the amount donated since we would like to know how much money has been raised in this fashion. 

(See further details here.) In other words, you get to buy some great music while at the same time contributing to your favorite charity. Any one of these two things would already be worth doing on their own, so go ahead and get moving!

Jeff Bell interview at 3am Magazine

The (wide-ranging and very interesting) interview is here. An excerpt: 

3:AM: One of the fascinating things that happens in your discussions of David Hume and Deleuze is that you show how a conventional reading of Hume is not the most probable if we take Hume at face value. Ernest Gellner said something about this in his Legitimation of Belief where he points out that if all there is is this buzzing confusion of impressions then cultivating our passions and feelings so we become connoisseurs of them would be the rational thing to do. Creating something anew out of them seems to be what Deleuze also considered an obvious move. This seems to be a separate issue to the question of how to bundle the impressions up so that the idea of a self makes sense. Is this something you’d sympathise with, the idea that Hume and other philosophers Deleuze and yourself examine have been packaged to suit interests external to their own positions and that what you’re doing is getting back to the revolutionary potential in them?

JB: That’s a fair assessment of what I attempted to do in my Hume book. I was certainly challenging many of the contemporary readings of Hume and offering an alternative reading that sits well with Hume both philosophically and historically.

Jason Read reviews the new translation of Pierre Macherey, Hegel or Spinoza

[UPDATE 13 Jan 2012: Stuart Elden directs us to this interview with the translator, Susan Ruddick; see also this post on where to start in studying Macherey, and here for a sample chapter of Hegel or Spinoza.]

Beginnings without Ends. A review of Pierre Macherey, Hegel or Spinoza, translated by Susan M Ruddick. University of Minnesota Press, 2011.  

By Jason Read

The recent translation into English of Pierre Macherey’s 1979 work, Hegel ou Spinoza, not only exposes a philosophical classic to a new group of readers, but also fills in a gap in understanding the history and legacy of those who gathered in the nineteen sixties to produce Lire le Capital alongside Louis Althusser -- Etienne Balibar, Pierre Macherey and Jacques Rancière, three scholars who are sometimes called “Althusserians.” The current translation thus belongs alongside that of Jacques Rancière’s La Leçon du Althusser,  Althusser’s Lesson (Continuum, 2011).  Whereas Rancière’s book could be read as a refutation of Althusser’s project, revealing the hierarchical conception of knowledge that subverted his commitment to radical politics, Macherey’s book introduces “subterranean” aspects, so that we now see that the project which gave us such concepts as “symptomatic reading” and “materialistic dialectic” was as much a transformation of philosophy as it was a reading of Marx. The translation of Hegel or Spinoza is thus not only the publication of an important text, but a restoration of a bit of intellectual history, and thereby the precondition for new futures.  

The Vanity of the Philosopher

In light of the critical reception (here, here, and here) of my recent blogging on the demise of certain taboos in philosophy (here, here), it might be useful to put some of my cards on the table (all of these are in the spirit of Sandra Peart's and David Levy's analytic egalitarianism, but without their focus on the methodological assumption of the homogeneity of human nature): I advocate that when philosophy (sometimes disguised as economics, or law, or political theory, etc) shades (often deliberately) into public advocacy and public policy some kind of "symmetry principle" needs to be applied to it. (Think of Harsanyi's and Rawls' Veil of Ignorance as paradigmatic instances.) Here are some de-feasible maxims by which I (morally) evaluate policy philosophy:

1. Philosophers (or experts) can't keep themselves (their incentives/their roles, etc) out of the model/proposal. (In practice this means that we can't simply assume that philosophers are disinterested truth-seekers in the context of policy.)
2. Philosophers (or experts) shouldn't promote policies where the down-side risks of implementation are (primarily) shifted onto less fortunate others.
3. Philosophers (or experts) should make an effort to educate policy and opinion-makers to counter-arguments to the policies they advocate.

Progress and Taboos: (Schliesser Vindicated?)

Mohan was startled by my question if we should hold philosophers responsible for the public impact of their words. Consider, Jason Brennan's remarks: "“Since writing ‘The Ethics of Voting,’ I’ve actually become more sympathetic to the idea that maybe people should be formally excluded from voting,” Brennan said." [When I wrote my original post, I had no idea that Brennan had already slipped down the slope of my not so "idle concern."] As a community, we are politely witnessing (refereeing, reviewing, etc) the philosophic ground-clearing being done for --and the accompanying public marketing of -- ideas that will justify a certain kind of elite rule. (My approach also presupposes there is a non trivial difference between teaching Plato's anti-democratic sentiments and advocating these today.)

Professional Code of Ethics for philosophers?

Ever since the trial of Socrates, we know that public utterances matter philosophically. Sometimes we need a reminder that our deepest differences (as say analytic or continental types) even originate in diverging views on how to be responsible speakers of language. But as professional philosophers we are also often (necessarily) forgetful of this topic. The following tentative remarks were caused by reflection on the recent publication of books that (with qualification, of course) condone torture and disenfranchisement of ignorant voters. My views are guided by two axioms: i) philosophic utterances have public consequences; ii) philosophy is different from law (where very bad human beings and acts deserve the very best arguments on their behalf in order to make a potentially moral institution function properly) or literature (where the art may be diminished if -- to speak poetically -- Satan is not given airtime [see Elizabeth Costello’s struggles]).

Clark Glymour responds

Recent discussion at NewAPPS prompted an interesting reflection by Clark Glymour. [Thanks to Hannes Leitgeb for the pointer. I have two important criticisms of the piece: a) not all philosophy worth defending needs to be redeemed by science; b) there were very brave Continental philosophers [Camus, Jaspers, etc], so that part of the piece should be ignored. But about these some other time more.] What I like about Glymour's approach, and he says it very elegantly (one can almost miss it), is that philosophers also have a role as critic(s) of ongoing science but not the scientific ideal. Anyway, here's the final, very controversial paragraph of Glymour's piece:

"Salvation? Were I a university administrator facing a contracting budget, I would not look to eliminate biosciences or computer engineering. I would notice that the philosophers seem smart, but their writings are tediously incestuous and of no influence except among themselves, and I would conclude that my academy could do without such a department. (Phi Beta Kappa would protest, of course.) But not if I found that my philosophy department retrieved a million dollars a year in grants and fellowships, and contained members whose work is cited and used in multiple subjects, and whose faculty taught the traditional subject well to the university’s undergraduates. I am in such a department, and I will never again be a university administrator, but the time is here when many university administrators are in fact in the situation I imagine, and some of them may come to conclusions like mine."

Philosophic Taboos

Philosophy is often viewed as akin to a normal science (I quote Mohan,, philosophers understand themselves as investigating "reality, using transparently objective methods (even in the realm of values). In this sense, they regard philosophy as continuous with science..."[or: "philosophy as extension of science or PES.") One consequence is that PES is accompanied with some of the vices that are characteristic of normal science in its contemporary institutional settings (e.g., mythic histories that promote a picture of progress (Cf. Soames), excessive boundary policing, etc--read your Kuhn or Feyerabend). In particular, folk that do normal science need not answer all objections to ruling theories. This attitude is often accompanied by a lazy, dismissive attitude toward those working on different puzzles (or who reject philosophy as puzzle solving altogether [see Brian Leiter's comments here]). One important sign or proxy that one is dealing with such attitudes is the presence of taboos that allow a community to focus on problems it deems worthy of interest and systematically ignore alternative approaches.

CFP: Seeing Things Differently: Art, Philosophy, and the Futures of Feminism

Website here. Some details: 

Friday 30^th and Saturday 31^st March 2012 / University of Dundee & Dundee Contemporary Arts

Keynote Speakers:

• Dr Christine Battersby (Reader Emerita in Philosophy, University of Warwick)
• Professor Tina Chanter (Professor of Philosophy, DePaul University, Chicago)
• Professor Kerstin Mey (Director of Research and Enterprise, University for the Creative Arts) 

The visual arts have a well-established history of engagement with feminism and gender issues. While artists have confronted such issues directly in their work, feminist theorists and philosophers have interrogated the gendering of vision as well as core aesthetic categories such as genius and the art/craft distinction. The ‘feminist’ label, however, can sometimes seem more of a trap than a call for liberatory practices.

This event takes as a starting point the idea that neither all artworks nor all theories informed by a gendered or feminist perspective will necessarily be focussed on what we might think of as ‘questions of gender’ or ‘women’s issues’. Where feminism succeeds is in making it harder to see women as simply determined by their sex or to reduce their work to a question of their gender. Many philosophers and practising artists who see their work as centrally informed by feminist or gendered concerns have moved beyond critique of masculinist traditions and paradigms to re-imagine bodies, identities, matter, space, time, ethics, power and freedom in radically new ways.