New APPS: Art, Politics, Philosophy, Science

Why Synthese debacles will recur

In what follows I won't define 'science'--but I will use the term in a very wide sense.

1. Ever since Kuhn, all forms of inquiry have been organized in a recognizable sociological and legitimating template that we can call "the trappings of science" (journal articles, learned societies, peer review, PhDs, citation practices, etc). Unfortunately, because of science's authority [I call this Newton's challenge], this means that all kinds of dubious forms of inquiry attempt to sneak in as science under radar screen(s).

2. Given the considerable overlap between philosophy and theology, philosophy will be an attractive discipline for folk interested in pursuing religion in scientific fashion.

3. A lot of political projects want to gain the legitimacy of science. So, the temptation to infiltrate disciplines and fields will be ever-present. Moreover, these disciplines/fields will often welcome the extra attention (and increased citations, larger community, financial support, etc)! The political projects will tempt to influence the shape of various scientific discipline. (This can be benign or not; I call this the Socratic Problem.)

4. As anybody who has friends/relatives in the natural sciences knows, philosophy doesn't really run its journals very professionally. We rely on a relatively small pool of overworked and stretched editors.

5. As the world moves toward ever more "objective" metrics to evaluate (promote/hire/give grants to, etc) academics, the importance of journals will increase and the system will be overloaded.

Must the inferentialist say that logic is necessarily incomplete?

By the standard view of logic, one way our finite minds are able to reason about infinite things is by a division of labor between proofs and models. If a set of sentences Gamma does entail a sentence alpha, then we grasp this by means of a finite proof. If the set does not, then we grasp that by means of a countermodel making true all of the premises in Gamma and not making true alpha. Thus, by the standard view, a “logic” is an account of provability and an account of models for some language. Then, the logic is complete when any arbitrary Gamma and alpha in the language are such that either there is a proof of alpha from Gamma or a countermodel making all of Gamma true and alpha false (and sound if these both don't happen simultaneously).

In “The Withering Away of Formal Semantics?” (Mind & Language Volume 1, Issue 4, pages 302–318, December 1986) Neil Tennant attempts to give a purely inferentialist account of what is going on when people use representationalist models show that entailment fails, and he makes a prima facie plausible suggestion for what we inferentialists should say. But (if the argument below is sound) something interesting happens to those of us moved by Dummett's argument from inferentialistm to intuitionism when we follow that suggestion.

New Leiter post with one more disturbing data point

We may be approaching the point where all sides have aired their views about the Synthese issues, but Leiter has a post today well worth quoting in full, which (both Professor Antonelli's data point and Leiter's broader morals) I think expresses beautifully many of our worries. Moreover these broader morals are ones that I think all sides to the debates thusfar should take very seriously. As to Leiter's points, it just seems obvious philosophers do have obligations to support those like Forrest (and Nussbaum's analogous work, for example), and that to the extent that any of our own actions or inactions have undermined them, then we have derived obligations to rectify this.

Aldo Antonelli (UC Davis) writes:

After sitting on fence for a while (mostly out of respect for the reputations of the Synthese editors), I finally signed the petition.

What clinched it for me was a fact that I have not seen mentioned on your blog (but was mentioned elsewhere): Beckwith's "rebuttal" published OnlineFirst on March 5, is listed as having been both received and accepted on the same day, February 7. So it would seem (unless we hear otherwise) that the rebuttal was accepted without proper refereeing, in violation of Synthese's own guidelines.

I had not noticed this peculiarity.  And it is made worse by the points noted by Ingo Brigandt (Alberta) and Eric Schliesser (Ghent), namely, that Beckwith has already invoked the disclaimer in his response in order to discredit the Forrest article (even though the 'disclaimer' purportedly only concerned tone!), and that the disclaimer will in all likelihood be similarly deployed the next time Professor Forrest testifies before the Louisiana legislature about issues involving science education.  This is why, as Professor Brigant says, it is imperative that the disclaimer be withdrawn.   The civility and tone police can do their song-and-dance, but the fact is the editorial misconduct of Johan Van Benthem, Vincent Hendricks, and John Symons is going to have real political ramifications for science education in the United States.

[Full Disclosure: I still have not signed the petition above for reasons I've stated earlier, but I do urge those both those who have signed the petition, and those like myself who have not, to consider signing the petition urging the Synthese editorial board to allow Barbara Forrest a response to Beckwith. I think that this should be something that all interlocutors can agree is both minimally just as well ethically/politically responsible.]

Brazilian music on Thursdays: 'Inverno'

This week I want to talk about Adriana Calcanhotto, a singer who began her career in the 1990s and has since released quite a few records. She has never been as popular as other female singers such as Marisa Monte, but she has steady, loyal fans (I'm sort of one of them). She is also a great composer, and her songs are often melancholic with poetic, elaborate lyrics. An interesting bit of information about Adriana Calcanhotto is that she adopted the alias 'Adriana Partimpim' and recorded a great album for children in 2004 (my own children love it, and so do I!). In it, she recorded songs originally made for 'grown-ups', but in child-friendly versions; see for example 'FIco assim sem voce' and 'Oito anos'. (She recorded another album for kids in 2008.)

There are many songs by Adriana Calcanhotto that I really like, such as 'Vambora' and 'Metade', but my very favorite is probably 'Inverno', from her 1994 album A Fábrica do Poema. Everything about this song is just perfect: the lyrics, her singing, and the piano against the electronic background (a recurrent feature of her songs in the 1990s). True enough, t's nothing like the upbeat, dancing songs that I usually post; in fact, it is one of the songs I used to listen to when I was homesick, in my first years in 'exile'. But hey, life is not only about upbeat songs (^_^).

New APPS Interview: Jason Stanley

Today’s New APPS interview is with Jason Stanley, Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University.

Thanks for doing this interview with us today, Jason. Can you tell us a little about how you came to study philosophy?

I grew up in Syracuse, New York. My father was a sociology professor at Syracuse University. He had started out a PhD program in philosophy, but left when he was told that the questions he asked were never interesting (he subsequently unfailingly described academic philosophy as “that discipline in which the interesting questions are not considered interesting”).

Well, I can’t say I completely disagree! In any case, what did your father teach?

He taught the theory courses in the Sociology Department at Syracuse – Durkheim and Weber, of course, but also Aristotle and Hegel. He was an implacable foe of analytic philosophy and economics. Naturally, my brother became an economist and I went into analytic philosophy.

Naturally!

I grew up in the kind of household in which it was impossible not to know that philosophy existed. My father read Rousseau’s Confessions to my brother and me when I was quite young. He also read many of Plato’s dialogues to us when we were young. As I discovered later, he was constantly quoting the Nicomachean Ethics without what I would today describe as appropriate attribution. Much of my reading as a youth was Frankfurt School – Origins of Totalitarianism, that sort of thing.

A surfeit of Synthesitis

It's a shame that because it comes at the end of a long discussion and we have already created a few other pages and posts on the topic, Ph. Huneman's comment didn't get noticed much: I am happy to agree that the disclaimer letter is not a great, great thing to do, or a nice experience for an innocent author -or any author. And, not that anyone is seriously debating that, I agree with those who feel that it's not such a hot idea to do a special issue on evolution and ID. But I find it surprising and saddening that so many of us are so quick to know just what happened behind the scenes (e.g., that the Eds in chief never contacted the guest editor; something I don't believe). By now it doesn't matter much: we can debate the pros and especially cons of Beckwith, and the merits of letting him respond; oh, and we can parse the strange comments on Laudan and argue that they are not so bad. And, of course, we can try and polish our reputations on the backs of Synthese. I find the mixture of posturing and stubborn moralism a real disappointment. Guys: write an elegant, sharp letter and have it signed by 10 luminaries (including some excellent European philosophers of science :) ) and published in some grand place - the LRB? Nature?; and don't submit your fine papers to the journal. And get on with formal epistemology, common sense, the history of animal spirits, or Dreideggerian enownment!! As, in, our work !

Synthese--a superficial, but hopefully, enlightening sociological tour of European (analytic) philosophy

[During the last few days I have received a number of informal queries from American colleagues about why European philosophers of science seem so eager to defend the reputation of Synthese and its editors come what may and why these seem not to understand the political ramifications of the disclaimer.  What follows is inspired by reflecting on blog comments in support of Synthese around the net; I will be terse, partial, and no doubt superficial in my sociology of European philosophy (on the Western part of the Continent). I list my observations as separate points for clarity but they are meant to be mutually enlightening.]

First, the general editors of Synthese have a sterling reputation for quality and probity. Johan Van Benthem, in particular, is arguably one of the most important analytic philosophers of Europe. His work in logic(s) and formal semantics is widely respected (not to mention his appointment in Stanford).

Second, in European philosophy (and the Humanities more generally) *research* funding has become *zero-sum*. (Such funding pays for PhD, post-doc, and research-intensive positions.) Grants are distributed by national and European grant agencies to favored individuals and, increasingly, (international) research groups. These grants are increasingly decided by ‘objective’ scientific metrics. In particular, publications in journals that have an ESF ‘A’ ranking, have reasonably high impact factors, and/or are listed in reputable indexing services such as Thomson’s Web-of-Science/Knowledge, are favored over all other forms of publications.

Weekly Philo of Economics blog: reflexivity, uncertainty, and the of history in economics

[This is from a larger piece -- the section is entitled, four ways in which economics is reflexive -- that I am composing.]

One way in which economics is reflexive is that the incentives of the economists qua economists as policy advisors deploying economic tools can be studied from within economics. In the opening lines of Book 1, (I.I.8, summarizing Book 4,) of Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith already noted this feature of economics prominently in his historical survey of economic theories prior to his own (in order to discredit alternative approaches to economics). More recently after spending time with Popper and reading Polanyi and Kuhn, Gordon Tullock stimulated research in the economics of economics. He points out that even if individual economists are truth-seekers, there are lots of incentives that favor other aims among policy scientists. (See here for an especially striking passage in The Organization of Inquiry, near the end of chapter 7.) In particular, it is by no means obvious that the ‘function’ of policy science is to speak truth to power rather than, for example, facilitate bargaining among elite policy makers (by providing a shared framework) or providing rhetorical cover for, say, pre-existing policy ends or disarming complaints against the (potential) effects of policy. (These are not mutually exclusive, of course.)

The Synthese affair and considerations on editorial policies

The Synthese affair has lots of important implications, and several lessons could be drawn from its different ramifications. In this post, I'd like to focus on some of the editorial policies which might have contributed to this confusing and unfortunate situation. Mostly, I'll be asking a lot of questions, and comments/remarks are most welcome.

(For what it's worth, let me say from the outset that my own position on the issue is that the EiC have made a series of very unfortunate editorial mistakes, but I do not think that a call for boycott is the best way to deal with the issue and to work towards redressing the potentially very serious implications of these events.)

A petition focused on the Synthese editors' disclaimer and on Beckwith's use thereof

Ingo Brigandt's comment here deserves its own post: 

Here is another petition, organized by those who are considering a boycott (as far as I know the plan is first have the petition and to decide whether to proceed with a boycott depending on the response of the editors-in-chief): http://www.petitiononline.com/Synthese/petition.html

This petition is stronger than the two created by Eric, as it includes the call to retract the disclaimer. The latter is to my mind non-negotiable at least for the following reason. In his response to Barbara Forrest (published in Synthese, but after the special issue), Francis Beckwith uses the issuing and unusual nature of the disclaimer as a major argument against her paper.

Some creationists instrumentalizing the disclaimer in some venues is not surprising, but it is not just the case that the EiCs opened the door to this (as an unfortunate side-effect), but they obviously approved Beckwith's response after having scrutinized it, so that the EiCs approve of using the disclaimer as an argument (even in their own venue).

Combine this the EiCs stating in their response to the boycott plan that "several articles included in the special issue contained language that is unacceptable" (my emphasis), responding to the guest editors' account by making explicit that the problem was not only Forrest's article. So by now we have a clear license by the EiCs to use the disclaimer against any article in the special issue, which cannot stand.

A real danger with leaving the disclaimer as it is, or at least not mitigating Beckwith's use of it, is the extremely high probability that the next time Professor Forrest testifies to the LA state legislature (as she often does in these matters, and no doubt will soon in the debate on SB 70, which would repeal the stealth creationist Lousiana Science Education Act or LSEA), some ID partisan will claim she has been "refuted" in the pages of a prestigious philosophy journal and that therefore her testimony should be discounted if not ignored. 

Philosophers and others outside Louisiana should never forget that this affair is far more than an intramural discussion of professional obligations, as seriously -- and rightly so -- as we take those concerns.

For there are real world  effects at work here. Effects as real world as it gets: we're talking about a state law in which the work conditions of Louisiana public school teachers (who are our colleagues too, let us not forget), and the quality of the science education afforded Louisiana public school students, are at stake. Which makes it all the more admirable that in a climate of drastic budget cuts to higher education our colleague Barbara Forrest is willing to carry the fight against a Legislature and a Governor who have already passed and signed a stealth creationism bill. 

UPDATE, M 25 April, 3:05 pm CDT: The eminent philosopher of biology Mohan Matthen has a powerful comment at Leiter Reports that should be read in its entirety. It begins: 

I read the Forrest article in Synthese, and am having some difficulty figuring out why the EiCs consider it discourteous, impolite, or (most of all) unfair. The article is among other things an examination of the epistemology of ID theory, and in particular of whether inferences to intelligent design can be considered epistemologically on a par with scientific reasoning. It considers this question in the context of whether it is constitutional to permit the teaching of ID theory in public schools on the grounds that it is science, just as Darwinian evolution is.

In this context, Forrest provides a lengthy exposé of religious rhetoric by some of the proponents of ID theory, including some that predates their entry into the ID debate. This exposé is couched in emotionally charged language, to be sure, but only in response to what Forrest reasonably takes to be a public policy aim of the ID proponents and their own rhetoric....

The conclusion: 

The Forrest paper is not an original work of philosophy, and is not intended to be. However, it is a powerful piece of contemporary historical research and is, moreover, quite astute in its exposure of philosophical fallacy. Even on a "pure philosophy" level, it is instructive to read of the perverted uses to which bad philosophical argument can be put. Moreover, its rhetorical temperature is perfectly appropriate in a work of this sort.

Spinoza workshop in Ghent, May 11, 2011

On Wednesday, May 11, 2011, the Department of Philosophy and Moral Sciences at Ghent University hosts a Spinoza workshop with two speakers:

14:45-16:00: Michael Rosenthal (UW-Seattle): "Spinoza on the Idea of Progress"

16:20-17:35: Tinneke Beeckman (Brussels): "Machiavelli as Spinoza's inspiration for thinking politics"

Attendance is free. Location: Blandijnberg 2, Auditorium E.

Online petition (Synthese): Give Barbara Forrest a chance to respond in Synthese (etc)

One aspect of the Synthese controversy that has bothered me most (I believe Rich Booher first called attention to it in discussion) is that in his invited and almost certainly unrefereed response, Francis Beckwith has used the editors' vague disclaimer to discredit Barbara Forrest (this is even clear from the abstract of his article posted online). Even if we trust the editors' public defenders that no public pressure was put on them to publish Beckwith's piece (yet the editors fail to address this issue fortrighly in their public statement!), the editors and their defenders should recognize that one of the premier philosophical venues is being used to help discredit a very brave philosophical colleague. And let there be no mistake: it really takes bravery for a professor at a public university to stand up to the powerful and well-funded Creatonism lobbey in Louisiana!

The editors of Synthese should also realize that by publishing Beckwith's particular piece they are enhancing Beckwith's credibility in the political arena. All of this is pretty galling once we remind ourselves of the historic roots of Synthese in scientific philosophy and public enlightenment projects. This is a clear instance where a procedural focus on politeness misses the very simple political fact that scientific authority is being abused by folk, however civil their tone, that have aims inimical to public reason.

There is no doubt that Brian Leiter's call for a boycott caught the discipline's attention. Before it comes to a boycott there are still many ways in which Synthese can right some of the present wrongs in addition to offering a forthright explanation of the circumstances surrounding Beckwith's publication. For example, why not give Barbara Forrest the uncensored right to respond to Beckwith article? In many journals authors who are the target of discussion pieces are allowed such a response.

To that end, I have started AN online petition: one that calls on the editors of Synthese to grant Barbara Forrest the right to respond to Beckwith's article within the pages of Synthese; (I have disabled another one that calls on the editors to explain in forthright fashion to explain the circumstances of the publication of Francis Beckwith's article in Synthese.) The petition is very narrowly focused (I have added no background texts so that folk can just support these actions).

Update [ES]: Brian Leiter has also started a closely related petition. It overlaps, in part, with the second petition above (and this is why I disabled the link).

Update 2 [JP]: see above for an argument in support of Leiter's petition.

Most underrated philosopher of the week: Ursula Renz

I am still fairly new to the European philosophy scene, but one of the first things I noticed here is the very stark division among co-called theoretical and practical philosophers. Their sole point of contact seems to be a shared contempt or (among the more kindly souls) benign neglect of the third category, historians of philosophy. (Sometimes this intersects with analytic/continental, but about all of this another time.) So, folk that move between or straddle such natural kinds are a source of confusion because hard to classify. At the time same time, European philosophy is changing dramatically and quickly because folk move around on European wide scholarships, short-term positions, etc.

This week's winner (recall the rules), Ursula Renz (who has lived and worked in numerous countries), teaches at Alpen-Adria University in Klagenfurt, a small provincial capital in Austria. She just published a lovely, scholarly article on Cassirer in a recent special issue of Synthese (no not THAT special issue). She is a path-breaking thinker (who publishes in theoretical, practical, and history). I know her work primarily because she is one of the world's most exciting, philosophical Spinoza scholars (below an image of the cover of her recent book). Her work on Spinoza always has an eye toward ongoing philosophical debates, yet at the same time is rigorous and insightful. Her renown is still limited to the clubby (male-dominated) world of German speaking philosophers, because most of her publications are in German. But she is a very versatile philosopher: she has published widely on the moral emotions and epistemic individualism (see this lovely piece in German).

Ursula is probably still best known as the author of an acclaimed monograph on Cohen, Natorp, and Cassirer, and more generally a leading authority on what I call Fin de siècle neo-Kantianism. I can't wait to read her paper on how Pitt philosophy is related to the Marburg school!
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[Punkrockmonday #7] David Bowie - Time

Society of Christian Philosophers to induct Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens

Just kidding with the title (though please see below for possible reasons why they should). I was going to call this "Advice to Christian Philosophers" but it turns out that title was already taken. And titling my post the same would just invite the old blues music put-down about one musician not being a pimple on the posterior of another (to which I should add I would heartily agree). Also, people who read this will discern an obvious pragmatic self-reflexive contradiction; it is a consequence of the advice I am about to give that I should not be in the business of giving people advice. But I do think these things need to be said.

Barbara Forrest's brave and important work on behalf of real science education in Louisiana deserves our admiration and support

UPDATE: M 25 April, 10:53 am CDT: see here and here for petitions. Please also note the real world implications of the Synthese editors' disclaimer noted here.

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The Synthese controversy will have at least one good outcome if it brings the brave and important work of Barbara Forrest on behalf of real science education in Louisiana to the attention of the philosophical community. She deserves our admiration and support for the fight she's helping to lead. 

Background: In 2008 the Louisiana State Legislature passed the "Louisiana Science Education Act" (LSEA). You can read Forrest's analysis of this "stealth creationism" bill by following the link on this web page, or by going directly to the PDF.

Forrest often posts on the Louisiana Coalition for Science blog, which covers the Discovery Institute, hunts down "stealth creationism" around the country, and in particular fights the pernicious effects of the LSEA. 

Professor Forrest is not alone in her effort; this campaign run by a Baton Rouge High School student is particularly inspiring.

Some good news: 42 Nobel Laureates have written an open letter in support of SB 70, which would repeal the LSEA. Read the text of the letter here, or below the break. 

Brazilian music on Thursdays: 'Samurai'

(I did not post the column yesterday so as not to distract readers and myself from the recent developments in the Synthese affair. But I take it that a bit of music now won’t hurt, or so I hope...)

In my late teens and early twenties, my very favorite singer was without a doubt Djavan. I played his records incessantly, and went to every single one of his concerts in São Paulo (which luckily happened quite often). I guess I would have qualified as a groupie at that point… Djavan started his career in the 1970s, when he left home, the small state of Alagoas in the north-east, to try his luck in Rio de Janeiro; his very first record (1976) is a real gem, with the classics ‘Flor de Lis’ and ‘Fato Consumado’, among others. He has never been as influential as the singers of the previous generation (Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Chico Buarque etc.), but he’s been a constant and highly respected presence in the Brazilian scene since (also having booked some huge hits at music charts, ‘Oceano’ in particular, which I actually don’t like much). He’s an autodidact musician, but his sophisticated compositions and the complexity of his arrangements are impressive. He has been through different phases, including some overly popish records in the 1980s which aren’t that memorable. His best records are those where he leans more heavily towards his jazz penchant; I very much like Novena (1994) in particular. I haven’t been following his career much since his Bicho Solto album of 1998, but the latter features a particularly cool song, ‘Te devoro’.

Cui bono in Detroit?

Cherchez l'argent:

In Detroit, a city that has faced decline now for several decades, Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb has issued a layoff notice to all 5,466 public school teachers.

Bobb has said he will take advantage of the new Financial Martial Law known as Public Act 4 to “unilaterally modify” the district’s collective bargaining agreement with the Federation of Teachers. According to Reuters:

Under a law known as Public Act 4, passed by the Michigan legislature and signed by the state’s new Republican governor in March, emergency managers like Bobb have sweeping powers. They can tear up existing union contracts, and even fire some elected officials, if they believe it will help solve a financial emergency.

"I fully intend to use the authority that was granted under Public Act 4," Bobb said in the statement.

Under Public Act 4 Emergency Managers have sweeping, almost dictatorial power to modify contracts, fire officials, and disregard public input.

So who is Robert Bobb?

It turns out, he’s a recent graduate of the Broad Foundation’s Superintendent Academy. The Broad Foundation, along with the Kellogg Foundation, pays Bobb $145,000 a year on top of his $280,000 government salary. For those of you not familiar with Broad, it is one of the leading foundations promoting school choice and privatization across the country. One might almost think that paying a public official hundreds of thousands of dollars a year might amount to nothing short of bribery, especially given the very specific agenda of a foundation like the Broad Foundation.

Now, Bobb is proposing to create charter schools for 16,000 students from 41 schools slated for closure. He argues that this will save millions of dollars. I have to wonder, however, at the conflict of interest....

This is nothing short of a coordinated effort between the billionaire foundations pushing school reform and Tea Party conservatives intent on slashing benefits and ending collective bargaining rights. Public schools are under assault by the forces of privatization, and public school teachers face benefit and salary cuts while the very rich are promised tax cuts. Similar efforts are underway in Florida and Wisconsin.

See also: Bobb orders closure of Detroit school for pregnant teens.

On the response from Synthese: unanswered questions

Readers will note that we have published a response from the editors of Synthese regarding their recent issue on “Intelligent Design”.  This issue became public through Brian Leiter’s blog, where he posted a letter from the guest editors of the ID issue – Glenn Branch and James Fetzer – alleging various forms of misconduct, and where he (Brian) also called for a boycott of Synthese until an adequate response was forthcoming.  We have not endorsed or condemned the call for a boycott; we have instead asked for debate on it. 

Here, we open the issue for comments, and note the crucial gaps in the published response.

In our view, most of the serious charges in the Branch-Fetzer letter were not addressed at all. 

Branch and Fetzer claim that the editorial disclaimer calls into question their professionalism.  Do the editors-in-chief of Synthese acknowledge this?  Stand behind it?  Deny that this was intended? 

Branch and Fetzer claim that they were twice assured by one of the editors-in-chief that there would be no disclaimer.  Do the editors-in-chief deny this?  Do they endorse this behavior?

Branch and Fetzer and others have raised the issue that the allegations of professionally improper tone are attributed vaguely rather than specifically, implying that the latter would be more appropriate in this case.  This vagueness is not changed by the current response. The editors-in-chief  say this: “we judged that several articles included in the special issue contained language that is unacceptable: neutral readers of the issue will find no difficulty in identifying such passages.”  Given the heated discussion on the matter, one has to say that this claim has been empirically refuted, at least unless “neutral” is being used in some very substantive manner.  If this is a charge of professional "unacceptability" – as opposed, say, to some suggestion that an optimally polite and kind writer would write differently – then it is certainly not clear what is being charged.  Do the editors-in-chief deny that in making charges of professional inappropriateness they ought to identify who is being charged and on the basis of what comments?  If not, are they willing to make the identifications now? 

Finally, as Jon Cogburn emphasized recently, there is the huge outstanding issue of whether the editors-in-chief were pressured by supporters of ID, specifically whether there were implied threats of legal action.  This is, for all the reasons Jon pointed out, a crucial issue for the profession given the underlying political issues.

These as we see them, are some of the issues not addressed in the response.  We invite discussion.

Mark Lance

Eric Schliesser

A response by the editors of Synthese

We have been asked to publish this note from the editors of Synthese.

In response to the controversy concerning a decision by the editors of Synthese involving a recent special issue on "Evolution and its Rivals":

We are committed to the view that Synthese, in addition to being a venue for pure philosophy, also be a forum for debate on issues which extend into the public sphere. In particular, we believe that philosophical debate concerning the role of religion in science and public policy is important. This is why we accepted the proposal to pursue this special issue.

We allow guest editors sufficient freedom to craft intellectually significant special issues. At the same time, as editors of Synthese we must ensure the highest standards of politeness and fairness.  This is sometimes a difficult balance to strike, especially with respect to highly-charged matters.

We judged that several articles included in the special issue contained language that is unacceptable: neutral readers of the issue will find no difficulty in identifying such passages. We placed no restriction whatsoever on content. After internal resolution failed, we added a preface as a way of acknowledging our ultimate responsibility, while expressing our regret for the breach of our standards.

While we grant anyone's right to judgment calls different from ours, the simple fact remains that it was our task as editors to make them in this case. Of course, there are lessons to be learnt from what happened regarding our internal procedures, and Synthese will do that.

Finally, we would emphasize once more that maintaining standards of courtesy in academic writing is not a matter of taking sides. It is beneficial to all parties interested in the pursuit of truth. The special issue is out there now, and we trust that colleagues interested in its theme will now proceed to discuss the actual contents.

Johan van Benthem

Vincent F. Hendricks

John Symons

Editors-in-Chief, Synthese

What is at stake in the Synthese brouhaha (please share thoughts!)

I just want to forcefully reiterate something Brian said yesterday in his blog. Mohan Matthen had written.

[H]ere is the summary [of what transpired]: Special Issue [of Synthese] consisting of critiques of intelligent design; Editors-in-Chief correspond with author of Special Issue paper, demanding changes, after that paper has been published on-line; they make these demands without the consent of the Guest Editors; most shocking of all, E-in-C’s insert a disclaimer regarding the Special Issue.

It seems clear that whatever their motives or exculpations, the E-in-C’s acted unprofessionally. Surely they should admit this and apologize. Nobody wants to participate in a “boycott” of philosophers as distinguished as they are, but they made an error in their public capacity, and they should simply make things right, with as little fuss as possible.

To which Leiter responded:

This leaves out only the role that intensive lobbying and threats of 'libel' from the ID crowd played in producing this outcome. . .

This is an extremely important point, possibly the central one.

Gulf Coast Syndrome

Read the story here. Excerpt: 

In the wake of the BP oil disaster, thousands of Gulf cleanup workers and residents have reported illnesses, with symptoms as tame as headaches or as violent as bloody stools and seizures. Nonprofit groups and teams of scientists are looking for answers using blood tests, surveys, maps, and soil and seafood samples. The National Institute of Health (NIH) began its "Gulf Long-Term Follow-Up Study for Oil Spill Clean Up Workers and Volunteers" (GuLF Study) to follow the health of 55,000 cleanup crew members over 10 years. It's the largest study to monitor the disaster, but it won't be treating its participants. Louisiana Bucket Brigade (LABB), a nonprofit environmental group, recently completed its survey of coastal Louisiana residents and found a dire need for medical attention. GuLF Study leader Dr. Dale Sandler says the illnesses "need to be taken seriously."

"People are sick, and they have concerns," she says. So where is the help?

And where are the criminal charges? Let's hope they are forthcoming.

Society / Forum for European Philosophy 2011 conference

The Society for European Philosophy and The Forum for European Philosophy Joint Conference 2011

York St John University, York, UK / 31^st August-3^rd September 2011 

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

• Joan Copjec (University at Buffalo)
• Graham Harman (American University, Cairo)
• Michèle Le Doeuff (Centre National de la Recherche Scientific, Paris)

CALL FOR PAPERS/CONTRIBUTIONS

Weekly philo of economics blog: (paracites) "Dismal Science" vs "Gay Science (or how the Mill-Carlyle debate intersects with Nietzsche)

A "paracite" is a misquotation that lives on, becoming more popular than the original quotation.
In addition it tends to have the following (Memetic) features:
1. It must be plausible--in that it fits with larger perception of a philosopher's/thinker's views/style, etc.
2. A. It allows a philosopher's views/style/position to be slotted into a (pre-existing) categories--so that B. s/he can be domesticated (say, in graduate education, or in boundary-policing).
3. The Paracite must be memorable. 1-3 try to capture how (a) paracite(s) can function in what I call "Philosophic prophecy" (or anti-Philosophic prophecy), in which magisterial authority is contested or promoted. So, I am enlisting Protevi's coinage for my own ends here.

According to the dictionary "The dismal Science" stands for "the science of economics: a humorous usage." If there is an attribution, it is often correctly attributed to Carlyle. More informed discussion often uses the paracite to characterize either that economics offers dire or economizing predictions (and in this context Carlyle's phrase is -- correctly (in some sense) -- taken as a criticism of Malthus) or that economists' embrace of utilitarianism has made the subject spiritually/psychologically impoverished (and this, too, captures correctly part of Carlyle's intent).

As David M. Levy and Sandra J. Peart point out, "At the most trivial level, Carlyle's target was not Malthus, but economists such as John Stuart Mill, who argued that it was institutions, not race, that explained why some nations were rich and others poor. Carlyle attacked Mill, not for supporting Malthus's predictions about the dire consequences of population growth, but for supporting the emancipation of slaves. It was this fact—that economics assumed that people were basically all the same, and thus all entitled to liberty—that led Carlyle to label economics "the dismal science."" (for their follow up blogs about this, see here, here, here, here, and here). Mill was not merely an "economist," of course (I am not going to let economists claim exclusive property rights to the fruits of Mill's labor; even so I am not going to pick a public fight with Levy and Peart, who have been benefactors in countless ways, over naming rights)! 

New APPS Interview: Mark Lance

Today’s New APPS interview is with Mark Lance, Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University. 

Thanks very much for doing this interview with us today, Mark. Let’s start with your personal practice of philosophy. You’ve recently published a book with Rebecca Kukla, ‘Yo!’ and ‘Lo!’: The Pragmatic Topography of the Space of Reasons (Harvard, 2009). Can you tell us how you approach collaborations?

I’ve always found a great deal of joy in collaboration – that is really trying to think through issues with another philosopher; not the sort of “let’s prove I’m smart” argument that is all too common in the field – and have moved more and more towards that in recent years.  I’ve now published with, I think, 8 different people, and am planning projects with others.  The process is different with different collaborations, but Rebecca and I, while drawing on earlier individual work, argued through every single point of the book.  Then one of us would draft a section, passing it back and forth several times.  And the final writing was always done with both of us in front of the screen going over every word together.  There is a kind of intellectual intimacy - something rather like a collective mind - that arises from this sort of work that is really quite amazing. 

What about conferences? I was disappointed at not being able to meet you in person at the now infamous Snowmageddon APA!

Yes, that was a disaster all around. I am perhaps weird in really liking conferences of almost all sorts.  Big APAs let me see friends and colleagues that I see only once a year, and smaller focused conferences are enormously intellectually stimulating. 

Do you have a set routine in your daily practice of philosophy?

Molyneux's problem solved at last!

It's here [PDF].

Some of us knew the empiricists were right all along. Did Bach-y-Rita help with that? I can't remember but his last name stuck in my mind... Did the rewired ferrets - a memory from way back in 2000?

Oh, I know there are plenty of fans of Leibniz — especially in the cocktail 'Leibniz-Whitehead', like this — out there, but sorry: empiricism was right this time. Of course, one can respond to the news in different ways: just accept it — follow the science — or, like Diderot in the Letter on the Blind (for which he got sent to jail; here in a dusty translation), go on to assert a metaphysics in which each sense constitutes a world!

Genealogy of a paracite

I'm calling "paracite" a misquotation that lives on, becoming more popular than the original quotation. This is different from a misattribution, as when people think it was Voltaire rather than Diderot who said "mankind will never be free until the last king is strangled in the entrails of the last priest." A paracite would be more like saying that Shakespeare once wrote "gild the lily," which is more famous than what he really wrote: "To gild refined gold, to paint the lily." 

Here's a philosophical paracite. First, the original quote, by Deleuze, talking about Wittgensteinians, in the transcript / paraphrase of the Abécédaire / ABCs provided by Charles Stivale: 

"W as in Wittgenstein"

Parnet says, let's move on to W, and Deleuze says, there's nothing in W, and Parnet says, yes, there's Wittgenstein. She knows he's nothing for Deleuze, but it's only a word. Deleuze says, he doesn't like to talk about that... It's a philosophical catastrophe. It's the very type of a "school", a regression of all philosophy, a massive regression. Deleuze considers the Wittgenstein matter to be quite sad. They imposed <ils ont foutu> a system of terror in which, under the pretext of doing something new, it's poverty introduced as grandeur. Deleuze says there isn't a word to express this kind of danger, but that this danger is one that recurs, that it's not the first time that it has arrived. It's serious especially since he considers the Wittgensteinians to be nasty <méchants> and destructive <ils cassent tout>. So in this, there could be an assassination of philosophy, Deleuze says, they are assassins of philosophy, and because of that, one must remain very vigilant. <Deleuze laughs>

Whatever you think about Deleuze's views, it's quite clear they pertain to Wittgensteinians, not to Wittgenstein. 

Now here's Lecercle in Deleuze and Language, p. 62:

Deleuze takes every advantage of this, to the point of being unfair: thus Eco is a know-all, Wittgenstein an assassin of philosophy...

Will this become a paracite, that is, will it become more widespread than the original? It will be interesting to track this. 

[UPDATE: T 19 April, 11:55 am CDT: I may be jumping the gun here and / or being unfair to Lecercle. I'd have to go back to the French video and listen to what Deleuze is saying to determine the correct pronoun and thus the antecedent: "ils sont" where "ils" refers to Wittgensteinians or "il est" where "il" refers to Wittgenstein. Does anyone have access to the video and want to make a judgment?] 

[UPDATE 2: W 20 April, 9:55 am CDT: in discussion below, I did find a lecture transcript (link below) where Deleuze accuses Wittgenstein of having "assassinated" Whitehead. Although Lecercle is discussing the Abécédaire, perhaps he has the lecture in mind?]

[UPDATE 3: W 20 April, 9:55 am CDT: Jon Cogburn pushes me to include "parricide" in the series. So we could expand it to read: Paracite (beyond the [correct] citation) / Parasite (on the original) / Parricide (kills the original).]

Good journalism on motivated reasoning research

This article would be a good way to introduce the topic to students and / or non-specialist friends. The author is the excellent science journalist Chris Mooney. Excerpts: 

... an array of new discoveries in psychology and neuroscience has further demonstrated how our preexisting beliefs, far more than any new facts, can skew our thoughts and even color what we consider our most dispassionate and logical conclusions. This tendency toward so-called "motivated reasoning" helps explain why we find groups so polarized over matters where the evidence is so unequivocal: climate change, vaccines, "death panels," the birthplace and religion of the president (PDF), and much else. It would seem that expecting people to be convinced by the facts flies in the face of, you know, the facts.

The theory of motivated reasoning builds on a key insight of modern neuroscience (PDF): Reasoning is actually suffused with emotion (or what researchers often call "affect"). Not only are the two inseparable, but our positive or negative feelings about people, things, and ideas arise much more rapidly than our conscious thoughts, in a matter of milliseconds—fast enough to detect with an EEG device, but long before we're aware of it. That shouldn't be surprising: Evolution required us to react very quickly to stimuli in our environment. It's a "basic human survival skill," explains political scientist Arthur Lupia of the University of Michigan. We push threatening information away; we pull friendly information close. We apply fight-or-flight reflexes not only to predators, but to data itself.

We're not driven only by emotions, of course—we also reason, deliberate. But reasoning comes later, works slower—and even then, it doesn't take place in an emotional vacuum. Rather, our quick-fire emotions can set us on a course of thinking that's highly biased, especially on topics we care a great deal about....

Economism in the higher education debate

The following is not a bad letter to the local newspaper here in Baton Rouge, but analyzing its limitations are very useful. First, the letter: 

Gov. Bobby Jindal is being vilified for imposing necessary cuts to higher education, but most of the governor’s critics have added little to the public dialogue on the important issue of how to fund our colleges and universities.

One writer recently claimed on these pages that Jindal’s actions will raise the cost of higher education. Such arguments are poorly informed.

The governor does not control the (aggregate) cost of higher education, nor would his “draconian” budget increase those costs. It would, however, SHIFT certain costs of higher education from taxpayers to students (or their parents) — a distinction with a difference.

Nobody likes higher prices, but let’s try changing the focus on higher education from entitlement to investment. Higher education is an individual investment as well as a public good, which means its benefits are both private and public.

Consumers of educational services benefit directly by receiving higher lifetime incomes and favored social status. Society benefits because more educated citizens mean higher tax revenue and a lower crime rate.

But neither the benefits nor the costs are divided equally. Louisiana students pay about 60 percent of the cost of higher education, while the state pays the rest. The question no one is asking is whether this 60/40 split is arbitrary or justified.

What is the proper allocation of costs?

In 2006, people with bachelor’s degrees earned 1.86 times that of high-school graduates, a difference that bestows a lifetime advantage of more than $1 million upon the college graduate. At the same time, the average cost of a four-year degree at a public university was less than $43,000. Simple math yields a “naïve” benefit-cost ratio of approximately 23-to-1. The actual ratio will vary for each individual because some of the benefits and costs are highly subjective.

Adding the time value of money and the opportunity costs of forgone wages will likely push the ratio down. But there is a huge cushion in these numbers. They leave us with the impression that higher education is a high-return individual investment; and probably would be even if its entire cost were borne by students.

Budget considerations notwithstanding, the real calamity in Louisiana is not that future students may have to pay more college tuition, but that the state spends more than twice as much per capita on prison inmates than it does on college students.

[name redacted; it's available at the above link]

Now the analysis of the limitations. First, there's no discussion of context: in Louisiana the repeal of the income tax provisions of the Stelly Plan, which hurt state revenues, and the recession, which also hurt state revenues as sales taxes are more volatile than income taxes. 

Second, as readers here will know, I defend a political view of higher education: preparation of the next generation of citizens. There is no necessary conflict with a vocational view. The problem with the economistic letter above is that it can’t articulate what’s at stake in the political view, because of its atomistic presuppositions about what constitutes public and private goods, and, perversely enough, its inability to distinguish populations and individuals.

To concentrate on the last point: the author correctly states that the average payout of a college degree is larger than the average payout of a high school diploma. (We should of course be providing a strong safety net [aka a "social wage"] to make sure non-college-degree holders enjoy a decent standard of living, but that's another story.)  But decreasing state aid and increasing tuition and fees concentrates risks at the individual level (taking on debt to pay for tuition, fees, and living expenses, which may not pay off in the individual case.) Thus poor students have to weigh their individual chances, which may or may not reach the average. (A real question here is the distribution around the average.) So the more tuition rises – and the more volatile the job market becomes for skills obtained at college – the more irrational the choice becomes for poor kids to take on debt for college.

To return to the political question: taking on debt leads to more pressure on vocational choice of major in hopes of paying off the debt quickly. But that puts pressure on liberal arts courses that are seen only as hurdles, rather than as citizenship training (critical thought, historical breadth and depth, and moral sensitivity – think here of Nussbaum on literary study for the last point). An analogy here is with proposals to reduce medical school costs to encourage young physicians entering general medicine, which has much greater public health effects than lucrative specialties.

Life after the repeal of Glass-Steagall

Its repeal was both a symptom of Zombie Ideas and a condition for future (as yet unpunished) crimes, aka the "Global Financial Crisis." Eric can correct me if my terms are wrong, but the Zombie Idea is the Efficient Markets Hypothesis, and the antidote is a renewed neo-institutionalist emphasis on a regulatory framework that changes structural possibilities and structural incentives.

We'll have to see if the damning Levin-Coburn US Senate report results in anything more than hand-wringing. Excerpts from the press release: 

“High risk lending, regulatory failures, inflated credit ratings, and Wall Street firms engaging in massive conflicts of interest, contaminated the U.S. financial system with toxic mortgages and undermined public trust in U.S. markets.  Using their own words in documents subpoenaed by the Subcommittee, the report discloses how financial firms deliberately took advantage of their clients and investors, how credit rating agencies assigned AAA ratings to high risk securities, and how regulators sat on their hands instead of reining in the unsafe and unsound practices all around them.  Rampant conflicts of interest are the threads that run through every chapter of this sordid story.” ...

The Levin-Coburn report expands on evidence gathered at four Subcommittee hearings in April 2010, examining four aspects of the crisis through detailed case studies:  high-risk mortgage lending, using the case of Washington Mutual Bank, a $300 billion thrift that became the largest bank failure in U.S. history; regulatory inaction, focusing on the Office of Thrift Supervision’s failed oversight of Washington Mutual; inflated credit ratings that misled investors, examining the actions of the nation’s two largest credit rating agencies, Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s; and the role played by investment banks, focusing primarily on Goldman Sachs, creating and selling structured finance products that foisted billions of dollars of losses on investors, while the bank itself profited from betting against the mortgage market.