New APPS: Art, Politics, Philosophy, Science

Sexism in Philosophy, or "The-Everybody-Did-It” (TEDI) Syndrome, or Hiding In The Herd (HITH) mentality

[What follows is based on ongoing conversation with my co-author, Merel Lefevere.--ES]

Institutions (that is, legally or corporately sactioned rules to be followed) can be designed or have been developed for solving particular problems or for particular aims. Yet, in the fullness of time outcomes under these institutions can reveal a pattern of unintended side-consequences. Let's say that one such  unintended side-consequence is the fixation of certain (informal) norms or a pattern of exclusion. If some group (the insiders) benefits from this side-consequence they will sooner or later notice it often before the people who do not benefit from these. Human nature being what it is, often the disadvantaged outsiders are the first to speak up about the unintended side-consequence. The outsiders are at a disadvantage when they do so because if the side-consequence is really harmful they are fighting it with relatively slender resources  while trying to figure out what the hell is going on. One especially pernicious aspect of the toy-example described here is that all the insiders think they have clean hands. While they actively benefit from an outcome pattern, they can always claim that none of them intended it or actively promoted it. So, when individuals are called out on, say, the informal norms and how these facilitate the pattern of exclusion, the more outspoken of the insider will fall back on variants of what we may call "The-Everybody-Did-It Syndrome" or (TEDI). Many other insiders prefer Hiding In the Herd (HITH) and focus on their work, career, etc.

In the real world we find TEDI annd HITH among bankers defending their bonuses even in the face of tax-funded bailouts as much as among academic philosophers defending a shameful pattern of sexual exclusion. TEDI is indicative of collective negligence and, if noticed, it becomes a collective action problem. Short of abolishing the institutions entirely (i.e., revolution, which is always dangerous for its potentially far worse unintended consequences to all), the best that can be hoped for is a change in the informal norms with which the institutions operate. This can happen when enough of the insiders are convinced that it is in their enlightened self-interest to change systematically how the rules are interpreted/applied or to alter the informal norms. Sometimes change comes from moral clarity, but in practice the insiders decide that it is not worth their energy to keep defending a crappy practice (to their peers, tax-payers, etc). The sad thing is that philosophers are no wiser than bankers in these matters.

"Heated Discussion" for boys only in Berlin (@Feyerabend 2012)

[Apologies; I accidentally deleted an earlier version of this post.--ES]

Today I received a call for papers for this conference on Feyerabend (in Berlin) with fourteen (and not as previously reported by me twelve) international keynote speakers. The cfp claims that Feyerabend continues to inspire "heated discussions;" the second (out of two) main aim of the conference is "to promote the pressing issues concerning the nature of  science and its impact on society and how they are structured." One need not be a standpoint theorist to realize that not having women at the main table impoverishes the discussion.

Weekly Philo of Economics: Adam Smith on the Piacular

This week I return to Adam Smith's treatment of the piacular in The Theory of Moral Sentiments (hereafter TMS). Recall the following:

“A man of humanity, who accidentally, and without the smallest degree of blamable negligence, has been the cause of the death of another man, feels himself piacular, though not guilty. During his whole life he considers this accident as one of the greatest misfortunes that could have befallen him. If the family of the slain is poor, and he himself in tolerable circumstances, he immediately takes them under his protection, and, without any other merit, thinks them entitled to every degree of favour and kindness. If they are in better circumstances, he endeavours by every submission, by every expression of sorrow, by rendering them every good office which he can devise or they accept of, to atone for what has happened, and to propitiate, as much as possible, their, perhaps natural, though no doubt most unjust resentment, for the great, though involuntary, offence which he has given them.” (TMS 2.3.3.4)

For the sake of brevity, I stipulate that in Smith if we are part of a voluntary cause-effect sequence then the categories of propriety/guilt and merit/demerit are appropriate (see here). If, however, we are part of an involuntary cause-effect sequence then the category of the piacular (derived from the Latin “piāculum” or propitiatory sacrifice, from “piāre” or to appease) is appropriate—it is predicated of the man of humanity, after all. (In other contexts “the man of humanity” is treated as the right kind of impartial spectator, see especially here, which contains well known criticism of Hume’s notorious treatment of the proper response to a Chinese earthquake; this is not to deny that in Smith the very humane can fall short of proper standard when they lack self-command (etc.).) Even so, as others have emphasized (see, especially Chad Flanders) the response of the man of humanity in the case of being an involuntary cause is in no way faulted by Smith in any fashion. This is connected to a subtle point about Smith’s example above the resentful response of the victim’s family is treated as “most unjust,” even though their feeling is quite “natural.” If the man of humanity had been a voluntary cause of the victim’s death their feeling of resentment would have been just (for an exlanation of this, see here). We are, perhaps, led to think that the feelings of the man of humanity are not so natural—in the sense that most of us (who are probably not regularly men or women of humanity) will mistakenly try to use our lack of culpability or blameworthiness as a way to avoid the feeling of the piacular (I return to this below). Echoing Bernard Williams on this point, if we lacked any feeling about even the involuntary harm caused to others by us, something would be remiss in us. That is to say, we are causes and it is part of our humanity that we ought to understand ourselves as such. (I learned from Keith Hankins that there is a further debate on to what degree this "ought" is a moral ought.) As an aside, this is a most un-Stoic move in Smith’s thought (because the circumstances that give rise to the piacular are completely outside our control; a bit more about this below).

another great piano driven song in 3/4ths time (Natalie Merchant - Motherland)

This song was released I think during the same week as the World Trade Center attacks, which caused many of us to misunderstand it.

maybe you really can hum things that can't be said (Dark, Dark, Dark- Daydreaming)

Just when you are convinced that rock is beyond comatose, someone comes along and writes a lovely song like this.

Spinoza, the Self-Sufficient.

[The following reflections were prompted by a very interesting conversation with a young scholar, Johan Olsthoorn.--ES]

The official Letters by and to Spinoza that were collected in his posthumous works start with a letter from a very important person (The Secretary of the Royal Society, Oldenburgh), and that correspondence segue-ways nicely into a correspondence with Boyle--just about the most famous living scholar of the period. It would be a very surprising if this was the very first letter ever addresed to Spinoza. The Letters also cover only the last sixteen years of Spinoza, life. Spinoza was not very old when he died, but even so it implies that during the first twenty-eight years of his life the mailman never knocked at Spinoza's abode. (That's not a miracle; mail was expensive. But it was also not so uncommon in seventeenth century Holland.) From a note on the back of a letter (Letter 28 to Bouwmeester) that was not included in the original collection (but published later in Van Vloten) we know that not all letters known in 1677 were included in the original collection. It is safe to say that these letters are very much a biased selection. 

Even so, even including the letters found and collected since the publication of Spinoza's posthumous works, we average less than six letters per year during the last sixteen years of Spinoza's life. That's not a lot. (Still no letters have been found, I think, that predate the first letter from Oldenburgh.) Moreover, with one exception, none of the letters from Spinoza initiate a correspondence.  In a few cases Spinoza's is the first letter extant from a correspondence, but in all of these Spinoza is responding to a now lost letter. In these generalizations I leave aside a very brief note to Prof. Graevius in Utrecht (in which Spinoza wants a letter (presumably written by neither Graevius nor Spinzoa) returned so he (Spinoza) can return it to its rightful owner). [I am not claiming this note isn't interesting for the light it sheds on Spinoza's network in the academy!]

We can infer from these letters that Spinoza was remarkably self-sufficient intellectually. He did not seek out others in the Republic of Letters, nor did he sought to fashion himself through these letters. He also does not seem to be very curious about what others are up to in this Republic.  

Brain-teasers and dual-process theories of reasoning

(I’ve been through a ridiculously busy period of work-related traveling and thus scarce blogging, and in the next four weeks I’m supposed to be on holiday, so again scarce blogging. But there is still one topic I really want to discuss before the summer break, so here it is.)

Here are a couple of brain-teasers for your amusement on this Monday morning/afternoon (depending on your time zone):

(1) A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?  _____ cents

(2) If it takes 5 machines 5 minutes to make 5 widgets, how long would it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets?  _____ minutes

(3) In a lake, there is a patch of lily pads. Every day, the patch doubles in size. If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would it take for the patch to cover half of the lake?  _____ days

(Answers below the fold.)

Newtonian Gravity as as action at a distance (you know, a sympathetic process)

One of the main oddities of Newton's Principia, is that Book 3 has a preface that tells the reader that Newton (1643-1727) composed an earlier version of Book 3 that he had discarded.  This work, A Treatise of the System of the World (hereafter A Treatise) saw the light of day (first in Latin then in translation) shortly after his  death. That brief preface to Book 3 also tells us that while most of the first two books of the Principia are strictly mathematical, they include some philosophical scholiums that are not mathematical but most fundamental to philosophy. One of these is presumably the one attached to proposition 69 of book 1, where Newton explains what he means by "attraction" (that is, any endeavour of bodies to approach one another); Newton is very explicit on a number of possible mechanism that could be the cause of this endeavour and remains agnostic among them. Even so, in the Principia's Third Rule of Reasoning (added to second edition), Newton insists that gravity is a universal quality of bodies, but denies that he is asserting that it is an essential quality.

This has led to one of the enduring (and recently very lively) controversies in Newton scholarship: how to interpret Newtonian attraction. Is (a) the whole mathematical framework just a useful calculating device to predict the behavior of moving bodies [this is Berkeley's view--McMullin more recently]; a related interpretation is (b) that the force of gravity is nothing but a projection of the human mind [i.e., as Yoram Hazoney has taught me this is Hume's view in the Treatise];  others affirm (c) that attraction is something real, but we don't know what it is except that we can discern its consequences [this is Clarke's view in his debate with Leibniz--it is also one defended by Andrew Janiak]; for much of his life Newton himself inclined to (d) that attraction is the consequence of the workings of an ether [as Newton suggests in the queries to the Optics]; but sometimes Newton encouraged his readers to think (e) that attraction is the product of God's constant will [a view defended by Westfall] or (f) that it is a quality superadded to matter by God at creation [Newton's contemporaries read Newton's correspondence with Bentley this way--John Henry has more recently defended this view]; on the other hand, the able editor of the second edition of the Principia, Cotes, argued in his preface (h) that gravity is an essential/primary quality of body [Kant endorsed this--and so does Howard Stein]; based on a reading of the A Treatise I have argued (and here in exchange with Hylarie Kochiras) that when Newton drafted the first edition of the Principia (when he most doubted the ether explanation), he thought that (i) gravity is a relational, non-intrinsic quality of matter that is the product (now quoting A Treatise) of "the conspiring nature" of both bodies in the interaction. (This interpretation allows one to account for a lot of other things Newton says about gravity in his published writings.) Given that my interpretation does not seem to have had a historical precedent in the reception of the Newton, it can easily seem like a modern rational reconstruction. Consider now this passage of William Gilbert's (posthumous, 1651) De mundo nostro sublunari philosophia nova:

A puzzle for evolutionary aesthetics: the evolutionary basis for our appreciation of the sublime

Stephen Davies, an insightful philosopher of art (with specialism in music and naturalistic approaches in philosophy of art) has just written a wonderful book, The Artful Species. Aesthetics, Art, and Evolution, forthcoming with OUP. This book presents an evolutionary approach to art behaviors and aesthetic sensibility. What is particularly interesting in this book is that Davies attempts to link approaches in evolutionary aesthetics to more classical approaches in philosophy of art.

For example, the 18th century aestheticians regarded two qualities as primary: the beautiful and the sublime. As Davies notes, evolutionary approaches to art and aesthetics (EAAA) have payed a lot of attention to the former, but almost nothing to the latter. To explain why we find some things beautiful, EAAA examine the fit between properties and our evolved nature. Classic examples can be found in sexual selection theory, where aesthetic appreciation of physical traits is explained in terms of the fact that such traits reliably signal fecundity in potential sexual partners. Evolutionary approaches to landscapes, similarly, propose that we like park-like landscapes that are congenial to hominids, with animals, trees for shelter but still good visibility, and water in proximity (my picture from the beautiful Blenheim palace grounds is an example: these gardens were designed by "Capability" Brown in line with principles that EAAA would predict).

Evolutionary explanations of art can account for why we find this beautiful...

Brazilian music on Fridays: Alceu Valença

I'm off to Brazil tomorrow for four weeks, which means: frantic packing day today; BMoF will go on recess, as last summer; I'll restock on all kinds of new sounds for when I come back. For today though, I'm posting a couple of songs by Alceu Valença, a great singer and musician who mixes the traditional styles of his home state Pernambuco with electric and electronic instruments. He's been active since 1970s, thus belonging to the glorious generation having emerged in that period. I'm posting the two songs by him I like best, 'Belle de jour' and 'Tesoura do desejo' (in a duo with singer Zizi Possi), and what is perhaps his biggest hit, 'Morena tropicana' -- all very appropriate for the summer!

Draft of Difference and Repetition section of SEP Deleuze article

As noted a few days ago, Dan Smith and I are revising our Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Deleuze. We are completely rewriting the Difference and Repetition section. Here is the draft. Some of the technical terms we use (e.g., "virtual") are discussed in the preceding section of the piece. 

This kind of reference article is very tricky to write. You have to be technical enough for the specialists and yet accessible for interested non-specialists. So we'd be very grateful for suggestions for additions, deletions, clarifications, expansions, and so on, either here in comments or by email.

----

3.1 Difference and Repetition

Deleuze's historical monographs were, in a sense, preliminary sketches for the great canvas of Difference and Repetition (1968), which marshaled these resources from the history of philosophy in an ambitious project to construct a "philosophy of difference." Following Maimon's critique, which we mentioned above, Difference and Repetition produces a two-fold shift from the Kantian project of providing the universal and necessary conditions for possible experience. First, Deleuze wants to provide an account of the genesis of “real experience” – the experience of this concretely existing individual here and now – and second, to respect the demands of "philosophy of difference," the genetic principle must be differential so that the conditions of the genesis of an individual cannot themselves be individuated.   

Subtle conflicts of interest in Book Reviewing

The genius of NDPR lies in the way it consistently provides competent reviewers for a very high number of books published in philosophy on a daily basis. In doing so it functions as one of the main pillars of quality control in the discipline. By providing fair and critical reviews on a wide number of topics approached from (nearly) all philosophical traditions it also functions as a check on the pervasive buddy system within philosophy. I try to start each working day by reading their interesting reviews--I learn a lot, and I am constantly amazed by philosophy's diversity today. It impressive how long and successful NDPR has been at providing this essential service to philosophy. It's a constant cause for celebration! The Guttings and their editorial board deserve praise for providing (what the economists call) this valuable collective good.

Of course, like all human institutions NDPR is imperfect. For example, a few months ago, I posted some reservations on a review that seemed to be written by somebody a bit too close to the Kripke-circle (I quoted the author's own admission about that). Today, I noticed that a book was reviewed by a post-doc in the same (European) institute as the author of the book under review. In Europe a post-doc is not really an 'independent contractor,' but subtly dependent on his/her institutional sponsors. This seems to me the kind of conflict of interest that NDPR would do well to avoid in the future. (It is quite possible that in this instance when the reviewer was approached, there was no such conflict of interest. Even so, that is just an argument for finding another reviewer.) Such a policy would prevent bland reviews and would also block many of the unpleasantries involved when a junior scholar must review his or her indirect paymaster.

Is the future of professional philosophy in applied ethics?

After working Stateside and the Netherlands, ever since I moved professionally to Ghent (201o) I have come to think I have a better grasp of the future of philosophy. While enrollments certainly play a significant role in long-term staffing decision, a good portion of our research funding comes from (i) block-grants that reward scientific 'output'; (ii) individual grants to (a) research groups and (b) individual researchers. The grants under (ii) also reward past and prostpective scientific output. During my job interview with the Research Council of my university (note, not the philosophy department!), I was told that if I were to be hired I should change my publication strategy (which had been informed by considerations of visibility and prestige as well as desire to see things in print quickly) and focus on refereed journal articles. (Turns out in Flanders that primarily means journals listed in Web of Knowledge.) Along the way, I have had to re-learn how to write focused articles for journal publication. Given (ii) I now understand myself, in part, as akin to a Lab-Director, who spends a considerable part of his time on grant-making and recruiting talent primarily for the research group I belong to, but also for the wider department/university. It's a zero-sum game, after all. To give you a sense of what is at stake: In addition to my own grant (which funds a cushy salary and low teaching load), I have seven Phd students on a variety of grants working with me. (That represents about two million Euros in taxpayer funded grants.) Of course, this also means that my most valuable skill is the ability to project an image of future scientific output; do you know your H index number? I am also no stranger anymore to all the problems that scientific labs encounter--folk that put names on papers they barely contributed to; I have learned that the interests of Lab, which needs publications, and PhD students, which need intellectual development and viable career paths among other things, don't exactly coincide.

One important way in which 'output' is measured is by publication in high impact journals which brings me to today's inbox. I received a kind note from Springer about "a list of the highest impact journals," in its philosophy portfolio. Like it or not, Springer is an important publisher philosophy (just go to the ESF list or the recent top-20 as compiled by Brian Leiter). It does not have a monopoly, of course, but Springer matters in a lot of important philosophy niches (recall the brouhah over editorial policies at Synthese.)

Below the fold Springer's top six journals with their impact factors (IF). Five of these are in applied ethics and one is in philosophy of biology. Given that funding decisions 'follow' impact factors in the increasing number of places where funding for philosophy research follows bureaucratic rules that aim to reward scientific excellence (not to mention perceived social utility), it stands to reason that we should see an ever increasing specializing shift toward applied ethics. 

An interview with John Corvino

Dan Savage interviews John Corvino (a one-time most underrated).

Savage introduces the interview as follows:

John Corvino is the co-author of a new book, Debating Same-Sex Marriage, with Maggie Gallagher of the National Organization for Marriage. It is the first and, without a doubt, the last book in the whole sordid history of books that will be blurbed by both me and Rick Santorum.

Stebbing Vindicated: on technical expertise as a criterion in being the useful subject of attention

Mohan wrote a useful follow up to my post on the unjustly forgotten Susan Stebbing. Before I get to the core of my response to Mohan's post I want to prevent a potential confusion. Mohan suggests  "it is a pity that historians of analytic philosophy don’t give her more airtime." Well, as some commentators on my post noted, historians of analytic philosophy DO write about Stebbing (and this is how I explained how I came to know of her work). My claim is, rather, that even if we leave aside Stebbing's fascinating treatment of Spinoza, reading Stebbing can be instructive to us (by which I mean professional philosophers today): (i) by reminding us that not all early analytic philosophy was fundamentally anti-Metaphysical; following up the work of Moore and Wisdom (etc), Stebbing is developing and theorizing the tools of analysis in order to offer a distinctly analytic account of metaphysics; (ii) I call it distinctly analytic because it anticipates in rudimentary and non-trivial ways the orientation of the program of David Lewis.  (Of course, I don't want to overstate the claim--modality is not driving Stebbing's approach.) This matters even if there is no line of influence. (iii) Stebbing's understanding of the continuity between Bradley and Russell is a useful corrective to a lot of narratives within the disipline. 

By contrast, Mohan claims that Stebbing's "lack of technical expertise in the key tropes of analytic philosophy (Russell's theory of descriptions, no less) meant that it was not very useful for later generations to read her work." At the end of this post I say something about the criterion that Mohan applies here. Now Mohan offers a bunch of examples of Stebbing's lack of "technical expertise." Dan Kervick has usefully challenged Mohan's examples. Now while I have a healthy admiration for Mohan's technical chops (around NewAPPS I am among the techno-ignoramuses), I want to develop Kervick's points a bit. I do so in reverse order (because all my comments turn, in part, on what Stebbing means by "refer.") Mohan writes:

'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 Scotch is before you. Please don't drink.

From the American Philosophical Association's "best practices" for journals (available, rather oddly, on Google Docs):

Since many philosophers post their papers on the web prior to submitting them for publication, referees are often able to identify authors by a web search. Referees should not attempt to identify the authors of papers they are refereeing.

Discuss.

A more serious complaint: instead of recommending that authors be allowed to self-archive their work without restriction, the APA comes up with the mealy mouthed: "Journals should make clear to authors what their policies are about post-acceptance and post-publication posting of their own articles." This is, at best, only technically consistent with the earlier exhortation that "journal editors should, in general, be willing to consider articles released to pre-print archives."

Why Was Stebbing Overlooked?

Susan Stebbing was an important philosopher, and it is a pity that historians of analytic philosophy don’t give her more airtime.

This acknowledged, the piece that Eric points to in his thought-provoking post on Stebbing is a good example of how not to get airtime. In this piece, published in 1932, she makes an important distinction between

• analysis for the purpose of showing how (and that) we know something, and
• analysis for the purpose of showing what is metaphysically basic and simple. 

This extremely important distinction was not well-known at the time, perhaps not known at all. (She seems to attribute the metaphysical kind of analysis to G. E. Moore: I find this extremely implausible, but perhaps Moore experts can chip in.)

Unfortunately, Stebbins didn’t have the tools to make the point clearly and adequately, and even more unfortunately, she misunderstands some of the tools that were already available at the time.

Test whether you are under 20

You may be familiar with this sound. It can allegedly be heard only by people under 20. The sound is very high pitched with a sine wave of 18,000 Hz. If you can hear it, your hearing is like that of a teenager. Use it as a ring tone on your iPhone, if you don't want to get those embarrassing calls in the middle of talks when you forget to turn off your phone. If you can't hear it, don't worry, you can still make good use of it. Play it really loud in  your front yard to keep those annoying teen thieves away from your house. Here is the link.

Susan Stebbing: The History of Metaphysics at the Dawn of Analytic Philosophy

From this point of view metaphysicians are apt to seek for an indubitable datum. Descartes, for example, saw clearly the need for such a datum. Whatever one may think of the success of his efforts, it will probably be admitted that his procedure was correct provided that the aim of metaphysics be to provide reasons for our commonsense beliefs. Curiously enough, it is Descartes, rather than Spinoza who has shown most clearly the futility of a constructed system. Spinoza, so it seems to me, used the form of a deductive system in order to exhibit his vision of the universe. I see no reason why he should be dismayed by the charge of circularity; there is no reason why he should not wrap up in his definitions and axioms all that he desired to bring forth from them. For Descartes, however, such a charge, if it could be substantiated, would be fatal.--Susan Stebbing (69).

One of the great scandals of analytic philosophy is our utter ignorance of our history. Long after my  graduate education I encountered Susan Stebbing´s name for the first time in Mike Beany´s writings on early analytic. (But don't try looking for Stebbing in Soames.) Stebbing (1885 – 1943) was a crucial organizational figure in the movement (she helped found Analysis, brought Carnap to Cambridge for the first time, etc) and important popularizer. (Stebbing is useful to those who wish to tell an alternative to my stories (and here) about Ernest Nagel as Prophet of Analytic Philosophy.) Even so, here I focus on her because she was arguably the first significant theorist of analytic philosophy and the method proper to it. In particular, it is astonishing that Stebbing's (1932) master-piece, "The Method of Analysis in Metaphysics," was (I believe) never properly anthologized in the early readers of analytic philosophy.

Now, Stebbing (and her critic, Max Black) worked hard at explicating what the technique and method of philosophical analysis amounts to. What is crucial is that long before Strawson, Benardete, and Kripke-Lewis, a pre-eminent analytic philosopher had articulated (on the basis of deep reflection on Russell and Moore) how one should think about the marriage of analytic philosophy and metaphysics, which according to Stebbing "is a systematic study concerned to show what is the structure of the facts in the world to which reference is made, with varying degrees of indirectness, whenever a true statement is made." (65) For Stebbing metaphysical analysis had a direction toward the precise understanding of absolutely simple elements (that are taken to exist). Now Stebbing insisted on a distinction between logical analysis and metaphysical analysis. Black denied the distinction and offered a deflationary model for philosophy, which is primarily interested in the "structure of sentences rather than with fact." (258) Black seems to have won the day initially (although I think he misunderstands Stebbings position as uncovering facts rather than the structure of facts), but either way from our post-Lewisian vantage point, Stebbing seems most prescient. (Black ridicules the very idea of an analysist being able to describe basic facts.) We can understand Lewis' natural properties as giving Stebbing her cake (Lewis and Stebbing share a deep respect for common sense and natural science) with little loss of...ahum...simplicity. 

The “Claudine Tiercelin Affair” Part I: Philosophical Nationalism at the rue d’Ulm, an Open Letter from Jacques Bouveresse to Le Nouvel Observateur

[Note: This is the first of four guest posts by Mark Ohm. ]

Here is one of four follow-ups to Jon Cogburn’s link to the translation of Raphaël Millière’s wonderful essay on the recent history of analytic and continental metaphysics. As I will be writing my Master’s thesis on the revival of metaphysics in France, in addition to being committed to and proposing a number of translation projects over the next few years (including translating and editing the ATMOC mirror site), I thought that I’d share with non-Francophone readers a rather disturbing exchange that took place last summer in France, which Millière refers to in notes 154 and 157 of his essay.

For lack of a better term, I will call this the “Claudine Tiercelin Affair.” I do so not in order to project the clichéd image of France as a place that feeds on polemics and scandal, but rather because I believe that the letter, article, blog post, and interview are relevant to the numerous (and sometimes heated) discussions on New APPS and in the philosophical community more broadly over the past few years apropos the divide, sexism in the profession, the pluralist’s guide, the PGR, and, more recently and particularly, Cogburn’s posts on unearned contempt and monolingualism in the profession (or what might translate into what Bouveresse calls “philosophical nationalism”).

Before sharing Bouveresse's letter let me provide some background on Tiercelin and what prompted Bouveresse's letter.

Chumbawamba calling it quits

Statement here

I had it in mind to write something interesting about bands that take politics and organizing seriously, but I'm just too tired - at least locally, and perhaps globally.  So I'm going to quote Chris Crass, from his fb post that brought the news to me.

"The greatest anarchist pop/punkie band of all time, Chumbawamba, have ended after 30 years. Their impact has been epic. The CD of their First 2 albums was one of the most important political education experiences of my life. They were working class artists actively involved in organizing and movement building. Thank you Chumbawamba for all you have done. The last song on each album - Invasion and Here's the rest of your life were anthems. "Organize, here's the rest of our lives!""

I'll just add that to have had this effect on someone like Chris - look him up; check out his work! - is worth more in my book than most anything accomplished by most any pop band. And Chris is far from alone in the sentiment.

Translation of Raphaël Millière's "La métaphysique aujourd’hui et demain" ("Metaphysics Today and Tomorrow")

Translation (by Mark Ohm, with the assistance of Leah Orth, me, and Emily Beck Cogburn) HERE.

The paper is Millière's inaugural piece for the Atelier de métaphysique et d'ontologie contemporaines. Anyone interested in the history of metaphysics and anti-metaphysics in continental philosophy (as well as contemporary accounts of what exactly metaphysics and ontology are) will need to read Millière's canonical discussion.*

It's a very weird sensation when something you helped to translate ends up being much better English language philosophical prose than anything you've ever penned yourself.

[*The whole ATMOC project is a philosophical gem. Millière's piece is the first publication that we've translated as part of our putting up an English language mirror site HERE. This is just the very beginning of an on-going anglo-continental metaphysics collaboration, since ATMOC will start up again next spring when Millière is back from NYU.]

Sports Sunday 8: Federer, art, and sport

It's worth reading (or re-reading) this 2006 David Foster Wallace article on Roger Federer in light of today's Wimbeldon final. As we've talked about Deleuze and sport previously (here, here, and here), I just want to make a short note here to say that Deleuze and Guattari's treatment of art in What is Philosophy? doesn't work with sports and to suggest what we need to do to supplement their account to handle sport. First, the video, then below the break, the analysis. (Do yourself a favor and mute the sound. The commentary here is more stupid even than usual.)

Why did a Christian philosopher of religion convert to Hinduism?

This is one of those cases where google autofill can surprise you. I was googling "Michael Sudduth", the name of a well-known philosopher of religion, to find a particular paper of his, when google autofill provided me with "Michael Sudduth apostasy" and "Michael Sudduth hinduism". Intrigued, I followed these links and found out that Dr. Sudduth has converted to hinduism in late 2011 - early 2012. I know Sudduth's work quite well, especially his 2009 monograph The Reformed objection to natural theology (published by Ashgate) that aims to combine Reformed epistemology with natural theology.

According to Sudduth himself, his conversion to hinduism has two components. While teaching a world religions module, he found himself more and more interested in classical hindu texts, such as the Bhagavad Gita. This was followed by powerful religious experiences (of Krishna) and a near-fatal car accident. He explains the process in a Facebook open letter to his friends. Since this letter is widely circulated on the internet, I will post parts of it here as well, at the end of this blogpost. 

What I'm interested here now is not so much Sudduth's conversion, but the reactions this got on Christian blogs. Unsurprisingly, most of these were negative, see e.g., here. Looking for causes of his conversion they appealed to the following factors 

Julian Young Case Makes the Chronicle of Higher Education

We have been following with keen interest the story of Mark Anderson and Daniel Blue’s criticisms of Julian Young’s Nietzsche biography. (See these posts: 3^rd July 2011, 11 November 2011, 12 November 2011, 14 November 2011, and 11 June 2012.) Anderson, it will be recalled, found disturbing parallels between some passages in Julian Young’s book and a biography published by Curtis Cate.  Daniel Blue noted as well that in addition to these borrowed passages (which form a relatively small portion of Young’s book), Young leans heavily on Cate’s work.

Young imported two kinds of material from Cate. Obviously, there was the duplication of language, which Anderson has noted and Young has acknowledged. But this was not just a question of stylistics. Cate’s language summed up research and distilled hours spent in the libraries. This labor was Cate’s, and in the process of repeating his words Young implicitly annexed these findings as his own.

Now (July 2^nd, 2012) the Chronicle of Higher Education has run a story on Anderson’s exposé.  (You can’t read the story online unless you subscribe; library subscriptions have a moving wall of one month.) The Chronicle is quite cautious in its treatment of the case, but we were struck by the following passages:

One of the main things that bothers me is that Curtis Cate was a serious man, who wrote a serious book," says Mr. Anderson, who recently earned tenure. "And it wasn't paid much attention to when it was published." Cate, a Paris-based editor at The Atlantic, also wrote books about George Sand and Napoleon's incursion into Russia. He died in 2006. When Mr. Anderson first came upon the parallels with Mr. Young's book, he wrote to Cate's publisher and his agents but was unable to generate any interest. Now that he's made his case, he says, "he lack of response from the broader scholarly community is strange to me."

Elinor Ostrom, Policies that Crowd out Reciprocity and Collective Action

Eric recently paid tribute to Elinor Ostrom (here and here). I thought I'd take up the relay and post some notes I made on an article of hers: "Policies that Crowd out Reciprocity and Collective Action." In Herbert Gintis, Samuel Bowles, Robert Boyd, and Ernst Fehr, Moral Sentiments and Material Interests: The Foundations of Cooperation in Economic Life. Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2005: 253-275. (There's a PDF version here, on the page for a course on Evolution and Biology of Morality I've been teaching fairly regularly.)

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Ostrom begins by reviewing evidence for strong reciprocators, which contradicts RCT's assumption that rational egoists (utility maximizers driven only by external rewards / punishments) are the only type of agent that needs to be modeled to account for social behavior. Thus we need to model different ratios of strong reciprocators and rational egoists and how those ratios change over time given different conditions.

Brazilian music on Fridays: Arthur Maia, king of the bass

My friend and former colleague Bruno Verbeek keeps complaining that I only (or mostly) post ‘old stuff’ here at BMoF. He’s right of course, I am rather partial towards the 1970s… So last week on Facebook he asked me what I thought of the song ‘Laranja’, by the singer Maria Gadú; he was particularly impressed by the bass playing on the song. Maria Gadú is a young ‘rising star’ who has been heavily promoted by Caetano Veloso – and as I said to Bruno on FB, whenever Caetano Veloso decides that someone is going to be big, that someone IS going to be big. She’s good, no doubt about that, but maybe not as good as some people think she is.

Anyway, my reply to Bruno was that the bass in the song reminded me a lot of the Djavan songs of the 1990s. I was intrigued, and as it so happened I had the Maria Gadú cd in question at home. So I went to check: bingo! In the 1990s, Djavan’s bass player was Arthur Maia, internationally acknowledged as an absolutely terrific bass player; it’s fair to say that he’s one of the best bass players in Brazil of the last decades. Having attended countless Djavan concerts in the 1990s, I've had the pleasure of seeing Maia perform live many times -- lucky me.

You probably know where this is going: the bass player in ‘Laranja’ is none other than Arthur Maia himself! There you go… So, here is ‘Laranja’, to make Bruno happy, and then ‘Boa noite’, a Djavan song of 1992, where Maia’s talents are made abundantly evident. His solo work is pretty amazing too, so go check it out if you like what you hear here.

Does lack of plausible alternatives for a given hypothesis count as non-empirical evidence for that hypothesis?

In the recent excitement on the discovery of the Higgs boson, and the accompanying relief that the standard model, at least for moment, holds, I had to think about a paper by Dawid, Hartmann and Sprenger, published online earlier this year. They examine whether or not a lack of plausible alternative explanations to a given scientific hypothesis - in spite of our best efforts to come up with them - could be a form of non-empirical evidence. They argue that scientists often make arguments of this kind "despite our best efforts, the only hypothesis to reasonably explain E is H. This very fact counts as evidence to support H". This they dub "the no alternatives argument" (NAA).

Happy Belated Independence Day!

Reading the comments on my Higgs boson and American UnExceptionalism post, I was struck by the assumption made by some commenters that everybody, no matter where in the world, was aware that yesterday was American Independence Day and that every allusion to American values or American prestige made yesterday was an attempt to mark it.

The CERN announcement made it onto television news yesterday. Perhaps that was no coincidence and the European scientific establishment was gloating. If so, it was lost on me.

And, dear reader, I hope your first response to what I just said was NOT: "But this is an American blog. It's a reasonable assumption in context." It isn't and it isn't.