New APPS: Art, Politics, Philosophy, Science

An appreciative Remark on Derrida

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

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

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

six more days to apply to Pittsburgh Summer Symposium in Contemporary Philosophy

THIS is going to be awesome, a week studying Schelling with Iain Hamilton Grant and Jason Wirth, both great on Schelling as well as Schelling's relevance for contemporary debates.

Ayn Rand trolls C.S. Lewis in the margins of her copy of "The Abolition of Man"

It almost certainly reflects badly on me in all sorts of ways that THIS has made my week. 

Wow. Just wow.

Attempted reductio of the journalistic norm of "objectivity"?

Today, in the NYT, we have a story entitled Turin Shroud Going on TV, With Video From Pope.  In it, we learn "On Good Friday, a Piedmont company, Haltadefinizione, introduced a new app, Shroud 2.0, which features images of the cloth along with scientific and theological interpretations prepared with the Diocese of Turin and the International Center of Sindonology. Sindonology is the scientific study of the shroud[!]."

Women working in philosophy of language

As you may have seen over at Feminist Philosophers, Derek Ball has started a list of women working in philosophy of language. It's still very incomplete. Please add suggestions here in the comment section or edit the document online.

please tell me that the zombie apocalypse was not scheduled for today

Spending this Good Friday hunkered down in my office trying to work on a paper on object oriented ontology and hermeneutics that Mark Ohm and I are giving at the Subverting the Norm II postmodern theology conference next week.

It's weird. The building is locked, but people keep trying to come inside. So over and over again I hear people yanking violently on the metal doors. Should I let them in?

Brazilian music on Fridays: 'Saidera'

I’m in San Francisco for the APA at the moment, thankfully with good internet connection but very little time for anything other than socializing, ahem, I mean, attending interesting philosophy talks. I was tempted to skip BMoF this week, but then someone came to me this afternoon to say that he’s a big fan of BMoF (sorry, I didn’t catch your name!). So thanks to this kind soul, there will be BMoF this week after all…

 I’m posting a song by the band Skank, who started out as a ska/reggae band but in the meantime has experimented with different styles. This song, ‘Saidera’ (meaning: one for the road, the last drink of the night), is from their 1998 album Siderado. It’s all very pop-ish, but in my opinion very enjoyable – I danced to this particular song countless times back in the day. I haven’t been able to find the full studio version of this song, so here is a partial version and below a live version.

And now, on to give my talk!

A brief question for MOOC fans

Why do you think MOOCs will lower tuition?

They might lower production costs inside the university,* but previous means of doing that (increasing ratio of adjuncts vs TT faculty) haven’t resulted in reduced tuition (far from it). Instead the increased “profit” from cost savings has been kept in-house. Why should we expect the alleged savings from MOOCs to be treated any differently?

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

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

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

Gushing over Libertarians

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

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

Scruton on hope, truth, and same-sex marriage

The latest The Stone column is by Roger Scruton, with the suggestive title ‘When hope tramples truth’. There is not much to disagree with regarding his apparent main point, namely that we all prefer to hear good news over bad news, and that we have a strong tendency to seek confirmation for the beliefs we already hold rather than to actively look for dissenting opinions. In particular, the phenomenon of confirmation bias (and other similar cognitive tendencies) has been extensively documented by psychologists. So far, the piece is just trivial. (It remains nevertheless sound advice that, to counter confirmation bias, looking for counterarguments to the thesis one wants to establish is quite effective -- as philosophers know all too well but do not always practice.) 

But of course, Scruton has a non-trivial (and controversial) point to make, concerning his own ‘worry of the month’ (see the wikipedia entry for some of his other worries), namely same-sex marriage.

Optimists have therefore united to promote this cause, and, as is so often the case, have turned persecuting stares on those who dissent from it, dismissing them as intolerant, “homophobic,” “bigoted,” offenders against the principles of liberal democracy. Of course the optimists may be right. The important fact, however, is that hope is more important to them than truth.

Who's mocking whom?

If you have a minute to kill, take a look at the 1/16/12 cartoon in this Tumblr. Is it mocking the laziness and stupidity of cartoonists for grinding out yet another Al-Gore-in-a-snowdrift cartoon about "global warming" [sic]? If so, then does its inclusion show that the Tumblr compiler is too stupid to know he or she is being mocked? Or is its inclusion a nudge-is-as-good-as-a-wink-to-a-blind-horse that the whole series is a mockery?

A common fallacy in deciding on graduate schools.

Decision time for undergrads choosing a grad school is fast approaching, and I want to comment on a fallacy that I hear commonly repeated both by candidate students and by professors.  

Call for Nominations: Distinguished Woman Philosopher 2013

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

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

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

Please e-mail all nominations to Rochelle Green, ESWIP Distinguished Woman Philosopher Award Secretary ([email protected]) no later than April 1, 2013.

Perhaps the worst thing about co-editing a book on Dungeons and Dragons. . .

is that this guy 

ends up writing your amazon reviews.

By far the best is the one by John Kavaratis, who carefully enumerates our sins, which include (1) using feminine singular pronouns, and (2) apparently being too stupid to know that fantasy and horror are distinct genres. I can't get too het up though. There's a Simpson's comic book guy inside of all of us.

A Darwinian dilemma for the theist who accepts evolutionary theory

I've been recently reading some work by theistic philosophers and theologians who accept evolutionary theory. They seek to interpret scripture in such a way that it is compatible with the evolution of humans and other animals. One promising recent strategy is to read Genesis 1-3 through the theology of Irenaeus rather than through Augustine, trading one patristic author for another. Here, I want to examine whether this is a reasonable strategy for the empirically-informed theist.

Brazilian music on Fridays: Krig-ha, Bandolo!

Georgetown philosopher Bryce Huebner informed me via Twitter yesterday that he was listening to Krig-ha, Bandolo! (1973), the legendary first solo album by the legendary Raul Seixas. (I was convinced that I had already written a BMoF on Raul Seixas, but now I can’t find it, so probably not then.) In turn, Bryce was reminded of the album by Boston University philosopher Aaron Garrett – great to see all these philosophers with such exquisite musical taste! So to ensure that Krig-ha, Bandolo! becomes even more popular among my fellow philosophers, here are two of its classics: ‘Mosca na Sopa’ and ‘Metamorfose Ambulante’. The whole album is quite experimental, with psychedelic undertones. ‘Mosca’, for example, mixes capoeira beats with classic rock’n’roll (mixing Brazilian regional beats with rock is a constant theme in his music).

Raul Seixas died prematurely in 1989, but remains extremely popular among Brazilian hippies, psychedelics, mystics, rockers etc. Every year on his birthday (June 28^th), legions of fans throw a parade in his honor in Sao Paulo. It is perhaps hard to appreciate the significance of his music out of this broader context, but I bet many other philosophers will follow Bryce and Aaron’s lead and become Raul Seixas enthusiasts. Raul was himself very interested in philosophy, with a clear mystical bent. It is perhaps also worth noticing that one of his main collaborators early in his career was Paulo Coelho -- yes, that Paulo Coelho. Some of Raul's greatest songs were co-written with Coelho (e.g. 5 of the songs in Krig-ha, Bandolo!); well, I guess it's fair to say he should have kept it to song-writing... Anyhow, without further ado, here is Raul.

What is Philosophy?

Over the next several months or  more I will be writing a book on Deleuze and Guattari's What is Philosophy? The answer they give to the question, "what is philosophy?" is simple enough: "philosophy is the art of forming, inventing, and fabricating concepts." (2). Unpacking this definition, of course, is not nearly as simple, although a few pages later Deleuze and Guattari begin the process by differentiating philosophy from art and science:

In fact, sciences, arts, and philosophies are all equally creative, although only philosophy creates concepts in the strict sense...Nietzsche laid down the task of philosophy when he wrote, "[Philosophers] must no longer accept concepts as a gift, nor merely purify and polish them, but first make and create them, present them and make them convincing." (5, citing Will to Power §409)

In future posts I'll discuss this further, but for now I'm interested in other answers to the question, "what is philosophy?" Below the fold I have added one from Russell and another from Heidegger. Feel free to add to the list.

hyperprofessionalism versus the cult of genius

I'm going to abuse my prerogatives as a blogger here and, instead of posting this as a response to Berit's nice meditations and the resulting discussion HERE, start another top level thread.

First let me note that I think the worries about problems caused by hyperproffesionalisation in the commenters are not without basis. However, I have equally valid worries about the romantic cult of genius that seems to me to infect professional philosophy. There are just so many ways that pursuit of the great is the enemy of the good.

Here are four:

The Euro on the Brink

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

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

Can we please put an end to our elitist biases?

Kukla had an excellent post over at Leiter Reports a few days ago about whether the tendency to pursue an MA before your PhD is a good thing or a bad thing for philosophy as a profession. I think this is an important question but I must admit that I found many of the comments (or unintended implications of the comments) enormously puzzling (if not straightforwardly offensive). At some point during the debate there seemed to be somewhat of a consensus that if you pursue an MA after your bachelor's degree before pursuing a PhD, then your chances of becoming a great philosopher (as opposed to a good philosopher) are greatly diminished. Some commentators did offer reasons for thinking this (whereas others didn't), but I must admit that I didn't quite understand those reasons.

plea for help with Vonnegut citation

I"m putting the finishing touches on a paper that Mark Ohm and I are writing for the Subverting the Norms II conference on postmodern theology (among other cool things, our first chance to see John Caputo), and I'm flummoxed by my inability to find a passage from Kurt Vonnegut.

Some background- In the paper Ohm and I argue that even one were to categorize the Bible as a work of fiction, this doesn't justify reading it like the "Jefferson Bible," denuded of supernatural aspects. The manner in which we argue this comes from thinking of fictions as thought experiments (a view initially suggested by Mary Sirridge, developed recently by Eva Dadlez in terms of ethical thought experiments, and more recently generalized as a model of truth from fiction in terms of physical thought experiments by Mark Silcox and myself).

Sider's "Knee-Jerk Realism"

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

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

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

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

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

The beginning of the Euro's End?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A St. Patrick's Day Wish After The Steubenville Rape Case

The judge handed down a guilty verdict in the Steubenville rape case today. The sentences are fairly short, as the perpetrators are juveniles. It seems to me that justice was done.

Desiderata for formal theories of truth

I have a fairly technical post over at M-Phi on desiderata for formal/axiomatic theories of truth, picking up on some ideas I discussed in a NewAPPS blog post of two years ago. My feeling is that it is a bit too technical/specific for cross-posting here at NewAPPS, but do check it out if formal theories of truth is what you like to read about on a Sunday afternoon!

political music for this day

Here is a song by David Rovics that tells the story of some noble and actual Irish history that is worth keeping in mind on this day based around green beer and, shall we say, a questionable historical figure.

Remember it, Jake, even if it is Louisiana

Louisiana has some much bizarre crap -- consider the horror show that is the K-12 voucher program, or the outrageous private prison industry -- that I'm often tempted to cite the last line of Chinatown.

But not this time, with this sordid bit of adminstrative overreach that provides another HE "canary in the coal mine" example: 

In the Summer of 2010, the administration of Southeastern Louisiana University announced the closure of its French program and the dismissal of three tenured faculty members, Margaret Marshall, Katherine Kolb and Evelyne Bornier, among the most highly regarded professors on campus. In violation of University guidelines and AAUP standards, the program closure was determined without consulting the faculty concerned. Nor did the program, in fact, close: French courses are still being taught; a French minor is still offered. In further violation of University policy and AAUP guidelines, these courses are being staffed by instructors, who, in cases of program closure are to be dismissed before tenured faculty. 

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

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

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

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