On the Contrast between Mythical and Mistaken History...(yes, it's Thomas Nagel again).

Let's distinguish between Mythical history (Myth) and Mistaken history (Mish).

• Myth uses narratives about the past to indicate conceptual linkages among (various) and within natural and social kinds.
• Mish contains factual errors about the past.
• It's possible that Myth = Mish; but Myth need not be Mish (nor does Mish always need to be Myth).

In reflecting on the public and private responses I have received to my criticisms on Thomas Nagel's abuse of history (here and here), I realize I need some such distinction. (In particular, I thank Mazviita Chirimuuta for making me see what's at stake here!)

Myth and Mish are both compatible with (i) messy history, that is, one that suggests the past is (always more) complex and ambiguous (etc.) and (ii) clean history, that is, one that extracts some determinate claim about the way it was (other than being messy). In practice, Myth tends to be clean (but, say, Foucault practices the genre, in part, by being very messy). Mythical history (be it Mish, clean, messy, or not) is philosophially interesting because it can structure how we think about the world and the way we conceive of the nature of the the problems at hand (or overlooked).

So, when I charge Thomas Nagel with offering  a mythical history, it's not because he offers us an original-sin account of modern scienec. (Recall: "The scientific revolution of the 17th century, which has given rise to such extraordinary progress in the understanding of nature, depended on a crucial limiting step at the start: It depended on subtracting from the physical world as an object of study everything mental – consciousness, meaning, intention or purpose.") I am not against a moralized understanding of history. After all, sometimes there really were original sins (e.g., the destruction brought to Native Americans by European settlers that led to the founding of the United States; slavery and the Declaration of Independence [fill in your favorite examples], etc.) The presence of an original sin account can be, of course, an important, heuristic signal to question if we are being told mythical history.

Given that I do not object to moralized histories of philosophy, I also do not object to the fact that Nagel's account offers us a tragic account of history: his (Absolute Conception) account implies that the very success that science may have had is intrinsically tied to subtracting mind (etc.) from consideration. Of course, not all original sin accounts end in tragedy, sometimes there is redemption, after all (e.g., Lincoln at Gettysburg (recall)).

So, the problem with Nagel's account about the relationship of the methods of science and our interest in understanding the mind is also not that he gets some facts wrong about past (natural) philosophers. While it can be no fun to be the subject of a gotcha moment (I know--it's an occupational hazard now that I blog), philosophers shouldn't fear the be wrong about the past. (Of course, it's bad to be willfully wrong about the past.) I happen to believe that Nagel's Absolute conception projects an inherited, late nineteenth century conception of science (post Helmholtz, Comte, Darwin, etc.) back onto the scientific revolution. But that's not what's problematic.

Rather, Nagel's tragic, original sin account suggests that it is intrinsic to the science(s) we have inherited that mind (etc.) is subtracted from them. And, that, I claim relies on an impoverished understanding of what science once was, and can be and is, thus, Myth. (Nagel ought to welcome this claim--given his naturalistic project.)

Why does recycling/relying on Myth matter? If one does not recognize Myth for Myth one may also be blind to those structures, concepts, commitments (etc.) that stabilize and reinforce Myth, and that means one is far less likely to get a chance to improve upon it.