New APPS: Art, Politics, Philosophy, Science

From Newton and Spinoza to Tim Maudlin and Judith Butler (via Russell & Nietzsche)

People do not say that a barometer "knows'' when it is going to rain; but I doubt if there is any essential difference in this respect between the barometer and the meteorologist who observes it.--Bertrand Russell (1923) "Vagueness"

"[Gender] identity is performatively constituted by the very "expressions" that are said to be its results"--Judith Butler Gender Trouble. (33)

In my spare time I am reading Tim Maudlin's  (2007) The Metaphysics Within Physics (recall this) and Judith Butler's (1999 [1990]--I have used the 1999 edition which has an additional, fascinating preface]) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity in seperate, ongoing reading groups. This has led me to notice some surprising similarities. For example, they are both unabashedly concerned with metaphysics, and while they differ in lots of ways, they have a shared target: the idea that metaphysics ought to be articulated in terms of substance(s) with properties (or attributes/accidents); they both dislike universals. Both attribute the metaphysics of substance to an illegitimate "projection of the structure of language onto the world." (Maudlin, 79; compare that with Butler pp. 25-28 [where she summarizes others] & p. 33 [where she speaks in her own voice]). Maudlin aligns his view with Bertrand Russell's position in "Vagueness" (79-80), while Butler traces (33) her criticism back to Nietzsche's famous passage in which he explains how in our metaphysics we are "a dupe of the tricks of language." Russell, who knew his Nietzsche, may well have gotten this line of argument from him (I'll leave that to the scholars). The idea that our inherited metaphysical categories may be a projection arguably goes back  to Spinoza and his famous argument against final causes in the Appendix to Ethics 1. (Perhaps, it is better to say that Protagoras is the grandfather of this whole line of argument?)

The Problem with Identity

Coming to a pause in his arguments in Appearance and Reality, Bradley wonders if the reader may question “whether anything of what is understood by a thing is left to us,” given that at this point Bradley believes that what is generally thought of as a thing has been “undermined and ruined.” In particular, Bradley argues that “for a thing to exist it must possess identity; and identity seems a possession with a character at best doubtful.” (AR, p. 72).

Identity is a problem for Bradley with important, although perhaps unsettling consequences. Moreover, the problem of identity has, as Della Rocca (himself a careful reader of Bradley) shows in a recent article (here), important implications for the 3d’ist/4d’ist debate. I would also add that this was already a problem for Hume (as I’ve discussed here and here) and it is a problem that is critical to understanding Gilles Deleuze’s project.

Maasai Warrior

Following on the heels of John's  post about the extraction and circulation of affect through, among other things, the various sentimental pre-race stories that detail the lives of athletes (and the more troubled the life the better, as in the case of Lolo Jones), I was struck by last night's story of 800 meter great David Rudisha that emphasized his Maasai roots and his Irish expat coach. There's a lot to be said about how this story was presented. A large part of me is troubled by the appeal to base stereotypes of "primitive" African tribal cultures - a sort of National Geographic appeal to the strange and exotic. At the same time, Rudisha himself clearly identifies strongly with his Maasai roots and it carries tremendous affect for him. I suspect Rudisha feels his Maasai identity much more strongly than his Kenyan citizenship. Rudisha is also an exception among Kenyan runners. Rudisha's father, Daniel, was the first Maasai to get an Olympic medal in the 1968 4 x 400 relay, but David is the first Maasai to get gold. Kenyan running is dominated by the Kalenjin tribe (see here). Rudisha's tribesmen had already honored him with the status of Maasai warrior for his world record and will likely shower him with even more honors for being olympic champion (and again in world record time).

Regardless of what one makes of the coverage of Rudisha and his Maasai roots, it is hard not to be in of awe of his race in the 800 meter final. As a former 800 meter runner myself, it is almost inconceivable to imagine running a sub 50 second first lap, only to follow it up with a 51 second finishing lap. But in addition to Rudisha you had two teenagers right on his heels. 18 year old Nijel Amos equalled Sebastian Coe's previously longstanding world record time of 1:41.73, and 17 year old Timothy Kitum was right behind him and also broke 1:43. Even American Nick Symmonds came on strong at the end (as he always does) to come in fifth and with a personal best of 1:42.95. This is the only time five runners in the same race have broken 1:43. 

Now that the Olympics are nearly over, I would place the men's 800 meter final at the top of the list of the greatest athletic achievement of these games. Are there any other nominations for equally outstanding achievements (e.g., Bolt's double double)?

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:

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. 

Repetition

"Say something once, why say it again?" - Talking Heads

At this international Deleuze conference in Kaifeng, China, organized by Paul Patton, I explored the important influence of Hume in Deleuze's own efforts to develop an understanding of repetition. I'll now rework it in preparation for this big event in New Orleans.

Hume's influence is apparent from the very first sentence of the second chapter of Difference and Repetition, “Repetition for Itself,” where Deleuze begins with the Humean problematic, and with what Deleuze calls the “famous thesis” that was the result of Hume’s efforts to address this problem. As Deleuze states the thesis, “Repetition changes nothing in the object repeated, but does change something in the mind which contemplates it…”

As Deleuze sets forth the problem Hume is addressing, we are confronted with a repetitive series, AB, AB, AB, AB, and when we are next presented with A the problem is one of accounting for why we come to expect B when there is nothing in the nature of A itself that would lead us to this expectation. As Hume famously presents the problem in the Treatise (1.3.14), we come after a series of repetitions of AB to have the “idea of a cause and effect, of a necessary connexion of power, of force, of energy, and of efficacy” (T 162). 

The question is why? And this is where Hume's famous thesis enters the picture.

Philosophic Prophecy

“A man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.”—Walden.

"The magnificent cause of being, The imagination, the one reality In this imagined world"—Wallace Stevens

I want to try again at characterizing philosophic prophecy (recall here, here). I introduce the concept, first, by explaining how it relates to two other better known concepts -- the so-called “self-fulfilling prophecy” and the “self-refuting prediction” -- to which it bears a close family resemblance. Then I give a list of ten characteristics of philosophic prophecy (with references to texts that instantiate these). I conclude by contrasting philosophic prophecy to so-called “Noble lies” and “Straussian esoteric readings” with which it can be easily mixed up.

According to the famous sociologist of science, Robert K. Merton, “

“The self-fulfilling prophecy” is “in the beginning, a false definition of the situation evoking a new behavior which makes the original false conception come true. This specious validity of the self-fulfilling prophecy perpetuates a reign of error. For the prophet will cite the actual course of events as proof that he was right from the very beginning.” Robert Merton.

By contrast, self-refuting predictions start out as a true description of the situation that evokes behavior that makes the originally true conception eventually come out false. Self-fulfilling prophesies and self-refuting predictions take it for granted that publicly expressed ideas can have a meaningful effect on the world. In particular, their impact can change the truth-functional status of descriptions of the world. Of course, not all utterances are like this. Planetary orbits are generally not meaningfully impacted by the claims we make about them (although that could change). Even in the social sciences there is a class of theorems that show that there are successful, non-trivial predictions that need not change the underlying system. Let’s leave aside writings that do not impact the subject-matter of which they speak.

Here I focus on a further class of writings that can impact the world. Philosophic prophecies are structurally akin to self-fulfilling prophecies except that they take a merely possible, even improbable conceptualization of a situation evoking a new behavior which makes the original conception come out true, or nearly enough true. To be sure the outcome is a contingent fact, i.e., the existence of a philosophic prophecy is necessary, but not sufficient for an intended outcome.

The Significance of Quine's "Flux of Experience" for freedom with scientific and formal philosophy

Quine's (1948) "On What There Is" is probably my favorite piece in the analytic tradition and not only because in response Carnap mistakenly thought "there appears now to be agreement between us: ("On What There Is," p. 38)." As we learn from Howard Stein's reminiscences, Carnap and his students thought there was no substantial disagreement between Carnap and Quine--little did they know! (It also tells us something about the limitations of contextual approaches to the history of philosophy.) So, if even our Carnap could misread Quine's essay it should be clear that my reason for admiring the piece have, alas, nothing to do with quintessentially analytic virtues of clarity and perspicuity of argument. Moreover, as Jody Azzouni has taught us, Quine's particular criterion for recognizing what our language commits us to is defeasible; even so, there are two substantive commitments worth preserving (or reviving) from Quine's piece: (a) the embrace of multiplicity within scientific philosophy; (ii) the proper role of formal philosophy.

Duhemian General Philosophy of Science VS Gettierized Epistemology (or an afterthought about Bergson)

When in science we measure we dramatically eliminate (as opposed to ordinary observation) our access to huge amount of potential information we can extract from the environment. Even so, as we have learned since the time of Huygens onward this is a price worth paying when our measures are theoretically fruitful (etc). One nice feature of measurement is that (if well designed) it makes observation of one's measurements trivial; so much so that one could, in principle, farm out the whole process of registering the measurements to machines (as is often done now). Observation does no interesting epistemic work in theory-mediated measurements. While there are sciences where observation matters a lot (taxonomy and Marc Hauser's experiments come to mind), for much of science (as in mathematics) it plays no foundational role whatsoever. Those of us working within General Philosophy of Science (GPOS) have known this since Duhem.

This is why Mohan and epistemologists more generally are wrong in thinking that Gettierized Epistemology (hereafter GE) provides the so-called content-general framework with which to evaluate knowledge claims and the status of science more generally. GE mistakenly presupposes that ordinary cognition, perception, and locution matter epistemically in science. Now this is not to deny that GE explores important issues that matter to us citizens on a day to day basis; the recently popular work on testimony comes to mind. (As long as the authority of science does not displace the experiences of ordinary witnesses this remains to be true in law courts.) But whatever special expertise GE has in answering the skeptic is largely irrelevant to thinking about science. Now (as I have remarked before) GPOS, by contrasts, rests on a quasi-transcendental assumption (QTA): if anything counts as knowledge it is fallible science, especially physics (chemistry, biology, whatever), so let's now articulate how this is possible or, more formally, justified. So, GPOS is a in bad position to answer the skeptic, except to remark that within the scientific machinery one is not much perturbed by it.

The submission of Russell's Scientific Method In Philosophy

Jeff responded to my renewed investigations into the origins of the analytic-continental divide; Jeff rightly insisted that Bergson is a kind of proxy for Spinoza, who is ultimately one of Russell's prime targets. Here's Russell on Spinoza:

"The ethical work of Spinoza, for example, appears to me of the very highest significance, but what is valuable in such work is not any metaphysical theory as to the nature of the world to which it may give rise, nor indeed anything which can be proved or disproved by argument. What is valuable is the indication of some new way of feeling towards life and the world, some way of feeling by which our own existence can acquire more of the characteristics which we must deeply desire. The value of such work, however immeasurable it is, belongs with practice and not with theory. Such theoretic importance as it may possess is only in relation to human nature, not in relation to the world at large. The scientific philosophy, therefore, which aims only at understanding the world and not directly at any other improvement of human life, cannot take account of ethical notions without being turned aside from that submission to fact which is the essence of the scientific temper." (On Scientific Method In Philosophy)

Bergson says Spinoza, Russell says Leibniz

 In his nice post on the origins of analytic philosophy, a theme that has been addressed many times at this blog, Eric points out that Bergson was among Russell's principle targets. It is perhaps understandable that this part of the story has been forgotten. The Frege-Russell narrative concerning the origins and legitimacy of analytic philosophy has largely maintained its hegemonic status. Within this narrative, Bergson emerges not only as a  marginal “continental” figure safely ignored by analytic philosophers but moreover he is a philosopher whose influence on the continent was itself surpassed by the phenomenologists (who, such as Merleau-Ponty, rejected Bergson’s vitalism). However, following up on a comment I made on the thread to John Protevi’s post about Adrian Moore’s book, I would push back the genealogy of an important aspect of the continental/analytic divide to the choice between Spinoza or Leibniz. Understood in this way, Bergson, à la the song "Let's call the whole thing off," says Spinoza and Russell says Leibniz. In targeting Bergson, therefore, Russell is ultimately one in a line of many who are seeking to exorcise the specter of Spinoza.

On the origins of analytic philosophy: Russell vs Bergson (and the missing chapter on Adam Smith)

These days when we talk about the 'divide between analytic and continental,' we tend to see it through the lens of Carnap vs Heidegger (or Frege vs Husserl). With the flowering of analytic metaphysics, there is renewed interest in the Russell-Bradley dispute, so much so that among friends of Monism and the Principle of Sufficient Reason it is becoming a trope to consider that analytic philosophy was conceived in sin. But we forget a bit too easily that among Russell's principle targets we find naturalistic, Darwinian ethics and Bergson.

Now the main problem with naturalistic ethics as practiced by Darwinians (and others) is that it ties philosophy too closely to the present content (or "results") of (fallible) science. Russell correctly discerns that doing so binds philosophy to positions that constantly run the risk of becoming outdated. This is why Russell opted for modeling scientific philosophy on the durable methods of science (and confined ethics to non-philosophy). Interestingly enough Russell lumps Bergson with the Pragmatists (and here). In fact, it is Bergson who is treated as the antithesis of the analytic philosopher: he is the paradigmatic "synthetic philosopher."

A Plea for Transparency in Data

Over at Choice & Inference, Jeff Helzner asks for raw Philosophical Gourmet Report data to be made publicly available. He notes that, “The PGR is based on an analysis of certain data sets, but there is often more than one reasonable way to analyze a data set,” and in fact it is now standard practice in the social and natural sciences to make raw data available upon request. Unless there are particular reasons for sequestering its data, it seems reasonable that the PGR should follow suit. The question of transparency of data has arisen in some other contexts recently. Andrew Gelman (to whom Helzner links) writes of the issues surrounding Mark Hauser that if the raw data had been publicly available, those issues would have been resolved quickly. A while ago there was considerable controversy regarding failures of transparency at The "Pluralist's Guide". We have noted the response of editors of major journals in HPS to the lack of transparency at the European Science Foundation journal ranking. In view of these and other recent cases, transparency with respect to data—as advocated by the “Open Data” movement—has become an urgent imperative, especially when the analysis of that data has serious practical consequences. Though in no way implicated in these unfortunate episodes, PGR, just because it has become the most relied-upon venue for the current ranking of philosophy departments, should set a good example by making its data publicly available.

• Eric Schliesser
• Mohan Matthen
• John Protevi
• Jeff Bell
• Catarina Dutilh Novaes
• Mark Lance
• Dennis Des Chene

The Prince of Darkness reads Derrida

In the midst of the numerous comments to Eric’s post on the supposed differences of clarity between analytic and continental philosophy, Reinhard Muskens asked (#110) whether or not “deconstrucion dialectics can be formalized in some way,” to which John Protevi answered that yes, for pedagogical purposes one can discern a three step methodology consistently at work (or play?) in Derrida’s analyses of texts, but as one actually grapples with the texts the deconstructive reading produces “singular effects” (#111) whereby the “formulaic deconstructive dialectic pretty much vanishes” and where it is difficult to discern the “three step approach easily” (#121).

The distinction John is working with here between an abstract methodological rule or dialectic and a material to which this rule is applied, is precisely the distinction that Derrida’s work challenges, though John knows this and was bringing this distinction in for purposes of clarifying Derrida’s project. This is not to say that formalization is ruled out as inappropriate or irrelevant to the project of deconstruction; rather, Derrida is attempting, if you will, to employ a logic of singular effects, or what Deleuze will call, in similar fashion and for similar reasons, a logic of sense. To keep this to an appropriate length for a blog post, I’ll confine myself to two main points about what this logic of sense entails, drawing from two important attempts to formalize Derrida’s project—Graham Priest’s and Paul Livingston’s.

Foucault or Deleuze

I’ve recently been revisiting Foucault's Birth of Biopolitics lectures, a misnomer if ever there was one since much of the discussion is on neo-liberalism and Foucault never actually gets to biopolitics. Regardless, while going through this book again an important connection and/or difference between the projects of Foucault and Deleuze became clear to me, a difference with clear connections to Hume and Adam Smith. A couple of passages should give a sense of these connections.

Why the Bradley/Russell dispute matters

Mohan encountered Bradley's Appearance and Reality at St. Stephen's College in Delhi in the Summer of 68. Perhaps this suggests that the "moral and spiritual mission" of "British imperialism's late phase," with which Bradley's work had been associated (Candlish The Russell/Bradley Dispute, 183) ended late in some parts of India? For anybody interested in Mohan's intellectual trajectory, it might be worth learning more about the intellectual background of The Head of Philosophy at St. Stephen's and the visions with which he (she?) tried to instill in his young recruits to philosophy. It is probably no accident that Mohan encountered Bradley in Delhi and that once encountered, the alternative was Russell for a man with a physics background. For, in his philosophic prophecies, Russell systematically set himself against "Hegel's modern disciples” and as preparing the way for a scientific philosophy (“On Scientific Method In Philosophy”).

Mythology, incommensurability and the Analytic-Continental distinction

Kuhnian incommmensurability is often rejected as silly or false by the very same folk that dismiss, say, Heidegger or Derrida as unintelligible nonsense. [Admittedly the former is less fashionable now (after -- in some sense even more misleading -- revisionary scholarship) that Carnap and Kuhn are said to be in general agreement.] It is possible, of course, that both claims are true, but it never seems to cross the self-confident mind that finding a whole philosophic movement or tradition unintelligible is, perhaps, evidence of the reality of incommensurability.

These thoughts come to me because (due to encouragement by Michael Della Rocca) I am reading Stewart Candlish's extremely clear The Russell/Bradley Dispute. The book provides overwhelming evidence for the existence of shared myths within analytic philosophy (about Bradley). They are, in fact, origin myths. Some of the very best and most interesting analytic philosophers are caught up in these--Candlish provides detailed evidence of the silly, misleading, uncomprehending, and thoughtless things said about Bradley by, say, Ayer, Geach, (my beloved teacher) Linsky, Wollheim, Broad, Grayling, Blackburn, Rorty (when he was still an analytic philosopher) and, of course, Russell and Moore--not to mention many more minor figures. (This is a partial list; Candlish also documents parochial sins of omission.)

Mr. Smith goes to China

Teaching Hume’s political essays this semester is giving me an opportunity to reread a number of essays that have long been among my favorites, and it has reminded me yet again about the important contribution these essays make to political theory. A favorite quote of mine that encapsulates much of this contribution comes when Hume is discussing the “tumultuous governments of Athens and Rome” near the end of his essay, “That Politics may be reduced to a Science,” and he points out that despite the fact these governments ended in ruin, the proper conclusion to draw is that 

…so little dependence has this affair on the humours and education of particular men, that one part of the same republic may be wisely conducted, and another weakly, by the very same men, merely on account of the difference of the forms and institutions, by which these parts are regulated. 

Hume is thus quite adamant in what this entails with respect to governmental institutions and the regulatory apparatus they have in place—in short, it is much more important to have good laws and institutions with regulatory powers than it is to have good or bad people in government. As Hume puts it, “wise regulations in any commonwealth are the most valuable legacy that can be left to future ages.” 

Jeff Bell interview at 3am Magazine

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

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

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

Quote of the day: guess the author

This little quiz is in honor of my fellow blogger, Jeff Bell.

"Anything which possesses any sort of power to affect another, or to be affected by another even for a moment, however trifling the cause and however slight and momentary the effect, has real existence; and I hold that the definition of being is simply power."

Guess the author? Is it Spinoza? Whitehead? Deleuze?

Humean Phenomenology

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post discussing Dorion Cairns’ critique of Sidney Hook’s “impression” of German philosophy, circa 1929. Cairns took particular aim at Hook’s “identification of phenomenology with psychology, a confusion indicated by Mr. Hook’s epithet, ‘logicized psychology.’” Hook, in other words, remained captive to the naïveté of the natural attitude, when it is the task of phenomenology to detail the constitutive acts of consciousness, regardless of the reality or unreality of the objects being constituted. The very notion of a Humean phenomenology may thus appear to be a blatant oxymoron. How could Humean empiricism, with its embrace of the natural attitude, be reconciled with the phenomenological bracketing of the natural attitude?

When one looks at the historical narrative Husserl offered to account for the rationale behind the development of phenomenology, we see that an important part of phenomenology’s impetus was its effort to grapple with a problem that Husserl claimed was discovered by Hume, and a problem that was central to Hume’s own project.

Husserl among the realists

A few weeks ago Eric and I put up a series of posts discussing the history of analytic philosophy, especially the role Moritz Schlick, Ernest Nagel, Sidney Hook, and others play in this history (see here, here, here, and here). Among the essays discussed was Sidney Hook’s 1930 JPhil essay, “A Personal Impression of Contemporary German Philosophy.” A few months after Hook’s essay was published, Dorion Cairns published a short reply in JPhil, “Mr Hook’s Impression of Phenomenology.” Before looking at Cairns’ impression of Hook’s impression, I think it’s important first to place Cairns into his intellectual context.

Philosophy books for non-philosophers

During a Thanksgiving dinner conversation I was asked by someone who knows next to nothing about philosophy what one book they should read in order to get a sense of what philosophy is about. Now I am long habituated to conversations with people unfamiliar with philosophy, and to addressing various questions, but this time I did not have a standard, prepared answer. I did suggest they read either Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance or Plato's Dialogues, especially the Five Dialogues collection, but then I couldn't quickly add to the list, so I am intersted to know what book (or books) others would recommend if they were asked the same question.

Market Value and Aesthetic Value

At a recent sale at Christie's auction house, Andreas Gursky's photograph, Rhein II, sold for a record $4.3 million. The photograph, and some comments, are after the fold.

Problems and Solutions

One way to look at the history of philosophy is as a series of creative acts, or as the history of the simultaneous creation of problems and solutions. Randall Collins, in his hefty The Sociology of Philosophies, offers such an account. As Collins puts it:

The crucial feature of creativity is to identify an unsolved problem, and to convince one’s peers of the importance of solving it. It is typical for intellectuals to create problems at the very moment they solve them. In India the issue of how to escape from the bonds of Karma did not exist until the Buddhists proposed a means of escape. Epicurus made fear of the gods an issue at the same time he propounded a solution to these fears. Kant discovered that science was threatened when he announced a Copernican revolution to end the threat. (p. 80).

I wonder to what extent philosophers in general would accept Collins’ claim, and if so what other examples one could give. Regardless, it would appear, on the surface at least, that Deleuze would second Collins’ approach, for he too spoke of “a history of philosophy that would list only the new concepts created by a great philosopher,” (Empiricism and Subjectivity, ix) these concepts themselves being “connected to problems without which they would have no meaning and which can themselves only be isolated or understood as the solution emerges.” (What is Philosophy? p. 16). Despite this similarity, there is a crucial difference in how they understand the relationship between problems and solutions.

Borg and McEnroe: the proletarian and hieroglyphic styles in tennis

Commenting on Jeff's post from Saturday, I mentioned Deleuze's characterization of Bjorn Borg's tennis style as "proletarian," and John McEnroe's as involving "Egyptian postures." Here are some images below the fold. But above it, this one for fans of early 80s athletic hair. 

Fosbury Flop and History of Philosophy

In 1926 Otto Neurath, writing of the Bauhaus movement and its aspiration to transform social and individual life, argues that the key to the success of the Bauhaus movement, the promise it holds out of entering “the promised land,” will be assured if only we  “will seize upon the formation of the new form of life as a technical achievement.” (cited in Origins of Logical Empiricism, p. 33). A promising future, therefore, is to be ushered in by way of technological advancements and improvements, much as Dick Fosbury, for example, gave to high jumpers a more promising future as a consequence of the technological improvement he made with respect to the belly roll. The Fosbury flop was a technological improvement of such a magnitude that it wasn’t long after he debuted his new style at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics that it was adopted by all other high jumpers (and is still the dominant style today, despite some minor technical improvements in the syntax of the Fosbury style [more on this below]).

 

This story is incomplete, however, for it fails to address the equally important role played by qualitative transformations, a point stressed both by Moritz Schlick and Gilles Deleuze.

Schools and Traditions; or Husserl and Realism, pt. I

In Hook’s survey of German philosophy circa 1930, which I discuss here, we saw that for Hook Husserl’s phenomenological movement (or school) is "the strongest analytical group in Germany and closest to the English and American school of neo-realism." In his follow-up post (here), Eric challenged my claim that Hook had Russell in mind but rather was thinking of “an American movement of scientific philosophers” – namely, Montague, Barton, and others who set forth their platform of neo-realism in a 1910 issue of JOP (and which Eric cites [the essay is here]). I wholeheartedly accept Eric’s claim that this is indeed who Hook had in mind when he refers to the American school of neo-realism, but I’ll stick to my guns that Russell is who is being thought of when he refers to the English school. Eric would probably accept this point, for what he is arguing is that it was only a consequence of Nagel’s successful “philosophic prophecy” which has led us to think only of Russell (and subsequently Frege) and not of the American school Hook also had in mind. Eric’s use of the concept philosophic prophecy to understand the contingencies of the history of philosophy is an important and challenging contribution to those of us who struggle to think through the historical relationships that come to constitute various philosophical “traditions” and “schools.” My only hesitation with this concept is that it seems to rely too strongly on an individualist, or great man, understanding of intellectual history. So when Eric attributes to Nagel the power to determine “The way we think about the origins of analytic philosophy,” or that Nagel was “so successful in recoining the concept “analytical philosophy”…[that most people, myself included] can’t see what he has wrought,” the Foucauldian in me becomes skeptical of attributing such authorial control over consequences. Nagel’s 1936 essay does stand as an interesting testament to the processes of inclusion/exclusion. I will grant that. But an adequate accounting of the eventual success of the narrative that legitimizes these exclusions/inclusions needs to do more than address the prophet but also look as best one can into the dialogue behind the scenes as well as the institutional and structural factors that make some inclusions/exclusions viable and others not. I have already suggested that Nagel was in dialogue with Hook but I would add another, and perhaps even more important example: Morris Cohen, who was Nagel’s former teacher and the author of the influential Reason and Nature: An Essay on the Meaning of Scientific Method (1931) and, with Nagel, An Introduction to Logic and Scientific Method (1934).

Cohen is important not only for the personal working relationship he had with Nagel but also for the fact that in the JOP issue where the neo-realist program was published the essay that immediately follows it is by Cohen, “The Conception of Philosophy in Recent Discussion” (here). One could also say that in this essay Cohen prophesies both the failure of the neo-realist program as well as, by extension, the Vienna Circle program and manifesto the neo-realists anticipate, and Cohen's piece prefigures some of the moves that will come to be made within “continental” philosophy.

On the invention of analytic philosophy by Ernest Nagel (II)

Following the suggestion of Greg Frost-Arnold (as discussed by Catarina), I explored Ernest Nagel as a philosophic prophet who invented analytic philosophy as we know it in 1936. In response, Jeff called attention to an important paper by Sidney Hook. Now, I fully accept Jeff's point that Nagel's two papers are a clear response to Hook. Jeff offers five important observations on Hook's paper in which he tries to suggest that Hook and Nagel (who, as the splendid Melissa Zinkin pointed out, were close friends) were offering a shared response to German philosophy. But Jeff's reading is based on a misunderstanding of what Hook is saying--and the misunderstanding is caused by the success of Nagel's way of framing things. (So much so that Hook's philosophic universe becomes almost unimaginable to us.) To see what I am getting at, let me first quote the crucial third point in Jeff's post, and then show how even a sophisticated philosopher like Jeff becomes less than sure-footed: "3. In his observations concerning Husserl, Hook makes two points that are especially relevant considering contemporary discussions within and outside continental philosophy regarding realism. First, Hook identifies the phenomenological tradition spearheaded by Husserl as "the strongest analytical group in Germany and [secondly] closest to the English and American school of neo-realism." (p. 152). Whether justified or not, Hook sees Husserl as closely aligned with the Russellian tradition in anglo-american philosophy. What is important for Hook's fourth point is that the same is not true of Heidegger."

CC#12: Hook's "Impression" of German Philosophy circa 1930

Continuing with some thoughts and research related to posts that Eric, Catarina, and I have written regarding the history of the continental-analytic distinction (see here, here, and here) and the importance of turning the discussion to methodological differences in order to better understand this history, I stumbled across Sidney Hook's 1930 essay in the Journal of Philosophy, "A Personal Impression of Contemporary German Philosophy". After reading this essay I've concluded it's likely that Nagel's 1936 "Impressions and Appraisals" essay that Eric discusses in his post (linked above) was influenced by Hook's essay.

There are also 5 points I gleaned from this essay that are relevant to recent discussions regarding the methodologies of analytic and continental philosophy.