New APPS: Art, Politics, Philosophy, Science

Review of Williamson's Tetralogue

By Catarina Dutilh Novaes

(Cross-posted at M-Phi)

I've been asked to write a review of Williamson's brand new book Tetralogue for the Times Higher Education. Here is what I've come up with so far. Comments are very welcome, as I still have some time before submitting the final version. (For more background on the book, here is a short video where Williamson explains the project.)

============================

Disagreement in debates and discussions is an interesting phenomenon. On the one hand, having to justify your views and opinions vis-à-vis those who disagree with you is perhaps one of the best ways to induce a critical reevaluation of these views. On the other hand, it is far from clear that a clash of views will eventually lead to a consensus where the parties come to hold better views than the ones they held before. This is one of the promises of rational discourse, but one that is all too often not kept. What to do in situations of discursive deadlock?

Timothy Williamson’s Tetralogue is precisely an investigation on the merits and limits of rational debate. Four people holding very different views sit across each other in a train and discuss a wide range of topics, such as the existence of witchcraft, the superiority and falibilism of scientific reasoning, whether anyone can ever be sure to really know anything, what it means for a statement to be true, and many others. As one of the most influential philosophers currently in activity, Williamson is well placed to give the reader an overview of some of the main debates in recent philosophy, as his characters debate their views.

Is there some kind of Aristotelian mean for NDPR reviewer intrusiveness?*

When I write a longish review, I put most of my work into having the piece work well as reader's guide, keeping my own views to myself as much as possible until the end. But since I've signed up for an e-mail subscription to the Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (just go here to get it), I've noticed that this practice is by no means uniform. Consider the beginning of Bruce Russell's recent review of James Sterba's From Rationality to Equality:

In this book James Sterba sets out to answer two central questions in moral philosophy: (1) Why be moral? and (2) What does morality require? (see Sterba's Preface and Introduction, esp., pp. 1-2). He understands (1) to be the question (1a): Are we always rationally required to do what we are morally required to do? However, I think the fundamental question is (1b): Is there always most reason to do what we are morally required to do? I may be rationally required to take a pill that I have overwhelming epistemic reason to believe will save my life when I am really not dying and the pill will actually kill me (imagine some doctor wants me dead and has presented me with conclusive evidence to make me believe that I am dying and that the pill is my only hope for survival). But in this case what there is most reason to do is to refrain from taking the pill even though the rational thing to do is to take the pill. I think what we want to know when we ask, "Why be moral?" is whether there is always most reason to do what is morally required. We want to know whether it is necessarily true that there ismost reason to do what is morally obligatory, not whether it's necessarily true that we are justified in believing that there is most reason to be moral.

I worked hard to try to figure out what Russell meant here, and then was frustrated to find that the phrase "most reason" doesn't occur in the review itself.

On a Beautiful Review

This is a beautiful review. It is clear on technical issues; it is very critical, albeit respectful. It is informative to experts and non-experts alike; the formal apparatus is used to provide clarity not to create an esoteric, gated garden. It calls attention to unexplored alternative positions, and does so not just to keep scholarly score, but especially in order to illuminate the philosophical possibility space. It also contains a touch of wicked humor. (I return to that below.)

Note that Takashi Yagisawa (the reviewer) does not offer a detailed summary of the book; it is, thus, not balanced. Readers have to trust his judgment that he has focused on the central issues that are relevant to the community. Only competent readers of the whole book can decide, thus, if the review is fair. For some, the lack of summary may be a fatal flaw. Such people think that the main duty of a review is to tell people what's in a book. While that is important (which is why judicious summaries are often part of great reviews), it need not trump other considerations of the sort mentioned in the first paragraph. 

On philosophical echo-chambers

I am optimistic about the potential of the powers-based approach, but I see its major barrier to success to be bridging the gap between itself and other systems, or at least, clearly situating itself with respect to the dominant dialectic. Many advocates of more traditional approaches see the powers-based system as operating within its own philosophical universe and making little contact with the existing framework. This hurts both sides: powers-based theories are only taken seriously by those antecedently friendly to them, and prevailing approaches do not benefit from the theoretical resources of the powers approach. At the same time, using the tools of the more dominant strategies would benefit powers-based theories, as some of their key concepts (properties and substances, to name a few) remain underdeveloped. Clearly connecting powers-based theories to the traditional Humean framework will open up greater theoretical resources for both sides.--Sara Bernstein reviewing at NDPR. [Letters added to facilitate discussion.]

This quoted passage is the closing paragraph of Bernstein's very informative and stimulating review. (What follows is in no sense criticism of Bernstein.) I read Bernstein as identifying the "traditional Humean framework" (i.e., Lewisian metaphysics) as the more "dominant" approach to metaphysics at present. I read her as describing the "powers-based" (i.e., a neo-Lockean or, more accurately, neo-Aristotelian) approach as the weaker party. Let's stipulate that Bernstein's judgment on the relative strength of both parties in analytical metaphysics is accurate (see also Troy Cross's recent reviews, here and here). Even so, her review raises some uncomfortable questions about the state of the discipline. Here I focus on three features: (i) the existence of sub-disciplinary echo-chambers; (ii) who gets to decide who should respond to who; (iii) the benefits, if any, of philosophical engagement. 

On Reviewing and Publishing Senior figures

McKenzie's review of McGinn's book raises three distinct, larger 'issues:'

(1) How much incivility in reviewing is still acceptable?

(2) Do Oxford UP and other prestigious academic presses apply different 'rules' for 'senior' figures?

(3) McGinn.

Let's ignore (3), really. When I mention him in what follows, it is only to discuss (1-2).

In my opinion (2) is the more important issue because it gets at the political economy of our profession. For, let's be clear; McGinn and OUP are not isolated cases. Here are some other examples: today I read a polite, albeit devastating review of a book by Strevens (Harvard UP) that recounts a whole host of problems, including "failure to reference properly the remarkably rich research tradition." All the reviews of McGinn's 'triple' (see the links in discussion) make clear that he was permitted to allow himself to systematically ignore ongoing discussions in pertinent areas of scholarship. Whatever one might think of Nagel's Mind and Cosmos, however enjoyable and provocative, one cannot accuse it of generous engagement with informed, alternative views.

McGinn, when in glass houses...

Colin McGinn is a famously polemical reviewer. Yet, when he gets administered a taste of his own medicine (recall), he resorts to name-calling: "absolutely hysterical, ad hominem, and completely devoid of any sense of critical decency."[HT Wayne Myrvold] I leave it to readers to judge this "hysterical."

In his rage he seems to have misread McKenzie's review.  He falsely claims (without evidence) that "She pours scorn on my contention that physics is epistemologically limited in important ways—that physicists (and everyone else) are deeply ignorant of the intrinsic nature of the material world. She contrives to make it sound as if this view is an eccentricity dreamt up by me alone." If true, this claim would be astounding because McKenzie is a product of Leeds philosophy--one of the strongholds for views that (in some of their guises) deny knowledge of intrinsic nature of the world (see here). Of course, McKenzie does no such thing. Rather, McKenzie claims that (a) McGinn does not engage with folk who anticipate versions of such views and (b) that he misrepresents the existing discussion; moreover, she reveals that (c) his sole citation to contemporary work in the area is mangled. 

Obviously, one can debate the merits of extremely polemic, uncivil reviews. But when in glass houses...

Some boys should not try their hand at the metaphysics of physics

Kerry McKenzie explains.

On Praising Kripke

Analytical philosophers are a notoriously argumentative, sometimes savage, bunch, except, apparently, when it comes to reviewing Kripke. In particular, at Stanford ca 2012-3, they must really like their Kripke. NDPR's latest review of Kripke's Collected Papers (by Mark Crimmins) does not quite match the hagiography of this earlier one (by Alexis Burgess) [recall my post], but it comes close. Here's a choice quote: "The reader's delight will grow as hints are dropped that there is a great deal more to come in this series being prepared by Kripke and an ace team of philosopher-editors at the Saul Kripke Center at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York." 

Yet, the oddity of this review is that in between praising Kripke's "gems," "greatest hits," and "lastingly important contributions," the reader is left wondering what exactly the contribution of "newer essays"  by Kripke is meant to be.

I have never met Kripke. I enjoyed Naming and Necessity, and I understand, I think, why some of his papers "spawned literatures so large that even all of your basement shelves, cleared of the antique house paints, could not hold them." But, folks, it is 2013 not 1983. If I hadn't learned not to project my own rhetorical tricks onto others, I would guess that his purported admirers are praising Kripke in order to bury the legacy.

Recycling Sexist Stereotypes in Philosophy of Science.

These are all general merits of the book, which make it refreshing, stimulating, and well worth the reading time of Joe the Philosopher of Science (not to mention Joe the Doctor). In addition, the prose is clear and lively.--Alex Broadbent, Philosophy of Science, Vol. 80, No. 1 (January 2013), pp. 165-6.

I am all for clear and lively prose, especially in reviews. But  "Joe the Philosopher of Science" and "Joe the Doctor" is inappropriate language for a professional review in a leading journal. It recycles stereotypes (cf. stereotype  threat) without any philosophical benefit, or economy of prose.

Moreover, 'Joe the doctor' is also a terrible statistical generalization. In the US women were 47.0% of all first year medical school students in 2010-2011 and women are 45.4% of all residents/fellows. In Britain: women doctors will outnumber men by 2017. Finally, there is a very a good chance that when Prof. Broadbent needs medical care in South Africa his physician will be female. My unsolicited advise, don't call her "Joe," Prof.[*]

 

[*] My wife is a surgeon, so maybe I am not impartial observer here.  

Note to narcissistic reviewers: start a blog!

It is difficult to make a genuine contribution to philosophy. It is also not always easy to spot a genuine contribution to philosophy and be confident about the source of the contribution. Reviewers play an indispensable role in our shared evaluation of ongoing professional research. Unlike many other forms of  evaluation (tenure reviews, referee reports, bar-talk, Q&As, etc.), they are part of the public record. Reviews can also help maintain and articulate standards, and, perhaps, catch and prevent professional malfeasance. (This is not to deny the many other roles that reviews can play!) 

Reviews should be informative and fair by conveying the content of the book reviewed with particular focus on the contributions to the literature and the strength or weaknesses of the argument. (Obviously, the reviews that are most entertaining to read have a distinct point of view.) Some -- often senior males -- abuse reviews in order to share their views on some topic without being informative or fair. (Recall this post.) In such cases the book review becomes an excuse to share one's views to a philosophical audience without having to deal with pesky referees. (We have blogs for that!) For example,  Jeffrey A. Barrett uses his recent review to offer his take on the broader issues in the philosophy of quantum mechanics. He does so by a clever ploy: he praises the volume ("This is an uncommonly good collection of essays on the metaphysical foundations of quantum mechanics") and, especially, singles out for praise the "fifty-page introduction to the topic by co-editor Alyssa Ney." Yet, he offers no evidence that he has grappled with the other chapters. (He seems to have read Valia Allori's chapter.) Rather, we get a kind of 'meta' reflection not irrelevant to the volume, but also not quite engaged. This is a great shame because given his expertise, I would have been very curious about what Barrett has to say about the chapters under review; it's an exciting field, and it would have been very welcome to hear how an acknowledged expert evaluates the various pros/cons of the proposals on the table.  

Comment on gender and race imbalance in authorial choices for Oxford Handbooks

At the end of a laudatory* review of The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Phenomenology the reviewer makes the following point about gender and race imbalance** in authorial choices for Oxford Handbooks:

Second, OHCP contains twenty-eight essays, but only three of them are authored by women. Unfortunately, the low percentage of women contributors (or co-contributors) isn't a peculiarity of this particular volume. After glancing at the table of contents of forty-five Oxford Handbooks in philosophy, I found that fewer than 20% of contributions are either authored or co-authored by women.

On Patterns of Exclusion when we focus on "Significant Figures"

In his excellent (because informative, generous, yet critical) review, Nick Wiltsher writes:

Thus, though avowedly not a historian's history, this is still a history of sorts: an unabashed example of great-man historiography, and I emphasise the gendered term here. The 16 selected philosophers are all men, and the four-page index of names includes about a dozen women. It might be that all the significant thinkers in European aesthetics in the last 200 years were men. More likely, it might be that conceptualising a history of anything in terms of 'significant figures' leads us too easily into consideration of canonical males. This may seem a dreary complaint, but it is only dreary because it keeps being made, and it keeps being made because it is important. I am not at all accusing Wicks of sexism or misogyny; rather, the invitation is to consider the possibly deleterious effects of apparently innocent approaches, and the alternative effects a different approach might have yielded...Wicks is quite right to choose the philosophers who fit his thematic focus [i.e., "the socio-political uses to which art and aesthetic theory may be put"--ES], and the book is all the better for having such a focus. The problem comes where Wicks selects thinkers who do not obviously have a great deal to say on the theme, and tries to force them to say something about it....It is almost as if Wicks felt compelled to include chapters on these significant philosophers, and then further compelled to fit them to the theme. Again, he writes well about their ideas, but those ideas seem out of place. Conversely, some of the philosophers Wicks includes bear obvious relevance to his theme, but less obvious relevance to the subject of aesthetics."

A better model for refereeing?

In comments Roberta Millstein calls attention to this referee process:

Biology Direct operates on an open peer-review system, so each of the reviewers' comments accompanied by their name will be reproduced alongside the article, if published. The journal aims to publish all manuscripts that have attracted sufficient interest of Editorial Board members to result in 3 reviews. The reviews may be highly critical of the work or even outright negative, which in itself does not preclude publication should the authors decide to proceed. However, the reviewer also has the option to recommend rejection of manuscripts that have no scientific substance, or do not meet the standards of a scientific work.--Biology Direct.

I have long advocated this approach and I hope a philosophy journal emulates Biology Direct so we can judge how it works before long!

On the Wright Method

"My one complaint with the volume is that several of the contributors seem to have recycled earlier work, rather than coming up with anything new. This issue is hardly particular to the present volume, of course, and in general editors and referees acting on behalf of presses should be doing more to ensure that contributors are offering genuinely new material to volumes that aren't anthologies of previously published work."--Aidan McGlynn.

I would add reviewers to McGlynn's list of folk that need to do more to ensure that "contributors are offering genuinely new material to volumes."

Anyway, the lines above are the conclusion of McGlynn's excellent review. It's never easy to review edited volumes, especially Festvolumes. But McGlynn manages to offer a nice balance of useful summary and critical commentary. Moreover, at various places the review manages to convey a personal appreciation of Crispin Wright and an insider's look behind the scences at the way Wright does philosophy:

"As for Wright's replies, their format allows them to capture something of his present modus operandi, which involves collaborative engagement with a number of seemingly disparate topics, looking for unexpected points of overlap between them. The distinctiveness of this approach is often largely lost by the time its outputs make it into print, but interestingly that hasn't happened here."

No more reductiones!

Brown's second argument is essentially an "all hell will break loose" argument: if mathematics needn't be accountable to philosophical standards of rationality, then it might as well be speculative theology! At this point, Brown assumes that theology obviously doesn't get hold of the truth, and so any philosophical account of math that makes it seem like theology must be absurd. Not only is this argument an insult to the careful thinking of theology-friendly philosophers such as Robert Adams and Alvin Plantinga...--Hans Halvorson reviewing James Robert Brown, Platonism, Naturalism, and Mathematical Knowledge.

I have been hesitant to write about this because "speculative theology" and the name "Plantinga" are so polarising at the moment. Yet, Halvorson's rhetoric here strikes me as dangerous for our community. For, (a) if there are careful thinkers defending or working on, say, X, Halverson's position seems to imply that any reductio toward X becomes insulting to these particular careful thinkers defending or working on X. (Or something like that.) Call (a) the "Halvorson move." The whole glory -- maybe it is a problem? -- of analytical philosophy is that our methods and tools can be used to do careful and serious work on just about any X. The reason it is dangerous is not (although it may occur) that the Halvorson move will have a chilling effect on philosophical exploration--no more reductio! (I am not unsympathetic to the abolishment of reductios.)

This may be the worst review of 2013

Graham Oppy is "Professor of Philosophy, and Head of the School of Philosophical, Historical and International Studies (SOPHIS) at Monash." He is "Chair of Council of the Australasian Association of Philosophy" and "elected Fellow of the Australian Academcy [sic] of Humanities in 2009." So, I was very surprised by this unprofessional and self-absorbed review. For, he uses almost 2,000 words (out of a 2100 word review) to offer a taxonomy "not directly addressed anywhere in the work under review" in order to provide us with the mere assertion that, "while not denying that there has been an increase in serious activity in philosophy of religion, I am sceptical that there has been any movement at all in the first kind of project that I have identified." (The first project is "the 'neutral' assessment of competing worldviews in terms of global theoretical virtues -- simplicity, fit with data, explanatory scope, predictive accuracy, and the like.") Oppy then concludes with an entirely gratuitous list of authors who wrote "some outstanding chapters," including one from which he says he "learned many things that I am now pleased to know."

Let's grant that writing a review of (yet another) Handbook is no easy task; one often doesn't have space to even summarize all the chapters and, even if one did, mere summary is not the fundamental aim of any review worth having. Reviews play a crucial role in maintaining standards in a field, for explaining to the community what a book is about and at whom it is (primarily) aimed (a non-trivial issue with Handbooks), and what contributions it makes or should have made, etc. A review of a handbook also allows one to evaluate the 'state of play' in an intellectual community. There is a lot of room for different approaches to reviewing a Handbook, of course. Yet, Oppy's pontificating review does not meet the minimal standards for reviewing.

The review is a disgrace to NDPR.

Reviewer welcomes newfound confidence...

"Refreshingly, and in stark contrast to the essays in the recent Metametaphysics anthology (Chalmers, Manley, and Wasserman (2009)), most of this anthology's essays confidently assume that ground is a vital and respectable notion."--From this review.

"This book should not have been published."

This review by Jill Vance Buroker concludes with: "This book should not have been published because it adds nothing to the literature. It is difficult to imagine a Kant specialist recommending its publication."

The review looks fair to me because it offers a whole number of arguments for the conclusion. (I have some minor quibbles, but I am no Kant expert.) While I might not have used those exact words, I believe that critical book-reviewing plays an essential role in the discipline's quality control. What do readers think? I prefer signed comments on this one.

Book reviews and gender distribution in edited volumes

(It is usually Eric’s job to comment on noteworthy features of various NDPR reviews, but this time he’s having technical issues with his computer and thus asked me to cover this one.)

Besides the underrepresentation of women at conferences and other academic events, here at NewAPPS and elsewhere we also talk about the possible negative consequences of all-male volumes (see an old post by me on this here). Now, one is starting to see comments on the gender distribution of volume line-ups also in book reviews, such as in this excellent DNPR review by Alisa Bokulich (Boston University) of The Continuum Companion to the Philosophy of Science, edited by Steven French and Juha Saatsi.

A second, problematic feature of this volume is that out of 20 contributors spanning the entire philosophy of science, there is not a single female philosopher of science included. While this omission may be understandable for a very small collection on a highly specialized topic, it is more difficult to excuse for a volume of this size and breadth. While I am sure this was an unintentional oversight, it is part of a disturbing larger pattern within the philosophy of science, and philosophy more broadly. Such omissions are particularly troubling when it comes to pedagogical works, such as this Companion, that are designed to help recruit the next generation of philosophers of science. These volumes then become not only a symptom of this problem, but also part of its source, by giving the impression that the philosophy of science is not a field to which women make significant contributions.

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.

McGinn's bullshit

[VIa Kris McDaniel on Facebook.] This brilliant review is worth reading in all, but here is a choice-quote: "At times, [Colin] McGinn seems aware of the improbability (or “boldness”) of his claims. He assures us that he puts this theory forward only because “I know of no other theory of the origin and function of disgust that seems to me even remotely plausible.” In a book with all of fourteen citations, only one of them written by a scientist active in the last century (Paul Rozin), it’s little wonder that McGinn is so flummoxed." --Nina Strohminger (a graduate student by the way).

An irresponsible reviewer can still be interesting

This review by the great Elijah Millgram is utterly irresponsible--it makes no effort to review the contents of the volume reviewed. It manages to mention as many Mighty Dead (Nozick, Williams) as chapter contributors, whose contributions are not discussed (with the exception of Carol Rovane's position). But this is not to deny that Millgram's narrative does not call attention to what I take to be an important issue:

Our present ways of thinking are what is reconstructed by conceptual analysis, and it appears that they do not equip us to handle the urgent practical demands faced by a society of experts and specialists [who do not share conceptual frameworks--ES]. Consequently, the solution to the philosophical problems posed by recent technological and economic development will not be provided by conceptual analysis: a methodological shift of key will be needed, to inventing new solutions to new problems, as opposed to retelling and clarifying the old solutions our ancestors devised to older problems long ago.

"Regrettable" and "Equally inexplicable"

Is the reviewer being too polite here? Or does the restraint make the message even more clear?

Precisely because this volume is likely to be widely read and used, however, it is worth critically reflecting both on its construction and on the tradition of political philosophy it represents. In particular, some commentary on the choice of thinkers and topics for a book claiming the authoritative title "Political Philosophy in the Twentieth Century" is inevitable. In the introduction, Zuckert lists a number of thinkers who "could and perhaps should have been included," (p. 15) among them Simone de Beauvoir. Beauvoir's inclusion would have assured some direct reflection on the question of gender, as well as served as a marker of one of the most fundamental social and political developments of the twentieth century, the dramatic challenges to traditional gender roles and the expansion of women's rights and participation in politics. That a chapter on Beauvoir was not included is indeed regrettable.

Equally inexplicable is the exclusion of any sustained engagement with questions of race (indeed, no thinker primarily concerned with race even makes Zuckert's "B" list of should-have-been-includeds). Insofar as race was one of the central, constitutive components of twentieth-century politics and the central pivot point for civic activism and debates over social change in the postwar United States, this exclusion is impossible to justify. Further, insofar as one of the main uses of this text will be (as noted above) to allow different parts of the political tradition to speak to one another, it would have been a great virtue if the volume had slightly broadened the conception of what it is to do political philosophy by including a social theorist like W.E.B. DuBois, Oliver Cromwell Cox, or Frantz Fanon -- or alternatively, an essay focused on the rich discussions of the meaning of democracy and by extension the political condition found in mid-century African-American authors such as James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, and Richard Wright.

Readers are invited to suggest authors for inclusion, and / or to discuss how "political philosophy" is conceived such that the choices of this volume are possible.