[This is a second post in a series of posts about doing philosophy in English as a non-native English speaker (the first post is here. All posts in this series will be reachable by clicking on the category "EFL Philosophers" at the bottom of the post; please see here for a disclaimer to all the posts in this series).]
Let me start with a little thought experiment for philosophers who are native English speakers (we are philosophers---we love thought experiments, right?), as, I suspect, some have never thought about this before. Suppose that, tomorrow, all international philosophy journals announce that they will only start accepting only submissions in Spanish (or French, or whatever language you have learned in school as a second language (if you happen to be bilingual, don't cheat---pick a language you are not a native speaker of!)). Your career (and, possibly, your livelihood if you don't have tenure yet) still depends on publishing in those journals and so does your ability to disseminate your work to a wider international audience.
What would you do? You probably would still try to publish in those journals. But how hard would be for you to write a philosophy paper in Spanish (or substitute your non-native language of choice here)? And how likely would it be for your paper to get accepted? Sure, you learned Spanish in school but you are far from being fluent (lo siento, mi amigo/a, pero esa es la triste verdad) and around the world there are many philosophers whose first language is Spanish and who write beautifully and fluently in Spanish without much effort and, as good as your Spanish might be it will never be as good as theirs and, even if it were, it would still be much harder and more time-consuming for you to write as well in Spanish than it is for them.
As you are engaging in this thought experiment, it's a good time to remind you that the Dunning-Kruger effect is a widely confirmed and extremely pervasive psychological phenomenon and you are probably overestimating both your proficiency in Spanish and your ability to get your Spanish-language papers and books written, published, read, and cited.
If you think that this little thought experiment is unrealistic or unfair, we can change the story around a bit and we can suppose that the Soviets won the Cold War and that Russian is the language in which philosophy is taught and communicated internationally. You attended a prestigious PhD program in Moscow and have had a chance to improve on the Russian you had learned in school back in your home country (be it the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics of North America or the the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics of the British Isles, or the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics of the Australia and New Zeland), but your Russian is still far from being as good as that of a native speaker of Russian and, even if it is as good, it is much harder and more time-consuming for you to write an academic paper as well as a native Russian speaker.
Nowadays ESL philosophers (i.e. philosophers whose first language is not English) are very much in the same situation in which you have found yourself in the thought experiment(s) you have just performed and, before writing other posts on the topic, I though it would be helpful for philosophers whose first language(s) is/includes English to contemplate the situation (albeit briefly and only imaginatively) from the perspective of an ESL philosophers.
Showing posts with label the philosophy profession. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the philosophy profession. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
Who Can Afford to Be Out of the Loop?
Recently, I had an interesting online exchange with a famous philosopher who works in a top department (someone, incidentally, whose philosophical work I admire and who, according to sources I consider reliable, is a really nice person, so none of what follows is meant to cast any shadow on his character). Let me call this philosopher, Prof. X.
The exchange started after Prof. X said on the Facebook thread of another famous philosopher that he hadn't made up his mind about signing the "September Statement" because of concerns similar to those expressed by Alexander Rosenberg in this post. (As a side note, it's incredible how much issues in the professions are discussed behind the walls of Facebook these days! (more on that in a possible future post?)) I replied that I thought that those concerns had been amply addressed in some of the comments below Rosenberg's post. Prof. X told me that he did not have time to read enough blog posts and comment threads to form an informed opinion on the matter and that, in fact, he didn't have time to continue that exchange (to be fair, he said that much more nicely than it might be coming across from my summary!). And than he added something that I have have heard already many times from other philosophers in positions similar to Prof. X's. Namely, he said (more of less verbatim) "I'm not a blogging kind of guy" and "I'm sort of out of the loop".
My reply (and the point I'd like to make more publicly in this post) is that not having enough time and being out of the loop in this sort of contexts can be symptoms of privilege. It's easier to say that one doesn't have time to think about y and take action on y when one is not directly affected (and would be very unlikely to be in a position of being ever directly affected) by a certain (sort of) behaviour. It's easier to say that, say, one don't have time to think whether we should revoke an invitation to speak in our department to someone who has been accused of sexual assault when someone is unlikely to ever be (or have been) themselves a victim of sexual assault. It's easier to say that one does not have time to sign the "September Statement" when one is unlikely to ever be in the position of being publicly attacked by someone in a more powerful position (or when one can easily dismiss those attacks).
What the "out-of-the-loop-ers" don't seem to understand is that we'd all be rather doing philosophy or dealing with the many items on our to-do list rather than spending time thinking and talking about the philosophy profession, but some of us can't afford to do that! (Believe me, I'd rather be working on that paper right now!) So it's a luxury and a symptom of privilege to be able to say "I don't have time to think about this". I often think of all the time and energy so many of my colleagues are putting into making the philosophy profession a more inclusive and hospitable place and I am thankful for that, especially considering that those who are doing so often are the ones that occupy less privileged positions and this takes a further toll on them (what if they spent that time writing or reading or thinking or...?).
If you can stay out of the loop and you don't have time to think about the issue in the profession, it's probably because you can afford it, but remember that this is one of those situations where not to be part of the solution is to be part of the problem, for inaction is just a way to perpetuate an often unjust status quo!
The exchange started after Prof. X said on the Facebook thread of another famous philosopher that he hadn't made up his mind about signing the "September Statement" because of concerns similar to those expressed by Alexander Rosenberg in this post. (As a side note, it's incredible how much issues in the professions are discussed behind the walls of Facebook these days! (more on that in a possible future post?)) I replied that I thought that those concerns had been amply addressed in some of the comments below Rosenberg's post. Prof. X told me that he did not have time to read enough blog posts and comment threads to form an informed opinion on the matter and that, in fact, he didn't have time to continue that exchange (to be fair, he said that much more nicely than it might be coming across from my summary!). And than he added something that I have have heard already many times from other philosophers in positions similar to Prof. X's. Namely, he said (more of less verbatim) "I'm not a blogging kind of guy" and "I'm sort of out of the loop".
My reply (and the point I'd like to make more publicly in this post) is that not having enough time and being out of the loop in this sort of contexts can be symptoms of privilege. It's easier to say that one doesn't have time to think about y and take action on y when one is not directly affected (and would be very unlikely to be in a position of being ever directly affected) by a certain (sort of) behaviour. It's easier to say that, say, one don't have time to think whether we should revoke an invitation to speak in our department to someone who has been accused of sexual assault when someone is unlikely to ever be (or have been) themselves a victim of sexual assault. It's easier to say that one does not have time to sign the "September Statement" when one is unlikely to ever be in the position of being publicly attacked by someone in a more powerful position (or when one can easily dismiss those attacks).
What the "out-of-the-loop-ers" don't seem to understand is that we'd all be rather doing philosophy or dealing with the many items on our to-do list rather than spending time thinking and talking about the philosophy profession, but some of us can't afford to do that! (Believe me, I'd rather be working on that paper right now!) So it's a luxury and a symptom of privilege to be able to say "I don't have time to think about this". I often think of all the time and energy so many of my colleagues are putting into making the philosophy profession a more inclusive and hospitable place and I am thankful for that, especially considering that those who are doing so often are the ones that occupy less privileged positions and this takes a further toll on them (what if they spent that time writing or reading or thinking or...?).
If you can stay out of the loop and you don't have time to think about the issue in the profession, it's probably because you can afford it, but remember that this is one of those situations where not to be part of the solution is to be part of the problem, for inaction is just a way to perpetuate an often unjust status quo!
Monday, September 29, 2014
Analytic Philosophy and the English Language: Some Data and Some Preliminary Thoughts
This is the first in a series of posts that I intend to write about the relationship between analytic philosophy and the English language (I have been thinking about writing them since 2011, when I first created this blog but then never got around writing them, so, please, bear with me if it's going to take me a while to write then other posts :-) (UPDATE: please see here for a disclaimer to all the posts in this series)).
As an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) philosopher, I can't help but notice that the vast majority of analytic philosophers who publish in the top academic journals and for the top academic presses are native English speakers. Let me start with some data.
According to Wikipedia (I know... but I couldn't be bothered to find a more reputable source), around 430 million people speak English as their first language (which, assuming a world population of 7.125 billion people, means that Native English Speakers (NES) make up about 6% of the world population). English as a Second Language speakers, on the other hand, are between 470 million and 1 billion (i.e. 6.5%-14% of the world population).
What about analytic philosophy? Eric Schwitzgebel has recently posted a list of the 200 most cited authors in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. By my count, there are only two EFL philosophers in the top 50 (4%) and 6 in the top 100 (6%). Moreover, with the exception of Jeagwon Kim (who was born in 1934), they were all born before 1930. In the whole list, as far as I can tell, there is only one under-70 ESL philosopher (i.e. Thomas Pogge) and no EFL philosopher under-60. (This is a very rough count based on incomplete knowledge and I would welcome any and all corrections)
Data collected by Kieran Healy paints a similar picture. Healy posted a list of the 500 most cited items in four top general philosophy journals (Phil Review, JPhil, Noûs, and Mind) between 1993 and 2013. Even by the most generous count (i.e. including philosophers who moved to an English speaking country early in their lives such as Ernest Sosa and Bas van Fraassen), items authored by ESL philosophers constitute 6% of the top 100 items, 6.5% of the top 200 items, 5.3% of the top 300 items, and 5.8% of the top 500 items. All in all, on the most generous count, a total of 29 articles or books by 22 ESL philosophers can be found among the top 500 items cited in the last 20 years in what are arguably the top four generalist journals in analytic philosophy. (I list the items below. Again, corrections are welcome! NB: I did not count items from before 1900, which excluded a few items by, e.g., Frege and Kant but no more than 10 in total)
I think that analytic philosophers should find this data somewhat surprising (although few non-EFL philosophers seem to have noticed (but see here for an exception)). After all, many EFL philosophers are usually credited with being among the founders of analytic philosophy or its predecessors (Frege, Carnap, Wittgeinstein, and Popper are just a few illustrious example), so why did at some point analytic philosophy become mostly an NES business? I guess, it was partly a matter of historical and sociological contingency but, nevertheless, I think the question needs to be raised, especially in light of the fact that analytic philosophy has been widely practiced in non-Anglophone countries for a few decades now.
The data is not just surprising, however. It's also slightly alarming from a methodological point of view. Analytic philosophy (more than other forms of contemporary philosophy) aspires to be universal. When we try to come up with an analysis of, say, knowledge, usually we take ourselves to be analyzing a concept that we take to be universal, not a culturally/historically specific concept. In particular, we don't typically take ourselves to be formulating the truth-conditions of English sentences of the form 'S knows that p'. However, it's much easier to confuse knowledge with 'knowledge' if the vast majority of the people who are in the business of analyzing the concept of knowledge are also native English speakers. Just to pick one example, the suggestion that knowledge-how is a form of knowledge-that sounds particularly implausible to the ears of native speakers of languages that descend from Latin, as these languages use two different families of words to express the concept of knowledge (broadly construed), which descend from the Latin verbs 'sapere' and 'cognoscere'. However, only one of these families of words can be used to express knowledge-how. For example in Italian, I can say 'So come arrivare all'areoporto' [I know how to get to the airport] but I cannot say 'Conosco come arrivare all'areoporto'. What the implications of this are for the thesis that knowledge-how is a form of knowledge-that is unclear, but, as experimental philosophers have (I think correctly) argued recently, we have to be careful not to rely on intuitions that purport to be universal but are in fact culture- or language-specific. One way this could be so is when we rely exclusively on the way the English language carves the conceptual space to explore that space. Heidegger, apparently, used to think that the German language (and Ancient Greek) were particularly well-suited for philosophy. Most analytic philosophers would probably scoff at this suggestion. However, they behave as if English is the best-suited language for philosophy.
Finally and on a more personal note, as a EFL philosopher, I find this data discouraging. I can't help but feel that one reason why there so few EFL philosophers on those lists is that only few EFL philosophers can write as stylishly, captivatingly, and persuasively as the best writers among NES philosophers and that you cannot really achieve the level of philosophical influence needed to be on one of those lists without being able to write that well in English. Sure, some of the most accomplished writers of the English literature were EFL speakers (Conrad and Nabokov come to mind) and some EFL philosophers write superbly in English, but, for the rest of us, doing philosophy in a different language will always be to some extent a struggle. I know I will never be able to write like, say, David Lewis (one of my favourite writers among analytic philosopher and a philosopher whose philosophical success is, I suspect, in no small part due to his ability as a writer). In fact, I shouldn't even try to write like Lewis (as the results would be quite frankly disastrous), but I would be fooling myself if I were to convince myself that my inability to write in English as well and as fluently as my colleagues who are native English speaker were not an obstacle to my work getting more recognition (or did not mean that I have to work longer and harder to write half as well). Consider just this. Competition for space in the top journals is fierce and editors are basically looking for reasons to reject papers. When choosing between two otherwise identical papers, an editor would probably be more inclined to choose the better written one over the other even if content-wise the two papers were indistinguishable. I would be surprised if stylistic considerations did not play a role in the decisions of NES editors and referees, at least at the level of implicit bias (and possibly even on those of EFL editors and referees).
Where to go from here? As I said, this is only the first in a series of posts I intend to write on the topic and I have some suggestions, but my hope is that, as a profession, we start thinking about how to change things, because, as it is the case when it comes to other issues of inclusivity, at the end of the day, we are all going to benefit from a broader philosophical community.
PS I love you, English language! (No, seriously, I have always been secretly in love with the English language and would not/could not write about philosophy in any other language. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean I'm particularly good at it or that it's any easier for me :-) )
UPDATE: For the sake of clarity, in light of Filippo's comment below, I have switched the labels for non-native and native English speakers from "ESL" and "EFL" to, respectively, "EFL" (English as a Foreign Language) and "NES" (Native English Speakers).
APPENDIX:
Items by ESL Philosophers on Kieran Healy's list.
As an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) philosopher, I can't help but notice that the vast majority of analytic philosophers who publish in the top academic journals and for the top academic presses are native English speakers. Let me start with some data.
According to Wikipedia (I know... but I couldn't be bothered to find a more reputable source), around 430 million people speak English as their first language (which, assuming a world population of 7.125 billion people, means that Native English Speakers (NES) make up about 6% of the world population). English as a Second Language speakers, on the other hand, are between 470 million and 1 billion (i.e. 6.5%-14% of the world population).
What about analytic philosophy? Eric Schwitzgebel has recently posted a list of the 200 most cited authors in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. By my count, there are only two EFL philosophers in the top 50 (4%) and 6 in the top 100 (6%). Moreover, with the exception of Jeagwon Kim (who was born in 1934), they were all born before 1930. In the whole list, as far as I can tell, there is only one under-70 ESL philosopher (i.e. Thomas Pogge) and no EFL philosopher under-60. (This is a very rough count based on incomplete knowledge and I would welcome any and all corrections)
Data collected by Kieran Healy paints a similar picture. Healy posted a list of the 500 most cited items in four top general philosophy journals (Phil Review, JPhil, Noûs, and Mind) between 1993 and 2013. Even by the most generous count (i.e. including philosophers who moved to an English speaking country early in their lives such as Ernest Sosa and Bas van Fraassen), items authored by ESL philosophers constitute 6% of the top 100 items, 6.5% of the top 200 items, 5.3% of the top 300 items, and 5.8% of the top 500 items. All in all, on the most generous count, a total of 29 articles or books by 22 ESL philosophers can be found among the top 500 items cited in the last 20 years in what are arguably the top four generalist journals in analytic philosophy. (I list the items below. Again, corrections are welcome! NB: I did not count items from before 1900, which excluded a few items by, e.g., Frege and Kant but no more than 10 in total)
I think that analytic philosophers should find this data somewhat surprising (although few non-EFL philosophers seem to have noticed (but see here for an exception)). After all, many EFL philosophers are usually credited with being among the founders of analytic philosophy or its predecessors (Frege, Carnap, Wittgeinstein, and Popper are just a few illustrious example), so why did at some point analytic philosophy become mostly an NES business? I guess, it was partly a matter of historical and sociological contingency but, nevertheless, I think the question needs to be raised, especially in light of the fact that analytic philosophy has been widely practiced in non-Anglophone countries for a few decades now.
The data is not just surprising, however. It's also slightly alarming from a methodological point of view. Analytic philosophy (more than other forms of contemporary philosophy) aspires to be universal. When we try to come up with an analysis of, say, knowledge, usually we take ourselves to be analyzing a concept that we take to be universal, not a culturally/historically specific concept. In particular, we don't typically take ourselves to be formulating the truth-conditions of English sentences of the form 'S knows that p'. However, it's much easier to confuse knowledge with 'knowledge' if the vast majority of the people who are in the business of analyzing the concept of knowledge are also native English speakers. Just to pick one example, the suggestion that knowledge-how is a form of knowledge-that sounds particularly implausible to the ears of native speakers of languages that descend from Latin, as these languages use two different families of words to express the concept of knowledge (broadly construed), which descend from the Latin verbs 'sapere' and 'cognoscere'. However, only one of these families of words can be used to express knowledge-how. For example in Italian, I can say 'So come arrivare all'areoporto' [I know how to get to the airport] but I cannot say 'Conosco come arrivare all'areoporto'. What the implications of this are for the thesis that knowledge-how is a form of knowledge-that is unclear, but, as experimental philosophers have (I think correctly) argued recently, we have to be careful not to rely on intuitions that purport to be universal but are in fact culture- or language-specific. One way this could be so is when we rely exclusively on the way the English language carves the conceptual space to explore that space. Heidegger, apparently, used to think that the German language (and Ancient Greek) were particularly well-suited for philosophy. Most analytic philosophers would probably scoff at this suggestion. However, they behave as if English is the best-suited language for philosophy.
Finally and on a more personal note, as a EFL philosopher, I find this data discouraging. I can't help but feel that one reason why there so few EFL philosophers on those lists is that only few EFL philosophers can write as stylishly, captivatingly, and persuasively as the best writers among NES philosophers and that you cannot really achieve the level of philosophical influence needed to be on one of those lists without being able to write that well in English. Sure, some of the most accomplished writers of the English literature were EFL speakers (Conrad and Nabokov come to mind) and some EFL philosophers write superbly in English, but, for the rest of us, doing philosophy in a different language will always be to some extent a struggle. I know I will never be able to write like, say, David Lewis (one of my favourite writers among analytic philosopher and a philosopher whose philosophical success is, I suspect, in no small part due to his ability as a writer). In fact, I shouldn't even try to write like Lewis (as the results would be quite frankly disastrous), but I would be fooling myself if I were to convince myself that my inability to write in English as well and as fluently as my colleagues who are native English speaker were not an obstacle to my work getting more recognition (or did not mean that I have to work longer and harder to write half as well). Consider just this. Competition for space in the top journals is fierce and editors are basically looking for reasons to reject papers. When choosing between two otherwise identical papers, an editor would probably be more inclined to choose the better written one over the other even if content-wise the two papers were indistinguishable. I would be surprised if stylistic considerations did not play a role in the decisions of NES editors and referees, at least at the level of implicit bias (and possibly even on those of EFL editors and referees).
Where to go from here? As I said, this is only the first in a series of posts I intend to write on the topic and I have some suggestions, but my hope is that, as a profession, we start thinking about how to change things, because, as it is the case when it comes to other issues of inclusivity, at the end of the day, we are all going to benefit from a broader philosophical community.
PS I love you, English language! (No, seriously, I have always been secretly in love with the English language and would not/could not write about philosophy in any other language. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean I'm particularly good at it or that it's any easier for me :-) )
UPDATE: For the sake of clarity, in light of Filippo's comment below, I have switched the labels for non-native and native English speakers from "ESL" and "EFL" to, respectively, "EFL" (English as a Foreign Language) and "NES" (Native English Speakers).
APPENDIX:
Items by ESL Philosophers on Kieran Healy's list.
- 39 (37) (Kim 1993)
- 57 (32) (Wittgeinstein 1953)
- 61 (31) (Wittgeinstein ???) (I assume this is the Tractatus)
- 67 (29) (Margalit 1979)
- 75 (28) (Almog 1989)
- 86 (26) (Recanati 1993)
- 109 (23) (Benacerraf 1965)
- 120 (22) (van Fraassen 1980)*
- 141 (20) (Sosa 1991)*
- 141 (20) (Carnap 1956)
- 141 (20) (van Fraassen 1989)*
- 195 (17) (van Fraassen 1984)*
- 195 (17) (Widerker 1995)
- 211 (16) (Hempel 1965)
- 233 (15) (Margalit 1979)
- 262 (14) (Hintikka 1962)
- 324 (12) (Sosa 2007)*
- 324 (12) (Tarski 1956)
- 363 (11) (van Fraassen 1995)*
- 363 (11) (Cappelen 2005)
- 363 (11) (Sher 1991)
- 363 (11) (Benacerraf 1983)
- 363 (11) (Kim 1973)
- 435 (10) (Arntzenius 2003)
- 435 (10) (Haji 1993)
- 435 (10) (Gärdenfors 1988)
- 435 (10) (Ramachandran 1997)*
- 435 (10) (Gupta 1993)*
- 435 (10) (Vendler 1967)
Saturday, September 27, 2014
Respect
In the last few days, a few philosophers expressed some surprise at the fact that among the people who asked for Brian Leiter to step down as the editor of the PGR were (to quote one of them verbatim) "many people [they] really respect and admire" (yes, it's the "cool heads" again). This really got me thinking because the obvious conversational implicature is that, among them, there were also some people whom they do not respect and admire. I guess it's perfectly okay not to admire some of your professional colleagues, but is it okay not to respect them??? I guess that this is just another consequence of Leiterism. Prof. Leiter himself his well-known for some disparaging/disrespectful remarks about individual philosophers (including those that got him into trouble lately) and whole groups of philosophers (members of SPEP but also analytic metaphysicians).
Do we have to like everything that is done by other philosophers? No, we don't. Do we have to find everyone's work interesting? No, we don't. Do we have to understand why others are doing the sort of philosophy they are doing? No, we don't. But do we have to respect the fact that they see purpose in what they are doing even if we don't? Yes, we do. I think that, as philosophers, we should all be more prone to epistemic humility than we are. The fact is that, probably, if I don't understand why one would spend their life, say, studying the works of Deridda, the problem is more likely to be with me (who having only a superficial knowledge of Derrida can't see what can be interesting to them in there) than with them (who have likely found something meaningful to them in there). Many people are equally baffled by the fact that some of us find analytic metaphysics interesting, but I would hope they would respect it as a philosophical endeavour as I respect theirs (unfortunately, many philosophers don't; including many of my fellow philosophers of science).
Does this lead to some sort of relativism? Are there no hopeless projects in philosophy? I don't think so. There probably are hopeless projects in philosophy. For all we know, all philosophical projects might be hopeless in some sense of 'hopeless'. After all, we are just overly smart apes. But I hope it leads to some pluralism. Why can't we let a thousand flowers bloom without having to disparage the flowers we don't like (and probably don't fully understand)?
In any case, I hope to see the day when philosophers will no longer divide the field between those whom they respect and those whom they don't respect. We can criticize our colleagues, questions their assumptions or their goals, or... but we always have to do so with respect, assuming that the person on the other side is at least as smart and thoughtful as we are. Have I always done that? I'm afraid not. In fact, I'm afraid that this is partly a consequence of our training and partly an excuse not to familiarize ourselves with whole areas of philosophy, but I hope we can all become less dismissive of each other's philosophical endeavours. We all owe each other some respect.
PS (September 28, 2014): Just to clarify, I think it's (usually) okay to question/challenge a certain philosophical project (e.g. analytic metaphysics) with arguments. What, I think, it's not okay (to my mind) is to disparage it without arguments--e.g. just offering some cartoon caricature of it. I feel the same about the way many of my fellow analytic philosophers dismiss much continental philosophy. Although I confess I indulge in this sort of dismissiveness myself from time to time, I'm now trying to force myself to come up with arguments when I think a certain philosophical project is wrongheaded and, often, it's surprisingly difficult to come up with good arguments that go beyond the "I don't like it".)
Do we have to like everything that is done by other philosophers? No, we don't. Do we have to find everyone's work interesting? No, we don't. Do we have to understand why others are doing the sort of philosophy they are doing? No, we don't. But do we have to respect the fact that they see purpose in what they are doing even if we don't? Yes, we do. I think that, as philosophers, we should all be more prone to epistemic humility than we are. The fact is that, probably, if I don't understand why one would spend their life, say, studying the works of Deridda, the problem is more likely to be with me (who having only a superficial knowledge of Derrida can't see what can be interesting to them in there) than with them (who have likely found something meaningful to them in there). Many people are equally baffled by the fact that some of us find analytic metaphysics interesting, but I would hope they would respect it as a philosophical endeavour as I respect theirs (unfortunately, many philosophers don't; including many of my fellow philosophers of science).
Does this lead to some sort of relativism? Are there no hopeless projects in philosophy? I don't think so. There probably are hopeless projects in philosophy. For all we know, all philosophical projects might be hopeless in some sense of 'hopeless'. After all, we are just overly smart apes. But I hope it leads to some pluralism. Why can't we let a thousand flowers bloom without having to disparage the flowers we don't like (and probably don't fully understand)?
In any case, I hope to see the day when philosophers will no longer divide the field between those whom they respect and those whom they don't respect. We can criticize our colleagues, questions their assumptions or their goals, or... but we always have to do so with respect, assuming that the person on the other side is at least as smart and thoughtful as we are. Have I always done that? I'm afraid not. In fact, I'm afraid that this is partly a consequence of our training and partly an excuse not to familiarize ourselves with whole areas of philosophy, but I hope we can all become less dismissive of each other's philosophical endeavours. We all owe each other some respect.
PS (September 28, 2014): Just to clarify, I think it's (usually) okay to question/challenge a certain philosophical project (e.g. analytic metaphysics) with arguments. What, I think, it's not okay (to my mind) is to disparage it without arguments--e.g. just offering some cartoon caricature of it. I feel the same about the way many of my fellow analytic philosophers dismiss much continental philosophy. Although I confess I indulge in this sort of dismissiveness myself from time to time, I'm now trying to force myself to come up with arguments when I think a certain philosophical project is wrongheaded and, often, it's surprisingly difficult to come up with good arguments that go beyond the "I don't like it".)
Friday, September 26, 2014
The "Cool Heads" and the "Angry Mob"
Unfortunately, you know the pattern. First, a group of philosophers reacts strongly to some incident X and, then, after a while, a second group of philosophers starts complaining that the philosophers in the first group are overreacting/jumping to conclusions too fast/not in a position to know whether X ever really happened... Often philosophers in this second group start comparing philosophers in the first group to an angry mob. Let me call the philosophers in this second group 'the cool heads'. There is a few points I'd like to make about the cool heads.
First, an interesting sociological fact: anecdotal evidence seems to suggest that, often, the cool heads are white, cis-heterosexual, able-bodied men (there are exceptions, of course). In other words, they usually are among the most privileged members of our already very privileged profession. Most of this is hardly surprising: we all know well that most professional philosophers are white, cis-heterosexual, able-bodied men. What makes this unsurprising fact surprising is that the philosophers in the first group are often not white, cis-heterosexual, able-bodied men. To my mind, this makes the angry mob charge quite problematic, for angry mobs are usually considered irrational or non-rational. In this conversational context, the charge easily acquires sexist, racist, ableist overtones.
Second, 'angry mob' also has strongly classist overtones and, again, when used in this context, this is particularly problematic. As I mentioned, the cool heads are often among the most privileged members of our (privileged) profession, so the fact that they try to associate the philosophers in the first group as lower-class is quite telling. Perhaps, before accusing people who react strongly to X to be an angry mob, one should ask themselves 'Why am I not bothered by X as these other people are? Could it be that my own privilege prevents me from seeing what's problematic with X? Could it be that, if I were not a white, cis-heterosexual, able-bodied man (fill in as appropriate), I would find X more troublesome?' These are not easy questions to ask. They require one to acknowledge their own privileges, which can be uncomfortable especially in a profession in which people often tend to attribute their professional success to their talents and tend to discount the role their privilege has played in it.
Third, the idea, which seems to underlie much of the cool heads approach, that inaction is somehow intrinsically morally superior to action is extremely problematic. Yes, the cool heads will only reach a conclusion about X when all the evidence is in and they have thought about it carefully and they have eliminated all alternative interpretations and..., but, we are philosophers, so we know where that leads---the evil demon is a useful fiction in the philosophy classroom but it can't be the epistemic standard on which we act in the real world! The fact is that the cool heads do not realize is that their privileged position is what allows them to adopt such high epistemic standards. Because X could never happen to them! So it's easy for them to take the (supposedly) moral high ground and look down on the "angry mob" condescendingly.
The fact is that angry mobs are often the voice of the powerless against the powerful. Often angry mobs act in ways that we find reproachable but often the cause of their anger is very real and is something that needs to be addressed urgently. If it is a angry mob that forces you to confront the problems you'd rather ignore or tolerate (because they don't really affect you), then so be it...
First, an interesting sociological fact: anecdotal evidence seems to suggest that, often, the cool heads are white, cis-heterosexual, able-bodied men (there are exceptions, of course). In other words, they usually are among the most privileged members of our already very privileged profession. Most of this is hardly surprising: we all know well that most professional philosophers are white, cis-heterosexual, able-bodied men. What makes this unsurprising fact surprising is that the philosophers in the first group are often not white, cis-heterosexual, able-bodied men. To my mind, this makes the angry mob charge quite problematic, for angry mobs are usually considered irrational or non-rational. In this conversational context, the charge easily acquires sexist, racist, ableist overtones.
Second, 'angry mob' also has strongly classist overtones and, again, when used in this context, this is particularly problematic. As I mentioned, the cool heads are often among the most privileged members of our (privileged) profession, so the fact that they try to associate the philosophers in the first group as lower-class is quite telling. Perhaps, before accusing people who react strongly to X to be an angry mob, one should ask themselves 'Why am I not bothered by X as these other people are? Could it be that my own privilege prevents me from seeing what's problematic with X? Could it be that, if I were not a white, cis-heterosexual, able-bodied man (fill in as appropriate), I would find X more troublesome?' These are not easy questions to ask. They require one to acknowledge their own privileges, which can be uncomfortable especially in a profession in which people often tend to attribute their professional success to their talents and tend to discount the role their privilege has played in it.
Third, the idea, which seems to underlie much of the cool heads approach, that inaction is somehow intrinsically morally superior to action is extremely problematic. Yes, the cool heads will only reach a conclusion about X when all the evidence is in and they have thought about it carefully and they have eliminated all alternative interpretations and..., but, we are philosophers, so we know where that leads---the evil demon is a useful fiction in the philosophy classroom but it can't be the epistemic standard on which we act in the real world! The fact is that the cool heads do not realize is that their privileged position is what allows them to adopt such high epistemic standards. Because X could never happen to them! So it's easy for them to take the (supposedly) moral high ground and look down on the "angry mob" condescendingly.
The fact is that angry mobs are often the voice of the powerless against the powerful. Often angry mobs act in ways that we find reproachable but often the cause of their anger is very real and is something that needs to be addressed urgently. If it is a angry mob that forces you to confront the problems you'd rather ignore or tolerate (because they don't really affect you), then so be it...
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