Teaching Philosophy

Previous discussion about Philosophical Positivism have been concerned with the potential indoctrination of young philosophers in development (of which I am one).  Teaching philosophy, thus is highly relevant to the Philosophical Positivist.  If it is the case that teaching philosophy is responsible for anti-positive dogmatism in philosophy, then teaching philosophy differently would remedy the situation.  The assumption here is that analytic or continental philosophy is not inherently dogmatic, but becomes so as a result of its presentation.  This assumption is no doubt simplistic: analytic philosophy, as it is written, does often push against continental philosophy – usually this is a methodological issue.  However, if we take the statement about the power of teaching philosophy to be at least somewhat true, then it is worth thoroughly discussing the teaching of philosophy.

My own college experience taught me that teaching methods are as important as the material for the quality of a course.  That is, if a professor lectured often in a monotonous voice, then even the most riveting subjects could be lost on a student.  There is undoubtedly something highly personal or individualistic about how methodologies work, who they benefit, and what mediums bring out the best in the pedagogue.  The varieties of successful methods contextualized to account for individual teachers and students presents an interesting and difficult problem for those who study education.  I am no expert in this arena, and so I will make no further claims about the specific kinds of teaching methods that might facilitate Positive Philosophy – though a discussion would be welcome elsewhere.  Methods are important, and since I am ignorant of the types of theories that might justify or suggest methods, I will leave it at that.

In addition to the methods and the subject content of a course, course texts play a significant role in teaching philosophy.  Philosophical texts like all works can be of one of two kinds: primary or secondary.  Primary texts like Plato’s Republic or Quine’s Two Dogmas of Empiricism, might be assigned to students, but they present problems as they lack both comprehend-ability and comprehensiveness.  It is rare that students arrive at an understanding of significant primary texts without spending a significant amount of time working through them, and once the text begins to become clear, students are left with only a single philosophical perspective despite all of their hard work.  Secondary sources, like philosophical textbooks, solve these apparent problems, but they come with a few of their own.  Contrast philosophy with a science like physics.  Physicists are taught from textbooks that present the science and its methodology as it is currently being practiced.  This presentation is one of the ‘normal’ science (to use Kuhn’s term).  Is there such a thing as ‘normal’ philosophy?  Positivists would hope not.  Philosophy textbooks run the risk of leading a student to believe that there is such thing as an ‘accepted’ view or methodology.  Christian philosophers often complain about this when they are confronted by dogmatic but naive physicalists or naturalists (in the contemporary sense – not to be confused with Neurath’s physicalism).  In this complaint they are right.  It is the case that a dominant -in size and volume -group of philosophers hold these materialist views, but does it really mean that physicalism should be taught or understood in the same way as normal science?  My inclination is to say, “no.”  Philosophy is a fluid subject with broad reach and important consequences, and as such it does not fit nicely into a textbook.  There are view that philosophers held, but there is not a view that all philosophers hold.  Similarly, while philosophers should be familiar with clear writing and technical logic, these tools should not be understood as exhaustive of philosophical methodology.  Such a broad discipline, with broad base and dynamic problems, requires an open mind to methods and perspectives.  Can there be such a thing as a Positive Textbook?

The Return of ‘The Stone’

The Stone a New York Times column written by philosophers and other thinkers about issues in philosophy returns this week.  Simon Critchley writes the introduction.  In it he nicely expresses some general positivist sentiments:

“But philosophy is more than a profession. Philosophy is that living activity of critical reflection where we are invited to analyze the world in which we find ourselves, and to question what passes for common sense or opinion in the particular society in which we live.” – Prof. Critchley

Interesting Reflections on the History of Philosophy

“One doesn’t wish to reinvent the wheel, but it’s also worth recalling evolutionary theory’s point that often organs can be put to work in ways wildly divergent from the function they originally embodied. Lungs, for example, might have originally been air sacks an organism used to float and only later took on the function of respiration machines. What we need to be cautious about, I believe, is the tendency to reterritorialize the history of philosophy back on its original conceptual functions in the history of philosophy. This is part of the problem with the culture of commentary. Autopoietically it functions to reproduce the work of the history of philosophy under the logic of the same, preventing it from functioning elsewhere and in new ways.” – Levi Bryant (Full interview here)

It has been my experience that historians of philosophy don’t see it this way.  Their work is concerned with historical ‘accuracy’ and with correcting misinterpretations.  An instance of this has been the subject of recent debate in the pages of the New York Review of Books.  The Historian Garry Wills criticizes Dreyfus’s and Kelly’s recent book, All Things Shining, for it’s blatant historical errors.  While I am not in a position to evaluate any of their claims, if Wills was willing to allow historical ideas to function in other ways than their original use, he might have written a more favorable review of the book.  Of course, Dreyfus and Kelly do make historical claims, which they insist are accurate, which makes them fair game for Wills’ critiques.  That aside, the suggestion here that historical ideas can be used in a plurality of ways is worth discussing.

Thoughts?

Foster on Chomsky and Heidegger

Dan Foster comments on a discussion comparing the political accomplishments of Chomsky and Heidegger for the National Review online.  Not surprisingly, he finds both of their views lacking in substance and effect.  Any alternative takes on this?

Generalism v. Specialism Part 1: Philosophy of Science

A long post is needed here, but I want to start this general line of discussion by pointing to a recent post on another blog.  The author asks, “Does general philosophy of science have a present?”

For the philosophical positivist, the question of generalism and specialism is determined largely by interpretation.  That is, if generalism is interpreted as exclusively constructive, then it might be seen as positive.  Specialism is often assumed to be the opposite, or as a process of decomposition and analysis.  In the next post, I will discuss Generalism and Specialism in the context of philosophy of science within the “constructive/synthetic” v. “destructive/analytic”  rubric.

Under what interpretation and circumstances should the philosophical positivist be constructive or destructive?

Can you have a University without a Philosophy Department?

This blog post reinforces the previous posts concerning the discipline of philosophy.  The comments also illustrate the external forces in play.

Room for Debate: the philosophical enterprise

In a recent post, I began to consider an important challenge to Philosophical Positivism.  I wondered whether Positivism might be able to offer a solution to methodological squabbles within philosophy.  I am still searching for the answer.  That discussion was inspired by an ongoing series of discussions concerning the discipline of philosophy throughout higher education.  These discussions are taking place at a few different levels – though my question only applied to one of those levels.  Philosophers are becoming increasingly concerned with the place of philosophy within education (in general).  With university positions in the humanities being cut back drastically, philosophers are forced to ask what the value of philosophy is both for a university and for an individual’s education (unfortunately, these seem to be two separate things).  Such economic and social pressures have also had an effect on departments’ philosophy curriculum.  What should philosophers teach to maintain their worth to the university while upholding the larger ideals of the discipline?  This, of course, has ramifications for graduate study: what should a graduate student study in order to make herself employable?  Finally, philosophers have taken up metaphilosophical debates about the nature of philosophy itself.  The methodological dispute I previously discussed arises at this last level, but has implications at each level.

The Philosophical Positivist should be concerned – to the point of being troubled – by this disciplinary ‘soul searching’.  Too often the conclusion is that it pays (quite literally) to alienate alternative viewpoints and to be skeptical of conceptual bridges.  Isolating one’s own projects under the auspices of ‘pure philosophy’ or what really is ‘philosophy’, is a financial plan (though, I think, not a very good one).  Such a plan to cut away the cancer is not only not Positive, but it will kill the discipline. (I am reminded here of a line from yesterday’s Paul Krugman Op-Ed in the NYTimes.  He paraphrases Upton Sinclare “it’s difficult to get a man to understand something if his salary depends on him not understanding it.”  My point is that those who think that philosophy is financially viable only through their specialization are reluctant to build conceptual bridges, which are central to Positivist philosophy).

The metaphilosophical battle took off this week with the latest issue of the journal, Metaphilosophy.  The issue includes two particularly important articles.  One by Williamson, touts the ‘philosopher as expert’ and disparages the experimental philosophers for thinking that intuitions can be empirically tested.  Specifically, Williamson is going after Weinberg’s, Gonnerman’s, Buckner’s, and Alexander’s 2010 paper on philosophical expertise (which is worth the read by the by).  They explicitly address whether philosophical training confers philosophical expertise, which they take to be an empirical question, and one that could partially determine the value of philosophical thought experiments.  Experimental philosophers have found that irrelevant factors, i.e. factors that should not alter the ‘truth’ of a thought experiment, appear to influence responses to thought experiments (see my previous example of the Gettier Case).  If irrelevant contextual or situational factors have this effect, then thought experiments and the seemingly indubitable intuitions that belay them appear to be incapable of providing us with timeless, a priori conceptual truths.  At least this is what the experimental philosophers suggest.  Williamson doubts the validity of their data.  He suggests that philosophical training sets the philosopher apart from the lay person, and thus, any experiment that uses lay participants is invalid.  He doesn’t mean just that the results cannot be generalized to philosophers.  He also thinks that the results have no bearing on philosophical thought experiments.

The second article of note is by Philip Kitcher.  The title seems rather provocative: Philosophy Inside Out.  But, Kitcher isn’t really covering any new ground.  Kitcher is simply “going pragmatist”.  He reminds us of the dangers of “intellectual jousting” and of the struggle between esoteria and philistine-ism.  Philosophical problems arise from and within a large group of people not just philosophers, and philosophy has a responsibility (read: place) within the community.  When philosophers begin to joust losing themselves in jargon and endless and esoteric decomposition, philosophy is no longer doing its job.  Of course, this is just Dewey for the 21st century, but the harshest moral of this paper was made nearly ten years ago by Dan Dennett here – and even his point is Wittgenstinian.  Dennett directs his attention toward philosophy students, and his essay reads a little like an advice column.  Philosophers should avoid playing self-serving philosophy games: good philosophy is something people care about.  Although Kitcher thinks that his views merely differ in approach and content from Williamson and not necessarily in result, Kitcher warns us about the dangers of the philosophical expertise that Williamson wants to defend.  The moral is that philosophical expertise might not be expertise at all, you might just be “following a self-supporting community of experts into an artifactual trap” (as Dennett said).

Philosophical Positivism has a lot to worry about.  It’s easy to embrace platitudes about openness and construction within philosophy.  It’s much more difficult to navigate these methodological debates.  If philosophy is to remain true to the pragmatists and therefore to the ‘people’, then can it ever be permissible to engage in conceptual decomposition or to adopt a bit of jargon?  The Philosophical Positivist cannot deny – on principle – the value, however small, of thought experiments or of an new or different concept.  The Positivist also sees philosophy as relevant (and in some sense immediate) to people.  How can these views be reconciled?

What follows is the only answer I can come up with.  The Positivist seeks a unity of inquiry through conceptual bridges but not a la bridge laws.  This is a unity at the point of application.  If philosophy, however abstract or esoteric, is the result of a synthesis for the purposes of societal progress – potential or actual -, then I believe that the apparent methodological conflicts disappear.  One mistake is to assume that some philosophy, e.g. thought experiments, is not applicable or related to application.  Another mistake is to assume that philosophy needs to retreat into thought experiments and abstraction in order to retain its disciplinary autonomy.  Philosophy is about synthesis and the construction of this unity.

A Conversation About Philosophical Writing

This is a conversation between Thom (TG) and Dave (DB) concerning writing philosophy.  The thoughts are incomplete, but its the start of a dialogue about the strengths and limitations of philosophical works.  We hope that the conversation can continue in the comments.

DB: how are things in boston?

TG:  cold. I am trying to get lots of writing done, but I keep running headlong into complexity which isn’t a bad thing, but it requires a certain nuance in the writing process – if philosophers could be described as coy…  (this is a bit of an incomplete thought).

DB:  it’s alright, the complexity is the coyness?

TG:  no, good philosophical writing is slightly coy: its necessarily ‘ideal’ and thus a fiction, but what makes it coy is that it artfully hides complexity behind an ‘ideal’ facade.

I think of someone, who is coy, as someone whose shyness is a barrier to their depth

TG:  the world is really fucking complex, so if philosophical writing is to appear at all satisfactory – in the sense of ‘descriptive’ – then it must appear coy in this sense because we want to think the depth is there somewhere behind the words or something like that.  Of course, really good philosophical writing need not be descriptive, but to think that it could be outside of the context that we struggle to describe in the first place is naive

DB:  this is a wonderful conclusion

i think there needs to be poetry

irony

maybe more than coyness

TG:  coyness is poetry and irony

DB:  every sentence should bristle with its contradiction somehow

it [the word, ‘coy’] seems less than those somehow

 

TG:  that’s probably my fault for improperly using the word

I want it as a ‘catch-all’

there is something interesting that I think is related to these thoughts

 

TG:  sorry, I meant to say that this stuff we are talking about is related to the Romantic notion of Poesis.

 

Positivism and Current Events: “Causes are Russian Dolls”

In this post, Rebbecca Solnit reflects on ‘revolutions’ and change through our recent history.  But, instead of operating merely at the level of description, Solnit’s piece is a call to arms.  She cleverly draws comparisons from the recent (read: modern) past that serve the joint purposes of clarifying our current era by situating the apparently chaotic current events within the confines of history and of conjuring or exciting the spirit into revolution.  Here are some gems from the piece:

“Revolution is as unpredictable as an earthquake and as beautiful as spring. Its coming is always a surprise, but its nature should not be.”

“Women often find great roles in revolution, simply because the rules fall apart and everyone has agency, anyone can act.”

“I have often wondered if the United States could catch fire the way other countries sometimes do.”

“In the United States, the communion between the governed and the governors and the public spaces in which to be reborn as a civil society resurgent often seem missing. This is a big country whose national capital is not much of a center and whose majority seems to live in places that are themselves decentered.”

“So remember to expect the unexpected, but not just to wait for it. Sometimes you have to become the unexpected, as the young heroes and heroines of 2011 have.”

***

For some time now, I have been looking for ways to begin to address current events.  Philosophical Postivism, of course, is the nemesis of apathy.  Solnit’s piece provides a good starting point for discussions of current events.  In particular, I was encouraged by the author’s willingness to (Positively) understand revolutions as always global – existing across space and time, interconnected.  Events like the uprisings in the Middle East and Northern Africa and the natural disaster in Japan (and previously in Haiti, Louisiana, Indonesia, New Zealand, Australia, Pakistan, among others), the financial crisis of 2008 are all important for the ideas that will come to describe the times.  Positivism, at least my brand, is concerned with these connections – and the fruitful production of solutions or construction of new worlds (emphasis lower case ‘w’ of worlds – think ‘life-world’).

“There’s no real divide…” excerpt from an interview with Catarina Dutilh Novaes

Another positive interview.  For the full interview see here.

“I’d say that’s an understatement … Now for something a little less pleasant, but it’s a question I’m asking of everyone: the relation of continental and analytic philosophy has been fraught with tension for many years. How do you negotiate this conflict? Are there signs of a rapprochement?

I don’t really experience this tension in my daily life, perhaps because I am in the more ‘comfortable’ side of the tension, the analytic side (at least given my institutional embedding). I am without a doubt an analytic philosopher (albeit perhaps an idiosyncratic one, given my interests in history and the empirical sciences), but having been in school in France, and then having studied philosophy in Sao Paulo (where the program was founded by French professors of the ‘Structuralist’ school, a tradition that continues to this day), I feel a considerable degree of affinity with many aspects of the continental approach to philosophy. To me, there shouldn’t be a real conflict, and I greatly admire those who manage to combine the two traditions, such as Taylor Carman, Dermot Moran and my boss in Amsterdam, Martin Stokhof. But it takes intelligence and open-mindedness to be able to do that, and philosophers, just like everybody else, have strong parochial tendencies. Basically, I think I agree with you, John, that there’s no real divide, philosophically speaking, although there may be some differences in style.”