Left Behind

I’m not sure that Cohen can be called neglected, even in the US! His work draws quite a lot of interest, certainly among philosophers. (It probably is less well known than a lot of others among non-philosophers, though, so if that’s what you mean you’re probably right.) That said, it seems to me that the ratio of jokes to arguments in his work has gotten pretty dangerous over the last several years, even more in person than in his writing. Since he’s pretty funny (especially for a philosopher) this is often enjoyable but I’m not sure it’s good philosophy.

Matt,

Would you please supply the names of two or three articles, book chapters, or presented papers of Cohen’s in which the ratio of jokes to arguments is dangerously high? (His piece “Deeper into Bullshit” is something of a special case, so I hope you don’t pad out your list with that.) And then we can see how well your claim holds up to scrutiny. (My prediction is that your claim will not withstand any serious scrutiny.)

Mike, he’s not as bad as the later Jerry Fodor on this (some of Fodor’s later stuff was mostly jokes, it seemed) but I thought that was the case of much of _If You’re and Egalitarian…_ for example. It’s not that he doesn’t make arguments- he does- but just that jokes take the place of argument a fair amount. I thought this was so of the “facts and principles” paper too, though I’ve not read it for some time. (In person I think it’s often worse, where real questions are often dismissed with a joke rather than an answer.) This seems to me to be different from his earlier work, and when you’re a funny guy I’m sure it’s a hard temptation not to give in to, but it does seem real trend to me.

Specifics will have to wait, I’m afraid, as I’m not at home and not w/ books. (Always a lame excuess but true here.) Again, the claim isn’t that there are no arguments, just that sometimes (too often for my taste) they take the place of argument.

If only Palin would talk about Cohen. Maybe, we’ll see tonight.

A philosopher whose work is very funny, and I presume someone who Cohen knows reasonably well, is Brian O’Shaughnessy. The Will is full wit, though as dry as can be. He was (presumably still is) funny (but absolutely deadpan, more so than Paul Merton, so much so that he gave no awareness at all that he was being funny) as a lecturer and tutor, too.

Matt,

I typed my second comment before your reply to Chris had appeared on my monitor, so it’s less hectoring than it may appear.

Even if Cohen often substitutes jokes for arguments in q & a and drafts of papers that he presents (neither of which I think he does), I suppose this doesn’t really matter if he ultimately manages to pull himself together and discipline himself sufficiently to refrain from this in his published work. So perhaps, when you have the chance, you couldd supply some specific examples from his published work. That way others can judge for themselves and won’t have to take my admittedly biased word that this is an unlikely objection.

Karl Marx’s Theory of History: A Defence: jokes?

History, Labour and Freedom: Themes from Marx: jokes??

Freedom, Self-Ownership and Equality: jokes???

If You’re an Egalitarian, How Come You’re So Rich? One chapter (taking up one page) that is explicitly a joke. Otherwise: jokes????

Plus: when G.A. Cohen made the joke in the seminar to which Matt refers, was he using humour to evade answering the question, or (as I suspect) using it to illustrate a point that formed part of his answer? It is not as if making a joke and making an argument are necessarily mutually exclusive things.

Matt,

You write of ‘Cohen’s colleagues and former students defending him so vigorously’ that ‘they should also read a bit more closely’. You must be referring to Chris and me as well as Stuart. So how have either Chris or I misread your above posts? As before, I’d be very curious to know what you have in mind.

On a much more interesting question than the one we’ve been talking about, and one where I’d be very interested to hear from his students and colleagues, Lisa, who I probably never should have made an off-hand and only 3/4 serious reply to, also seemed to wonder why Cohen hasn’t had more influence outside of philosophy. I wonder this too. He’s obviously very influential within philosophy and the more directly philosophical political science departments, but doesn’t have as much impact in the broader intellectual world (I’m thinking in particular about law here, the area I know best, but also less philosophical political science, history, sociology, and the more general public) as have only slightly older philosphers like Rawls, Nozick, MacIntyre, Habermas, Michael Walzer, and Charles Taylor. In legal scholarhship by non-philosophers, for example, these people are regularly mentioned, usually in half-baked and annoying ways but still regularly mentioned. I don’t see that much for Cohen and wonder why. I don’t think it’s the quality of work- I think Cohen is at least as good as most of them- or that he’s harder to read- even though I think it’s wrong at many points his book on Marx is a model of clear exposition and scholarship as well as important in its own right. So, why hasn’t he penetrated general intellectual thinking more? I’m genuinely quite curious about this and suspect it has more of a sociological explanation than a philosophical one but am interested in what others think (including if they thing this is not in fact so! It might be much less so in the UK, for example.) Now, alas, back to some really tedious legal work.

touche!