Philosophy: Mind and Manners

Helpful observations on the analytic culture and norms — and ones I have not seen elsewhere. They do pretty much fit my limited experience with these events…

Your throw away line “many performances that might seem fairly normal elsewhere around campus would be perceived, in philosophy, as rude and domineering” suggests fascinating possibilities for elaboration.

Could you list a few examples of the normal “conversation stopper” performances from other tribes? And even better, if you are in the mood, provide a bit of a taxonomy?

(And, of course, by “philosophers,” I just mean denizens of philosophy departments!)

Hmmmm, this excuse also used in great measure by inhabitants of economics departments and IMO not desperately convincing there.

I have friends in the humanities disciplines other than philosophy and have found that they are perfectly willing to engage in the smashmouth argumentation that is typical of philosophy departments. In fact, many of these friends in the humanities – perhaps because we’re all in our 30’s or perhaps it’s because of shared background – seem to relish a good argument as much as anyone else in the academy.

My suspicion is that it is not nearly as simple as has been portrayed.

First, I think that a lot of older humanities folk – older than, um, 45 or so – see their academic work as political work – they see their political commitments and dreams as entirely at home in their academic lives – and so they find the intense intellectual discussion found in philosophy departments to be politically threatening – not just intellectually fascistic but in fact an expression of right wing sensibilities (it’s pretty much always people on the left who are sensitive to philosophy department conversational intensity – oh and I am as on the left as you would want me to be so don’t get in my face about that). The problem, in short, is that a lot of the humanities folks who are easily offended just cannot see any distinction between academic discussion and political activism. That is the source of a lot worse problems that analytic philosophy’s supposedly bad reputation.

Second, I think that analytic philosophy is a seriously sexist discipline – see Sally Haslanger’s work on this – and I suspect pretty racist too (at least in comparison to other humanities disciplines). There has been very little institutional effort to deal with that. Other disciplines have tried to deal with this issue and part of the way it has been dealt with is to challenge the norms of discourse. Sexist exclusion of women can go under the heading of “tough questioning.” Maybe – I am not sure about this – maybe other disciplines in the process of dealing with this institutional sexism and racism have erred on the side of ruling out all tough questioning so as to avoid the racist and sexist “tough questioning” that is really just troglodyte white men expressing their frustration at the presence of the other in their world.

Let me stress that what I just wrote is pretty off-the-cuff and undertheorized. So, I am not super committed to it. But, it seems correct to me.

Third, I run a small annual cross-disciplinary workshop that brings lawyers, psychologists, social scientists and the like together with philosophers and I have found that so long as there is a sense of mutual respect amongst the participants tough questioning of the analytic sort is very welcome. Maybe I need to get some cultural theorists in there but I gotta say: if you ask tough questions that kneecap someone but it’s taken as an expression of respect for your commitment to getting at something deep or interesting, then everyone seems to be okay with it.

Finally, if there is one thing in the humanities I cannot stand it’s the totally obnoxious way in which faculty use the Q&A session to blather on and on about their own work that is barely tangentially related to the topic at hand. That, blogreaders, strikes me as far more disrespectful, juvenile and self-involved than analytic philosophers really going after an argument.

You know, I’m not all that convinced by all of this “perfectly harmless”, “move along”, “just local quirkiness” stuff re philosophy. It doesn’t sit well with other observations we’ve made in other threads. I’m thinking especially of Kieran’s “comment”:https://crookedtimber.org/2009/01/27/should-you-delay-parenthood-till-tenure/#comment-264354

_Moreover, to a greater degree than most academic disciplines, Philosophy is on the look-out for the next Boy Genius. One expects, indeed requires, the typical BG personality to come leavened with various eccentricities. Evidence of interpersonal weirdness or incipient nuttiness will, in male candidates, tend to be forgiven in proportion to the expected level of BG-hood the candidate has been typed by the market as possessing._

There is, unfortunately, a somewhat, ahem, gendered aspect to the style that typically obtains in philosophy seminars. I like the kind of robust and snarky discussion we sometimes have, but it can also be alienating and destructive and often gets in the way of the speaker explaining what they mean.

Given the last three comments I’m beginning to wonder in what department a thoroughly-devastating-category line of inquiry is not generally seen as polite and acceptable discourse. In what department is “It seems the work you’ve presented today relies on these X assumptions, each of which is obviously, shall we say, problematic: 1, 2, 3…” not a standard, well-recognized invitation to begin an engaging conversation?

In what department is “It seems the work you’ve presented today relies on these X assumptions, each of which is obviously, shall we say, problematic: 1, 2, 3…” not a standard, well-recognized invitation to begin an engaging conversation?

Not to mention, how did people who don’t see it that way survive their dissertation defense?

I am suspicious of disciplines (if there really be such) where people think their precious pontifications are immune to sharp questioning.

My preliminary guess is, there exist many disciplines in which this line of foundational questioning is not-as-frequently the most useful or insightful line of inquiry. For example, I recently attended a presentation of new harmonic analysis techniques for reconstructing rock density deep underground from fragmented and partial hard data. Neat stuff. It would have been absurd for anyone present to lay in with this kind of foundational “your entire work seems to be based on faulty theoretical premises” question.

That doesn’t mean there was a lack of sharp, incisive questions, or that the speaker couldn’t handle such questions if posed; it means questioning the theoretical premises beyond a certain point would be taken to be idle wankery on the part of the questioner. If there really was a theoretical problem with the underlying premises, I suppose someone could have brought it up, but in that case it would be exactly pointing out that the speaker was an idiot for not having noticed the glaring problem. It would be far more likely for a questioner to hedge, “I’m not seeing how you resolved this theoretical problem of X.”

I think that John’s basic point is right, but–as some of the posters above point out–there is also a heavy strain in many philosophy departments of alpha-male aggressive dickishness, where the point really is to humiliate your intellectual opponent and win, rather than just to advance the discussion by subjecting your interlocutor to sharp interrogation.

Quite a few people take JH to be referring to question-and-answer sessions, or vivas, or similar formal situations which are of their nature supposed to involve challenges. I took him to be describing informal conversation, and pointing out the far greater prevalence of the iterative method of counterexamples in philosophical chats.

Chris @9, you may be right, but I’ve generally found that those involved in point-scoring are pretty easily distinguished from the collaborative dialecticians, by experienced participants anyway, and receive the brutal raised eyebrow treatment they deserve from the assembled testosterone-charged bruisers.

This, and the following post, might be a relevant case?

I don’t know, perhaps there is after all a particular prevalence of masculine-style combativeness in philosophy departments (excuse my sniggers, I’m just thinking of all the jobs I’ve had in the commercial sector). Can we get some meaningful data on the question, and whether there are, say, geographical differences? At the moment we have anecdotes – which given that we are specifically contemplating the possibility of misperceptions are of particularly questionable value (that’s not directed at anyone in particular…)

It really would be too frightfully boring if this were to become the third thread to drift in the direction of demanding that philosophers (or philosophy-book-stackers or whatever) explain: what is wrong with them, what the causes are, why they won’t explain themselves, why their explanations are so insufferably arrogant and why they insist on behaving in such a way as to make people ask such questions.

A distinction: there’s the normal culture of philosophy departments, with its particular style of conversation; and then there’s the particular kind of arseholery which that culture allows – its distinctive form of corruption, which tends to resemble teenage boys arguing over AD&D rules (see: pretty much every seminar I attended as a postgrad in Oxford). Other disciplines have both their own, distinctive styles of conversation and their own, distinctive styles of parasitic arseholery.

I think Sam’s distinction is important but I’d like to expand it out to a three-fold one:

1) a kind of arseholery distinctive to the present dominant style of Angl0-American academic philosophy, but not essential to it
2) characteristics of this style itself
3) characteristics which are inherent in philosophy as an intellectual enterprise (roughly conceived as something like the rational interrogation and possible rejection of basic assumptions widely held and unquestioned in society at large or particular sections of it)

Without playing down the importance of (1) and (2) I think it’s probably safe to say that there are nevertheless a large number of people who are offended and/or angry and/or bent on revenge on account of (3), and they appear to be disproportionately well-represented on the internet.

Again — Lamont is not talking about talking (nor blogwars), but about writing. It may be that philosophers value (and hence cultivate) a particular kind of social ineptness and macho posturing (I don’t say that they do, just that they *might*) in person. But Lamont’s discussion has to do with how they come across on paper, when the reader can only read and can’t supplement argumentative back and forth (let alone persona). If philosophers do aim for relentless clarity, one would think their writing would be particularly lucid and thus particularly amenable to the grant proposal format. It doesn’t seem to me a discussion of the standard average philosophical persona helps to explain that – *unless* the kind of behavior that comes across as “persuasive” in person for philosophers is providing much of the necessary context for why philosophers find one versus another talk or argument convincing; the same argument, on paper, looks flat and uninspired. Which suggests (racism, sexism, and rudeness aside) philosophers might approach Truth a little more closely if they were to give up some chest-pounding and poo-flinging along the way.

I was initially going to rush on here to confess to a “holy crap” moment, as in “Holy crap! that’s exactly how people have been perceiving me my whole life, and exactly the way I would have described my predicament: my “conversation starters” are perceived as “rude conversation enders!!!” But I was going to ask Holbo to clarify how exactly other department engage in dialogue with each other, and I was going to confess too that my experience within philosophy departments has been that I’ve generally been regarded as combative and rude even when I went out of my way to be considerate of the value in everyone’s participation.

I see that, more or less, these complaints have already be leveled by others. So I guess we’re left with the notion that the reason that other disciplines hate to be thought of as sub-disciplines of philosophy is that it hurts to admit the obvious.

I jest a little. But in regard to the relationship between theory and philosophy and the very nature of constructing theory at all, isn’t the method of consistent argument-building the work of philosophy? You can certainly be a good thinker in a sociology department or in political science, but the people who sit around all day thinking of ways to think about stuff are philosophers by nature. They are better equipped to see holes in arguments regardless of genre. Isn’t that what the entire field of the philosophy of science taught us–that even in regard to constructing scientific theories there were philosophical elements at play that should be studied by philosophers so that scientists could 1) attend to their areas of specialty but still 2) create better theories (e.g., by being more conscious of that process)? So to steal the metaphor from Plato’s pen, isn’t philosophy still the master art that governs the progress of the rest.

Note: I’m not trying to bait anyone here. I have a BA in Philosophy but I’m trying to get into graduate school in political science, so the bait offered here would just force me to admit that I’m aiming for an inferior course of study myself–a line of argument I wouldn’t be happy to admit to.

It also might be borne in mind that an overly punctilious enforcement of standards of politeness, patience and moderated tone can in its own way be alienating and exclusionary — not always but sometimes to people who happen to care about the subject under discussion.

I usually attend math seminars but have occasionally attended philosophy seminars, and on one occasion organized a seminar in which a particularly mathy philosopher spoke to a mixed-discipline audience, and I can attest that the norms of seminar behavior are strikingly different. In math it is not particularly rude to interrupt a speaker without being called on. On the other hand, one would almost never hear an audience member disputing the truth of an assertion made by the speaker. Even if you do think the speaker has said something wrong, you interrupt and ask a question of the form, “You seem to be saying X, but this contradicts Y, so how have I misunderstood you?” And in almost all cases the audience member HAS in fact misunderstood the speaker, or the speaker has made a “typo” on the board or been imprecise in a definition, and the end result of the interruption is generally that everyone in the room understands a bit better what’s going on.

The philosophical style does come off to me as quite aggressive and adversarial. But my philosopher friends assure me it’s just a difference in seminar style, and it’s good to see that confirmed here.

Dr. Smith, this is unfair to you – I don’t know you, and your thoughts I’m sure are constrained by the medium – but this is exactly the kind of casual conspiratorial mudslinging that contributed not a little to my decision to leave grad school:

“Second, I think that analytic philosophy is a seriously sexist discipline – see Sally Haslanger’s work on this – and I suspect pretty racist too (at least in comparison to other humanities disciplines). There has been very little institutional effort to deal with that. Other disciplines have tried to deal with this issue and part of the way it has been dealt with is to challenge the norms of discourse. Sexist exclusion of women can go under the heading of “tough questioning.” Maybe – I am not sure about this – maybe other disciplines in the process of dealing with this institutional sexism and racism have erred on the side of ruling out all tough questioning so as to avoid the racist and sexist “tough questioning” that is really just troglodyte white men expressing their frustration at the presence of the other in their world.

Let me stress that what I just wrote is pretty off-the-cuff and undertheorized. So, I am not super committed to it. But, it seems correct to me.”

Off-the-cuff and undertheorized?! Have you offered even the barest outline of an argument, besides a half-formed gesture toward an unnamed paper? If you have I’ve missed it. It also strikes me that your worry about “older” philosophers seeing their professional work as political might not jibe with your apparent desire (?) to see the norms of argument changed to fix perceived prejudices endemic to the institution (the institution!) of analytic philosophy. Or else, you’d better at least say something about the criterion of demarcation between legitimate “tough questioning” and the projected frustrations of “white troglodytes” terrified of the other in their midst.

I generally agree with John here, but that doesn’t mean I’m not annoyed by questions of that sort (directed at me, that is). Like Wittgenstein (or not; let’s not get into it), I tend to think of what I’m doing less as establishing the truth of philosophical doctrines than as suggesting different ways of thinking about those things we already know. In this context, to respond with a purportedly knockdown argument of some doctrine or other is often (but not always) to misunderstand what is being said. So that’s annoying; but again, for most philosophers this isn’t a problem (and I don’t object when it’s appropriate).

still nothing on how all this bears on writing style, which is what is at issue in evaluating grant proposals.

## 32 & 33 – hear hear.
and #40.

JH @39 – but is this (purported) phenomenon determined by some salient factor, like the nature of the subject?

By the way, may I beat my chest and roar that an ‘alpha male’ is not the same thing as an aggressive, loud etc male, or indeed one with any particular intrinsic characteristic (a bit like ‘the fittest’ as in ‘survival of’). It’s just one that currently dominates the particular group it’s currently in. I imagine in most cases that amounts mainly to getting first refusal of food etc., and of course exclusive access to chosen female(s) (or so he thinks – ‘sneaky fucker’* behaviours persist in humans and other animals.)

I wouldn’t insist, but I want your harem it does manifest a confusion about the (externalist-essentialist?) ‘alpha male’ concept, which in turn I think has some subtle implications for mores which I won’t even try to tease out.

_*a term actually used in zoology I understand…

During the years I have noted that there is a certain way in which many non-political scientists feel entitled to discuss politics that, say, non-engineers usually do not feel about engineering. That is, I would assert that an engineer could, in quite explicit detail, point out why someone is wrong concerning a particular engineering problem without this being perceived as being hostile in any way. If, on the other hand, a political scientist in exactly the same manner were to point out why someone is wrong about a certain political issue it would be perceived as being just that: a direct attack on something which (for one reason or another) should not be attacked. That the political scientist in question might have spent a decade or more on this particular issue is in general of little to no consequence to the holder of a particular view, which is a relationship which that same holder of a particular view would be likely to find absurd were the political scientist an engineer discussing an engineering problem.

I would suggest that the relationship between philosophers and non-philosophers is extremely similar to that of political scientists and non-political scientists. In general I don’t really think the style of argument as such matters a whole deal as long as we are discussing the relationship between academic fields (which obviously does not mean that academe-speak cannot be exclusionary), but rather that it is the topic as such that is the problem. As many have already mentioned, most participants of a field are engaged in various kinds of critical dialogue with other participants of that field, and an entirely non-critical engagement is often a sign that whatever is being discussed isn’t really deemed worthy of discussion (which, I think, most presenters of ideas would find insulting). But this does not mean that a philosopher is critical in the same sense that an anthropologist is critical, and the tendency of some to reduce this difference to a particular kind of arseholery vs. non-arseholery in my view misses the point entirely, which is: why does this reduction occur? And I think engels already provided the best explanation for it in #26.

JH I think you might be (or be being taken as) conceding too much. I don’t recognise the picture that is suddenly emerging at all. Are we now using Wittgenstein and Popper – both of whom were clearly massive wankers – as our point of reference? Have we abandoned the possibility that perceptions (or the not-entirely-passive taking of umbrage) are affected by factors to do with the nature of the subject? Or that they might be affecting some of the comments? Why has the thread just now taken this turn?

-ah, just refreshed the page before a delayed posting, and see that some sanity has returned in the last couple of posts…so, where were we?

My point was that people sometimes read these as ad jugulum attacks (‘you are a contemptible idiot!’) when really it was just a relatively mild case of ribbing and cajoling, nothing more.

yes this is why I used the word “excuse” above. “It was just mild ribbing, you’re reading far too much into it” is so very frequently used as an excuse for utterly unacceptable behaviour (particularly, such behaviour when embedded into subcultures of people who think it’s alright) that I think philosophers will have a hell of a job in convincing anybody that philosophy departments are the very very rare exception. If I was at a philosophy seminar now, I think I’d add a sarcastic analogy here to the small minority of genuine naked-dusting accidents which end up with a man getting a ketchup bottle stuck up his bottom for entirely innocent reasons.

I end up returning to the example of our numerous “John Emerson vs Philosophers” threads (and indeed the various similar ones involving me). John basically adopts this mode of address when addressing analytical philosophers of their many failings, and infallibly they hate it, and tend to react very angrily indeed.

This doesn’t strike me as the natural reaction of people who are used to being bluntly and sarcastically criticised in the spirit of efficient progress and who regard this sort of thing as good natured ribbing. It looks much more like the natural reaction of people who have to put up with a whole load of shit in their daily life because it’s considered normal in their workplace, and who are damned if they’re going to tolerate more of the same on the Internet.

I’d also add that this style of behaviour does show up in the other humanities from time to time (cf: Leavis and his followers, also various bits of the cultural studies movement who are always having a go at Michael B and, canonically, neoclassical economists) and it seems to be invariably correlated with intellectual cliqueishness. Which is as you’d expect; if people behave in a way that’s all cool and dandy to an in-group, but looks really nasty to anyone who doesn’t understand the code, then their external contacts are going to be limited to people who are willing to make the effort.

As someone who has just finished grad school I’ll agree with John and Chris that in philosophy it’s encouraged for the junior to take this sort of attitude in seminars and at talks, too- to aggressively question those talking- and that this is often how reputations are made. (I’d once read a claim that this was even more so in the UK, but I don’t know that that is true.) Of course there are sometimes senior people who cannot stand questioning or criticisms, and if one of those is your adviser or seminar instructor you’d better know it, but for the most part senior philosophers encourage and welcome the same sort of aggressive (seeming) and full-on questioning style from students and young philosophers, and learning to do it well is seen as part of being socialized.

One thing that hasn’t been mentioned (I think) in either of these threads is the possibility that it’s not the brusqueness of the argument that’s different between disciplines, but the grounds for attacking a paper. If philosophers very much have an agreed method for doing philosophy, (as mathematicians have for doing mathematics), then the argument is going to be concentrated on methodological weaknesses.

In history, particularly medieval history, which is my specialism, a variety of methodological approaches is common. So I quite often hear a paper and think, well that’s not how I would have approached the question, but the results are interesting. The really devastating question in history, in contrast (even if it tends to be reserved for post-seminar private asides), is ‘so what?’ Now that I know women were involved in the French Revolution or whatever, what difference does it make?

As a result, historians tend to become practised at providing a brief explanation of why their topic matters to non-specialists in their field. (I have several elevator pitches on my own work, for example). In contrast, if philosophers have a culture in which they share agreed important questions and agreed methods, they’re not going to get practiced in explaining a) why their topic matters and b) why they’ve taken this approach, and they’re going to come out badly in interdisciplinary panels.

What would be interesting to hear (perhaps paging Michael Berube?), is the most frequent grounds for arguing in literature seminars (or in other humanities subjects). Thehn we can get more of an idea of how philosophy is distinctive.

I think Matt’s right that there’s a tendency of philosophers to see other disciplines as badly-done philosophy, but let me also note that there’s a tendency of at least some other disciplines to see philosophy as badly done history, lit. crit., sociology, etc. This happens to me often enough that I have standard replies ready to go when, e.g., someone responds to my claim that self-expression is part of the good life by referring to survey data which indicates that some group (it might be ‘people from Eastern cultures’ or ‘women’ or…) don’t value self-expression.

Well if you assume yourself to be in the right, then you’re in the right. But this is not a very general-purpose reply; should I go and dig up a bunch of examples of philosophers, big and small, losing their tempers in CT comments threads?

Or perhaps let’s look at the (slightly old but still I think relevant) fiasco of the Cambridge University philosophy faculty’s reaction to the proposal to give Derrida an honorary degree. That certainly looked like red-faced, spluttering, cliquish, utterly embarrassing status rage; was it not?

I’m not particularly interested in arguing (because I have no real empirical evidence that it’s the case) that philosophers are better or worse at mean or rude behaviour to non-clique members than anyone else. But I think that any defence has got to rest on “actually we don’t do this any more than anyone else” rather than “ahhhh, but when we do it, it’s charming!”. If we’re going to accept the premis that philosophers have a tradition of behaving rudely and aggressively, then it’s not really much of a qualification to that to say “but since people in the in-group don’t mind”, since what we’re specifically interested in is relations between the in group and the rest of the world.

I’d like to pick up on the philosophy-and-sexism remarks particularly, except for Hilzoy, they have been in the mode of “women, they”. It is undeniable that philosophy as a discipline has a shockingly low percent of women participants, the percent of women hired in tenured and tenure track job hovers around 21%. But the percentage of women who get BAs in philosophy is almost as low, I’m sorry I can remember the lastest figure but I think it is in the mid 20’s. So the problem of women in philosophy is I think really a pipeline problem and it is most acute at the undergraduate level and not at the level at which colleagues or fellow members of seminars are being arseholes. That is, I think people for a long time have been looking in the wrong places to explain why so few women become professional philosophers, particularly since as Hilzoy says I think quite correctly, most undergraduates just don’t see sexism or sexist behavior addressed to them. I have no idea what it is about the teaching of undergraduate philosophy that fails to attract women (particularly since it obviously failed to apply in my case) but I don’t think that the way professional philosophers behave to one another at talks has much to do with it.

“Now suppose that it’s the umpteenth time he’s expressed this view. Am I not allowed to get even a little tired of it? I say I am allowed. ”

And I would say the anger of the analytics (and yes, it’s anger and yes, Holbo is angry) tells us precisely who they are (hint: is anger a philosophic emotion? does anger lead to wisdom?)

I like the aggressive, adversarial style. It liberates women like me who, in the outside world are constrained by the expectation that one will be nice. This was one of the things that attracted me about philosophy as an undergraduate. After dipping in my toe a little I realized that in philosophy classes I could let go, fight, enjoy myself–and be rewarded for it

Why so few women majoring in philosophy? Maybe it’s plain economics. In choosing a major you may not be entirely set on a career path but looking at a wide range of options including not only grad school in the discipline but professional programs (like law) that don’t require a specific major, K-12 teaching (getting a teaching credential when you’re firmed up your plans), or just competing in the market for decent white-collar jobs in business that only take a BA–no particular major required.

Men have a much better shot at those decent white-collar jobs. A man with a “useless humanities degree” like philosophy has a much better shot of getting a job in sales or whatever with a career ladder to management. A comparably qualified woman is more likely to end up in a dead-end secretarial job–though of course these jobs aren’t called secretarial any more. So an undergraduate philosophy degree is much riskier for women than for men.

Why fewer women in philosophy than in other equally “useless” humanities disciplines? Because these are a possible career path to high school teaching as a fallback position whereas philosophy isn’t.

This is a quite a close analogy because philosophers, in the sorts of cases I’m discussing, genuinely don’t think of themselves as attacking the person, as opposed to the position

You do keep on saying this, but this is why I keep calling it an excuse. Phil at #69 gives a fantastic example of an instance when a clear half-dozen philosophers were very obviously both attacking the person, and considering themselves to be attacked as people. There are also numerous cases of philosophical controversies between philosophers (Dennett against Searle in the 1990s, for example, or Colin McGinn against everyone) where it became parodically obvious that it was, in fact, a personal fight and both sides ended up admitting it. On secondhand evidence, it doesn’t seem all that unusual for a philosophy seminar to degenerate into a pointless timewasting shouting match – it’s considered an occupational hazard, and the fact that this sometimes happens suggests to me that it’s always potentially about to happen.

I also don’t accept (if this is the claim you’re making, which I’m not sure)[1] that philosophers making comments which have the outward appearance of bluntly phrased logical comments are in fact doing that. Bruno Latour’s work is very good on the way in which natural scientists use presentations of data as rhetorical devices in political struggles with one another, and it would seem odd to me if philosophers didn’t do things the same way.

[1] a short formule de politesse much avoided by some of the philosophers who comment on CT, and the efficiency gain of saving a passage of 11 words is always more than offset by the tendency toward 1000 word diatribes about someone else’s “reading comprehension”.

Somehow the vague impression that there is generally some degree and kind of sly, wry sardonic mindgaming going on in philosophical discussions seems to have crept in. Maybe it’s because the only example given in detail was Kekes, which I wouln’t have regard as typical, and in fact read as a rather supercilious gambit, with humour used either as a diffuser of tension or a deserved putdown.

I thought we were discussing the blunt and earnest, and yes, enjoyable and even exhilarating pursuit of philosophical discussion. Instead there seems now to have arisen the idea that philosophers are on the same spectrum as Bernard Manning and other vicious wielders of (faux-)humour. I don’t get it.

I recently switched to using my full name here, but my first name still pops up by default when I comment and I sometimes forget to correct it. “Kathleen = Kathleen Lowrey”.

Burritoboy, I don’t think I understand what you’re getting at (or what you were getting at in the earlier thread where you were similarly contemptuous about philosophy lecturers/professors). The word ‘philosopher’ has several meanings. Do you really think the one you favour is the only legitimate meaning? Why, if so? Do you really think – I’m even less sure about this as a sketch of your views – that no-one who works in a university philosophy department (me, for instance) is a philosopher in your favoured sense? Again, why, if so?

Oh, if we’re just talking about reactions to John Emerson, I’m with John Holbo: Emerson doesn’t know what he’s talking about, has been corrected many times, but still repeats the same old crap. I wouldn’t call myself ‘angry’ about this; ‘irritated’ would cover it.

“(Before John or anyone else jumps on me, please consider that not as a criticism of John’s mode of critique, merely a recognition of what I think ought to be obvious: that success in making someone angry, especially via the internet, really doesn’t have a necessary connection of the intellectual merits of what you are saying.)”

The analytics seem very easy to anger – and anger is the emotion of the hero (angry Achilles, etc) rather than the philosopher.

“Either then, or when one has just been called a ‘motherfucker’ or something similar six or seven times in row. Which of the two is closer to the typical blog exchange with John Emerson is for you to judge.”

Apparently, the honor of the analytics is very important to them. Again, whether honor is something that philosophers should value greatly seems a dubious proposition.

Ah, but there are reasons! Analytic philosophers would have no job, or be bored on the job, if people wouldn’t get in their face: 2-D semanticist want to argue about whether 2-D Semantics is right, not write 2-D dictionaries detailing primary and secondary intensions for every word in the OED. Clashing each-other from across opposite sides of a border is the ideal condition for analytic philosophers to do their work in. Now contrast that with a Lacanian literary theorist who’s facing attempted-refutations of psychoanalysis, and just wants to go back to writing his/her history of objet petit a in Anglo-American Modernism, but now has to put aside actual work to go fight about background assumptions and whether the work is legit. Not fun. Just like chemist prefer to spend their time doing chemistry than arguing about whether science is a dogma.

Methodological attacks are unpleasant (almost always and almost only, I think) when they question not the correctness of your assertions but the legitimacy/relevance of busying yourself with making such assertions. And, hey, when Timothy Williamson and P. S. Hacker fight over whose life’s work is a huge twaste of time dragging philosophy into pseudo-concerns it *does* get ugly. It gets ugly pretty much whenever there’s a Wittgensteinian and a ‘let’s outgrow the linguistic turn’-er in the same room.

Lover? I’m a scientist. I’m genetically programmed to disdain philosophers and their quaint notion that they can uncover the secrets of the universe whilst sitting in their armchairs.. ;) I just happen to dislike thread-crappers more.

Ahhh Brian Leiter. Whenever I start wondering if I might be wrong about this, up he pops, demonstrating whatever intellectual and social vice we’re talking about, in spades. And the terrible thing is that it’s very hard to say “yes well, but Brian Leiter doesn’t really define the standards of modern philosophy”, because he does, actually, define the standards of modern philosophy and publishes a guidebook to prove it.

Tim: your comments require a ridiculous amount of scrolling to be comprehensible, consequently I do not make the effort to comprehend them.

“Lover? I’m a scientist. I’m genetically programmed to disdain philosophers and their quaint notion that they can uncover the secrets of the universe whilst sitting in their armchairs.. ;) I just happen to dislike thread-crappers more.”

Like I said, you’re a fierce, war-like lover of (certain) philosophers – glorious in your anger that others have assailed the beauty of your beloved. And the angry heroic lover is extremely beautiful, but a human type very different from the philosopher.

#90 Fair nuff, though it looks OK (layout wise) on my screen resolution. I suppose I would prefer my tappings to be read so better cut them down I suppose.

#91 Starting point is assumed, and is basically as you say, but more specifically as relating to to the reactions from academic assessors with humanities and social science backgrounds. I guess I’m supposing the answers lie somewhere between versions (m. mutanda) of 3 & 4. But since the restricted version of 4 might become: ‘in some cases, humanities etc spec1alists are not best placed to judge/appreciate’, it wouldn’t be totally indefensible and stays inside the solution space for now.
Beyond that I have no idea – just groping. But if the comment had anything to do with moving the conversation in the direction you are taking (and away from its previous bearing) I am glad.

Ah yes of course – thanks.

if you have the bad luck to be proposing something to a row of people who are inclined to find your whole intellectual style to be one big presupposition of confusion, you are going to have to work extra hard to get through to them.

Coincidentally, this summarizes a problem in teaching breathtakingly succinctly.

And in both the intended and the unintended cases, the extra work you are going to have to do is some form of conscientious indoctrination:“This is how you should think about this.” And in both cases, it’s not done explicitly and it’s not especially easy to convince the audience they should comply.

“I end up returning to the example of our numerous “John Emerson vs Philosophers” threads (and indeed the various similar ones involving me). John basically adopts this mode of address when addressing analytical philosophers of their many failings, and infallibly they hate it, and tend to react very angrily indeed.”

I don’t know about JEvsPh but I generally find John Emerson vs. Economics pretty interesting and occasionally insightful (which isn’t the same thing as correct). Per Chris’ point in the next post, though, it’s true that Emerson is a stubborn curmudgeon who doesn’t adjust his views even when stuff is explained to him. But then again, neither does Daniel. Much.

JH @99: most humanists regard philosophers’ general puzzle-and-problem stylings as preposterous and laughable. People take it to be obvious that these issues just can’t possibly be amenable to the sorts of sharp conceptual puzzle-piece approachs that philosophers seem to assume MUST work, if anything will

Or is it more the relevance of the issues themselves? The ‘puzzle-and-problem’ surely defines the issue pretty well, and if that is accepted, the way it’s framed/defined would seem to make the analytical approach entirely appropriate. Maybe this is just a question of what counts as the ‘issue’ – I think (here as elsewhere) an example that could be agreed on (by all concerned) as a central case would probably be very helpful. Say – this: David Miller: Overcoming the Justificationist Addiction (picked arbitrarily from links in wikipedia and not one I’m familiar with).

So in this case (or another), what is the issue, what is the problem/puzzle that’s potentially a poor way to approach the issue, what are the alternative ways the issue might (according to the humanist panel members) have been approached?

Salient @100:
[re: if you have the bad luck to be proposing something to a row of people who are inclined to find your whole intellectual style to be one big presupposition of confusion, you are going to have to work extra hard to get through to them]

the extra work you are going to have to do is some form of conscientious indoctrination:“This is how you should think about this.’

But following on from above, if it’s not so a much a problem of the style/method as the overall relevance or interestingness, so our imaginary generic humanists think ‘so what’? rather than ‘analytic philosophy is not the way to approach this admittedly interesting problem’, the task may be effectively to recommend what is basically a piece of pure research with no clear application (outside the discipline/domain/research prorgamme). It’s possible that our imaginary panel just tend to think, of basically any philosophical issue you care to raise, however general and however well the analytical approach to it is advocated, that it just isn’t worth doing. That would be awkward.

In either case, might it be an idea for philosophers to compile a portfolio of cases in which a philosophical advance or insight has actually led to some particular identifiable but initially unobvious ‘downstream’ theoretical benefit? And (gulp) how feasible would that be? If it could be done, should/could a suitably analogous example be chosen to go into the intro of each research proposal? Sounds a bit ridiculous really, but…

Or is some more general campaign of ‘education’ or publicity needed? Or do analytic philosophers just have to hunker down and hope for a change in trends/attitudes in the humanities? And is there anything in the possibility that at least in some cases, humanists are not the best (or most sympathetic anyway) people to judge a philosophical proposal? Do (other) humanities have less use for/acceptance of ‘pure’ research?

[And why do my ref. numbers to other posts keep going wrong? I can only suppose previous posts are passing moderation and being inserted into the list. They should really be assigned a number when they reserve a place in the posting order. An occasional gap in the numbers wouldn’t matter. Tut.]

To be clear: in my last comment (107), I did not mean to slight the role of, say, historical training in e.g. reading historical documents, let alone to say something like: ‘anyone can do it!’ I just meant: in all cases, I assume, training helps you to do work in a given discipline better than you would otherwise. In philosophy, though, there is the additional problem that sometimes training is needed to enable you to locate the subject-matter itself.

While John Holbo identifies the behavior at issue, he misconstrues its meaning and intent.

Holbo offers a good post whose central premise is not so much flawed as it is entirely incorrect, and ultimately Holbo’s willingness to deploy what amounts to a rationalization undermines any productive ends he hopes to accomplish.

To engage one’s peers in a willfully disingenuous and decidedly lazy manner is not “normal,” it is common. That it is common hardly makes it appropriate or acceptable. Such an approach is also quite commonly intellectually barren of any insight into the impact of linguistic functioning, or the social rules that dominate in other disciplines or in the world in general. Few people abide someone who starts with the assumption that you must be wrong; most people have great respect for open-minded folks. Folks who convey that they know they are dealing with peers and equals and behave accordingly.

Folks who start by trying to understand what you are saying, engage respectfully based on the facts at hand, and assume that you might be right until proven otherwise. And proving otherwise — in healthy conversations — is not the point: arriving at a mutually held and superior understanding is the goal. To reduce ‘being right’, to possessing —to owning the Truth at the expense of those around you is a defeat, not moral or interpersonal one, but an intellectual defeat. This is verified by the fact that this issue remains in contention. To the extent philosphers express contempt for, well, anyone else, rather than doing the easy work of treating others with respect and rather than doing the hard work of understanding the concept and issue at hand before presuming to knock it down — to that same extent they will be challenged or ignored or critiqued.

For that reason, philosophers have found themselves increasingly alone. The discipline’s lack of insight or discpline regarding the behavior of its practitioners has hurt the profession.

Philosophy has become it’s own disciplinary solipsism.

The only arguments it can win are those that it holds with itself.

Here’s the thing: Holbo identifies ‘rules’ or a disciplinary ‘culture’ in which cutting down various arguments (as opposed to engaging with them in good faith) is ‘ok’, because it is “normal.” Holbo’s premise is false: it is—it may be common, but it is not normal. (Note: I’ll give due and detailed attention to Holbo’s nuances … either a) soon, or b) when he extends the same intellectual agility to those who may disagree with him.)

Standard linguistic scholarship points out that groups, cultures, various social situations — and academic disciplines — all have their own social and linguistic rules that hold sway within the group or unit.

So obviously in any inter-disciplinary discussion, the social rules of philosophy do not prevail. Operant behavior is going to be governed by common courtesy generally, prevailing academic rules of engagement, or some negotiated set of social rules either generated on the fly by capable human beings or set down formally by the less socially ept. Establishing a sort of a philoso-botanical understanding of what constitutes valid evidence, legal ‘moves’ in the game, and standards of respect for one’s peers.

The degree of dissatisfaction among philosophers may stem from the inability of philosphy assert itself as arbiter of those very rules. The degree to which philosophy has tried to deploy its own rules in these discussions accounts, I think, for the loss of respect among other disciplines.

The central issue though is not respect, nor anyone’s hurt feelings; it is the reliance on a refusal to adequately understand what the other person is saying, before presuming to be in a position to knock down their premise or argument or conclusion. The open disrespect and attack standard violates the rules of engagement in the social realm, in any other academic discpline, in the social realm generally—and in philosophy departments where any non-dysfuctional rules, at least, prevail. And it really displays a lack of integrity.

There is a big difference between being a jerk and being a philosopher; the obvious distinction being jerks can tell the difference between the two, and philosphers cannot.

Now, make no mistake: when Holbo states that To be knocked around in this way is par for the course, so if you give a talk and you really get your premise kicked out from under you, it isn’t much worse that getting clobbered in some game. It’s not fun… he mistakes the dynamic in play in both philosophical and interdisciplinary settings. (Papering over power relationships, willfully disingenuous ‘moves’, and overt hostility, among others…) Here’s the key: I enjoy getting clobbered in tackle football and I enjoy a rough-&-tumble intellectual argument/debate. What is objectionable is setting one set of rules and then operating by a different set of rules. Setting up a framework and then objecting to students taking issue with that framework of analysis. Or asserting that it is ‘normal’ to attack one’s peers premise/conclusion in wholly dishonest terms.

The assertion that this is ‘normal’ is not a defense. Further, Holbo displaces on whom the onus lies in saying that “[a]nd– most important – because it’s normal, there isn’t any extra psychic baggage of a ‘why the hell is this perfect stranger trying to deprive me of every last vestige of my intellectual dignity?’ sort.” The psychic baggage belongs to the philosopher: some students are psychologically predisposed to play by those rules, others adapt or are indoctrinated into the culture. But within the discipline, widespread behavior does not in and of itself qualify as evidence of healthy, respectful or even valid interaction.

Most important, Holbo’s surreally self-serving idea that anyone unfamiliar or uncomfortable with philosophy’s self-defeating debating style must somehow carry “extra psychic baggage” is plainly, openly false. What IS true is that any normal person confronted with someone who clearly IS “trying to deprive me of every last vestige of my intellectual dignity?”—Holbo’s words, not mine—is obviously naturally going to react with signs of dissastifaction ranging from open irritation to verbalized objection regarding content and behavior to walking away from the conversation and from philosophy as a discipline. —

Holbo is half right/half wrong in noting that “Philosophers asking each other these sorts of apparently mock-innocent ‘but isn’t your position just obviously false?’ questions actually are innocent.” Three points go to the core here: a) other disciplines question the positions of their peers all the time without using loaded language or highly personalized constructions or such an arrogant demeanor (so no points there); b) “just obviously”? Really? No basis is offered for the “but,” the “obviously” or for the “false.” Had the interlocutor or Holbo’s sentence started off with the question, the alternative interpretation, or even offered added data, it would be another thing entirely. But here, we have a flat assertion in which wielding power relations comes before any valid contribution to the discussion. One that not only assumes truth not in evidence yet, but does so first at the expense of one’s colleague, and only secondarily bulldozes the proposition at hand (rather than engaging it with integrity, I might add). Granted it was a mere example—but it is one of Holbo’s choosing.

And abstracting a proposition from real-world data/cases/interactions is step one in avoiding the obligation to grapple with actual situations in the actual real world. Which is another reason some philosophers-cum-‘environmental ethicists’ have so much trouble with the course material: divorcing discussion from the real world renders philosophers less able to handle interdisciplinary debate or achieve understandings or insights that contribute meaninfully to authentic debates relevant to our lives.

So when Holbo says, “Philosophers asking each other … . questions actually are innocent,” it is not so innocent. It’s a way of policing the discipline, for starters, rather than thinking with clarity or doing the hard work of extending one’s intellect and rules framework in the service of a more constructive and respectful discussion.

Granted, Holbo appears to get the discipline-specific culture: “Now this isn’t a rude thing to say, in philosophy. Because it is actually not perceived as an attempt to force the speaker to prove that he is not a complete idiot.” But does Holbo get the obvious conclusion? That outside of philosophy, “attempt[s] to force the speaker to prove that he is not a complete idiot” will be perceived, accurately and rightly, as the hostile work of a total a$$hole. I deploy the technical term here to make a point. The onus is on the questioner, not the speaker.

And Holbo’s construction reveals the slip in the rules governing the circumstance that is at issue in this whole debate: initially we have two colleagues discussing a topic distinct from the two discussants. Closer inspection indicates that the goal of the challenger is not to understand his/her colleague, but rather to shoe that “the speaker [cannot] prove that he is not a complete idiot.” There is a dual agenda at work here; that it is common practice and viewed much as a fish views water is of no relevance to whether it has utility or integrity or whether it displays minimal respect for students, peers or colleages. Or anyone else.

Holbo has explained what philosphers do to each other—and says it is not disrespectful.

That lends considerable cover for teachers/philosophers who are quite willing to behave in a hostile manner. It provides a wide-ranging excuse for philosopher who dont’ want to alter their behavior when they know they’re in a different social/disciplinary situation—and thus consciously display a hostile or arrogant demeanor towards perfectly valid and perfectly clear statements and propositions.

Just as there are plenty of folks who don’t know the difference between normal and hostile debate — plenty do. Many notice philosophers’ pattern — accurately identify it as hostile — and turn away. We aren’t the folks with baggage.

rich writes: “While John Holbo identifies the behavior at issue, he misconstrues its meaning and intent. Holbo offers a good post whose central premise is not so much flawed as it is entirely incorrect, and ultimately Holbo’s willingness to deploy what amounts to a rationalization undermines any productive ends he hopes to accomplish…”

This is a perfect meta-example of the type of behavior that Holbo is trying to analyze! rich wins the thread…

“…there is also a heavy strain in many philosophy departments of alpha-male aggressive dickishness…”

I’m straining to remember my phil. professors, but one sticks out in my mind. I had posed a question that perplexed him in class. Class ends and I head to the restroom. He follows me in and stands right next to me at the porcelain. I go to wash my hands and there he is beside me again, washing too. I turn to walk out and he shoots a balled up paper towel across my bow into the trash then cuts me off and exits the room first.