Pluralism in Philosophy

So other than commenting on others' posts, I've been a bit, um, blog-delinquent with the hiring season and all. Hopefully I'll get back on track now, starting with a comment on what's not wrong with the state of pluralism in philosophy.  A recent Proceedings and Addresses of the APA (78:2) is chock full of letters to the editor that criticize aspects of the profession (including, incidentally, two letters on the state of journal decisions on submissions).  Among them, John Lachs has a wide-ranging criticism of anti-pluralism among philosophers.  Traditionally, this kind of critique has been targeted at analytic philosophers, though Lachs gratefully acknowledges that his criticisms apply to all sorts.

While, as I'll explain, I think Lachs is right about some issues, I also think some of his criticisms are off-base.

For example, he uses positivism's "juvenile" suggestion that "much of what philosophers say [is] literally nonsensical" and the more recent relegation of "much philosophy to psychology or literature, and [propensity] to treat colleagues who think in those ways with condescension" as evidence that "exclusion has become standard in the profession in the Twentieth Century" (p.6).

One might wonder, of course, how Lachs thinks he's justified in calling positivism "juvenile" if he also believes that "the proper attitude of philosophers is to let a hundred flowers bloom."  But putting that aside, consider whether those two pieces of evidence really support the claim that objectionable exclusion is the standard in philosophy.

Since positivists have arguments that, e.g., Heidegger's statements are nonsensical, that doesn't seem objectionably exclusionary.  The arguments might be unsound, of course, but that's another matter.  Philosophers engage in privileging certain views and critiquing others.  The positivists did this by going straight for the knees of metaphysicians like Heidegger and attacking very basic methodological commitments -- a broad strategy, of course, that Heidegger himself employed.  So arguing, on methodological grounds, against opposing views, does not seem to me to be in-principle exclusionary, at least not in an objectionable manner.  Half the fun is the methodology itself.

Regarding the idea that some people who consider themselves to be doing philosophy are actually doing psychology or literature, I also don't see why this is objectionably exclusionary just on its face.  We wouldn't object if someone said that Skinner (or the saccharine pop-psych, self-help drivel of Dr. Phil) or Faulkner (or some trashy romance novel) is a psychologist or fiction writer.  And it's conceivable that some people are mistaken about which field they are working in.  So we'd need to have a discussion about what is properly considered philosophy and what is properly considered non-philosophy.  Such a discussion would be a good thing, I'd think. But Lachs doesn't give us a principle for drawing such a distinction.  (Indeed, later in the letter, Lachs suggests that philosophers aren't in a place to claim that non-argument-based writing isn't philosophy unless we've studied "religious thinkers and those who write interestingly and persuasively in the wisdom tradition" (p.13).  I found this to be a bit extreme, and it's where Lachs' providing a "What Counts as Philosophy" principle might have helped.  I also wonder how a writing can be persuasive if it contains no argument, even implicitly.)

Part of the reason for Lachs wanting us to let everyone into the game is that he thinks that, while philosophy is intrinsically and instrumentally valuable, it doesn't really make any progress towards the truth, for philosophy "offers no compelling evidence for any of its captivating views" (p.7) and so "no philosopher has a right to look down on the efforts of others" (p.6).  I find this an odd view, too.  While there's probably going to be some intractable disagreement, criticism and counter-criticism, etc., surely it is too strong to say that all disagreement is intractable.  First, we do (hopefully!) offer compelling evidence for our views - that's what the arguments are for, and it's part of what distinguishes what we do from, say, the "metaphysics" section of your local Barnes and Noble.  Second, surely we can uniformly criticize some views as clearly wrong.  To take an easy shot, haven't we all given up on Thales' proposal that "all is water"?

Now all that being said, I think that Lachs is right to lament the condescension and contempt that often accompany deep methodological disagreement. (He also gives a helpful history of the exclusion in the APA of the 1970s and the ensuing "pluralist revolt" by the early 1980s, for us junior folks who missed all the fun).  He's right to suggest that we need to approach each other with trust and, I'd add, good faith.  And while he confirms my experience that philosophy is now more pluralistic than it used to be, my impression is that we could do better, as, for example, I'm told Australians do with respect to the kind of Continental philosophy done in the U.S. by those who attend the SPEP conference.

But it's one thing to accuse philosphers of unjustifiably expressing contemptful attitudes.  It's something else to claim that we shouldn't engage in methodological disagreement, or that we shouldn't decide that some writing isn't philosophy, or that we haven't made any progress at all.

Comments

[Michael Cholbi]

Josh,

I'm afraid I don't find much merit in Lachs' letter, which strikes me as a series of largely unconnected concerns about the state of contemporary philosophical practice, concerns which are largely unsupported by evidence. Lachs sayeth:

"Thinkers who do not take the starting point or fail to follow the procedures currently in vogue are denounced as not doing philosophy. There is hardly a greater insult to philosophers than to be denied the benefit of standing as a respected colleague. "

Sure, everyone craves belonging and the respect of their peers. But disagreeing with someone's philosophical methodology or conclusions is part and parcel of philosophical inquiry. I don't know of anyone within philosophy who denounces others' views on the grounds that those views don't count *as philosophy*. There are interesting questions about where philosophy begins and ends, questions that intersect with the humanities (where does philosophy begin and literary interpretation end?), the social sciences, and the sciences. I take the porousness of the boundaries between philosophy and other disciplines to be one of philosophy's most attractive features, and one whose prominence will grow as interdisciplinarity takes hold. But does anyone have a settled view as to what counts as doing philosophy, and if they did, why should we care?

Again, Lachs: "Minimal attention to the history of philosophy is enough to see that the hope for such a royal road is illusory. ... There is not a single proposition of philosophical substance on which professional thinkers agree, and it is highly unlikely that such a proposition will surface anytime soon."

Well, that's Lachs' own philosophical position. Surely he's correct that modesty is an appropriate philosophical virtue, one forced upon us by (among other things) the philosophy's long history. But there's a standing dispute over whether philosophy aims at (or is capable of identifying) the Truth or whether philosophy is more akin to a conversation, with theories yielding new questions, etc. Lachs favors the latter and associates the former with uncouth, arrogant behavior. But all of Lachs' claims about what philosophy has, or can, accomplish are themselves debateable and need much more than the brief defense Lachs offers in his letter.

Some of the issues Lachs raises are important. Of course humility and civility are core attitudes of any genuinely philosophical person, and his concerns about the power structure of the discipline are worth noting. (Like any discipline, philosophy tends to inculcate a kind of conservatism (intellectual, not political) that, depending on one's philosophical views about social epistemology, is either a boon or a bane.) He's also right (at least to my experience) that philosophers are awfully hard on one another, tend to be unnecessarily negative about others' work, and could learn to appreciate how work that they might disagree with is nonetheless insightful and serves to advance inquiry.

Yet on the whole, I detect in Lachs' letter a symptom of our postmodern culture: That anyone who puts forth claims that others reject is thereby oppressed or excluded by their rejection. That's nonsense. Conscientious disagreement with others is a way of including and respecting them, not the opposite. The tone or manner in which such disagreement is expressed can lead to people feeling excluded, and we should be mindful of that possibility. But genuine and conscientious disagreement, even about what philosophy is and does, is what drives philosophy toward whatever it can achieve.

In short, I find Lachs' letter deeply ironic. He claims that pluralism within philosophy is under threat and does so by offering his own views about the nature and purposes of philosophy without seriously engaging those with alternative visions or understanding of the field. His own 'pluralism' is a dogmatic pluralism. Philosophy is the most pluralistic discipline in the academy at present, a fact of which the field should be proud.

[Josh Glasgow]

Michael, thanks for the discussion. I think we agree about most everything, though let me defend a couple of minor points that Lachs makes. (1) I have heard people say "What person X does isn't philosophy" [or "isn't real philosophy"]. I don't know how widespread that attitude is. (2) At the same time, I think it's important that we care about how people conceive of philosophy. I think it is an interesting question in itself, but, furthermore, how people think of philosophy, or real or proper philosophy, has real effects in terms of exclusionary practices in everything from conferences to hiring.

Of course, all of this just reinforces the point that methodological disputes shouldn't be stifled and should be particularly engaging. And we'd only be helped in that by being civil.

[C.McDonald]

I've only just discovered this excellent site, so perhaps you won't mind if this response is a little late.

Working here in Australia I can't say that I have noticed a favourable relationship between Continential and Analytic philosophy. While it is not all doom and gloom there has been and continues to be very bitter divisions between the two schools of thought. And I have to say that I too have often heard "What X does is not real philosophy" Both sides are inclined to throw this accusation but in more recent times the speaker is much more likely to be a member of the Continential (specifically post-modern) tradition. Indeed sometimes I think we have replaced the dominance of (narrow) Analytic philosophy with the dominance of (irrational) Continential philosophy.

It would be nice to actually have a conversation about the nature of philosophy as such, the philosophy of philosophy perhaps.