Frederick Beiser

I received  an eagerly awaited package this afternoon from amazon.co.uk sent through the Luftpost. It was Beiser’s Diotima’s Children. 

When I opened the package, I was unconsciously vocalizing my utter delight and excitement. No book has excited me more; it’s not that I have a keen interest in aesthetics (I am interested, but not professionally), but rather in Beiser and anything he writes on. So, this was the first time in two years I got a book by Beiser and, over the past two years, my estimation of him has grown and my love of his work has deepened. Now, every new book of his is received like a letter from a beloved but always distant friend. It’s that good. I will not spend time here justifying, in proper aesthetic rationalist form, why I have such a regard for Beiser. Suffice to say that I think he is peerless among modern historical philosophers that I have read. My highest desire as a scholar is to do historical work that approximates in a dim form what Beiser has accomplished for philosophy.

As I have final exams tomorrow and Friday, I cannot read the entire thing right now, but I did read the first chapter. It is, to me, more exciting than any novel. His thesis itself is powerful and moving for all of us who love and care for Beauty. When I finish the book, I will review it, perhaps here and on Amazon.

Ben Myers on Richard Swinburne: Sensibility as Criterion?

http://faith-theology.blogspot.com/2009/12/theology-fail-richard-swinburne-proves.html

It’s not the purpose of this blog to get tangled into theobloggy debates, but I should draw your attention to this post by Myers and the ensuing comment thread, which is what I’m most interested in.

Myers, normally generous, offers an embarrasing summary of Richard Swinburne’s The Resurrection of God Incarnate (Oxford UP: 2003) as part of his Theology FAIL series. His summary/reconstruction was justifiedly criticized for being poor by those with training in the analytic tradition and/or familiar with Swinburne’s work. I myself have not read much if any Swinburne (if any, it would be an article/articles that I am not recalling), but I am well aware of his reputation and stature as a thinker, and I have some background in analytic philosophy.

I should put my own cards on the table and note that I resonated with Shane’s remark in the comment thread that it is far more likely that Myers had misunderstood Swinburne than that Swinburne had said what Myers reported. The following review by Richard Otte supports Shane’s comment. http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=1329 Although unconvinced by the values Swinburne assigns to his  probability statements, Otte reaches the following conclusion:

But even if Swinburne is not successful in showing that it is overwhelmingly likely that Jesus was God incarnate who rose from the dead, he has made a good case that it is rationally permissible to hold beliefs that, by Bayes’ theorem, result in this being very probable. Thus although Swinburne may not have shown that it is rationally obligatory to believe in the incarnation and resurrection, he does give us reason to believe that one can rationally hold beliefs that imply their high probability. Another way of putting this would be to say that Swinburne’s argument is unsuccessful if dealing with logical probabilities, but we can instead interpret it as describing Swinburne’s own subjective probabilities or degrees of belief. If probability, like logic, places constraints on rational belief, Swinburne’s argument can be seen as supporting that it is epistemically permissible to believe in the resurrection of God incarnate.

Coming from Otte, himself an expert in Bayesian epistemology, this is a strong conclusion and certainly a positive one overall regarding the strength of Swinburne’s argument.

So, what is my interest here? It is in a problem that Myers’ post exemplifies, which is that of criteria in contemporary theology. Myers says his problem is not with analytic tools being applied to theology: “I just happen to feel that Swinburne’s Bayesian stuff is neither serious nor interesting — not because it’s “analytic”, but because it strikes me as bad methodology and bad theology.”

Now this is worth pondering. Myers, who, to my knowledge, is not trained in philosophy (although he’s incredibly well read in his field) much less an expert in probability theory and Bayesian epistemology, thinks Swinburne’s work represents “bad methodology.” What would entitle someone without expertise or perhaps even basic competence and knowledge about a field and method (Bayesian probability and epistemology in this case) to the conclusion that it’s a bad method? It’s not easy to see how we could answer this question.  Two alternatives are to challenge the premise (the person is in fact knowledgeable, competent, etc. to make the judgement) or to appeal to a prior position held, itself already warranted, which licenses the judgement about said methodology. The latter seems to be the only alternative open in this case, as a comparison of Myers’ summary and Otte’s review reveals that Myers did, intentionally or not, parody Swinburne’s text. 

Reconstructing what kind of theological argument or position would license the rejection of Bayesian theory by someone not themselves apparently well acquainted with it is beyond my abilities and, I suspect, the scope of a blog post. But perhaps my attempt to discern what kind of argument would warrant Ben’s conclusion seem a little off, a little silly?

I think it does, and for this reason: this is not about arguments, it’s about sensibilities. As some commenters noted, Ben was generous in a recent post about a rather dubious theological approach (dubious in every possible sense: ethically, theologically, argumentatively), but then he attempts to skewer someone who is acknowleged as a superb thinker, and who no one can fault for a lack of clarity or rigor (an accusation that, if made blindfolded by finger-pointing in a room of theologians, would almost always stick). Indeed, Myers’ whole post seems to imply that Oxford University and all of Swinburne’s colleagues who have a high regard for his work are all missing something that Ben Myers’s has, else they would not regard Swinburne’s work as “serious” never mind “interesting” (a damnable category).

I submit that this shows that whatever they are missing is not some argument against Bayesian probability applied to philosophical theology, but rather a theological sensibility that Myers has and shares with others (seemingly many Barthians, among others). For, if the matter really were about argumentation, there would be more respect for Swinburne’s position and methods. Arguments are fallible, and when one’s opponent is someone of the intellectual stature as Swinburne, one would presumably be humble about the success or at least persuasiveness of one’s arguments.

But if I am right that what is at issue here is more a sensibility, derived perhaps from a particular approach to and understanding of theology, this would suggest that sensibilities actually play criterial roles in theological debate (in philosophy too, no doubt, but that is not my present concern). I think this is an obvious conclusion, a bit like observing after a group of people have shot each other that there seems to be some disagreement between them. Obvious but disturbing. Properly speaking a sensibility cannot, or should not, play the role of a criterion in the evaluation of arguments. While I am quite chary of the demand for criteria in certain contexts, one should be able to state, at least descriptively, the criteria that are governing a field of discourse. If sensibilities play even a minor, but still significant, role as criteria in theology, we would expect to see a lot of unwarranted misrepresentations, talking past one another, and simple refusals to engage with another’s work. And, of course, this is what we find.

A good example here is conservative evangelical theology. Much of this is not great, if by “great” one is thinking of theologians like Calvin or Aquinas. But, then, most contemporary theology in general is not “great” by this standard, and that does not warrant dismissing it wholesale as unworthy of engagement. Indeed, the work, say, of D.A. Carson (I pick him because I see him often mocked) is certainly no worse than his liberal counterparts, but his work is scorned, never engaged. Personally, I have read little of Carson’s work, and though I disagree with him about a number of things, I would be a pompous ass to conclude he’s not doing “real theology,” or that his work is not governed by criteria I regard as important, like internal rationality, clarity, and submission to the authority of Scripture and the canons of the fields in which he writes. Now, it may happen that one’s work does not engage anything Carson works on (mine does not and probably won’t); in that case, why do people bother mentioning him?

Because he’s a good target for a certain shared theological sensibility, and that sensibility is produced by a certain kind of theological culture, and that culture has certain vices, one of which is dismissing work that stands too far to the right of one’s own, even if it meets formal and substantive criteria for “good work,” i.e., work deserving academic engagement. Academics have vices – this is an important fact. Specific academic cultures inculcate specific vices, some of which manifest themselves in sensibilities. These sensibilities in turn function as criteria in academic work, with the results being what we would expect: disastrously unserious and shoddy engagement or simple sneering dismissal. So much of the nonsense between different positions has nothing to do with the positions themselves so much as the vices each position tends to produce in its adherents (e.g. suspicion of history, clarity, rigor, plain arguments, metaphors, literary sensibilities, etc.). No doubt we all have such vices because we inhabit certain academic cultures, but we ought to bring our vices to the light of language, name and declaim against them and ourselves when we manifest them, and get on with our work.

Editing Kant

I have finished my Kant paper. Today I’ll spend some time rewriting the introduction – something I have not (but probably should have) done before; I am pleased about having to do this, as it proves the wisdom of the best writing instructor I had as an undergraduate ,who was, not coincidentally, also one of the best academic writers I have known personally (her academic writing actually has a style). I am also glad to have time to do a lot of editing on the body of the paper. I hope Hare will agree that it turned out well.

I claim to actually give insight into a problem I don’t think people have explained very well, viz. why Kant’s conversion account is such a train wreck, and why it is still insightful in the process. Some people, like Wolterstorff, just dismiss it for being incoherent, which it is. Others, like Firestone and Jacobs essentially sidestep the problem through creative reinterpretation. Still others, like Allison (in Kant’s Theory of Freedom) ignore it and just deal with radical evil. My argument is that there is a parallel structure, and not the parallel structure Kant thinks there is, between his account of radical evil and his account of conversion, and to understand properly either one you have to see what is driving both. The glaring inconsistencies in Kant’s account of conversion shed light on the less obvious but still substantial problems with his account of radical evil.

The heart of the matter is that Kant needed a theory of agency that could explain freely chosen moral evil; he didn’t have such a theory and he knew it, especially after criticism in the early 1790s from Schmid and Reinhold. Religion is an attempt to deal with this problem (here both Michelle Kosch and Emil Fackenheim support my reading), and the result is that Kant needs an alternate theory of agency to do conceptual work that his prior theory, which identified autonomy and normativity, could not do. What actually happens  in the text of Religion is that Kant tries to stay true to his ethical theory, introducing the central problematic principle of Religion, that of moral self-creation (man must make himself into whatever he is morally), while also explaining how moral evil is possible (hence his doctrine of radical evil, which, if you understand his theory of maxims, is necessary if one is to have a Kantian account of evil). This attempt fails, and my paper shows the lineaments of the failure by identifying an alternative theory of agency, completely inconsistent with Kant’s explicitly stated theory, that must, but cannot, lie behind the central doctrines of Religion. Where I think my paper is especially valuable and adds something that others do not is its explanation of why Religion is incoherent and its identification of the forces that drive the real inconsistencies in Kant’s text.

Writing

One of the things that most cheered me in an article by Andrew Abbott was his claim that good scholars don’t know what they are going to write until they write it; or at least, good scholar discover in the process of reading and writing what they should have been seeing and writing about all along.

I have been exceedingly nervous about my Kant paper; not only because it’s my whole grade, but also because it’s John Hare who’s grading it, and his opinion and marks(!) matter a great deal for my future. Well, I have begun writing and am relieved at how it is going; I noticed patterns in texts I read that I had not known were there until I began writing. I often end up rereading books and articles I’ve for papers; and this time it is proving a very good practice because the writing itself is making me see things I had not seen. Perhaps some people do know exactly what they are going say when they sit down to right; I’m glad I’m not alone in not being like this and, frankly, not fully understanding how this works. On to Kant . . .

Overheard at Lunch

Eating lunch at the refectory, I heard this anecdote from Denys Turner:

“In 1997, I got an email from a friend with two essays about Radical Orthodoxy, one was real and the other was a parody. My friend asked me to pick which was was authentic. And I got it wrong! I thought the parody was the real essay.”

I love Denys Turner.

New Yorker Discussion of Healthcare

The New Yorker’s Political Scene has a good conversation about healthcare, focusing on the recent recommendations about breast cancer screenings.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting

Amazon Reviews

Does anyone find it annoying how a stupid review can make a book look bad (glaring 1 star)? I do. I am ambivalent about Amazon reviews. I think they are intrinsically good things because, if there is a good review, it’s quite helpful not only to the potential consumer but also to the interested observer. But good reviews can get lost amidst stupid reviews. Everything depends on the vox populi.

Anyway, for reasons like this, I have taken to the occasional review (I have reviews of Beiser’s the Fate of Reason and I just wrote one on German Idealism: The Struggle Against Subjectivism, because there were some unhelpful reviews), and I think all serious readers should view themselves as obligated, as a kind of academic community service, to write a helpful review of some book you’ve read.

Slavoj Zizek and Bernard-Henri Levy

http://fora.tv/2008/09/16/Violence__the_Left_in_Dark_Times_A_Debate

This is a fascinating and entertaining conversation between Zizek and Levy. I have read little of either Levy or Zizek, but I love watching Zizek: if he wrote like he spoke, I might just become hip and start reading his books. Zizek’s analyses are, I think, extremely insightful. Both he and Levy agree on a good deal in this conversation, and both have some incisive comments about politics, charity, etc.

I have long admired Marxist critiques of capitalism; I went through a Frankfurt School stage when I was a sophomore, reading Horkheimer and Adorno, and Martin Jay and Held’s books.

Continental philosophers more often make interesting speakers; Zizek is dynamite, Levy is eloquent and entertaining; they make for a great combination.

I should add, about Zizek, that one of the things I admire about him as a speaker is his clarity. In speech at least, he’s incredibly lucid about enormously complex topics, like Lacanian pyschoanalysis. Morever, he’s a brilliant speaker and thinker – take his talk at Google about his book on Violence. He’s explains ideology, for example, by analyzing the idea of “unknown unknowns.” Zizek, in this sense, is very different from, say, Derrida. Zizek gives clearly structured arguments, provides insightful and often comic examples,  so it’s easy to see how you could falsify what he says, or present a counter-arguments, etc. The fact that he can so clearly explain very complex ideas is a testament, as any teacher knows, to how well he understands the stuff he talks about. Contrast this with classically opaque theorists, and one is forced to conclude that, unlike Zizek, many of these people either 1) don’t really know what they’re talking about, or have been too lazy to think it out clearly, or 2) they do and they intentionally are unclear, etc. Zizek’s speaking is proof that many of the ideas of so-called continental philosophy are not inherently unclear or opaque.

Andrew Abbott on Library Research

I recently read an article by Andrew Abbott, “The Traditional Future: A Computational Theory of Library Research,” (Nov. 2008 College and Research Libraries), which is too good to not pass on.

The heart of the article is a presentation of a model of what library research is, in contrast to “standard social scientific research (SSSR).” According to Abbott, there has been very little writing on “library-based scholarship,” so Abbott uses the first few pages of the article to explain the gap he’s filling. He then provides a very useful summary of the SSSR research model and proceeds to contrasts library-research point by point with the SSSR model. Since no one has really theorized library-based research, Abbott sees himself as presenting a normative and descriptive model, i.e., when library research is a “best version of itself” (527).

Here is a summary of the SSSR:

The sources of standard research works lie most often in actively elicted data, which is often standardized or concatenated in the process of being collected. The practices of standard research begin with the application of measure and terminologies that are standardized, widely shared (or, at least in principle, sharable), and usually fairly rigid and specified. They then continue with the application of routine methodological recipes that evaluate the conjectures of researchers by comparing them to the state of the real world. The recipes either accept or reject conjectures. The larger structures of this standard research world comprise first the enormous collection of used data, which is not particularly systematized or ordered. They comproise second the qualities of sequentiality and divisioni of labor. And they comprise third an overall organization of research around the search for a true state of affairs, which is taken to be “out there” in the real world, but possibily very difficult to find. (529)

Now fully understanding this summary probably requires reading the article, as this is a concluding summary following the detailed exposition of every element contained therein. Taking the SSSR as a standard of contrast, Abbott shows how library research is on major points the opposite of the SSSR, and he explores the implications of these differences for how one conceptualizes the ideal research tools and environments for library research.

Summarizing Abbott’s theory of library research would be tedious, so I’m simply going to note things I found particularly interesting. Two key components of library research are “reading and browing,” which Abbott conceptualizes as algorithms:

Reading and browsing – the two are simply different levels of the same thing – thus belong to a different family of algorithms than does measurement. They are associative algorithms, in which input is taken from text and combined with reader-internal data to produce an output. They are thus inherently nonreplicable because of their dependence on data internal to the reader or browser.

Abbott compares this to internet browsing and hyperlinks; hyperlinks are givens, independent of the browser’s internal data; in “book-reader technology, hyperlinks are generated dynamically in the act of reading. They arise by the conjunction of knowledge in the mind of the reader with the potential meanings in the body of the text. Such a system is obviously intensely dependent on the richness of prior knowledge in the minds of readers.” (532, emphasis mine)

Abbott makes much of this, here and in other papers he has written on library research, and I regard it as one of the most obvious, when stated, yet fecund elements of this article. It explains a lot of what we do as library-researchers. For example, I have a bias towards certain scholars and their judgments based on what I know they know; I am confident, for example, the Frederick Beiser has carefully studied more texts relevant to understanding German philosophy from the eighteenth to the late nineteenth century than anyone else I read. I also know Beiser does not have the focusing bias of a personal constructive position, which other goods scholars do (Pippin, Ameriks, et al.), and is thus in a better position to tell me what thinkers in this period said and meant. So I generally privilege Beiser over other scholars, and I think this is a very rational thing to do. Indeed, as I understand Abbott, only a “neophyte” does not develop these kinds of biases.

Abbott mentions in passing the problem of stuffing graduate students with the requisite knowledge to make them good researchers, but he does not discuss this in detail (I hope he does elsewhere, or perhaps he will in the future). This questions goes to the heart of disciplines and what constitutes them, and it also touches on what Evan calls “local canons,” which one could view as the requisite background for a certain type of pattern and problem recognition that allows one to join a local scholarly community. Bruce McCormack provides a good example of the differences this can make; in the introduction to his recent collection of essays on Barth (Orthodox and Modern), he notes his bemusement when he emerged from research in Germany to discover that we had entered “postmodernity.”

McCormack’s experience highlights the following point that Abbott emphasizes: “the role of internal knowledge in reading and browsing implies a crucial difference from the measurement that is their equivalent in standard methodology; they are not replicable” (emphasis added). Studying Barth and modernity in a doctoral seminar in Germany (among other things) produced a non-replicable body of research and outlook from McCormack; and the reception of his book on Barth’s development makes an important related point, which Abbott assumes: the non-replicability of library research does not imply that some interactions between reader and text are not qualitively better (in some sense) than others. As with Beiser’s work, McCormack’s work on Barth accredits his opinions, especially on Barth’s theological development, in a way others are not accredited.

This by no means exhausts the riches of Abbott’s article; it was merely a selective overview. I think it would be salutary if we paid more attention to the question of reader internal-data as a requirement for good research. I know doctoral committes and graduate schools must be discussing these things (Abbott mentions in passing PhD qualifying exams).

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

Frank Furedi on Education and the Need for the Past

Furedi has a good article, based on his recent book on education, Wasted: Why Education isn’t Educating (Continuum, 2009):

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/7717/