Will the Real Issue Please Stand Up? (by guest blogger Bryan Van Norden)

One of the classic debates in ethics is between realism and anti-realism. It's hard to precisely state what is at issue without being tendentious, but one way would be this. Are there moral facts (realism) or are there just individual human or social opinions or reactions (anti-realism)?

I'm not going to say anything in this post about the arguments for or against each side, and I'm intentionally not going to say which side I'm on personally. Instead, I want to just make a couple of sociological observations (with the caveat that my results are purely anecdotal).

(1) Most people feel strongly about this issue, whether or not they have a "philosophical" mind. This topic is a sure-fire discussion starter in any introductory philosophy class.

(2) Whichever side a person agrees with, she generally thinks that the other position is pretty obviously mistaken, and is a little bemused that anyone actually believes the other side.

(3) Realists worry that, if you actually took anti-realism seriously, it would encourage some sort of moral decay, while anti-realists worry that realism is really just a rationale for being dogmatic about morality.

(4) If pressed, most realists will assert that they "know" that anti-realism does NOT actually encourage moral decay, while anti-realists will assert that they "know" that realism is NOT actually just a rationale for being dogmatic about morality.

My sense is that (3) is what accounts for (1). In addition, no matter how often people assert what they do in (4), they still really believe (3) in their gut. This explains (2), because the arguments for one's position are really just rationalizations, while the arguments against one's position don't touch what really motivates one to accept it.

Maybe it would lead to a more productive debate if we talked less about moral realism and anti-realism, and more about how to find the mean between (A) taking one's ethical commitments seriously, and (B) dogmatically sticking to one's commitments? (David Wong has an interesting discussion of this in his recent book, Natural Moralities, pp. 179-272.)

(By the way, sorry for being so behind in replying to comments. I got a copy-edited manuscript this week, which I was rushing to revise for the publisher. But I sent it off, and I'll be back to my contrary self on Monday. *smile* )

The Hermeneutic Alternative (by guest blogger Bryan Van Norden)

Philosophy begins in wonder. -- Aristotle

Aristotle was wrong. Philosophy begins when a community of people encounter a problem that outstrips their current methods for problem-solving. For example, in ancient Greece, the Sophists seemingly could argue persuasively for either side in a court case or public policy debate. Or in Eastern Zhou-dynasty China, the traditional Way of organizing society was no longer promoting prosperity and preserving social order. Plato addressed the former problem, and Confucius the latter. (Forgive me for greatly oversimplifying the views of these two subtle and multifaceted philosophers.)

Faced with a philosophy-inducing problem, members of the community continue to share (and hold true) most of their background beliefs. If they did not, they would be unable to communicate about the problem. But whatever the problem is, it will call into question some of their beliefs. (For example, "rational argumentation can arrive at objective truth" or "the Way of the ancients is relevant to contemporary society.") On the basis of their shared beliefs, the members of the community formulate solutions to the problem. (For example, "mathematics provides a paradigm for how rational argumentation can succeed" or "if we ethically cultivate individuals and put them into positions of authority, society can be returned to the ancient Way.")

Any solution must satisfy two criteria. (1) It must answer all plausible, substantive objections that are raised against it by other members of the community (including alternative solutions); and (2) it must fit our interactions with the world. In other words, philosophy always involves two types of dialogue partners: other people and the world. (Obiter dicta, I think Richard Rorty tended to forget or underemphasize the role of the latter dialogue partner.) To continue my earlier examples, Plato had to answer the objection that most people are not convinced by the type of argumentation he recommends (and he replied with the "Myth of the Cave") and Confucius had to answer the objection that brute force was the only plausible method for enforcing social order (and he replied with the concept of sagely "Virtue").

What is the payoff of this "hermeneutic account" of philosophy?

Contrast Descartes, who began with subjective "ideas," and then tried to make the jump from them to the world. The problem is that if you start with subjective ideas, and assume that there is a world independent of those ideas, you will be led to skepticism. Or if you start with subjective ideas, and abandon the notion of some unattainable world beyond them, you will be led to relativism. (I think the influence of the Cartesian picture is part of the reason undergraduates assume that relativism or skepticism is self-evident.) But Descartes' epistemological starting point is arbitrary and unwarranted. We begin as creatures in the world, communicating with other creatures in the world with whom we share many common beliefs about the world. Now, through a subtle process of abstraction we can temporarily adopt a Cartesian standpoint, but we do not start out there, and we are not obligated to go there.

The methodological implication of the hermeneutic approach is that, in order for our position to be justified, we need to (1) know the major objections that have been raised against our "solution," and (2) know the major alternative solutions to the problem we face, so that we can (3) answer the objections, and (4) explain why our solution is superior to the alternatives. Again, a contrast with Descartes is instructive, because his Meditations invites us to think of philosophy as an individual process conducted in isolation from previous beliefs. But, as I noted in an earlier post, one cannot even understand Descartes himself without seeing him as a participant in an ongoing dialogue. So the individualist methodology is self-undermining.

Philosophers Don't Get No Respect (by guest blogger Bryan Van Norden)

(This is the second in a series of guest blog entries by Bryan.)

Eric wrote an interesting entry two months ago in which he noted how much higher the social status of philosophers is in Iran than in the U.S. I'd like to expand on that a bit.

I think that almost every civilization today or in recorded history has given philosophers (and humanists in general) more respect than does the contemporary US.

Abelard, the medieval philosopher, was greeted like visiting royalty wherever he went. The brilliant and well-born Heloise could have had any husband she wanted, but she famously said to him, "I would rather be your whore than another man's wife."

I knew a fellow graduate student who studied in Taiwan for a while. He came back with a Chinese wife from a wealthy and influential family. She knew that her new husband would never make a lot of money, but she was content because of the prestige that came with being a scholar (or a scholar's wife). When he got his first academic job, and she saw what the social status of professors in the US is, she divorced him and returned to Taiwan.

Jurgen Habermas is routinely consulted by European media for his views on current events, as were Derrida and Bertrand Russell. Here in the US, Larry King has interviewed Sean Penn about his views on the Iraq War, and Jenny McCarthy about the causes of autism. And Paris Hilton is a celebrity because she had the good fortune to be born rich, and the misfortune to appear in a sex tape.

If you look at representations of intellectuals in US media, they are almost always either arrogant and cruel (like Professor Kingsfield of The Paper Chase) or amusingly feckless (like Diane Chambers or Fraser Crane on Cheers). As Eric reminded me, there is a bit of an exception for scientists. Einstein posters still grace a few dorm rooms, and brilliant doctors like "House" are often pop-culture icons. But there is no social cachet for those of us who know that modern natural science would have been impossible without our own intellectual discipline.

I think that the American disdain for intellectuals grew out of a preference for populism and a rejection of what was seen as European elitism. But our country is in actuality very elitist. But it is not an elitism of intelligence and achievement. It is an elitism of wealth and celebrity.

Unsolicited Advice to Students and Their Advisors (by guest blogger Bryan Van Norden)

This blog entry is by Bryan Van Norden, Professor in the Philosophy Department and the Department of Chinese and Japanese at Vassar College.

Thank you to Eric for kindly allowing me to be a guest blogger for the next few weeks. The first topic I would like to write about is the importance of knowing the secondary literature in one's field.

1. The Problem

I recently wrote a Letter to the Editor that was published in the Proceedings and Addresses of the APA. In it, I described my experience when my department was interviewing job candidates. I noted that we met many terrific young philosophers, and ended up hiring someone we are delighted with. However, we also discovered that many job candidates are not familiar with even the most basic secondary literature on their areas of research (including the work of their own supposed advisors). I concluded the letter by reminding my fellow philosophers of the obvious (I hope) fact that professors have an obligation to train their graduate students. I was writing primarily about "mainstream" philosophy, but my experience has been the same in Chinese philosophy.

So my claim is that it is crucial to know the secondary literature and that far too many people get doctorates without knowing it (or even knowing that it is important).

2. Why Is It a Problem?

I don't know how many people would actually come out and say it, but I think there is a common view that it is not important to know the secondary literature. This view has several sources.

Isn't what's really important that we read the PRIMARY texts?

It's crucial that we read the primary texts! But it is not enough to read the primary texts.

Oh yeah? Why not?

Newton famously said, "If I have seen farther than others, it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants." By this he meant that his work would have been impossible without building upon the previous research of people like Euclid, Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler. Where would we be today if Newton had remained ignorant of them? So even in natural science, which people often think of as an enterprise that can "prove" things independently of tradition, it is impossible to achieve progress without building upon previous research.

But I want to think independently! I don't want to just parrot what people in the past have said on this topic.

Good! But you won't be able to do so unless you become self-aware about what assumptions you bring to the text. Descartes set the tone for much of modern philosophy when he said he was going to reject tradition and custom and just think for himself. Almost everyone today proudly rejects the content of Descartes' claims, but it is far too common to implicitly assume that the methodology (confronting reality with one's individual thoughts) is correct. But the methodology is fundamentally flawed as well. Descartes was certainly original in many ways, but (as any serious historian of modern philosophy will tell you) his work is deeply dependent upon its Platonistic, Aristotelian, Augustinean and Scholastic sources. ("I think therefore I am" is a paraphrase of a line from Augustine's Confessions.)

The issue isn't whether we should be original or not. The issue is whether we can be original and insightful while we are ignorant.

Give me an example of what you are talking about.

Okay. I have heard more than one person ingenuously discuss "Mengzi's claim that human nature is originally good." There's just one problem: Mengzi never says that. Mengzi says that human nature is good, simpliciter. The "originally" is a Neo-Confucian gloss. Even people who have read the primary text often assume the Neo-Confucian reading. But this is the sort of issue raised in the secondary literature.

In general, the problem is that you can't be open-minded if you don't know what the alternatives are to your view.

If the secondary literature is so interesting, just tell me what it says.

What would you say to a student who told you, "I didn't do the reading. Just tell me what it said and I'll argue with you about whether what you say is right."

But don't you think dialogue is important?

Absolutely! But the secondary literature is PART of the dialogue. Besides, if you don't know the secondary literature and I do, how productive will my conversation with you be?

But research is hard work. It's more fun to just chat about my impressions of the text.

Aw, I suspected that was the root of it all! ;)

3. The Solution

I'd like to conclude with a list of what are, in my opinion, the absolutely essential secondary readings for anyone interested in pre Qin dynasty Chinese philosophy. (One could easily add to this list, but I think it would be hard to say anything on it is optional for someone who claims to have an AOS in this area.)

Chan, Alan K.L., ed. Mencius: Contexts and Interpretations (U Hawaii Press).

Cook, Scott, ed. Hiding the World in the World: Uneven Discourses on the Zhuangzi (SUNY Press).

Csikszentmihalyi, Mark and PJ Ivanhoe, eds., Religious and Philosophical Aspects of the Laozi (SUNY Press).

Creel, Herrlee. Confucius and the Chinese Way (out of print).

Fingarette, Herbert. Confucius -- the Secular as Sacred (Harper Torchbooks).

Goldin, Paul. After Confucius (U of Hawaii Press).

Graham, A.C. Disputers of the Tao (Open Court).

Graham, A.C. Studies in Chinese Philosophy and Philosophical Literature (SUNY Press).

Hall, David and Roger Ames. Thinking through Confucius. (Or at least one other book in the trilogy they wrote, which includes Thinking from the Han and Anticipating China.)

Hansen, Chad. Language and Logic in Ancient China (U of Michigan Press). (Or his A Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought.)

Harbsmeier, Christoph. Language and Logic. Vol 7, Part 1 of Joseph Needham, ed., Science and Civilisation in China (Cambridge U Press). (Or A.C. Graham's Later Mohist Logic, Ethics and Science. Some of the same material is also covered in Graham's Disputers of the Tao.)

Ivanhoe, Philip J. Confucian Moral Self Cultivation. 2nd ed. (Hackett).

Kjellberg, Paul and PJ Ivanhoe, eds., Essays on Skepticism, Relativism and Ethics in the Zhuangzi (SUNY Press).

Kline, Thornton and PJ Ivanhoe, eds., Virtue, Nature and Agency in the Xunzi (Hackett).

Kohn, Livia and Michael LaFargue, Lao-tzu and the Tao-te-ching (SUNY Press).

Kupperman, Joel. Learning from Asian Philosophy(Oxford).

Liu, Xiusheng and P.J. Ivanhoe, eds., Essays on the Moral Philosophy of Mengzi (Hackett).

Mair, Victor. Experimental Essays on Chuang-tzu (U of Hawaii).

Nivison, David S. The Ways of Confucianism (Open Court).

Schwartz, Benjamin. The World of Thought in Ancient China (Harvard/Belknap).

Shun, Kwong-loi. Mencius and Early Chinese Thought (Stanford U Press).

Tu, Wei-ming. Centrality and Commonality (SUNY Press).

Van Norden, Bryan W., ed. Confucius and the Analects: New Essays (Oxford). (This is the only secondary anthology in English on this topic.)

Wong, David. Natural Moralities (Oxford).

Yearley, Lee H. Mencius and Aquinas: Theories of Virtue and Conceptions of Courage (SUNY Press).