Thanks John, I really enjoyed this (as I do basically everything you write). Two comments.
First, would this be a reasonable gloss on your position: “defer to the experts, except when you know what their reasoning is and can see where it’s gone wrong”? FWIW, this gloss seems exactly the right response to epistemic humility, taking a principle middle line between “always defer” and “never defer”.
Second, I know this is by-the-by to your central claim, but can you explain and/or give examples of where continental philosophers have done “poorly at object-level reasoning”? I am (obviously) very sympathetic to the conclusion, but you don’t supply any reasons for it.
It seems quite difficult to argue that a whole class of people engages in poor reasoning, unless membership of that class necessitates accepting something that is clearly false (e.g. one might claim Holocaust deniers all engage in poor reasoning). But I can’t think of anything that all continental philosophers subscribe to, in virtue in being continental philosophers, and hence I can’t think of anything they all sign up to and clearly displays poor reasoning.
Yes I think that would be a reasonable view to believe, but my point here is just about what role the object-level reasons should play in our epistemics. I do think something like a middle way is the right path, though I don’t have a fully worked out theory. There is a good discussion of the topic here by Michael Huemer. I should note that I am generally very pro at least figuring out what the experts think about a topic in order to form reasonable views—the views of others should weigh heavily in our reasoning, especially given the widespread tendency to overconfidence. The idea of just ignoring all the object-level reasons seems wrong to me, however.
On my definition of continental philosophy, it is a form of philosophy that puts little to no value on clarity in writing. I think this is because the work of continental philosophers lacks substantive merit—when you have nothing to say, a good strategy is to be unclear; when you have no cards, all you can do is bluff. This leads to passages such as this from Hegel
“This is a light that breaks forth on spiritual substance, and shows absolute content and absolute form to be identical; - substance is in itself identical with knowledge. Self-consciousness thus, in the third place, recognizes its positive relation as its negative, and its negative as its positive, - or, in other words, recognizes these opposite activities as the same i.e. it recognizes pure Thought or Being as self-identity, and this again as separation. This is intellectual perception; but it is requisite in order that it should be in truth intellectual, that it should not be that merely immediate perception of the eternal and the divine which we hear of, but should be absolute knowledge. This intuitive perception which does not recognize itself is taken as starting-point as if it were absolutely presupposed; it has in itself intuitive perception only as immediate knowledge, and what it perceives it does not really know, - for, taken at its best, it consists of beautiful thoughts, but not knowledge.”
Or this from Foucault
“An intrinsic archaeological contradiction is not a fact, purely and simply, that it is enough to state as a principle or explain as an effect. It is a complex phenomenon that is distributed over different levels of the discursive formation. Thus, for systematic Natural History and methodical Natural History, which were in constant opposition for a good part of the eighteenth century, one can recognize: an inadequation of the objects (in the one case one describes the general appearance of the plant; in the other certain predetermined variables; in the one case, one describes the totality of the plant, or at least its most important parts, in the other one describes a number of elements chosen arbitrarily for their taxonomic convenience; sometimes one takes account of the plant’s different states. of growth and maturity, at others one confines one’s attention to a single moment, a stage of optimum visibility); a divergence of enunciative modalities (in the case of the systematic analysis of plants, one applies a rigorous perceptual and linguistic code, and in accordance with a constant scale; for methodical description, the codes are relatively free, and the scales of mapping may oscillate); an incompatibility of concepts (in the ‘systems’, the concept of generic character is an arbitrary, though misleading mark to designate the genera; in the methods this same concept must include the real definition of the genus); lastly, an exclusion of theoretical options (systematic taxonomy makes ‘fixism’ possible, even if it is rectified by the idea of a continuous creation in time, gradually unfolding the elements of the tables, or by the idea of natural catastrophes having disturbed by our present gaze the linear order of natural proximities, but excludes the possibility of a transformation that the method accepts without absolutely implying it).”
A central confusion for continental philosophers is acceptance of the ‘worst argument in the world’, which is that “We can know things only
as they are related to us
under our forms of perception
understanding insofar as they fall under our conceptual schemes,
from our cultural/economic perspective
insofar as they are formulated in language.
So, we cannot know things as they are in themselves.” This is a common argument at the basis of relativism of different kinds.
I think this is an interesting test case for epistemic modesty because from the outside, these people look a lot like experts. It is only by understanding some philosophy that you could reasonably discount their epistemic virtue.
I realize this is a total tangent to the point of your post, but I feel you’re giving short-shrift here to continental philosophy.
If it were only about writing style I’d say fair: continental philosophy has chosen a style of writing that resembles that used in other traditions to try to avoid over-simplifying and not compressing understanding down into just a few words that are easily misunderstood. Whereas you see unclear writing, I see a desperate attempt to say anything detailed about reality without accidentally pointing in the wrong direction.
This is not to say that there aren’t bad continental philosophers who hide behind this method to say nothing, but I think it’s unfair to complain about it just because it’s hard to understand and takes a lot of effort to suss out what is being said.
As to the central confusion you bring up, the unfortunate thing is that the worst argument in the world is technically correct, we can’t know things as they are in themselves, only as we perceive them to be, i.e. there is no view from nowhere. Where it’s wrong is thinking that just because we always know the world from some vantage point that trying to understanding anything is pointless and any belief is equally useful. It is can both be true that there is no objective way that things are and that some ways of trying to understand reality do better at helping us predict reality than others.
I think the confusion that the worst argument in the world immediately implies we can’t know anything useful comes from only seeing that the map is not itself the territory but not also seeing that the map is embedded in the territory (no Cartesian dualism).
First, how does listening to your peers solve the problem of overconfidence? Surely all your peers are, on average, as overconfident as you? Not saying you need to have an answer, more thinking out loud.
Second, object-level reasons need to be in the story somewhere. What else are experts supposed to use to form their views—the opinions of existing experts? If experts can and must appeal to object-level reasons, it’s then unsettling to say non-experts can make no use of them.
Third, I agree those quotes are bananas. I’ve never really understood what continental philosophers take each other to be saying—it’s all gloriously unclear to me.
Thanks John, I really enjoyed this (as I do basically everything you write). Two comments.
First, would this be a reasonable gloss on your position: “defer to the experts, except when you know what their reasoning is and can see where it’s gone wrong”? FWIW, this gloss seems exactly the right response to epistemic humility, taking a principle middle line between “always defer” and “never defer”.
Second, I know this is by-the-by to your central claim, but can you explain and/or give examples of where continental philosophers have done “poorly at object-level reasoning”? I am (obviously) very sympathetic to the conclusion, but you don’t supply any reasons for it.
It seems quite difficult to argue that a whole class of people engages in poor reasoning, unless membership of that class necessitates accepting something that is clearly false (e.g. one might claim Holocaust deniers all engage in poor reasoning). But I can’t think of anything that all continental philosophers subscribe to, in virtue in being continental philosophers, and hence I can’t think of anything they all sign up to and clearly displays poor reasoning.
Hi Michael, I’m blushing!
Yes I think that would be a reasonable view to believe, but my point here is just about what role the object-level reasons should play in our epistemics. I do think something like a middle way is the right path, though I don’t have a fully worked out theory. There is a good discussion of the topic here by Michael Huemer. I should note that I am generally very pro at least figuring out what the experts think about a topic in order to form reasonable views—the views of others should weigh heavily in our reasoning, especially given the widespread tendency to overconfidence. The idea of just ignoring all the object-level reasons seems wrong to me, however.
On my definition of continental philosophy, it is a form of philosophy that puts little to no value on clarity in writing. I think this is because the work of continental philosophers lacks substantive merit—when you have nothing to say, a good strategy is to be unclear; when you have no cards, all you can do is bluff. This leads to passages such as this from Hegel
Or this from Foucault
A central confusion for continental philosophers is acceptance of the ‘worst argument in the world’, which is that “We can know things only
as they are related to us
under our forms of perception
understanding insofar as they fall under our conceptual schemes,
from our cultural/economic perspective
insofar as they are formulated in language.
So, we cannot know things as they are in themselves.” This is a common argument at the basis of relativism of different kinds.
I think this is an interesting test case for epistemic modesty because from the outside, these people look a lot like experts. It is only by understanding some philosophy that you could reasonably discount their epistemic virtue.
I realize this is a total tangent to the point of your post, but I feel you’re giving short-shrift here to continental philosophy.
If it were only about writing style I’d say fair: continental philosophy has chosen a style of writing that resembles that used in other traditions to try to avoid over-simplifying and not compressing understanding down into just a few words that are easily misunderstood. Whereas you see unclear writing, I see a desperate attempt to say anything detailed about reality without accidentally pointing in the wrong direction.
This is not to say that there aren’t bad continental philosophers who hide behind this method to say nothing, but I think it’s unfair to complain about it just because it’s hard to understand and takes a lot of effort to suss out what is being said.
As to the central confusion you bring up, the unfortunate thing is that the worst argument in the world is technically correct, we can’t know things as they are in themselves, only as we perceive them to be, i.e. there is no view from nowhere. Where it’s wrong is thinking that just because we always know the world from some vantage point that trying to understanding anything is pointless and any belief is equally useful. It is can both be true that there is no objective way that things are and that some ways of trying to understand reality do better at helping us predict reality than others.
I think the confusion that the worst argument in the world immediately implies we can’t know anything useful comes from only seeing that the map is not itself the territory but not also seeing that the map is embedded in the territory (no Cartesian dualism).
Three more quick thoughts.
First, how does listening to your peers solve the problem of overconfidence? Surely all your peers are, on average, as overconfident as you? Not saying you need to have an answer, more thinking out loud.
Second, object-level reasons need to be in the story somewhere. What else are experts supposed to use to form their views—the opinions of existing experts? If experts can and must appeal to object-level reasons, it’s then unsettling to say non-experts can make no use of them.
Third, I agree those quotes are bananas. I’ve never really understood what continental philosophers take each other to be saying—it’s all gloriously unclear to me.