Viral Philosophy

21 Saturday Aug 2021

Posted by Gary Herstein in General Philosophy, Media, Professoriate, Public Philosophy, Social Media

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General Philosophy, Public Philosophy, social media

A couple of different articles recently have spoken to the need for the humanities in general, and philosophy in particular, to become a more active voice in contemporary matters, particularly with regard to the COVID-19 pandemic. One article (which I’ll get to below the fold) was especially critical of the “failure of philosophy,” singling out as the basis of this sweeping claim a famous European scholar’s decision to become publicly and egregiously stupid. A second article (which I’ll get to after the first) is not focused on philosophy so much as the humanities in general, and even here the author (a former Chancellor of UC Berkeley) is more concerned on the social sciences than upon the humanities as such. This second piece brings us back to C. P. Snow’s famous lament about the “two cultures”, and argues that the problems Snow argued about have only gotten worse, even as “the players” have in many respects reversed positions.ⁱ

A cute picture of my cat so that this post will go viral and reach tens of people …

My concern here will be with philosophy rather than the humanities writ large, and specifically the impact that philosophy and philosophers can and ought to have upon the world. This latter topic falls under the general heading of what is called “public philosophy.” This is an instance of “what is old is new again;” in terms of the contemporary academy, public philosophy is a fairly new idea (one which many academic philosophers openly object to.) In terms of the history of philosophy, it is as old as the topic itself. I’ll not engage the debate about whether or not one should engage in public philosophy here, since its need is so manifestly obvious such “debate” is as silly as arguing over whether or not we should breathe. Rather, I wish to talk about the ways (and possibly the “ifs”) of how public philosophy has failed us in these last 18 months of global pandemic.

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Argumentum ad Baculum

12 Friday Jan 2018

Posted by Gary Herstein in Academia, Bullying, Critical Thinking, Fascism, Power, Professoriate, Social Media

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academia, Bullying, Critical Thinking, Fascism, Professoriate

According to the American Association of University Professors (as reported by CNN), “In the last year, more than 100 incidents of targeted harassment against professors have been reported on college campuses.” These reactions have reached the level of actual death threats, so that some professors have been banned from campuses, so as not to expose the rest of the community to potential violence. This is not the kind of situation that would be rendered more secure by everyone carrying guns, since that would erase the distinction between the “good guys” and the “bad guys,” a distinction that would NOT become clearer once someone started shooting, since no one would know who started shooting first, or if it was a “bad guy” or “good guy” that started it. This is why, happy as I would be for permanent employment, I would never accept employment at a college or university that permitted any form of civilian “carry” on campus: a wild-eyed pack of posturing, untrained rubes with deadly weapons at the ready makes no one safer; it takes a special kind of stupid to imagine otherwise.

But here we find ourselves in a situation where professors are receiving enormous volumes of vicious, if not always credible, threats upon their very lives for the kinds of things they have said in public. How did all these poor little, anonymous (because the cowards are always anonymous), tragically butthurt babies come to decide that the legitimate response to the public expression of a reasoned conclusion (I avoid the vacuous notion of “opinion”) is a threat of violence or even death? Certainly the election of the “crypto”-fascist Trump has energized many white supremacist and neo-nazi groups and sympathizers, and silencing by way of the threat (or act) of violence has long been a favored technique of such people. Which brings us to the title of this post, which is the fallacy of the argumentum ad baculum, the “argument from the stick”: using threats of violence and other forms of intimidation to compel others to accept your position. Continue reading →

Identity sans Community

19 Saturday Dec 2015

Posted by Gary Herstein in Authoritarians, Identity Politics, John Dewey, Media, Personhood, Social Media

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John Dewey, Personhood, Self-Identity

I’ve pointed out on several occasions that identity – as in “self-identity” or “personal identity” – is a construct that emerges from social interactions; it is something that is actively made, not something we simply have or is “given” to us. The evidence for this claim is much too dense for me to spend any more time rehearsing it (some representative discussion and citations can be found HERE.) So I will treat the fact of the constructed nature of personal identity here as a, you know, fact. And while the intention to construct an identity might, in some sense, be “built in” to us, the actual construction itself is something we must learn from our interactions with others. Were the construction primarily or exclusively instinctual, then the identity formed would be no more “constructed” than a bird’s nest is “designed;” the bird just gathers sticks and puts them together in the pattern that is instinctive to the bird.

No, our personhoods, our selves, our identities, come to be assembled through our various forms of community based interactions. Obviously our genetic background provides a significant input beyond just our outward appearances. Things as diverse as shyness and psychopathic tendencies, intelligence and aesthetic tastes, all have a significant genetic components. But these things can be cultivated or suppressed, discovered or ignored, rewarded or punished, in unboundedly varied ways. Sociopaths might be born, but not every sociopath becomes Ted Bundy (some become Bernie Madoff or Martin Shkreli.) So how these biological bits and pieces come to be assembled into the persons we are is an open ended, and highly creative process. So what happens when that process is artificially truncated in some form or other? Continue reading →