Philosophy

Final instalment  of a book-review symposium on: Jeff Kochan (2017), Science as Social Existence: Heidegger and the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (Cambridge UK: Open Book Publishers). -- Author's response to:  Paolo Palladino (2018), 'Heidegger Today: On Jeff Kochanâs Science and Social Existence,' Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 7(8): 41-46; and Adam Riggio (2018), 'The Very Being of a Conceptual Scheme: Disciplinary and Conceptual Critiques,' Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 7(11): 53-59.

http://social-epistemology.com ISSN: 2471-9560 Disassembling the System Jeff Kochan, University of Konstanz –––––––––––––––––– Kochan, Jeff. "Disassembling the System: A Reply to Paolo Palladino and Adam Riggio." Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 7, no. 12 (2018): 29-38. Short url: https://wp.me/p1Bfg0-44M (provided by WordPress) 29 Vol. 7, no. 12 (2018): 29-38 https://wp.me/p1Bfg0-44M This essay brings to a formal close SERRC's review symposium on my book Science as Social Existence: Heidegger and the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (Open Book Publishers, 2017). All told, four reviewers stepped forward: Raphael Sassower (2018); Pablo Schyfter (2018); Paolo Palladino (2018); and Adam Riggio (2018); listed here in the order in which their reviews have appeared. My thanks to them for their thoughtful and often spirited engagement with my book. I have already responded to Sassower and Schyfter separately (Kochan 2018a & 2018b), so my main task here will be to respond to Palladino and Riggio. My thanks go, as well, to Eric Kerr, who has organised this symposium. Why Bother Being Epochal? I coulda been a contender! I coulda been somebody... – Marlon Brando as Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront (1954) This symposium was kicked off last May by Raphael Sassower (2018). Six months out, Adam Riggio has now brought up the rear, rounding out the reviewers' side by crystallising Sassower's initial criticism of Science as Social Existence into two words: 'Why bother?' (Riggio 2018, 53). As a question directed at me – 'Why bother writing Science as Social Existence?' – the answer is easy: because I felt like it. It was a joy (in a weirdly afflicted way) to write the book, and a joy to see it published. That the SERRC books editor then offered to organise a book symposium was a wonderful surprise, outstripping my expectations. On the other hand, as a question directed at potential readers – 'Why bother reading Science as Social Existence?' – the answer is more difficult to give, because, at the end of the day, it is not mine to give. I am sure that, had I tried to predict and pursue the fashions of the academic marketplace, I would have ended up feeling miserable. By my reckoning, it was better to write from a place of joy, and give a few readers the best of what I have, than to chase popular demand, and deliver something fashionable but personally hollow. Luckily, my wonderful publisher is not in the business of making money. It is fortuitous that one symposiast, Paolo Palladino, has already answered the second question for me. After summarising his appreciation for several aspects of Science as Social Existence, Palladino concludes: 'All this seems to me a wholly satisfactory answer to Sassower's question' (Palladino 2018, 43). Predictably, some tough guys will scoff at joy. Either because they already have so much they cannot see the need for more, or because they have so little they cannot abide seeing it in others. Riggio has shared with us his insights about disciplinarity, culled from his 'decade of work as a professional-level philosopher' (Riggio 2018, 54). My own experience suggests that J. Kochan 30 academia could use more joy. 'Why bother?' is really a bureaucrat's question, asked by hiring, funding, and promotions committees. Perhaps better questions could be asked. Presumably Riggio would not begrudge me my joy, but his interests do lie elsewhere. He wants me to be 'epochal' (Riggio 2018, 58). According to him, had I not allegedly hobbled myself with disciplinarity, then, '[i]nstead of writing about Martin Heidegger and David Bloor, he [being me] could have written something with the potential to leave him [being me] mentioned in the same breath as such epochal thinkers. He could have become epochal himself. [...] How about next time, Jeff?' (Riggio 2018, 58). Wow. That is quite flattering ... I guess. But my answer is: 'no thanks.' Not this time, and not the next time either. But no worries. There is a lot of beautiful space between the dizzying heights of epochaldom and a one-way ticket to Palookaville. Who Will Bother to Read Science as Social Existence? Yes, who will bother to read my book? It is still too early to tell, with the data sample still quite small. As far as SERRC goes, the sample is exactly four. Let us start with the first reviewer: why did Sassower read Science as Social Existence? I must admit that I am already stumped. Nevertheless, Sassower's review sparked the symposium that has now followed, and I am warmly grateful to him for that. The second reviewer is Pablo Schyfter. Why did Schyfter read Science as Social Existence? Here the reasons seem more easily accessible, and Riggio's reflections on disciplinarity can help us to draw them out. Riggio finds it frustrating that I organised my book as a constructive dialogue between two academic disciplines: Heidegger Studies; and Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (SSK). He laments 'how vulnerable this makes him [being me] to academic attacks' (Riggio 2018, 53). He offers Sassower' review as a case in point. But Riggio might just as well have offered Schyfter's review. As I note in my response to the latter, Schyfter fashions himself as SSK's disciplinary gate-keeper, and he tries to paint me as an attempted gate-crasher (Kochan 2018b). His self-appointed goal is to protect the purity of SSK against my perceived infiltration from without. But Schyfter fails to realise that I am already well within the gates, because the boundaries of the discipline are much less precise than he would like us to believe. This is a point Riggio also fails to realise, and so my separate response to Schyfter may also serve as a response to Riggio's similar criticisms in respect of my presentation of SSK. The third reviewer is Palladino, and the why-question has already been answered. He read Science as Social Existence because he thought it was interesting: 'I hope to have conveyed how much I enjoyed thinking about the questions Science as Social Existence poses' (Palladino 2018, 46). Naturally, I am warmly grateful to Palladino as well. 31 Vol. 7, no. 12 (2018): 29-38 https://wp.me/p1Bfg0-44M Reviewer number four is Riggio. Why did he read it? He appears to equivocate. Why All this Bother about Disciplinarity? On the one hand, Riggio seems to have read the book because it interested him. He starts by saying that Science as Social Existence offers a 'constructive dialogue' between Heidegger and SSK, that '[t]his open-minded approach to problem solving remains sadly rare in academic culture,' and that 'such a trans-disciplinary philosophical project is worthwhile and valuable' (Riggio 2018, 53). Later, he calls my combination of Heidegger and SSK 'a very valuable experiment,' as well as 'brilliantly insightful in how philosophically challenging and creative it is' (Riggio 2018, 57). Sorry for laying that on so thick, but it is fun to repeat such stuff. Yet, that is then as far as it goes. Instead of developing one or more of these positive points, Riggio spends the rest of his time focussing on what he perceives to be the negative consequences of my choice to work at a disciplinary level. As we have seen, Riggio laments how vulnerable this allegedly makes me to 'attacks' from the likes of Sassower and Schyfter. Apparently he hopes to protect me from such perceived aggression. I appreciate Riggio's concern, but I think I have done a good enough job on my own of defending myself against Sassower and Schyfter. I would have rather Riggio had developed his positive points, no doubt also delivering some excellent criticism along the way. For example, he could have helped to make my ostensibly 'open-minded approach to problem solving' less rare by more substantially engaging with it and encouraging others to adopt the same approach. I could have benefited from his advice, and I reckon others could have too. In my view, one of the biggest tragedies of the periodic disciplinary dogmatism one encounters in academia is that it often drives creative minds into a kind of extra-disciplinary exile. And I know how lonely it can be out there. Yet, rather than trying to pull me out there with him, I would have preferred it if Riggio had joined me in here where there is no end of action, not to mention loads of intellectual resources. It helps to keep one's elbows up, for sure, and certainly also to have engaged and well-positioned allies like Palladino, who is, he emphasises, not invested in 'disciplinary purity' (Palladino 2018, 41). Let me make a final, more proximal point before I close this section. One key goal of Science as Social Existence is to defend the Edinburgh School's 'Strong Programme' in SSK by removing the School's vulnerability to sceptical attack (see also Kochan 2018b). Riffing off Riggio, I can now conjecture that the Edinburgh School's vulnerability arises, in part, from their open-minded approach to problem solving, more specifically, their mixing together of two disciplines: sociology and philosophy. Yet, the Edinburgh School experiences friction between their philosophical and sociological interests, in the form of a sceptical attack. My diagnosis: they tried to mix sociology with the wrong kind of philosophy. They might have gone for Heideggerian phenomenology. By easing them in this direction, I relieve them of their vulnerability. J. Kochan 32 Hence I do for the Edinburgh School what Riggio thinks I should have done for Science as Social Existence. I release them from the disciplinary friction which led to their vulnerability. However, I do this, not by urging them to abandon disciplinarity altogether, but by nudging them onto a different disciplinary ground. Moreover, I could do this only by embracing the very disciplinarity that Riggio suggests I abandon, that is, only by digging down into the methodological and conceptual clockwork of Heidegger and SSK. Oh, Bother! – The Conceptual System Returns One thing I try to do in Science as Social Existence, especially in Chapter 7, is to turn methodological attention away from systems and towards subjects. Palladino correctly identifies this as having been motivated by my discontent with 'perspectives that have increasingly come to dominate science and technology studies' (Palladino 2018, 45). Indeed, in Chapters 2 and 3, I discuss how these perspectives have often sought to reverse the gains made by earlier SSK practitioners. My argument is that, by emphasising systems over subjects, contemporary theorists have often suppressed subjectivity as a fundamental explanatory resource. They shift attention from subjects to systems. The emphasis is usually then put on systems of practice, but it could also be on systems of concepts. Either way, the system is primary, the subject secondary. Palladino agrees with me that the system should not be viewed as more important than the subject (Palladino 2018, 46). Yet, in contrast to me, he sees subject and system as equally primary, as fundamentally co-constitutive. Palladino grounds this difference between us in my alleged equation of subjectivity with Being. He, on the other hand, equates subjectivity with Becoming, with a 'performative operation' (Palladino 2018, 45). I am less inclined to draw such a sharp distinction between Being and Becoming. In my view, Becoming presupposes Being, because Becoming is a change-of-state in Being, in something that already is, that already exists. In Science as Social Existence, I write: 'Grammatically, the phrase "the meaning of being" is similar in structure to the phrase "the thrill of a lifetime." [...] A lifetime is a historical-existential space wherein thrills can happen. Likewise, being is a historical-existential space wherein meaning can happen,' that is, a space wherein meaning can come into being, where it can become (Kochan 2017, 54). The subject, construed as being-in-the-world, is a historical-existential space wherein one finds possibilities for Becoming. Palladino's 'performative operation' presupposes a performer, just as the concept of practice presupposes a practitioner. What or who a subject is – its meaning or significance – is the result of practice, but that a subject is – its existence – is not. A subject may experience itself as an unintelligible tangle of perceptions – as does, perhaps, a newborn baby – slowly acquiring meaning as it stumbles through a world shared with others, actualising or being actualised in accordance with the existential possibilities of its Being (cf. Kochan 2017, 145ff.; see also Kochan 2015a). 33 Vol. 7, no. 12 (2018): 29-38 https://wp.me/p1Bfg0-44M A system of practices or of concepts thus presupposes a subjectivity that does the practicing or the conceptualising. Since, following Heidegger, subjectivity is not just being-in-the-world, but also being-with-others, it is a necessarily plural phenomenon. Combined with Heidegger's account of the subject, SSK thus becomes (necessarily but not sufficiently) the sociological study of scientific subjectivity in relation to the world. The primary explanatory resource is now the community of historically interacting subjects, along with the material resources they enrol in those interactions. The system-centred theorist reifies this inter-subjectivity, turning it into a system, scheme, or network with an agency of its own. The subject is thus subordinated to the power of the system. Combining insights from SSK pioneers Barry Barnes and David Bloor, I argue, instead, that 'the system does not carry us along, we carry it along. We are compelled by the system only insofar as we, collectively, compel one another' (Kochan 2017, 374). Herein lies the nub of my problem with Riggio's apparently uncritical use of such terms as 'discipline' and 'conceptual scheme.' In Science as Social Existence, I introduce Heidegger's existential conception of science as his alternative to the, in his day, dominant account of science as a conceptual scheme (Kochan 2017, 59). In other words, Heidegger attempts to de-reify – to deconstruct – science construed as a conceptual scheme, arguing instead that science is, at its base, an existential phenomenon produced by interacting subjects in the world. This is how I view Riggio's 'disciplines.' They are no more than historical communities of individuals interacting with one another in the world. The vulnerability Riggio sees in my disciplinarity is not vulnerability to the impersonal power of a system, but to discrete and concrete individuals who, for whatever reason, feel the need to attack. When one is attacked by an amorphous and impersonal 'system,' one may feel overwhelmed and powerless. When one is attacked by one or more fragile fellow humans, the odds look decidedly different. Those who profit from their social situation will often be invested in the status quo. One effective way for them to protect their investment is to reify their situation, painting it as an impersonal system, in the hands of no one in particular. They thus protect their profits, while obscuring their responsibility. This is why, on the penultimate page of Science as Social Existence, I cite Baudelaire, characterising the system-centred theorist as 'a prince who everywhere rejoices in his incognito' (Kochan 2017, 379). A Regrettable Absence and Two Allegedly Missed Alternatives For some readers, the preceding section will have brought to mind Michel Foucault. Palladino regrets that I say (almost) nothing about Foucault (Palladino 2018, 45). I regret it too. While writing Science as Social Existence, I was sharply aware of Foucault's potential relevance, but I felt that I was already juggling enough. This is not an excuse, but an admission of weakness. The absence is indeed regrettable. J. Kochan 34 I have, however, criticised Foucault elsewhere (Kochan 2015b). Or have I? What I criticised was what Edward Said labels an 'overblown' and 'extreme' use of Foucault (Said 2000/1982, 213). My most immediate concern was Ian Hacking, who is arguably allied with the systemcentred theorists I take on in Science as Social Existence. Hence, the 'overblown' interpretation of Foucault appears to be a tool of my opponents. But perhaps there is another interpretation of Foucault, one that could better serve me? I will leave that for someone else to decide. My research is now taking me in a different direction. Perspicaciously, Palladino has intuited something of that direction. He takes Sassower's 'possibly accidental' mention of Spinoza, and suggests that a 'Spinozist monadology' may offer an alternative approach to some of the topics I address in Science as Social Existence (Palladino 2018, 44). Yet one accident follows another: for it was Leibniz, not Spinoza, who introduced a monadology. This wrinkle is, however, an opportune one, as it gives me an excuse to discuss both Spinoza and Leibniz. Leibniz attempted to solve the problem of mind-body (or subject-object) interaction by arguing for a 'pre-established harmony' between the two. The law-governed actions of mind and body track one another in a way preordained by God (Monadology §78 [Leibniz 1965, 161]). This pre-ordination takes the shape of a rational plan, a 'sealed blueprint' (A Vindication of God's Justice §82 [Leibniz 1965, 133]). Leibniz imagined God as an artisan who stands outside the world, guiding its interior operations according to a rational and universal plan. Spinoza, in contrast, viewed God as immanent in nature. For him, there is nothing external to nature (Ethics I, P18 [Spinoza 1994, 100]). The problem of mind-body interaction is solved because 'the thinking substance and the extended [i.e., bodily] substance are one and the same' (Ethics II, P7 [Spinoza 1994, 119]). Yet, for Spinoza natural events are also rationally and universally ordered: 'the laws and rules of Nature, according to which all things happen, [...] are always and everywhere the same' (Ethics III, preface [Spinoza 1994, 153]). Here too, then, the world is governed by a rational and universal measure, but one implemented from within rather than from without. Both Leibniz and Spinoza seem to have viewed nature as a unified whole, a dynamic totality underpinned by a core set of logically consistent principles, a rational plan. They were therefore modern thinkers à la lettre. Insofar as Heidegger sought an alternative to modern rationalism, his two modernist predecessors would seem to offer, not different alternatives, but a retreat back into modernity. Yet this may be too quick. For Heidegger, the rationalistic impulse to grasp the world as a whole, as a 'world picture,' a 'basic blueprint,' or a unified set of abstract axioms from which all else can be deduced, was a historically contingent impulse, generated and sustained within a specific cultural tradition. He worried that this impulse, were it to gain global hegemony, could squeeze out other, perhaps humanly vital, existential possibilities present both within and outwith the broader European legacy. 35 Vol. 7, no. 12 (2018): 29-38 https://wp.me/p1Bfg0-44M Heidegger's own search for alternatives to modernity was decidedly idiosyncratic. In Chapter 7 of Science as Social Existence, I discuss his attempt to reconceptualise the 'thing' as a 'fourfold.' Heidegger suggested that the thing be seen as a 'gathering' of earth, sky, gods, and mortals (Kochan 2017, 368ff.). Here is where Leibniz and, especially, Spinoza may still be relevant. Heidegger's four-fold is an attempt to rethink – in non-modern and non-rationalistic terms – the panpsychism often attributed to Leibniz and Spinoza. This is the doctrine that, to one degree or another, mind is always present in body, that, to some extent or other, subjectivity is always present in the object. Hence, panpsychism may promise an alternative to the modern subject-object split. Yet, for Heidegger, this promise is only a half-measure, because the frame in which panpsychism unites subject and object is a universal, rationalist one. As I read it, the fourfold attempts to dislodge things from this globalising frame. It is more of a recipe than a blueprint. The precise nature of the four ingredients, as well as the proportions by which they are mixed, may vary from one region to the next. Rather than imposing a uniform blueprint on the world, the four-fold embraces a plurality of potential combinations. A can of Coke may be everywhere the same, but each region will have its own daily bread. Postcolonial STS: A Path Forward or a Dead End? Palladino is once again perspicacious in suggesting that the route forward in respect of these issues may lie in anthropology (Palladino 2018, 46). For my part, I have been reading Tim Ingold's phenomenologically inflected work. Ingold draws on Heidegger's conceptualisation of the thing as a 'gathering,' and combines it with insights from the ethnography of animistic Indigenous groups (Ingold 2013, 215). Rejecting 19th-c. European construals of animism – wherein a thing is animated by a spirit that inhabits it – Ingold instead interprets animism as a 'poetics of life' (Ingold 2018, 22). Animism, as Ingold presents it, seems closer to Heidegger's non-modern phenomenology of existence than it does to Leibniz's and Spinoza's modern panpsychism. Palladino notes a connection between this panpsychism and actor-network theory (ANT), currently a dominant position in science and technology studies (STS) (Palladino 2018, 44). It is worth noting, then, that Ingold explicitly opposes his anthropology of life to ANT, especially as represented in the works of Bruno Latour (e.g., Ingold 2013 & 2011). Ingold argues that animism – as a poetics of life – 'betters even science in its comprehension of the fullness of existence' (Ingold 2018, 22). I am less inclined to draw such a clean line between science and animism, in particular, and science and indigenous knowledge, more generally. Indeed, I have begun to explore how scientific and indigenous knowledges may sometimes be combined in ways that can respect and strengthen both (Kochan 2018c & 2015b). In Chapter 7 of Science as Social Existence, I introduce Heidegger's distinction between 'enframing' and poiēsis as two distinct ways in which things may be experienced (Kochan J. Kochan 36 2017, 359ff.). These roughly correspond to a modern and a non-modern mode of experience. They also encompass panpsychism and animism, respectively. I argue in Science as Social Existence that a system-centred understanding of experience is one in which things are 'framed' according to a universal blueprint. In contrast, poiēsis embraces pluralism, and thus resists the idea that life can be framed as a system, that it can be fully rationalised and reduced to a core set of concepts or practices. This returns me to Riggio's 'conceptual schemes.' Picking up Heidegger's concepts of enframing and poiēsis, Riggio treats them both as conceptual systems or 'frameworks' (Riggio 2018, 55). As should be clear from the above, I reject this construal. In my view, enframing is a disposition to experience the world as 'framed.' Poiēsis, in contrast, refuses this disposition. Ingold's animism, as a poetics of life, might be viewed as a mode of poiēsis – an existential openness to a world vibrant with life – rather than as a framework or scheme. Riggio expresses horror at the way Heidegger's concept of poiēsis, in his only recently published Black Notebooks, 'guides' one towards anti-Semitism (Riggio 2018, 56f). I have not read the Black Notebooks, as I have no stomach for still more of Heidegger's already wellknown anti-Semitic opinions and behaviour. But I do wish that Riggio had provided some specific textual evidence and exegesis, because, based on my own understanding of poiēsis, I find it difficult to see how it should 'guide' one towards anti-Semitism. According to Riggio, the Black Notebooks are 'pro-Indigenous and anti-colonial, but also antiSemitic in equal intensity' (Riggio 2018, 57). Since, in Science as Social Existence, I say nothing about Indigenous knowledge or colonialism, it is fortuitous that Riggio independently introduces these topics in his review, thereby allowing a link-up with Palladino's suggestion that anthropology may offer a way forward. If I have understood him correctly, Riggio worries that poiēsis is a conceptual framework in which pro-Indigenous and anti-Semitic sentiments are logically inseparable. Since I do not think that poiēsis is a conceptual framework, I do not feel the force of Riggio's worry. However, if he were right, then the obvious response would be to reject poiēsis as a tool for Indigenous Studies. This would hardly be a tragedy, since Heidegger has never been an authoritative figure in that field anyway. In any case, the best source for learning about Indigenous peoples is Indigenous people (e.g., Battiste & Henderson 2000; Cajete 2000; Smith 2012; and a book recommended by Riggio, with which I am not yet familiar, Simpson 2017). But perhaps Riggio worries more deeply that, quite independently of the concept of poiēsis, Indigenous Studies may entail anti-Semitism? If this were true, then the consequences would be profound not just for students of Indigenous culture, but, more importantly, for Indigenous peoples themselves. More particularly, but less importantly, it would be a serious blow to those, like myself, who currently work in the emerging field of postcolonial STS (e.g., Harding 2011). 37 Vol. 7, no. 12 (2018): 29-38 https://wp.me/p1Bfg0-44M But we have now moved well beyond the boundaries of Science as Social Existence. It is a testament to the vital intelligence of my fellow symposiasts that the discussion has stretched much further than the book itself, touching also on broader, often more important, issues. Once again, I thank Raphael Sassower, Pablo Schyfter, Paolo Palladino and Adam Riggio for their vigorous engagement with Science as Social Existence. To those readers who have followed our conversation, my heartfelt thanks as well. Contact details: firstname.lastname@example.com References Battiste, Marie and James (Sa'ke'j) Youngblood Henderson (2000). Protecting Indigenous Knowledge and Heritage: A Global Challenge (Saskatoon: Purich Publishing). Cajete, Gregory (2000). Native Science: Natural Laws of Interdependence (Santa Fe: Clear Light Publishers). Harding, Sandra (2011). The Postcolonial Science and Technology Studies Reader (Durham NC: Duke University Press). Ingold, Tim (2018). Anthropology: Why It Matters (Cambridge UK: Polity Press). Ingold, Tim (2013). 'Anthropology Beyond Humanity' (Edward Westermarck Memorial Lecture). Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society 38(3): 2-23. Ingold, Tim (2011). 'When ANT meets SPIDER: Social Theory for Arthropods.' In Carl Knappett & Lanbros Malafouris (eds.), Material Agency: Towards a Non-Anthropocentric Approach (New York: Springer), pp. 209-215. Kochan, Jeff (2018a). 'On the Sociology of Subjectivity: A Reply to Raphael Sassower.' Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 7(5): 39-41. https://wp.me/p1Bfg0-3Xm Kochan, Jeff (2018b). 'Supressed Subjectivity and Truncated Tradition: A Reply to Pablo Schyfter.' Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 7(12): 15-21. https://wp.me/p1Bfg0-44s Kochan, Jeff (2018c). 'Decolonising Science in Canada: A Work in Progress.' Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 7(11): 42-47. https://wp.me/p1Bfg0-43i Kochan, Jeff (2017). Science as Social Existence: Heidegger and the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (Cambridge UK: Open Book Publishers). http://dx.doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0129 Kochan, Jeff (2015a). 'Putting a Spin on Circulating Reference, or How to Rediscover the Scientific Subject.' Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 49: 103-107. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2014.10.004 Kochan, Jeff (2015b). 'Objective Styles in Northern Field Science.' Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 52: 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2015.04.001 J. Kochan 38 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm von (1965). Monadology and Other Philosophical Essays, trans. Paul Schrecker and Anne Martin Schrecker (New York: Macmillan). Palladino, Paolo (2018). 'Heidegger Today: On Jeff Kochan's Science and Social Existence.' Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 7(8): 41-46. Riggio, Adam (2018). 'The Very Being of a Conceptual Scheme.' Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 7(11): 53-59. Said, Edward (2000/1982). 'Travelling Theory.' In M. Bayoumi and A. Rubin (eds.), The Edward Said Reader (New York: Vintage Books), pp. 195-217. Sassower, Raphael (2018). 'Heidegger and the Sociologists: A Forced Marriage?' Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 7(5): 30-32. Schyfter, Pablo (2018). 'Inaccurate Ambitions and Missing Methodologies: Thoughts on Jeff Kochan and the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge.' Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 7(8): 8-14. Simpson, Leanne Betasamosake (2017). As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom Through Radical Resistance (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press). Smith, Linda Tuhiwai (2012). Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, second edition (London: Zed Books). Spinoza, Benedict de (1994). A Spinoza Reader: The Ethics and Other Works, ed. and trans. Edwin Curley (Princeton: Princeton University Press).


Revolutionary thought

Philosophy

The crisis of our times is that we have science without wisdom.  Modern science and technology lead to modern industry and agriculture which in turn lead to all the great benefits of the modern world and to the global crises we face, from population growth to climate change.  The fault lies, not with science, but with science dissociated from a more fundamental concern with problems of living.  We urgently need to bring about a revolution in academia so that the fundamental task becomes to help humanity learn how to tackle problems of living in increasingly cooperatively rational ways, so that we may gradually discover how to make progress towards a better, wiser world.

Revolutionary thought Nicholas Maxwell urges the academy to become the world's 'virtual government', applying inquiry and intellect to our biggest problems Times Higher Education 23 January 2014 http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/comment/opinion/a-revolutionary-mission-statementimprove-the-world/2010674.article The crisis of our times is that we have science without wisdom. This is the crisis behind all the others. Science and technology have given us the benefits of modern industry, agriculture, hygiene and medicine, which in turn have led to a host of global problems. These include population growth, the terrifyingly lethal character of modern war and terrorism, immense disparities in wealth, destruction of tropical rainforests and other natural habitats, rapid mass extinction of species, pollution of sea, earth and air and, above all, the impending disasters of climate change. Many blame science, but that misses the point. The problem lies with science that is dissociated from a more fundamental concern with helping humanity learn how to tackle problems of living in increasingly cooperatively rational ways, so that we may gradually discover how to make progress towards a better, wiser world. Knowledge is important, but in the end it is what we do, or refrain from doing, that enables us to achieve what is of value in life. We need an academic revolution, one that puts problems of living – personal, social and global – at the heart of the enterprise. Social enquiry and the humanities need to be transformed so that their basic task becomes that of identifying and articulating these problems and proposing and critically assessing possible solutions: actions, policies, institutional and social changes, political programmes, ways of living, philosophies of life. Our best ideas about what to do would influence the priorities of scientific and technological research – and, of course, deliberations concerning actions and policy would need to take the results of scientific research into account. Natural science also needs to change, to examine critically not merely evidence and theory but also research aims – which contain problematic assumptions concerning metaphysics, values and politics. Aims in life in general are often problematic: they too need sustained imaginative and critical exploration, within and without academia, in the hope that they – and our lives – can thereby be improved. Each nation needs, within its university system, a virtual government that, free of the constraints of the actual government, seeks to work out what the actual government ought to do. Something similar is needed for the world as a whole. The whole relationship between academia and the social world needs to change, so that academia does not just study the social world, but rather is in two-way debate with it. The fundamental concern would be to help the public world educate itself about what needs to be done to make progress towards as good a world as possible. But this certainly does not mean that all scientific research would be related to practical problems of living. We need pure research both because scientific knowledge and understanding can be of intrinsic value for all of us and because pure research often leads unexpectedly to solutions to practical problems of living. Does recent emphasis on the importance of the "impact" of research amount to a step towards the kind of university I have in mind? Not really. "Impact" as defined by the research councils does not involve the university giving priority to tackling problems of living over problems of knowledge. What constitutes social "impact" is characterised in rather broad terms, and may actually contribute to making some global problems worse. And the criteria fail to do justice to research of great value whose "impact" is either non-existent or only potential or long term. Of greater relevance are programmes such as the Grand Challenges project developed by University College London, which aim to bring specialists together to work on global problems. There is here an input from my own work and UCL refers, on its website, to "the Wisdom Agenda" and "delivering a culture of wisdom". But, important though this programme is, UCL as a whole does not give intellectual priority to tackling problems of living. This could not be done by one university alone anyway, as disciplines need to change, as well as university organisation. Why would the academic revolution I describe contribute to resolving global problems? Our only hope of solving our global problems is to do so democratically. But governments are unlikely to be much more enlightened than electorates, so we require electorates to have a good understanding of what our problems are and what we need to do about them. Public capacity to act intelligently and effectively in response to these problems is catastrophically lacking in our modern world, but this need could be met by universities reforming themselves in the way I have indicated. The basic task would be to help people discover what needs to be done to ensure that governments (and industry, agriculture and commerce) begin to do what is necessary to resolve our global problems. At present, universities' primary focus on the pursuit of knowledge prevents them from serving this purpose. Indeed, universities' pursuit of that goal is likely, if anything, to intensify our global problems. For the long-term interests of humanity, it is imperative that universities instead put tackling problems of living, and the improvement of problematic aims, at the heart of the academic enterprise. Nicholas Maxwell is emeritus reader in philosophy of science at University College London. His latest book is How Universities Can Help Create a Wiser World: The Urgent Need for an Academic Revolution (2014).


Bodies and Publics in Two Discourses

Philosophy

The recent call for a conceptual and intellectual decolonization in the humanities critiques the conventional, all-white, largely male philosophical canon. Its critique is directed at the centering of the experiences of this specific group in global knowledge transmission practices. Its proponents focus on the canonâs implicit claim, namely that only one social group is able to think thoroughly and accurately about all problems of philosophical significance across varying spatiotemporal contexts. In this short article, I will use two different debates to make some aspects of this call more meaningful: the US-American discourse in academic philosophy on deracializing the knowing subject and the post-Holocaust German understanding of public intellectual spaces (sections 2 and 3 respectively).

on_education Journal for Research and Debate _ISSN 2571-7855 _DOI 10.17899/on_ed.2020.7.4 _vol.3_issue # 7 1 Bodies and Publics in Two Discourses Monika Kirloskar-Steinbach (University Konstanz) 1. Preliminary Reflections The recent call for a conceptual and intellectual decolonization in the humanities critiques the conventional, all-white, largely male philosophical canon. Its critique is directed at the centering of the experiences of this specific group in global knowledge transmission practices. Its proponents focus on the canon's implicit claim, namely that only one social group is able to think thoroughly and accurately about all problems of philosophical significance across varying spatiotemporal contexts. In this short article, I will use two different debates to make some aspects of this call more meaningful: the US-American discourse in academic philosophy on deracializing the knowing subject and the post-Holocaust German understanding of public intellectual spaces (sections 2 and 3 respectively). Notably, there is no principle reason to delimit the application of these discourses to their respective contexts. In fact, Jim Tully's work, which is briefly sketched in section 3, can serve as a conduit between both debates (see KirloskarSteinbach, 2019). After the Holocaust, the re-education policies adopted in postwar Germany sought to sow the seeds of a democratic culture through the creation of what Anna Parkinson terms "intimate geographies" (Parkinson, 2017, p. 96). Accordingly, one sought to create "intersubjective spaces and communicative modalities through which discussion, conflict, and behavior [could be] negotiated, and [could] act to reproduce, or, at times to alter a society's habitus or social norms and ways of existing in the world" (Parkinson, 2017, p. 96). These spaces, one could say, explicitly encouraged speaking truth to power. The involvement of the Frankfurt School's firstgeneration thinkers in these policies is well-documented. Despite some internal differences, philosophers like Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno worked to create a critical mass of intellectuals who would resist the lure and power of collectives, statist or otherwise. Adorno saw individual autonomy as an empowering force, which would enable a person to withstand communal pressure (see below). Under his influence, intellectuals in postwar Germany hammered out a blueprint that perceived the development of democratic institutions as a long-term normative project (Albrecht, 1999, p. 447). For its implementation, this blueprint relied heavily on a stable sense of belonging to a society which valued democratic freedoms. In Adorno's analysis, teachers were one group which could in principle abet the development of this sense of belonging. While they could play a crucial role in inculcating this sense, he assumed that this group was not sufficiently aware of, or was ignorant about, its own social role and the structure of social reality in Germany immediately after the war (see Albrecht, 1999, p. 404). Adorno placed his hopes in the development of specially designed teacher-training courses. If teachers' critical selfconsciousness were to be trained, they could help to build up a new society that consciously moved away from the authoritarian mode of being to a democratic one. Education was highly significant in this respect: "The only education that has any sense at all is an education toward critical selfreflection" (Adorno, 2003, pp. 21-22). Over time, this society would learn to appreciate, and value, democratic freedoms, including those of individuals who chose not to cooperate. Society would be aware that the bonds of its groups could be fatal since they were prone to encourage 'group-think.' Adorno used his own role as a public intellectual to underscore the importance of democratic institutions for postwar German society. The following pages will abstain from developing a general theory about conceptual and intellectual decolonization in order to foreground this specific German situation. Another reason demands this deliberate abstention too. One key insight of the debate on conceptual and intellectual decolonization is that it behooves us well as academics to develop a more skeptical attitude toward our academic practices. One such practice is our uninhibited- and relatively unreflective-use of universal theories. In the humanities, we are generally taught to believe that the reality we seek to interpret can be adequately grasped through universal theories. However, these theories have a dark underbelly too, as we have learnt from critical accounts. Although several universal theories in academic philosophy position themselves as harbingers of reason and progress, this self-positioning may turn out to be inadequate in important ways: Theories purported to have a universal reach may be able to capture only selective aspects of what is sought to be known. Their attempts to capture reality in one fell swoop across differing contexts may conceal those aspects which these theories have been unable to capture. This inadequacy may be passed over. It may even remain undetected, especially when the universal ability of these theories to track reality across varied contexts is taken as the default assumption. on_education Journal for Research and Debate _ISSN 2571-7855 _DOI 10.17899/on_ed.2020.7.4 _vol.3_issue # 7 2 In the light of the specific situation of postwar Germany and the aforementioned methodological reason, this article places itself along the lines of what Stefan Müller-Doohm calls "conscious-raising critique" (Müller-Doohm, 2005, p. 278).1 Typically, a conscious-raising critique "is not objectively better knowledge, it is not formulated from an external point of view, but is based on the internal perspective of the culture. It takes its departure from the internal structures of distorted communication. It diagnoses internal conflict and contradictions not against the background of factually meaningful norms, but also of norms which have been established or have yet to be established as meaningful" (Müller-Doohm, 2005, p. 278). Against the background of these preliminary remarks, let us now turn to our first case: the discourse in US-American academic philosophy. 2. Deracializing the Knowing Subject in USAmerican Academic Philosophy It should be relatively easy to make a case for conceptual and intellectual decolonization using an argument which leans on diversity. However, some warn about exploring the philosophical merits of this questionable term of managerial repute. In their view, diversity is the self-marketing perspective of a university, which tries to contain diversity through its governance strategies. It is merely a means to "make the successful even more successful" (Ahmed, 2012, p. 110). If one were to heed this warning, however, one would most likely miss out on philosophically-exciting literature which follows the trail left by philosophers' bodies on scholarship. In her Presidential Address to the American Philosophical Association's Eastern Division in 2012, Linda Martín Alcoff called upon her colleagues to reflect upon the overrepresentation of white males in academic philosophy in the US, or as she put it, to think about why the profession was "demographically challenged" (Martín Alcoff, 2013, p. 21). Martín Alcoff and some of her colleagues worry about the crucial implications of this imbalance on the discipline. They are concerned that this group's social and epistemic standpoints may be simply reproduced, especially in areas in which philosophy is expected to deliver a careful analysis of justice and injustice. "[W]hite miscognition," which Charles Mills has documented in the history of social and political philosophy, will be continued in this case. Group privilege may not be perceived and/or challenged. Given that the aforesaid miscognition is a "structural phenomenon rather than the result of individual white myopias" (Mills, 2017, p. xvii), it will impact the manner in which the discipline as a whole is practiced. Several philosophers in the US home in on the larger ramifications of this demographic overrepresentation, and imbalance. Some, for example, point out to results of empirical studies, which illustrate that homogenous groups, like all-male and/or all-white groups, tend to perceive themselves as being more effective and are more confident about their problem-solving abilities (see Bruya, 2017, p. 999). Others worry that this imbalance will have long-term detrimental consequences for the profession in their pluralistic society. They are concerned that a homogenous group of philosophers will tend to breed and support "epistemic arrogance" (Medina). Purported epistemic authorities will speak from standpoints of accrued credibility excess. If such a discursive practice is retained over time, they reason, it may lead to a "meta-blindness," "a particularly recalcitrant kind of ignorance about the cognitive and affective limitations of one's own perspective" (Medina, 2011, p. 29). If such "socially cultivated hermeneutical insensitivities" (Medina, 2012, p. 207) are not reined in, the society as a whole may render itself vulnerable to multiple sources of epistemic injustice. The profession's lack of diversity is critiqued from another perspective too. This critique sets its sights on the subtle "boundary-policing" practices of the profession, which continue below the surface till today (Olberding, 2017, p. 1023). These practices seem to be driven by the premise that the cultural production of those hitherto excluded from the profession did not allegedly have "the potential to carry theoretical production" (Dotson, 2013, p. 41). Although one may consider such exclusionary views as mere historical curiosities today, the structures of philosophical knowledge production continue to propagate the belief that philosophical knowledge production is an activity specific only to the North American and European contexts. "Philosophy as a discipline," writes Michael Monahan, "remains white in the sense that it incorporates white assumptions, perspectives and traditions even while it claims to be universal and beyond such particularities as race" (Monahan, 2011, p. 220). In their own ways, both lines of critique endeavor to bring into relief the embodied nature of philosophical inquiry. They push back against the "transcendental delusion" (Martín Alcoff) prevalent in the discipline. Philosophical inquiry is not carried out by disembodied minds, they argue, but by concrete bodies placed in specific, spatiotemporal and socio-material contexts. In philosophizing, people make a concerted attempt at understanding the world around them from their own vantage point in space and time. For this purpose, they make use of a conceptual vocabulary which has grown out of the humus of common customs and life-forms. In other words, philosophical concepts have their own provenance (see Janz, 1996). They are generated in specific places for specific purposes. Philosophical activity, thus, cannot be meaningfully separated from the historical and corporeal particularity of its epistemic subjects. To be able to understand these local processes of meaning making better, we must ground philosophical content in different traditions. In grounding this content though, we must be attuned to the role socio-political factors play in the process. on_education Journal for Research and Debate _ISSN 2571-7855 _DOI 10.17899/on_ed.2020.7.4 _vol.3_issue # 7 3 Both these lines of critique can be deployed to make a case for conceptual and intellectual decolonization. In different ways, both argue for deracializing the extant belief about the ideal, representational, knowing subject. If the centering of certain bodies in the profession is a mere contingent outcome of certain socio-political processes, there is no plausible justification to continue this centering in a multicultural society, and in an interdependent world. In fact, this centering will most likely lead to faulty assumptions about our meaning-making endeavors in academic philosophy. These assumptions may, for example, lead homogenous groups to overestimate the ability of their conceptual frameworks to capture reality. The narrowness of their inquiry may be detrimental to further the development of that inquiry itself, especially when group members engage in boundary-policing such that an interrogation of the assumptions driving their inquiry is made impossible. As this section illustrates, the claim that the diversity lens cannot be deployed to argue for conceptual and intellectual decolonization is unconvincing, at least in the context of some current debates in US-American academic philosophy. We also see that our willingness not to take this claim at face-value has borne fruit. We have encountered critical positions which seek to rectify current ways of doing academic philosophy. Now, having come so far, one may hesitate to engage with our second case: academic philosophy in Germany. Even our introductory comments suggest that current practices there fail to sufficiently track the trail of a philosopher's body on scholarship, be it in teaching, or scholarly output. A mere cursory look at this context hints at the lack of a significant debate on the adequacy of the standard, all-white, largely male philosophical canon for a multicultural society and for an independent world, although theory produced in German intellectual and linguistic spaces has played a seminal role in the making of the current philosophical canon. The marginalization of postcolonial and decolonial minority scholars within philosophical departments is hard to overlook too. So, why engage with this specific context at all? Like in our first case, let us not give up prematurely. Let us persist. 3. Communicative Spaces and German Publics If one sought to place the aforementioned call for decolonization within the context of contemporary Germany, we may need to revisit those intersubjective spaces and communicative modalities alluded to above. As we saw in section 1, educational institutions in postHolocaust Germany were tailored to develop, and abet, a specific sense of belonging to a democratic polity. This belonging defined itself not through pre-given cultural determinants but through the making of a new society based on democratic freedoms. The communicative spaces designed for this purpose were said to be able to withstand the searing forces of a robust argumentative exchange, thus enabling individuals to use these spaces to challenge the force of collectives. By placing this article in this particular public discussion forum, I would be doing precisely that. I would be using the space created by some German scholars, and afforded by this exchange, to shed light on current practices in German academic philosophy, which in my view distort communication within the German academy and beyond. So far, so good. But how should one frame the argument such that it can easily resonate with frameworks extant within this context? One possibility would be, to use Jim Tully's understanding of a "civic philosopher." Such a philosopher takes her role as a civic philosopher seriously; she will allow for a "robust degree of democratic participation" (Tully, 2014, p. 319). In her commitment to foreground the societal and global implications of her academic work, she would be ready to (re)engage in the "art of citizenship," especially when cocitizens (whether of one's own society or of the world) voice their concern that certain actions have hegemonic and authoritarian outcomes for individuals and/or groups. The "interlocutionary intervention" (Tully, 2008, p. 17) this article intends to present is a case in point. A civic philosopher will not strike down the article's claims with the counter-claim that the former has negligible philosophical worth because it is neither voiced by the majority of professional philosophers in Germany nor does it in any way impact German-speaking scholarly literature. A civic philosopher is open to the possibility that the "inherited languages of description and reflection" may be inadequate (Tully, 2008, p. 19). She may, be ready to concede – and perhaps in the long-run break up – with the "monological orientation" of the discipline. Tully's views promise to be one meaningful contribution in our context. Not only has some of his work been translated in German. In some aspects, it intersects with Adorno's ruminations sketched above too. Tully's civic philosopher, who keenly engages with voices that contest, and perhaps even undermine, conventional opinions, reverberates well with Adorno's understanding of democratic freedoms being crucially dependent on critical individual inquiry. To thrive, a democracy in Adorno's reasoning depends on the "political, social, and moral awareness" of its citizens. One prerequisite hereof must be the capacity and courage of each individual to make full use of [her] reasoning power" (Adorno, 1999, p. 21). Adorno would argue that academic philosophers cannot plausibly claim that democratic spaces are removed from their scholarly debates. In fact, they should value such spaces. They abet critical inquiry, especially when, for example, individuals use them to think their way out of constricted spaces whose "doors are barricaded" (Adorno, 2005, p. 291). After all, "thinking has a secure hold on possibility. Its insatiable aspect, its aversion to being on_education Journal for Research and Debate _ISSN 2571-7855 _DOI 10.17899/on_ed.2020.7.4 _vol.3_issue # 7 4 quickly and easily satisfied, refuses the foolish wisdom of resignation" (Adorno, 2005, p. 292). 4. Conclusion As partakers of a profession that prides itself in its engagement with arguments, even contrary ones, philosophers cannot plausibly continue to diligently sidestep the call for conceptual and intellectual decolonization. Section 2 sketched how the work of some US-philosophers lays bare the "wonderful geographical doublespeak in the philosophy profession" (Martín Alcoff, 2017, p. 403) through which one geographical region papers over the contextuality of its own practices while simultaneously highlighting this very contextuality of other regions. While debates in current German philosophy have yet to adequately engage with the trail philosophers' specific bodies leaves on scholarship, the societal context in contemporary Germany possesses resources that can be meaningfully harnessed for the call (see section 3). Indeed, deploying these resources for conceptual and intellectual decolonization may impact the use of these resources in the future (see Steinmetz, 2006; see KirloskarSteinbach & Mika, 2019). In fact, this specific use may have substantial consequences for the philosophical canon as we understand it today, and perhaps even for debates in Germany's contemporary multicultural society. 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Postcolonial Studies, 9(1), 3–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/13668250500488793 Tully, J. (2008). Public philosophy as a critical activity. In Public philosophy in a new key, volume I: Democracy and civic freedom (Vol. 1, pp. 15–38). Cambridge University Press. Tully, J. (2014). On global citizenship: James Tully in dialogue. Bloomsbury. Recommended Citation Kirloskar-Steinbach, M. (2020). Bodies and publics in two discourses. On Education. Journal for Research and Debate, 3(7). https://doi.org/10.17899/on_ed.2020.7.4 About the Author Monika Kirloskar-Steinbach is professor of philosophy of University Konstanz, Germany. She works on social and political philosophy and cross-cultural philosophy. Kirloskar-Steinbach is the editor of Journal of World Philosophies and the Bloomsbury Introductions to World Philosophies. 1 For Müller-Doohm, Adorno and his prominent student Jürgen Habermas exemplify such internal critiques in postHolocaust German society, albeit in different ways.