Philosophy

Author's response to: Pablo Schyfter, 'Inaccurate Ambitions and Missing Methodologies: Thoughts on Jeff Kochan and the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge,' Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 7, no. 8 (2018): 8-14. -- Part 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).

http://social-epistemology.com ISSN: 2471-9560 Suppressed Subjectivity and Truncated Tradition: A Reply to Pablo Schyfter Jeff Kochan, University of Konstanz –––––––––––––––––– Kochan, Jeff. "Suppressed Subjectivity and Truncated Tradition: A Reply to Pablo Schyfter." Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 7, no. 12 (2018): 15-21. Short url: https://wp.me/p1Bfg0-44s (provided by WordPress) 15 Vol. 7, no. 12 (2018): 15-21 https://wp.me/p1Bfg0-44s In his review of my book – Science as Social Existence: Heidegger and the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge – Raphael Sassower objects that I do not address issues of market capitalism, democracy, and the 'industrial-academic-military complex' (Sassower 2018, 31). To this, I responded: 'These are not what my book is about' (Kochan 2018, 40). In a more recent review, Pablo Schyfter tries to turn this response around, and use it against me. Turnabout is fair play, I agree. Rebuffing my friendly, constructive criticism of the Edinburgh School's celebrated and also often maligned 'Strong Programme' in the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (SSK), Schyfter argues that I have failed to address what the Edinburgh School is actually about (Schyfter 2018, 9). Suppressing the Subject More specifically, Schyfter argues that I expect things from the Edinburgh School that they never intended to provide. For example, he takes what I call the 'glass bulb' model of subjectivity, characterises it as a 'form of realism,' and then argues that I have, in criticising the School's lingering adherence to this model, failed to address their 'actual intents' (Schyfter 2018, 8, 9). According to Schyfter, the Edinburgh School did not have among its intentions the sorts of things I represent in the glass-bulb model – these are not, he says, what the School is about. This claim is clear enough. Yet, at the end of his review, Schyfter then muddies the waters. Rather than rejecting the efficacy of the glass-bulb model, as he had earlier, he now tries 'expanding' on it, suggesting that the Strong Programme is better seen as a 'working light bulb': 'It may employ a glass-bulb, but cannot be reduced to it' (Schyfter 2018, 14). So is the glass-bulb model a legitimate resource for understanding the Edinburgh School, or is it not? Schyfter's confused analysis leaves things uncertain. In any case, I agree with him that the Edinburgh School's complete range of concerns cannot be reduced to those specific concerns I try to capture in the glass-bulb model. The glass-bulb model is a model of subjectivity, and subjectivity is a central topic of Science as Social Existence. It is remarkable, then, that the word 'subject' and its cognates never appear in Schyfter's review (apart from in one quote from me). One may furthermore wonder why Schyfter characterises the glass-bulb model as a 'form of realism.' No doubt, these two topics – subjectivity and realism – are importantly connected, but they are not the same. Schyfter has mixed them up, and, in doing so, he has suppressed subjectivity as a topic of discussion. Different Kinds of Realism Schyfter argues that I am 'unfair' in criticising the Edinburgh School for failing to properly address the issue of realism, because, he claims, '[t]heir work was not about ontology' (Schyfter 2018, 9). As evidence for my unfairness, he quotes my reference to 'the problem of P. Kochan 16 how one can know that the external world exists' (Schyfter 2018, 9; cf. Kochan 2017, 37). But the problem of how we can know something is not an ontological problem, it is an epistemological one, a problem of knowledge. Schyfter has mixed things up again. Two paragraphs later, Schyfter then admits that the Edinburgh School 'did not entirely ignore ontology' (Schyfter 2018, 9). I agree. In fact, as I demonstrate in Chapter One, the Edinburgh School was keen to ontologically ground the belief that the 'external world' exists. Why? Because they see this as a fundamental premise of science, including their own social science. I criticise this commitment to external-world realism, because it generates the epistemological problem of how one can know that the external world exists. And this epistemological problem, in turn, is vulnerable to sceptical attack. If the world is 'external,' the question will arise: external to what? The answer is: to the subject who seeks to know it. The glass-bulb model reflects this ontological schema. The subject is sealed inside the bulb; the world is external to the bulb. The epistemological problem then arises of how the subject penetrates the glass barrier, makes contact with – knows – the world. This problem is invariably vulnerable to sceptical attack. One can avoid the problem, and the attack, by fully jettisoning the glass-bulb model. Crucially, this is not a rejection of realism per se, but only of a particular form of realism, namely, external-world realism. Schyfter argues that the Edinburgh School accepts a basic premise, 'held implicitly by people as they live their lives, that the world with which they interact exists' (Schyfter 2018, 9). I agree; I accept it too. Yet he continues: 'Kochan chastises this form of realism because it does not "establish the existence of the external world"' (Schyfter 2018, 9). That is not quite right. I agree that people, as they live their lives, accept that the world exists. But this is not external-world realism, and it is the latter view that I oppose. I 'chastise' the Edinburgh School for attempting to defend the latter view, when all they need to defend is the former. The everyday realist belief that the world exists is not vulnerable to sceptical attack, because it does not presuppose the glass-bulb model of subjectivity. On this point, then, my criticism of the Edinburgh School is both friendly and constructive. It assuages their worries about sceptical attack – which I carefully document in Chapter One – without requiring them to give up their realism. But the transaction entails that they abandon their lingering commitment to the glass-bulb model, including their belief in an 'external' world, and instead adopt a phenomenological model of the subject as being-in-theworld. Failed Diversionary Tactics It is important to note that the Edinburgh School does not reject scepticism outright. As long as the sceptic attacks absolutist knowledge of the external world, they are happy to go along. But once the sceptic argues that knowledge of the external world, as such, is 17 Vol. 7, no. 12 (2018): 15-21 https://wp.me/p1Bfg0-44s impossible, they demur, for this threatens their realism. Instead, they combine realism with relativism. Yet, as I argue, as long as they also combine their relativism with the glass-bulb model, that is, as long as theirs is an external-world realism, they will remain vulnerable to sceptical attack. Hence, I wrote that, in the context of their response to the external-world sceptic, the Edinburgh School's distinction between absolute and relative knowledge 'is somewhat beside the point' (Kochan 2017, 48). In response, Schyfter criticises me for neglecting the importance of the Edinburgh School's relativism (Schyfter 2018, 10). But I have done no such thing. In fact, I wholly endorse their relativism. I do suggest, however, that it be completely divorced from the troublesome vestiges of the glass-bulb model of subjectivity. Schyfter uses the same tactic in response to this further claim of mine: 'For the purposes of the present analysis, whether [conceptual] content is best explained in collectivist or individualist terms is beside the point' (Kochan 2017, 79). For this, I am accused of failing to recognise the importance of the Edinburgh School's commitment to a collectivist or social conception of knowledge (Schyfter 2018, 11). The reader should not be deceived into thinking that the phrase 'the present analysis' refers to the book as a whole. In fact, it refers to that particular passage of Science as Social Existence wherein I discuss David Bloor's claim that the subject can make 'genuine reference to an external reality' (Kochan 2017, 79; cf. Bloor 2001, 149). Bloor's statement relies on the glassbulb model. Whether the subjectivity in the bulb is construed in individualist terms or in collectivist terms, the troubles caused by the model will remain. Hence, I cannot reasonably be charged with ignoring the importance of social knowledge for the Edinburgh School. Indeed, the previous but one sentence to the sentence on which Schyfter rests his case reads: 'This sociological theory of the normativity and objectivity of conceptual content is a central pillar of SSK' (Kochan 2017, 79). It is a central pillar of Science as Social Existence as well. Existential Grounds for Scientific Experience Let me shift now to Heidegger. Like previous critics of Heidegger, Schyfter is unhappy with Heidegger's concept of the 'mathematical projection of nature.' Although I offer an extended defense and development of this concept, Schyfter nevertheless insists that it does 'not offer a clear explanation of what occurs in the lived world of scientific work' (Schyfter 2018, 11). For Heidegger, 'projection' structures the subject's understanding at an existential level. It thus serves as a condition of possibility for both practical and theoretical experience. Within the scope of this projection, practical understanding may 'change over' to theoretical understanding. This change-over in experience occurs when a subject holds back from immersed, practical involvement with things, and instead comes to experience those things at a distance, as observed objects to which propositional statements may then be referred. P. Kochan 18 The kind of existential projection specific to modern science, Heidegger called 'mathematical.' Within this mathematical projection, scientific understanding may likewise change over from practical immersion in a work-world (e.g., at a lab bench) to a theoretical, propositionally structured conception of that same world (e.g., in a lab report). What critics like Schyfter fail to recognise is that the mathematical projection explicitly envelopes 'the lived world of scientific work' and tries to explain it (necessarily but not sufficiently) in terms of the existential conditions structuring that experience. This is different from – but compatible with – an ethnographic description of scientific life, which need not attend to the subjective structures that enable that life. When such inattention is elevated to a methodological virtue, however, scientific subjectivity will be excluded from analysis. As we will see in a moment, this exclusion is manifest, on the sociology side, in the rejection of the Edinburgh School's core principle of underdetermination. In the mid-1930s, Heidegger expanded on his existential conception of science, introducing the term mathēsis in a discussion of the Scientific Revolution. Mathēsis has two features: metaphysical projection; and work experiences. These are reciprocally related, always occurring together in scientific activity. I view this as a reciprocal relation between the empirical and the metaphysical, between the practical and the theoretical, a reciprocal relation enabled, in necessary part, by the existential conditions of scientific subjectivity. Schyfter criticises my claim that, for Heidegger, the Scientific Revolution was not about a sudden interest in facts, measurement, or experiment, where no such interest had previously existed. For him, this is 'excessively broad,' 'does not reflect the workings of scientific practice,' and is 'belittling of empirical study' (Schyfter 2018, 12). This might be true if Heidegger had offered a theory-centred account of science. But he did not. Heidegger argued that what was decisive in the Scientific Revolution was, as I put it, 'not that facts, experiments, calculation and measurement are deployed, but how and to what end they are deployed' (Kochan 2017, 233). According to Heidegger, in the 17th c. the reciprocal relation between metaphysical projection and work experience was mathematicised. As the projection became more narrowly specified – i.e., axiomatised – the manner in which things were experienced and worked with also became narrower. In turn, the more accustomed subjects became to experiencing and working with things within this mathematical frame, the more resolutely mathematical the projection became. Mathēsis is a kind of positive feedback loop at the existential level. Giving Heidegger Empirical Feet This is all very abstract. That is why I suggested that '[a]dditional material from the history of science will allow us to develop and refine Heidegger's account of modern science in a way 19 Vol. 7, no. 12 (2018): 15-21 https://wp.me/p1Bfg0-44s which he did not' (Kochan 2017, 235). This empirical refinement and development takes up almost all of Chapters 5 and 6, wherein I consider: studies of diagnostic method by Renaissance physician-professors at the University of Padua, up until their appointment of Galileo in 1591; the influence of artisanal and mercantile culture on the development of early-modern scientific methods, with a focus on metallurgy; and the dispute between Robert Boyle and Francis Line in the mid-17th c. over the experimentally based explanation of suction. As Paolo Palladino recognises in his review of Science as Social Existence, this last empirical case study offers a different account of events than was given by Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer in their classic 1985 book Leviathan and the Air-Pump, which influentially applied Edinburgh School methods to the history of science (Palladino 2018, 42). I demonstrate that Heidegger's account is compatible with this sociological account, and that it also offers different concepts leading to a new interpretation. Finally, at the end of Chapter 6, I demonstrate the compatibility of Heidegger's account of modern science with Bloor's concept of 'social imagery,' not just further developing and refining Heidegger's account of modern science, but also helping to more precisely define the scope of application of Bloor's valuable methodological concept. Perhaps this does not amount to very much in the big picture, but it is surely more than a mere 'semantic reformulation of Heidegger's ideas,' as Schyfter suggests (Schyfter 2018, 13). Given all of this, I am left a bit baffled by Schyfter's claims that I 'belittle' empirical methods, that I 'do[] not present any analysis of SSK methodologies,' and that I am guilty of 'a general disregard for scientific practice' (Schyfter 2018, 12, 11). Saving an Edinburgh School Method Let me pursue the point with another example. A key methodological claim of the Edinburgh School is that scientific theory is underdetermined by empirical data. In order to properly explain theory, one must recognise that empirical observation is an interpretative act, necessarily (but not sufficiently) guided by social norms. I discuss this in Chapter 3, in the context of Bloor's and Bruno Latour's debate over another empirical case study from the history of science, the contradictory interpretations given by Robert Millikan and Felix Ehrenhaft of the natural phenomena we now call 'electrons.' According to Bloor, because Millikan and Ehrenhaft both observed the same natural phenomena, the divergence between their respective claims – that electrons do and do not exist – must be explained by reference to something more than those phenomena. This 'something more' is the divergence in the respective social conditions guiding Millikan and Ehrenhaft's interpretations of the data (Kochan 2017, 124-5; see also Kochan 2010, 130-33). Electron theory is underdetermined by the raw data of experience. Social phenomena, or 'social imagery,' must also play a role in any explanation of how the controversy was settled. P. Kochan 20 Latour rejects underdetermination as 'absurd' (Kochan 2017, 126). This is part of his more general dismissal of the Edinburgh School, based on his exploitation of vulnerabilities in their lingering adherence to the glass-bulb model of subjectivity. I suggest that the Edinburgh School, by fully replacing the glass-bulb model with Heidegger's model of the subject as being-in-the-world, can deflect Latour's challenge, thus saving underdetermination as a methodological tool. This would also allow the Edinburgh School to preserve subjectivity as a methodological resource for sociological explanation. Like Heidegger's metaphysical projection, the Edinburgh School's social imagery plays a necessary (but not a sufficient) role in guiding the subject's interpretation of natural phenomena. The 'Tradition' of SSK – Open or Closed? Earlier, I mentioned the curious fact that Schyfter never uses the word 'subject' or its cognates. It is also curious that he neglects my discussion of the Bloor-Latour debate and never mentions underdetermination. In Chapter 7 of Science as Social Existence, I argue that Latour, in his attack on the Edinburgh School, seeks to suppress subjectivity as a topic for sociological analysis (Kochan 2017, 353-54, and, for methodological implications, 379-80; see also Kochan 2015). More recently, in my response to Sassower, I noted the ongoing neglect of the history of disciplinary contestation within the field of science studies (Kochan 2018, 40). I believe that the present exchange with Schyfter nicely exemplifies that internal contestation, and I thank him for helping me to more fully demonstrate the point. Let me tally up. Schyfter is silent on the topic of subjectivity. He is silent on the BloorLatour debate. He is silent on the methodological importance of underdetermination. And he tries to divert attention from his silence with specious accusations that, in Science as Social Existence, I belittle empirical research, that I disregard scientific practice, that I fail to recognise the importance of social accounts of knowledge, and that I generally do not take seriously Edinburgh School methodology. Schyfter is eager to exclude me from what he calls the 'tradition' of SSK (Schyfter 2018, 13). He seems to view tradition as a cleanly bounded and internally cohesive set of ideas and doings. By contrast, in Science as Social Existence, I treat tradition as a historically fluid range of intersubjectively sustained existential possibilities, some inevitably vying against others for a place of cultural prominence (Kochan 2017, 156, 204f, 223, 370f). Within this ambiguously bounded and inherently fricative picture, I can count Schyfter as a member of my tradition. Acknowledgement My thanks to David Bloor and Martin Kusch for sharing with me their thoughts on Schyfter's review. The views expressed here are my own. 21 Vol. 7, no. 12 (2018): 15-21 https://wp.me/p1Bfg0-44s Contact details: email@example.com References Bloor, David (2001). 'What Is a Social Construct?' Facta Philosophica 3: 141-56. Kochan, Jeff (2018). '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 (2017). Science as Social Existence: Heidegger and the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (Cambridge: Open Book Publishers). http://dx.doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0129 Kochan, Jeff (2015). '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 (2010). 'Contrastive Explanation and the "Strong Programme" in the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge.' Social Studies of Science 40(1): 127-44. https://doi.org/10.1177/0306312709104780 Palladino, Paolo (2018). 'Heidegger Today: On Jeff Kochan's Science and Social Existence.' Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 7(8): 41-46. 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. Shapin, Steven and Simon Schaffer (1985). Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life (Princeton: Princeton University Press).


Philosophy

There is increasing concern about âsurveillance capitalism,â whereby for-profit companies generate value from data, while individuals are unable to resist (Zuboff 2019). Non-profits using data-enabled surveillance receive less attention. Higher education institutions (HEIs) have embraced data analytics, but the wide latitude that private, profit-oriented enterprises have to collect data is inappropriate. HEIs have a fiduciary relationship to students, not a narrowly transactional one (see Jones et al, forthcoming). They are responsible for facets of student life beyond education. In addition to classrooms, learning management systems, and libraries, HEIs manage dormitories, gyms, dining halls, health facilities, career advising, police departments, and student employment.

          HEIs collect and use student data in all of these domains, ostensibly to understand learner behaviors and contexts, improve learning outcomes, and increase institutional efficiency through âlearning analyticsâ (LA). ID card swipes and Wi-Fi log-ins can track student location, class attendance, use of campus facilities, eating habits, and friend groups. Course management systems capture how students interact with readings, video lectures, and discussion boards. Application materials provide demographic information. These data are used to identify students needing support, predict enrollment demands, and target recruiting efforts.

          These are laudable aims. However, current LA practices may be inconsistent with HEIsâ fiduciary responsibilities. HEIs often justify LA as advancing student interests, but some projects advance primarily organizational welfare and institutional interests. Moreover, LA advances a narrow conception of student interests while discounting privacy and autonomy. Students are generally unaware of the information collected, do not provide meaningful consent, and express discomfort and resigned acceptance about HEI data practices, especially for non-academic data (see Jones et al. forthcoming).

          The breadth and depth of student information available, combined with their fiduciary responsibility, create a duty that HEIs exercise substantial restraint and rigorous evaluation in data collection and use.

This is a pre-print. Please cite to final, published version: Rubel, A., & Jones, K. M. L. (2020). The temptation of data-enabled surveillance: Are universities the next cautionary tale? Communications of the ACM, 63(4), 22–24.https://doi.org/10.1145/3382741. The Temptation of Data-enabled Surveillance: Are Universities the Next Cautionary Tale? Alan Rubel Information School Center for Law, Society & Justice University of Wisconsin-Madison email@example.com Kyle M. L. Jones School of Informatics and Computing, Department of Library and Information Science Indiana University-Indianapolis (IUPUI) email@example.com I. Intro There is increasing concern about "surveillance capitalism," whereby for-profit companies generate value from data, while individuals are unable to resist (Zuboff 2019). Non-profits using data-enabled surveillance receive less attention. Higher education institutions (HEIs) have embraced data analytics, but the wide latitude that private, profit-oriented enterprises have to collect data is inappropriate. HEIs have a fiduciary relationship to students, not a narrowly transactional one (see Jones et al, forthcoming). They are responsible for facets of student life beyond education. In addition to classrooms, learning management systems, and libraries, HEIs manage dormitories, gyms, dining halls, health facilities, career advising, police departments, and student employment. HEIs collect and use student data in all of these domains, ostensibly to understand learner behaviors and contexts, improve learning outcomes, and increase institutional efficiency through "learning analytics" (LA). ID card swipes and Wi-Fi log-ins can track student location, class attendance, use of campus facilities, eating habits, and friend groups. Course management systems capture how students interact with readings, video lectures, and discussion boards. Application materials provide demographic information. These data are used to identify students needing support, predict enrollment demands, and target recruiting efforts. These are laudable aims. However, current LA practices may be inconsistent with HEIs' fiduciary responsibilities. HEIs often justify LA as advancing student interests, but some projects advance primarily organizational welfare and institutional interests. Moreover, LA advances a narrow conception of student interests while discounting privacy and autonomy. Students are generally unaware of the information collected, do not provide meaningful consent, and express discomfort This is a pre-print. Please cite to final, published version: Rubel, A., & Jones, K. M. L. (2020). The temptation of data-enabled surveillance: Are universities the next cautionary tale? Communications of the ACM, 63(4), 22–24.https://doi.org/10.1145/3382741. and resigned acceptance about HEI data practices, especially for non-academic data (see Jones et al. forthcoming). The breadth and depth of student information available, combined with their fiduciary responsibility, create a duty that HEIs exercise substantial restraint and rigorous evaluation in data collection and use. Consider several recent examples. II. Three cases (1) Movement tracking. Based on student ID card swipes, a university researcher mapped student movements and social networks and built student retention models. It plans to use Wi-Fi router data to form even more detailed understandings and to share this information with advisors (Blue 2018). It is unclear whether students are aware that their data is collected, have opted in, or provided informed consent. To act in students' interests, this HEI could have provided substantial information before the study started (including its rationale), the ability for students to easily opt-out, and a clear policy about collection and use of movement tracking data. This university is one of many engaging in intensive student tracking, either by dedicated beacons, Wi-Fi check-ins, or phone apps (Harwell 2019). (2) Third-parties. In April 2018, researchers from Pearson publishing revealed that they had conducted an experiment by incorporating encouraging, "growth mindset" messages into a learning software interface and testing (without students' knowledge or consent) whether they affected students' performance (Herold 2018). This demonstrates the value of student information to third parties for non-educational goals, including corporate profit. Similarly, Piazza, maker of a popular question-and-answer app required by many instructors, has sold student data based on students "opting-in" through a pre-checked box on the app sign-up page. Acting in students', rather than vendors' interests demands that HEIs develop stronger controls to protect students and avoid learner data becoming part of surveillance capitalism. At the beginning of the relationship with vendors, HEIs should require that edTech companies make opting-in difficult. If the data collection involves interventions or data sales, HEIs should re-evaluate the relationship, and perhaps require that the companies compensate students for their data. (3) Intensive advising. Like many HEIs, Georgia State University (GSU) has struggled to ensure that students (in particular those from underrepresented backgrounds) complete their degrees. In 2011, GSU developed a system tracking academic and financial information that alerts advisors about risk factors (e.g., an unsatisfactory grade in a key course). GSU's six-year graduation rate rose from 48% in 2011 to 55% in 2018 (Hefling 2019). Moreover, students of color, Pell-eligible, and first-generation students now graduate at higher rates than the student body overall (Ekowo and Palmer 2016). The GSU case is often described as a LA success. However, GSU simultaneously hired dozens of new advisors and substantially increased student advising. Hence, it is not just an analytics program; it is an advising program informed by data. Certainly, the improved student outcomes are important, but it is not clear how much is due to LA, exactly what GSU's advising interventions actually are, and whether they provide the best outcomes for each student or just for GSU. Do they steer students away from challenging courses, reducing agency and potential for excellence, or provide tutoring services for at-risk students-increasing their agency and capabilities? It is unclear that the increased student surveillance improved social good, or that GSU considered all of the relevant moral trade-offs. It is crucial to ensure that we don't learn the This is a pre-print. Please cite to final, published version: Rubel, A., & Jones, K. M. L. (2020). The temptation of data-enabled surveillance: Are universities the next cautionary tale? Communications of the ACM, 63(4), 22–24.https://doi.org/10.1145/3382741. wrong lesson and retain the analytics at the expense of the advising. Acting in students' best interests would require a robust, ongoing evaluation. III. Doing it differently The above cases illustrate a range of issues in LA, and each demonstrates how HEIs can better fulfill their responsibilities to advance student interests. HEIs have responsibilities before developing LA programs, while student data is collected and analyzed (especially by third parties), and after analytics have been incorporated. Here, we make explicit some of the specific responsibilities of HEIs have as information fiduciaries that can guide their actions. (1) Diverging interests. Fiduciaries have a responsibility to act in the best interests of their clients, although not necessarily to act only to advance client interest. Data analytics may provide insights for HEIs, and help them fulfill their responsibilities to educate students and marshal resources effectively. However, it is an open question whether LA will live up to that promise or that primarily student interests motivate LA research. The tracking and third-party data use cases do not advance student interests. Moreover, universities collect and use data somewhat indiscriminately because it is potentially relevant to their educational and custodial missions. Yet this "relevance condition" is insufficient to justify data collection, analysis, and use (see Rubel and Jones 2016). Any student data is potentially relevant to educational objectives and it is impossible to tell a priori which will actually be useful. Hence, a collection principle based solely on potential relevance is no limitation at all. (2) Fostering trust and trustworthiness. Students attend HEIs believing they are trustworthy, will respect students as individuals, and will not implement systems that subordinate student rights and interests for the sake of institutional or third-party goals. Yet systems currently being built and deployed create opportunities for greater privacy intrusions (the tracking case) and for institutional benefit (movement tracking, third party use). Students have little knowledge of how they are surveilled, typically have no ability to opt out, are uneasy about data collection by HEIs, and cannot control use of their data. It is worth asking whether their trust is misplaced, or whether they must simply acquiesce because of the social and economic value of a college education (see Harwell 2019). (3) The right benefits. The benefits of LA may be quite limited. The exemplary LA system (GSU) rests substantially on advising resources, not data, with small increases in student success. It is unclear whether success stems from funneling students into easier courses or from collecting and analyzing troves of student data. HEIs do have obligations to advance the educational interests of at-risk students. However, it does not follow that HEIs should subordinate students' privacy and autonomy interests for the sake of (speculative) retention and achievement rates. Student support (social, advising, tutoring, financial, mental health) should come first, and long before impinging on other interests. (4) Full account of student interests. We should also be wary of narrowly construing student interests. The above cases focus on student academic achievement, but students have other interests as well, including privacy. They should not have to forego that interest for a marginal (and speculative) return in academic achievement. This should seem familiar to professionals who bristle at overweening surveillance by supervisors. (5) Full range of higher education's aims. Higher education has a number of aims, including developing communication, critical thinking, understanding and appreciation of diversity, and This is a pre-print. Please cite to final, published version: Rubel, A., & Jones, K. M. L. (2020). The temptation of data-enabled surveillance: Are universities the next cautionary tale? Communications of the ACM, 63(4), 22–24.https://doi.org/10.1145/3382741. development of rewarding employment and careers (see Bok 2006). These are fostered by helping students develop their autonomy. Yet close monitoring of student movement, social networks, and daily habits is an imposition on student privacy, a key element in developing and exercising individual autonomy. If we value student autonomy, we ought to curtail student surveillance (Rubel and Jones, 2016). (6) Third parties. Students' social networks, their travel around campus, their health, political, and religious activities are inferable from movements. If that information is valuable for HEIs, it will be of interest to others: potential employers, the FBI (pursuant to business records requests under Patriot Act section 215), software vendors, and more. Student privacy protections under FERPA are limited. Moreover, the more student data collected the greater the risk for data breaches. Hence, LA carries risks that we should consider in determining whether it advances student interests overall. IV. Conclusion To be clear, we are not opposed to LA tout court. Some student data collection will advance legitimate educational and custodial goals while respecting student privacy and fostering autonomy. However, LA and data-enabled surveillance can begin as tools for social good but slide into morally suspect territory, especially in immersive institutions with fiduciary responsibilities like HEIs. Institutional interests and student interests are not identical, and we should not assume that they align. Governments, corporations, and HEIs should avoid data collection and analysis as a matter of convenience and for specious reasons. When HEIs aim to advance student educational interests, they should primarily do so in ways that are consistent with interests in privacy and autonomy. In short, HEIs should conduct LA in ways that justify the substantial trust that students place in them. That will require restraint and evaluation at the beginning, during, and at the end of LA projects. References Blue, A. (2018, March 7). Researcher looks at 'digital traces' to help students. University of Arizona News. Retrieved from https://uanews.arizona.edu/story/researcher-looks-digital-traces-helpstudents Bok, D. C. 2006. Our underachieving colleges: A candid look at how much students learn and why they should be learning More. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Ekowo, E. & Palmer, I. (2016, Oct. 24) The Promise and Peril of Predictive Analytics in Higher Education: A Landscape Analysis, New America). Harwell, D. (2019, December 24). Colleges are turning students' phones into surveillance machines, tracking the locations of hundreds of thousands. Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/12/24/colleges-are-turning-students-phonesinto-surveillance-machines-tracking-locations-hundreds-thousands/ Hefling, K. (2019, January 16). The 'Moneyball' solution for higher education. Politico. Herold, B. (2018, April 17). Pearson tested 'social-psychological' messages in learning software, with mixed results. Education Week. Retrieved from http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/DigitalEducation/2018/04/pearson_growth_mindset_software.ht ml This is a pre-print. Please cite to final, published version: Rubel, A., & Jones, K. M. L. (2020). The temptation of data-enabled surveillance: Are universities the next cautionary tale? Communications of the ACM, 63(4), 22–24.https://doi.org/10.1145/3382741. Jones, K. M. L., Rubel, A., & LeClere, E. (forthcoming). A matter of trust: Higher education institutions as information fiduciaries in an age of educational data mining and learning analytics. Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24327 Rubel, A. & Jones, K. M. L. (2016). Student privacy in learning analytics: An information ethics perspective. The Information Society, 32(2), 143–159. doi: 10.1080/01972243.2016.1130502 Zuboff, S. (2019). The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. New York, NY: PublicAffairs.


The 50th Anniversary of the Declaration of Helsinki: Progress but Many Remaining Challenges

Philosophy

Since 1964, through 7 revisions, the World Medical Associationâs Declaration of Helsinki has stood as an important statement regarding the ethical principles guiding medical research with human participants. It is consulted by ethics review committees, funders, researchers, and research participants. It has been incorporated into national legislation and is routinely invoked to ascertain the ethical appropriateness of clinical trials. There is much to praise about the revision process and the latest revision, which coincides with the declarationâs 50th anniversary. Nevertheless, the proposed declaration contains persistent flaws...

Copyright 2013 American Medical Association. All rights reserved. The 50th Anniversary of the Declaration of Helsinki Progress but Many Remaining Challenges Since 1964, through 7 revisions, the World Medical Association's (WMA's) Declaration of Helsinki has stood as an important statement regarding the ethical principles guiding medical research with human participants. The declaration is consulted by ethics review committees, funders, researchers, and research participants; has been incorporated into national legislation; and is routinely invoked to ascertain the ethical appropriateness of clinical trials. There is much to praise about the revision process and the latest revision, which coincides with the declaration's 50th anniversary. The Working Group extensively consulted stakeholders and justified the proposed revisions. The result is a declaration that is better organized into clear sections, more precise, and likely to be more effective at protecting research participants. For the first time, the declaration requires compensation and treatment for research-related injuries (paragraph 15), an explicit recognition that research participants should not bear the costs of research gone wrong.1 The revised declaration's emphasis on the dissemination of research results, including studies with negative results, should increase the value of medical research (paragraphs 23, 35, and 36). Nevertheless, the proposed declaration contains persistent flaws. While the document purports to be a statement of enduring ethical principles, the nearly continuous process of revision undermines its authority.2 Moreover, the declaration continues to assert that "consistent with the mandate of the WMA," its primary audience is physicians (paragraph 2). This is a mistake. Indeed, the document then offers recommendations for other health professionals (paragraph 9), research ethics committees (paragraph 23), sponsors and governments (paragraph34),andeditorsandpublishers(paragraph36). It is time for the WMA to recognize that the Declaration of Helsinkishouldaddressphysiciansaswellotherhealthprofessionals and personnel involved in research. A statement of ethical principles does not require a mandate from the people who ought to follow those principles.2 The revised declaration's treatment of informed consent remains inadequate. It fails to recognize the possibility of waiving consent for some research involving competent adults, even though such research is common and widely endorsed. Similarly, the declaration avoids providing guidance on when it can be appropriate to ask participants to give broad consent for their biological samples to be used in a wide range of future studies, rather than seeking consent for each specific study. This is a pressing issue on which researchers need clear guidance. In addition, the declaration prohibits individuals who cannot consent from participating in research that does not address the condition that caused their incapacity (paragraph 30), even when the research offers participants the potential for important medical benefit and there are no-or few- potential participants who can consent. This approach transforms a protection into a barrier. Problems With Research Posing Net Risks Research studies and interventions that pose risks without compensating benefits to participants-"nonbeneficial" studies-are crucial to improving medical care. Yet the revised declaration offers conflicting and problematic guidance on this topic. It rejects placing participants at any net risk to collect data, no matter how valuable: "While the primary purpose of medical research is to generate new knowledge, this goal can never take precedence over the rights and interests of individual research subjects" (paragraph 8, emphasis added). Similarly, the declaration permits research combined with medical care-an increasingly important category of research- only to the extent that "this is justified by its potential preventive, diagnostic or therapeutic value," leaving it unclear whether individuals may be exposed to any net risks in this context (paragraph 14). Even more puzzling, the declaration seems to allow nonbeneficial research only with individuals who are unable to give informed consent (paragraph 28). Clearly, the goal of generating new knowledge must not take precedence over the rights of individual research participants. Research participants should not be exposed to high net risks. Yet nonbeneficial research can be ethical when the net risks to participants' interests are low and the benefits to society are sufficiently large. Indeed, in apparent conflict with paragraphs 8 and 14, paragraphs 16 and 28 seem to affirm that ethical research can pose some net risks to participants: "Medical research involving human subjects may only be conducted if the importance of the objective outweighs the risks and burdens to the research subjects" (paragraph 16). The declaration's lack of clear and consistent guidance regarding when net risks are acceptable creates unnecessary confusion and fuels the unfounded concern that all medical research is inherently exploitative. Problems With Research in Poor Communities The declaration rightly recognizes the importance of protecting the worst off, including populations who lack access to adequate health care. The revised declaration calls for special protection for groups and individuals who are "vulnerable and may have an increased likelihood of being wronged or of incurring additional harm" (paragraph 19).3 VIEWPOINT Joseph Millum, PhD Department of Bioethics, Clinical Center, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, and Fogarty International Center, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland. David Wendler, PhD Department of Bioethics, Clinical Center, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, MD, PhD Office of the Provost, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Viewpoint page 2145 Related article page 2191 Corresponding Author: Ezekiel J. Emanuel, MD, PhD, Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy, University of Pennsylvania, 122 College Hall, Philadelphia, PA 19104 (vp-global@upenn .edu). Opinion jama.com JAMA November 27, 2013 Volume 310, Number 20 2143 Downloaded From: http://jama.jamanetwork.com/ by a National Institutes of Health User on 08/25/2016 Copyright 2013 American Medical Association. All rights reserved. It then delineates 3 conditions for research with vulnerable groups: (1) the research must be responsive to their health needs; (2) it must be impossible to carry out with nonvulnerable groups; and (3) the group should stand to benefit from the knowledge, practices, or interventions that result from the research (paragraph 20). The declaration is confused and mistaken about vulnerability and appropriate protections.4,5 First, the group the declaration has in mind that is in need of special protections is vulnerable because they are poor and have limited access to medical services, not because they are at higher risk of harms. Failure to make this clear undermines the protections. What is necessary to protect poor populations is very different from what is necessary to protect participants who are at higher risk of harm, cannot consent, or, because of their position, eg, being a student, are at increased risk of coercion. Second and more importantly, the declaration is confused about what constitutes appropriate protections and the appropriate means to achieve those protections. To be clear and comprehensive, the declaration should state that populations who are vulnerable to exploitation should always receive a fair level of benefits. Providing fair benefits is the goal. The means to achieve it vary. In only a limited number of clinical trials, the requirement that vulnerable groups should benefit "from the knowledge, practice, or interventions that result from the research" (paragraph 20) along with the requirement that participants have posttrial access to interventions identified as beneficial (paragraph 34) can provide fair benefits, but only with respect to phase 3 trials in which an experimental intervention is found to be more effective. When research does not prove an intervention effective-phase 1 and 2, and negative phase 3 research trials- participants from poor countries with limited access to medical services are unlikely to benefit at all from these requirements. In these cases, a research project might supply clean water, new clinics, or build local medical and research capacity. If this level of benefits is fair, then the research will not be exploitative. Problems With Placebos The revised declaration fails to address the testing of interventions that may be beneficial to some groups but are expected to be less effective than interventions that are available elsewhere-"the best proven interventions." It asserts that placebos may be used only when the "patients" who receive them "will not be subject to additional risks of serious or irreversible harm as a result of not receiving the best proven intervention" (paragraph 33, emphasis added). How to interpret this last clause is unclear. The danger is that it may preclude vital research that promises to improve the condition of the worst off. For example, past trials of single-dose nevirapine given to mothers during labor and their infants within 72 hours of birth demonstrated that this approach was a highly cost-effective means of reducing mother-to-child-transmission of HIV.6 However, it was known at the time that single-dose nevirapine would not be as effective as more comprehensive and much more expensive treatment regimens that also targeted transmission during pregnancy. Yet trials that used less than the best-known treatment were ethical and had the potential to benefit mothers who otherwise would receive nothing. A future and better declaration should allow such trials under strict conditions, especially when no patients are deprived of treatment they would otherwise receive and the research has the potential to save lives and improve the care of poor populations.7 Conclusion The revised Declaration of Helsinki represents a significant improvement over previous versions. Creating an international document to guide research around the world is an enormously difficult and complicated task. Nevertheless, important problems and some confusion remain in this 50th-anniversary declaration. The definitive guidance on research ethics and even better protection for research participants await responses to the Declaration of Helsinki's remaining challenges. ARTICLE INFORMATION Published Online: October 19, 2013. doi:10.1001/jama.2013.281632. Conflict of Interest Disclosures: All authors have completed and submitted the ICMJE Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest. Dr Emanuel reported receiving payment for speaking engagements unrelated to this work. Disclaimer: The views expressed are the authors' own. They do not represent the position or policy of the National Institutes of Health, US Public Health Service, or the Department of Health and Human Services. REFERENCES 1. Moral science: protecting participants in human subjects research. Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. http://bioethics.gov/sites /default/files/Moral%20Science%20June %202012.pdf. Accessed October 9, 2013. 2. Emanuel EJ. Reconsidering the Declaration of Helsinki. Lancet. 2013;381(9877):1532-1533. 3. Hurst SA. Vulnerability in research and health care; describing the elephant in the room? Bioethics. 2008;22(4):191-202. 4. Participants in the 2001 Conference on Ethical Aspects of Research in Developing Countries. Moral standards for research in developing countries: from "reasonable availability" to "fair benefits." Hastings Cent Rep. 2004;34(3):17-27. 5. Millum J. Sharing the benefits of research fairly: two approaches. J Med Ethics. 2012;38(4):219-223. 6. Marseille E, Kahn JG, Mmiro F, et al. Cost effectiveness of single-dose nevirapine regimen for mothers and babies to decrease vertical HIV-1 transmission in sub-Saharan Africa. Lancet. 1999;354(9181):803-809. 7. Wendler D, Emanuel EJ, Lie RK. The standard of care debate: can research in developing countries be both ethical and responsive to those countries' health needs? Am J Public Health. 2004;94(6):923-928. Opinion Viewpoint 2144 JAMA November 27, 2013 Volume 310, Number 20 jama.com Downloaded From: http://jama.jamanetwork.com/ by a National Institutes of Health User on 08/25/


Philosophy

A review of Karen Bennett's /Making Things Up/.

Review of Karen Bennett's Making Things Up Louis deRosset [Forthcoming in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews ] March 4, 2018 It is very plausible to think that the pair set {Socrates, Plato} is somehow generated from Socrates and Plato; that table salt is made up of sodium and chloride; that my head, torso, arms, and legs collectively constitute me; and that the fact that it is both cloudy and chilly is grounded (collectively) in the fact that it is cloudy and the fact that it is chilly. In each case, it seems that something is somehow determined to be or to be the case by some things that make it up, generate, ground, or constitute it. More generally, philosophers are often moved to consider the question of what "makes up" a certain phenomenon; what "gives rise to", or "generates" it; what its "source" or "basis" might be; or how it is "constituted" or "constructed." A number of questions immediately arise, concerning this family of relations. Which relations does it include? What does it take in general for a relation to be included? Is there anything interesting that all members of the family have in common? Karen Bennett's book attempts to answer these questions. She calls the family of relations the building relations. This book offers the rudiments of a theory of building relations. In particular, Bennett argues that the class is unified, proposes necessary and sufficient conditions for membership in the class, and applies the resulting account to analyze philosophically important notions of fundamentality. The result is an interesting and important defense and development of a distinctive constellation of intricately connected views on some central issues in metaphysics. Over the course of eight chapters, Bennett argues for seven interesting theses concerning building: (i) there is something important that unifies the class of building relations, so that they form a "reasonably natural" resemblance class; (ii) there is no generic building relation that obtains whenever any more specific 1 building relations obtain; (iii) causation should be included in the class of building relations; (iv) being fundamental in the sense of interest to philosophers is just being unbuilt ;1 (v) being more fundamental than something, in the sense of interest to philosophers, is analyzable by appeal to patterns of building relations; (vi) instances of building relations are themselves built; and (vii) some things are built, and so not everything is fundamental. Bennett provisionally takes building relations to include certain relations that will be relatively familiar to contemporary metaphysicians and philosophers of mind: composition (between parts and wholes), constitution, set formation, realization (of one property or property-instance by another), "microbased determination" (of the properties of a whole by the properties of its parts), and grounding (of one fact by another) (8-12). This seems like a pretty varied bunch of relations. What, if anything, unifies it? Bennett offers two answers (31-2) which, she thinks, establish that the building relations form a "reasonably natural" resemblance class. First, she argues, the family of building relations can be helpfully characterized: BUILDING A relation R is a building relation iff: 1. R is directed : it is irreflexive and antisymmetric; 2. R is necessitating : if Rxy, then there are circumstances C such that, necessarily, if x obtains (or: exists, occurs, etc.) and C obtains, then y obtains; and 3. R is generative: if Rxy, then the fact that Rxy makes 'y obtains in virtue of x's obtaining' true (32, 60). Proposing necessary and sufficient conditions for almost any phenomenon of interest is a perilous business, and readers will find many places to quibble. For instance, the claim that building relations are necessitating is obviously trivializable unless some restriction is imposed on C. (Let C be the fact that y obtains.) Bennett suggests for this purpose that C may not include either y 1Thesis (iv) may seem to be at odds with thesis (ii). The appearance of tension is an artifact of my simplified presentation. Bennett holds that there are as many dimensions of fundamentality as there are building relations, and being fundamental along a given dimension is being unbuilt by the corresponding building relation. Thus, on Bennett's view, the question of whether I am fundamental (full stop) is misconceived. I am fundamental along the dimension of fundamentality corresponding to set formation by dint of having no members. But I am non-fundamental along the dimension corresponding to mereological composition. 2 or anything that builds y (52). Two remarks are in order. First, the notion of inclusion is somewhat obscure. So, for instance, it is not clear whether y is included in the fact that y obtains and snow is white; nor whether it is included in the fact that snow is not purple and (either y obtains or snow is purple); nor whether it is included in the fact that Napoleon recognized that y obtains. The second remark is that imposing this restriction on C renders building unfit as a definition or reductive analysis of building, since the notion of building is itself used on the right-hand side. It is not clear that Bennett intends to be providing a reductive analysis. She does take the condition to be informative and to specify in general what makes a given relation R a building relation (when it is) (63). But, though the account carries a whiff of circularity, there is no conclusive reason to think that the fact that Bennett's specification mentions building relations renders it problematically circular. The fact that building relations must be mentioned certainly does not make Bennett's account uninformative. In fact, far from thinking the condition uninformative, readers may have grave doubts about its truth. Bennett discusses doubts already in the literature about whether directedness or necessitation are necessary conditions for R to be a building relation (32-57). But there are doubts about the sufficiency of the right-hand side of building, too. building entails that any relation defined as a restriction of a building relation is also a building relation. So, for instance, if we suppose that R is directed, necessitating, and generative, so too is the relation that obtains between x and y iff Rxy and y is beloved of the Pope. Similarly, the relation that obtains between x and y iff Rxy and y is not beloved of the Pope is a building relation. It is easy to see that these examples can be multiplied. Bennett's view, then, appears to entail that, as various, intuitively irrelevant conditions come to obtain – as the Pope comes to love new things, for instance – things get built in a large number of new ways, and cease to be built in a large number of old ways. This is not particularly plausible; more importantly in the present context, it is not clear that the class of relations delineated by Bennett's proposed condition is particularly natural. The underlying problem can be illustrated using examples of relations whose specifications do not mention any building relation. Suppose that, as matters actually stand right now, the Pope's favorite compound is the Vatican, and his first n favorite buildings are the Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's, etc. The Vatican 3 is composed of those n buildings. Let's suppose that composition relations satisfy directedness, necessitation, and generativity. Then the relation that obtains between the x's and y iff the x's are actually now the Pope's favorite n buildings, and y is actually now the Pope's favorite compound qualifies as a building relation (with just one instance, eternally and necessarily).2 In fact, just about any class of instances of members of a given class of building relations will yield a relation that satisfies the right-hand side of building.3 Given a class of instances, there is a relation R that obtains between x and y iff 〈x, y〉 is in the class. That relation R will satisfy the right-hand side of building in most cases. So, given a class of building relations, each of which has some instances, it is easy to come up with "gerrymandered" relations that satisfy the right-hand side of building.4 It is not clear that a class that contains the varied multitude of these relations is a fairly natural resemblance class. Perhaps Bennett can patch the account by offering some further necessary condition for something to be a building relation. As matters stand, however, the right-hand side of building seems to be too weak. The argument we have just sketched for the conclusion that the right-hand side of building is too weak is significant in the context of Bennett's argument. The sufficiency of the right-hand side for a relation to qualify as a building relation is the key premise in Bennett's argument for one of her more surprising main theses: that causation is a building relation (69).5 Bennett considers 2Bennett might resist this conclusion on the basis of the fact that the instance of this relation doesn't "license" any "in virtue of" claim, since noting the instance would not meet the epistemic or pragmatic constraints on "in virtue of" explanations; sometimes she herself characterizes generativity by appeal to the idea of "licensing" explanations (58, 62), and sometimes she does not (see (G), p. 58). But this avenue of resistance would commit Bennett to the idea that such epistemic or pragmatic constraints are part of what makes something a building relation, a claim she clearly rejects (61-2). 3Not every class of instances is guaranteed to do the trick. If there are x and y and building relations R and S such that Rxy and Syx, then picking the instance 〈x, y〉 of R and 〈y, x〉 of S will not yield a directed relation. Bennett thinks we ought to allow that this sort of case, in which different building relations obtain in different directions, may occur (26-9). 4The problem I am alleging is not that the relations themselves are gerrymandered; the problem, rather, is that they don't seem, as a class, to be particularly unified, or to have much in common. I highlight the fact that one can come up with gerrymandered relations satisfying the right-hand side of building only to demonstrate how many and how varied they are. 5Because the appropriate restriction on C in the statement of clause (2.) of building is not made clear, it is not obvious that causation qualifies as a necessitating relation. However, Bennett clearly thinks causation satisfies the right-hand side of building. So, a charitable interpretation of clause (2.) of building will require that whatever restriction we eventually place on C will classify causation as necessitating (cf. 80-1). The claim that causation is a building relation is surprising because, on Bennett's view, it entails the unexpected result that causes are more fundamental along a certain dimension than their effects. So, for instance, if my decision to drive to New Hampshire causes some hydrocarbon chains to undergo combus4 in depth the question of whether building is objectionable because it classifies causation as a building relation. Ultimately, though she contends that causation is a building relation, she is happy to entertain views on which we amend building or related theses specifically to exclude causation (169). She argues, however, that causation is relevantly similar to grounding, composition, and the other building relations because those other relations are, in her apt phrase, causally "tainted." Some instances of these relations (she explicitly excludes set-formation) obtain in virtue of diachronic, causal relations. So, for instance, she contends that the made from relation that obtains, e.g., between a cake and the flour, eggs, butter, and sugar from which it is made is a building relation, and that this relation obtains partly in virtue of causal relations between the ingredients and the cake (89-90). She also contends that the composition of an ordinary material object by its particles, and the grounding, microbasing, or realization of that objects' features in features of those particles are examples of building. Moreover, in typical cases the particles compose the object partly in virtue of a complex network of causal interactions. Those causal interactions are also among the conditions in virtue of which the object has its solidity, mass, color, etc. So, Bennett argues, causation is similar to other building relations, in part because they themselves are causally "tainted": they relate causal conditions, and sometimes obtain in virtue of causal conditions. She concludes that excluding causation and other causally "tainted" relations from the class of building relations yields a class that "... includes set formation, but does not include realization .... It includes the relation between [some] Legos and the castle [they compose], but not that between the ingredients and the cake. It includes some but not all instances of grounding, composition, and microbasing" (100). The resulting class of relations "...fails to carve reality at the joints" (100). Thus, whether we call causation a building relation or not, the class which contains both causation and the (other) building relations is fairly natural, and the class which excludes both causation and the other causally "tainted" building relations is not natural. Readers may dispute Bennett's examples. But her claim that there are building relations that are at least sometimes instantiated diachronically, have tion, then that decision is more fundamental than the combustion, along a certain dimension of fundamentality. 5 causal relata, and obtain in virtue of causal conditions is highly plausible. Still, it is not clear that her argument succeeds. The problem is that a given relation can, in certain instances, have causal relata and even obtain sometimes in virtue of causal relations, without itself being causally "tainted" in a way that seems to bear on the question of whether it is relevantly similar to causation. So, for instance, it is plausible to think that the fact that the ignition of a fuse caused an explosion grounds the fact that either the ignition caused the explosion or snow is purple. And, on a plausible view about what it is in virtue of which this grounding fact obtains, grounding relates the two facts in virtue of the fact that the ignition caused the explosion. (The view in question is discussed and defended in Ch. 7.) Still, intuitively, these claims don't seem to provide reason on their own to conclude that the grounding relation itself is causally "tainted" in a way that makes it relevantly similar to causation, or that shows that the class which includes causation and the other building relations is a relatively natural resemblance class. If this argument establishes that grounding is causally "tainted," then exactly similar arguments show that grounding is "tainted" by a very large class of relations. So, for instance, there is a similar argument for the claim that grounding is mathematically "tainted", on the basis of the premise that the fact that 2+3 = 5 grounds the fact that either 2+3 = 5 or snow is purple. We shouldn't conclude on this basis that the class of relations which includes the mathematical relations and the building relations, but not, e.g., the causal relations, is a fairly natural resemblance class. So far, we have been discussing Bennett's first reason for thinking that the class of building relations is unified: there is, she argues, a relatively simple and informative necessary and sufficient condition for membership in the class. Bennett's second reason is that the notion of a building relation can be used to offer a reductive account of the kind of fundamentality at issue in metaphysics, ethics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of science.6 Dualists in the philosophy of mind, for instance, contend that certain psychological phenomena are fundamental; meta-ethical naturalists hold that moral properties are not fundamental; and nowadays most of us think that biological phenomena are less fundamental than physical phenomena. Bennett contends that we can offer a 6This is a little misleading. As I emphasized in n. 1 above, Bennett's view is that there are multiple kinds of fundamentality at issue, one for each building relation. Each such kind is used to analyze fundamentality along a corresponding dimension. So, causation is a building relation, and is used by Bennett to analyze causal fundamentality. Composition is also a building relation, and is used by Bennett to analyze mereological fundamentality. 6 reductive analysis in terms of building of both being fundamental (full stop) and being more fundamental than something. The fact that the notion of building plays this robust theoretical role, Bennett argues, is a symptom that building relations form a natural resemblance class. Let's focus on Bennett's account of relative fundamentality, the relation that obtains between entities x and y when x is more fundamental than y. It might seem as if an analysis of relative fundamentality in terms of building is ready to hand: just say that x is more fundamental than y iff x builds y. Bennett regards this simple proposal as implausible, since it entails that there is no relation of relative fundamentality between entities that are not related by building. For instance, the simple proposal entails that a hydrogen atom in Phoenix is no more fundamental than a water molecule in Ithaca; but the hydrogen atom, Bennett thinks, clearly is more fundamental. What the simple account seems to miss is that one individual can be less fundamental than another by virtue of belonging to a kind which (typically) is built from members of some kind to which the less fundamental thing belongs. The Ithacan water molecule and Phoenician hydrogen atom belong to the kinds water molecules and hydrogen atoms, respectively. Entities of the former kind are typically (in fact, invariably) built from entities of the latter kind. For this reason, it is plausible to think that the Ithacan water molecule is less fundamental (138, 158). This intuition is part of what drives Bennett to propose a more complicated analysis of relative fundamentality in terms of building. On this analysis, there are five conditions that are individually sufficient and jointly necessary for relative fundamentality. For the sake of brevity, I will explicitly discuss only the fifth condition, which is the one which is supposed to capture the key intuition:7 (5) If x belongs to some kind K and y belongs to some kind K∗ such that i. neither K nor K∗ includes both built and unbuilt members; ii. y does not belong to K and x does not belong to K∗, and iii. K∗'s are typically or normally built from K's, then x is more fundamental than y. 7The condition (5) is intended by Bennett to be schematic over the various dimensions of building; see n. 1. So, we get a sufficient condition for relative fundamentality with respect to composition by substituting "composed" for "built", and, similarly, for cognate locutions. 7 Unfortunately, this clause will not serve Bennett's purposes. The problem is that an individual is a member of many different kinds, and pairs of individuals can be members of pairs of kinds that yield untoward results. Consider, for instance, a disjunctive, psychological fact dp and a non-disjunctive, economic fact ne. Let K be the kind psychological facts and K∗ be the kind economic facts. Both kinds, I assume, include only built (in this case, grounded) members. Assuming that ne is not identical with any psychological fact and dp is not identical with any economic fact, each belongs to only one of K and K∗. Finally, economic facts are, plausibly, typically grounded in psychological facts. So, K and K∗ witness each of (i.)-(iii.), and thus (5) counts dp as more fundamental than ne. Now let K be the kind grounded, non-disjunctive facts, and K∗ the kind disjunctive facts. Again, plausibly, each of (i.)-(iii.) is satisfied,8 so (5) counts ne as more fundamental than dp. But relative fundamentality is asymmetric, so the analysis is in trouble. This case involves grounding, but similar cases can be concocted for composition. So, consider a five-gram mass of table salt (NaCl) in Ithaca and a ten-gram mass of sodium (Na) in Phoenix. Table salt is typically composed (in part) of sodium, and ten-gram masses are typically composed (in part) of five-gram masses. Again, (5) entails that the five grams of table salt are both more fundamental than and less fundamental than the ten grams of sodium. Bennett acknowledges that her complicated criterion for relative fundamentality is likely to face counter-examples. One can always fight about the details. Complicated, multi-clause definitions beg to be counterexampled, after all. Perhaps clause (5) requires some further tinkering; perhaps there needs to be an additional clause. I do think this definition is, at a minimum, on the right track (161).9 The phenomenon that causes trouble for (5) is common enough, however, that mere tinkering, adding further qualifications and conditions, is unlikely to yield satisfactory results. So, I suspect, nothing like (5) is correct. What's gone wrong? It seems to 8Here I assume that disjunctive facts are normally grounded in facts that are themselves grounded; if that assumption turns out to be objectionable, we could alter the case so that the kind K we are considering is grounded, non-disjunctive facts and K∗ is disjunctive, psychological facts. Thanks to Justin Zylstra for discussion on this point. 9I owe thanks to Bennett for drawing my attention to this passage. 8 me that the original intuition concerning the Ithacan water molecule and the Phoenician hydrogen atom is based on a mistake. There are relative fundamentality relations among kinds: water is less fundamental than hydrogen, economic facts are less fundamental than psychological facts, and table salt is less fundamental than sodium. It is tempting to "push down" the relation on kinds to a relative fundamentality relation on their members, as Bennett proposes. But the argument of the previous paragraphs suggests that this temptation should be resisted. It would be better, then, to stick with the simple account of relative fundamentality among individuals. On this view, the Phoenician hydrogen atom is not more fundamental than the Ithacan water molecule. We may still salvage what we can of Bennett's intuition by offering a separate account – perhaps modeled roughly on clause (iii.) of (5) – of relative fundamentality among kinds. The questions I have raised about some of Bennett's claims are at best starting points for conversations about critical aspects of the phenomena associated with building and fundamentality. And I have not touched on many of the central themes of the book, which offer fruitful challenges to comfortable orthodoxies on many points. The book contains some real gems, including Bennett's development and defense of a kind of pluralism about both building and fundamentality (see n. 1 above, and §§2.5, 6.6) and her incisive discussion of the idea of a natural property as developed by Lewis and Sider (§§5.8-5.9). At the current stage of inquiry into the matters Bennett treats, the worth of a book should be measured by the extent to which it advances debates and provides promising new ideas for discussion. I fear that the critical cast of many of my remarks above may obscure the extent to which her book succeeds admirably on both scores. This book makes an important contribution, and should be required reading for philosophers working in contemporary metaphysics.10 10Thanks to Karen Bennett, Mark Moyer, and Justin Zylstra for extensive assistance correcting earlier drafts of this review.