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    • Steven Salaita, Palestinians, And Autobiography

      By: Samir Chopra

      Last night, along with many Brooklyn College students, faculty (and some external visitors) I attended ‘Silencing Dissent: A Conversation with Steven Salaita, Katherine Franke and Corey Robin‘, organized by the Students for Justice in Palestine. (My previous posts on this event can be found here and here.)

      As Robin has noted over at his blog, there was a genuine conversation to be participated in: hard questions, hard answers, disputation. Most importantly, I think, there were moments of discomfort and bluntness.

      I want to make note here, very quickly, of  a point of interest that stood out for me (among many, many others).

      I was intrigued by Robin's opening questions to Salaita, asking him to tell the audience a little bit about himself: his family background, his academic interests, his writings etc. At this stage, I was, as someone who had read–and sometimes written–a great deal about La Affaire Salaita, eager and impatient to move on to a discussion of the finer particulars of his case: what's next in the legal battles, how strong is the First Amendment case etc. Surely, all this was just throat-clearing before the substantive discussion would begin.

      But as Salaita began answering these queries, I realized something all over again: all too often, 'the Palestinian' is a shadowy figure: not fully filled out, a zone of unknowing into which all too many fears and anxieties are projected.  The state of exile of the Palestinian people, their refugee status, their diasporic existence has often meant that they seem like creatures that flit from place to place, not resting, not stopping to acquire detail, painted on by everyone but themselves. ('All the Palestinian people, where do they all come from'?) They exist in a blur, our understandings of them underwritten by forces often beyond their control. In that context, the mere fact of hearing a Palestinian speak, telling us 'where he is coming from' – whether it is by informing us of the nationality of his father, a Jordanian, or his mother, a Palestinian, born and raised in Nicaragua, and where he was born – Appalachia, if I heard him right! – is enlightening. These simple autobiographical details humanize the too-frequently dehumanized. (The little intellectual autobiography that Salaita provided–for instance, detailing his realization of the notions of colonialism and dispossession tied together American Indian studies and the Palestinian question–did this too.)

      For Americans, these particulars Steven Salaita fit into the fabric of American life, into its immigrant past, into cultures and histories and geographies in which they too have a stake. They might force a reckoning of the Palestinian as a 'new kind of American,' as heir to long-standing local traditions of political disputation, and enabled a viewing of his dissent in a different light. Without the context of Salaita's embedding in his past, his family and the places he made his own, his intellectual journeys, those who encounter him will always find it easy to rely on, yet again, on the accounts of those who have an ideological interest in offering alternative narratives of his motivations and inclinations.

      Note: This post was originally published–under the same title–at samirchopra.com

    • Taylor Swift’s Platonism

      By Gordon Hull

      Over on Cyborgology, my colleague Robin James has a post up about Taylor Swift’s promotion of her new album.  James focuses on two moments in that promotion: on the one hand, Swift has removed her music from the free streaming part of Spotify, on the grounds that it insufficiently compensates her (and others’) labor in producing it.  On the other hand, she released a video, “Blank,” that watches more like an interactive video game.  On James’ argument, both of these strategies amount to an effort on Swift’s part to control and otherwise dictate the terms of her affective labor.  On the surface of it, that’s laudable enough, and certainly the Internet can readily be seen as an enormously complex vehicle for extracting surplus value from its users by getting them to work for free.  As Terry Hart tirelessly points out on Copyhype, Silicon Valley makes a lot of money off of other people’s work, and shockingly little of that money finds its way back to the content industries: Silicon Valley obscures (and does not compensate) the enormous amount of affective labor on which it depends.

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    • Standing By Sponsoring ‘Steven Salaita at Brooklyn College’

      By: Samir Chopra

      Last week, I made note here of the philosophy department at Brooklyn College co-sponsoring ‘Silencing Dissent: A Conversation with Steven Salaita, Katherine Franke and Corey Robin‘, an event organized by the Students for Justice in Palestine and scheduled for Thursday, November 20th.

      As you will notice, on the link for the event above, there is a disclaimer, in fine print, which reads:

      Co-sponsorship does not imply agreement with, or support of, views expressed at a student-hosted event.

      This disclaimer was deemed necessary–in this case, at least–because departments are made skittish by accusations of anti-semitism and anti-Israel stances.  But that is not all. The SJP's use of the word 'allies'–again, in the link above for the event–has not sat well with some of my colleagues in the philosophy department: it seems to imply the department is engaged in active endorsement of the 'content' of the event.  Perhaps the philosophy department shouldn't be co-sponsoring any such events for fear of not being able to 'control the message'?

      In response to their expressions of concern, I sent the following email to my colleagues:

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    • Participation for a survey on religious disagreement

      What do philosophers think about religious disagreement? This is a brief survey (takes about 5-10 minutes) to find this out. The survey is aimed at academic philosophers, by which I mean people who hold a PhD in philosophy or are graduate students in philosophy. If you fit these criteria, please consider participating. Participation is fully anonymous.

      The format of the study is a multiple choice questionnaire. I will ask some personal questions, amongst others about your religious views, but your name will not be asked. To further take care that your anonymity is preserved, I will not report on individual responses but report statistical patterns. There are a few places where you can provide an open response (optional). I will publish at most one open response per participant, making sure that there is no identifying information within your response. The full dataset will remain confidential and will not be shared with anyone. I will report the preliminary results on NewApps and one or two other websites.

      The study is designed and carried out by Helen De Cruz, postdoctoral fellow of the British Academy at the University of Oxford. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact helen.decruz- at – philosophy.ox.ac.uk. To participate, please click here or paste this link in your browser: https://surveys.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_9TFkp1QkxnZkdTL

    • Philosophy, children, curiosity, and wonder

      By Catarina Dutilh Novaes

      Today is UNESCO’s World Philosophy Day, which is celebrated on the third Thursday of November every year. As it so happens, November 20th is also the United Nations’ Universal Children’s Day (here is a blog post I wrote for the occasion 2 years ago). I am truly delighted that these two days coincide today, as children and philosophy are two of my greatest passions. But the intimate connection between children and philosophy runs much deeper than my particular, individual passions, and so it should be celebrated.* As Wittgenstein famously (but somewhat dismissively) put it: 

      Philosophers are often like little children, who first scribble random lines on a piece of paper with their pencils, and now ask an adult "What is that?" (Philosophical Occasions 1912-1951)

      My own favorite definition of philosophy is that philosophy is at heart the activity of asking questions about things that appear to be obvious but are not. (True enough, it also involves attempting to provide answers and giving arguments to support one’s preferred answers.) And so it is incumbent on the philosopher to ask for example ‘What is time, actually?’, while everybody else goes about their daily business taking the nature of time for granted. Indeed, philosophy is intimately connected with curiosity and inquisitiveness, and this idea famously goes back all the way to the roots of philosophy as we know it:

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    • Schindler’s Truck

      by Eric Schwitzgebel

      Today I’m thinking about Schindler’s truck and what it suggests about the moral psychology of one of the great heroes of the Holocaust.

      Here’s a portrayal of the truck, in the background of a famous scene from Schindler’s List:

      [image source]

      Oskar Schindler, as you probably know, saved over a thousand Jews from death under the Nazis by spending vast sums of money to hire them in his factories, where they were protected. Near the end of Spielberg’s movie about him, the script suggests that Schindler is broke — that he has spent the last of his wartime slave-labor profits to save his Jewish workers, just on the very eve of German surrender:

      Stern: Do you have any money hidden away someplace that I don’t know about?
      Schindler: No. Am I broke?
      Stern: Uh, well…

      Then there’s the surrender, Schindler’s speech to the factory workers, and preparations for Schindler’s escape (as a hunted profiteer of slave labor).

      Seeing the film, you might briefly think, what’s with the truck that caravans off with Schindler? But the truck gets no emphasis in the film.

      Thomas Keneally’s 1982 book Schindler’s Ark (on which Spielberg’s 1993 film was based) tells us more about the truck:

      Emilie, Oskar, and a driver were meant to occupy the Mercedes. [Seven] others would follow in a truck loaded with food and cigarettes and liquor for barter (p. 375).

      Also,

      In one of the factory garages that afternoon, two prisoners were engaged in removing the upholstery from the ceiling and inner doors of Oskar’s Mercedes, inserting small sacks of the Herr Direktor‘s diamonds… (p. 368).

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    • In Support of Cheryl Abbate

      by Ed Kazarian

      By now, many readers will be aware of the events which have unfolded around Cheryl Abbate, a Ph.D. student and instructor in Philosophy at Marquette University. Those who are not up to speed should read this excellent post by Justin Weinberg at Daily Nous. Briefly, Ms. Abbate has been the subject of public, political attack by an associate professor of Political Science at Marquette, John McAdams, concerning matters that took place in her classroom, after class, and in a subsequent meeting of the class.

      Leaving aside the highly problematic evidentiary basis for Prof. McAdams' claims (the report of a single student who had attempted to record Ms. Abbate covertly and without her permission, and had lied to her when confronted about what he was doing), and the extent to which McAdams' version of events seems to have misrepresented what took place in material ways, there can be no question that it is categorically inappropriate for a senior faculty member (or indeed any faculty member) to publicly attack a graduate student over what happens in his or her classroom, regardless of whether that student is in the faculty members's own department.* 

      The fact that Prof. McAdams' intervention has, rather predictably, led to Ms. Abbate becoming the subject of a number of gendered attacks only exacerbates the wrong here, which is certainly a matter of principle as well as of consequences. But it does make it even more urgent that Marquette should address the situation and do whatever is necessary to offer Ms. Abbate support. 

      In the same spirit, many of us throughout the philosophical community have sought to express our support for Ms. Abbate and our dismay at the conduct of Prof. McAdams. Justin Weinberg has suggested writing the provost and the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Marquette. John Protevi has taken that suggestion up in the form of an open letter, to which he invites others to add their signatures. Keeping in mind that a public wrong needs to be countered publicly, I am posting this, here, to further express my support—and I invite others here to add their names in the comments should they wish to do so. 

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    • The Death of Stoicism and the Birth of Aesthetics

      There is some exaggeration in referring to the death of Stoicism, of course its ethics (which is what concerns us here) is still of interest and has even had a revival, popular and academic in recent years. Nevertheless there really was a death of Stoicism in that the influence  it had from its Hellenistic and Roman beginnings to the eighteenth century in defining ethics has gone. The influence was not quite dominance, since Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics was a major text in the field for much of that period, and many people’s idea of ethics was shaped by Cicero’s On Ends. 

       However, the Stoic ethical texts of Seneca and Epictetus set the tone for the understanding of other ethical texts, in the emphasis on reason over desire, and independence from external circumstances. Seneca as a character was a philosophical martyr to tyranny on a level close to that of Socrates in a manner that is no longer with us. His forced suicide resulting from the persecutions of Nero served as a widely understood contrast of ethical mastery of desire with the triumph of desire over reason in the tyrannical personality. 

       This is how political liberty and the virtuous character were understood together. Epictetus’ journey from Rome to Nicopolis, probably because of a ban the Emperor Domitian placed on philosophers, itself serves as a story of moving from politics to philosophy, from state power to inner power, an idea confirmed by the emphasis in Epictetus on indifference to relations with the Emperor. The Stoic emphasis on reason did not exclude literary style and aesthetic compositions as we see in the plays of Seneca, and the prose style of Epictetus as well as Seneca. 

       Stoicism did not exclude the exercise of power power, as we see in the contribution of Marcus Aurelius, and in Seneca’s time as an adviser to Nero. However, the role of poetic capacity in Plato and Aristotle has no obvious equivalent in Stoicism, and similar remarks apply to the role of political life. A Stoic could practice poetry and politics, but from a position in which they are dominated by reason, rather than a position in which we might learn something from poetic practice or the political life. 

       The non-exclusive, but particularly significant role of Stoicism can be considered in the sixteenth century with reference to Michel de Montaigne. In the Essays, Stoicism is a constant reference, particularly with regard to Seneca. The major theme that emerges, through Montaigne’s mode of equivocation and qualification, is that Stoic interest in rational self command is admirable, but not sufficient in providing principles of virtue and living. In a Stoic manner, Montaigne suggests that external glory is inferior to inner virtue, but then argues for some measure of state provided honour for the purposes of inspiring bravery. Montaigne frequently indicates that his writing is related to the fear of death and the inadequacies of his mind. The Essays are not a journey from intellectual inadequacy and anxiety in the face of mortality to self-command and tranquillity. Montaigne mentions tranquility as a goal, but indicates in multiple ways that it is not a realistic goal given the contradictory and restless nature of the human mind. 

       The central preoccupation of the Essays is how to form the anxieties and tensions of the human mind in writing. If this is done in a way that is at all comprehensive, and such is Montaigne’s ambition, then the writing must bee overwhelmed by the impossibility of unifying all directions to thought in the author’s mind, or the human mind in general. Stoicism is now left as one point of reference in the Essays, maybe it is the most important pole in terms of Montaigne’s ambiguous delineations of objects of antagonism, but even so it has to compete with all the sources of cruelty, intolerance, and delusion. The dominance of reason is replaced by writing and imagination, which are driven by fear, failures of communication, and the inexhaustibility of forms. All of this, and more, contributes to Montaigne’s status within French literature, and the later development of imaginative prose style. 

       Montaigne did not kill of Stoicism as he was part of a long process of the undermining of the ideal of the complete subordination of of desire or passion to reason, and evidently there are ways in which that project has persisted. What has not persisted is the dominance of a tendency to believe that power, desire, imagination, external relation, are all less than reason  detached from  everything, but reason.

      The growth of the novel in the eighteenth century, a literary genre particularly association with subjective desire, irony, imagination, passion, and sympathy, in relation to a world integrated by culture rather than natural law, matches the decline of Stoicism as a dominant pattern of thought. We can understand the emergence of aesthetic philosophy, and various forms of criticism in Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Burke, Winckelmann, Lessing, Baumgarten, and Kant in this context, a context that also includes the novelistic and operatic achievements of Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Constant. 

       This not to say that everyone used to be a Stoic and stopped over the course of the early modern period, just that it colours everything and is the most convenient way of indicating what dominates the assumptions of thoughts about ethics and living from Roman-Hellenistic antiquity to the Enlightenment, given that sometimes we do need to make such generalisations.

      Related articles

      Enlightenment Ethics as Critique of Progress
      Republicanism and Nostalgia
      European Identities and Histories

    • In memoriam: Patrick Suppes

      By Catarina Dutilh Novaes

      As readers will have noticed, since yesterday there has been an outpour of expressions of sorrow for the passing of Patrick Suppes everywhere on the internet. He was without a doubt one of the most influential philosophers of science in the 20th century, and so all the love and appreciation is richly deserved. I do not have anything much to add to what others who knew him better have been saying, but I thought of posting a link to the video podcast of a lecture he delivered at the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy some two years ago, titled ‘A neuroscience perspective on the foundations of mathematics’. (Back then I even wrote a blog post about the lecture, just before it took place.)

      As much as it is sad to see dear, talented people passing away, I think it is comforting to note that Suppes lived his life to the fullest until the very end, for example by flying across the ocean to give a lecture on a new, exciting topic at age 90. The vitality he displays in the lecture is truly impressive, and a lovely reminder of his decisive contributions to philosophy and the sciences.

    • Do professors have a moral duty to retire?

      A few years ago, I read the Philosophy Smoker on a regular basis. In the comments threads, several job seekers complained about older professors who didn't retire. If only they finally went away, more tenure lines would become available for junior people. In a provocative essay, professor emerita Laurie Frendrich argues along similar lines. She argues that professors have a moral duty to retire. The reasons why they don't, she argues, are largely self-serving: the large income of a senior faculty member, the pleasure of teaching: "Professors approaching 70…have an ethical obligation to step back and think seriously about quitting. If they do remain on the job, they should at least openly acknowledge they’re doing it mostly for themselves."

      Unlike in the US, where the mandatory retirement age of professors at 70 was lifted in 1994, European professors are still obliged to retire when they reach a given age (usually between 65 and 67). It is certainly a good thing that tenured lines eventually open again and younger academics can step in. But does that mean that older professors in the US also have a moral obligation to step down when the time comes? For one thing, many tenured positions aren't being replaced by junior tenure lines but by contingent (VAP, adjunct etc) positions. Also, pension schemes were gutted during the 2008 and following years crisis, which made it financially precarious for older professors to retire.

      I agree high retirement ages are problematic, but I disagree that individual older professors have a moral duty to retire. If the total effects of scrapping the pension age for professors are negative, that should be a reason to reintroduce mandatory pension age in academia in the US, but it does not put the burden of that decision on individual professors in their late 60s or older. Let's look at some of the main arguments Frendrich offers:

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