Discrimination and Hypocrisy in Academia

I've been reluctant to write about the topic of this post, but political correctness is not my forte. A couple of months ago, I submitted a paper to an ancient philosophy journal founded in Canada several decades ago. Yesterday, I received a report by a female European scholar who has done some work on ancient skepticism and teaches at a top university in the US. Her strongest criticism was that I discriminate against women inasmuch as I do not cite them or do not cite them enough or do not cite them the way I should. Why? Well, because I cite her as well as three other female authors in several footnotes and not in the body of the text, because I do not cite a female scholar who only published one paper on ancient skepticism five years ago in a volume the referee edited, and because I do not cite one of the referee's monographs (she lists the chapters I was supposed to cite and discuss). I should first note that in the article I cite sixteen papers by ten different female authors, but I suppose that is not enough. Secondly, assuming that the referee didn't figure out who I was (otherwise, she should have said so to the editor), it is surprising that she doesn't say that I don't cite myself, given that I've published five papers in English dealing with different issues concerning the same topic from 2011 to 2019 in such journals as Apeiron, Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, and Elenchos. Thirdly, I know that this is a common practice, but not once have I asked the author of a piece I reviewed to cite or discuss any of my papers or edited books (I've reviewed 45 articles as well as several book manuscripts and book proposals). Twice over the past few years I've been implicitly accused of discrimination for not including in the books I've edited enough female authors. I remember someone who reviewed for a top journal a volume I edited a few years ago. They wrote me asking why I did not include any chapter by a woman. I explained to them that I invited four women whose work I liked but that they all declined my invitation. I still had their emails! (I felt like a child being scolded who needed to justify himself.) I have read quite a bit about discrimination and implicit bias, particularly in academia, and I won't deny that it's a real thing -- actually, it's part of the empirical research I mention in a monograph on ancient and contemporary Pyrrhonism I've just finished writing. But what bothers me about the referee report I received yesterday is that the woman in question has never cited me in any of her articles or books on skepticism (I just checked) or invited me to write a paper for one of the volumes on that topic that she's edited or to present a paper at the conferences she's organized. You must be thinking: "Why on earth was she supposed to do that?" By my lights, there is no reason at all. But if I applied her own approach, I could think that she's discriminated against me inasmuch as I've edited or co-edited 6 books on skepticism and published over 30 journal articles and chapters on that topic in English or French (i.e., two languages that civilized North American and European academics can read), and inasmuch as I'm a Latin American working and living in Argentina. Should I play the discrimination card and start complaining every time a volume or a special issue of a journal devoted to skepticism -- particularly on ancient skepticism -- is published but I was not invited to contribute a paper? Just take a look at the volumes and special issues on that topic published in the past 10 or 15 years and count the number of Latin Americans who have contributed a paper. Take your time. Should I start complaining whenever a paper or a book on Sextus Empiricus's Pyrrhonism is published that does not cite any of my papers on that topic published in English in specialist journals in the past 15 years? Should I start complaining when a conference on ancient or contemporary skepticism is organized and no Latin American scholar is invited to participate? Should I start saying that I'm being discriminated when I invite North American or European scholars (both men and women) to contribute a paper to a volume, or to write a book review for the journal I co-edit, and they decline my invitation or don't even have the courtesy to reply? My work would be much easier if I could say: "Because I'm Latin American, I have the right to be cited in your paper/book or to be invited to participate in your book project or your conference. If you don't cite or invite me, I'll accuse you of discrimination." As I told a friend of mine a few years ago when talking about someone who complained about not being cited: "People are not obliged to read or cite you and they're free to think that what you write is garbage." I don't know, perhaps I should stop citing scholars who do not cite me, which would mean that I should not cite the referee in two footnotes in my paper until she starts citing me at least in one footnote in one of her own papers or books. The high level of stupidity, bad faith, and hypocrisy among academics never ceases to amaze me.

Believing Out of Need

A couple of days ago, I reread parts of Mark Rowlands's The Philosopher and the Wolf: Lessons from the Wild on Love, Death & Happiness (Granta, 2008). At one point, Rowlands writes: “I once had a colleague who was unusual among philosophers in that he was a believer. He always used to tell his students: when the shit hits the fan, you will believe. Maybe that's what happens. When the shit hits the fan, people look for God. When the shit hits the fan, I remember a little wolf cub”. Due to several unfortunate events that have occurred over the year, for the past few days I've been thinking about the issue of believing out of need (or desire or desperation). Over the years, I've heard or read the kind of remark made by Rowlands's former colleague; it is something most people say when confronted with someone professing, e.g., some form of radical skepticism. Even though I do understand the “logic” of such a stance, it appears to me that, in the end, it all comes down to each person's temperament. Once or twice in the course of my life, I felt the need to believe in something that is religious or metaphysical in nature, but after a few seconds, I told myself that as a matter of fact I didn't, the reason being that I couldn't hold religious or metaphysical beliefs simply because I needed to. Of course, this issue has to do with whether one can hold beliefs only on the basis of evidence of some sort or whether one can also hold beliefs out of need. In other words, do we always need epistemic reasons or are we also able to hold beliefs merely on the basis of pragmatic reasons? In my experience, it seems that quite a number of people can start believing in God, the afterlife, the soul, or what have you after having been confronted with extreme situations, but it is also clear that even when the shit hits the fan, some who would love to find solace in such beliefs are as a matter of fact unable to hold them -- for them pragmatic reasons are not enough. I'm considering the issue from a psychological point of view (is it psychologically possible for us to hold beliefs only because it is useful for us to do so?) and leaving aside the normative question of whether one should believe in x only on the basis of pragmatic reasons.

Resistance to Trump?

I’d like to say something about the recent explosion of discussion about Trump because I see quite a bit of intolerance, conceit, and hypocrisy. I’ve always thought that Trump is a clown and that his having been elected will have a number of negative effects not only in the US but worldwide. I have a strong aversion to populist leaders in general: e.g., the Castro brothers in Cuba, Chávez and Maduro in Venezuela, the Kirchner couple in Argentina, Putin in Russia, and now Trump in the US. This said, I have serious reservations about certain reactions I’ve seen since he was elected. In particular, I’m surprised by the fact that so many people (including quite a few serious scholars) are calling for “resistance” to Trump. The first thing that came to mind when I first read that word in this context was that one resists a de facto government or an invading army, whereas Trump was elected according to the US election laws. It is true that the US election system strike many of us as absurd, given that Clinton got almost three million more votes than Trump, but that’s the American election system and Obama won twice with that very same system. Millions of people voted for Trump and, if one respects the rules, it seems that one should accept or tolerate their choice—unless one thinks they’re all brainless monkeys incapable of making reasoned decisions. Now, if those calling for resistance think that Russia interfered in the presidential election, then I suppose they should have recourse to, e.g., the Supreme Court. (I set aside here the fact that the US did the same a few times, e.g., in several Latin American countries.) Also, there are laws, there are judges, and there’s the Congress: if they function as they should, then Trump won’t be able to do whatever he wants. I also remember him saying that he wasn’t sure whether he’d accept the election results, which struck me as inadmissible and dangerous. I think that many of those who didn’t vote for him don’t want to accept the election results, which strikes me as equally inadmissible and dangerous. Someone might reply by saying that resistance is a normal part of a well-functioning democracy. It is true that democracy consists not only in voting, but also in active engagement and protest, and anyone is free to “oppose” Trump or to be part of “the opposition.” One is of course entitled to oppose certain policies if one doesn’t agree with them or find them threatening. But I also think that the very use of the term “resistance” in this context isn’t innocent at all because it has a very clear connotation. Am I the one changing the meaning of that word in this political context? I don’t think so. That the word is used with the sense it has when talking about the justified reaction to a de facto government or an invading army seems to be confirmed by the fact that many of those who are calling for resistance think or imply that Trump isn’t a legitimate president, for various reasons: they believe that the election wasn’t fair, or that he won thanks to Russia, or that the Russians have him in their pocket because of the kinky things that happened at a hotel, etc. etc. If he is an illegitimate president, then people must resist him. This may also explain why the official Twitter accounts of a few governmental agencies were used to express opposition to Trump, which seems inadmissible: voice your disagreement using your own personal account, not that of the governmental agency at which your work. I also reckon that many of those who are calling for resistance now would have been offended if people had called for resistance to Obama when he was first elected: many thought (and still think) that he was a terrible president. I mention this because I take the epistemic and practical challenges posed by (political) disagreement seriously, and because it appears to me that certain kinds of disputes are basic or fundamental disagreements that cannot be resolved in a non-circular way. There are millions of people who voted for Trump and support him, and some of the reasons they adduce make perfect sense. Of course, someone might complain that they voted for him despite, e.g., his misogynist and racist discourse. I agree, but this reminds me of all those left-wing American artists and scholars who sympathized with Chávez or Castro despite the corruption, the political persecution, the anti-democratic policies, the executions, or the people fleeing Cuba and drowning in the ocean.

Inferior Scholarship & Intellectual Honesty

I just read Harold Tarrant's review of Charles Brittain's Philo of Larissa: The Last of the Academic Sceptics (OUP, 2001), published in Ancient Philosophy 22 (2002): 485-492. In fact, I had already read it back in 2003. But I had forgotten that, at the end of the review, Tarrant says the following:

"Since it derives from an Oxford DPhil. thesis I choose not to blame Brittain for the inaccurate representation of my own work about which I have protested. Another book stemming from a 1996 DPhil. thesis is G. Bechtle, The Anonymous Commentary on Plato's "Parmenides" (Bern 1999). Since his unpopular views on the extent of metaphysical interpretation of the Parmenides in Neopythagorean times have their clearest modern antecedent in my own Thrasyllan Platonism (Ithaca 1993), 148-177, of which he makes no mention, I assume the problem lies in Oxford: where the inferior scholarship and preposterous theses of lesser parts of the world are treated with the contempt that they so richly deserve--as Anytus treated the sophists (Meno 92b)."

This reminded me of a related complaint repeatedly made by an Italian colleague who criticizes Anglophone scholars working on skepticism for not citing works in other languages. One reason for this is no doubt the one referred to by Tarrant. Another reason is that Anglophone scholars don't usually read (and much less speak) other languages. In fact, the latter reason may be a consequence of the former, since it's not that they don't need to learn other languages (e.g., for practical purposes, in many parts of the US they should at least try to learn Spanish), but that they just don't care. Now, in relation to Tarrant's complaint, I recently noticed that junior scholars from the US and the UK who have just started working on skepticism usually cite those authors from "lesser parts of the world" who have been working in this area for the past eight to ten years, whereas senior scholars tend to ignore the works of the latter even though they defend, sometimes using strikingly similar terms, ideas or interpretations first defended or fully developed in some of those works. I have nothing against someone who, for whatever reasons, decides not to read the work of certain people, but if he/she does read it and thinks that their work is not good enough and hence not worth citing, maybe he/she should refrain from making use of their ideas.

Blackburn on the Existence of God

Some of you may have already read this interview that Simon Blackburn gave to Philosophy Now in which he explains why he is an atheist or “infidel” (as he prefers to be called). Since on FB and elsewhere some people have been complaining about the soundness of his arguments and have been saying that they expected more from a top philosopher, I'd like to make a few very simple remarks because, among other things, I think he makes some good points -- I will only refer to a couple of them.

(1) The first thing to note is that this is a short interview, so one cannot expect the interviewee to fully explain his line of reasoning on such a complex question as whether God exists or whether there is a deity of some kind.

(2) When Blackburn says that the strongest argument against the existence of God is the existence of appalling human and animal suffering, he is thinking of God as conceived of by, e.g., Christians, as his enumeration of the attributes of such a being makes clear. So if the argument from evil were sound, it seems it wouldn't disprove the existence of any kind of god, since there may be, e.g., a god that isn't omnibenevolent. But what is important in the present context, in which Blackburn is clearly debating with Christians, is that the argument from evil (presented in a very condensed form in this brief interview) doesn't seem to be a silly argument that is not worth considering. At least, I don't think that Christian philosophers have provided conclusive counter-arguments. As I said in a previous post, theodical explanations that attempt to explain the existence of evil strike me as a game one plays using very peculiar abstract concepts.

(3) I'm not making any assertion about the existence or non-existence of God, since I'm a religious agnostic. What I'm saying is that philosophical discussion of this topic shouldn't dismiss out of hand certain arguments and positions. I find a condescending and arrogant attitude in those (believers and non-believers) who have criticized Blackburn's answers, which is the same attitude I've found in many believers when they're confronted with arguments for atheism or for agnosticism. And this goes both ways. In May, at a conference in Brazil, I remembered asking an American epistemologist about how to resolve a fundamental disagreement between a champion of the natural selection view and a champion of the intelligent design view. His answer was just that the defender of the intelligent design view does not really believe what he says he believes. A surprising reply.

(4) Blackburn remarks that he doubts that he could be convinced through reasons and reasonings that there is a God, and that he's “sure that emotional traumas, loss, oppression and despair cause many people to seek some kind of refuge in supernatural hopes.” What's the problem with this claim? I think it is descriptive. If I restrict myself to my own experience, I should say that when I tell someone that I do not believe in God, the soul, the afterlife, Reiki, tarot, or astrology, most of the time the reaction I get is: “But how can you live without believing in anything?” (They mean, of course, without having any of those “central” beliefs.) So the reason they give is not that it is evident that, e.g., God exists or that there are compelling arguments that prove that He exists. Rather, the reason is pragmatic: life would be pointless or meaningless if there were no god/God, or no soul, or no afterlife, etc.; and this is precisely what Blackburn is saying. I suspect that many philosophers who hold metaphysical (or even supertitious) beliefs do so for purely pragmatic reasons.

(5) As regards the existence of the universe, Blackburn remarks that, “as David Hume said, if there is some unknown, inconceivable quality of ‘necessarily existing’, then for all we know it might belong to the cosmos itself. No need, then, to add anything else.” I attended a Catholic school, and in high school I remember telling one of my teachers that, if it didn't make sense for the universe to have existed forever, why did it make sense for God to have existed forever? A few years later, I was surprised to hear a similar point made in a terrible American B movie. Still, I don't think that such a point can be dismissed out of hand (even though even a teenager can think of it): why is it absurd to assign certain attributes, such as eternity, to the universe but not to some sort of supernatural being?

(6) Blackburn also makes some good points in refusing to accept the similarity between skepticism about the existence of God and external world skepticism. Personally, whenever someone tells me that that he/she knows that there is a god/God on the basis of his/her religious experience, I usually stop offering arguments because I feel I cannot confidently deny that the person in question is having such an experience. But Blackburn seems right in pointing out that religious experience cannot justify all the attributes that are usually assigned to God. Or at least believers should explain how personal religious experience can do that. The burden of proof lies with them.

God & Evil

I've just read this claim made by Trent Dougherty: 

“The greater one's sense of solidarity with the human community, the greater one will feel the problem of evil. Yet, at the same time, the value of that solidarity provides greater scope for understanding why it is permissible for God to allow humans to suffer.”

I must first of all say that, unlike Trent, I'm not an expert in theodicy, so I may be missing something here. This said, I cannot help feeling that theodical explanations are forced. And this happens as soon as one combines in a single being (or Being!) so many attributes, some of which seem to be nonsensical when applied to someone/something: God is all-powerful, omniscient, all-wise, eternal, infinite, and also just, merciful, and the summum bonum (I'm talking in general, since in the quoted text, there's no reference to possible attributes). It appears to me that, once one accepts the existence of such an fantastic being, everything gets messy and one needs to come up with seemingly absurd explanations. I'm not asserting that the claim in question (“God is all-powerful, omniscient...”) is false, but only that the second conjunct (“and also just, merciful...”) strikes me as highly problematic and that I myself don't understand in the slightest how it is permissible (or possible or obligatory or whatever) for such a being to allow humans (and animals) to suffer so much. It looks like a game with some very abstract concepts: let's assume there's this guy with such and such attributes; what follows? and how can we combine them so as to make them compatible? Mutatis mutandis, this reminds me of those situations in which the nerds from The Big Bang Theory wonder, as though they were real, whether, e.g., The Hulk could kick The Thing's ass or Wolverine Batman's, or whether The Hulk could lift Thor's hammer (they actually discuss much more subtle questions about superheros and their powers). Positions like this one are those which are so mercilessly attacked in Sextus Empiricus's works. In the end, none of this makes much sense to me, but this may be due to my intellectual limitations and my lack of faith.

The Synthese Affair

OFF TOPIC

As some of you may know, there has lately been a heated discussion about the attitude adopted by the editors-in-chief of the journal Synthese in the case of the 2009 special issue “Evolution and Its Rivals.” To get an overview of this affair, you can take a look at, e.g., this post and this post on Brian Leiter’s well-known blog. Since I think that Leiter and other scholars have adopted an extreme position (they are now demanding the resignation of the editors-in-chief), I’d like to say something here even though I’m not an important member of the “philosophical community.” (And just to be clear, I’m not a supporter of Intelligent Design.)

I do think that the Synthese editors-in-chief shouldn’t have inserted the disclaimer behind the guest editors’ backs. It seems to me that they have now paid the price for what they did, since lots of people know what they did, they have been strongly criticized in a number of blogs, and the issue has even been discussed in an article in the New York Times (check it out here). However, it also seems to me that Leiter is kind of obsessed with this affair and I wonder why. I ask myself: who is Brian Leiter to demand the resignation of the Synthese editors? If some members of the philosophical community aren’t happy with what the editors did, then they have of course the right to decide not to submit their papers to Synthese or not to review for them—Leiter has actually been asking people to do precisely this. But resignation is a decision that should be taken only by the editors-in-chief and the publisher—people should remember that there are contracts in play between editors and publishers. I think that the affair concerns the editors-in-chief, the guest editors, the authors, and the publisher. The rest of us can voice our opinions about the affair, including the opinion that the editors-in-chief should resign, but I don’t think we are entitled to actually demand that they do so or to insistently try to organize a boycott against the journal.

It is clear from what I’ve heard from scholars from North America that some people think that the cost of crossing Leiter is high. I confess I don’t care whether the price is high or low. Among other things, Leiter is a well-known Nietzsche scholar and the editor of the Philosophy Gourmet Report, and his philosophy blog is widely read. But so what? I think it’s silly that a guy takes himself to be the voice of the philosophical community and that he starts this kind of fierce campaign against a journal based on reasons that don’t seem to warrant such a campaign. He has been trying to organize a general boycott, but even though he has not succeeded, he continues to promote this instead of accepting that a lot of people don’t agree with him.

We should bear in mind that the papers against Intelligent Design were published without modifications in the special issue so that anyone can read them and draw their own conclusions. So there was no censorship. The affair doesn’t change my view of the journal either in itself or under its current editorship. One can see that the editors-in-chief behaved in a seemingly silly and disrespectful way. But it is stupid to believe, as some have claimed, that what the editors-in-chief did should lower our opinion of the journal. Synthese is a leading journal where quality is (as far as I know) the editors’ sole criterion of acceptance for publication, and they didn’t stop the publication of any of the articles in the special issue. In addition, I don’t think (again against what some people have claimed) that if you now publish a paper in Synthese, it will reflect negatively in your CV. Why should that be the case? It is plain to me that Leiter’s campaign, endorsed by a few dozens of scholars, is affecting negatively Synthese and this is a real shame.

I could say a few other things, but I think this is enough to make my point of view clear. I wish I could counterbalance a little bit the (apparently) extreme position adopted by Leiter and others, and I hope I’m voicing what other people think but perhaps don’t dare to say.

Pointless Thinking

Recently, I've been reflecting again on whether systematic and critical thinking (of the sort we find especially in philosophy) is, in the end, utterly pointless, for I cannot help feeling that it leads us nowhere. This feeling depends, of course, on both one's field(s) of research and the way one approaches philosophy or systematic thinking in general. I mean, if someone studies e.g. skepticism, finds some skeptical arguments plausible or persuasive, and does not insulate his own life from his philosophical research, then it seems clear that this research will have some degree of impact on his Weltanschauung. But if you think skepticism is absurd or if your skeptical stance does not affect the way you look at things in your daily life, then no problem arises - of course, one can talk of a "problem" provided the impact is deemed to be negative.

Be that as it may, lately I've been wondering more often than usual whether this whole thing of philosophy isn't completely worthless. My (entirely unoriginal) point is that, in the final analysis, that kind of thinking leads to aporia (or at least that's where it leads me all the bloody time) because reason appears to undermine itself or to be unable to find acceptable answers to the questions it poses. This is why I'm impressed when I encounter people (both laymen and scholars) who have deep convictions and to whom the world makes sense.

Of course, there's also the question of whether one could do something else, since it may be in the "nature" of some people to think (most of the time) in a critical and systematic way, and so they would be slaves to their own psychological makeup, as it were. I've often read that Wittgenstein recommended his "disciples" that they should abandon philosophy, and part of the reason seems to have been (I may be wrong) that the whole thing is pointless. But is there any going back? For once you've learned to think in a given manner or to deal with everyday situations and problems by analyzing them systematically and thoroughly, it doesn't seem possible to rid yourself of this (exhausting) intellectual habit.

The Epistemology of Trust

For some time now, I've been thinking about posting something about the epistemic justification of trust. But I haven't done so until now because I didn't know whether there had been any serious discussion of this topic in the field of philosophy - although one could argue that this subject is dealt with by those working on the epistemology of testimony. Even though I haven't searched for any philosophical work in this area yet, I'd like to say a couple of things that might be plausible to at least some extent. 

I've always thought that some key skeptical arguments, such as indiscernibility arguments, have important consequences in the case of trust. As the Academic skeptics used to argue, it seems that we can never discern a true impression or appearance (phantasia) from a false one because they may have all the same traits, i.e., there is no trait which can assure us of the truth of the impression. One usually says that it makes sense or it is justified to trust a given person because of a number of reasons, including certain psychological traits of that person and his past behavior. However, in fact, that does not guarantee anything at all. There seems to be an unbridgeable gap between the evidence we have (or might have) and the truth or what is really the case. So, trust is just irrational and, hence, a highly dangerous risk. Trust is just blind faith - I'm aware that "blind faith" may sound completely redundant.

In the course in professional ethics which I teach, I explain an argument which makes use of the so-called prisoner's dilemma, which is a dilemma discussed in metaethics, business ethics, game theory, etc. I think that this dilemma is an excellent example of how people usually (always?) behave and supports the idea that it doesn't make any sense to trust people: you never know what the other person will do, i.e., you never know whether the other person has the genuine intention to respect the "pact" the two of you have made. And so, it is rational for you not to respect it, and since the other person is in the same situation, then it is only rational for him/her not to respect it either. (Those interested in this dilemma can take a look at this entry.)

So, in the end, it seems to me that there is no epistemic justification whatsoever for this kind of blind faith (or any kind of faith for that matter) and that at most there may be some kind of pragmatic justication in the sense that trusting might sometimes work. In addition, it seems that most of us cannot help trusting people, since to all appearances we need to do so, or don't we?

Neoplatonism and the History of Philosophy

Last week, from Tuesday 13 till Friday 16, there was at the University of Fribourg a conference on Proclus' Elementatio Theologica and on the Liber de Causis. More precisely, in the morning, Philippe Hoffmann and Cristina d'Ancona Costa offered a detailed analysis of those texts and, in the afternoon, PhD students from Fribourg, Lausanne, and Genève delivered papers on their areas of research. Now, the two key speakers discussed different Neoplatonic theories and these discussions made me think about a couple of things. First, I couldn't help thinking that a Pyrrhonist could have had found, in those metaphysical doctrines, a lot of material to which he could have applied his argumentative weapons very easily.

My second remark refers to something which is not new at all. At the end of the conference, I dared to say something for the first time. I told the two key speakers that, as far as I could see, their analyses had been brilliant from a historical and philological point of view and that their knowledge of the texts was impressive. That said, I asked them if they could say something, from a strictly philosophical point of view, about the doctrines or theories expounded in the texts they had examined. In other words, I asked them if they could tell me something about the epistemic status, as it were, of the theories they had discussed. Of course, I didn't get an answer to my question. My question was in fact very simple given that the event had been organized by a philosophy department. I mean, it should be the question that anyone working in the field of philosophy should ask. Note that I'm not saying that I myself can think philosophically, since I believe that most of the things I've ever written are more historical than systematic. But at least I don't lie to myself by saying that I'm doing real philosophy. However, during the conference I did hear the word "philosophical" and its cognates so many times that I was kind of upset. Of course, this leads to the question about the status of the history of philosophy. My own view is just that one of the main (if not the main) functions of this discipline is the discussion of problems: either to see what others had to say about a problem one is currently thinking about or to be aware of philosophical problems one hasn't thought of yet. I think that good examples of this kind of approach may be Jonathan Barnes, Michael Frede, Myles Burnyeat and, perhaps, Ernest Sosa.

An objection I've often heard is that one becomes less rigurous when one approaches past philosophical systems that way. This is a huge mistake. If one bears in mind the methodological distinction between analyzing a text or a system and discussing a problem, there should be no methodological problem. I mean, I can't stand those scholars who attribute to Parmenides or Heraclitus doctrines expounded in their 800-page books. They should say: reading those Presocratics makes me think about certain things so I construct a given philosophical theory. But insofar as one keeps the distinction in place, one is allowed to discuss or "dialogue" with past philosophers.

Florence Skepticism Conference

As you might remember, back in November I wrote a post saying that the NYU philosophy department was going to hold a conference on skepticism in Florence next June. Quite a few people then wrote me asking for information about the program. I sent a message to that department and it seemed that they were going to keep me posted, which has not been the case. I made a last try last week. This time they answered my e-mail saying that the conference is open only to the invited participants, but didn't say a word about the program. I do not understand at all why the program for the conference is such a secret and why they just don't tell me that they don't want to give me that information. Honestly, I find their reluctance a little ridiculous.

Pyrrhonism and Action

This morning, Jason Stanley (Rutgers University) delivered a paper entitled 'Knowledge and Action' at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Buenos Aires. Therein he defends the the following principles:

The Action-Knowledge Principle: Treat the proposition that p as a reason for acting only if you know that p.

The Reason-Knowledge Principle: Where one's choice is p-dependent, it is appropiate to treat the proposition that p as a reason for acting iff you know that p.

He formulates both principles by reflecting on what people actually say in ordinary life. One of the examples he gives is the following: 'Suppose John decides not to buy health insurance anymore, reasoning that he is healthy enough. He calls his mother to report excitedly on his money-saving decision. His mother can berate him for not buying the insurance, by appealing to the fact that he doesn't know that he won't fall ill'. All the examples Stanley gives describe situations in which one criticizes a person's action for not knowing that upon which he bases his decision to perform that action. Therefore, he seems to derive normative claims from a description of what we ordinarily say. Insofar as his claims are normative, what he means is that, if you do not know p but act on the basis of p, your action is not rational.

Now, at one point I asked Stanley: 'Suppose that you come accross a Pyrrhonian skeptic. What would you say to him? Would you tell him (i) that when he acts he is not rational or (ii) that, despite what he says, he does have beliefs and does know lots of things?'. His answer was that the Pyrrhonist does know what he says he doesn't know. It seems that people consider it obvious that Pyrrhonism is not tenable because it is not possible to act on the basis of a reason (I'm using this term loosely) without believing or knowing something. That is, the reason for performing a given action must be a belief or a piece of knowledge. But is it that obvious? It sometimes appears to me that people dismiss Pyrrhonism without carefully reflecting on its conceptual and argumentative resources.