Adversariality and Me

Almost two months ago, Eric Schliesser  generously offered me a guest post slot on his blog, Digressions & Impressions to respond to a recent piece by Joe Heath about what he called "Me studies," or people studying too closely the conditions of their own oppression.

My two-part response piece can be found here:

http://digressionsnimpressions.typepad.com/digressionsimpressions/2015/06/guest-post-on-what-is-the-real-problem-of-me-studies.html

http://digressionsnimpressions.typepad.com/digressionsimpressions/2015/06/guest-post-on-what-is-the-real-problem-of-me-studies-ii.html

This morning, I read that Brian Leiter had read the Heath piece approvingly, and had pointed out my response in particular as an exercise in "mindless identity politics." I found Leiter's article quite helpful, in that it provided me with a useful illustration of another problem I see in contemporary philosophy, namely preoccupation with adversariality. Janice Moulton's paper on the adversary paradigm in philosophy is the first criticism of this that I know of, but similar points have been made by many philosophers concerned with making philosophy more inclusive. (Though not all philosophers interested in ending discrimination find the adversary paradigm to be part of the problem.)

One useful point that Moulton makes, though, is that a preoccupation with adversariality can lead someone to make worse arguments than they would if they weren't just looking for something to disagree with. Leiter approvingly quotes an email from a reader, S. Wallerstein, suggesting I should learn some history, since if I knew more history I would be more careful with my use of the terms "heterosexual" and "upper-middle-class." Setting aside the fact that it was Leiter and not me who singled out Descartes, Hume, and Kant as paradigm examples of upper-middle-class cis heterosexual white men, I'm quite unclear what this email response is intended to accomplish, besides score points against my article.

Perhaps S. Wallerstein is pointing out that there is more diversity in the historical canon than I thought, since some philosophers we study may not have been heterosexual. Great, honestly. But that point seems to have no particularly significant consequences for my argument except making it clear that I haven't read my Foucault, so might have to get rid of the "'me' studies" AOC on my CV (oh wait, I didn't put that in yet). The fact that some historical figures might not have been straight, or that "upper-middle-class" might not be an appropriate label before a certain point in time doesn't particularly take away from the claim that there's a need to diversify the discipline. At best, the former point (about heterosexuality) says that it may be slightly more diverse than otherwise thought. And the latter point (about class) says that some of the terms we use to describe philosophy's homogeneity might be anachronistic. Ok. I am perfectly happy to have these points scored against me  - this isn't the first time I've been told to read Foucault. But if we don't suppose that successful point-scoring is the purpose of philosophical activity, there seems to be nothing useful to do with these claims. Surely the author of them doesn't take them to support the claim that philosophy is already sufficiently diverse. Just because some relatively wealthy white men (is that better?) didn't get married doesn't mean we shouldn't work to include philosophy done by non-white people, or women, or (etc). 

 

And while philosophy (at least according to some people) begins with probably-not-heterosexual Plato (because nobody else in the ancient world said anything interesting?) we also have some pretty good data on how we're doing as a discipline right now. There is plenty of evidence saying that the majority of philosophy getting published and getting cited is being done by white men. We also have plenty of statistics about the extreme underrepresentation of disabled philosophers. So if I am playing identity politics, it's at least with an awareness of how underrepresented many identities are in our discipline. 

Now besides the largely non-constructive adversariality I just mentioned, there's also this claim I think I should reply to from Leiter himself:

Apparently the author thinks that the philosophical systems of Descartes, Hume, and Kant are usefully explained as being about their own experience as "straight, upper-middle-class, cis, heterosexual white men."

Never mind the misreading of the sarcastic opening passage that was highlighted on feminist philosophers, because Leiter does get close to one of the main points I wanted to make. Now, I don't think that Kant's social position is the best or most useful way to explain his philosophical system as a whole. It might not even be particularly useful as an explanation for plenty of aspects of his thought. Seems like quite the caricature of anti-oppression movements to say what Leiter does. Saying that social location affects one's life and one's thinking doesn't mean it's the only thing that can affect it. Similarly, saying that someone's social location affects their philosophical position doesn't mean it's the only thing that does, or even that it's the main or most important thing.

So do I think that these philosophers' social position affected their philosophical views? Absolutely, in the sense that I think it's true that everyone's social position affects their thinking. That's one of the major reasons why many of us argue for diversity and inclusiveness in the first place. I'd have to be more of an early modern scholar to say exactly how it worked in the cases of Descartes, Hume, and Kant, though. Still, it's pretty easy to find evidence of racism on the part of at least Hume and Kant, such as this article. I'd have to dig deeper to talk about the extent to which it affected their moral and political philosophies, but I'd think that the burden of proof would be on those who say that it has no effect rather than those who claim that it has some.

In any case, there is still the question of what Leiter's post actually accomplishes, besides perhaps scoring a couple of points. The latter makes it worthwhile in its own right under the adversary paradigm, I guess. But this paradigm has once again disappointed me, since it's left the real issues of the value of diversity and obstacles to inclusiveness completely untouched.

--- Audrey

Comments

[Q. Carey]

"Just because some relatively wealthy white men (is that better?) didn't get married doesn't mean we shouldn't work to include philosophy done by non-white people, or women, or (etc)."

Since it's perfectly clear that no one ever meant to say (or even inadvertently implied) that the conclusion which you state follows from the premise that you start with (or, moreover, from any other premise), your reader has to conclude that you have no actual interest in engaging anything apart from irrelevant strawmen of your own imagination.

[Audrey Yap]

Sure - but the claim you quote isn't actually attributed to anyone, just given as an example of an absurd claim which the people I'm talking about wouldn't want to be committed to.

So that inevitable conclusion on the part of the reader doesn't seem that inevitable.

[Shelley Tremain]

Audrey, welcome to the blog and what a fantastic post with which to introduce yourself! I look forward to more great posts from you in the coming weeks!

[Anon]

Agree about the problem with point-scoring. With the growth of feminist and other identity politics philosophy there's been so much more of this stuff- just replying to people that they are white cis men, as though this is a point in a debate.