1

Intra-Philosophical Norms and other Limits

Self-imposed internal and external Philosophical Limits

Abstract
The philosophical discourse has a number of in-built values, norms and attitudes
that create for this discipline. Creative-thinking and Intuition are discussed.
Then some of the limits of the discourse are identified, some of them concern
the methods of philosophizing. The positive aspects of the so-called Socratic
Method and those of the Philosophical Investigations as Explorative Methods
(and metaphysics?) are compared with those identified by Strawson as
Speculative and Descriptive Metaphysics.
It is suggested that the future of Philosophy lies in Theorizing. It is essential to
view in the Appendix the articles concerning the Socratic Methods and the
nature and processes of (Philosophy as) Theorizing.

1
On Creative and original-thinking and Intuition.
Have you see the much-acclaimed film Mr Turner? Well, if you have, you
might have noticed that the director and/or producer and/or script-writers
accidentally or perhaps purposefully touched on (implicitly? or explicitly?) a
cognitive science and philosophical interesting aspect of (in this case visually)
creative- thinking and original-thinking phenomenon or set of phenomena. We
were presented we a number of stunning filmic landscape scenes (as well as of
course outstanding other shots and photographic images) we were shown the
perception or the realistic causes of the perceptions of William Turner. We
were also shown how he reached out for his sketch book to note down
scribbles of aspects of those scenes, people, models, etc that struck a note in
his intuition or underlying subsconsciously stored aspects of experience and
memory.
Such noted scribbles are not dissimilar from the verbal notes hastily penned or
pencilled down by the creative-thinking Einstein, Wittgenstein, Hegel, Fichte,
Schelling, Russell, Klee, Marx, Beethoven, Mozart, et al. These marks on
paper represent the visualization of the intuitive stimuli occurring in the body,
the brain, the embodied self of these creative thinkers. Such stimuli could
occur any time and anywhere (as in the case of Mr Turner and one of his
2

muses or in the case of Wittgenstein in his ivory tower in Norway or his room
in Oxford or Beethoven enclosed in his deafness).
I illustrated, represented and explored a few aspects of this phenomenon or the
field of these phenomena in these two-page notes (for Free download):
https://www.academia.edu/31524158/Letter_to_a_friend_ON_Creative_Thinkin
g_and_Intuition
Letter to a friend : Creative Thinking and Intuition
Letter to a friend about creative thinking and intuition (art, writing, philosophy,
science, etc).
A photo of a celebrity here in the article

Posters of my work signed by celebrities and donated to Charity YES IT IS

HIM.

A few of my paintings before the letter

Thanks for link, will try.

3

Yes painting and writing, especially phil. very lonely - the latter one thinks for
hours, days, weeks, months until the whole thing is spun out.
https://www.academia.edu/31511435/Nature_and_Limits_of_philosophy_izing_
only_2_Pages_

I saw a LOT by psychologists and philosophers the last few years on intuition -
but ignored it as I always thought it is too wishy washy speculative - but I had
to look at and explore the concept the last month when I wrote on cognition,
cognitive sciences.
Einstein etc made much of it - you can be highly intelligent but not
creative/have intuition - how it suddenly comes on you - I always disliked the
word inspiration - as it seems it's something from outside - apparently intuition
come from past experience, memories, insights and built up in the subconscious,
It is advised to always have a pen paper and write down when isolated ideas
come into your head - then they're out of your head and you can go on with
thinking other things, live etc
https://independent.academia.edu/UlrichdeBalbian/Drafts

I took that for granted and always did that - wake up all night and note than bits
to get rid of it from mind - then I realized intuition in my case - is like a stream
of consciousness always.
4
5
6
7

Non-stop and for painting and writing phil/logic/reasoning - I think both sides
of my brain fired up -
8

I wake up every night at 2 or 3 and my head full of such things - write it down
very fats, cant read it next day - so I just get up and type it our properly - thus
all the books the last few months - about 30 I think.
Any way is just something of interest - self-knowledge of this thing
to me phil, sociology, psychology are life savers - I started reading it when
young as tools to balance my mind and know myself - many artists commit
suicide, alcohol - Pollock drunk himself dead - drugs etc as they cannot cope
with the brain overload and dont have the tools to comprehend it - I realized
that and that I need reflective skills to deal with it - and thus phil, etc to
understand it, intuition, myself, society etc - my life savers
just thought you'll see it in yourself as well - reflection on it, being aware of it
helps
why I wrote meta-cognition - lack of it for all philosophers - none of them
aware of their own reflective skills etc - what I wrote about in my last stuff
https://www.academia.edu/31495642/_Meta-Philosophy_Meta-
Cognition_and_Critique_of_Doing_Philosophizing
https://www.academia.edu/31276710/_Meta-
Philosophy_Philosophers_and_their_lack_of_Meta-Cognition
https://www.academia.edu/31278266/_Meta-
Philosophy_Where_to_begin_Philosophy
etc.
The point is the nature, origin and processes of intuition or creative-, original
thinking at work during the environmental, landscapes scenes in Mr Turner and
the visually (in his case) or verbally noting of intuitive stimuli or insights and
ideas forming part of the processes of intuition, their nature and how they
operate.
2
Here follows a cornucopia of thoughts, words, ideas, concepts, notions, etc
during an intuitive stream of consciousness (set of) experience(s). I have seen
aspects of this in the notes of physicians and veterinary surgeons in written
instructions or indications for the use of medication. A surgeon for example
wish to indicate the usage of steroid tablets (in the case of humans their usage
often is 5 tablets for 5 days, 4 tablets for 4 days, 3 tablets for 3 days etc. The
doctor thinks he writes down these things, but the patient frequently is presented
with scribbles such as 5, 4 days, 2 1 day etc. The physician has in his mind all
9

the details but presents the patient only with certain aspects or parts of what he
thinks. What he writes makes sense to his, sort of abbreviations of what he
thinks, but the written result was intended for the patient. The doctor should
instead pens down information that makes sense for a non-informed reader, the
patient, and not present him with only part of the thoughts what he as doctor
thinks. One finds similar extracts from what individuals think in the work of
philosophers (who only deal with aspects of what they think and part of their
reasoning), students, artists, composers, poets etc. The excluded parts or blanks
(on canvas or in poetry) are often interpreted as aesthetically intended as part of
the process of creation presented to the viewer, reader, etc. In fact they were
unintended exclusions by the composer, writer, artist, physician, etc.
3
The cornucopia (that will be sorted out logically, categorize and eventually
formally and rationally presented by the painter, composer, theoretical physicist,
novelist, philosopher, etc) mentioned above
Philosophy, doing philosophy, philosophizing, philosophical discourse, socio-
cultural (intersubjective) practices, assumptions, pre/suppositions, principles,
values, norms, attitudes, cognition, cognitive biases, reasoning, argumentation,
arguments, logic, logical thinking, thinking, critical thinking, creative thinking,
original thinking, structures, creative, intuition, epistemology, epistemological
assumptions, ontology, ontological assumptions, methodology, methodological
assumptions and pre/suppositions, diagrams, continuums, techniques, tools,
methods, limits, contexts, horizons, potentials, possibilities, ideas, concepts and
conceptual interconnections, conceptualization, theorizing, processes and stages
or steps of theorizing, theorizing, its nature, features, characteristics and aspects,
induction, deduction, idealism, pragmatism, dualism, naturalism, realism and
other isms as patterns, trends and assumptions in thinking, etc..
For another take on intuition and creative thinking, see this article
https://medium.com/100-naked-words/finishing-thats-where-the-magic-is-
c9caf5373150#.70081d5qx
Linda Caroll

Can I tell you a secret? Ideas are a loaded keg. You have none, or maybe you
have too many. Youre an idea person or youre notor maybe you have
great ideas but youre afraid someone will steal them. Loaded keg.

Heres the secret

10

Ideas arent where the magic is. Finishing. Thats where the magic is.

Ideas are just a habitual way of thinking.

If you were to try writing 10 ideas a day, you might struggle at first. You might
notbut
even if you did, youd get better at it quickly. After a while, youd be
hard pressed to stop at 10, writing ideas like theyre bits of magic floating
around and all you need do is reach out and pluck the low hanging fruit.

But rolling up your sleeves and finishing?

Thats the hard part where the real magic lives.

4
For a logical sorting and structuring of some of the above as well as other
concepts and ideas see this two-page article (Free download) of mine
https://www.academia.edu/31511435/Nature_and_Limits_of_philosophy_izing_
only_2_Pages_
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(3)
Instead of dealing with these essential prolegomena philosophers dive directly
into the doing of what seems to resemble philosophizing. One of the illnesses
they suffer from, often without them being aware of it, is -isms. Instead of
reflecting on what they do they merely repeat the limitations, like a horses
blindfold, and draw out the implications of someones elses already existing
-ism or the development of their own. Most people are aware of some form of
-ism and often criticize politicians (and Presidents! for subscribing to them) for
-isms such as racism, corruptionism, misogynism, etc - if they were to look at
their own thinking and behaviour they will see the many -isms their own
attitudes reveal. Google the Book of isms for this or see this publication of
mine for a FREE download: https://www.academia.edu/31495642/_Meta-
Philosophy_Meta-Cognition_and_Critique_of_Doing_Philosophizing

Instead of merely doing philosophy in a simple manner as possible one sees

how philosophers become entwined in the restrictions of their own mixture of
implicit and explicit -isms and in the process fabricate all sorts of neologisms
and technical terms to create new ideas, things and processes to try and set
themselves free from the dark hole they create and dig themselves into always
more deeper. See examples of this in the above book concerning the issue of the
11

mind-body problem. Certain philosophers have problems with the nature and
the meaning of the concept of mind, others with the notion of body and then of
course how to relate and/or reduce or explain the one to or from the other. In the
process we find endless, more and more microscopically detailed -isms that are
meant to refer to and/or create all sorts of fabricated organs, matter, ideas,
processes, phenomena etc - and in the process creating and spelling out the
details of the -ism that determines, underlies and direct their cognitively biased
thinking.

(4)

This brings us to the second self-imposed limitations on philosophy by

philosophers namely Cognitive Bias. I added an Appendix on Cognitive Bias,
some of the different types and how the operate in misleading ways here
(another FREE download book): https://www.academia.edu/31276710/_Meta-
Philosophy_Philosophers_and_their_lack_of_Meta-Cognition
The include - Bias arises from various processes that are sometimes difficult to
distinguish. These include

information-processing shortcuts (heuristics)[14]

noisy information processing (distortions in the process of storage in and
retrieval from memory)[15]
the brain's limited information processing capacity[16]
emotional and moral motivations[17]
social influence[18]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_bias

Biases can be distinguished on a number of dimensions. For example,

there are biases specific to groups (such as the risky shift) as well as biases at
the individual level.
Some biases affect decision-making, where the desirability of options has to
be considered (e.g., sunk costs fallacy).
Others such as illusory correlation affect judgment of how likely something
is, or of whether one thing is the cause of another.
A distinctive class of biases affect memory,[23] such as consistency bias
(remembering one's past attitudes and behavior as more similar to one's present
attitudes.
http://www.cognitivebiasparade.com/
http://www.williamjames.com/Science/ERR.htm
https://www.scribd.com/doc/30548590/Cognitive-Biases-A-Visual-Study-Guide
https://www.wired.com/2017/02/cognitive-bias-president-trump-understands-
better/
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http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2017/01/kahneman-biases-act-like-optical-
illusions.html
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases

Four problems that biases help us address:

Information overload, lack of meaning, the need to act fast, and how to know
what needs to be remembered for later.

Information overload sucks, so we aggressively filter. Noise becomes signal.

Lack of meaning is confusing, so we fill in the gaps. Signal becomes a story.
Need to act fast lest we lose our chance, so we jump to conclusions. Stories
become decisions.
This isnt getting easier, so we try to remember the important bits. Decisions
inform our mental models of the world.
https://betterhumans.coach.me/cognitive-bias-cheat-sheet-
55a472476b18#.1gbbk21mz

(5)

Identifying the causes of the problem: Some philosophers assume and I saw this
states explicitly that - philosophers are logicians. To do philosophy is to do logic
and so if you do logic, correctly, you do philosophy, correctly.
A complex of notions are involved in this: philosophers think that philosophy is
reasoning, critical thinking, arguments and argumentation. So, when and if they
do these things they are doing philosophy (no matter the problem or subject-
matter, any nonsense under the sun will be transformed into meaningful,
profound philosophy - we often see this in philosophy of science and of other
disciplines.. - if they employ these tools.)

Many, many! socio-cultural practices (everyday life, daily thinking and

conversation, sciences, arts, journalism, school essays, academic theses, articles,
etc) employ similar in/formal logic, sound reasoning, valid arguments and
argumentation and those tools of straight and sound thinking do NOT turn those
games with words into philosophy. But, when philosophers employ those tools
they think they are doing philosophy, that those tools transform any thought or
expression into (meaningful) philosophy. Many philosophers, especially
professional philosophers in the anglo-phone, even try to turn the exploration of
those tools into philosophical subject-matter, and write endless books and
articles on the topic.

Employing in/formal or any other form of logic or mathematics, reasoning,

arguments and critical thinking do not guarantee that you do philosophy or that
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(the study of) those tools mysteriously create philosophical objects or subject-
matter. And, as imagined or alleged, those tools are not the tools or instruments
or exclusive property of philosophy (as discipline or practice) and of the
discourse of philosophy exclusively or only.

Worse, when employing these tools of all ordinary, more rational thinking and
behaviour, numerous fallacies in thinking are committed (by philosophers).
Much of what is presented and studied as philosophy is the result and
consequence of such fallacies (committed by Kant, Hegel, Marx, et al).
Philosophers themselves by their usage or mistaken usage and misleading
assumptions concerning these alleged philosophical tools, fallacies and
cognitive biases self-create, and endlessly re-create, so-called philosophical
subject-matter, problems and issues.

For a list of some Fallacies see the Appendix to this FREE book of mine:
https://www.academia.edu/31276710/_Meta-
Philosophy_Philosophers_and_their_lack_of_Meta-Cognition or Thouless:
Straight and Crooked Thinking, etc.

The tools, the methods, the techniques and the methodology (and underlying or
implicit assumptions or tacit pre/suppositions) of the doing of philosophy/izing
form part of the potential and possibility of the philosophical socio-cultural
practice, but they also contribute to the creation of the limits of what philosophy
is and what it could do. Other things that contribute to the creation of limits and
limitations of the philosophical discourse include: the nature, functions, usage
and operations of ideas, concepts, principles, values, attitudes, norms, cognition
and cognitive biases.
These and other things contribute to the nature, the essence and essentials of
philosophy, the doing of philosophy and philosophizing. They create and allow
of what it is to be philosophy and to execute philosophizing by giving structure
and form to these things by the limits they lay down for philosophical methods,
tools and techniques such as reasoning, the creation and use of arguments and
argumentation and the actualization of the steps and stages of the processes of
philosophical theorizing. By structuring these things, by the giving of form to
these things they impose limits, they structure the dos and the donts of the
doing of philosophy by creating limitations, structures, limits, ideas, standards,
norms, principles, regulations and values. These cognitive-related, social and
cultural practices, principles, values and norms form part of the features and
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characteristics of the discourse of philosophy and the doing of philosophy by

the creation and maintenance of the traditions and customs for what can be done
as philosophy (in the Western tradition), what may and might be done when
philosophizing in this tradition and what will be excluded or can not be done as
philosophy or when employing the socio-cultural practices of philosophizing.

The mechanisms of doing philosophy (its tools, techniques, methods, etc) also
create the limits of doing philosophy and restrictions on philosophizing by
norms that lay down that what can be allowed, perceived, conceived, explore,
conceptualized, identified, expressed, made effable, revealed, explained and
reasoned for and reasoned about, argumentation for, understood, what and how
ideas, concepts and insights can or cannot be conceptualized and structured. The
philosophical discourse have underlying methodological, epistemological and
ontological assumptions and principles, values, norms, attitudes, cognitive
biases that structure, direct and determine potential and possible philosophical
insights, problems and questions these phenomena can be identified, explored
and explained by an analysis of the philosophical, socio-cultural, intersubjective
practice, discipline, discourse and tradition. Factors, trends and variables can be
identified in this discourse and practices that reveal the many similarities that
exist between the systems and philosophizing of philosophers and seemingly
very different schools, approaches and isms. Such similarities are of greater
importance and significance than the apparent differences that exist between
such schools, systems and thinkers and they can be explained in terms of the
limits, limitations, structures, values and norms of and caused by the discourse
and discipline of philosophy they are built into this discourse and underlie the
doing of philosophy and the philosophical discipline.

The metaphysical (epistemological, ontological, methodological, sociological

and cognitive) features of philosophy and philosophizing have both a positive
as well as a more negative function, purpose and goal. On the one hand, they
make philosophy and philosophizing possible and enable it by providing it with
potential, possibilities, structures, tools, cognitive functions and operations and
norms (for cognition, thinking, reasoning, argumentation, exploration, dealing
with questions and problems, conceptualization, development of conjectures,
creating hypotheses, models and theorizing and the drawing of conclusions and
the making of generalizations and on the other hand they have intra- or built-in
restrictions, limits and limitations to what could be done in and by means of the
Western tradition of the philosophical discourse and discipline. In cases where
such limits are crossed we arrive at the creation of isms, ideologies, reasoning
15

and arguments that are invalid and not sound, cognitive and other biases and the
employment of fallacies in misleading thinking. The ideas and concepts, their
meanings and their inter-connections being employed and neologisms that are
created must follow certain rules so as to be able to be meaningful concepts
obviously cannot be employed, inter-connected or created in just any way but
must follow certain linguistic rules so as to be (intersubjectively) meaningful,
relevant and acceptable. In these and other ways the norms that enable the doing
of meaningful philosophy restrict the ways in which it can and must be done
and exclude other ways of doing it if it were to be meaningful and to have sense
instead of being meaningless and non-sense.

Before we continue with our exploration of the medium or media in the

philosophical discourse, let us have a look at the discussion of medium in art,
and scepticism, criticism, acceptance or rejection of it by Modernism and Post-
Modernism.
http://www.iep.utm.edu/art-medi/

1. Introduction

Artistic medium is a term that is used by artists and art critics to refer to that
out of which a work of art or, more generally, a particular art form, is made.
There are, generally speaking, two related ways of using artistic medium in
critical or artistic discourse. On the one hand, we often talk about an artistic
medium by reference to the material out of which a work of art is made.
Works of art in museums or galleries will often have the medium listed along
with the title and the artists name on the display card. A painting might have
oil on canvas or watercolor listed along with the artists name and the
works title; a sculpture might have marble, steel, or papier-mch
listed in the same way. On the other hand, we also talk about medium to
refer to the way a work of art organizes its audiences experience in space
and time. An actor might talk about the differences in performing on
television and on film as performing in two different artistic media. Or a
critic might describe television as a writers medium and movies as a
directors medium. Sometimes there may be no interesting differences
regarding the material out of which the work was made; for this way of using
medium, the crucial differences have to do with the spatiotemporal
organization of the audiences experience of the work of art.

Much of the critical and theoretical interest in the concept of artistic

medium stems from a belief that analyzing the material conditions that
16

underlie a particular art form allows us to articulate its norms and

standards. Often critics and theorists who make use of the concept of
artistic medium do so in order to connect an analysis of an art forms
material basis and conditions with some claim about what artistic norms
or standards are proper to the art form. Because the connection between a
description of a medium, an art forms material basis, and the artistic
experiences appropriate to that medium is a matter of some controversy,
clarification of the philosophical insights and confusions associated with
the concept of artistic medium must start not by arriving at its
comprehensive definition, but rather by noting the characteristic forms of
reasoning in which the concept is used.

There have been two relatively distinct forms of discourse involving

artistic medium: a modernist discourse, and one associated with newly
emergent popular art forms such as movies and comics. The uses of
artistic medium in these discursive traditions have shared important
similarities, especially a reliance on the concept to identify what is
distinctive about a particular art form and an interest in grounding the
norms governing a particular art form in the forms material basis. But
there are important differences as well. Modernist uses of the concept
appeal to artistic medium as a way of justifying avant-garde approaches
to traditional art forms by making clear how contemporary experimental
instances of a form are genuine instances of that form because they
inherit the tradition in question by purifying it of all that is inessential and
accidental. Proponents of newly emergent popular art forms, on the other
hand, are interested in articulating what is unique about the new forms in
order to locate their possibilities in distinction from traditional or older
forms and to demonstrate how its best instances are works of art.

In recent years, some analytic philosophers of art have suggested that the
concept of artistic medium is necessarily a confused one and should be
abandoned in favor of other art-critical concepts such as style or genre.
For example, Nol Carroll, in his theorization of film in the 1980s and
90s, suggested abandoning medium as a critically inert and confused
category. More recently, Carroll has found critical uses for the concept of
artistic medium, especially in the analysis of exemplary instances of
avant-garde film. Though Carroll does now recognize legitimate
applications of the concept of artistic medium in film criticism and
theory, it is nonetheless worthwhile to take seriously his initial radical
skeptical challenge to critical and theoretical uses of the concept of
artistic medium. Doing so allows one to articulate certain characteristic
17

confusions that some theorists and critics have historically exhibited in

their medium analyses. But, equally, it allows for the opportunity to
clarify what, historically, has characterized the richest and most insightful
critical and theoretical uses of artistic medium. As we shall see, these
kinds of confusions are apt to arise when the theorist or critic does not
remember that artistic medium is an art critical concept. As an art critical
concept, what a medium for an art form is can only be known through
artists discovering its possibilities in the creation of works within the
form.

In general, confusions arise in using artistic medium when theorists and

critics do not treat the concept as a critical one, but instead picture a
medium as something that could be identified prior to and independently
of any particular artistic uses to which it is put. In Art as Experience
(1934), John Dewey attempts to combat this possibility for confusion by
distinguishing between an artistic medium and raw material. When we
identify some collection of matter prior to and independent of any
particular artistic context, then we have identified some raw material,
which may, it is true, be put to use for various artistic ends. But we cannot
specify what artistic possibilities are available to artists by identifying
and analyzing that material. Rather, when a given vehicle is taken up and
explored within a particular artistic problematic or tradition, artists
discover it as an artistic medium. It is thus through the work of artists that
the artistic possibilities of an artistic medium can be discovered, and not
by analyzing the material in isolation. In this sense artistic medium
essentially is a critical concept. What is possible within a particular
medium is discovered by artists as they attempt to explore a particular
artistic problematic or inherit a particular artistic tradition. For this
reason, what the medium of an art form is, as Theodor Adorno insists in
Philosophy of New Music (1948), is a historical question. There is no
fixed, ahistorical answer to the question, What are the material
conditions for painting, or music, or any particular art form?

In order to clarify the nature of the concept artistic medium, this article
takes two different, although closely related, lines of approach. This
article will first clarify the roles artistic medium can rightfully play within
critical and theoretical discourses by responding to the challenge of
medium skepticism, which takes the concept to be necessarily confused.
Then, it will outline the history of artistic mediums emergence by
describing the forms of critical reasoning in which the concept has been
characteristically used. In so doing, the article will articulate why the
18

concept has been so important for the development of new forms of

popular art and for avant-garde and modernist experimentation, and why
the concept has been vulnerable to characteristic confusions.

The first section of this article will engage with the challenge of medium
skepticism. Medium skepticism, a position recently prominent in the
philosophy of art, holds that artistic medium gives rise to a set of
characteristic confusions because the concept is both essentializing and
one that grounds its reasoning in a priori reflection upon the nature of the
material basis of an art form. As we shall see, those two theoretical
temptations are not inherent in the concept but are dangers only given a
certain picture of how we determine what the medium is.

Then, employing Adornos thought that our understanding of what a medium

is must be located in the history of the development of its art form, the article
describes the emergence of the concept of artistic medium and the history of
its critical and theoretical uses in the development of modern arts. First, there
is a brief account of how philosophers and critics in the ancient world and
the European tradition theorized artistic possibilities relative to a given art
form prior to the emergence of artistic medium as a critical and theoretical
category: namely, by identifying an art form and its norms and standards by
specifying its proper experience. Then, the two sites of emergence for the
concept of artistic medium are described: first, in the 18th century, in the
critical work of Gotthold Lessing and, most importantly, his reflections on
the differences between painting and poetry; second, most decisively, in the
19th century, in response to the invention of photography, its potential as a
new art form, and its relation to painting. This complex historical field
within which the concept of artistic medium emerged allows us to locate the
centrality of the concept in 20th-century artistic discourses and also the
philosophical confusions associated with it.

2. The Challenge of Medium Skepticism

1. Carrolls Medium Skepticism

2. The Need for the Concept of Artistic Medium

3. Theorizing About Art Forms Before the Emergence of the Concept of

Artistic Medium
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1. Aristotle

2. Aristotle and Horace as Models for Theorizing Art

3. Music

4. Gotthold Lessing and the Problem of Art in the 18th Century

1. Art in the 18th Century

2. Lessing on Painting and Poetry

3. Herder and Hegel

5. The Invention of Photography and the Discovery of Its Artistic

Possibilities

1. The Etymology of the Term Artistic Medium

2. The Challenge of Photography

3. Accounting for Photographys Artistic Possibilities

6. Modernism as the Discovery of Medium

1. The Emergence of Modernism

2. Modernism and 20th Century Music

3. Fried on the Value of Modernism

4. Postmodernism

7. New Forms of Popular Art in the 20th Century

1. Movies

2. Comics

3. Video Games

8. Conclusion

9. References and Further Reading

20

With these explorations and usages of the artistic medium or media in mind,
we can approach the medium or media employed in the discourse, socio-
cultural practice or discipline of philosophy. This will include language,
words, semantics, pragmatics, concepts, ideas, reasoning, argumentation,
principles, values, attitudes, norms and other intersubjective characteristics
and features of this discourse.

If one is sceptical towards philosophical media or not, it is impossible to

escape the fact that the limitations created by the media being employed
cannot be transcended. With such transcendence of semantic, normative,
logical and other limits to cognition, thinking, reasoning, argumentation,
theorizing, conceptual usage etc, one will simultaneously cross over into
non-sensical areas exhibiting lack of meaning and sense, confused thinking,
committing fallacies in reasoning and invalid argumentation.

Remaining within the limitations of philosophical media or methods enable

the creation of meaning, sound reasoning and valid arguments, while the
crossing of those limits will lead to the creation of non-sense, non-meaning
and ideological thinking such as isms caused by cognitive confusions and
mistaken conceptual usages or practices. It seems as if philosophizing by the
medium of language, linguistic practices, concepts and ideas immediately
impose many limitations and confine one to all sorts of limits that require
one to remain within the norms implied by these philosophical media. Ideas,
words and concepts require one to follow the rules embedded in or expressed
and represented by them. One is compelled to the logic of linguistic usage,
conceptual practices, concept-formation and ideas. One cannot fabricate
ideas or neologisms in just any way, one cannot inter-connect concepts in
just any manner as there exist rules that confine one and therefore determine
how such things can be employed. These philosophical media present one
with potentials but also restrictions and limitations. Concept-formation and
concept-creation or conceptualization must remain within these limits if one
wishes to express meaningful propositions. By remaining within the imposed
limitations or prescribed limits the production and employment of meaning,
meaningful concepts and ideas are guaranteed, while lack of meaning, non-
meaning or non-sense are excluded. The norms of the philosophical media
impose the following of certain conceptual practices, rules for conceptual
usage and formation or conceptualization or inter-connection of concepts in
certain ways. This is the positive function or aspect of such norms, while the
negative, seemingly restrictive function, aim and aspects of the limits are the
exclusion of meaningless, unsound reasoning and invalid argumentation.

9
21

We find all sorts of talk, dialogues, discussions, criticism, narratives,

explorations and explanations and other types of narrations in philosophy,
philosophical speeches, texts and writing. One thing these things have in
common is that they are intended to make philosophical sense, that is they
must be relevant and meaningful in the contexts of the philosophical socio-
cultural practice, discourse and disciplines.

What makes these different types of communication or communicative

practices philosophical? One of the norms that regulate such ways of doing
and expressing philosophy is the methodology, the methods, techniques,
instruments and tools of philosophizing. Regardless if the philosopher is
trying to persuade us that naturalism is presenting us with the only reality, or
that the world consist of facts not things or are nothing but ideas, all these
approaches and isms, if they wish to be philosophically meaningful, must
adhere to the methods, the paths, that are created by, constructed by means of
and exhibit reasoning, preferably sound reasoning. This reasoning could
take all sorts of forms but in the end all these ways of reasoning will, must
and should employ valid arguments and argumentation.

Do these things determine how things should be said, must be expressed,

ought to be presented so as to be philosophically meaningful and relevant?
Do these tools of reasoning or rational ways also determine, not how things
should be narrated, said, expressed and communicated, but also what could
be said philosophically? In short, does philosophical methodology restrict,
limit, direct and determine not just how things ought to be said so as to be
philosophically meaningful and relevant, but also what can be said? Does the
methodology, the methods, tools, techniques and instruments that are
employed by the discipline of philosophy determine, restrict and direct
philosophical epistemology and ontology?

Let us approach this question from another direction is it possible to say,

describe or express just anything in any way, that is if one is a professional
philosopher, an academic or have a PhD, and ones status guarantees that
what one does in words will be philosophy? Can someone with suitable
philosophical qualifications and status do anything with words, concepts and
ideas and it will be philosophical? To ensure that it appears philosophical
one could always add a bucket or two of philosophical, technical terms
even citations, obtain peer reviews and publish ones thoughts in some or
other journal. Are these sufficient guarantees that what is said by and in
words are philosophy? Is it the case that language, words, concepts and ideas
must be used and expressed in certain ways so as to give the appearance that
they are philosophical or express philosophical thoughts and insights? What
is it that bestows the status of being philosophical on the propositions one
22

creates and the statements one handles and fabricates? Is it because they are
used in a rational manner, by reasoned thinking, by reasoning, to construct
arguments and constitute argumentation?

We tried to explore if it is the case that if one wishes to say something

philosophical then one must use language, words, ideas, concepts and
statements that express propositions. We also investigated if one must
employ these tools in certain ways so as to be able to express statements that
are philosophical, philosophically meaningful and relevant. Do these tools or
methods of philosophizing also determine what can, what cannot and what
must be said so as to have the appearance of being philosophical?

Let us take as an example the tools of the painter, to what extend do they
restrict, limits and confine, but also enable the artists to create a painting? Or
the tools of the composer of music, the director of films and videos, novelists
and poets? Or the tools of the mathematician, the logician, the theoretical or
experimental physicist, astro-physicist, historian and sociologist? In the case
of philosophers, their habitual us, abuse, misuse or mistaken usage of their
methods and techniques eventually and inevitably lead them to the creation,
the fabrication and production of metaphysical speculations and some form
of ism.

Are there ways or methods to employ the tools of the philosopher without
ending in the cul-de-sac of some kind of ism and avoid the tendency of
producing (metaphysical) speculations? Is the so-called, or alleged, Socratic
method one way to avoid the making of metaphysical speculations, one way
to avoid committing oneself to one or other exclusive ontological position, in
others an ideology of a set of ideas, and not to enclose oneself in the prison
of using language, words, concepts, ideas, the making of statements and the
expression of propositions in ways that restrict oneself to the straightjacket
of some epistemological ism and/or the reduction to a metaphysical ism?

10

A little and very simple story there is this man, let us call him Socrates,
who goes around talking, or if you wish discourse, discuss and dialogue
with people, to people. He is not a professor in anything, has written no
books, did not publish articles in peer reviewed journals, received no awards
or other qualifications, but, according to him, he is obsessed with truth or it
seems to me the clarification of meaning, with the aim of identifying and
making explicit the underlying values and attitudes (and the isms and idea
logics or ideologies subscription to certain attitudes commit people to,
commit them to certain epistemologies, ontologies, methodologies or
philosophies in the everyday use of the word).
23

Is what this fellow Socrates is doing philosophy? Is his usage of language

and words to identify trends and patterns in the way those he dialogue with
worthy of the name of philosophy? Why apply the label philosophy to it
because it resembles what is done during philosophy tutorials at Oxford?

Does he present us with his own unique metaphysical (epistemological,

ontological, methodological, anthropological, sociological, cognitive, etc)
system of isms? If not, then surely he is no systematic metaphysician, no
philosopher fabricating isms? Has he anything profound to say about truth
or justified beliefs, does he speculate about what and how consciousness and
mind are, gives us solutions to the problem of mind-body, the embodied
person and groups, communities, societies and cultures of intersubjective
persons? Does he at least use technical terms from the philosophical worlds
glossary? Does he employ some form of symbolic, propositional, informal or
formal logic in his chats I mean explicitly and not merely implicitly, using
straight and not crooked thinking, avoiding isms, free from cognitive biases
and so on through the entire philosophical repertoire of methods, nay ways,
techniques, instruments from the philosophers toolbox?

We know he enables the identification of peoples attitudes (underlying their

intersubjective constitutions of life-worlds, selves, discourses or other socio-
cultural practices, interactions, love games or games of love and courtship,
thinking and reasoning or the absence of clear thinking, feelings, emotions,
their knowing hows and knowing thats, etc) by revealing them during his
verbal intercourse and discourse with them. But, is what he is doing relevant
and related to philosophy? On what grounds can he claim to be a philosopher
that is, if he has any interest in claiming that title or wish to apply it to the
midwifery role he occasionally acts out? Does he produce any philosophy or
add anything to the discourse of philosophy? Does he, his discussions or his
activities employ, follow and execute any of the norms of the philosophical
discipline? Does he reveal any of the values of this socio-cultural practice? If
not, why do we consider what he does to have any resemblance to the nature,
the discipline, the practice, the institution and establishment of philosophy or
philosophical ways of doing things, of thinking and using words? What is it
that we learn (philosophically that is) from his ways of doing things with
words? Does he add anything to our library of philosophical books, to our
worlds of philosophical information, to our realities of philosophical insights
and understanding, and lastly, but not least to our, or the philosophical
discourses bank of wisdom? If so, how does he do it? What do we learn
from him philosophically? Is what he does contributing anything positive to
the philosophical discourse? Does his posing questions and making enquiries
provide us with any philosophical knowledge, any facts and understanding
that we did not already have? In short, if what he does is philosophy is the
24

doing of philosophizing how and why would we consider his doings to be

philosophically relevant, philosophically meaningful, valued, valuable and
valid? Is he and the Philosophical Investigations not merely pulling the wool
over eyes, not merely blindfolding us with his verbal tricks and conjectures,
with his linguistic histrionics outplaying us like those super-muscular female
tennis players?

11

Can we identify any isms, any logics of negative and restrictive, confining
ideas in the Socratic Method and PI? If so what are these philosophical ideas,
or ideologies and isms? How are they caused, but which assumptions and
pre-suppositions, by which ideas and what ways of using those ideas and/or
the methods being employed? This is the negative side of those two methods
but their positive side should identify and present to us useful, necessary and
even insights into the doing of philosophy. If this is the case then Socratess
ways of doing things are informing us about more than merely psycho-social
or socio-psychological attitudes, values and norms that underlie the ways in
which people think, talk, interact, behave, exist and use words to do these
things when they constitute and maintain their selves, intersubjectivities,
their life-worlds and realities. If this is the case then the ways or methods of
the SM and the PI identify, reveal to us and illustrate how metaphysical, or
ontological, epistemological, methodological, anthropological, sociological
and psychological isms, values, attitudes, norms, cognitive assumptions can
be identified and how they confine, determine and lead to the ways in which
people exist, constitute their selves, their worlds, their realities, thinking,
understanding, cognition, and so on.

Can we describe the nature, the details of the SM and PI methods? How they
work and prevent the creation of negative cognitive and existential biases,
attitudes, metaphysical speculation, restrictive and misleading isms in our
thinking, interaction and living, etc.

Do these methods themselves employ, affirm and have (negative, limiting,

restrictive, misleading, negatively operating or functioning) metaphysical,
epistemological, methodological, anthropological, etc biases, assumptions
and pre-suppositions? If so, what are they and how do they function? Even if
it could be shown that these methods avoid the development of biases and/or
-isms, we could question if they still represent the doing of philosophy? Is it
still philosophy that we do when we use them? In what sense do they enable
or produce or lead to positive philosophizing and philosophical insights? Is
there only one type or one kind of philosophy or many types of philosophy
25

and doing philosophizing? What is the nature and what are the methods of
such different philosophical types, if they do exist or are possible?

How do these methods or approaches of (seemingly unequal, one-sided, or

one-person-initiated, directed and controlled?) dialogue and questioning
prevent the creation of and do not lead to or create metaphysical speculation
and the development of yet another speculative philosophical system? What
is the nature of the dialogue and more specifically the so-called Socratic
Dialogue and of the methods used in PI? How do the SM and the PI deal
with subject-matter? Can one use these methods with any subject-matter, to
explore and investigate any thing or are there limits to the subject matter that
could be investigated? If there are limitations imposed by these methods on
the subject-matter that could be investigated philosophically, what are these
limitations and how do they function? How are these methods employed and
how should they be used? What are the aims, the purpose/s, the principles,
the values, norms (what can, what cannot, what may and what must be done
when employing these methods), principles and the (philosophical,
metaphysical, epistemological, methodological, ontological, anthropological
and other) assumptions implied by and underlying these methods?

12

In his book titled Individuals Strawson informs us about the different

kinds of Metaphysics. Much, most if not all, of traditional philosophy he
labels as Speculative Metaphysics. He views that type of philosophizing and
their results in a negative light, he warns against doing that pointless kind of
exercise and rejects it and its results.

In contrast to this pointless, meaningless, invalid exercise he presents us with

what he thinks, and says, that he himself is doing, namely merely description
or descriptive metaphysics. Descriptive metaphysics he views in a positive
light and suggest, even demands, that that is how meaningful, acceptable and
valid philosophy should be done.

3 Descriptive Metaphysics (DM) Speculative Metaphysics (SM) 4

Soft SM (and Hard DM) Hard SM

We illustrate these two hypothetical positions of doing philosophy, the only

existing and possible ones, on the above continuum.
26

I however think there exist other ways of doing philosophy or other kinds of
metaphysics, if we are compelled to use this notion. I further wish to
hypothesize that traditional SM is a hard (speculative) metaphysics, and that
Strawsons DM is not completely different in its nature, methods, attitudes and
assumptions from (hard) SM.

To explain more why I suggest this and to illustrate these two types of soft and
hard Metaphysics, I wish to extend the continuum. I do this by placing to other
possible types of doing philosophy or kinds of philosophizing on the continuum
below.

_1______________________________________________________2___

Socratic Method (Metaphysics?) PI Methods (including or using

NO SM (no Speculative Metaphysics) some description or SOFT DM)

No DM

SOFT Explorative Methods (Soft EM) NO SM (Speculative Metaphysics)

Hard Explorative Methods (Hard EM)

I extend Strawsons continuum of his Soft Speculative Metaphysics (Soft SM

and his own Hard DM Hard EM Number 3 (hard Descriptive Metaphysics but
SOFT Speculative Metaphysics, Hard Explorative Methods) and Number 4 (of
traditional philosophizing) consisting of Hard Speculative Metaphysics or Hard
SM.

I do this by adding my continuum with Number 1 (of the Soft Explorative way,
method, tendency, approach or stance of the Socratic Method, and questioning if
it does or does not and that it might or might not include or involve any form of
Metaphysics at all?) and the Number 2 of PI (and the Hard Explorative way)
that employs some form/s of description (Soft Descriptive Metaphysics) to the
Strawson continuum.

We then have the continuum below with 4 positions of metaphysics -

1 Socratic Method 2 PI (Soft DM) 3 Hard DM (Soft SM) Hard SM 4

Soft EM Hard EM Hard EM

27

Do these four positions involved any Explicit or Hard Metaphysical Position

(EMP) or merely an Implicit or Soft Metaphysical Position (IMP)?

- An Explicit and Hard Ontological position (EO) or merely an Implicit

and Soft Ontological Idea or position (IO)?
- An Explicit and Hard Epistemological position (EE) or merely an Implicit
or Soft or no Epistemological position (IE)?
- An Explicit and Hard Methodological (EM) stance or an implicit or no
Methodological position (IM)?

1_________________2___________________3______________4____

1 = Socratic Method (apparently unconcerned with metaphysics in any sense

and most definitely NOT involving traditional philosophy say of Plato, Kant
or Hegel, with its Hard Speculative Metaphysics. Even rejecting, bracketing,
questioning or excluding and thereby escaping from Hard Descriptive, Soft
Speculative Metaphysics of Strawson [and many so-called analytic schools
and their philosophers and philosophies] with its underlying assumptions and
other kinds of things, positions, approaches or ideas involved in and implied
by Soft Descriptive Metaphysics). This method employs a Soft Explorative
(Soft EM) philosophical approach. IMP, IO, IE or EE, IM or EM.

2 = the Philosophical Investigations. It employs a Hard Explorative (Hard

EM) and a Soft Descriptive Method (Soft DM), and it might, or might not,
commit itself to some kind of Soft SM or Speculative philosophizing of the
traditional kind of philosophy. IMP, IO or EO, EE, EM

3 = Represented by Strawson and others of the so-called Analytic schools

or movements, representing a Hard Explorative method (Hard EM) and a
Hard Descriptive Method (Hard DM) and a soft Speculative Metaphysics or
a Soft (often unintended, implicit metaphysical assumptions and implications
that philosophers are unaware of) SM. EMP, EO, EE, EM

4 = Representing the usual positions, approaches and methods of philosophy

such as those of Heidegger, Descartes, Husserl, Derrida, Leibniz, Habermas,
and others of the so-called Continental schools, movements, approaches,
aims, ways and interpretations of philosophy the doing of philosophy and
philosophizing. a Hard and intended Speculative Metaphysics (SM),
28

might have some Hard Descriptive Method (DM?), probably a Hard

Explorative position (Hard EM). EMP, EO, EE, EM

Soft Hard Implicit Explicit Speculative

Descr
Metaphysical 1,2 3,4 1,2 2,3,4 4
2,3
Descriptive 2 3,4 2 2,3,4 4
2,3
Explorative 1 2,3,4 1,2 2,3,4 3,4
2,3
Methodological 1 2,3,4 1 1,2,3,4 3,4
2,3
Epistemologica 1 2,3,4 1 1,2,3,4 3,4
l 2,3

Hard
3,4 4

Soft
2 3

Ontological 1,2 3,4 1,2

2,3,4 2,3 3,4

13

Development of Human Cognition and Knowledge (knowing how facts and

knowing that skills),

The x-axis represents the age of (intellectually average) individuals, and/or the
realized intellectual development of the individual. 1) This will obviously vary
from individual to individual (because of their nature and nurture), class and
29

other factors. 2) As well as the individual and his culture, society and sub-
cultures available human cognitive (know how and know that) and the
disciplines he is involved in.

The y-axis represents the historical situation of the individual, his discipline,
social situation and culture.This will provide the individual, discipline, society,
discipline and cultures available cognitive knowledge and know how or skills
and will change and develop over time.\

Available Intellectual AGE increases or develops and depends on and are

relative to the civilization, culture and individual

100

80 X

60 X X
X

40 X
X

20

HISTORICAL Y
PERIOD
30

Knowledge
and skills
increase

500BC 0 500AD 1000AD 1500AD 2000AD

TABLE 1

The following continuum represents a) relative limits or limitations

concerning cognitive know that (information) and know how (skills) that are
changeable as far as the homo sapiens sapiens, disciplines and individuals
are concerned. This concerns the individuals development, changes in
disciplines, the species, epistemological factors, available knowledge and
cognitive skills, socio-cultural, personal that can develop.

b) represents unchanging biological, physical, laws of nature or cognitive

limits and limitations concerning the human biology, brain, epistemological
and ontological factors that are absolute and universal and unchangeable, the
Kantian| type transcendentals.

A relative or changeable cognitive factors. B Absolute or unchangeable

Laws , variables, Factors

A___________________________________________________________B

The x axis represents relative, changeable cognitive, discipline-related,

socio-cultural, epistemological, personal and other factors.

The y axis represents absolute, unchanging, species-related, biological, bio-

chemical, ontological and other factors.

X Changeable personal, species, discipline, socio-cultural factors

31

Absolute, universal, species-related, discipline, unchangeable factors Y

X relative, changeable cognitive, discipline, individual, socio-cultural,

species, epistemological factors. These factors and variables develop and
grow as their limits limitations are relative and can be changed.

2000AD X

1500AD X

1000AD X

500AD X

0 X

500BC X

____________________________________________________Y

Y Absolute, unchangeable, universal, ontological, epistemological,

biological, bio-chemical, physical, brain, species, discipline, social, cultural,
cognitive factors. These factors cannot change as they are unchangeable
limits and limitations.

a) Certain philosophically relevant things are relative and undergo change,

modification, differentiation and development.
32

These include certain aspects, features, processes, functions of the discipline

of philosophy (its limits and limitations), consciousness, cognition, brains,
embodied selves, organisms, language, concepts, ideas, -isms, methods,
assumptions, our socio-cultural and physical environment, planet earth and
the universe.

a___________________________________________________________b_

b) Other features, aspects, functions and processes do not undergo any

change, or if they do change it is very gradual and over a very long period of
time.

These include certain aspects, features, processes, functions of the discipline

of philosophy (its limits and limitations, its methods, reasoning, arguments,
argumentation, objectives, aims), consciousness, cognition, language, ideas,
our embodied selves, organism, brains, concepts our social and cultural and
physical environment, planet earth and the universe.

The philosophical discipline contains a number of self-imposed limits and

limitations (for example language, concepts, the tendency to create and
employ isms, methods and assumptions).

These phenomena come in different types and kinds, they good be limits
concerning qualitative or quantity and restrictions, some of them are external
limits while others are inner, internal or intra limits. Some of them are
necessary processes and have essential and necessary functions. Some of
them concern the aims, purpose and the goals of philosophy, its practices and
tools (language, concepts, ideas, terms and terminology, reasoning, thinking,
arguments, argumentation), its subject-matter and assumptions

Certain limits and limitations are negative or operate in a negative manner

and have negative functions, while others operate in and have a positive
function. The latter provides the discipline with opportunities, potentials,
possibilities and enables differentiation and development. Disciplines other
than philosophy share a number of these limits while they subscribe to or
create other limits as well. Limits include the boundaries of perception, the
bounds of creating and maintaining sense, the means of concept-formation,
employment, employing imaginary experiments, execution of experiments,
ideas, models, theories and concepts so as to go beyond or shift present
limits and contemporary limitations.Thereby they enable the transformation
of present limits with the result that previously unknown fields, areas and
contexts are changed into known, meaningful areas. The latter then can be
33

seen or perceived, conceptualized, thought and investigated. These things

were previously invisible, not perceived or thought, but now they can be
depicted, expressed, conceptualized, visualized, talked about, explored,
grasped, investigated and become part of models and approximate theories.
In this way they increase, and enable cognitive differentiation, both in
quality and quantity. They enable the widening, deepening, extending,
transformation and modification of the not known or unknown (previously
invisible, unthought) into the thought and known.The not yet known are
reduced while the known are extended. For example, humans once only
knew their local cave or hut, forest, mountain, river and environment, or a
small area of land, the known areas increased until they became aware of
other lands, areas, nations, culture, continents and eventually the entire
planet earth, then our solar system, other planets, the sun and moons, our
galaxy and eventually they developed a perspective or frame of reference
that allowed them to know of and conceptualize the ideas of a universe or
multiverse.

In these ways we find the limits and limitations of our frames of reference,
perspectives, perception, mind sets, thinking, understanding, reflection and
all round cognitive abilities deepened and extended in quality and quantity.
Or to express it in more traditional philosophical or metaphysical terms,
more features or aspects of the so-called things-in-themselves become or
are transformed into things-for-us or known, intersubjectively by us. The
known gradually increases as the unknown decreases.

https://iainews.iai.tv/articles/thinking-without-limits-auid-338

Thinking Without Limits

Saturday 22nd March
Are there no limits to what the human mind can comprehend?
Simon Saunders | Oxford philosopher of physics, author, Many Worlds?

Simon Saunders is currently Professor of Philosophy of Physics at the

University of Oxford, and Fellow of Linacre College. He is noted for his
work on quantum mechanics (particularly the many-worlds interpretation),
on identity and indiscernibility in physics, and on structural realism. What
do you think the idea of thinking the unthinkable actua...
34

Saunders was an early champion[2] of 'structural realism', the view that mature
physical theories correctly describe the structure of reality. Structural realism is
today regarded by many philosophers as the most defensible form of realism.[3]

He was also amongst the first to draw attention to the consequences of

decoherence for the many-worlds interpretation (MWI) of quantum mechanics;
he defended a decoherence-based version of MWI in a series of articles
throughout the 1990s.[4]

More recently, Saunders has worked extensively on the interpretation of

probability in quantum mechanics. Along with David Deutsch and David
Wallace, he has developed techniques for deriving the Born Rule, which relates
quantum amplitudes to objective probabilities. He has applied these arguments
to operational approaches to quantum mechanics[5] as well as to MWI.[6]

Saunders has also been a central figure in recent debates over identity and
indiscernibility in physics. He was the first to apply the Hilbert-Bernays
definition of identity in formal first-order languages to physical theories, both
spacetime theories and quantum mechanics,[7] going on to show that elementary
fermions and composite bosons in quantum theory satisfied the principle of
identity of indiscernibles, using the Hilbert-Bernays definition of identity.[8]

In related work, he has argued that classical particles could be treated as

indistinguishable in exactly the same way that quantum particles (and that
departures from classical statistics can be traced to discrete nature of the
measure -- dimensionalityof subspace of Hilbert space), and applied this to
the Gibbs paradox.[9]

Saunders has also developed a general framework for the treatment of

symmetries whereby all symmetries, not only gauge symmetries, as applied to
strictly closed systems, yield only redescriptions of the same physical state of
affairs. In a slogan: 'only invariant properties and relations are physically real'.
[10]

In addition, Saunders has worked on quantum field theory, on the philosophy of

time, and on the history of physics; he has written numerous encyclopaedia
articles and book reviews.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Saunders

The many-worlds interpretation is an interpretation of quantum mechanics

that asserts the objective reality of the universal wavefunction and denies the
35

actuality of wavefunction collapse. Many-worlds implies that all possible

alternate histories and futures are real, each representing an actual "world" (or
"universe"). In layman's terms, the hypothesis states there is a very large
perhaps infinite[2]number of universes, and everything that could possibly
have happened in our past, but did not, has occurred in the past of some other
universe or universes. The theory is also referred to as MWI, the relative state
formulation, the Everett interpretation, the theory of the universal
wavefunction, many-universes interpretation, or just many-worlds.

The original relative state formulation is due to Hugh Everett in 1957.[3][4] Later,
this formulation was popularized and renamed many-worlds by Bryce Seligman
DeWitt in the 1960s and 1970s.[1][5][6][7] The decoherence (Quantum
decoherence is the loss of quantum coherence. In quantum mechanics, particles
such as electrons behave like waves and are described by a wavefunction. These
waves can interfere, leading to the peculiar behaviour of quantum particles. As
long as there exists a definite phase relation between different states, the system
is said to be coherent. This coherence is a fundamental property of quantum
mechanics, and is necessary for the function of quantum computers. However,
when a quantum system is not perfectly isolated, but in contact with its
surroundings, the coherence decays with time, a process called quantum
decoherence. As a result of this process, the quantum behaviour is lost.
Decoherence was first introduced in 1970 by the German physicist H. Dieter
Zeh and has been a subject of active research since the 1980s.[1]

) approaches to interpreting quantum theory have been further explored and

developed,[8][9][10] becoming quite popular. MWI is one of many multiverse
hypotheses in physics and philosophy. It is currently considered a mainstream
interpretation along with the other decoherence interpretations, collapse theories
(including the historical Copenhagen interpretation),[11] and hidden variable
theories such as the Bohmian mechanics.

Before many-worlds, reality had always been viewed as a single unfolding

history. Many-worlds, however, views reality as a many-branched tree, wherein
every possible quantum outcome is realised.[12] Many-worlds reconciles the
observation of non-deterministic events, such as random radioactive decay, with
the fully deterministic equations of quantum physics.

In many-worlds, the subjective appearance of wavefunction collapse is

explained by the mechanism of quantum decoherence, and this is supposed to
resolve all of the correlation paradoxes of quantum theory, such as the EPR
36

paradox[13][14] and Schrdinger's cat,[1] since every possible outcome of every

event defines or exists in its own "history" or "world".

https://iainews.iai.tv/articles/dethroning-consciousness-auid-390

Dethroning Consciousness
Monday 28th July
As neuroscience probes ever deeper into our minds, is there still a space for free
will?
Barry C Smith | Director of the Institute of Philosophy, University of London

Barry C Smith is a professor of philosophy at Birkbeck and Director of the

Institute of Philosophy at the School of Advanced Study, University of London.
His interests range from the philosophy of wine to Chomskyan theory of mind
and language. Here, he discusses free will, philosophy of mind, and our

https://iainews.iai.tv/articles/neuro-everything

Neuro-Everything?
Tuesday 03rd December
Colin Blakemore reveals neuroscience's profound new insights into human
behaviour

Are we on the verge of unlocking the secrets of the human brain? Colin
Blakemore reveals neuroscience's profound new insights into human behaviour,
with seismic consequences for everything from economics and warfare to our
justice system.

14

Theorizing

.Here are a number of articles/books where I discussed the nature of

theorizing as well as the need for philosophy to take note of the nature and
the processes of theorizing and if it is necessary and meaningful to do
philosophy to notice that doing philosophy employs aspects of the features
and processes of theorizing. And that philosophy should employ theorizing.
37

https://independent.academia.edu/UlrichdeBalbian/Drafts\

https://independent.academia.edu/UlrichdeBalbian/Books

https://www.academia.edu/30391232/Philosophy_as_Theorizing

https://www.academia.edu/30439751/Philosophy_theorizing_sociology.....

https://www.academia.edu/30473885/Death_of_philosophy_subject-
matter_and_methods_theorizing_sociology_and_cognitive_theory

https://www.academia.edu/30479175/Death_of_philosophys_methods_subje
ctmatter_theorizing_cognitive_sciences_sociology

https://www.academia.edu/30505428/Philosophy_Meta-
_Experimental_Philosophy_subject-matter_methods_theorizing_

https://www.academia.edu/30547224/Meta-
Philosophy_Philosophizing_resembling_Theorizing_

https://www.academia.edu/30703651/philosophizing_no_do_theorizing

https://www.academia.edu/30703651/philosophizing_no_do_theorizing

I wish to make a point on the use of metaphors in theorizing. Weick emphasizes

the importance of this and in this article Cornelissen deals in great detail with
this. He suggests the 8 optimality principles should be used when creating
metaphors in theorizing - the eight optimality principles are the following,
with the first six the original ones proposed by Fauconnier and Turner
(1998, 2002; see also Coulson 2001; Coulson and Oakley 2000): the
integration, topology, web, unpacking, good reason, metonymic tightening,
distance and concreteness principles.

I mention this as I wish to employ the metaphor of fishing as metaphor

for the doing of philosophy. The Socratic midwifery and the gadfly (later
employed by Wittgenstein helping the fly out of the bottle)
Continued latter.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://philosophycourse.info/lecsite/lec-socmidwife.html
38

Socrates as Midwife
What in the heck was Socrates doing with his life?
Socrates regularly used two metaphors to describe what he considered his life-work to be.
One metaphor was that of the gadfly, the horsefly that stings the intellectually and morally
sluggish citizens of Athens with his questioning. "For Athens is a great and noble steed that is
tardy in its motions," and needs someone to sting it to life, he says.

The other metaphor he uses to describe his work is that of the midwife who helps others give
birth to the wisdom that is in them. He says it thus, in The Theaetetus , 150 b-c

My art of midwifery is in general like theirs [real midwives]; the only difference is that my
patients are men, not women, and my concern is not with the body but with the soul that is in
travail of birth. And the highest point of my art is the power to prove by every test whether
the offspring of a young man's thought is a false phantom or instinct with life and truth. I am
so far like the midwife that I cannot myself give birth to wisdom, and the common reproach
is true, that, though I question others, I can myself bring nothing to light because there is no
wisdom in me. The reason is this. Heaven (Jowett: "the god") constrains me to serve as a
midwife, but has debarred me from giving birth. So of myself I have no sort of wisdom, nor
has any discovery ever been born to me as the child of my soul. Those who frequent my
company at first appear, some of them, quite unintelligent, but, as we go further with our
discussions, all who are favored by heaven make progress at a rate that seems surprising to
others as well as to themselves, although it is clear that they have never learned anything
from me. The many admirable truths they bring to birth have been discovered by themselves
from within. But the delivery is heaven's work and mine.

https://outre-monde.com/2011/03/18/socrates-the-midwife/

Socrates the Midwife

18 Mar 2011 1 Comment

by Neel Burton in Philosophy, Psychiatry/psychology Tags: midwife, Plato, Socrates,

Theaetetus

In the Theaetetus, a young Theaetetus admits that he has thought about the problem of
defining knowledge many times before and suffers from his lack of an adequate solution.
Socrates says, These are the pangs of labour, my dear Theaetetus; you have something
within you which you are bringing forth. Socrates compares himself to a midwife, who can
establish whether a woman is pregnant, induce labour, calm its pain, and bring about the
delivery of a healthy child. He differs from a midwife only in that he works with men rather
than with women, and with the soul rather than with the body. Just like the midwife is past
bearing age, so he is barren not of children, but of wisdom. All he can do is to bring forth
wisdom in others, and the triumph of his art is in thoroughly examining whether the thought
which the mind of the young man brings forth is a false idol or a noble and true birth.
Sometimes the young man takes all the credit for himself, leaves him sooner than he should,
and once again begins to set more value upon phantoms than upon the truth. In such cases the
39

young man loses whatever he gave birth to and miscarries whatever remains in him. Then one
day he realises that he is an ignorant fool and falls upon his knees, begging to return. Socrates
warns that, should Theaetetus give birth to a phantom or false idol, he will tear it away from
him and expose it.

And if I abstract and expose your first-born, because I discover upon inspection that the
conception which you have formed is a vain shadow, do not quarrel with me on that account,
as the manner of women is when their first children are taken from them. For I have actually
known some who were ready to bite me when I deprived them of a darling folly.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/639347?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

http://www.theosophy-nw.org/theosnw/world/med/me-wtst.htm

http://www2.idehist.uu.se/distans/ilmh/Ren/soc-midwifery.htm

Socrates explaining his art of philosophical midwifery to

Theaetetus in the dialogue with the same name.

- Well, my art of midwifery is in most respects like theirs; but differs in that I attend men
and not women, and I look after their souls when they are in labor, and not after their
bodies; and the triumph of my art is in thoroughly examining whether the thought which
the mind of the young man is bringing to the birth is a false idol or a noble and true
birth. And like the midwives, I am barren, and the reproach which is often made against
me, that I ask questions of others and have not the wit to answer them myself is very
just! The reason is, that the god compels me to be a midwife, but forbids me to bring
forth. And therefore I am not myself at all wise, nor have I anything to show which is the
invention or birth of my own soul, but those who converse with me profit. Some of them
appear dull enough at first, but afterwards, as our acquaintance ripens, if the god is
gracious to them, they all make astonishing progress; and this is the opinion of others as
well as their own. It is quite clear they have never learned anything from me; and the
many fine discoveries to which they cling are of their own making. But to me and the
god they owe their delivery.

http://www.sophia-project.org/uploads/1/3/9/5/13955288/plato_midwife.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_method

Socratic method, also known as maieutics, method of elenchus, elenctic method, or

Socratic debate, is a form of cooperative argumentative dialogue between individuals, based
on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to draw out ideas and
underlying presumptions. It is a dialectical method, often involving a discussion in which the
defense of one point of view is questioned; one participant may lead another to contradict
themselves in some way, thus weakening the defender's point. This method is named after the
classical Greek philosopher Socrates and is introduced by him in Plato's Theaetetus as
midwifery (maieutics) because it is employed to bring out definitions implicit in the
interlocutors' beliefs, or to help them further their understanding.
40

The Socratic method is a method of hypothesis elimination, in that better hypotheses are
found by steadily identifying and eliminating those that lead to contradictions. The Socratic
method searches for general, commonly held truths that shape beliefs and scrutinizes them to
determine their consistency with other beliefs. The basic form is a series of questions
formulated as tests of logic and fact intended to help a person or group discover their beliefs
about some topic, exploring definitions or logoi (singular logos) and seeking to characterize
general characteristics shared by various particular instances. Aristotle attributed to Socrates
the discovery of the method of definition and induction, which he regarded as the essence of
the scientific method.

http://www2.phy.ilstu.edu/pte/209content/theaetetus.html
http://www.digitalcounterrevolution.co.uk/2013/the-teacher-as-midwife-socrates-
rousseau-and-21st-century-pedagogy/
http://www.digitalcounterrevolution.co.uk/2013/the-teacher-as-midwife-socrates-
rousseau-and-21st-century-pedagogy/

Socrates, whose mother was a midwife, used to say

that his art was like the art of the midwife. She does not
herself give birth to the child, but she is there to help
during its delivery. Similarly, Socrates saw his task as
helping people to 'give birth' to correct insight, since
real understanding must come from within. . . .
Everybody can grasp philosophical truths if they just
use their innate reason.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Continued..

metaphor for the nature of the doing of philosophy is of course well know,
but it is limited as it does not included all aspects of the processes of the
doing of philosophy, as the metaphor of fishing does.The latter is able to
include all 8 optimality principles.

http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/1921/
This article draws upon Karl Weicks insights into the nature of theorizing, and
extends and refines his conception of theory construction as disciplined
imagination. An essential ingredient in Weicks disciplined imagination involves
his assertion that thought trials and theoretical representations typically involve
a transfer from one epistemic sphere to another through the creative use of
41

metaphor. The article follows up on this point and draws out how metaphor
works, how processes of metaphorical imagination partake in theory
construction, and how insightful metaphors and the theoretical representations
that result from them can be selected. The paper also includes a discussion of
metaphors-in-use (organizational improvisation as jazz and organizational
behavior as collective mind) which Weick proposed in his own writings. The
whole purpose of this exercise is to theoretically augment and ground the
concept of disciplined imagination, and in particular to refine the nature of
thought trials and selection within it. In doing so, we also aim to provide pointers
for the use of metaphorical imagination in the process of theory construction.

Cornelissen, J.P. (2006) Making sense of theory construction: Metaphor and

disciplined imagination. Organization Studies, 27 (11). pp. 1579-1597. ISSN
1741-3044
DISCIPLINED IMAGINATION: PROCESSES AND
CONTRIBUTIONS
Prior to Weicks article in 1989, many commentaries had considered the
process of
theory construction as a mechanistic and linear process of moving from
problem
statements to constructs and testable propositions. As Weick noted,
because of this
characterization, most descriptions considered theory construction as a
linear process
of problem solving, and showed a concomitant concern with outcomes
and products
rather than process (Weick, 1989: 517). Weick (1989) suggested instead
to view

theory construction as a process of disciplined imagination, and in doing

so
introduced a shift in focus from the rule-based generation of theory, which
may have
been the dominant view in the past (e.g., Daft and Lewin 1990; Pinder and
Bourgeois
1982), to the topology of metaphors, to creative variation in imagination,
and to the
projection from one domain to another of
conceptual organization (Weick 1989).
Disciplined imagination poses an evolutionary process of theory
construction that is characterized by simultaneous rather than sequential
thinking and
42

revolves around three components: problem statements, thought trials, and

selection
criteria. These components represent reference points in the process where
researchers can act differently and produce theories of better quality. As
Weick
(1989: 529) remarks; ...theory construction can be modified at the step
where the
problem is stated (make assumptions more explicit, make representation
more
accurate, make representation more detailed), at the step where thought
trials are
formulated (increase number of trials generated, increase heterogeneity of
trials
generated), and at the step where criteria select among thought trials
(apply criteria
more consistently, apply more criteria simultaneously, apply more diverse
criteria).
Four characteristics of disciplined imagination are important to fully
understand and appreciate this particular perspective upon theory
construction. A first
characteristic is that disciplined imagination assumes an active role for
researchers
who construe theoretical representations, rather than seeing such
theoretical
representations as deductively or naturally following from problem
statements. theorizing is typically more like artificial selection than natural
selection as
the
theorist rather than nature intentionally guides the evolutionary process [of
selecting
theoretical representations].
A second characteristic of disciplined imagination is that it suggests that
metaphorical imagination is the central epistemic logic that is used to
develop and
select theoretical representations in relation to a target subject or problem
(see also
Morgan 1980). Here, researchers are seen to engage in a number of mental
experiments or thought trials where they iterate between reviewed
literature,
43

preliminary analyses, background assumptions and their own intuition to

consider a
rich cascade of metaphorical images as representations of the subject or
problem in
hand (imagination) before selecting and deciding upon one metaphorical
image that
serves as a starting point for a further inquiry into it (discipline).
Metaphorical
imagination thus typically includes a combination of both deductive
reasoning, based
upon a reading of the available literature on the topic, and inductive
reasoning
through intuitive thinking, rather than a focus on either one (Weick 1989).
In Weicks
(1989: 529) own words; theorists depend
on pictures, maps, and metaphors to grasp
the object of study, and have no choice [in this], but can be more
deliberate in the
formation of these images and more respectful of representations and
efforts to
improve them.
A third characteristic of disciplined imagination is that it emphasizes that
the
representations that result from the heterogeneous variation of
(metaphorical) images
in relation to a target subject or problem can only be selected and assessed
on the
basis of judgments of plausibility (rather than validity) and their
subsequent currency
for extended theorizing and research. That is, (metaphorical) imagination
leads to
simulated images which cannot themselves be directly falsified but can
however be
elaborated on to form more full-scale representations of a subject or
problem. Here,
Weick (1989) anticipates the important difference between metaphorical
images that
exist in a pre-conceptual, non-propositional form and the theoretical
models,
44

constructs and propositions that are derived from them and that figure in
extended
theorizing and research. Metaphorical images are embodied imaginative
structures of
human understanding that give coherent, meaningful structure to our
experience at a
pre-conceptual level (see also Johnson 1987), although indeed, within our
theorizing
endeavors, we often proceed with discussing them in the abstract and
reducing and
explicating them in propositional terms (see also Folger and Turillo 1999;
Morgan
1980, 1996).
The fourth characteristic concerns the evolutionary epistemology that
underlies much of Weicks work (e.g. Weick 2004) including the notion of
disciplined imagination. In disciplined imagination, this evolutionary
perspective
suggests first of all that theory construction involves a process of variation,
selection
and retention of theoretical representations. Moreover, it suggests that
better
theorizing results from multiple and heterogeneous variations of
representations to
arrive at the one(s) with survival value. In this sense, disciplined
imagination is
reminiscent of Koestlers (1964) well-known comments on the
development of new
conceptual insights. Koestler (1964: 264) likened this to the process of
biological
evolution claiming that new ideas are thrown up spontaneously like
mutations; the
vast majority of them are useless, the equi
valent of biological freaks without survival
value. The creative process, accordingly, is seen as something like a
series of trial-
and-error tests of the various metaphoric combinations of concepts
possible.
METAPHOR, SEMANTIC LEAPS AND DISCIPLINED
IMAGINATION
45

Throughout his writings, Weick (1989) recognizes the creative component

to
associative thought and to the creation of metaphor. Ideas or concepts are
capable of
entering into relations with an unlimited variety of other ideas or concepts
(Anderson
1976: 147), rather than a limited set of predefined categories. In Weicks
words,
scholars pull from different vocabularies (Weick 1995b: 107) in the
creation of
metaphors and through the use of such metaphors supply language with
flexibility,
expressibility and a way to expand the language (Weick, 1979: 47). As
such, there is
a certain dynamism and fluidity to metaphors, with words and concepts
existing in a
continuous, analog fashion in our semantic memory (Johnson 1987; Lakoff
1993)
that, when connected to another concept, can be brought to bear upon a
different
realm of our experience. The theatre concept, for instance, has been
metaphorically
connected to concepts as diverse as identity formation within social
psychology
(e.g. Goffman 1959), human consciousness within the cognitive and
brain sciences

associative thought and to the creation of metaphor. Ideas or concepts are

capable of
entering into relations with an unlimited variety of other ideas or concepts
(Anderson
1976: 147), rather than a limited set of predefined categories. In Weicks
words,
scholars pull from different vocabularies (Weick 1995b: 107) in the
creation of
metaphors and through the use of such metaphors supply language with
flexibility,
expressibility and a way to expand the language (Weick, 1979: 47). As
such, there is
46

a certain dynamism and fluidity to metaphors, with words and concepts

existing in a
continuous, analog fashion in our semantic memory (Johnson 1987; Lakoff
1993)
that, when connected to another concept, can be brought to bear upon a
different
realm of our experience. The theatre concept, for instance, has been
metaphorically
connected to concepts as diverse as identity formation within social
psychology
(e.g. Goffman 1959), human consciousness within the cognitive and
brain sciences
(e.g. Baars 1997), and rituals and behavior within organization theory
(e.g.
Mangham and Overington 1987). What this suggests is not only that our
semantic
memory allows us to connect up a vast range of different experiences that
manifest
the same recurring structure, but also that concepts themselves are
semantically not
rigid or fixed (and strictly ordered in hierarchical relationships or
categories), but can
in a more fluid sense be applied and connected to other concepts in and
through the
use of metaphors (see also MacCormac 1986).
Weick emphasized this point in his early writings

imaginative capacities of meaning construction are evoked to produce

emergent
meaning. The strengths of CB theory are that it provides an account of
how
metaphorical meanings are actively constructed within Weicks
disciplined
imagination. In addition, CB theory suggests that the products of
metaphorical
mappings are more influential when they adhere to a set of specific
principles known
as the optimality principles; a set of constraints under which metaphors
are most
47

effective. Fauconnier and Turner (1998) argue for six such optimality
principles. In
addition, we suggest and illustrate two further optimality principles
which on the
basis of evidence from research on metaphors within organization studies
are also
relevant (see Cornelissen 2004, 2005). The following section outlines the
role of
metaphorical imagination within the process of disciplined imagination
and
discusses the impact of these optimality principles on the development,
selection and
retention of metaphors and the theoretical representations that stem from
them.
IMAGINING APT AND MEANINGFUL METAPHORS
Weick (1989) noted that organizational researchers, like scientists in other
social
scientific fields, not only
direct
themselves the metaphorical imagination process but
also subsequently
select
the theoretical representation(s) for the target subject under
consideration. In one sense, this
artificial
selection process, to paraphrase Weick
(1989), is reflected in the huge variety of ways in which the subject of
organization
itself has been thought of and represented. Here, we discuss two
metaphors,
organizational improvisation as jazz and organizational behavior as
collective
mind which Weick himself has imagined, selected and advanced in his
writings
As a whole, the eight optimality principles are the following, with the
first six the
original ones proposed by Fauconnier and Turner (1998, 2002; see also
Coulson 2001; Coulson and Oakley 2000): the integration, topology, web,
unpacking, good reason, metonymic tightening, distance and concreteness
principles.
48

Despite their poetic names, most of these principles are derived from
standard usage. In other words, disciplined imagination is rooted in the
view that the logic of
scientific discovery, including the process of theory construction, is
psychological,
that is, a matter of heuristics - and not just logical, that is, composed of
deduction and
predictions (see also Simon 1973). Weick (1989: 519) remarks to this
effect that pressures that obtain in all mapping situations including
metaphorical mappings (see
Hofstadter 1995, for a review). The organizational improvisation as jazz
metaphor
satisfies most of these principles including the integration, topology, web,
unpacking,
good reason, metonymic tightening and concreteness principles. The
organizational
behavior as collective mind equally satisfies a multitude of principles
including the
integration, topology, web, unpacking, good reason, metonymic tightening
and
distance principles (Table 1).

http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/1921/1/Cornelissenj1_paperOSWeickfinalversion.
pdf

Sutton, R. I. and Staw, B. M. (1995) What theory is not. ASQ 40:371-384. Authors
routinely use references, data, variables, diagrams, and hypotheses in lieu of
good theory.

Sutton and Shaw: What Theory is Not

faculty.babson.edu/krollag/org_site/craft_articles/sutton_theory_not.html

What Theory is Not - jstor

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2393788
by RI Sutton - 1995 - Cited by 1594 - Related articles
theory in the social sciences, but there is more consensus that references, data,
variables, diagrams, and hypotheses are not theory. Despite this consensus,.

Sutton and Shaw: What Theory is Not

faculty.babson.edu/krollag/org_site/craft_articles/sutton_theory_not.html
49

Sutton, R. I. and Staw, B. M. (1995) What theory is not. ASQ 40:371-384. Authors
routinely use references, data, variables, diagrams, and hypotheses in lieu of
good theory.
A response by Weick
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2393789?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
http://borders.arizona.edu/classes/mis696a/resources/readings/Weick-1995-ASQ-
WhatTheoryIsNotTheorizingIs.pdf

Response by DImaggio
http://borders.arizona.edu/classes/mis696a/resources/readings/DiMaggio-1995-
ASQ-CommentsOnWhatTheoryIsNot.pdf
http://johnljerz.com/superduper/tlxdownloadsiteWEBSITEII/id188.html
http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/1921/
Cornelissen, J.P. (2006) Making sense of theory construction: Metaphor and
disciplined imagination. Organization Studies, 27 (11). pp. 1579-1597. ISSN
1741-3044
red46;;;In this section we will look at the process of theorizing or what
theorizing is not according to Weicks comments on Sutton and Staw
(http://links.jstor.org/sici?
sici=00018392%28199509%2940%3A3%3C371%3AWTIN%3E2.0.CO%3B2-
F)
What theory is not, theorizing is Weick, Karl E Administrative Science
Quarterly; Sep 1995; 40, 3; ABI/INFORM Global. As well as the article by
DiMaggio in Administrative Science Quarterly Vol 40 no 3 Sept 1995 pages
391-397.Comments on What theory is Not. Weick;
http://www.jstor.org/stable/258556 Theory Construction as disciplined
imagination.
The importance of this article by DiMaggio is because he suggests other kinds
of theory. That of course will change the whole picture as presented by Weick
and Theory or not, as suggested by Sutton and Staw.
Cornelissen, J.P. (2006) Making sense of theory construction: Metaphor and
disciplined imagination. Organization Studies, 27 (11). pp. 1579-1597 can be
mentioned for the reasons that he improves, according to him, Weicks work by
adding the use of the optimality principles and that he explicitly states that
Weick deals with (imagining apt and meaningful metaphors in artificial
selection or evolutionary epistemology) Metaphor (organizational
improvisation as jazz and organizational behavior as collective mind which
Weick himself has imagined, selected and advanced in his writings) He
suggests that these metaphors fulfil and adhere to optimality principles (*the
50

integration principle; topology principle, web principle, unpacking principle,

good reason principle, metonymic tightening principle, distance principle,
concreteness principle,) and stress the importance of it in Weicks work when
he discusses creative imagination and theory or theorizing. These metaphors
have created new images and theoretical representations of organizations.
Cornelissen suggests that adhering to the principles will extend and improve
Weicks take on theorizing as disciplined imagination.
Both metaphors are good examples of how metaphors lead to emergent
meaning (and cannot therefore be reduced to the meanings of its component
parts), and as such have enriched the conceptualization (and subsequent
understanding) of organizational improvisation and organizational behavior
and have generated novel inferences and conjectures, these metaphors were
also found to be apt and fitting to the target subjects that they are meant to
illuminate,
We (Cornelissen) argue that this is primarily the result of these two metaphors
adhering to a set of specific principles known as the optimality principles; a
set of constraints under which metaphorical blends are most effective. As a
whole, the eight optimality principles are the following*, with the first six the
original ones proposed by Fauconnier and Turner (1998, 2002; see also
Coulson 2001; Coulson and Oakley 2000): the integration, topology, web,
unpacking, good reason, metonymic tightening, distance and concreteness
principles. These principles are derived from standard pressures that obtain in
all mapping situations including metaphorical mappings (see
Hofstadter 1995, for a review). The organizational improvisation as jazz
metaphor satisfies most of these principles including the integration, topology,
web, unpacking, good reason, metonymic tightening and concreteness
principles. The organizational behavior as collective mind equally satisfies a
multitude of principles including the integration, topology, web, unpacking,
good reason, metonymic tightening and distance principles. Cornelissen
discusses them in detail on pages 17- 24Kayla Booth sums up Weick -
Theorizing by Weick Regarding "What Theory is Not, Theorizing IS" by Kayla
Booth says this Kayla Booth "What Theory is Not, Theorizing Is"
Karl E. Weick Argument Based on Process:

Theory as an end product vs. theory as a process.

Theory in the making! Conclusion The Gist Argument Theorizing Response to

Sutton and Staw "Benefit of the Doubt Piece":

This is not theory because

1) The author is lazy
2) The author is not there... yet Argument
Is Theory itself a Continuum or is the Process of Creating Theory a
51

Continuum?

"What Theory is Not, Theorizing Is" or

"What Theory is Not, Theorizing Can Be"

1) Sutton and Staw's 5 Parts are part of the process of making theory, reliant on
context
2) Authors should articulate where they are in the process of theory creation,
instead of calling it complete
3) Theory is a continuum
4) Nuances of language and original concepts may help further develop these
component In What theory is not, theorizing is Weick states that he wishes to
deal with the process of theorizing rather than the product. He agrees with
Sutton and Staw that : Theory is not something one "adds" to data, or
something that one transforms from weaker to stronger by means of graphics or
references, or can be feigned by flashy conceptual performance. He suggests
that references, lists, diagrams, data and hypotheses might not be theories but
can refer to theoretical development in the early stages. He then decides to look
at the theorizing process with the reminder that most theories are approximate
theories and not strong theories and Merton says they take four forms:
* general orientations
* analysis of concepts
* post-fact interpretation from a single observation
* empirical generalization
While they are not full theories, they can serve as means to further
development.

Like Sutton and Shaw say, it is hard in this low-paradigm field to spot which
efforts are theory and which are not. Theory can take a variety of forms and is a
continuum .
One can also go directly from data to prescription without a theory, as doctors
go from symptoms to treatment without a diagnosis sometimes. Data, lists,
diagrams are not theory but can help point to and elaborate theories.
We have the definition of theory as a supposition or a system of ideas intended
to explain something, especially one based on general principles independent
of the thing to be explained. It belongs to a family of words that include
hypothesis, thesis, conjecture, supposition, speculation, postulation, postulate,
proposition, premise, surmise, assumption, presupposition; opinion, view,
belief, contention . p.389 The process of theorizing consists of activities like
abstracting, generalizing, relating, selecting, explaining, synthesizing, and
idealizing. These ongoing activities intermittently spin out reference lists, data,
lists of variables, diagrams, and lists of hypotheses. Those emergent products
52

summarize progress, give direction, and serve as place makers. They have
vestiges of theory but are not themselves theories. Then again, few things are
full-fledged theories.
. The ongoing activities often create the lists, diagrams, etc. that eventually can
become real theory. "Those emergent products summarize progress, give
direction, and serve as place makers. I suspect that tight coupling between
treatments and symptoms, with belated theorizing of the outcomes, is a fairly
common tactic in theory construction. In my own ASQ paper re-analyzing the
Mann Gulch disaster (Weick, 1993), the argument developed partially by
taking the Mann Gulch data as symptoms and, through a series of thought trials
corresponding to treatments, seeing which concepts made a difference in those
symptoms. This exercise in disciplined imagination resulted eventually in the
theory that sense making collapses when role structures collapse
Weick develops his own ideas further in many articles and books, for example
in Theory construction as disciplined imagination. I have dealt with this
important article of Weick in much greater detail in my previous articles here
https://independent.academia.edu/UlrichdeBalbian
http://johnljerz.com/superduper/tlxdownloadsiteWEBSITEII/id87.html

I mention a few points that I found of importance in Weicks article. Problem,

problem statements in my view can change as one develops a theory.
Additional problems can be added and problems can be stated in greater detail
with new perspective that arrive during the development of the theory. As
Weick suggest accuracy and great detail is essential in stating the problems to
be dealt with by a theory.I think that apart from the problem/s to be
investigated problems concerning the development or evolvement of the theory
might also occur and they should be distinguished from the problems in the
problem statements. To deal with the problems data would have to be collected,
even though such a brain dump or phenomenological vision of problems might
not be accurate. Theorizing is not one-dimensional but multi-dimensional and
one must remain open to the fact simultaneously, parallel processing is required
and not simplistic linear thinking. Many cognitive skills will be required to
function at the same time for example sense making, ordering, selection,
creative thinking, adding new concepts, being aware of the implications of the
concepts and terms use, etc. One should also remain aware of the main
functional and unnecessary internal and external limits and constraints, such as
boundaries, are operating at every step of the process of theorizing. One can
take as example conjectures or suggestions to be dealt with. One will be
involved all the time in imaginary experiments and solutions, designing them,
conducting and interpreting them.
53

Weick highlights this by his three evolutionary (epistemological) notions or

processes of variation, selection and retention.

The quality of theory produced is predicted to vary as a function of the

accuracy and details present in the problem statement that triggers theory
building, the number of and independence among the conjectures that attempt
to solve the problem, and the number and diversity of selection criteria used to
test the conjectures
An essential ingredient in Weicks disciplined imagination involves his
assertion that thought trials and theoretical representations typically involve a
transfer from one epistemic sphere to another through the creative use of
metaphor.
The article follows up on this point and draws out how metaphor works, how
processes of metaphorical imagination partake in theory construction, and how
insightful metaphors and the theoretical representations that result from them
can be selected.
The paper also includes a discussion of metaphors-in-use (organizational
improvisation as jazz and organizational behaviour as collective mind) which
Weick proposed in his own writings
The whole purpose of this exercise is to theoretically augment and ground the
concept of disciplined imagination, and in particular to refine the nature of
thought trials and selection within it.
In doing so, he also aims to provide pointers for the use of metaphorical
imagination in the process of theory construction.
It is argued that interest is a substitute for validation during theory construction,
middle range theories are a necessity if the process is to be kept manageable,
and representations such as metaphors are inevitable, given the complexity of
the subject matter.
p.526 Generalists, people with moderately strong attachments to many ideas,
should be hard to interrupt and, once interrupted, should have weaker, shorter
negative reactions since they have alternate paths to realize their plans...
Generalists should be the upbeat, positive people in the profession, while
specialists should be their grouchy, negative counterparts.

p.528 The view that theory construction involves imagination disciplined by

the processes of artificial selection has a variety of implications and raises a
number of questions.
54

p.529 The assessment that's interesting has figured prominently throughout,

because it has been viewed as a substitute for validity... The reaction that's
interesting essentially signifies that an assumption has been falsified.

p.529 The choice is not whether to do mental testing. Instead, the choice is how
well this less than ideal procedure can be used to improve the quality of
theoretical thinking.

Weick sees the theorist as the creator, executioner and maintainer of

epistemological evolution. He must deal with the problem statements he creates
in a certain manner. He should introduce and consider as many relevant aspects
and details of the problems as possible. His statements should be accurate and
detailed and making explicit all assumptions. This will be done against the
background or in the context of the three processes of evolution that his
theorizing will resemble. He will design, conduct and interpret his theorizing as
if it is executing artificial selection that consists of imaginary experiments. The
three principles underlying this selection are closed related and consists of the
three activities of variation, selection and retention. Something like the survival
of the fittest (the most relevant, functional, meaningful and necessary) in
natural evolution.
Variations of problem solving of and conjectures of the problem statements will
be made and judgements by means of what is interesting, plausible, consistent
and appropriate must be executed.
Selection criteria by means of conjectures (about what should be retained and
what must be rejected) during thought trials (employing mental experiments or
simulations) will alter the conjectures, delete some, modify others and include
new ones. Imagination for example employs a technique of metaphors as
cognitive/heuristic devices. Simulated images are employed for theoretical
representation as aids to learning, exploration, discovery and problems solving.
According to Cornelissen, good examples of such metaphors are: trap door of
depression, a word painting or picture, boiling mad, clean slates. These
metaphors fulfil the criteria, he sets out, for the best metaphors to be used in
this context.

The problem statements will present the imagined thought trials with problems
to be solved, investigated, explained, dis/confirmed and identifying meaningful
domain words and sets of assumptions concerning these things. Smaller or
middle range theories will deal with solutions that have limited and explicit
assumptions, accuracy of the problem specification in detail.
The thought trials will employ metaphorical variation (as analysed by
Cornelissen in detail and with his suggestions to improve this technique) so as
to create a number of them with a great diversity. They will present conjectures
as ways to dis/solve the problem. For this diverse, heterogeneous conjectures
55

are required. Thought trials should be eclectic with periphery cases that are
often under-explore. This is where the function of selection criteria comes in.
They enable the manipulation of the selection process to retain that what is
plausible. Validation is not the key task of social sciences so selection criteria
of conjectures to be created replace validation. The theorist must control the
choice of the conjectures. The value of social science do not lie in validated
knowledge but in the suggestion (propositions) of relationships and
connections that change our perspective on an issue.
Weicks suggests theory construction as a process that involves imagination (by
the use of metaphors and imaginary experiences) and that is disciplined by
selection criteria (leading to the development of conjectures, variation,
selection, aptness, judgements of plausibility, dis/confirmed assumptions).
Cornelissen re-states terms used by Weick by the application of the eight
principles, for example thats concrete is the topology principle (preserve a
relations structure, for example organizational as collective mind) thats
obvious is the integration principle (concepts or domains that are unrelated are
brought together), etc. Other optimality principles that are employed in
mapping situations, for example at the level of thought trials and that can add
to variation in such trials by conceptual blending as in the case of metaphors, as
stated before, are the web (maintain mappings to input concepts), unpacking
(mapping schemes, other applications), good reason (significant elements,
managerial, scanning, interpretation of concept as calling concept by another
name), metonymic tightening (elements in the blend and the input), target and
source concepts must be from distant domains, concreteness (select concrete
not abstract concepts to blend with target concept) principles.
To summarize Weicks disciplinary imagination.
Construct theoretical representations, not merely deduct them from the problem
statement;
The logic (arguments?) used to develop and select representations by means
of thought trials, simulation and imaginary experiments;
Develop representations from heterogeneous variations;
Evolutionary epistemology, in the form of variation, selection and retention.
Variation of multiple and different images and metaphors that are apt, plausible
(fulfilling the criteria of the optimality principles); this will create new insights
for a conceptual advance (search for new concepts is an ongoing process of
meaning construction) exclamation mark next to it -
- Weick, Karl. E., Theory Construction as Disciplined Imagination, Academy
of Management Review, 1989, 14:4 516-531.

http://www.eurotherm.com/it-is-a-capital-mistake-to-theorise-before-one-has-
data
http://newlearningonline.com/learning-by-design/the-knowledge-
56

processes/conceptualising-by-theorising
http://newlearningonline.com/learning-by-design/the-knowledge-
processes/conceptualising-by-theorising
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/researchingsociology/2015/10/21/theorising-theory-
reflections-on-the-bjs-annual-lecture/
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/29199927.pdf
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19390961
Conventional thinking about preventive interventions focuses over
simplistically on the "package" of activities and/or their educational messages.
An alternative is to focus on the dynamic properties of the context into which
the intervention is introduced. Schools, communities and worksites can be
thought of as complex ecological systems. They can be theorised on three
dimensions: (1) their constituent activity settings (e.g., clubs, festivals,
assemblies, classrooms); (2) the social networks that connect the people and the
settings; and (3) time. An intervention may then be seen as a critical event in
the history of a system, leading to the evolution of new structures of interaction
and new shared meanings. Interventions impact on evolving networks of
person-time-place interaction, changing relationships, displacing existing
activities and redistributing and transforming resources. This alternative view
has significant implications for how interventions should be evaluated and how
they could be made more effective. We explore this idea, drawing on social
network analysis and complex systems theory.
http://web.mit.edu/curhan/www/docs/Articles/15341_Readings/Doctoral_Reso
urces/Weick_What_theory_is_not_theorizing_is.pdf
http://www.herts.ac.uk/research/centres-and-groups/tvad-theorising-visual-art-
and-design
http://www.researchinlearningtechnology.net/index.php/rlt/article/viewFile/171
09/19123
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory
https://www.amazon.com/Primer-Theory-Construction-B-
Classics/dp/0205501281
http://people.soc.cornell.edu/swedberg/2010%20Theorizing%20-%20Two
%20Brief%20Pieces.pdf
http://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/0_0_0/howscienceworks_20
57

https://www.researchgate.net/search/publications?q=Paul%20Davidson
%20Reynolds
http://www.soc.iastate.edu/sapp/soc401theory.html
Introduction

This page summarizes A Primer in Theory Construction, written by Paul

Davidson Reynolds. Reynolds states that the purposes of his book are:

to describe the various types of concepts and statements that comprise a

scientific body of knowledge.
to describe what form they should take to be accepted within the community
of scholars.

For more extensive information about theory construction than is provided

here, including descriptions of testing theories and strategies for developing a
scientific body of knowledge, see:

Gibbs, Jack P. 1972. Sociological Theory Construction. Hinsdale, IL: Dryden

Press.
Hage, Jerald. 1994. Formal Theory in Sociology: Opportunity or Pitfall?
Albany, NY: State University of New York.
Reynolds, Paul D. 1971. A Primer in Theory Construction. New York:
Bobbs-Merrill.

Definitions of Theory

Definitions of scientific theory fall within three general forms:

The "set-of-laws" form defines theory as a set of well-supported empirical

generalizations, or "laws." Here, theory is thought of as "things we feel very
certain about."
58

The "axiomatic" form defines theory as a set of interrelated propositions and

definitions derived from axioms (i.e., things we feel certain about).
The "causal" form defines theory as a set of descriptions of causal processes.
Here, theory "tells us how things work."

Reynolds defines theory as "abstract statements that are considered part of

scientific knowledge in either the set-of-laws, the axiomatic, or the causal
process forms." Thus, Reynolds definition focuses upon the notion of a set of
abstract statements that describe "things we feel certain about." This definition
differs somewhat from the one provided by Dr. Sapp ("A set of abstract,
empirically falsifiable statements about reality"). In Dr. Sapp's definition, a
theory might not yet have sufficient empirical support to "feel certain about it,"
but it nevertheless meets the criteria of science as an epistemology in that it
posits abstract statements that can be falsified through observation.

Abstractness

Abstract concepts are independent of a specific time and place. Because

scientific statements must predict future events, they cannot be specific to past
events. Scientists prefer theories that are as general as possible to time and
place.

Abstract concepts are independent of specific circumstances or conditions. This

independence permits efficiency in understanding and predicting future events.
Thus, the statement, "the greater the human capital investment, the greater the
life chances," contains two abstract concepts: human capital investment and life
chances. This statement can be used to derive and test a large number of related
hypotheses, such as:

The greater the formal education, the greater the income.

The greater the job experience, the greater the likelihood of promotion.
The greater the communication skills, the greater the job performance.
... and so on.
59

The process of science is one of moving continuously from one level of

abstraction to another. Scientists "borrow" abstract statements from theories to
derive hypotheses suitable to their specific study. They test these hypotheses
through observation. They "return" the results of their studies to the theory by
reporting to the community of scholars the efficacy of the theory in explaining
their observations. Supported hypotheses provide further support for and
confidence in the theory. Rejected hypotheses prompt consideration of revising
the theory or noting that it is less broadly applicable than originally believed. A
scientific body of knowledge is accumulated by this ongoing process of
borrowing, testing, revising, and building new theories.

Empirical Relevance

Empirical relevance refers to meeting two conditions of observation:

Scientific theories must be falsifiable. The distinguishing feature of science,

in contrast with other epistemologies, is that its statements can, in principle, be
rejected through observation.
Scientific theories must be supported by observations. When theories receive
strong empirical support, then we gain confidence in them, which allows us to
build safe bridges, send satellites into orbit, design effective crime prevention
programs, etc.

Intersubjectivity

It is impossible to be completely objective, value-free, and unbiased in any

human endeavor, including scientific inquiry. Thus, as described on the Primer
in Science web page, the community of scholars relies upon the "safety of
numbers" in reducing the likelihood that science reflects human frailties.
Intersubjectivity refers to shared understandings among the community of
scholars within a particular discipline. This intersubjectivity must be achieved
with respect to the definitions of concepts and the interpretation of the results
of empirical observations.
60

The Idea

Theories are stories, stories about how reality works. They differ from other
stories in the ways described above: they are abstract, causal, and falsifiable.
Nevertheless, they are stories about reality. And they come from somewhere.
Much has been written in the philosophy of science about induction and
intuition, the twin processes by which new theories are crafted, where
induction refers to designing theories by combining and raising to an abstract
level empirical generalizations and intuition refers to the "great thought" about
how something works. Whether meticulously crafted or designed by
inspiration, or some combination of both, it is the idea that describes how
reality works and helps us improve the human condition by this knowledge.
Davidson notes that the ultimate test of any idea is its utility in meeting the
goals of science. "There is no substitute for a good idea."

For the purposes of Sociology 401, we will direct our attention to sociological
thought rather than to philosophical inquiries into how ideas are formed. Also,
we will cover very few sociological theories except where we discuss them as
examples of sociological thought. Thus, we will focus our attention on the "big
stories," or "worldviews" that guide the development of sociological theories.
These grand schemes are called paradigms. They influence theoretical
development throughout a scientific discipline. Evolution, for example, is the
predominant paradigm of the life sciences; all theories in the life sciences rely
in part upon the principles of evolution to depict biological events.

As you would expect, paradigms are more stable than theories. A theory might
be revised or even rejected without necessarily revising or rejecting the
paradigm that influenced its development. However, with sufficient anomalous
findings, revisions to theories, and rejected hypotheses, scientists might begin
to question the paradigm itself. This questioning of the paradigm can create
"crisis events," wherein much of the body of knowledge within a scientific
discipline is questioned. For example, after many years of collecting sufficient
evidence to the contrary, astronomers eventually rejected the Ptolemian
paradigm of the solar system (i.e., the geocentric or Earth-centered perspective)
in favor of the Copernican paradigm (i.e., the heliocentric or Sun-centered
perspective). The dynamics of paradigm development, crises, and revolutions
61

in scientific thought are described in detail by the philosopher Thomas Kuhn in

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

Theories: An Overview

As a generalized schema, consider this depiction of a scientific theory. This

presentation incorporates elements from various authors on the philosophy of
science. Later, we will rely upon Reynolds' text to describe each feature of a
theory in more detail.

Paradigm: A worldview. "What is reality?"

Example: Functionalism posits that people negotiate the rules of society to
meet their survival needs.

Theory: A set of empirically falsifiable, abstract statements about reality.

Example: Social systems theory posits that to achieve their goals people
meet socially-defined role expectations associated with their statuses.

Proposition: One abstract statement within a theory.

Example: "The greater the human capital investment, the greater the life
chances."

Hypothesis: A specific case of the proposition.

Example: "The greater the formal education, the greater the income."

Operational Definition: The description of how each concept will be

measured.
Example: "The greater the years of formal schooling, the greater the total
household income before taxes."
62

The results of the statistical test of the research hypothesis (presuming it is

measured quantitatively) might lead the researcher to reject the null form of the
hypothesis (i.e., "There is no relationship between formal education and
income."). If so, then the results of observation lend support for the hypothesis,
the proposition, the theory, and the paradigm. If the null hypothesis is not
rejected, then the community of scholars will explore reasons why it was not
supported, including the notion that the theory (and perhaps the paradigm)
might not be a correct depiction of reality.

Concepts

Concepts, the building blocks of theories, are symbols designed to convey a

specific meaning to the community of scholars. They must be defined,
operationalized, and reviewed by the community of scholars for meaning and
accuracy. The concept self-esteem, for example, is defined as, "an individual's
sense of his or her value or worth," and most often is measured using
Rosenberg's Self Esteem Scale, which is widely accepted by the community of
scholars.

Concepts are defined with either primitive or derived terms. Primitive terms
cannot be defined with other symbols or language (e.g., colors, sounds,
attitudes, some relationships between individuals), but can only be further
described through the use of examples. A derived term is a set of primitive
words and symbols that further describes a concept.
An abstract concept refers to two or more events (e.g., temperature, human
capital investment). A concrete concept refers to a specific event (e.g.,
temperature of the sun, years of formal education).
Concepts can be measured either quantitatively or qualitatively. There is no
epistemological reason to suspect that either type of measurement is more or
less scientific, objective, or valid.
Concepts can be measured at the nominal level, indicating no inherent
ranking (e.g., male, female; Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Jewish), the ordinal
level, indicating ranking without a continuous ordering (e.g., large, medium,
small), the interval level, indicating ranking with a continuous ordering, with
no known zero-state (e.g, attitudes about same-sex marriage expressed on a 1-7
response scale), or the ratio level, indicating continuous ordered ranking with a
63

known zero point (e.g., age in years).

Statements

Statements are expressions about reality. They can be classified within two
groups, those that claim the existence of an event and those that describe a
relationship between two concepts.

Existence statements state that a concept exists (e.g., the object is a primary
group) or describe a relationship that exists (e.g., each individual in the group
contacts all other individuals at least once each week).
Relational statements posit a causal or associational relationship between
two or more concepts (e.g., the greater the formal education, the greater the
income). Note that, formally, a relational statement can include only two
concepts that vary because hypothesis testing, whether quantitative or
qualitative, can only be conducted on two variables. For example, the
expression, "the greater the formal education the greater the income and self-
esteem," cannot be tested because it might be true that the greater the formal
education the greater the income, but it might not be true that the greater the
formal education the greater the self-esteem. The statement must be split into
two expressions, one for income and one for self-esteem.

An apparent exception to this rule occurs when one tests whether a theory
fits the data because it seems like one is testing multiple hypotheses at once.
But this is not the case; rather, one is testing just one relationship: the one
between the whole theory and the data. It is possible, however, to include one
or more constant concepts within a formal relational statement to restrict the
domain of the statement (e.g., Among males, the greater the formal education,
the greater the income).

Note also that articles published in professional sociological journals often

include three or more variables within an "hypothesis" to convey multiple
relationships in a concise manner.
Associational statements state a relationship without implying cause. For
example, we might state that, "locus-of-control and self-esteem (two concepts
64

with similar meanings) are related," meaning they will vary together but not
necessarily cause one another.
Causal statements imply that x causes y (e.g., the greater the formal
education, the greater the income).
Theoretical propositions state relationships in an abstract form (e.g., the
greater the human capital investment, the greater the life chances).
Hypotheses state relationships in a concrete form (e.g, the greater the formal
education, the greater the income).

Forms of Theory

Theories can be expressed as a set of laws, in axiomatic form, or as a set of

causal statements.

The set-of-laws format expresses relationships as a set of highly supported

laws (i.e., typically in causal form). Consider, for example, the Theory of
Reasoned Action, proposed by Martin Fishbein and Izak Ajzen. Within this
theory we might state as one law, "the greater the attitude about the behavior,
the greater the intention to engage in the behavior." All the other paths implied
by the diagram would be listed as laws within the set of laws that define the
theory of reasoned action.
The axiomatic format expresses relationships as a set of axioms. For
example, within the theory of reasoned action, we might state as one axiom, "If
attitude toward the behavior, then intention toward the behavior." All the other
paths implied by the diagram would be listed as axioms within this format.
The diagram shown for the theory of reasoned action represents the causal
statement form. Each diagrammed path represents a theoretical proposition. For
example, we might infer from the diagram of the Theory of Reasoned Action
that, "the greater the attitude about the behavior, the greater the intention to
engage in the behavior."

Note Regarding the Format of Theory

65

The typical format used in sociology to express a theory is the set of causal
statements, often shown in a concise manner by the use of a diagram. In the
1980's, as part of an effort to make sociology "more scientific," sociologists
began to present their theories in axiomatic format (see volumes of The
American Sociological Review for examples of this effort). Sociologists
learned quickly that the formatting of a theory provided few advantages toward
accumulating a scientific body of knowledge; what mattered was the quality of
the theory, not its formatting. Note, however, that some sociologists will argue
that "theory" should be expressed either as a set of laws or in axiomatic format
(see: Formal Theory in Sociology: Opportunity or Pitfall?, edited by Jerald
Hage).
https://zcomm.org/wp-
content/uploads/zinstructionals/htdocs/RTInstruc/id6.htm
http://faculty.camosun.ca/francisadufebiri/files/2010/07/SOCIOLOGICAL-
THEORY-
Main Theories of Sociology
SHOW:
What is explained and
Concepts used
SHOW:
The Explanation and the
Paradigm Shift proposed
SHOW:
Strengths and Weaknesses
of the Explanation
CONNECT:
Theory to Public Policy,
Human Behavior, Human
Condition, Everyday Life
http://www.csun.edu/~egodard/asatheory/docs/CraftofTheorizing.pdf
Skills and A Few Tricks of Theorizing
66

Theory construction has its own important literature, by Stinchcombe and

others,
which needs to be carefully studied. There also exist some quick tricks of
theorizing or
warm-up exercises before the main Act of
Theorizing can begin. Here are a few:
1.
Pluralize

You dont have to work out your own theory of Love, Trust or Capitalism just
add an s and you are on the way! There are different kinds of love, different
kinds of
trust and varieties of capitalism.
# 2.
Generalize

The analysis of some topic often invites to a theoretical insight that has a
natural
fit with the data. A good theory, however, also covers situations that one
intuitively
would not apply it to. Simmel liked to speak about forms; and it is
a good term in this
5
context. Stripping the theoretical statement down to its bare bones is also a
good exercise,
which makes it possible to judge its generality and usefulness.
. Turn what you study into a social relationship

According to one of the great theorizers capital is not an object

but a social relationship; and according to another, the stranger is not a person
67

but a
relationship. This trick also works elsewhere: many things can be
conceptualized as
social relationships. But how about theory itself
is that a relations
hip as well? Or is it rather a language game one
that by definition encompasses both what is being said
and what is being done?

. Change nouns into verbs

Weber tried to avoid nouns in his theoretical sociology and made an effort to
replace them with verbs (Ch. 1, Economy and Society
should speak of structuration, not of structures. Do we similarly want to
speak of
theorizing or of theory of the process of doing theory or just the end product?
Descriptions, Explanations, Open & Closed Concepts
Description can be seen as a kind of theory and vice versa. Being able to
extract a
concept from a mass of empirical material also represents a very useful skill for
a
theorist. Sociologists do not read Kierkegaard, which is a pity because he is the
most
nimble and light-footed theoretician I have ever come across. Consider some of
his most
handsome concepts: dread, repetition.
With a little effort, all of them can also be turned into sociology.
It is important not to over theorize, especially before one knows a topic well or
has
68

started the empirical phase. Early have concepts that point

you in the right direction but that is all. These
open concepts bring as much life to the
closed concepts merging analysis as make it wither away. Once you know a
topic very
well, additional and final concepts can be constructed.
Sociologists not only describe and construct concepts, they also explain; and a
classic rule is that social facts are explained through other social facts. Or more
precisely,
social facts are basically explained through the constitution of the in-
ternal social milieu (Durkheim, Rules). Explanations can be small or big, and
they sometimes involve a
distinct social mechanism. While it is easy to get caught up in a discussion of
what is
distinctive about a social mechanism, what is really
hard is to suggest a new one.
Theorizing, from this perspective essentially consists of three parts: it begins
with
a description (1), proceeds with the creation of concepts
(2), and ends with the explanation (3). Each of the three tasks demands
its own set of skills and also represents a fine accomplishment in its own right,
when executed well. Theorists who excel in all three of these tasks are, like
Keynes
good economists, few and far between. Good theoreticians are the rarest of
birds (Keynes,
Essays in Biography).
http://www.zetterberg.org/Lectures/l20120315A.htm
Notes on Theorizing in Sociology
Backup of Twelve Tricks of Theorizing
by Hans L Zetterberg
69

https://books.google.co.za/books?hl=en&lr=&id=B-
iEAgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=process+of+theorising&ots=gZ2GJBt_
0I&sig=QvRDEJb2UQxo3cTvLDVFcGW9-
Zg&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=process%20of%20theorising&f=false
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26901757
The basic argument in this article is that sociology and social science more
generally are today severely hampered by the lack of attention being paid to
theory. Methods--qualitative as well as quantitative methods--have proven to be
very useful in practical research (as opposed to theory); and as a result they
dominate modern social science. They do not, however, do the job that belongs
to theory. One way to redress the current imbalance between methods and
theory, it is suggested, would be to pay more attention to theorizing, that is, to
the actual process that precedes the final formulation of a theory; and in this
way improve theory. Students of social science are today primarily exposed to
finished theories and are not aware of the process that goes into the production
and design of a theory. Students need to be taught how to construct a theory in
practical terms ('theorizing'); and one good way to do so is through exercises.
This is the way that methods are being taught by tradition; and it helps the
students to get a hands-on knowledge, as opposed to just a reading knowledge
of what a theory is all about. Students more generally need to learn how to
construct a theory while drawing on empirical material. The article contains a
suggestion for the steps that need to be taken when you theorize. Being trained
in what sociology and social science are all about--an important precondition!--
students may proceed as follows. You start out by observing, in an attempt to
get a good empirical grip on the topic before any theory is introduced. Once
this has been done, it may be time to name the phenomenon; and either turn the
name into a concept as the next step or bring in some existing concepts in an
attempt to get a handle on the topic. At this stage one can also try to make use
of analogies, metaphors and perhaps a typology, in an attempt to both give
body to the theory and to invest it with some process. The last element in
theorizing is to come up with an explanation; and at this point it may be helpful
to draw on some ideas by Charles Peirce, especially his notion of abduction.
Before having been properly tested against empirical material, according to the
rules of the scientific community, the theory should be considered unproven.
Students who are interested in learning more about theorizing may want to
consult the works of such people as Everett C. Hughes, C. Wright Mills,
Ludwig Wittgenstein and James G. March. Many of the issues that are central
to theorizing are today also being studied in cognitive science; and for those
who are interested in pursuing this type of literature, handbooks represent a
70

good starting point. The article ends by arguing that more theorizing will not
only redress the balance between theory and methods; it will also make
sociology and social science more interesting.
The pragmatist wave of theory construction. [Br J Sociol. 2016]
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26948064
Theorizing resistance. [Br J Sociol. 2016]
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26948063

What conception of the theoretical does 'theorizing' presuppose? Comment

on Richard Swedberg's 'Before theory comes theorizing or how to make social
science more interesting'. [Br J Sociol. 2016]
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26948062
Theorizing--for what? [Br J Sociol. 2016]
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26948061
Reply to the commentators. [Br J Sociol. 2016]
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26948060
The meanings of theorizing. [Br J Sociol. 2016]
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26948062
What conception of the theoretical does 'theorizing' presuppose? Comment on
Richard Swedberg's 'Before theory comes theorizing or how to make social
science more interesting'.
http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i10264.pdf
Why Theorize and Can You Learn to Do It?
The book has two parts, each of which consists of five chapters. The
first part deals with the issue of what you do when you
theorize in practical terms; the second with how to prepare and train yourself
for theorizing.
In chapter 1, the project of creative theorizing in social science is presented.
Here as elsewhere I will use the term creative theorizing, or an abductive-
oriented type of theorizing, to distinguish
the type of theorizing I advocate from that of others. I also dis-cuss the need for
71

a decisive break with some of

the ways in which theory is currently understood in social science. This is
followed
by four chapters that describe how to theorize in a practical way.
Chapter 2 argues that creative theorizing in social science has
to begin with observation. Chapters 3 through 5 describe how
you proceed from the stage of observation to the formulation of
a tentative theory. This part of the process I call building out the
theory, and it can be described as giving body and structure to the
th e or y.
First is the problem of naming the phenomenon you want to
study and of developing concepts that can help you to nail it
down and analyze it (chapter 3). In the attempt to produce a
theory, you may also need to use analogies and metaphors, construct a
typology, and more (chapter 4). No theory is complete without an explanation,
and there are many different ways of
coming up with one (chapter 5).
The second part of this book is devoted to the ways in which
you prepare yourself for theorizing, and also how you teach students how to
theorize. Heuristics are helpful in this and so are various practical
exercises (chapters 6 and 7). It is imperative to
know some theory to be good at theorizing, and how to accomplish this in a
practical way is discussed in chapter 8.
There is also the question of the role of imagination and the
arts in helping social scientists to theorize well (chapter 9). The
general approach to theorizing in this book is summarized in
the last chapter, which also contains a discussion of what I see as
the inherently democratic nature of theorizing (chapter 10).
The book ends as it starts, with Peirce. I have included an appendix titled How
72

to Theorize according to Charles S. Peirce.

The reason for this is that the work of Peirce is not as well known
in social science as it perhaps deserves to be. This is especially true
for the practical side of his work on abduction, which deals with
learning the art of theorizing
https://economicsociology.org/2014/11/01/how-to-actually-theorize-our-
research-richard-swedbergs-the-art-of-social-theory-is-a-unique-book-about-
the-craft-of-theorizing/
How to theorize a research? Richard Swedbergs The Art of Social Theory is
a unique book about the craft of theorizing
The Art of Social Theory is a practical guide to doing just that. (Open access to
the Introduction chapter)
In this unique users manual for social theorists, drawing on philosophy,
epistemology, and cognitive science, a leading economic sociologists and
expert on social theory Richard Swedberg (Cornell University) proficiently
explains how theorizing occurs in what he calls the context of discovery, a
process in which the researcher gathers preliminary data and thinks creatively
about it using tools such as metaphor, analogy, and typology. He guides readers
through each step of the theorists art, from observation and naming to concept
formation and explanation. To theorize well, you also need a sound knowledge
of existing social theory. Swedberg introduces readers to the most important
theories and concepts, and discusses how to go about mastering them.
For example, Swedberg recommends adding a new phase at the beginning of a
project before the research design is drawn what he calls the pre-study, a time
when early theorizing occurs by observing a topic intensely and discovering
something interesting or surprising to develop and explain. Instead of rushing
to use scientific methods to try to prove their points, social scientists ought to
spend more time exploring empirical data and developing creative research
ideas, Swedberg said. Swedberg writes: It is important, in other words, not to
pick your final topic until you have been surprised. If you follow this rule, you
will study something that might lead to new knowledge.
Richard Swedberg smoothly demystifies the process of theorizing, making it
accessible and exciting. Concurrently, The Art of Social Theory is also erudite
and rich with historical allusion.
http://www.wikihow.com/Theorize-and-Solve-Problems
73

Investigate the existing theories; gain knowledge of how people think about the
thing or problem already -- it can only help.
Decide whether your theory contains a hypothesis. If there are no existing
theories. Because, if it does, the Scientific Method was designed to handle very,
very many hypotheses.
3
Learn all you can about the Scientific Method of Investigation, because, done
properly, it comes up with practically irrefutable theories!
4
Ask yourself if your theory is widely applicable, by which it is meant that are
there are many members in its set of potential users, and are there many
members of the set your theory pertains to?
5
Be ready to be disproved by scientists, lawyers, accountants, economists,
ecologists, et al, because these people hold themselves out to be professional
experts in some discipline or a rather thin slice of some discipline. They may
criticize you with bothersome facts you had not previously considered, given
their (at least partially applicable) knowledge and practical experience.

6
Laugh at yourself, be ready also to be very surprised when it turns out your first
guess leads to a better one, and so on, until you have it damn well perfect!
7
Go back and do the previous steps again, just to be sure.
8
You must be ready to become fully informed on your area of expertise. You
now have a Working Theory on the face of it but what if someone comes up
with quarrelsome facts? Be ready to refute those facts with claims that they are
contingent on rare circumstances, next to impossible to achieve or ever occur
again, or are based on bad science which you can disprove.
9
74

Gather all the facts you need to prove your theory and disprove the theories of
others.
10
Test your theory against all the facts you can think of, which pertain under both
normal and abnormal circumstances. Be wary of cosmic rays hitting people's
DNA and causing them to mutate into entirely unknown entities, with all sorts
of strange powers. Why? Because the comic books are full of super heroes and
villains with highly desirable special powers, and people just might find a way
to obtain same, or a very reasonable and possibly dangerous facsimile.
11
Work the math out for your theory whenever applicable and be thorough. Math
has a way of boiling situations and problems down to their simple elegant
essence, so take advantage of the beauty of simplicity and Keep It Simple,
Stupid! That's called the KISS principle. Don't try to solve too many problems
with your theory, just take on something irksome to people, or about which
they know very little, or is not risky or very risky, etc.

12
Remember you'll want to publicize and spread your new truth, so it helps if it
doesn't entail a lengthy explanation to justify it.
13
Try this test: There are two competing theories, T1 and T2.

Set up this equation: T1 - T2 = T1/ T2

Proceed to subtract Theory #1 from both sides: T1-T1 - T2 = T1/T2 - T1
Simplify the left and factor out T1 on the right: -T2 = T1(1/T2 - 1)
Divide both sides by (1/T2 - 1): -T2/(1/T2 - 1) = T1*(1/T2 - 1)/(1/T2 - 1) =
T1
Put in the expected number of adherents or facts that represent T2: Let's say
100, because it could also represent 100%.
Substituting in 100 for T2, you should get -100/(1/100 - 1) = T1
Work out the math and get first -100/(-99/100) = T1
75

Work that by flipping the denominator and multiplying by it, to get -100(-
100/99) = T1.
Arrive at the answer that 101.01010101 ... = T1. Better than 100%, in a
way ...
Put back the numbers for T1 and T2 in the original equation to make sure it
is correct: Originally, T1 - T2 = T1/ T2, so you get 101.0101 - 100 =
101.0101/100.
Solve the problem. Make sure the left side equals 1.01010101... and the right
side, given you have a calculator or computer handy, you should get
1.01010101... also on the right! They're equal, the left and right sides of the
equation. That is, the difference between the two theories is small, just
1.01010101 ..., and their ratio T1/T2 is also very close to Unity. Which means
that these two theories are stating almost the same truth!!! There's a slight
difference, yes, an advantage to T1 if being larger is advantageous (it's not,
always).
Notice T1 is 101.01010101...% correct. Why? Because he's checked all those
decimal 1 tiny possibilities is why!! He's forever testing against smaller and
smaller problems and bothersome facts, because the number repeats forever!
You can further solve problems and you can use any number, except 1. The
reason you cannot use 1, is because the equation has a step, -T2/(1/T2 - 1) =
T1, where if T2=1, you get 0 in the denominator, which is undefined, or
infinite, depending upon your own theory about division by zero. Let it be that
the slope y/x of the x axis = the tangent of 0 (i.e. when y=0) = 0. Call that m1.
And the slope of 90, that is when y goes up forever in value and x approaches
0 infinitely closer and closer = Infinity or Undefined. Call that slope m2. Now
recall your algebra and Cartesian Graph and remember that perpendicular lines,
like the axes of x and y, must have their slopes multiply to equal -1. And since
you can't multiply anything by "Undefined", and Infinity is not strictly
speaking a number on the number line (depending on whose theory you
believe), then the best we might say is that m1*m2=-1, so 0*INFINITY = -1,
else those two axes are not perfectly perpendicular.
Learn that, in that case, -T2/(1/T2 - 1) = T1 become -1/0 = Infinity, which is
exactly what the Cartesian Plane submits is the fact. And happily, not only is
Theory #1 correct in terms of tiny details, but it's also infinitely correct!
Everywhere in Space-Time on at least 1 plane, of infinitely many such planes,
it is correct.
Make sure that your theory matters. Because we're all made up of very small
76

particles, whizzing while spinning, and spinning while their whizzing, around.
That's what matters, and don't let anyone tell you different.

14
Set subtraction equal to division, which is one person's theory, called the
"Theory of Operator Neutrality, or Neutral Operations". It works just fine with
100, even if 100 does not really mean 100%, 1.01010101 ... is extremely close
to 100%. In Accounting, and Auditing, in most circumstances, for an account to
be off by 3-5% with a 99% Confidence Level, makes for an immaterial
discrepancy, and the firm will still have a pass on their audit, though there may
be some specifics about the discrepancy way far down in the Notes to the
Financial Statements, which nowadays are as important to read as the
statements themselves, if you're thinking of investing that is, or divesting, as
the case may be.
15
Find that the theory of neutral operations is useful in other ways as well. Make
your theory useful, because it matters.
16
Let Truth + Beauty = Truth * Beauty = Omniscience, let's say.

Let T+B-B = TB-B

Let T = B*(T-1), where the 1 stands for something 100% Beautiful.
Let T/(T-1) = B, by dividing both sides by (T-1), and simplifying. We now
have Beauty isolated and defined in terms of Truth and 1.
Let T= any number except 1, else Beauty is Infinite, with no room left for
Truth?
Let T = 12, like 12 jurors in a trial. Then, substitute 12 for T and get:
Let 12/(12-1) = B. And 12/11 = 1.09090909....
Test the original hypothesis: T+B = T*B = Omniscience (at least for 12
jurors, that is, the triers of fact.
Find out if 12+ 12/11 = 12* 12/11?
Proceed to find out that 132/11+ 12/11 = 144/11, which = 13.09090909.... or
77

12 and 12/11. In this case, the Jury is so beautiful in their relative omniscience,
that they, by setting the sum of Truth and Beauty equal to the product of Truth
and Beauty, have added a fact worth 12/11 to the Truth (=12). That's why
people say "Facts are beautiful things".

17
Make sure the Truth is on your side and then add Beauty to it, just enough so
that it's sum and product with Truth are equal. "That's a rather beautiful theory
you've got there" is what you'd like to hear, of course! Who wouldn't? ;)
18
You can do it! Just add in the proper measure, test it, taste it, feel that it's right
and good when it's there and when it's gone, and you will have developed the
proper way(s) to theorize, about most anything you care to acquire the facts
about.
19
Be teased if you like, by other people's great lil theories! As mentioned before,
check them all out before you just start off willy-nilly, okay? It's alright if some
people call you "ridiculous" -- it just means you've planted your flag on the
Moon, when everyone said it couldn't be done! And it matters, it matters a great
deal, things like that.
20
Don't forget: in the statement of fact, T+B = T*B, both operators are subject to
the Law of Commutation. Therefore, one might as well have started out by
subtracting Truth, instead of Beauty. In that case, it works out that B/(B-1) = T,
just as T/(T-1) = B, because of Commutation. It's very symmetrical, which is a
hot topic now in Higher Math. It also means that T^2/(T-1) = B^2/(B-1) =
Omniscience, but the two 1's mean something different in each case. With the
T's, the 1 was a B before, and with B^2/(B-1), the 1 was Truth previously, when
they were factored. Their graphs being entirely similar, they are two lines or
curves occupying the same course in the plane, simultaneously. They're twins,
as it were, or a very strong Devotee and Master. See it with your two eyes and
hear it with your two ears, males and females, for 'tis Truth, and Beautiful.
Above is a picture of some "schizopairs" in a "rare state of attraction" like a +
b, or T*B, in an image created via Neutral Operations in Excel:
21
78

Be aware that there's another theory of interest, possibly. Listen carefully,

because like String Theory, which is a very Strong Theory of vibrational
consonance and harmony, this theory deals with extremely minute quantities.
It's called the "Base 1 Theory" and like the base 2, it has two members, 0 and 1,
but the 0's are all arbitrary and being arbitrary, are not exactly a defined
number; the number of zeroes is both not important and very important, if you
understand such paradoxes, because 0.00000000000000... is arbitrarily as close
to a definition of 0 as one could want. In a way, this is both the Base 1 and the
Base 0 theory, combined -- it practically doesn't count at all, except that it's an
approximation (or direct statement and definition) of the smallest entity in the
Cosmos, as theorized by humans. If 1/3 = .333333333...., then 3/3 = either 1
or .99999999999999.... The base 1 is simply the 1 that allows a person to
convert the discrepancy between .999999999999... and 1 into an equality, and
is simply 1^-n power, as n approaches Infinity. That is, by adding .01 or .
0000000000000000001, somewhere arbitrarily in all those 9's, 1 is created,
depending upon how large or tiny one needs the 1 to be. That's why it's the nth
power in the formula. If one asks, "but what about all the 9's to the right of
where one puts 1^-n? They are infinitely close to 0, so they are of practically no
consequence. It is just what is needed to solve all those "rounding errors" and
discrepancies that are arbitrary in math today. That's the theory anyway ... the
theory of the arbitrary 1, Base 1. It's arguable, of course, but may be just the
trick Science needs to decide where they will cut off inquiry at its tiniest, for
now ... it's right next to the proposal to have commas to the right of the decimal
point too, like this: .00,000,000,000,000,..n. It matters very little, or quite a lot,
as a teaching aid to students of the minute. I freely admit it's not as convenient
as Exponential Notation, but it might help some people grasp how relatively
tiny the subject matter is.
22
You might ask a question about the Proof that 1 = .99999999....; if one
performs that operation, 1 arrives at a version of the Base 1, which is repetitive
in cycles, depending upon how many 9's were chosen to perform the division.
For example, 1/.999 = 1.001001001001 actually, not 1 exactly. Some of those
magnitudes of cyclical 1's would be fantastically large compared to a neutron's
size, for example. That is a Cyclical Small Base, which is a little different than
a simple Arbitrary Base, and awaits better definition ... because if one takes pi
and subtracts or adds all the digits which make it equal 3, or 4, or a number
arbitrarily rounded off in pi, so that pi becomes actually useful at tiny distances
and amounts, one is really speaking of another arbitrary process which this
author believe utilizes the Base 1, or not -- it's arbitrary. One could use this
79

Cyclical Small Base to talk about a possible recurrence or non-recurrence of

(some) physical laws at various levels of reality perhaps, because certain
physical constants may fail to exist at those levels. As =1/0.9990999 =
1.00090091090991, once can dream up an infinite number of bases to count by,
depending on their applicability in the realm concerned, with a given (tiny)
Confidence Level, or series of them. Something exists at the practically
Infinitely Small, we just have very little confidence assuring anyone that it's
known or knowable.
23
Note that the generalized Continued Fraction Expansion for the decimal portion
of pi is different than it is for itself, of course. Are we talking about the 3
made up of Phi? In that case, we have a situation where we're subtracting the
most irrational number from one whose generalized forms of CFE (Continued
Fraction Expansion) are very regular, if infinite. It's like finding the CFE for the
reciprocal of the largest prime one multiplies by to obtain 1. It's there but
increasingly difficult to find I imagine -- I don't know that for a FACT. Perhaps
it's easily obtained, due to the process of establishing the largest prime. Maybe
not. It's probably had by a fairly simple algorithm in fact. It may be a piece of
work that's very piecework. Hypothetically speaking, it may very well be do-
able.
http://www.analytictech.com/mb313/howto.htm
http://hum.port.ac.uk/europeanstudieshub/learning/module-4-theorising-the-
european-union/why-theorise-at-all/
http://hum.port.ac.uk/europeanstudieshub/wp-
content/uploads/2013/05/Module-4-extract-1-Why-theorise-at-all.pdf
Why theorise at all?
There is no getting around the fact that the theorisation of
European
integration (and of political science in general) can bepretty complicated
at times
However, when thinking about the theorisation of European politics
it helps to be aware of why we are theorising in the first place.
This extract presents a number of reasons why political
scientists theorise. It starts by suggesting that
80

some scholars theorise in an effort to unearth the laws

of European politics
. Secondly, it continues by arguing that we
sometimes simplify and explain the world
Finally the extract suggests that we focus on theory so as to be able to
ascertain
and question others assumptions about the world thus helping us
to understand (and therefore their
It must be noted that not all theorists are doing all of the
above every time they theorise
Indeed,they are most often theorising for
one of these reasonses and there are often
are tensions between these different motivations.

Rosamond, B. (2000).
Theories of European Union Integration Macmillan:
.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory
Theory is a contemplative and rational type of abstract or generalizing thinking,
or the results of such thinking. Depending on the context, the results might for
example include generalized explanations of how nature works
A theory can be normative (or prescriptive),[1][page needed] meaning a
postulation about what ought to be. It provides "goals, norms, and standards".
A theory can be a body of knowledge, which may or may not be associated
with particular explanatory models. To theorize is to develop this body of
knowledge.[2]:46
In modern science, the term "theory" refers to scientific theories, a well-
confirmed type of explanation of nature, made in a way consistent with
scientific method, and fulfilling the criteria required by modern science. Such
theories are described in such a way that any scientist in the field is in a
position to understand and either provide empirical support ("verify") or
81

empirically contradict ("falsify") it. Scientific theories are the most reliable,
rigorous, and comprehensive form of scientific knowledge,[4] in contrast to
more common uses of the word "theory" that imply that something is unproven
or speculative (which is better characterized by the word 'hypothesis').[5]
Scientific theories are distinguished from hypotheses, which are individual
empirically testable conjectures, and scientific laws, which are descriptive
accounts of how nature will behave under certain conditions.
Contents

1 Ancient uses
2 Theories formally and scientifically
Theories are analytical tools for understanding, explaining, and making
predictions about a given subject matter. There are theories in many and varied
fields of study, including the arts and sciences. A formal theory is syntactic in
nature and is only meaningful when given a semantic component by applying it
to some content (e.g., facts and relationships of the actual historical world as it
is unfolding). Theories in various fields of study are expressed in natural
language, but are always constructed in such a way that their general form is
identical to a theory as it is expressed in the formal language of mathematical
logic. Theories may be expressed mathematically, symbolically, or in common
language, but are generally expected to follow principles of rational thought or
logic.

Theory is constructed of a set of sentences which consists entirely of true

statements about the subject matter under consideration. However, the truth of
any one of these statements is always relative to the whole theory. Therefore,
the same statement may be true with respect to one theory, and not true with
respect to another. This is, in ordinary language, where statements such as "He
is a terrible person" cannot be judged to be true or false without reference to
some interpretation of who "He" is and for that matter what a "terrible person"
is under the theory.[11]

Sometimes two theories have exactly the same explanatory power because they
make the same predictions. A pair of such theories is called indistinguishable or
observationally equivalent, and the choice between them reduces to
82

convenience or philosophical preference.

The form of theories is studied formally in mathematical logic, especially in

model theory. When theories are studied in mathematics, they are usually
expressed in some formal language and their statements are closed under
application of certain procedures called rules of inference. A special case of
this, an axiomatic theory, consists of axioms (or axiom schemata) and rules of
inference. A theorem is a statement that can be derived from those axioms by
application of these rules of inference. Theories used in applications are
abstractions of observed phenomena and the resulting theorems provide
solutions to real-world problems. Obvious examples include arithmetic
(abstracting concepts of number), geometry (concepts of space), and
probability (concepts of randomness and likelihood).

Gdel's incompleteness theorem shows that no consistent, recursively

enumerable theory (that is, one whose theorems form a recursively enumerable
set) in which the concept of natural numbers can be expressed, can include all
true statements about them. As a result, some domains of knowledge cannot be
formalized, accurately and completely, as mathematical theories. (Here,
formalizing accurately and completely means that all true propositionsand
only true propositionsare derivable within the mathematical system.) This
limitation, however, in no way precludes the construction of mathematical
theories that formalize large bodies of scientific knowledge.
2.1 Underdetermination
A theory is underdetermined (also called indeterminacy of data to theory) if a
rival, inconsistent theory is at least as consistent with the evidence.
Underdetermination is an epistemological issue about the relation of evidence
to conclusions.

A theory that lacks supporting evidence is generally, more properly, referred to

as a hypothesis.
2.2 Intertheoretic reduction and elimination
2.3 Theories vs. theorems
Theories are distinct from theorems. Theorems are derived deductively from
objections according to a formal system of rules, sometimes as an end in itself
83

and sometimes as a first step in testing or applying a theory in a concrete

situation; theorems are said to be true in the sense that the conclusions of a
theorem are logical consequences of the objections. Theories are abstract and
conceptual, and to this end they are always considered true. They are supported
or challenged by observations in the world. They are 'rigorously tentative',
meaning that they are proposed as true and expected to satisfy careful
examination to account for the possibility of faulty inference or incorrect
observation. Sometimes theories are incorrect, meaning that an explicit set of
observations contradicts some fundamental objection or application of the
theory, but more often theories are corrected to conform to new observations,
by restricting the class of phenomena the theory applies to or changing the
assertions made. An example of the former is the restriction of Classical
mechanics to phenomena involving macroscopic length scales and particle
speeds much lower than the speed of light.

"Sometimes a hypothesis never reaches the point of being considered a theory

because the answer is not found to derive its assertions analytically or not
applied empirically
3 Philosophical theories
Theories whose subject matter consists not in empirical data, but rather in ideas
are in the realm of philosophical theories as contrasted with scientific theories.
At least some of the elementary theorems of a philosophical theory are
statements whose truth cannot necessarily be scientifically tested through
empirical observation.

Fields of study are sometimes named "theory" because their basis is some
initial set of objections describing the field's approach to a subject matter.
These assumptions are the elementary theorems of the particular theory, and
can be thought of as the axioms of that field. Some commonly known examples
include set theory and number theory; however literary theory, critical theory,
and music theory are also of the same form.
3.1 Metatheory
One form of philosophical theory is a metatheory or meta-theory. A metatheory
is a theory whose subject matter is some other theory. In other words, it is a
theory about a theory. Statements made in the metatheory about the theory are
called metatheorems.
84

3.2 Political theories

4 Scientific theories
In science, the term "theory" refers to "a well-substantiated explanation of
some aspect of the natural world, based on a body of facts that have been
repeatedly confirmed through observation and experiment."[12][13] Theories
must also meet further requirements, such as the ability to make falsifiable
predictions with consistent accuracy across a broad area of scientific inquiry,
and production of strong evidence in favor of the theory from multiple
independent sources.

The strength of a scientific theory is related to the diversity of phenomena it

can explain, which is measured by its ability to make falsifiable predictions
with respect to those phenomena. Theories are improved (or replaced by better
theories) as more evidence is gathered, so that accuracy in prediction improves
over time; this increased accuracy corresponds to an increase in scientific
knowledge. Scientists use theories as a foundation to gain further scientific
knowledge, as well as to accomplish goals such as inventing technology or
curing disease.
4.1 Definitions from scientific organizations
4.2 Philosophical views
The logical positivists thought of scientific theories as deductive theories
that a theory's content is based on some formal system of logic and on basic
axioms. In a deductive theory, any sentence which is a logical consequence of
one or more of the axioms is also a sentence of that theory.[11] This is called
the received view of theories.

In the semantic view of theories, which has largely replaced the received view,
[15][16] theories are viewed as scientific models. A model is a logical
framework intended to represent reality (a "model of reality"), similar to the
way that a map is a graphical model that represents the territory of a city or
country. In this approach, theories are a specific category of models which
fulfill the necessary criteria. (See Theories as models for further discussion.)
4.3 In physics
In physics the term theory is generally used for a mathematical framework
derived from a small set of basic postulates (usually symmetries, like equality
85

of locations in space or in time, or identity of electrons, etc.)which is capable

of producing experimental predictions for a given category of physical systems
4.4 The term theoretical
Acceptance of a theory does not require that all of its major predictions be
tested, if it is already supported by sufficiently strong evidence. For example,
certain tests may be unfeasible or technically difficult. As a result, theories may
make predictions that have not yet been confirmed or proven incorrect; in this
case, the predicted results may be described informally with the term
"theoretical." These predictions can be tested at a later time, and if they are
incorrect, this may lead to revision or rejection of the theory.
5 List of notable theories
6 See also
7 References
8 Notes
9 External links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metatheory
A metatheory or meta-theory is a theory whose subject matter is some theory.
All fields of research share some meta-theory, regardless whether this is
explicit or correct. In a more restricted and specific sense, in mathematics and
mathematical logic, metatheory means a mathematical theory about another
mathematical theory.

The following is an example of a meta-theoretical statement:[1]

Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a

hypothesis; you can never prove it. No matter how many times the results of
experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time
the result will not contradict the theory. On the other hand, you can disprove a
theory by finding even a single observation that disagrees with the predictions
of the theory.

Meta-theoretical investigations are generally part of the philosophy of science.

Also a metatheory is an object of concern to the area in which the individual
86

theory is conceived.
Contents

1 Taxonomy
2 In mathematics
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1738895/posts
Metatheory and Epistemological Issues: A Philosophical Approach to
Communications
https://www.coursehero.com/file/p4mhme4/Meta-theory-belongs-to-the-
philosophical-specialty-of-epistemology-and/

Meta-theory belongs to the philosophical specialty of epistemology and

metamathematics, as well as being an object of concern to the area in which the
individual theory is conceived. An emerging domain of meta-theories is
systemics. Taxonomy Examining groups of related theories, a first finding may
be to identify classes of theories, thus specifying a taxonomy of theories. A
proof engendered by a metatheory is called a metatheorem . History The
concept burst upon the scene of twentieth-century philosophy as a result of the
work of the German mathematician David Hilbert, who in 1905 published a
proposal for proof of the consistency of mathematics, creating the field of
metamathematics. His hopes for the success of this proof were dashed by the
work of Kurt Gdel who in 1931 proved this to be unattainable by his
incompleteness theorems. Nevertheless, his program of unsolved mathematical
problems, out of which grew this metamathematical proposal, continued to
influence the direction of mathematics for the rest of the twentieth century. The
study of metatheory became widespread during the rest of that century by its
application in other fields, notably scientific linguistics and its concept of
87

metalanguage.
Meta-theoretical Issues (2003), Lyle Flint (http:/ / www. bsu. edu/ classes/
flint/ comm360/ metatheo. html) Metalogic Metalogic is the study of the
metatheory of logic. While logic is the study of the manner in which logical
systems can be used to decide the correctness of arguments, metalogic studies
the properties of the logical systems themselves. [1] According to Geoffrey
Hunter, while logic concerns itself with the "truths of logic," metalogic
concerns itself with the theory of "sentences used to express truths of logic."
[1] The basic objects of study in metalogic are formal languages, formal
systems, and their interpretations. The study of interpretation of formal systems
is the branch of mathematical logic known as model theory, while the study
of deductive apparatus is the branch known as proof theory. History
Metalogical questions have been asked since the time of Aristotle. However, it
was only with the rise of formal languages in the late 19th and early 20th
century that investigations into the foundations of logic began to flourish. In
1904, David Hilbert observed that in investigating the foundations of
mathematics that logical notions are presupposed, and therefore a simultaneous
account of metalogical and metamathematical principles was required. Today,
metalogic and metamathematics are largely synonymous with each other, and
both have been substantially subsumed by mathematical logic in academia.
http://archive.is/vAJmi
http://www.schoolebooklibrary.net/articles/eng/Meta-theory
A metatheory or meta-theory is a theory whose subject matter is some theory.
All fields of research share some meta-theory, regardless whether this is
explicit or correct. In a more restricted and specific sense, in mathematics and
mathematical logic, metatheory means a mathematical theory about another
mathematical theory.
Meta-theoretical investigations are generally part of philosophy of science.
Also a metatheory is an object of concern to the area in which the individual
theory is conceived.
The concept burst upon the scene of 20th-century philosophy as a result of the
work of the German mathematician David Hilbert, who in 1905 published a
proposal for proof of the consistency of mathematics, creating the field of
metamathematics. His hopes for the success of this proof were dashed by the
work of Kurt Gdel who in 1931 proved this to be unattainable by his
incompleteness theorems. Nevertheless, his program of unsolved mathematical
problems, out of which grew this metamathematical proposal, continued to
88

influence the direction of mathematics for the rest of the 20th century.

The study of metatheory became widespread during the rest of that century by
its application in other fields, notably scientific linguistics and its concept of
metalanguage.
http://faculty.babson.edu/krollag/org_site/craft_articles/weick_theory.html

Weick, Karl. E., Theory Construction as Disciplined Imagination, Academy of

Management Review, 1989, 14:4 516-53"Theorists often write trivial theories
because their process of theory construction is hemmed in by methodological
structures that favor validation rather than usefulness. (Lindblom, 1987). Too
much validation takes away the value of imagination and selection in the
process.

Theorizing consists of disciplined imagination that unfolds in a manner

analogous to artificial selection. It comes from the consistent application of
selection criteria to "trial and error" thinking and the "imagination" in
theorizing comes from deliberate diversity introduced into the problem
statements, thought trials, and selection criteria that comprise that thinking."

A theory is "an ordered set of assertions about a generic behavior or structure

assumed to hold throughout a significantly broad range of specific instances."

Verification and validation mean the demonstration, beyond pure chance, that
the ordered relationship predicted by the hypothesis exists and thereby lends
support to the hypothesis. Proof is verification of a probable (listic) statement.
It is a statement of high reliability.

A good theory is also a plausible theory, more interesting than obvious,

irrelevant, or absurd, obvious in novel ways, a source of unexpected
connections, high in narrative rationality, aesthetically pleasing, etc.

A good theory process should be designed to highlight relationships,

connections and interdependencies in the phenomenon of interest.

Knowledge growth by intention is when an explanation of a whole region is

made more and more clear and adequate. Knowledge growth by extension
means a full explanation of a small region is used to explained adjacent
89

regions.

Bourgeois states that theorizing process should weave back and forth between
intuition and data-based theorizing and between induction and deduction.

Most theory theorists describe it as a more mechanistic process, with little

appreciation for the intuitive, blind, wasteful.... quality of the process. They
assume that validation is the ultimate test of the theory and a good theorizing
process keeps this in mind at every step.

In reality, theory construction is not problem solving, because many steps

happen simultaneously. It is more a struggle with "sensemaking".

"When theorists build theory, they design, conduct, and interpret imaginary
experiments. Their activities are like the three activities of evolution --
variation, selection, and retention, and actually more like artificial selection
than natural selection.

Theoretical problems are more likely to be solved when the problem is stated
accurately and more detailed.

Problem Statements
Unlike nature, theorists are both the source of variation and selection. Often the
problems are wide in scope but limited in detail, inaccurate, and vague. While
natural scientists pick problems they can solve, social scientists pick problems
in need of a solution, whether they have the tools to solve them or not. Natural
scientists pick topics of which governments, political bodies, and religious
authorities are indifferent.

"By their very nature the problems imposed on organizational theorists involve
so many assumptions and such a mixture of accuracy and inaccuracy that
virtually all conjectures and all selection criteria remain plausible and nothing
gets rejected or highlighted."

Theories of the middle range are those that are solutions to problems with a
limited number of assumptions and of manageable scope, with the problem
description of considerable accuracy and detail. (See Bourgeois, mentioned
earlier on.)
In fact, it would be better if theorists attacked problems that they can solve, not
insolvable problems that people feel too strongly about.
90

Thought Trials (imaginary experiments)

A theorizing process that produces lots of conjectures is better than one
producing only a few, especially if there is a lot of variation. A classification
system can help determine when the variation in conjectures is too narrow.
Thus conjectures across various theory paradigms will be more powerful than
one constrained in only one paradigm.

Another way to increase variation is to eliminate memory, preference, or

foresight to avoid narrow habituated thinking. Kuhn's paradigm work shows
this is very difficult to do sometimes -- thought trials tend toward homogeneity.
Some devices to increase variation include heterogeneous research teams,
generalists, randomizing devices, etc.

Selection Criteria
Selection criteria must be applied consistently or theorists will be left an
assortment of conjectures just as fragmented as what they started with.
Remember that validation is not the key task of social science, because we
can't. Thus, the selection criteria must be chosen carefully because the theorist,
not the environment, controls the survival of conjectures. "The contribution of
social science is in suggesting new relationships and connections that change
actions and perspectives."

When theorists apply selection criteria to their conjectures, they ask whether
the conjecture is interesting, obvious, connected, believable, beautiful, or real,
in the context of the problem they are trying to solve.

When an assumption is applied to a specific conjecture, there are four reactions

thats interesting, that's absurd, that's irrelevant, that's obvious. They are
equivalent to significance tests, and they serve as substitutes to validity. A
judgement that's interesting is selected for future use. (See Cornelissen
mentioned next for details about these four reactions and their development by
his 8 principles of optimality.)

A disconfirmed assumption is an opportunity for a theorist to learn something

new. However, for a non-theorist is suggests that past experience is misleading
for subsequent action and that coping may be more difficult.

Theorists also assume events are unrelated and are surprised when they find
unexpected connections between events. Also, the standards by which
91

narratives are judged differ from those used to judge arguments.

Yet there is a thin line between that's interesting to that's in my best interest,
from that's obvious to that's what managers want, from that's believable to that
what managers want to hear, and that's real to that the power system I want'.

Sifting with a greater number of distinct criteria, which Campbell call

opportunistic multi-purposeness, should produce theories that are more
important.
I have dealt with this article of Cornelissen in great detail in my previous
articles here https://independent.academia.edu/UlrichdeBalbian

http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/1921/
Cornelissen, J.P. (2006) Making sense of theory construction: Metaphor and
disciplined imagination. Organization Studies, 27 (11). pp. 1579-1597. ISSN
1741-3044
This article draws upon Karl Weicks insights into the nature of theorizing, and
extends and refines his conception of theory construction as disciplined
imagination. An essential ingredient in Weicks disciplined imagination
involves his assertion that thought trials and theoretical representations
typically involve a transfer from one epistemic sphere to another through the
creative use of metaphor. The article follows up on this point and draws out
how metaphor works, how processes of metaphorical imagination partake in
theory construction, and how insightful metaphors and the theoretical
representations that result from them can be selected. The paper also includes a
discussion of metaphors-in-use (organizational improvisation as jazz and
organizational behavior as collective mind) which Weick proposed in his own
writings. The whole purpose of this exercise is to theoretically augment and
ground the concept of disciplined imagination, and in particular to refine the
nature of thought trials and selection within it. In doing so, we also aim to
provide pointers for the use of metaphorical imagination in the process of
theory construction. (The author suggest Weick use the 8 optimality principles
for example.)
92

Karl E. Weick

Administrative Science Quarterly, September 1995

p.385 Products of the theorizing process seldom emerge as full-blown

theories, which means that most of what passes for theory in organization
studies consists of approximations. Although these approximations
their generality, few of them take the form of strong theory, and
can be read as texts created "in lieu of" strong theories. These substit
for theory... may... represent interim struggles in which people intentiona
inch toward stronger theories... references, data, lists, diagrams, and
hypotheses... ruling out those... five may slow inquiry if the problem is
theoretical development still in its early stages.

p.385 Most products that are labeled theories actually approximate theor

p.386-387 it can be tough to separate texts that are not theory from texts
are. A text that looks like "not theory" may simply be a clumsy attempt to
disassemble a gestalt into linear propositions. With more practice and mo
nuanced language comes more of the originating insight.

p.388 I suspect that tight coupling between treatments and symptoms, wi

belated theorizing of the outcomes, is a fairly common tactic in theory
construction. In my own ASQ paper reanalyzing the Mann Gulch disaste
(Weick, 1993), the argument developed partially by taking the Mann Gul
data as symptoms and, through a series of thought trials corresponding to
treatments, seeing which concepts made a difference in those symptoms.
exercise in disciplined imagination resulted eventually in the theory that
sensemaking collapses when role structures collapse

p.389 The process of theorizing consists of activities like abstracting,

generalizing, relating, selecting, explaining, synthesizing, and idealizing.
These ongoing activities intermittently spin out reference lists, data, lists
variables, diagrams, and lists of hypotheses. Those emergent products
93

summarize progress, give direction, and serve as placemakers. They have

vestiges of theory but are not themselves theories. Then again, few thing
full-fledged theories.

p.390 ASQ... Notice to Contributors: "If manuscripts contain no theory, t

value is suspect." ..."Ungrounded theory, however, is no more helpful tha
atheoretical data. We are receptive to multiple forms of grounding, but no
complete avoidance of grounding."

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/248695549_What_Theory_is_Not_Th
eorizing_Is
red5;http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/1921/
Cornelissen, J.P. (2006) Making sense of theory construction: Metaphor and
disciplined imagination. Organization Studies, 27 (11). pp. 1579-1597. ISSN
1741-3044
In this section we will look at the process of theorizing or what theorizing is not
according to Weicks comments on Sutton and Staw (http://links.jstor.org/sici?
sici=00018392%28199509%2940%3A3%3C371%3AWTIN%3E2.0.CO%3B2-
F)
What theory is not, theorizing is Weick, Karl E Administrative Science
Quarterly; Sep 1995; 40, 3; ABI/INFORM Global. As well as the article by
DiMaggio in Administrative Science Quarterly Vol 40 no 3 Sept 1995 pages
391-397.Comments on What theory is Not. Weick;
http://www.jstor.org/stable/258556 Theory Construction as disciplined
imagination.
The importance of this article by DiMaggio is because he suggests other kinds
of theory. That of course will change the whole picture as presented by Weick
and Theory or not, as suggested by Sutton and Staw.
Cornelissen, J.P. (2006) Making sense of theory construction: Metaphor and
disciplined imagination. Organization Studies, 27 (11). pp. 1579-1597 can be
mentioned for the reasons that he improves, according to him, Weicks work by
94

adding the use of the optimality principles and that he explicitly states that
Weick deals with (imagining apt and meaningful metaphors in artificial
selection or evolutionary epistemology) Metaphor (organizational
improvisation as jazz and organizational behavior as collective mind which
Weick himself has imagined, selected and advanced in his writings) He suggests
that these metaphors fulfil and adhere to optimality principles (*the integration
principle; topology principle, web principle, unpacking principle, good reason
principle, metonymic tightening principle, distance principle, concreteness
principle,) and stress the importance of it in Weicks work when he discusses
creative imagination and theory or theorizing. These metaphors have created
new images and theoretical representations of organizations. Cornelissen
suggests that adhering to the principles will extend and improve Weicks take on
theorizing as disciplined imagination.
Both metaphors are good examples of how metaphors lead to emergent meaning
(and cannot therefore be reduced to the meanings of its component parts), and
as such have enriched the conceptualization (and subsequent understanding) of
organizational improvisation and organizational behavior and have generated
novel inferences and conjectures, these metaphors were also found to be apt
and fitting to the target subjects that they are meant to illuminate,
We (Cornelissen) argue that this is primarily the result of these two metaphors
adhering to a set of specific principles known as the optimality principles; a
set of constraints under which metaphorical blends are most effective. As a
whole, the eight optimality principles are the following*, with the first six the
original ones proposed by Fauconnier and Turner (1998, 2002; see also Coulson
2001; Coulson and Oakley 2000): the integration, topology, web, unpacking,
good reason, metonymic tightening, distance and concreteness principles. These
principles are derived from standard pressures that obtain in all mapping
situations including metaphorical mappings (see
Hofstadter 1995, for a review). The organizational improvisation as jazz
metaphor satisfies most of these principles including the integration, topology,
web, unpacking, good reason, metonymic tightening and concreteness
principles. The organizational behavior as collective mind equally satisfies a
multitude of principles including the integration, topology, web, unpacking,
good reason, metonymic tightening and distance principles. Cornelissen
discusses them in detail on pages 17- Kayla Booth sums up Weick - Theorizing
by Weick Regarding "What Theory is Not, Theorizing IS" by Kayla Booth says
this
95

Kayla Booth "What Theory is Not, Theorizing Is"

Karl E. Weick Argument Based on Process:

Theory as an end product vs. theory as a process.

Theory in the making! Conclusion The Gist Argument Theorizing Response to

Sutton and Staw "Benefit of the Doubt Piece":

This is not theory because

1) The author is lazy
2) The author is not there... yet Argument
Is Theory itself a Continuum or is the Process of Creating Theory a Continuum?

"What Theory is Not, Theorizing Is" or

"What Theory is Not, Theorizing Can Be"

1) Sutton and Staw's 5 Parts are part of the process of making theory, reliant on
context
2) Authors should articulate where they are in the process of theory creation,
instead of calling it complete
3) Theory is a continuum
4) Nuances of language and original concepts may help further develop these
components

In What theory is not, theorizing is Weick states that he wishes to deal with
the process of theorizing rather than the product. He agrees with Sutton and
Staw that : Theory is not something one "adds" to data, or something that one
transforms from weaker to stronger by means of graphics or references, or can
be feigned by flashy conceptual performance. He suggests that references,
lists, diagrams, data and hypotheses might not be theories but can refer to
theoretical development in the early stages. He then decides to look at the
theorizing process with the reminder that most theories are approximate theories
and not strong theories and Merton says they take four forms:
* general orientations
* analysis of concepts
* post-fact interpretation from a single observation
* empirical generalization
96

While they are not full theories, they can serve as means to further
development.

Like Sutton and Shaw say, it is hard in this low-paradigm field to spot which
efforts are theory and which are not. Theory can take a variety of forms and is a
continuum .
One can also go directly from data to prescription without a theory, as doctors
go from symptoms to treatment without a diagnosis sometimes. Data, lists,
diagrams are not theory but can help point to and elaborate theories.
We have the definition of theory as a supposition or a system of ideas intended
to explain something, especially one based on general principles independent of
the thing to be explained. It belongs to a family of words that include
hypothesis, thesis, conjecture, supposition, speculation, postulation, postulate,
proposition, premise, surmise, assumption, presupposition; opinion, view,
belief, contention . p.389 The process of theorizing consists of activities like
abstracting, generalizing, relating, selecting, explaining, synthesizing, and
idealizing. These ongoing activities intermittently spin out reference lists, data,
lists of variables, diagrams, and lists of hypotheses. Those emergent products
summarize progress, give direction, and serve as place makers. They have
vestiges of theory but are not themselves theories. Then again, few things are
full-fledged theories.
. The ongoing activities often create the lists, diagrams, etc. that eventually can
become real theory. "Those emergent products summarize progress, give
direction, and serve as place makers. I suspect that tight coupling between
treatments and symptoms, with belated theorizing of the outcomes, is a fairly
common tactic in theory construction. In my own ASQ paper re-analyzing the
Mann Gulch disaster (Weick, 1993), the argument developed partially by taking
the Mann Gulch data as symptoms and, through a series of thought trials
corresponding to treatments, seeing which concepts made a difference in those
symptoms. This exercise in disciplined imagination resulted eventually in the
theory that sense making collapses when role structures collapse
Weick develops his own ideas further in many articles and books, for example
in Theory construction as disciplined imagination.
red5;I have dealt with this important article of Weick in much greater detail in
my previous articles here
https://independent.academia.edu/UlrichdeBalbian
http://johnljerz.com/superduper/tlxdownloadsiteWEBSITEII/id87.html
97

I mention a few points that I found of importance in Weicks article. Problem,

problem statements in my view can change as one develops a theory.
Additional problems can be added and problems can be stated in greater detail
with new perspective that arrive during the development of the theory. As
Weick suggest accuracy and great detail is essential in stating the problems to be
dealt with by a theory.I think that apart from the problem/s to be investigated
problems concerning the development or evolvement of the theory might also
occur and they should be distinguished from the problems in the problem
statements. To deal with the problems data would have to be collected, even
though such a brain dump or phenomenological vision of problems might not be
accurate. Theorizing is not one-dimensional but multi-dimensional and one
must remain open to the fact simultaneously, parallel processing is required and
not simplistic linear thinking. Many cognitive skills will be required to function
at the same time for example sense making, ordering, selection, creative
thinking, adding new concepts, being aware of the implications of the concepts
and terms use, etc. One should also remain aware of the main functional and
unnecessary internal and external limits and constraints, such as boundaries, are
operating at every step of the process of theorizing. One can take as example
conjectures or suggestions to be dealt with. One will be involved all the time in
imaginary experiments and solutions, designing them, conducting and
interpreting them.
Weick highlights this by his three evolutionary (epistemological) notions or
processes of variation, selection and retention.

The quality of theory produced is predicted to vary as a function of the accuracy

and details present in the problem statement that triggers theory building, the
number of and independence among the conjectures that attempt to solve the
problem, and the number and diversity of selection criteria used to test the
conjectures
An essential ingredient in Weicks disciplined imagination involves his
assertion that thought trials and theoretical representations typically involve a
transfer from one epistemic sphere to another through the creative use of
metaphor.
The article follows up on this point and draws out how metaphor works, how
processes of metaphorical imagination partake in theory construction, and how
insightful metaphors and the theoretical representations that result from them
can be selected.
The paper also includes a discussion of metaphors-in-use (organizational
improvisation as jazz and organizational behaviour as collective mind) which
Weick proposed in his own writings
98

The whole purpose of this exercise is to theoretically augment and ground the
concept of disciplined imagination, and in particular to refine the nature of
thought trials and selection within it.
In doing so, he also aims to provide pointers for the use of metaphorical
imagination in the process of theory construction.
It is argued that interest is a substitute for validation during theory construction,
middle range theories are a necessity if the process is to be kept manageable,
and representations such as metaphors are inevitable, given the complexity of
the subject matter.
p.526 Generalists, people with moderately strong attachments to many ideas,
should be hard to interrupt and, once interrupted, should have weaker, shorter
negative reactions since they have alternate paths to realize their plans...
Generalists should be the upbeat, positive people in the profession, while
specialists should be their grouchy, negative counterparts.

p.528 The view that theory construction involves imagination disciplined by the
processes of artificial selection has a variety of implications and raises a number
of questions.

p.529 The assessment that's interesting has figured prominently throughout,

because it has been viewed as a substitute for vaildity... The reaction that's
interesting essentially signifies that an assumption has been falsified.

p.529 The choice is not whether to do mental testing. Instead, the choice is how
well this less than ideal procedure can be used to improve the quality of
theoretical thinking.

Weick sees the theorist as the creator, executioner and maintainer of

epistemological evolution. He must deal with the problem statements he creates
in a certain manner. He should introduce and consider as many relevant aspects
and details of the problems as possible. His statements should be accurate and
detailed and making explicit all assumptions. This will be done against the
background or in the context of the three processes of evolution that his
theorizing will resemble. He will design, conduct and interpret his theorizing as
if it is executing artificial selection that consists of imaginary experiments. The
three principles underlying this selection are closed related and consists of the
three activities of variation, selection and retention. Something like the survival
of the fittest (the most relevant, functional, meaningful and necessary) in natural
evolution.
99

Variations of problem solving of and conjectures of the problem statements will

be made and judgements by means of what is interesting, plausible, consistent
and appropriate must be executed.
Selection criteria by means of conjectures (about what should be retained and
what must be rejected) during thought trials (employing mental experiments or
simulations) will alter the conjectures, delete some, modify others and include
new ones. Imagination for example employs a technique of metaphors as
cognitive/heuristic devices. Simulated images are employed for theoretical
representation as aids to learning, exploration, discovery and problems solving.
According to Cornelissen, good examples of such metaphors are: trap door of
depression, a word painting or picture, boiling mad, clean slates. These
metaphors fulfil the criteria, he sets out, for the best metaphors to be used in this
context.

The problem statements will present the imagined thought trials with problems
to be solved, investigated, explained, dis/confirmed and identifying meaningful
domain words and sets of assumptions concerning these things. Smaller or
middle range theories will deal with solutions that have limited and explicit
assumptions, accuracy of the problem specification in detail.
The thought trials will employ metaphorical variation (as analysed by
Cornelissen in detail and with his suggestions to improve this technique) so as
to create a number of them with a great diversity. They will present conjectures
as ways to dis/solve the problem. For this diverse, heterogeneous conjectures
are required. Thought trials should be eclectic with periphery cases that are
often under-explore. This is where the function of selection criteria comes in.
They enable the manipulation of the selection process to retain that what is
plausible. Validation is not the key task of social sciences so selection criteria
of conjectures to be created replace validation. The theorist must control the
choice of the conjectures. The value of social science do not lie in validated
knowledge but in the suggestion (propositions) of relationships and connections
that change our perspective on an issue.
100

Weicks suggests theory construction as a process that involves imagination (by

the use of metaphors and imaginary experiences) and that is disciplined by
selection criteria (leading to the development of conjectures, variation,
selection, aptness, judgements of plausibility, dis/confirmed assumptions).
Cornelissen re-states terms used by Weick by the application of the eight
principles, for example thats concrete is the topology principle (preserve a
relations structure, for example organizational as collective mind) thats obvious
is the integration principle (concepts or domains that are unrelated are brought
together), etc. Other optimality principles that are employed in mapping
situations, for example at the level of thought trials and that can add to variation
in such trials by conceptual blending as in the case of metaphors, as stated
before, are the web (maintain mappings to input concepts), unpacking
(mapping schemes, other applications), good reason (significant elements,
managerial, scanning, interpretation of concept as calling concept by another
name), metonymic tightening (elements in the blend and the input), target and
source concepts must be from distant domains, concreteness (select concrete not
abstract concepts to blend with target concept) principles.
To summarize Weicks disciplinary imagination.
Construct theoretical representations, not merely deduct them from the problem
statement;
The logic (arguments?) used to develop and select representations by means of
thought trials, simulation and imaginary experiments;
Develop representations from heterogeneous variations;
Evolutionary epistemology, in the form of variation, selection and retention.
Variation of multiple and different images and metaphors that are apt, plausible
(fulfilling the criteria of the optimality principles); this will create new insights
for a conceptual advance (search for new concepts is an ongoing process of
meaning construction).

exclamation mark next to it -

- Weick, Karl. E., Theory Construction as Disciplined Imagination, Academy of

Management Review, 1989, 14:4 516-531.

red5;http://faculty.babson.edu/krollag/org_site/craft_articles/weick_theory.html

Weick, Karl. E., Theory Construction as Disciplined Imagination, Academy

of Management Review, 1989, 14:4 516-531
red5;"Theorists often write trivial theories because their process of theory
construction is hemmed in by methodological structures that favor validation
rather than usefulness. (Lindblom, 1987). Too much validation takes away the
101

value of imagination and selection in the process.

Theorizing consists of disciplined imagination that unfolds in a manner

analogous to artificial selection. It comes from the consistent application of
selection criteria to "trial and error" thinking and the "imagination" in theorizing
comes from deliberate diversity introduced into the problem statements,
thought trials, and selection criteria that comprise that thinking."

A theory is "an ordered set of assertions about a generic behavior or

structure assumed to hold throughout a significantly broad range of specific
instances."

Verification and validation mean the demonstration, beyond pure chance, that
the ordered relationship predicted by the hypothesis exists and thereby lends
support to the hypothesis. Proof is verification of a probable (listic) statement. It
is a statement of high reliability.

A good theory is also a plausible theory, more interesting than obvious,

irrelevant, or absurd, obvious in novel ways, a source of unexpected
connections, high in narrative rationality, aesthetically pleasing, etc.

A good theory process should be designed to highlight relationships,

connections and interdependencies in the phenomenon of interest.

Knowledge growth by intention is when an explanation of a whole region is

made more and more clear and adequate. Knowledge growth by extension
means a full explanation of a small region is used to explained adjacent regions.

Bourgeois states that theorizing process should weave back and forth between
intuition and data-based theorizing and between induction and deduction.

Most theory theorists describe it as a more mechanistic process, with little

appreciation for the intuitive, blind, wasteful.... quality of the process. They
assume that validation is the ultimate test of the theory and a good theorizing
process keeps this in mind at every step.

In reality, theory construction is not problem solving, because many steps

happen simultaneously. It is more a struggle with "sensemaking".
102

"When theorists build theory, they design, conduct, and interpret imaginary
experiments. Their activities are like the three activities of evolution --
variation, selection, and retention, and actually more like artificial selection
than natural selection.

Theoretical problems are more likely to be solved when the problem is stated
accurately and more detailed.

Problem Statements
Unlike nature, theorists are both the source of variation and selection. Often the
problems are wide in scope but limited in detail, inaccurate, and vague. While
natural scientists pick problems they can solve, social scientists pick problems
in need of a solution, whether they have the tools to solve them or not. Natural
scientists pick topics of which governments, political bodies, and religious
authorities are indifferent.

"By their very nature the problems imposed on organizational theorists involve
so many assumptions and such a mixture of accuracy and inaccuracy that
virtually all conjectures and all selection criteria remain plausible and nothing
gets rejected or highlighted."

Theories of the middle range are those that are solutions to problems with a
limited number of assumptions and of manageable scope, with the problem
description of considerable accuracy and detail. (See Bourgeois, mentioned
earlier on.)
In fact, it would be better if theorists attacked problems that they can solve, not
insolvable problems that people feel too strongly about.

Thought Trials (imaginary experiments)

A theorizing process that produces lots of conjectures is better than one
producing only a few, especially if there is a lot of variation. A classification
system can help determine when the variation in conjectures is too narrow. Thus
conjectures across various theory paradigms will be more powerful than one
constrained in only one paradigm.

Another way to increase variation is to eliminate memory, preference, or

foresight to avoid narrow habituated thinking. Kuhn's paradigm work shows this
is very difficult to do sometimes -- thought trials tend toward homogeneity.
Some devices to increase variation include heterogeneous research teams,
generalists, randomizing devices, etc.
103

Selection Criteria
Selection criteria must be applied consistently or theorists will be left an
assortment of conjectures just as fragmented as what they started with.
Remember that validation is not the key task of social science, because we can't.
Thus, the selection criteria must be chosen carefully because the theorist, not the
environment, controls the survival of conjectures. "The contribution of social
science is in suggesting new relationships and connections that change actions
and perspectives."

When theorists apply selection criteria to their conjectures, they ask whether the
conjecture is interesting, obvious, connected, believable, beautiful, or real, in
the context of the problem they are trying to solve.

When an assumption is applied to a specific conjecture, there are four reactions

thats interesting, that's absurd, that's irrelevant, that's obvious. They are
equivalent to significance tests, and they serve as substitutes to validity. A
judgement that's interesting is selected for future use. (See Cornelissen
mentioned next for details about these four reactions and their development by
his 8 principles of optimality.)

A disconfirmed assumption is an opportunity for a theorist to learn something

new. However, for a non-theorist is suggests that past experience is misleading
for subsequent action and that coping may be more difficult.

Theorists also assume events are unrelated and are surprised when they find
unexpected connections between events. Also, the standards by which narratives
are judged differ from those used to judge arguments.

Yet there is a thin line between that's interesting to that's in my best interest,
from that's obvious to that's what managers want, from that's believable to that
what managers want to hear, and that's real to that the power system I want'.

Sifting with a greater number of distinct criteria, which Campbell call

opportunistic multi-purposeness, should produce theories that are more
important.
I have dealt with this articles of Cornelissen in great detail in my previous
articles here https://independent.academia.edu/UlrichdeBalbian
104

http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/1921/
Cornelissen, J.P. (2006) Making sense of theory construction: Metaphor and
disciplined imagination. Organization Studies, 27 (11). pp. 1579-1597. ISSN
1741-3044
This article draws upon Karl Weicks insights into the nature of theorizing, and
extends and refines his conception of theory construction as disciplined
imagination. An essential ingredient in Weicks disciplined imagination
involves his assertion that thought trials and theoretical representations
typically involve a transfer from one epistemic sphere to another through
the creative use of metaphor. The article follows up on this point and draws
out how metaphor works, how processes of metaphorical imagination
partake in theory construction, and how insightful metaphors and the
theoretical representations that result from them can be selected. The paper
also includes a discussion of metaphors-in-use (organizational improvisation as
jazz and organizational behavior as collective mind) which Weick proposed in
his own writings. The whole purpose of this exercise is to theoretically augment
and ground the concept of disciplined imagination, and in particular to refine
the nature of thought trials and selection within it. In doing so, we also aim to
provide pointers for the use of metaphorical imagination in the process of theory
construction. (The author suggest Weick use the 8 optimality principles for
example.)

Theory in Social Science

P I. What is a theory?
< A. Definition from Schutt: A logically interrelated set of propositions about
empirical reality. These propositions are comprised of:
1. Definitions: Sentences introducing terms that refer to the basic concepts of
the
theory
2. Functional relationships: Sentences that relate the basic concepts to each
other.
Within these we have
a. Assumptions or axioms
b. Deductions or hypotheses
3. Operational definitions: Sentences that relate some theoretical statement to
a set
of possible observations
< B. Why should we care? What do theories do?
105

1. Help us classify things: entities, processes, and causal relationships

2. Help us understand how and why already observed regularities occur
3 . Help us predict as yet unobserved relationships
4. Guide research in useful directions
5. Serve as a basis for action. "There is nothing so practical as a good theory."

C. What makes a good theory?

< 1. Parsimony: the ability to explain in relatively few terms and statements
< 2. Breadth of phenomena explained
< 3. Accuracy of predictions of new phenomena
< 4. Ability to be disproved
P D. What makes a theory useful? (From Pettigrew)
< 1. Moderators: variables that tell you when relationships can be expected to
be observed and when not. E.g. A causes B under condition Q
< 2. Mediators: variables that tell you how or why a relationship occurs, some
process that occurs between them. E.g. A causes B through variable Y.
< 3. Surplus meaning. It leads to new ideas that you would not have had
without it. E.g., you may hate evolutionary theory applied to people, but it
does lead to predictions no other theory makes E. Levels of theory
1. Grand = paradigms. Broad, general frameworks or approaches. Not
actually testable per say.
Can organize the subject matter of a field (or sub-field in social science) for
generations.
Give a general understanding about
Assumptions regarding subject matter
What are the important problems
What are acceptable methods
Examples:
Rational choice theory assumes people calculate the costs and benefits of
actions and act accordingly. People are basically rational
Symbolic interaction theory assumes that our actions are based on the
construction of meaning, identities, definitions of the situation
2. Theories of the middle range what we have been talking about. These
are generated using the frameworks and assumptions of paradigms.
Examples:
Deterrence theory (from rational choice)
Identity theory (from S.I.)
3. Close to data often simply empirical generalizations
< F. The building blocks of theory: concepts and variables
1. What is an abstract concept? An abstract word is a word that summarizes
many
106

concrete observations and stands for what they have in common.

Democracy is a term for a particular kind of government, with certain
characteristics (voting by the people governed, for example).
Dog refers to a particular category of animal that has a set of describable
characteristics (4 legs, fur, barking (usually), a tail (usually), etc.)
2. In social science, concepts are ways of summing up a set of specific
behaviors or
qualities one has observed and trying to put them into a higher level of
abstraction.
E.g., self-esteem, altruism, social class, prejudice, complexity (of
organizations), GNP (in economics)
3. Conceptualization is the process of specifying what we mean by a term.
Let's
take some of the concepts I just listed and say what they mean.
4. Variables, constants, attributes
A variable is a concept that can take on more than one value;
A constant is a concept that can take on only one value.
A concept (e.g. gender) can be a variable in one context (at the U.W.) and a
constant in another (at Mills College, among undergraduates).
An attribute is the particular value of a variable in a particular instance
5. What is operationalization? The process of "concretizing" the abstraction.
Why
do we call it that?
Your text says that an "operation" is "a procedure for identifying the value of
cases on a variable."
Operationalization is thus the process of specifying the operations.
6. Concepts, variables, and indicators. Self-esteem as an example:
Concept: definition
Variable: self-reported self-esteem
Indicator: the 10 items that make up the Rosenberg self-esteem scale and their
answer categories.
Attribute for any given individual is the score s/he gets on the scale.
107

< G. Propositions. The mortar: Statements of fact about one or more variables.
1. Two kinds of propositions used in social science:
An hypothesis is a statement about an expected finding or relationship; it is a
proposition that has not yet received empirical support.
An empirical generalization is a statement reporting an observed finding or
relationship.
2. There can be univariate and bivariate propositions.
A univariate proposition is one involving only one variable
E.g., The majority of students on the Madison campus are in favor of some
form of affirmative action.
Or, most Americans are in favor of the death penalty.
A bivariate proposition states a relationship (expected or observed) between
two
variables bi -variate -- such that a change in one implies a change in the other.
E.g."Northern college students are more supportive of affirmative action than
are Southern college students"
"Voters in states that do not have the death penalty will be more opposed to it
than voters in states that do have the death penalty."
II. How do theories develop and change?
< A. The process of theory development
108

1. Within some paradigm, theories are developed

2. These are tested empirically, by the derivation of hypotheses and carrying
out
of research
3. Some hypotheses are confirmed, others are not
4. The theory is adjusted to take account of these findings, e.g. using
moderator
variables as in Schutt example of deterrence theory
5. If there are multiple theories within a paradigm (or between paradigms), it
is
possible to pose critical experiments that may adjudicate between them. E.g.
Tolman vs. Hull in the 1950's
6. Example from Schutt: the deterrence experiment
Replication and extention: how one tests and retests theoretical ideas
109
110

< B. The idea of paradigm shifts: Thomas Kuhn, The Structure Of Scientific
Revolutions
1. Normal science stage
2. Crisis stage
Theories develop problems
New theories predict better than old theories
111

Does this mean the new theory takes over? No. Why not?
Commitments, emotional investment, ego-involvement
Social group support, sanctions, norms
Things that can happen
Refusal to publish the new, outlandish results
Ostracise or ridicule the people with the new ideas (e.g. Tolmaniacs)
3. Succession stage new paradigm eventually takes over as amount of data
piles
up and old model becomes untenable.
< C. On truth. The process of building theory is one of progressive
approximations to truth but no theory is ever true. They are only more or
less useful.
112

APPENDIX

http://jcrt.org/religioustheory/2017/02/06/philosophy-as-interdisciplinary-
intensity-an-interview-with-giorgio-agamben-antonio-gnolioido-govrin/

Philosophy As Interdisciplinary Intensity An Interview With Giorgio

Agamben (Antonio Gnolio/Ido Govrin)

The following is an interview with the famed Continental philosopher Giorgio

Agamben conducted by journalist Antonio Gnolio. Originally published in La
Repubblica on May 15, 2016. the interview is translated from the Italian by Ido
Govrin, whose bio is given at the end. It is translated with permission of La
Repubblica
I believe in the link between philosophy and poetry. I have always loved the
truth and the word. Giorgio Agamben

________________________________________________________________
_________

Introduction by Antonio Gnolio: The Parisian years with Italo Calvino,

Heideggers lectures and Rome of the 60s. Giorgio Agamben, the philosopher
113

who succeeded in broadening the thought between aesthetics and biopolitics,

speaks.

Giorgio Agamben wrote a beautiful book. His books are always dense and
bright (and unpredictable like the one recently dedicated to Pulcinella[1]). Their
look is directed towards the remote past. It is the only way to intensify the
present. Consider his latest work, What is Philosophy?[2]: What conceals an
apparently obvious question? It is my conviction, says Agamben

that philosophy is not a discipline of which one can define a subject and
boundaries (as Gilles Deleuze attempted to do) or, as it occurs in universities,
pretend to trace a linear and hopefully progressive history. Philosophy isnt an
essence, but an intensity that can suddenly give life to any field: art, religion,
economics, poetry, passion, love, even boredom. It resembles something more
like the wind or the clouds or a storm: like these, it suddenly produces, shakes,
transforms and even destroys the produced place, but just as unpredictably, it
passes and disappears.

AG: You offer a volatile image of philosophy.

GA: I divide the field of experience into two main categories: the essences on
one hand, and on the other hand, the intensity. As for the essence, it is possible
to designate the boundaries, to define the themes and subject, to trace the
cartography; the intensity, on the other hand, doesnt have a unique place.

AG: Can it take place anywhere?

GA: The philosophy, the thought, is in this sense an intensity that can tend to,
animate and cross any field. It shares this character of tension with politics.
Even politics is an intensity; even politics, in contrast to what political experts
believe, doesnt have a unique place: it is evident not only in recent history, but
suddenly also in religion, economics; and even aesthetics can acquire a decisive
political intensity, and become an occurrence of hostility and strife. It goes
without saying that intensities are more interesting than essences. If essences
and disciplines like life, eventually remain inert, if they dont reach a certain
intensity, they atrophy into bureaucratic practices.

AG: Poetry can be an antidote against decaying into bureaucratic practice. You
have often strengthened the link between philosophy and poetry the same link
Heidegger positioned at the centre of his reflections. What does this link consist
of?
114

GA: I have always thought that philosophy and poetry arent two separate
essences, but two intensities that tend to the unique field of language in two
opposite directions: the pure sense and the pure sound. Theres no poetry
without thought, just as theres no thought without a poetic moment. In this
sense, Hlderlin and Caproni are philosophers, just as some parts of Plato or
Benjamins prose are pure poetry. If one drastically divides the two camps, I
myself dont know which one I belong to.

AG: An academic degree in law appears in your intellectual biography, but

rather unusually, with a thesis dedicated to Simone Weil. How did this choice
come about?

GA: I discovered Simone Weil in Paris in 1963 or 64, when I bought by chance
the first edition of the

Cahiers[3] at the Tschann bookstore in Montparnasse. I remained so dazzled by

it that as soon as I returned to Rome I read it to Elsa Morante, who was
conquered by it. Immediately I decided that I would dedicate my academic
thesis in the philosophy of law to the political thought of Weil. At that time in
Italy her thought was relatively unknown, and I knew much more about it than
my supervisors whom I studied with when obtaining my degree.

AG: What impressed you in her thought?

GA: In particular, the critique of notions of personhood and the law that Weil
developed in La personne et le sacr.[4] It was following this critique that I
read Marcel Mausss essay on notions of personhood, and the relationship that
intimately connects the juridical person and the theatrical (and then theological)
mask of the modern individual became clear to me. Perhaps the critique of the
law, which I never abandoned since the first volume of Homo Sacer[5], has its
roots in Weils essay.

AG: Another root in the structure of your thought was Walter Benjamin.

GA: There are events and encounters in life that are too big to take in all at
once. They, so to speak, dont cease to escort us. The encounter with Benjamin
as that with Heidegger in Le Thor is of this kind. Just as the theologians say
that God continues to create the world in every instance, so these encounters are
always ongoing. The debt I have for Benjamin is incalculable.
115

AG: Debt is a powerful word.

GA: It suffices here to refer solely to a methodological problem. It was he who

taught me to derive strength from his apparently remote historical context, a
determined phenomenon to restore life and act in the present. Without it, my
incursions into fields as diverse as theology and law, politics and literature,
would not have been possible. When one deeply haunt an author to such an
extent, it produces phenomena that seem almost magical, but they are only the
result of this intimacy. Thus it happened to me to discover Benjamins
manuscripts, first in Rome, in a house of a friend from his youth, and then at the
National Library in Paris (the manuscripts of the book about Baudelaire that
Benjamin worked on in the final years of his life).

AG: In recent years you have intensified your call on biopolitics. Is this a
concept we owe in large part to Michel Foucault?

GA: Certainly. But just as important to me was the problem of method in

Foucault, namely the archeology. Im convinced that these days the only way to
access the present is through investigation of the past, the archeology. It should
be made clear, as Foucault does, that archeological researches are not just the
shadow that the interrogation of the present projects on the past. In my case, this
shadow is often longer than that sought after by Foucault and probes fields such
as theology and law, which Foucault hardly looked at. It certainly may turn out
that the results of my research are disputed, but I hope at least that the purely
archeological researches I developed in State of Exception,[6] The Kingdom and
the Glory,[7] or in the book on oath,[8] help us understand the time in which we
live.

AG: Another thinker who helped us understand the time in which we live was
Guy Debord with his book The Society of the Spectacle,[9] a text that still helps
us comprehend our present.

GA: I read it at the very year of its publication, in 1967. I became friends with
Guy many years later, in the late 80s. But I remember, in the moment of its first
reading, as through our conversations, the sigh of relief seeing how his mind
was absolutely free from the ideological prejudices that had compromised the
fates of the movements. In 68 and in the following years, the friends of the
movements I visited proclaimed themselves, without fear or shame, and with an
absolute abdication of the faculty of thinking, Maoist, Trotskyist, etc. Guy
and I had arrived at the same lucidity; he from the tradition of the artistic avant-
garde from which he came, myself from poetry and philosophy.
116

AG: Debord said about himself: Im not a philosopher, Im a strategist. In

your opinion, what did he mean?

GA: Despite this affirmation you cite, I dont think that for him there was any
conflict between being a philosopher and a strategist. Philosophy always
involves a problem of strategy since, even if it searches the eternal, it can do so
only through a confrontation with its own time.

AG: In the years you lived in Paris you often saw Italo Calvino. What was your
relationship with him like, with his idea of illuminating geometries?

GA: Next to the name Calvino, I want to mention that of Claudio Rugafiori,
who, together with Calvino, I often saw in those years, because we worked
together on a magazine project that was never carried out. The attempt was to
define what we called among ourselves the Italian Categories the pairs of
concepts through which we sought to define the frameworks of Italian culture:
Architecture/Wandering, Tragedy/Comedy, Speediness/Nimbleness, the
latter can literally be recalled in the American Lessons[10] of Calvino. I was
fascinated by the way in which they worked in Italos mind and that of Claudio.

AG: What captivated you?

GA: The fact that they were two forms of purely analogical thought, which
perceived resemblances and correspondences in a place where no one else knew
to find them. The analogy is a form of knowledge that our culture increasingly
pushed to the margins. As for Calvinos geometric and scientific concept, I
believe it is correct. His concept was rather an extraordinary form of analogical
117

imagination, a kind of interpretative drive that allowed him, each time, to

redraw the geography of literary knowledge.

AG: At the beginning you pointed out your friendship with Elsa Morante. What
your relationship like with a woman of such complex character?

GA: The meeting and friendship with Elsa were for me in every sense decisive.
Calvino once told me that it was possible to associate with Elsa only within a
cult. Perhaps it was true, but on the condition that we specify that the object of
the cult was not Elsa, but those gods from Rimbaud to Simon Weil, from
Mozart to Spinoza that she researched and loved to share with friends. In this,
Elsa was knowledgeable, brutally knowledgeable, and I believe that it conveyed
to the lad that I was a bit of that uncompromising passion she had for poetry and
truth. And since then I think that one cannot draw clear boundaries between
literature and philosophy.

AG: I know that through Morante you were acquainted with Pasolini. You were
part of a small but nice circle of participants in his The Gospel According to St.
Matthew. What memory do you have from the experience on set?

GA: I remember the velocity of The Gospel: Pasolini almost never made
himself repeat a scene and everybody spoke and moved as they wished. I
believe this is the film he made most naturally, a film that never pretended to be
realistic. The only long pause during the filming was my fault: in the last supper
I found myself in front of enormous leavened loaves on the table and I had to
remind Pier Paolo that for the Jewish Passover the bread had to be unleavened.

AG: You also mentioned your encounters with Heidegger and the seminars that
you followed him in Le Thor in 1966 and then in 1968. What remained with
you from these meetings?

GA: The encounter with Heidegger, as that with Benjamin, never finished. In
my memory it is inseparable from the landscape of Provence, then still
untouched by tourism. The seminar took place in the morning, in the garden of
the small hotel that hosted us, but sometimes in a hut during one of the
numerous excursions in the surrounding countryside. The first year we were
five in total; in addition to the seminar there were shared meals and I took
advantage of those in order to pose to Heidegger the questions that interested
me the most: if he had read Kafka, if he knew Benjamin. But these are merely
anecdotes.
118

AG: What do you think about the controversies aroused by the recent
publication of the so-called Black Notebooks?

GA: These controversies rest on a misunderstanding of the definition of anti-

Semitism and its use. The

way it is used today, this word designates something that has to do with the
persecution and the extermination of the Jews. One does not have to use this
word in order to describe someone that, even if his opinions about Jews are
erroneous, has opinions that have nothing to do with these phenomena. And
nonetheless one keeps on doing it and not solely concerning Heidegger. If every
critical discourse on Judaism, even if reserved as in the diary notes, is
condemned as anti-Semitic, it is equivalent to the exclusion of Judaism by
language.

AG: One of the apparent principal focuses of your research was philology. In
what way have you practiced it?

GA: Philology was always an essential part of my research. And not only
because it occurred to me to do philological works in a technical sense I think
about the reconstruction of Benjamins book on Baudelaire and the editing
Capronis posthumous poems but because philology and philosophy, the love
of words and the love of truth, cannot be separated in any way. The truth dwells
in language and a philosopher who neglects this place would be a poor
philosopher. Philosophers, like poets, are first and foremost the guardians of
language, and this is a genuinely political task, especially in a time like ours,
which tries by all means to blur and distort the meaning of words.

Ido Govrin is a multidisciplinary artist and scholar whose practice includes

sound, installation, printmaking and text. Govrin has studied art and
philosophy in Israel, Holland and Canada. He holds a B.A. in philosophy from
Tel-Aviv University (2012), an M.F.A from the University of Toronto (2014) and
is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Western University (Canada). He regularly
exhibits across North America, Europe and Israel. In addition to his work as an
artist, he has curated a series of five contemporary art exhibitions under the
title Laptopia (2005-11) and the group exhibition Mother, Ravens! (2012).
Between 2008 and 2012, he was the director of Musica Nova ensemble, which
has been at the forefront of Israels experimental music scene since the 1980s.
Govrin has released two full-length studio albums, Moraine (2010) and The
119

Revisit (2011), as well as various other EPs. Since 2005, he has run the record
label Interval Recordings.

________________________________________________________________
________

[1] Agamben, Pulcinella ovvero Divertimento per li regazzi, Roma:

Nottetempo, 2015.

[2] Agamben, Che cos la filosofia? Macerata: Quodlibet, 2016.

[3] Simon Weil, Cahiers I, Paris: Plon, 1940.

[4] An essay within the Weils Cahiers.

[5] Agamben, Homo sacer: Il potere sovrano e la nuda vita, Torino: Einaudi,
1995.

[6] Agamben, Stato di Eccezione, Torino: Bollati Boringhieri, 2003.

[7] Agamben, ll regno e la gloria. Per una genealogia teologica

delleconomica e del governo, Torino: Bollati Boringhieri, 2009.

[8] Agamben, Il sacramento del linguaggio. Archeologia del giuramento,

Torino: Bollati Boringhieri, 2008.

[9] Guy Debord, La socii du spectacle, Paris: Buchet-Chastel, 1967.

[10] Italo Calvino, Six Memos for the Next Millennium, Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1988.

Khashayar Beigi says:

February 8, 2017 at 9:47 pm
Nice conceptualization of philosophy, but to be exact and fair intensity is a
Deleuzian concept, or at least its re-invigoration owes much to him.

https://iainews.iai.tv/articles/issue-54-the-limits-of-reason-auid-791

Is reason no more than a powerful tool of oppression? Will post-truth turn

out to be a good thing? Are emotions a better guide to life than rationality?
120

In this issue of IAI News, well be testing the limits of reason. Each of our
contributors will be arguing whether or not we it's time to abandon reason,
examine its impact and go in search of new ways to understand the world.

In a time of uncertainty and doubt, many think reason alone leads to truth. But
in a world where post-truth and alternative facts have taken hold, its no
longer clear that reason is destined to put us on the right path. Nor is it clear that
reason and rationality are the neutral but powerful tools they once seemed. Is
the enlightenment project over? Should we be sceptical of the claims of logic
and rationality and pursue intuition and emotion instead? Or would this allow
blind prejudice to rule?

In Defence of Post-Truth
Steve Fuller post-modern sociologist at Warwick

Could post-truth actually be a good thing? Leading the attack on reason, Fuller
argues that truth is a redundant concept best consigned to the heap of failed
philosophical projects.

Intuition vs Reason
Berit Brogaard philosopher and author of Transient Truths

Might emotions be a better guide to life? Taking a different approach, Brogaard

picks apart how we make choices, arguing that gut feelings should replace
reason as our primary form of decision-making.

Reason, The Enlightenment, and Post-Truth Politics

Peter Hacker Emeritus Oxford philosopher and Wittgenstein scholar

Is it time to revive the dream of the Enlightenment? Coming to reasons

defence, Hacker examines the consequences of post-truth, arguing that the
inevitable price for disregarding facts is yet to be paid. But the bills are starting
to come in.

What We Cannot Know

Marcus Du Sautoy Oxford mathematician and Professor for the Public
Understanding of Science

Does knowledge have limits? In this piece Du Sautoy challenges the authority
of science and questions reasons ability to answer the fundamental questions.
121

The Iron Cage of Reason

Vronique Mottier Cambridge sociologist specialising in sexuality

Is reason no more than a powerful tool of oppression? Completing the issue,

Mottier debunks the idea that reason is a neutral path to truth, arguing that it
represents a key pillar of male domination over women.

https://iainews.iai.tv/articles/in-defence-of-post-truth-auid-786

In Defence of Post-Truth
Thursday 02nd March
The demise of truth has sent the world into crisis. But are we better off without
it?
Steve Fuller | Postmodern philosopher, Professor of Sociology at Warwick,
author of Popper vs. Kuhn and the controversial Dissent Over Descent:
Intelligent Design's Challenge to Darwinism

To believe what philosophers say about their field, you might be forgiven for
thinking that they are seekers after the truth. However, as in so many other
cases, you shouldnt believe the hype. On the contrary, philosophers are the
ultimate experts in a post-truth world. They see truth for what it is: the name
of a brand ever in search of a product which everyone is compelled to buy. This
helps to explain why philosophers are most confident appealing to the truth
when they are trying to persuade non-philosophers, be they in courtrooms or
classrooms.

Anyone who finds my judgement too harsh or cynical is invited to consider the
careers of the key philosophical terms in which knowledge claims are
transacted, not least evidence and truth itself. Evidence is a good place to
start because it feeds directly into the popular image of our post-truth world as
post-fact, understood as a wilful denial of solid, if not incontrovertible, pieces
of evidence, whose independent standing sets limits on what can be justifiably
asserted about the world.

It was only in the early modern period that philosophers even began to
distinguish a purely fact-based conception of evidence from personal revelation
and authoritative testimony. The break only became clean in the mid-nineteenth
century when logic books regularly started to classify people-based claims to
evidence among the informal fallacies.
122

This slow crafting of the concept of evidence was part of the general
secularisation of knowledge. But it would be a mistake to think that todays
concept was purpose-made for scientific inquiry. Rather, it was an adaptation of
the inquisition the procedure used on the European continent to identify
heretics and witches. Its English importer was Francis Bacon, King James Is
lawyer, who believed that nature itself was a fugitive from the law, hiding its
secrets from humanity for much too long. Special trials were thus required to
force nature from its normally equivocal stance to decide between two mutually
exclusive options.

news

Metaphysics & Language

Mind & Psychology

Ethics & Religion

The Universe & Reality

Life & The Living

Technology & Society

The World & The Future

Ideas & Ideology

Culture & Sexuality

Art & Aesthetics

Narrative & Reality

Music & Performance

In Defence of Post-Truth
Thursday 02nd March
The demise of truth has sent the world into crisis. But are we better off without
it?
123

Steve Fuller | Postmodern philosopher, Professor of Sociology at Warwick,

author of Popper vs. Kuhn and the controversial Dissent Over Descent:
Intelligent Design's Challenge to Darwinism

To believe what philosophers say about their field, you might be forgiven for
thinking that they are seekers after the truth. However, as in so many other
cases, you shouldnt believe the hype. On the contrary, philosophers are the
ultimate experts in a post-truth world. They see truth for what it is: the name
of a brand ever in search of a product which everyone is compelled to buy. This
helps to explain why philosophers are most confident appealing to the truth
when they are trying to persuade non-philosophers, be they in courtrooms or
classrooms.

Anyone who finds my judgement too harsh or cynical is invited to consider the
careers of the key philosophical terms in which knowledge claims are
transacted, not least evidence and truth itself. Evidence is a good place to
start because it feeds directly into the popular image of our post-truth world as
post-fact, understood as a wilful denial of solid, if not incontrovertible, pieces
of evidence, whose independent standing sets limits on what can be justifiably
asserted about the world.

It was only in the early modern period that philosophers even began to
distinguish a purely fact-based conception of evidence from personal revelation
and authoritative testimony. The break only became clean in the mid-nineteenth
century when logic books regularly started to classify people-based claims to
evidence among the informal fallacies.

This slow crafting of the concept of evidence was part of the general
secularisation of knowledge. But it would be a mistake to think that todays
concept was purpose-made for scientific inquiry. Rather, it was an adaptation of
the inquisition the procedure used on the European continent to identify
heretics and witches. Its English importer was Francis Bacon, King James Is
lawyer, who believed that nature itself was a fugitive from the law, hiding its
secrets from humanity for much too long. Special trials were thus required to
force nature from its normally equivocal stance to decide between two mutually
exclusive options.
124

Bacon called such trials crucial experiments, which Karl Popper turned into
the gold standard of the scientific method. But Bacon and Popper were under no
illusions that the facts produced under such extraordinary rendition, as we
would now say, were natures deliverances in more relaxed settings. Popper
went so far as to call facts conventions, by which he meant convenient
waystations in a never-ending inquisition of nature. After all, what made
experiments crucial was that their outcomes hastened knowledge of a future
that otherwise would only unfold for good or ill on natures timetable, which
would provide humanity little opportunity to plan a response.

As for truth, it harks back to an older English word, troth, which harbours all
its philosophical difficulties. Troth means faithfulness but to what exactly:
the source or the target? Originally truth was about loyalty to whomever
empowers the truth-teller, be it God or a general. In this context, it was
associated with executing a plan of action, be it in the cosmos or on the
battlefield. One remained true by following through on the power-givers
intention, regardless of manner or outcome. Its this sense of true that enabled
the Jesuits, a Catholic order founded by a soldier, to do Gods work by operating
on the principle that the ends justifies the means.

However, it was thanks to another Catholic, Thomas Aquinas, that truth came to
be seen as loyalty to the objects already in the field of play. His own Latin turn
of phrase was adequatio ad rem, whose crude English translation, adequacy to
the thing, captures the disempowering character of the concept, which
philosophers continue to dignify as the correspondence theory of truth.
Aquinas, writing at a time of considerable heresy, was nevertheless confident
that the world as it normally appears is close enough to Gods plan that the
faithful should stop second-guessing Gods intentions and focus instead on
getting the empirical details of Creation right.

These contrary pulls on the concept of truth have persisted to this day. When
Newton famously declared Hypotheses non fingo (I feign no hypotheses) in
the second edition of Principia Mathematica, he was diverting suspicious
religious readers who feared that he might be trying to get into The Mind of
God rather than simply providing a perspicuous account of natures order. But
of course, Newton was aiming to second-guess the God in which he believed.
The funny thing is that avowedly atheist physicists like Stephen Hawking,
successor to Newtons Cambridge chair, still aspire to do the same and differ
only in the details of execution.

To see just how conflicted the concept of truth is in our times, one shouldnt
fixate on the fake facts and fake news easily associated with the Brexit
125

campaign or Breitbart news. They are just the downstream effects of a much
deeper division which the US philosopher Wilfrid Sellars canonized more than a
half-century ago as the manifest and scientific images of the world the two
being understood as radically at odds with each other. Whenever someone tries
to exert epistemic authority by saying that the truth is not as it seems, they are
generally identifying with Sellars scientific image of the world. Of course,
many paranoids say exactly that, and in the post-truth world the difference
between the cranks and the deep thinkers lies in who can get the rest of the
world to organize around their particular image.

One philosopher who offers guidance in navigating through the somewhat

surreal post-truth intellectual environment is Hans Vaihinger, the leading Kant
scholar from a century ago. He developed an entire world-view around Kants
repeated use of the phrase als ob (as if). Much of the normative force of
Kants philosophy comes from thinking or acting as if certain things were true,
even though you may never be able to prove them and they may even turn out to
be false. Vaihinger called the resulting world-view fictionalism and it
epitomizes the post-truth sensibility. And seen through Vaihingers eyes,
philosophy appears to be the most post-truth field of them all.

Contemporary philosophy is notoriously divided into analytic and

continental schools. The analytics accuse the continentals of having picked up
all of Nietzsches worst habits. The result is a trail of spurious reasoning, fake
philologies, eccentric histories, obscurantism and hyperbole. This is quite a list
of offences to the truth, yet it is striking that analytic philosophys most lasting
contributions in the last half-century has been a series of thought experiments,
which are no more than figments of the imagination that are passed off as heroic
abstractions from some hypothetical reality. The rest of analytic philosophy is
basically just scholastic wrangling about the wording of these thought
experiments and the conclusions one is licensed to draw from them, leavened by
occasional moments of high dudgeon, as well as displays of ignorance, narrow-
mindedness and bias.

Vaihinger could make sense of what is going on here. He divided our approach
to the world into fictions and hypotheses. In a fiction, you dont know that you
inhabit a false world, whereas in a hypothesis you know that you dont inhabit a
false world. In either case, the true world doesnt have any epistemic standing.
From this standpoint, continental philosophers are purveyors of fictions, and
analytic philosophers of hypotheses. What we colloquially call reality moves
between these two poles, never really honing in on any robust sense of truth.
Here one needs to think of fictions on a sliding scale from novels to plays to
laws (legal fictions) and hypotheses on a sliding scale from what Euclid was
126

talking about to what scientists test in a lab to what people do when they plan
for the future.

Does this mean that truth is a redundant concept altogether? That there is a
redundancy theory of truth, proposed by the logician Frank Ramsey nearly a
hundred years ago, suggests as much. Moreover, the theories of truth that have
followed in its wake alternatively called deflationary, disquotational,
expressive and even honorific can be added to the post-truth, if not anti-
truth, repertoire of at least analytic philosophy. But in fact (assuming such a
locution is permitted), Vaihinger would say and here I would agree with him
that truth turns out to be whatever is decided by the empowered judge in the
case at hand. In other words, Francis Bacon was right, after all, which perhaps
explains why Kant dedicated the Critique of Pure Reason to him.

https://iainews.iai.tv/articles/intuition-vs-reason-auid-790

Intuition vs Reason
Thursday 02nd March
Can our gut feelings replace reason in everyday situations?
Berit Brogaard |
Miami philosopher of mind Berit Brogaard has published on synaethesia, savant
syndrome and the emotions. Her recent books include On Romantic Love and
The Superhuman Mind.

https://iainews.iai.tv/articles/reason-the-enlightenment-and-post-truth-politics-
auid-785

Reason, the Enlightenment, and Post-Truth Politics

Thursday 02nd March
Do we need to rediscover the dream of the enlightenment?
Peter Hacker | Emeritus research fellow at St Johns College, Oxford
University and noted scholar on Wittgenstein.
https://iainews.iai.tv/articles/issue-54-the-limits-of-reason-auid-791

Issue 54: The Limits of Reason

Thursday 02nd March
127

Is the enlightenment project over? Should we seek new forms of knowledge, or

would this send us back to the dark ages?
Is reason no more than a powerful tool of oppression? Will post-truth turn out to
be a good thing? Are emotions a better guide to life than rationality? In this
issue of IAI News, well be testing the limits of reason. Each of our contributors
will be arguing whether or not we it's time to abandon reason, examine its
impact and go in search of new ...

https://iainews.iai.tv/articles/what-we-cannot-know-auid-787

What We Cannot Know

Thursday 02nd March
Science promises answers to the fundamental questions. But does knowledge
have limits?
Marcus Du Sautoy | Mathematician and author of What We Cannot Know, Du
Sautoy is the Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at
Oxford.
The pace of scientific discovery in the last few decades has been extraordinary.
Weve discovered new particles; seen habitable planets orbiting distant stars;
detected gravitational waves; mapped the complete neuronal network of a C
Elegans worm; and built new forms of carbon called graphene. In 2014 the
science journal Nature report

news

Metaphysics & Language

Mind & Psychology

Ethics & Religion

The Universe & Reality

Life & The Living

Technology & Society

The World & The Future

128

Ideas & Ideology

Culture & Sexuality

Art & Aesthetics

Narrative & Reality

Music & Performance

Intuition vs Reason
Thursday 02nd March
Can our gut feelings replace reason in everyday situations?
Berit Brogaard |
Miami philosopher of mind Berit Brogaard has published on synaethesia, savant
syndrome and the emotions. Her recent books include On Romantic Love and
The Superhuman Mind.

0 0 0 Google +0

Consider the following puzzle, borrowed from Nobel-prize winner Daniel

Kahneman's Thinking, Fast And Slow: A bat and ball cost $1.10. The bat
costs one dollar more than the ball. How much does the ball cost? The puzzle
naturally evokes an intuitive answer: 10 cents (the correct answer is 5 cents).
The puzzle is a very simple math puzzle...
https://investingcaffeine.com/tag/thinking-fast-and-slow/

Many drivers here in California adhere to the common freeway speed limit of
65 miles per hour, while some do not (Ill take the 5th). In the vast majority of
cases, racing to your destination at these faster speeds makes perfect sense.
However, driving 65 mph through the shopping mall parking lot could get you
killed, so slower driving is preferred in this instance. Ultimately, the specific
environment and situation will dictate the rational and prudent driving speed.
Decision making works in much the same way, and Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel
Prize winner, has encapsulated his decades of research in psychology and
economics in his most recent book, Thinking, Fast and Slow.
129

Much of Kahnemans big ideas are analyzed through the lenses of System 1
and System 2 the fast and slow decision-making processes persistently used
by our brains. System 1 thinking is our intuition in the fast lane, continually
making judgments in real-time. Our System 1 hunches are often correct, but
because of speedy, inherent biases and periodic errors this process can cause us
to miss an off-ramp or even cause a conclusion collision. System 2, on the other
hand, is the slower, methodical decision-making process in our brains that keeps
our hasty System 1 process in check. Although little mental energy is exerted by
using System 1, a great deal of cerebral horsepower is required to use System 2.

Summarizing 512 pages of Kahnemans book in a single article may be

challenging, nevertheless I will do my best to summarize some of the interesting
highlights and anecdotes. A multitude of Kahnemans research is reviewed, but
a key goal of the book is designed to help individuals identify errors in
judgment and biases, in order to lower the prevalence of mental mistakes in the
future.

Over Kahnemans 50+ year academic career, he has uncovered an endless string
of flaws in the human thought process. To bring those mistakes to life, he uses
several mind experiments to illustrate them. Here are a few:

Buying Baseball: Well start off with a simple Kahneman problem. If a baseball
bat and a ball cost a total of $1.10, and the bat costs $1 more than the ball, then
how much does the ball cost? The answer is $0.10, right? WRONG! Intuition
and the rash System 1 forces most people to answer $0.10 cents for the ball, but
after going through the math it becomes clear that this gut answer is wrong. If
the ball is $0.10 and the bat is $1 more, then that would mean the bat costs
$1.10, making the total $1.20WRONG! This is clearly a System 2 problem,
which requires the brain to see a $0.05 ball plus $1.05 bat equals $1.10
CORRECT!

The Invisible Gorilla: As Kahneman points out, humans can be blind to the
obvious and blind to our blindness. To make this point he references an
experiment and book titled Invisible Gorilla, created by Chritopher Chabris and
Daniel Simons. In the experiment, three players wearing white outfits pass a
basketball around at the same time that a group of players wearing black outfits
pass around a separate basketball. The anomaly in the experiment occurs when
someone in a full-sized gorilla outfit goes prancing through the scene for nine
full seconds. To the surprise of many, about half of the experiment observers do
not see the gorilla. In addition, the gorilla-blind observers deny the existence of
the large, furry animal when confronted with recorded evidence (see video
below).

https://youtu.be/vJG698U2Mvo
130

Green & Red Dice: In this thought experiment, Kahneman describes a group
presented with a regular six-sided die with four green sides (G) and two red
sides (R), meaning the probability of the die landing on green (G) is is much
higher than the probability of landing on red (R). To make the experiment more
interesting, the group is provided a cash prize for picking the highest probability
scenario out of the following three sequences: 1) R-G-R-R-R; 2) G-R-G-R-R-R;
and 3) G-R-R-R-R-R. Although most participants pick sequence #2 because it
has the most greens (G) in it, if one looks more closely, sequence #2 is the same
as #1 except for sequence #2 has an additional green (G). Therefore, the highest
probability winning answer should be sequence #1 because sequence #2 adds an
uncertain roll that may or may not land on green (G).

While the previous experiments described some notable human decision-

making flaws, here are some more human flaws:

Anchoring Effect: Was Gandhi 114 when he died, or was Gandhi 35 when he
died? Depending how the question is asked, asking the initial question first will
skew the respondents answer to a higher age, because the respondents answer
will be somewhat anchored to the number 114. Similarly, the price a
homebuyer would pay for a house will be influenced or anchored to the asking
price. Another word used by some for anchoring is suggestion. If a subliminal
suggestion is planted, peoples responses can become anchored to that idea.

Overconfidence: We encounter overconfidence in several forms, especially

from what Kahneman calls the Illusion of Pundits, which is the confidence
that comes with 20-20 hindsight experienced in our 24/7 media world. Or as
Kahneman states in a different way, The illusion that we understand the past
fosters overconfidence in our ability to predict the future. Driving is another
example of overconfidence very few people believe they are poor drivers. In
fact, a well-known study shows that 90% of drivers believe they are better than
average, despite defying the laws of mathematics.

Risk Aversion: In Kahnemans book, he also references risk aversion studies by

Mathew Rabin and Richard Thaler. What the researchers discovered is that
people appear to be irrational in the way they respond to certain risk scenarios.
For example, people will turn down the following gambles:

A 50% chance to lose $100 and a 50% chance to win $200;

OR
131

A 50% chance to lose $200 and a 50% chance to win $20,000 .

Although rational math would indicate these are smart bets to take, however
most people decline the game because humans on average weigh losses twice as
much as gains (see also the Pleasure/Pain Principle). To get a better
understanding of predictive human behavior, the real emotional costs of
disappointment and regret need to be accounted for.

Truth Illusions: A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is through

repetition. More exposure will breed more liking. In addition to normal
conversations, these repetitive truth illusions can be witnessed in propaganda or
advertising. Minimizing cognitive strain also reinforces points. Using bold,
colored, and contrasted language is more convincing. Simpler language rather
than more complex language is also more credible.

Narrative Fallacies: We humans have an innate desire to continually explain

the causation of an event due to skill or stupidity even if randomness is the
best explanation.People try to make sense of the world, even though many
outcomes have no straightforward explanation. Often times, a statistical
phenomenon like regression to the mean can explain the results (i.e., outliers
revert directionally toward averages). The Sports Illustrated Jinx, or the claim
that a heralded cover story athlete will be subsequently cursed with bad
performance, is used as a case in point. Actually, there is no jinx or curse, but
often fickle luck disappears and athletic performance reverts to norms.

Kahneman on Stocks

Many of the principles in Kahnemans book can be applied to the world of

stocks and investing too. According to Kahneman, the investing industry has
been built on an illusion of skill, or the belief that one person has better
information than the other person. To make his point, Kahneman references
research by Terry Odean, a finance professor at UC Berkely, who studied the
records of 10,000 brokerage accounts of individual investors spanning a seven-
year period and covering almost 163,000 trades. The net result showed dramatic
underperformance by the individual traders and confirmed that stocks sold by
the traders consistently did better than the stocks purchased.Taking a shower
and doing nothing would have been better than the value destroying trading
activity. In fact, the most active traders did much worse than those who traded
the least. For professional managers the conclusions are not a whole lot
different. For a large majority of fund managers, the selection of stocks is
more like rolling dice than like playing poker. Typically at least two out of every
132

three mutual funds underperform the overall market in any given year, says
Kahneman. I dont disagree, but I do believe, like .300 hitters in baseball, there
are a few managers that can consistently outperform.

There are a lot of lessons to be learned from Daniel Kahnemans book Thinking,
Fast and Slow and I apply many of his conclusions to my investment practice at
Sidoxia. We all race through decisions every day, but as he repeatedly points
out, familiarizing ourselves with these common mental pitfalls, and also
utilizing our more methodical and accurate System 2 thought process regularly,
can create better decisions. Better decisions not only for our regular lives, but
also for our investing lives. Its perfectly OK to race down the mental freeway
at 65 mph (or faster), but dont forget to slow down occasionally, in order to
avoid mental collisions.

Wade W. Slome, CFA, CFP

Plan. Invest. Prosper.

www.Sidoxia.com

DISCLOSURE: Sidoxia Capital Management (SCM) and some of its clients

hold positions in certain exchange traded funds (ETFs), but at the time of
publishing SCM had no direct position in any security referenced in this article.
No information accessed through the Investing Caffeine (IC) website constitutes
investment, financial, legal, tax or other advice nor is to be relied on in making
an investment or other decision. Please read disclosure language on IC Contact
page.

September 9, 2012 at 10:36 am 3 comments

Experts vs. Dart-Throwing Chimps

Daniel Kahneman, a professor of psychology at Princeton University, knows a

few things about human behavior and decision making, and he has a Nobel
Prize in Economics to prove it. We live in a complex world and our brains will
often try to compensate by using shortcuts (or what Kahneman calls heuristics
and biases), in hopes of simplifying complicated situations and problems.

When our brains become lazy, or we are not informed in a certain area, people
tend to also listen to so-called experts or pundits to clarify uncertainties. In the
process of their work, Kahneman and other researchers have discovered
133

something experts should be listened to as much as monkeys. Frequent

readers of Investing Caffeine understand my shared skepticism of the talking
heads parading around on TV (read first entry of 10 Ways to Destroy Your
Portfolio)

Here is how Kahneman describes the reliability of professional forecasts and

predictions in his recently published bestseller, Thinking, Fast and Slow:

People who spend their time, and earn their living, studying a particular topic
produce poorer predictions than dart-throwing monkeys who would have
distributed their choices evenly over the options.
Most people fall prey to this illusion of predictability created by experts, or this
idea that more knowledge equates to better predictions and forecasts. One of the
factors perpetuating this myth is the rearview mirror. In other words, humans
ability to concoct a credible story of past events creates a false confidence in
peoples ability to accurately predict the future.

Heres how Kahneman describes the phenomenon:

The idea that the future is unpredictable is undermined every day by the ease
with which the past is explainedOur tendency to construct and believe
coherent narratives of the past makes it difficult for us to accept the limits of our
forecasting ability. Everything makes sense in hindsight, a fact financial pundits
exploit every evening as they offer convincing accounts of the days events. And
we cannot suppress the powerful intuition that what makes sense in hindsight
today was predictable yesterday. The illusion that we understand the past fosters
overconfidence in our ability to predict the future.
Even when experts are wrong about their predictions, they tend to not accept
accountability. Rather than take responsibility for a bad prediction, Philip
Tetlock says the errors are often attributed to bad timing or an unforeseeable
event. Philip Tetlock, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania did a
landmark twenty-year study, which was published in his book Expert Political
Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know? (read excellent review in
The New Yorker). In the study Tetlock interviewed 284 economic and political
professionals and collected more than 80,000 predictions from them. The
results? The experts did worse than blind guessing.

Based on the extensive training and knowledge of these experts, many of them
develop a false sense of confidence in their predictions. Or as Tetlock explains
it, They [experts] are just human in the end. They are dazzled by their own
134

brilliance and hate to be wrong. Experts are led astray not by what they believe,
but by how they think.

Brain Blunders and Stock Picking

The buyer of a stock thinks the price will go up and the seller of a stock thinks
the price will go down. Both participants engage in the transaction because they
believe the current stock price is wrong. The financial services industry is built
largely on this phenomenon that Kahneman calls an illusion of skill, or ability
to exploit inefficient market pricing. Relentless advertisements and marketing
pitches continually make the case that professionals can outperform the
markets, but this is what Kahneman found:

Although professionals are able to extract a considerable amount of wealth

from amateurs, few stock pickers, if any, have the skill needed to beat the
market consistently, year after year. Professional investors, including fund
managers, fail a basic test of skill: persistent achievementSkill in evaluating
the business prospects of a firm is not sufficient for successful stock trading,
where the key question is whether the information about the firm is already
incorporated in the price of its stock. Traders apparently lack the skill to answer
this crucial question, but they appear ignorant of their ignorance.
For the few managers that actually do outperform, Kahneman assigns luck to
the outcome, not skill:

For a large majority of fund managers, the selection of stocks is more like
rolling dice than like playing poker. Typically at least two out of three mutual
funds underperform the overall market in any given yearThe successful funds
in any given year are mostly lucky; they have a good roll of the dice.
The picture for individual investors isnt any prettier. Evidence from Terry
Odeam, a finance professor at UC Berkeley, who studied 100,000 individual
brokerage account statements and about 163,000 trades over a seven-year
period, was not encouraging. He discovered that stocks sold actually did +3.2%
better than the replacement stocks purchased. And this detrimental impact on
performance excludes the significant expenses related to trading.

In response to Odeans work, Kahneman states:

It is clear that for the large majority of individual investors, taking a shower
and doing nothing would have been a better policy than implementing the ideas
135

that came to their minds.Many individual investors lose consistently by

trading, an achievement that a dart-throwing chimp could not match.
In a future Odean paper titled, Trading is Hazardous to your Wealth, Odean
and his colleague Brad Barber also proved that less is more. The results
showed the most active traders had the weakest performance, and those traders
who traded the least had the best returns. Interestingly, women were shown to
have better investment results than men.

Regardless of whether someone is listening to an expert, fund manager, or

individual investor, what Daniel Kahneman has discovered in his long,
illustrious career is that humans consistently make errors. If you are wise, you
will heed Kahnemans advice by stealing the experts darts and handing them
over to the chimp.

Wade W. Slome, CFA, CFP

Plan. Invest. Prosper.

www.Sidoxia.com

DISCLOSURE: Sidoxia Capital Management (SCM) and some of its clients

own certain exchange traded funds, but at the time of publishing SCM had no
direct position in any other security referenced in this article. No information
accessed through the Investing Caffeine (IC) website constitutes investment,
financial, legal, tax or other advice nor is to be relied on in making an
investment or other decision. Please read disclosure language on IC Contact
page.

https://iainews.iai.tv/articles/the-iron-cage-of-reason-auid-789

The Iron Cage of Reason

Thursday 02nd March
We hold reason up as the highest virtue. But is it just another form of
oppression?
Vronique Mottier | Professor of Sociology at the University of Lausanne, and
fellow of Jesus College Cambridge.
The history of Western culture is the history of the rise of the authority of
Reason-with-a-big-R. Since the Enlightenment, we have come to believe that
modes of knowledge that are guided by rationality are intrinsically more
136

valuable, more true than others. This is reflected in the power of scientific
discourses in modern society: today, scien...

https://iainews.iai.tv/articles/the-philosopher-and-the-ocean-auid-658
What is the point of philosophy? One significant role that philosophy can play
is to prompt us to take a step back from our everyday assumptions to a broader
perspective in which alternative possibilities can come into view. One can then
first wonder about why our assumptions are the way they are. Take the Atlantic
Ocean how is it the individual ... YOU DONT NEED Philosophy to do this
use common sense, you dont have to call it PHILOSOPHY.
https://iainews.iai.tv/articles/the-known-the-strange-and-the-new-auid-667

The Known, the Strange and the New

Saturday 30th April
Introducing the big ideas at this year's HowTheLightGetsIn, 26th May - 5th
June 2016.
Its now just three weeks to HowTheLightGetsIn, our annual festival of
philosophy and music in the magical setting of Hay. So for the latest issue of
IAI News were looking forwards to give you a taste of things to come. The
theme of this years festival is 'The Known, the Strange and the New'. In an age
https://www.google.com/search?q=HowTheLightGetsIn&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
HowTheLightGetsIn 2016: Hay-on-Wye Philosophy and Music Festival ...
https://howthelightgetsin.iai.tv/
Welcome to HowTheLightGetsIn, the world's largest philosophy and music
festival, where ideas are born and the imagination is set free. Join us in Hay-on-
Wye.
137

Daily Highlights HowTheLightGetsIn Festival

Highlights from the lineup of Music Highlights. Our music lineup is
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Philosophy Sessions. The Weird and the All of our speakers had to be willing to
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Human Body / Medicine

Ethics / Religion

Art / Literature / Film

Metaphysics / Language

https://howthelightgetsin.iai.tv/programme-page/overview
Philosophy Sessions
The Weird and the Wonderful
Eileen Barker, Alastair McIntosh, Ariane Sherine. Angela Saini hosts.
In Europe, belief in organised religion continues to decline as science advances.
Yet strangely interest in everything from ley lines to solstice rituals is
increasing. Should we dismiss this as empty fantasy? Or is there in nature
something essential to ourselves, beyond science and beyond monotheistic
religion?
138

LSE sociologist and author of New Religious Movements Eileen Barker,

comedian and Dawkins collaborator Ariane Sherine, and environmental activist
Alastair McIntosh find meaning in spirituality.

Access to this event is included with any of the following tickets:

HowTheLightGetsIn Bank Holiday Festival

https://iainews.iai.tv/articles/the-emperors-new-art-auid-675

The Emperor's New Art

Monday 16th May
Art has always been highly valued and yet it serves no practical purpose. So
why are money and art so closely linked?
https://iainews.iai.tv/articles/the-emperors-new-god-auid-661
Can art provide the purpose of life and replace religion in teaching us how to
live?
Julian Spalding | Art critic and author of The Art of Wonder and The Best Art
Youve Never Seen; former director of Glasgow Art Galleries and Museums

The Emperors New God is the most ancient of all, its source the motivation of
the human spirit. As far as we know, we are the only creatures that believe in an
afterlife and create art. Faith and creativity both spring from the same cause: the
profound and insatiable feeling of discontentment that is a unique attribute of
our species. We, al
https://iainews.iai.tv/articles/friston-vs-brogaard-down-the-rabbit-hole-part-2-
auid-655

Friston vs Brogaard: Down the Rabbit Hole - part 2

Sunday 27th March
HEAD TO HEAD: If we cannot trust our senses, where does this leave our
beliefs?
139

Berit Brogaard |
Miami philosopher of mind Berit Brogaard has published on synaethesia, savant
syndrome and the emotions. Her recent books include On Romantic Love and
The Superhuman Mind.

Read part 1: Karl Friston asks, is our experience real, or simply a construct of
the brain?Experience is a construct of the brain. I think all the discussants in the
Down the Rabbit Hole debate agreed with this position. I would like to add to
this that we furthermore have no control over how our brain constructs our
experiences. Experiences are no...
https://sites.google.com/site/brogaardb/home
Recent Media Presence

1. Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman Can We All Become

Geniuses?, Science Channel.

2. Conversation about consciousness with Depak Chopra.

3. Talk at Brain Day, Waterloo.

4. O Magazine article.

5. ABC's Nightline Leigh Erceg.

6. St. Louis Magazine Profile.

7. ABC's Nightline Jason Padgett.

New Papers (email for copies)

1. "Unconscious Imagination and the Mental Imagery Debate," with DE

Gatzia, Frontiers in Psychology.

2. "The Functional Roles of Attention," with R. Kentridge, in ed. B.

Nanay, Current Controversies in Philosophy of Perception, New York:
Routledge, (2017): 139-147.

3. "Deaf Hearing: Implicit Discrimination of Auditory Content in a Patient

with Mixed Hearing Loss." (w. Marlow, Overgaard, Schwartz, Tomson,
Neufeld, Sinke, Owen, Eagleman), Philosophical Psychology. Published
online: 08 Feb 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2016.1268680
140

4. "Cortical Color and the Cognitive Sciences," w DE. Gatzia, Topics in

Cognitive Science.

5. "Pre-cueing Effects on Perception and Cognitive Penetrability", w. DE

Gatzia.

6. "Induced cross-modal synesthesia and multisensory perception," w DE

Gatzia.

7. "Consciousness and Knowledge" (w E Chudnoff), for U. Kriegel

ed., Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Consciousness, Oxford
University Press.

8. "Foundationalism: Can Your Autobiographical Memories be Internally

Justified?", Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Memory, Sven
Bernecker, ed.

9. "The Publicity of Meaning and the Perceptual Approach to Speech

Perception", Protosociology, Vol. 34, 2017.

10."Against Emotional Dogmatism," with E. Chudnoff, forthcoming in

Philosophical Issues, a supplement to Nous.

11.In Defense of Hearing Meanings, Synthese.

12."Perceptual Appearances of Personality," Forthcoming in Philosophical

Topics, a supplement to Nous.

13."Knowledge-How and Perceptual Learning," in Knowledge in

Contemporary Philosophy, Bloomsbury, eds, Stephen Heatherington &
Markos Valaris.

14."Cognitive Penetrability and High-Level Properties in Perception:

Unrelated Phenomena?" w. B. Chomanski, Pacific Philosophical
Quarterly 96 (2015) 469486. Special issue of Pacific Philosophical
Quarterly on whether experience is unified, edited by Jack Lyons and
Indrek Reiland

15."Intellectual Mousiness and Pessimism in Problem Solving: Virtue to the

Rescue," Routledge Handbook of Virtue Epistemology, Heather Battaly,
ed.

16."In Defense of Supernaturalism," Blackwell Companion to Atheism and

Philosophy, ed. Graham Oppy.
141

17."Love in Contemporary Psychology and Neuroscience", The Routledge

Handbook of Love in Philosophy, ed. Adrienne Martin.

18."Love Today," For: The Critique (http://www.thecritique.com/): What Is

Love? Friendship, Sex & Romance in The 21st Century.

19."Romantic Love for a Reason," Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Love,

Christopher Grau & Aaron Smuts, eds.

20."Love in Contemporary Psychology and Neuroscience," The Routledge

Handbook of Love in Philosophy, ed. Adrienne Martin.

Books

1. The Superhuman Mind, Hudson St. Press, An Imprint of Penguin, The

Penguin Group, August, 2015.

2. On Romantic Love: Simple Truths about a Complex Emotion, Oxford

University Press, Jan 2015.

3. Does Perception Have Content? Edited Volume. Oxford University Press,

2014.

4. Transient Truths: An Essay in the Metaphysics of Propositions, Oxford

University Press, March 2012.

5. Seeing and Saying. Finished manuscript, Under contract with OUP.

6. Parental Love. In Progress.

7. Hatred, In Progress.

8. Hearing Meanings, in progress

Articles

1. "Deaf Hearing: Implicit Discrimination of Auditory Content in a Patient

with Mixed Hearing Loss." (w. Marlow, Overgaard, Schwartz, Tomson,
Neufeld, Sinke, Owen, Eagleman), Philosophical Psychology.

2. "Moral Contextualism and Epistemic Contextualism: Similarities and

Differences", Routledge Handbook of Epistemic Contextualism, edited by
Jonathan Ichikawa.
142

3. "Does True Love Need To Be Unconditional?", The Emotion Researcher,

ISREs Sourcebook for Research on Emotion and Affect, Andrea
Scarantino (ed.), http://emotionresearcher.com/does-true-love-need-to-be-
unconditional/, accessed February 11, 2016.

4. "The Rise and Fall of the Romantic Ideal," forthcoming. The Radicalism
of Romantic Love, Ashgate, eds. Renata Grossi & David West.

5. "Do Synesthetic Colors Grab Attention in Visual Search?", with K.

Marlow and K. Rice, The Review of Philosophy and Psychology,
December 2016, Volume 7, Issue 4, pp 701714.

6. "Ignorance and Incompetence: Linguistic Considerations," Ignorance and

Incompetence: Linguistic Considerations," Rik Peels and Martijn Blaauw
(eds.), The Epistemic Dimensions of Ignorance, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2016: 57-80.

7. "Critical Notice on Brewer's Perception and its Objects", Analysis

Reviews, 2016.

8. "Parental Love and The Meaning of Life", The Theory and Practice of
Ontology, ed. Leo Zaibert, Palgrave MacMillan UK, (2016), 223-240.

9. "What Can Neuroscience Tell Us about the Hard Problem of

Consciousness?" (w. D. E. Gatzia), Front. Neurosci., 07 September 2016 |
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2016.00395.

10."Is the Auditory System Cognitively Penetrable?" w D.E.

Gatzia, Opinion, Front. Psychol. - Cognition, Edited by: Andriy
Myachykov Reviewed by: Andrew J Lotto DOI:
10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01166

11."Psilocybin, LSD, Mescaline and Drug-Induced Synesthesia," w. Dimitria

Electra Gatzia, in Victor R. Preedy (ed.), The Neuropathology Of Drug
Addictions And Substance Misuse, Academic Press, Elsevier, volume 2.

12."Against Naturalism about Truth", in Kelly Clark, ed. Blackwell

Companion to Naturalism.

13."Time and Tense", in ed. Bob Hale, Alex Miller, Crispin

Wright, Blackwell Companion to the Philosophy of Language.
143

14."Virtue Epistemology in the Zombie Apocalypse: Hungry Judges, Heavy

Clipboards and Group Polarization", in Epistemic Situationism, Oxford
University Press.

15."Staying Indoors: How Phenomenal Dogmatism Solves the Skeptical

Problem Without Going Externalist", in M. Bergmann, ed., Internalism,
Oxford University Press.

16."A Semantic Framework for Aesthetic Expressions", in J. Young, ed.

Semantics and Aesthetics, Oxford University Press.

17."Synesthesia as a Challenge for Representationalism", Blackwell

Companion to Experimental Philosophy, W. Buckwalter and J. Sytsma,
eds. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2016, 306-317.

18."The Self-Locating Property Theory of Color", Mind & Machines, 2015,

Volume 25, Issue 2, pp 133-147.

19."Is Color experience Cognitively Penetrable?", w. Gatzia, Topics in

Cognitive Science, in press. First published: 31 October 2016. DOI:
10.1111/tops.12221.

20."What Can Neuroscience Tell Us About Reference?" In: Handbook on

Reference, Barbara Abbott and Jeanette Gundel (eds.), Oxford University
Press.

21."Perception without Representation? On Travis Argument against the

Representational View of Perception", Topoi. DOI: 10.1007/s11245-015-
9312-9

22."Color Synesthesia and its Philosophical Implications," The Routledge

Handbook of Philosophy of Colour, eds. Derek Brown and Fiona
Macpherson, in press.

23.Synesthetic Binding and the Reactivation Model of Memory, In O.

Deroy and M. Nudds (eds.), Sensory Blendings: New essays on
synaesthesia, Oxford University Press. In Press.

24."In Search of Mentons: Panpsychism, Physicalism and the Missing Link",

Panpsychism, Godehard Brntrup and Ludwig Jaskolla (eds), Oxford
University Press, in press.
144

25."Do Synesthetic Colors Grab Attention in Visual Search?", with K.

Marlow and K. Rice, The Review of Philosophy and Psychology,
December 2016, Volume 7, Issue 4, pp 701714.

26."Type 2 Blindsight and the Nature of Visual Experience", Consciousness

and Cognition 32 (2015) 92103.

27."Perceptual Reports", In Mohan Matthen, ed. Oxford Handbook of the

Philosophy of Perception, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015, 237-
255.

28."An Empirically-Informed Cognitive Theory of Propositions", Canadian

Journal of Philosophy Vol. 43, (2014). 534-557.

29."A Partial Defense of Extended Knowledge", Philosophical Issues,

Volume 24, Issue 1, pages 3962, October 2014.

30.The Long-Term Potentiation Model for Grapheme-Color Binding in

Synesthesia, with K. Marlow and K. Rice, in David Bennett and Chris
Hill, (ed), Sensory Integration and the Unity of Consciousness, MIT
Press, 2014, 37-72.

31.Does Perception Have Content?, in Brogaard, B (ed.), Does Perception

Have Content?, New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014, 1-35.

32."Intellectual Flourishing as the Fundamental Epistemic Norm", in ed. C.

Littejohn and J. Turri, Epistemic Norms: New Essays on Action, Belief,
and Assertion, 2014, Oxford University Press, 11-31.

33."Time and Time Perception", w Gatzia, Topoi, April 2015, Volume 34,
Issue 1, pp 257-263.

34."What is This Thing Called Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind", in D.

Pritchard, What is This Thing Called Philosophy.

35."Seeing mathematics: Perceptual experience and brain activity in

acquired synesthesia", with S. Vanni and J. Silvanto, Neurocase, 2013
Dec;19(6):566-75.

36."Serotonergic Hyperactivity as a Potential Factor in Developmental,

Acquired and Drug-Induced Synesthesia", Front. Hum. Neurosci. 7:657,
2013. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00657.
145

37."Is the Relativity of Simultaneity a Temporal Illusion?", with K. Marlow,

Analysis, (2013) 73: 635-642.

38."Unconscious influences on decision making in blindsight", with K.

Marlow and K. Rice, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2014 Feb;37(1):22-
3.

39.Do we Perceive Natural Kind Properties?, Philosophical Studies 162,

Issue 1 (2013): 35-42.

40."Its not what it seems. A semantic account of seems and seemings

Inquiry 56/2-3 (2013), 210-239.

41."Phenomenal Seemings and Sensible Dogmatism", In C. Tucker,

ed. Seemings and Justification, New York: Oxford University Press,
2013, 270-289.

42.Disputatio's Symposium on Transient Truths, Oxford University Press,

2012. 1. Precis. 2. Replies to critiques: Giuliano Torrengo, Dan Zeman
and Vasilis Tsompanidis.

43."The Phenomenal Use of 'Look' and the Contents of Perception",

Philosophy Compass. In press.

44.Intuitions as Intellectual Seemings, Analytic Philosophy, Volume 55,

Issue 4, pages 382393, December 2014.

45.The Status of Consciousness in Nature, in ed Steven Miller, The

Constitution of Phenomenal Consciousness. Toward a Science and
Theory, volume 2, S. Miller, ed. John Benjamins Publishing Company,
2015, 330-347.

46.Context and Content: Pragmatics in Two-Dimensional Semantics,

Keith Allan and Kasia Jaszczolt, eds. Cambridge Handbook of
Pragmatics (2015), 113-135. Context and Content: Final Version of
Manuscript.

47."Varieties of Synesthetic Experience," In: Richard Brown (ed.),

Consciousness Inside and Out: Phenomenology, Neuroscience, and the
Nature of Experience, Studies in Brain and Mind, Volume 6, Synthese
Library, 2014, pp 409-412.

48."Seeing as a Non-Experiental Mental State: The Case from Synesthesia

and Visual Imagery," In: Richard Brown (ed.), Consciousness Inside and
146

Out: Phenomenology, Neuroscience, and the Nature of Experience,

Studies in Brain and Mind, Volume 6, Synthese Library, 2014, pp 377-
394.

49."Wide-Scope Requirements and the Ethics of Belief", in Jonathan

Matheson and Rico Vitz, eds. The Ethics of Belief, Oxford, Oxford
University Press, 2014, 130-145.

50."Towards a Eudaimonistic Virtue Epistemology", In: Abrol Fairweather

(ed.), Naturalizing Virtue Epistemology, Synthese Library, 2014, Volume
366, pp 83-102.

51."An Emotion Ontology Based on the Perceived Response Theory",

52."Presentism, Primitivism and Cross-Temporal Relations: Lessons from

Holistic Ersatzism and Dynamic Semantics", in Roberto Ciuni, Kristie
Miller and Giuliano Torrengo, eds. New Papers on the Present: Focus on
Presentism, Philosophia Verlag, 2013, 2503-280.

53.Color Synesthesia, in Kimberly A. Jameson (ed.), Cognition &

Language, Encyclopedia of Color Science and Technology, Springer.
2013. Official Link.

54.Remarks on Counterpossibles, with J. Salerno, in J. van Bentham, V.

Hendricks, J. Symons, and S. A. Pedersen (eds.) Between Logic and
Intuition: David Lewis and the Future of Formal Methods in Philosophy,
Synthese: Volume 190, Issue 4 (2013), Page 639-660. Online link.

55."Vision for Action and the Contents of Perception", Journal of

Philosophy, Volume 109, Issue 10, October 2012, 569-587.

56.What do We Say When We Say How or What We Feel Philosophers

Imprint 12 (11), June 2012.

57."Non-Visual Consciousness and Visual Images in Blindsight",

Consciousness and Cognition, 21, issue 1 (March, 2012), p. 595-596.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2011.12.003

58."Moral Relativism and Moral Expressivism", In: Dan Zeman and Max
Klbel, eds. Relativism about Value, 50 years anniversary issue
of Southern Journal of Philosophy 50, Issue 4 (2012), 53856.

59."Color Eliminativism or Color Relativism?", A Re-Reading of C.L.

Hardin's Color for Philosophers: Unweaving the Rainbow, Indianapolis:
147

Hackett Pub. Co., 1988, Re-Readings in Philosophy, W. Jones, ed.

Philosophical Papers.

60.Are Conscious States Conscious in Virtue of Representing Themselves?

(2012). Philosophical Studies 159 (3):467-474.

61.Proceedings of the fourth Annual Interontology Meeting, Tokyo, Feb 23-

24, 2012.

62.Are There Unconscious Perceptual Processes?, Consciousness and

Cognition 20 (2011): 449-63. doi:10.1016/j.concog.2010.10.002.

63.Conscious Vision for Action Vs. Unconscious Vision for

Action, Cognitive Science 35 (2011),10761104.

64.Color Experience in Blindsight? Philosophical Psychology, 24

(2011):767 -786.

65.Primitive Knowledge Disjunctivism, Philosophical Issues 21 (2011):

45-73.

66.Colour, in D. Pritchard, ed. Oxford Bibliographies Online:

Philosophy (2011).

67.Disjunctivism, in D. Pritchard, ed. Oxford Bibliographies Online:

Philosophy (2011).

68.Descriptions, in D. Pritchard, ed. Oxford Bibliographies Online:

Philosophy (2011).

69.Centered Worlds and the Content of Perception, Blackwell Companion

to Relativism, Steven Hales, ed., Oxford: Blackwell (2011): 137-158.
Presents four arguments in favor of the view that perceptual content
possesses a truth-value only relative to a centered world, viz. the
argument from primitive colors, the argument from the inverted spectrum,
the argument from dual looks, and the argument from duplication.

70.Knowledge-How: A Unified Account, Knowing How: Essays on

Knowledge, Mind, and Action, J. Bengson and M. Moffett eds., Oxford:
Oxford University Press (2011): 136-160.

71. 'Stupid People Deserve What They Get': The Effects of Personality
Assessment on Judgments of Intentional Action, Behavioral and Brain
Sciences 33, (2010), 332-334.
148

72.Strong Representationalism and Centered Content, Philosophical

Studies 151 (2010), 373392. DOI 10.1007/s11098-009-9437-z.

73.Perspectival Truth and Color Primitivism, C. Wright and N. Pedersen,

eds. New Waves in Truth (2010), New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 249-
266. Color Primitivism: Short Version.

74.Perceptual Content and Monadic Truth: On Cappelen and

Hawthorne's Relativism and Monadic Truth, Philosophical Books Vol.
50 No. 4 October 2009 pp. 213226.

75.Color in the Theory of Colors? Or: Are Philosophers' Colors All

White?, The Center Must Not Hold: White Women on The Whiteness of
Philosophy, George Yancy, ed. New York: Lexington Books (2009), 131-
152.

76.Fitch's Paradox of Knowability, with J. Salerno, in E. Zalta (ed.) The

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, (Summer 2009 Edition). Survey of
proposals to resolve the knowability paradox.

77.What Mary Did Yesterday: Reflections on Knowledge-wh, Philosophy

and Phenomenological Research 78.2 (2009), 439-467. Reductionists
about knowledge-wh hold that 's knows-wh' (e.g. 'John knows who stole
his car') is reducible to 'there is a proposition p such that s knows that p,
and p answers the indirect question of the wh-clause'. Anti-reductionists
hold that 's knows-wh' is reducible to 's knows that p, as the true answer
to the indirect question of the wh-clause'. I argue that both of these
positions are defective. I then offer a new analysis of knowledge-wh as a
special kind of de re knowledge.

78.Introduction to Relative Truth, in Relative Truth, Special Issue of

Synthese, Brogaard, ed. (2009). Contributors: David Capps, Andy Egan,
Michael Glanzberg, Steven Hales, Max Kolbel, Peter Lasersohn, Michael
Lynch, John MacFarlane, Daniel Massey, Sebastiano Moruzzi, Duncan
Pritchard, Brian Weatherson and Crispin Wright.

79.The Trivial Argument for Epistemic Value Pluralism. Or How I Learned

to Stop Caring about Truth, In A. Haddock, A. Miller and D. Pritchard,
ed. Epistemic Value, Oxford: Oxford University Press (2009), 284-308.

80.Descriptions, The Encyclopedia of the Mind, (2009). Hal Pashler, ed.

Editorial Board: Tim Crane, Fernanda Ferreira, Marcel Kinsbourne, Rich
Zemel. Descriptions", the short version that will actually appear in the
encyclopedia.
149

81.On Keeping Blue Swans and Unknowable Facts at Bay. A Case Study on
Fitch's Paradox, in J. Salerno, ed. New Essays on the Knowability
Paradox, Oxford: Oxford University Press, (2009, 241-251.

82.Inscrutability and Ontological Commitment, Philosophical Studies 141

(2008), 21-42.

83.Fitch's Paradox of Knowability, with J. Salerno, in E. Zalta (ed.) The

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, (Winter 2008 Edition). Survey of
proposals to resolve the knowability paradox.

84.Sea Battle Semantics The Philosophical Quarterly 58 (2008), 326-335.

The final version is available for subscribers on Blackwell Online Early.
Uncorrected pre-proofs.

85.Knowledge-The and Propositional Attitude Ascriptions, in F. Lihoreau,

ed. Knowledge and Questions (2008).

86.In Defense of a Perspectival Semantics for 'Know' ,Australasian

Journal of Philosophy 86 (2008), 439-459. Uncorrected Proofs.

87.Counterfactuals and Context, with J. Salerno, Analysis 68 (2008), 39-

46.

88.Moral Contextualism and Moral Relativism,Philosophical Quarterly

58 (2008), 385-409.

89.Attitude Reports: Do You Mind the Gap?, Philosophy Compass:

Epistemology 3 (2008), 93-118. Blackwell Online Early.

90.That may be Jupiter: A Heuristic for Thinking Two-Dimensionally,

American Philosophical Quarterly 44 (2007), 315-328. Uncorrected
Proofs.

91.The But Not All: A Partitive Account of Plural Definite Descriptions,

Mind and Language 22, 4 (2007), 402-426. Uncorrected proofs.

92.Span Operators, Analysis 67 (2007): 72-79. The paper argues that

Lewis and Sider are too quick to deny the presentist the right to employ
span operators. Official published version.

93.Number Words and Ontological Commitment, The Philosophical

Quarterly 57, 1 (January 2007), 1-20.
150

94.Descriptions: Predicates or Quantifiers?,Australasian Journal of

Philosophy 85 (2007), 117-136.

95.A Puzzle about Properties, Philosophy and Phenomenological

Research LXXIV, 3 (May 2007), 635-650. Uncorrected proofs.

96.Sharvy's Theory of Definite Descriptions Revisited, Pacific

Philosophical Quarterly 88 (2007), 160-180.

97.Knowability, Possibility and Paradox, with J. Salerno, in V. Hendricks

and D. Pritchard (eds.) New Waves in Epistemology, Palgrave Macmillan
(2007), 270-299.

98.Two Modal -Isms: Fictionalism and Ersatzism, Philosophical

Perspectives 20, Metaphysics, John Hawthorne, ed. (2006), 77-94.

99.Tensed Relations, Analysis 66 (2006), 194-202.Official published

version.

100. Knowability and a Modal Closure Principle, with J. Salerno,

American Philosophical Quarterly 43 (2006), 261-270.

101. Can Virtue Reliabilism Explain the Value of Knowledge?,

Canadian Journal of Philosophy 36 (2006), 335-354. In translation in
Philosophical Alternatives 3 (2008). Reprinted in MIT Virtue
Epistemology Reader, 2012.

102. The 'Gray's Elegy' Argument, and the Prospects for the Theory of
Denoting Concepts Synthese 152 (2006), 47-79.

103. The Moral Status of the Human Embryo, Howard B. Rades, ed.,
Biomedical Ethics: Humanist Perspectives of Humanism Today,
Prometheus Books, 2006. The article first appeared in the magazine Free
Inquiry. It argues that 4-5 days old embryos do not have the moral status
of human beings and was cited in A Report of the President's Council on
Bioethics -- Washington D.C. 2004. Apparently, President Bush wasn't
convinced. The Government Citations to the article can be found here
and here.

104. Anti-Realism, Theism, and the Conditional Fallacy, with J.

Salerno, Nous 39 (2005), 123-139.
151

105. On Luck, Responsibility and the Meaning of Life, with B. Smith,

Philosophical Papers 34 (2005), 443-58, special issue edited by Thad
Metz, featuring solicited papers on the meaning of life.

106. Fitch's Paradox of Knowability, with J. Salerno, in E. Zalta (ed.)

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Winter 2002 and Summer 2004
Editions. Survey of proposals to resolve the knowability paradox.

107. Species as Individuals", Biology and Philosophy 19/2 (2004),

223-42.

108. Contextualism, Skepticism, and the Gettier Problem, Synthese

139 (2004), 367-386. Reflections on contextualism, sensitivity, safety,
and all that.

109. Epistemological Contextualism and the Problem of Moral Luck,

Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 84 (2003), 371-83.

110. Sixteen Days, with B. Smith, Journal of Medicine and

Philosophy 28 (2003), 45-78. In translation: "Die Ontologie des
Embryos: Wann beginnt menschliches Leben?" Ludger Jansen, Barry
Smith, eds. Biomedizinische Ontologie. Eine Kooperative Einfuhrung.

111. A Unified Theory of Truth and Reference, with B. Smith,

Logique et Analyse 169-170 (2003), 49-93, special issue edited by Peter
Forrest, featuring solicited papers on truth. The paper deals with the
problem of the many and other issues which threaten to
undermine substantial theories of truth and reference. When I co-
authored the paper with Barrry in 2000, I was rather sympathetic to
substantial theories of truth. Since then I have been more sympathetic to
less substantial theories. In translation: J.-M. Monmoyer, ed. La
Structure du Monde: Objets, Proprietes, Etats du choses, Paris, Vrin,
(2001)

112. Adhoccery in Epistemology, Philosophical Papers 32 (2003),

65-82.

113. Clues to the Paradoxes of Knowability: Reply to Dummett and

Tennant, with J. Salerno, Analysis 62 (2002), 143-150. The paper
develops some new paradoxes of knowability that, unlike Fitch's original
paradox, are not blocked by the restricted brands of semantic anti-realism
advocated by Dummett and Tennant.
152

114. Quantum Mereotopology, with B. Smith, Annals of Mathematics

and Artificial Intelligence 35/1-2 (2002), 153-175.

115. Living High and Letting Die", with B. Smith, Philosophy 76/297
(2001), 435-42.

116. Presentist Four-Dimensionalism. The Monist 83 (2000), 341-

356. An attempt to combine two theses I rather liked back in 1999, viz.
presentism and perdurantism. I still find presentism exceedingly intuitive
and have spent some of my time defending it in print and elsewhere.

117. The Coup de Grace for Mechanistic Metaphysics, Transactions

of the Charles S. Peirce Society 36/1 (2000), 75-108.

118. A Peircean Theory of Decision, Synthese 118/3 (1999), 383-401.

119. Peirce on Abduction and Rational Control, Transactions of the

Charles S. Peirce Society 35/1 (1999), 129-155.

120. Mead's Temporal Realism, Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce

Society 35/3 (1999), 563-593.

121. Glucagon and glucagon-like peptide 1: selective receptor

recognition via distinct peptide epitopes, with S.A. Hjorth, K. Adelhorst,
O. Kirk and T.W. Schwartz, J. Biol. Chem. Vol. 269, Issue 48, (1994),
30121-30124. Glucagon and glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) are
homologous peptide hormones that are recognized by likewise
homologous, but highly selective receptors. We argue that the selective
recognition of the glucagon and GLP-1 receptors is determined by
residues located at opposite ends of the homologous peptide ligands.

Edited Collections

1. Special Issue of Philosophical Studies on impossible thoughts and

counterpossibles (for Stew Cohen).

2. The Epistemology of Non-Visual Perception, Oxford University Press (w

DE Gatzia).

3. The Epistemology of Perception, Inquiry, edited by Herman Cappelen.

Guest editor (w. DE Gatzia).

4. Special Issue of Topoi on Epistemic Modals (w DE Gatzia).

153

5. Special Issue of Inquiry on the Semantics of Aesthetic Expressions (for

Herman Cappelen).

6. Being of Two Minds, w. Gatzia. In progress.

7. Does Perception Have Content? Oxford University Press.

8. Special Issue of Topics in Cognitive Science.

9. Special Issue of Philosophical Studies, Perception and High-Level

Properties (for Stew Cohen), 2013.

10.Philosophical Issues, A supplement to Nous, The Epistemology

Perception (for Ernie Sosa), volume 2011.

11.Special Issue of Synthese on Relative Truth. Spring of 2009.

Contributors include David Capps, Andy Egan, Michael Glanzberg,
Steven Hales, Max Kolbel, Peter Lasersohn, Michael Lynch, John
MacFarlane, Daniel Massey, Sebastiano Moruzzi, Stephen Neale, Duncan
Pritchard, Brian Weatherson and Crispin Wright.

12.Rationality and Irrationality, with Barry Smith, Vienna: Hoelder-Pichler-

Tempsky, (2001), including contributions by David Armstrong, Michael
Beaney, Herbert Hochberg, Nicholas Rescher, John Searle, Barbara
Tversky.

13.Rationality and Irationality (Constributions of the Austrian Ludwig

Wittgenstein Society, 8), Kirchberg: Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein
Society, (2000), 2 Vol.

14.The Ontology of Fields: Report of the Specialist Meeting held under the
auspices of the NSF Varenius Project, Bar Harbor, Maine, June 1998,
with D. Peuquet and B. Smith, Santa Barbara: NCGIA.

Short Notes and Reviews

1. Review of Jonathan Cohen and Mohan Matthen,eds. Color Ontology and

Color Science, MIT Press, 2010, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.

2. Review of Francois Recanati, Truth-Conditional Pragmatics, Oxford

University Press, 2010, Analysis Reviews 72 (4):846-849.
154

3. Subjective Consciousness Reduced? Review of Uriah Kriegel. Subjective

Consciounsess: A Self-Representational Theory, Oxford: Oxford
University Press 2009, ProtoSociology.

4. Article Review of Patterson, "Inconsistency Theories of Semantic

Paradox", Philosophy and Phenomenological Research,
for Philosopher's Digest.

5. Book Review for Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews: Nicholas Griffin

and Dale Jacquette (eds.), Russell vs. Meinong: The Legacy of "On
Denoting", Routledge, 2009, 384 pp. Contributors: Urquhart, Stevens,
Pelletier, Linsky, Klement, Makin, Nasim, Bostock, Marek, Jacquette,
Griffin, Loptson, Contessa, Landini, Nelson, Salmon.

6. Milic Capek, in Nicholas Rescher, Johanna Seibt and Michael Weber,

eds, A Handbook of Whiteheadian Process Thought, Ontos Verlag,
Frankfurt.

7. Commentary on Philippe Schlenker's 'Be Articulate! A Pragmatic

Theory of Presupposition Projection' , The Rutgers Semantics
Workshop October 2007.

8. A Counterfactual Account of Essence, with J. Salerno, The

Reasoner vol. 1, no. 4 (2007). Jon Williamson, ed.

9. Williamson on Counterpossibles, with J. Salerno, The

Reasoner vol. 1, no. 3 (2007). Jon Williamson, ed. We discuss Timothy
Williamson's defense of the vacuous treatment of counterpossibles (i.e.,
counterfactuals with impossible antecedents) and reply to Alan
Baker.Official Version.

10.Why Counterpossibles are Non-Trivial, with J. Salerno, The

Reasoner vol. 1, no. 1 (2007). Jon Williamson, ed. Subjunctive
conditionals with impossible antecedents (or counterpossibles) are
standardly treated as vacuously true, the lore being that if an impossibility
were to obtain, anything would follow. Daniel Nolan (1997) and others
have argued that there are several good reasons to steer clear of the
standard reading. In this note we provide further reasons. Official
Published Version.

11.Book Review for Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews: Andrea Bottani

and Richard Davies (eds.), Modes of Existence: Papers in Ontology and
Philosophical Logic, Ontos, 2006, 237 pp. Contributors: Mulligan,
Raspa, Kroon, van Inwagen, Varzi, Reicher, Barbero, Orillo, Spolaore.
155

12.Book Review for Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. Thomas

Sattig, The Language and Reality of Time, Oxford UP, 2006

Talks, Travel, etc.

1. Perception and Cognition Workshop Oslo, Nov 2-4, 2017.

2. "Group Polarization", Social Epistemology talk, Madrid, Spain, August

28-September 2017.

3. Panpsychism workshop, CEU in Budapest, August 11-13, 2017.

4. Plenary talk, 40th International Wittgenstein Symposium 2017, Kirchberg

am Wechsel, Austria, August 6-12.

5. "The Varieties of Knowing-How," Essen, Germany, July 6 & 7, 2017.

6. Oslo University, June, 2017.

7. Keynote speaker, 2017 meeting of the Society for Philosophy and

Psychology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, June 29-July 1,
2017.

8. Bled conference.

9. Keynote, UMSL graduate conference, April 28, 2017.

10."In Defense of Hearing Meanings," Talk at NUY jointly with CUNY,

October 3, 2016.

11.Summer School, Montreal, June 20 and July 1, 2016.

12."Parental Love and the Loss of Autonomy", Department Talk, University

of Oslo, June 10, 2016.

13."The Appearance of Personality", Thought and Sense Workshop, Oslo,

June 9, 2016.

14."The Appearance of Personality," Experience, Values and Justification

conference, Geneva, Switzerland, June 1, 2016.

15."Do Experiences Have Guiding Modes?", Modes/Content: Exploring

psychological states through the mode vs. content distinction, conference,
Fribourg, Switzerland, May 29, 2016.
156

16."In Defense of Hearing Meanings," Rice Workshop on Interface Between

Perception and Thought, May 5-6, 2016.

17."In Defense of Hearing Meanings," Stockholm, April 29, 2016.

18.The Superhuman Mind, Books & Books, April 13, 2016, 8 pm.

19.Inclusiveness Conference, University of Miami April 7-8, 2015.

20.Keynote, Brainday, University of Waterloo, April 6, 2015.

21."Acquired Synesthesia and Savant Syndrome," School of Business

Administration, University of Miami, March 23, 2016.

22.SSPP, Kentucky, March 10-12, 2016.

23.Symposium on Romantic Love, Eastern APA, Washington D. C., January

6-9, 2016.

24.Oslo, December 3-5, 2015.

25.TBA, Neuroethics and Neurolaw Seminar, Porto Alegre,

Brazil, November 23-29, 2015.

26."The Appearance of Personality," Department Talk, FIU, November 12,

2015.

27.University of Miami Alumni Speaker, November 6, 2015.

28.UB department talk, October 8, 2015.

29.UB neurology talk, October 7, 2015.

30.NC State Logic and Cognitive Science Initiative Conference on

Perception, September 25-26, 2015.

31.Book events, Houston and St. Antonio, September 19-22, 2015.

32.Portuguese Society for Analytic Philosophy, Azores, September 10-12,

2015.

33.Rutgers-Columbia-Bernard Mind Workshop, August 20-22, 2015.

34.37th Annual Cognitive Science Society Meeting, (CogSci 2015), July 23-
25 in Pasadena, California, USA.
157

35.Inference and Consciousness conference, University of Oslo, July 2-4,

2015.

36.Cognitive Penetration workshop, Bergen, 24-26 June.

37.Comments on Trenton Merricks' Propositions, Author-Meets-Critics

Workshop, University of Ghent, June 16, 2015.

38."Auditory Perception and Cognitive Penetration", University of Ghent,

June 15, 2015.

39."The neural bases of acquired and drug-induced synesthesia and savant

syndrome," Keynote address, Atypical Minds, Cognitio, the Universit du
Qubec Montral, June 8-10, 2015.

40.University of Oslo, June 1-June 30, 2015.

41.Panel Discussion, HowTheLightsGetIn Festival, "Down The Rabbit

Hole" on the subject of whether perception is a creative response to the
world or gives us direct access to reality, Wales, May 30, 2015, 12:00pm.

42.The Rationality of Love, Open Platform breakfast, HowTheLightsGetIn

Festival, Wales, 30th May, 9 am.

43.Panel Discussion, HowTheLightsGetIn Festival, "The Reality of Feeling"

on the subject of whether feelings can operate as a "true guide" to reality,
Wales, May 29, 2015, 1:15pm.

44."Beautiful Minds", HowTheLightsGetIn Festival, Wales, 29th May, 2015,

11 am.

45.Academy course on Romantic Love, HowTheLightsGetIn

Festival, Wales, May 28, 2015, 10 am.

46.SCLARR, St. Louis, May 15-17, 2015.

47.Friends of Philosophy Talk, University of Miami, April 30, 2015.

48.Keynote address, SUNY Oneontas Twentieth Annual Undergraduate

Philosophy Conference, April 17-18, 2015.

49.Love as a reason-responsive, UCF, Orlando, April 9, 2015.

158

50."Auditory Perception and Cognitive Penetration", Presidential address,

Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology", Hotel Monteleone,
New Orleans, April 2-4, 2015.

51.Philosophy of Cognitive Science workshop, Loyola, April 1, 2015.

52.Brain Day, Miami Science Museum, March 21, 2015.

53.Brain Day, Miami Science Museum, March 19, 2015.

54.Central APA, St. Louis, February 18-21, 2015.

55.Romantic Love, Books & Books, February 13, 2015.

56.Department talk, University of California, Merced, January 26, 2015.

57.Trans* Conference, St. Louis, Nov. 21-22, 2014.

58.Third World Online Neuroscience Conference, June 19, 2014.

59.NYU workshop, June 12-14, 2014.

60.St. Andrews workshop, June 5-6, 2014.

61.Keynote, PhilMiLCog, Western's grad conference in philosophy of mind,

language, and cognitive science, May 29-31.

62.CPA, May 25-28, 2014.

63.SLACRR, May 18-20, 2014.

64.Stanford, Department Talk, May 15, 2014.

65.Conscious Thought and Thought about Consciousness, Organized by

Donovan Wishon, April 27-30, 2014.

66.Modality Workshop, Rutgers, April 4-5, 2014.

67."Who's afraid of Qualia?", TCU's Ronald E. Moore Humanities

Symposium, March 27 - 29, 2014.

68.Critic, Author-Meets-Critic, Bill Brewer, Perception and Its Objects, The

Central Division Meeting of the APA, Chicago, February 26-March 1,
2014.
159

69.SSPP, Feb 6-9, 2014

70."Emotions as Perceptual States", University of Miami, Jan 24, 2014.

71."Synesthesia and Savant Syndrome", Talk in the Biology and Beyond

Series, Washington University, St. Louis, January 13, 2014.

72.TBA, Saving safety? - Problems and Prospects of Safety-Based Accounts

of Knowledge. Organized by Elke Brendel and Thomas Grundmann,
University of Bonn, Germany, September 30 - October 2, 2013.

73.Department Talk, Carnegie Mellon, September 19-20, 2013.

74."Synesthesia", Talk at the Academy of Science of St. Louis, Thur Aug 22,
2013.

75."Phenomenal Looks and Perceptual Representation", Columbia/Barnard

University Workshop on Perception, New York, July 25-26, 2013.

76.TBA, Workshop on external world scepticism, organized by Luca

Moretti, the Munich Centre for Mathematical Philosophy, July 9-10,
2013.

77.Tense, Modality and Semantic Value Workshop, Oslo, Norway, June 17,
2013.

78."A Semantic Account of 'Seems' and Seemings", Keynote Address,

Semantics and Mind Conference, St Petersburg June 10-14, 2013.

79.Type 2 Blindsight Workshop, Dublin, May 27-29, 2013.

80.Author-Meets-Critic session on my book Transient Truths (Oxford),

Pacific APA, San Francisco, March 27-31, 2013.

81."The LTP Model for Grapheme-Color Binding in Synesthesia", Talk at St.

Louis Area Philosophy of Science Association, March 16, 2013.

82."Intuitions as Intellectual Seemings", Symposium on Herman Cappelen's

book Philosophy Without Intuitions, London, December 15, 2012.

83."Attention and Metric Properties", Attention & Consciousness, London,

December 14, 2012.

84.Time & Consciousness Workshop, NYU, December 8, 2012.

160

85."Perceptual Content and Phenomenal Seemings", Department Talk,

Department of Philosophy, Duke University, December 6-7, 2012

86."Perceptual Content and Phenomenal Seemings", Department Talk,

University of British Columbia, November 30, 2012.

87."Deaf Hearing: Implicit Discrimination of Auditory Content in a Patient

with Mixed Hearing Loss", Department Talk, Biology Department,
University of Missouri, St. Louis, November 13, 2012.

88."Perceptual Content and Phenomenal Seemings", Department Talk,

Department of Philosophy, University of Southern California, November
9, 2012

89."What does it mean to be human? From Neanderthals to the technological

singularity," Big History Lecture, University of Missouri, St. Louis,
October 23, 2012.

90.Harvard Perception Workshop, September 15, 2012.

91."Deaf Hearing: Implicit Discrimination of Auditory Content in a Patient

with Mixed Hearing Loss", Attention conference, Antwerp, September 1-
2, 2012.

92."Perception and Brain Activity in a Case of Acquired Synesthesia", World

Neuroscience Online Conference, June 14-16.

93."Two-Dimensionalism, Cognitive Significance and Context-Sensitivity

Broadly Construed", Relativism and Contextualism Conference.
Organizer: Stewart Shapiro, jointly sponsored
OSU/Maribor/Rijeka Philosophy and Linguistics Conference in
Dubrovnik, Croatia, June 11-16, 2012.

94."Wide-Scope Requirements and the Ethics of Belief", Getrude Bussey

Lecture, Northwestern University, May 3-4, 2012.

95."The Nature of Jealousy: Ownership and the Irrational Sex", Gender

Studies Colloquium, University of Missouri, St. Louis, April 18, 2012.

96."Visual Imagery in the Absence of V1 Activation", Toward a Science of

Consciousness, Tucson, April 9-14, 2012.
161

97."An Element of Objectivity in Aesthetic and Moral Relativism",

Aesthetics and Relativism Symposium, Victoria, Canada, April 9 - 11,
April 2012.

98."Synesthesia as Automatic, High-Level Visual Memory", Invited

Symposium on Synesthesia, Pacific Division Meeting of the American
Philosophical Association, Seattle, April 4-7, 2012.

99."The Nature of Jealousy: Ownership and the Irrational Sex", Feminist

Metaphysics Symposium, The Society for Analytic Feminism, the Pacific
Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association, April 4-7,
2012.

100. The Role of Vision for Action in Cognitive Task Performances",

Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology, Savannah, GA, March
22-24, 2012.

101. "Seeing mathematics: perceptual experience and brain activity in

acquired synesthesia", Department of Mathematics, Department of
Physics and the Center for Neurodynamics", University of Missouri, St.
Louis, March 15, 2012.

102. "Centered Properties and Phenomenal Seemings", Keynote, St.

Louis Philosophy Graduate Conference, March 11, 2012.

103. Centered Properties and Color Primitivism", Color and Philosophy

Conference, Auburn University, March 2-3, 2012.

104. "The Status of Consciousness in Nature", Department talk, Union

College, March 1, 2012.

105. "What Does it Mean to be Human? From Neanderthals to the

Technological Singularity" Big History Lecture, University of Missouri,
St. Louis, February 28, 2012.

106. "Seeing mathematics: perceptual experience and brain activity in

acquired synesthesia", Department of Philosophy, Keio University,
Tokyo, February 25, 2012.

107. "An Emotion Ontology Based on the Perceived-Response Theory",

Department of Philosophy, Keio University, Tokyo, February 22-25,
2012.
162

108. "Perceptual Content and Phenomenal Seemings", Department talk,

University of Texas, Austin, February 17, 2012.

109. "Perspectivality in Perceptual Content", Seminar Talk, University

of Texas, Austin, February 16, 2012.

110. "Phenomenal Seemings and Sensible Dogmatism", Department

talk, Colorado, Boulder, February 3, 2012.

111. "Phenomenal Seemings and Sensible Dogmatism", Department

Talk, University of Vermont, January 27, 2012.

112. "The Superhuman Mind", Philosophy Salon, University of

Missouri, St. Louis, January 20, 2012.

113. The Ethics of Love and Sex, with John Brunero and Eric Wiland,
Symposium, University of Missouri, St. Louis, November 15, 2011.

114. Unity of Consciousness Panel, Brown University, November 5-6,

2011.

115. "Intellectual Flourishing as the Fundamental Epistemic Norm",

Presidential Address, The Annual Meeting of the Central States
Philosophical Association, St. Louis, September 16, 2011.

116. "Writing for Publication", Annual Graduate Student Professional

Development Conference, UMSL, August 15, 2011.

117. "Conscious Color Processing in Blindsight?", Cortical Color

Workshop and Conference, Vancouver, August 3-7, 2011.

118. "Do 'Looks' Reports Reflect the Contents of Perception?", The

Language of Consciousness workshop, ANU, Australia, July 28-29, 2011.

119. "Degrees of Consciousness", Consciousness at the Beach, ANU

Coastal Campus at Kioloa from Friday July 22-25, 2011.

120. "A Common Flaw in the Empirical Study of Consciousness",

Annual Meeting of the Australasian Association of Philosophy, New
Zealand, July 3-8, 2011.

121. "A Common Flaw in the Empirical Study of Consciousness",

Workshop, Department of Philosophy, University of Copenhagen, June 5,
2011.
163

122. "Do 'Looks' Reports Reflect the Contents of Perception?",

Department talk, Munich, Germany, May 19, 2011.

123. "Degrees of consciousness", Workshop on the Ontology and

Epistemology of Consciousness, Southern Danish University, May 13,
2011.

124. "The Status of Consciousness in Nature", Department Talk,

Southern Danish University, May 12, 2011.

125. Brain Research Unit, Low Temperature Laboratory, Helsinki

University of Technology, Espoo, Finland, May 8 -11.

126. "The Superhuman Mind: From Synesthesia to Savant Syndrome",

with Jason Padgett, Towards a Science of Consciousness, Stockholm,
May 2 - 8, 2011.

127. "The Superhuman Mind: From Synesthesia to Savant Syndrome",

Synesthesia symposium, Towards a Science of Consciousness,
Stockholm, May 1, 2011.

128. Pacific APA, April 20-24, 2011.

129. "Color in Blindsight", BBOB Presentation, Psychology, UMSL,

April 6.

130. "A Common Flaw in the Empirical Study of Consciousness", Joint

PNP/Medical School talk, East Building of Medical School Campus,
Washington University St. Louis, March 9, 2011

131. "A Case of Acquired Synesthesia and Savant Syndrome after A

Brutal Assault", Med school talk, Washington University St. Louis,
March 7, 2011.

132. "What Does it Mean to be Human? From Neanderthals to the

Technological Singularity" Big History Lecture, University of Missouri,
St. Louis, February 28, 2011.

133. Commentary on Nemira Gasiunas's "Grapheme-color synesthesia

as perception without awareness", The Third Online Consciousness
Conference, Feb 18 - March 4, 2011.

134. Perception workshop, Harvard Dec 4, 2010.

164

135. "Does Color Synesthesia Differ Phenomenally from Visual

Imagery", NYU, New York, Nov 20, 2010. Abstract: Color synesthesia
differs from visual imagery along a number of dimensions, for example,
in terms of how it is triggered. But how does it differ in phenomenal
quality from visual imagery? Neuro-imaging has found that both color
synesthesia and visual imagery activate areas in striate (V1) cortex and
the V4/V8 color complex. Studies from blindsight and achromatopsia
have provided suggestive evidence that V1 is systematically involved in
computing brightness, brightness contrast and chromatic contrast,
whereas the V4/V8 complex is involved in computing hues and
saturation. Since current neuro-imaging results show that both color
synesthesia and visual imagery activate these two major color areas of the
brain, the current data from neuro-imaging do not provide us with any
good insight into the question of whether there is a phenomenal
difference between synesthesia and visual imagery. In a series of studies
we asked lower color synesthetes, in which the trigger is sensory, higher
color synesthetes, in which the trigger is cognitive, and non-synesthetes
to compare their synesthetic experiences or visual imagery to
photographs that varied in brightness or brightness contrast. We found
that the synesthetic experiences of lower synestetes differ from the visual
images of non-synesthetic subjects in having a greater brightness and
brightness contrast than the visual images of non-synesthetes. No such
difference was found in higher color synesthesia. As V1 is involved in
computing brightness and brightness contrast, the studies provide
suggestive evidence that lower synesthesia involves greater V1 activation
than visual imagery.

136. Degrees of Consciousness, SpaWN conference, Metaphysics,

Syracuse, July 25-27, 2010.

137. Color Experience in Blindsight?, department talk, Aarhus

University, May 20, 2010.

138. What is an Unconscious Mental State?, Towards a Science of

Consciousness, Tuscon April 12-18, 2010.

139. Comments on Uriah Kriegel's Subjective Consciousness: A Self-

Representational Theory, Author Meets Critics Session, Pacific Division
Meeting of the American philosophical Association, San Francisco, April
1, 2010.

140. Do We Perceive Natural Kind Properties?, Colloquium talk,

Pacific Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association, San
Francisco, March 31, 2010.
165

141. Hawthorne & Cappelen author meets critics session, Central

Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association, Chicago,
February 20, 2010.

142. An Alternative to Color Relationalism, Colloquium talk, Eastern

Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association, New York,
Dec 29, 2009. Commentator: Jonathan Cohen.

143. Perception Beyond Vision, Perception workshop, Harvard

University, Nov 14, 2009.

144. Towards a Theory of the Long-Lasting Emotions, Department

Talk, University of Missouri-Columbia, Nov 6, 2009.

145. Kaplan's Paradox and the Semantic Values of Predicates, Issues

in Contemporary Semantics and Ontology: Predicates and Properties, org.
Eleonora Orlando, Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra and Ezequiel Zerbudis,
Bueno Aires, Argentina, August 26-28, 2009.

146. Reasonable Disagreement and Entitlements to Trust, Feldman

workshop on disagreement, org. Klemens Kappel, University of
Copenhagen, Denmark, August 14, 2009.

147. Some Kind of Seeing", AAP, Melbourne, July 6, 2009.

148. Do We Perceive High-Level Properties?, Philosophy Program,

Australian National University, May 14, 2009.

149. Disjunctivism and Primitive Knowledge, Pacific Meeting in

Vancouver, April 8, 2009.

150. Primitive Knowledge Disjunctivism, Kansas State University,

March 26, 2009.

151. Primitive Knowledge Disjunctivism, Russell V Workshop, The

Bishop's Ranch, Healdsburg, CA, March 12-15, 2009.

152. Propositions as Hyperintensions, Hyperintensionality and

Impossible Worlds Workshop, org. David Chalmers, The ANU,
November 25-26, 2008.

153. Primitive Knowledge Disjunctivism, Univeristy of Aarhus Oct

24, 2008.
166

154. Primitive Knowledge Disjunctivism, University of Copenhagen

Oct 24, 2008.

155. Knowledge-How: A Unified Account, Epistemology Workshop,

Copenhagen Oct 23, 2008.

156. Disjunctivism and Primitive Knowledge, The Second Annual

Midwest Epistemology Workshop, October 17-18, 2008, The University
of Nebraska in Lincoln, Nebraska.

157. Primitive Knowledge Disjunctivism, Philosophy RSSS, ANU,

September 2008.

158. Primitive Knowledge Disjunctivism, Auckland, NZ, August

2008.

159. On Luck, Responsibility and the Meaning of Life", Wellington,

NZ, August 2008.

160. Primitive Knowledge Disjunctivism, Otago, Dunedin, NZ,

August 2008.

161. Knowledge without Belief, Australian Association of Philosophy,

Melbourne 2008.

162. On the Knowledge Argument, The Epistemology at the Beach

Conference, Feb. 15-18, 2008, ANU's Kioloa Coastal Campus, hosted by
Dave Chalmers' Centre for Consciousness and and Daniel Stoljar's Basic
Knowledge grant and organized by Declan Smithies.

163. Counterpossibles, Impossible Worlds, and Essence, with Joe

Salerno, Arizona Ontology Conference, Arizona, January 2008.
Organizer: L. A. Paul. Commentator: Gillian Russell.

164. An Extensional Approach to Quantifier Domain Restriction, The

Eastern Meeting of the APA, Baltimore, December 27-30, 2007.
Commentator: Jason Stanley.

165. Making Sense of Ontological Commitment, Ontological

Commitment Conference, Sydney, November 30 - December 1, 2007.

166. Perceptual Reports and Intensional Verbs, PhilSoc, Philosophy

RSSS, Australian National University, October 23, 2007.
167

167. Comments on Philippe Schlenker's "Be Articulate!", Rutgers

Semantics Workshop, October 5-7, 2007. Organizers: Lepore and
Stanley.

168. Remarks on Counterpossibles, with Joe Salerno, Synthese

Annual Conference: Between Logic and Intuition: David Lewis and the
Future of Formal Methods in Philosophy, Carlsberg Academy,
Copenhagen, October 3-5, 2007. Program Committee: Johan van
Benthem, Vincent F. Hendricks, John Symons, and Stig Andur Pedersen.

169. Structured Content, Philosophy RSSS, Australian National

University, September 13, 2007.

170. What Mary Did Yesterday: Remarks on Knowledge-wh,

Copenhagen Epistemology Conference, May 26-26, 2007, organizer:
Klemens Kappel and Danish Epistemology Network. Speakers: Duncan
Pritchard, Erik Olsson, Nikolaj Nottelman, Erik Carsson, Kristoffer
Ahlstrom, Berit Brogaard, and Esben Nedenskov. Discussants (among
others): Lars Bo Gundersen, Eline Busck Gundersen, Jesper Kallestrup,
Klemens Kappel, and Anders Schoubye.

171. Public Lecture, Henrik Gade Jensen, org. May 23, 2007, Palace
Hotel, Raadhuspladsen, Copenhagen.

172. Adjectives Conference, St. Andrews, May 19-20, 2007, invited

participant. Organizers: Herman Cappelen and Jason Stanley. Keynote
addresses: Delia Graff Fara, John Hawthorne, Chris Kennedy, Peter
Ludlow, Paul Pietoski, Daniel Rothschild, Jonathan Schaffer, Gabriel
Segal, and Jason Stanley.

173. Remarks on Counterpossibles, with Joe Salerno, Epistemology

Conference, University of Edinburgh, May 15, 2007. Organizers: Jesper
Kallestrup and Matthew Chrisman. Speakers: Berit Brogaard, Ram Neta,
Duncan Pritchard, Joe Salerno and Jonathan Schaffer. Abstract: On
David Lewis' theory of subjunctive conditionals, subjunctives with
impossible antecedents are familiarly treated as vacuously true. But as
Daniel Nolan and others have argued, there are several good reasons to
steer clear of a vacuity treatment of counterpossibles. In this essay we
provide further reasons in support of the thesis. We then raise a problem
for Nolan's treatment and argue that the problem requires for its solution a
theory of subjunctives that treats subjunctive contexts as opaque. We
conclude by offering such a theory.
168

174. What Mary Did Yesterday: Remarks on Knowledge-wh, , the

Linguistics and Epistemology Conference, Aberdeen, UK, May 12-13
2007, organized by Martijn Blaauw. 30 min talk. Keynote speakers:
Kent Bach, Peter Ludlow, Jonathan Schaffer, and Jason Stanley.
Abstract: reductionists about knowledge-wh hold that 's knows-wh' (e.g.
'John knows who stole his car') is reducible to 'there is a proposition p
such that s knows that p, and p answers the indirect question of the wh-
clause'. Anti-reductionists hold that 's knows-wh' is reducible to 's knows
that p, as the true answer to the indirect question of the wh-clause'. I
argue that both of these positions are defective. I then offer a new
analysis of knowledge-wh as a special kind of de re knowledge.

175. Donkey Sentences and Quantifier Variability, the Central

Division of the APA in Chicago, April 19-21 2007. Commentator: Jessica
Rett, Department of Linguistics, Rutgers. The paper proposes an account
of conditional donkey sentences, such as 'if a farmer buys a donkey, he
usually vaccinates it', which accommodates the fact that the adverb of
quantification seems to affect the interpretation of pronouns that are not
within its syntactic scope. The analysis defended takes donkey pronouns
to go proxy for partitive noun phrases with varying quantificational force.
The variation in the interpretation of donkey pronouns, it is argued, is
determined by the linguistic environment in which the pronouns occur. A
longer version of this paper can be found in the works in progress section
below.

176. Sea Battle Semantics the Pacific Meeting of the APA in San
Francisco, April 3-8, 2007. Commentator: Peter Ludlow, University of
Michigan. Macfarlane has argued that our intuitions about future
contingents motivate a shift from standard semantics to relativistic
semantics. In this paper I defend standard semantics against MacFarlane's
criticism. A longer version of the paper can be found in the works in
progress section below.

177. What Mary Did Yesterday: Reflections on Knowledge-wh,

Philosophy Department Colloquium, St. Louis University. March 30,
2007.

178. What Mary Did Yesterday: Remarks on Knowledge-wh,

Knowledge and Questions Workshop, 15-16 March 2007 at the Archives
H.-Poincar, Nancy, France. Keynote speakers: Berit Brogaard, Maria
Aloni, Paul Egre, Pascal Engel, Christopher Hookway, Ian Rumfitt,
Jonathan Schaffer, Claudine Tiercelin.
169

179. Commentator on Delia Graff's "Coincidence By Another

Name", Arizona Ontology Conference. Jan 18-21, 2007. Speakers: Ted
Sider, Carolina Sartorio, David Chalmers, Delia Graff, Mike Rea, Cian
Dorr, John Hawthorne, Sarah McGrath, and Ned Hall. Preliminary draft
of comments.

180. The But not All: A New Account of Plural Definite Descriptions,
the Eastern Division of the APA in Washington D.C., December, 2006.
Commentator: Zoltan Szabo, Yale University. The paper argues against
the view that the semantic import of plural descriptions is existential
quantification. Then it argues that plural descriptions have the semantic
import of partitive constructions with variable quantificational force. You
can find a longer version of the paper in the works in progress section
below.

181. Rutgers Semantics Workshop, Sep 29-30, 2006, invited

participant. Speakers: Mark Baker, Sarah Jane Leslie, Martin Hackl,
Peter Lasersohn, Richard Larson.

182. In Defense of a Perspectival Semantics for 'Know', Philosophy

department colloquium. Syracuse. September 22, 2006

183. In Defense of a Perspectival Semantics for 'Know', NAMICONA

Epistemology Workshop, University of Copenhagen, August 22, 2006.

184. The Trivial Argument for Epistemic Value Pluralism. Or How I

Learned to Stop Caring about Truth, Stirling Conference on Epistemic
Value, August 2006. Commentator: Mikkel Gerken, University of
California, Los Angeles. Invited speakers: Jason Baehr, Berit Brogaard,
Pascal Engel, Stephen Grimm, Ward Jones, Mark Kaplan, Martin Kusch,
Alan Millar, Christian Piller, Wayne Riggs, Matt Weiner, W. Jay Wood.

185. Moral Contextualism and Moral Relativism", Aberdeen

Conference on Moral Contextualism, July 2006. Organized by Peter
Baumann and Martijn Blaauw. Commentator: Lars Binderup, University
of Southern Denmark. Keynote speakers: Berit Brogaard, John Greco,
John Hawthorne, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Alan Thomas, Ralph
Wedgwood. The paper argues that a version of non-indexical
contextualism is preferable to genuine moral relativism.

186. Adverbs and Quantifier Domain Restriction, the Central Division

of the APA in Chicago, April, 2006. Commentator: Andy Egan,
University of Michigan.
170

187. Knowability, Possibility and Paradox, with J. Salerno. Book

launch event for V. Hendricks and D. Pritchard's New Waves in
Epistemology. Pacific Division of the APA. March 24, 2006.

188. Russell's Theory of Descriptions vs. the Predicative Analysis: a

Reply to Graff, the Eastern Division of the APA in NY, December, 2005.
Commentator. Delia Graff Fara, Princeton University. A longer version
of this paper has been accepted for publication in Australasian Journal of
Philosophy.

189. Anti-Realism, Theism and the Conditional Fallacy, with J.

Salerno, the Central Division of the APA in Chicago, April, 2003.
Commentator: Michael Rea, Notre Dame. A longer version of this paper
appeared in Nous 2005.

190. To Be is to Be Considered, with J. Salerno, the Society for

Realist and Anti-Realist Discussion, Pacific Division of the APA in
Seattle, WA March 29 - March 30, 2002.

191. The Meaning of Life, with Barry Smith, Philosophy Department,

SUNY Brockport, April 12, 2001.

192. Elusive Reference, Grounded Truth. The 23rd International

Wittgenstein Symposium, Kirchberg am Wechsel, August, 2000.

193. Quantum Mereotopology, American Association for Artificial

Intelligence-2000 Workshop on Spatial and Temporal Granularity. The
American Association for Artificial Intelligence, Austin, Texas, July 30,
2000

194. Should We Be Afraid of Human Cloning?, Department of

Philosophy, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, April 27, 2000.

195. Brain Death and Technological Development, Brain Death and

Human Identity - An Ad Hoc Symposium, University of Hamburg,
Germany, March 9, 2000.

196. Presentist Four-Dimensionalism, the Hamburger Kreis,

University of Hamburg, Germany, February 10, 2000.

197. Mereology and Causation, Winter Symposium, University of

Aarhus, Denmark, January, 2000.
171

198. The Ontology of Fields, NCGIA Annual Meeting 1999, Santa

Barbara, CA, December 3, 1999.

199. The Ontology of Species, Technical University of Dresden,

Germany, October 8, 1999.

200. Spaces of Representation, in the round-table discussion:

Catastrophe Theory Based Models of Meaning, The Twentieth World
Congress of Philosophy, Boston, Mass, August 10, 1998.

201. Language and Time, University at Urbino, Italy, July 1998.

202. The Ontology of Fields, The Ontology of Fields, Specialist

Meeting of the NSF Varenius Project, Bar Harbor, Maine, June 1998.

203. Intentionality, 6th Congress of the IASS-AIS, Guajadelaja,

Mexico, July 15, 1997.

204. An Aristotelian Approach to Animal Behavior, 6th Congress of

the IASS-AIS, Guajadelaja, Mexico, July 14, 1997.

Unpublished Works

1. I Know. Therefore, I understand (2005)

2. Donkey Sentences and Quantifier Variability (2006)

3. Do 'Looks' Reports Reflect the Contents of Perception?(2009)

4. Degrees of Consciousness, (2010)

5. Perception without Awareness: Blindsight, Higher Synesthesia and Vision

for Action, (2011).

6. A Case of Acquired Synesthesia and Savant Syndrome Following a

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berit_Brogaard
Contents

1 Education and Career

2 Philosophical Work
172

o 2.1 Cognitive neuroscience

Cognitive neuroscience
In the area of cognitive neuroscience Brogaard is best known for her work on
synesthesia and savant syndrome.[25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32] Her team, which consists
of colleagues from the Brogaard Lab for Multisensory Research,[33] and the
Visual Awareness and Cognition Group, Brain Research Unit, Low Temperature
Laboratory, Aalto University School of Science, Finland[34] just completed a
series of studies on Jason Padgett,[35] who has acquired savant syndrome and
acquired synesthesia. Jason Padgett was mugged in 2002.[36] He was hit on his
head and developed a form of synesthesia and savant syndrome.[36] Certain
objects and mathematical formulas trigger synesthetic mathematical fractals in
him.[36] He is the first to hand-draw mathematical fractals, an ability he acquired
after the incident.[36][37][38]

In a series of functional MRI studies in Finland, Brogaard's team found uni-

lateral left-side activity in the parietal and frontal areas when Padgett is exposed
to well-formed mathematical formulas that give rise to synesthetic fractals in
him and bi-lateral activation when he is exposed to nonsense formulas or
formulas that don't give rise to synesthetic fractals.

o 2.2 Philosophy of mind

In the area of philosophy of mind, Brogaard is the first to provide a

thorough analysis of perceptual words such as 'look', 'sound', 'feel', 'taste',
'smell', 'seem', 'appear', 'see' and 'hear'.[45] She argues that perceptual
reports containing these words reflect the content of perception.[46][47]

Brogaard is also the first researcher to show that consciousness comes in

degrees and that there can be borderline cases of consciousness.[48]
Imagine a case where we slowly destroy the primary visual cortex of a
subject, one neuron at a time in an arbitrary fashion. Plausibly such an
individual would proceed slowly from perceiving her surroundings
normally to perceiving them unconsciously. In this process, the brightness
of the perceived content would gradually decrease until a point at which it
would be unclear whether the perception counted as weakly conscious.

Or consider George Sperling's classic experiment in which a 3 x 3 array

of letters was briefly flashed to the test subjects. Most subjects said that
173

they were aware of all the letters, even though they could report only
about half of them. To test whether the subjects were right, Sperling used
a tone after the presentation of the stimulus to signal which row the
subjects should report (high tone = top row, medium tone = middle row
and low tone = the bottom row). The subjects were able to name the
letters in the indicated row but they were unable to report any other
numbers. The fact that the subjects were able to report any signaled row
indicates that they were phenomenally conscious of all the rows but did
not have access consciousness to all of them. But suppose we were to
flash a 4 x 4 array of letters, then a 5 x 5 array of letters, then 6 x 6 array
of letters, and so on, to subjects in an experiment. In that case, it would
naturally become harder and harder for them to report the rows as the
array became increasingly more complicated. There would, however, be
no precise cut-off at which the subjects would go from being weakly
conscious to not being weakly conscious of all the rows

o 2.3 Philosophy of language

Brogaard is also a well known contributor to the philosophy of language.

Brogaard's book, Transient Truths provides the first book-length
exposition and defense of temporalism,[49][50] the view that contents can
change their truth-values along with changes in the world. Brogaard
argues that temporal contents are contents and propositions in the full
sense. This project involves a thorough analysis of how we talk about and
retain mental states over time, an examination of how the phenomenology
of mental states bear on the content of mental states, an analysis of how
we pass on information in temporally extended conversations, and a
revival of a Priorian tense logic. The view suggests a broader view
according to which some types of representation have a determinate truth-
value only relative to features about the subject who does the
representing. If this view is right, successful semantic representation
requires an eye on our own position in the world. Brogaard has also
offered well known philosophical accounts of moral permissibility,[12][51]
[52][53][54][55][56][57]
anti-realism,[58][59][60] and knowledge-how.[61]

Brogaard is furthermore the first to develop a dynamic two-dimensional

semantics that can account for cognitive significance in a dynamic
setting.[62]
174

3 Books

o 3.1 Transient Truths: An Essay in the Metaphysics of Propositions

o 3.2 On Romantic Love: Simple Truths About a Complex Emotion

o 3.3 The Superhuman Mind: Free the Genius in Your Brain

4 Miscellaneous

5 References

6 Bibliography

7 External links

https://iainews.iai.tv/articles/friston-vs-brogaard-down-the-rabbit-hole-
part-1-auid-654

Friston vs Brogaard: Down the Rabbit Hole - part 1

Sunday 27th March
HEAD TO HEAD: Is our experience real, or simply a construct of the brain?
Karl Friston | UCL neuroscientist, brain imaging expert, and scientific director
of The Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging

Read part 2: Berit Brogaard asks, if we cannot trust our senses, where
does this leave our beliefs?All experience is the product of inference. All
experience is a highly sophisticated, hierarchically interwoven story that
is fabricated to explain our sensory impressions. In this view, experiences
from

https://iainews.iai.tv/articles/beyond-words-auid-648

Beyond Words
Saturday 12th March
We use language every day to communicate with others and understand the
world. So why do we now distrust it so much?
175

Emma Borg | Professor of Philosophy at Reading University and Director of

the Reading Centre for Cognition Research
Im a realist. I think there is a world beyond words and that the aim and purpose
of (at least some parts of) language is to describe that world. Of course, not all
parts of language need serve this purpose. For instance, perhaps the aim of
poetry is to encourage ways of thinking where the connection to reality is far
from
https://iainews.iai.tv/articles/a-new-model-of-consciousness-auid-510

A New Model of Consciousness

Sunday 08th March
We think we understand what the world is made of. Yet we still cannot explain
thought. Is it time for a radical new model?
Daniel Stoljar | Professor of Philosophy at the University of Colorado, whose
principal areas of research include philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and
metaethics.
Do we need a radically new model to explain the place of consciousness in the
material world? The answer is yes, because both old models are failing. Old
model #1 is materialism also known as physicalism which says that
consciousness is a function of organised matter. The problem with materialism
is that on any known view of what ma
https://philpapers.org/rec/STOP
Daniel Stoljar
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2001)
Physicalism is the thesis that everything is physical, or as
contemporary philosophers sometimes put it, that everything
supervenes on, or is necessitated by, the physical. The thesis is usually
intended as a metaphysical thesis, parallel to the thesis attributed to the
ancient Greek philosopher Thales, that everything is water, or the
idealism of the 18th Century philosopher Berkeley, that everything is
Abstract mental. The general idea is that the nature of the actual world (i.e. the
universe and everything in it) conforms to a certain condition, the
condition of being physical. Of course, physicalists don't deny that the
world might contain many items that at first glance don't seem
physical items of a biological, or psychological, or moral, or social
nature. But they insist nevertheless that at the end of the day such
items are either physical or supervene on the physical
176

http://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_physicalism.html
Physicalism (also known as Materialistic Monism - see the sections on
Materialism and Monism) is the philosophical position that everything which
exists is no more extensive than its physical properties, and that the only
existing substance is physical. Therefore, it argues, the mind is a purely
physical construct, and will eventually be explained entirely by physical
theory, as it continues to evolve. With the huge strides in science in the 20th
Century (especially in atomic theory, evolution, neuroscience and computer
technology), Physicalism of various types (see below) has become the
dominant doctrine in the Mind/Body argument (see the section on Philosophy
of Mind).

The term "physicalism" was first coined by the Austrian philosopher Otto
Neurath (1882 - 1945) in the early 20th Century. In some ways, the term
"physicalism" is a preferable one to the closely related concept of Materialism
because it has evolved with the physical sciences to incorporate far more
sophisticated notions of physicality than just matter, for example
wave/particle relationships and non-material forces produced by particles.
Physicalism can also be considered a variety of Naturalism (the belief that
nature is all that exists, and that all things supernatural therefore do not exist).

An important concept within Physicalism is that of supervenience, which is the

idea that higher levels of existence are dependent on lower levels, such that
there can only be a change in the higher level if there is also a change in the
lower level (the higher level is said to supervene on the lower level). THIS IS
OBVIOUS - IS IT NOT?

Objections to Physicalism point out the apparent contradiction of the existence

of qualia (properties of sensory experiences, or "the way things seem to us") in
an entirely physical world (also known as the knowledge argument). Hempel's
Dilemma (propounded by the German philosopher Carl Hempel) attacks how
Physicalism is defined: if, for instance, one defines Physicalism as the belief
that the universe is composed of everything known by physics, one can point
out that physics cannot describe how the mind functions; if Physicalism is
defined as anything which may be described by physics in the future, then one
is really saying nothing. Against this, it can be argued that many examples of
previously dualistic concepts are being eroded by continuous scientific
progress, and that the complete physical basis of the mind will almost
certainly be known sometime in the future.
177

Types of Physicalism Back to Top

There are two main categories of Physicalism, Reductive and Non-Reductive:

Reductive Physicalism, which asserts that all mental states and

properties can be, or will eventually be, explained by scientific accounts
of physiological processes and states, has been the most popular form
during the 20th Century.
There are four main types:

o Behaviourism, which holds that mental states are just descriptions

of observable behaviour and that such behaviours can be
described scientifically without recourse either to internal
physiological events or to hypothetical constructs such as the
mind.

o Type Identity Theory (also known as Type Physicalism), which

holds that various kinds of mental states are identical to certain
kinds, or types, of physical states of the brain.

o Token Identity Theory, which holds that particular instances of

mental states are identical to particular instances of physical
states of the brain.

o Functionalism, which holds that mental states (beliefs, desires,

being in pain, etc.) are constituted solely by their functional role
(the causal relations of mental states to other mental states,
sensory inputs, and behavioural outputs), and can be characterized
in terms of non-mental functional properties. It further asserts
that mental states are multiply realizable, meaning that they can
be sufficiently explained without taking into account the
underlying physical medium (e.g. the brain, neurons, etc.) so that
they can be realized in multiple ways, including, theoretically at
least, within non-biological systems such as computers.

Non-Reductive Physicalism, which argues that, although the brain is all

there is to the mind, the predicates and vocabulary used in mental
descriptions and explanations cannot be reduced to the language and
lower-level explanations of physical science. Thus, mental states
supervene (depend) on physical states, and there can be no change in the
mental without some change in the physical, but they are not reducible
to them.
There are three main types:
178

o Anomalous Monism, which states that mental events are identical

with physical events, but that the mental is anomalous i.e. these
mental events are perfectly real, and identical with (some) physical
matter, but not regulated by strict physical laws. Therefore, all
mental things are physical, but not all physical things are
necessarily mental. This doctrine was first proposed by Donald
Davidson in the 1970s.

o Emergentism, which involves a layered view of nature, with the

layers arranged in terms of increasing complexity, each
corresponding to its own special science.

o Eliminativism (or Eliminative Materialism), which holds that

people's common-sense understanding of the mind ("folk
psychology") is hopelessley flawed, and will eventually be
replaced (eliminated) by an alternative, usually taken to be
neuroscience.

Yes to A M, and yes to Emergentism they are layered - many levels and multi-
dimensional and yes to eliminativism all this will be fully explored and
explained and conceptualized by neuroscience and other disciplines. And yes
to non-reductive physicalism of the 3 main types.
AND, yes to Reductive Physicalism (which is another perspective emphasizing
OTHER ASPECTS, LEVELS, DIMENSIONS of the same thing) than Non-
reductive Physicalism.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physicalism/
Physicalism is the thesis that everything is physical, or as contemporary
philosophers sometimes put it, that everything supervenes on the physical. The
thesis is usually intended as a metaphysical thesis, parallel to the thesis
attributed to the ancient Greek philosopher Thales, that everything is water, or
the idealism of the 18th Century philosopher Berkeley, that everything is
mental. The general idea is that the nature of the actual world (i.e. the universe
and everything in it) conforms to a certain condition, the condition of being
physical. Of course, physicalists don't deny that the world might contain many
items that at first glance don't seem physical items of a biological, or
psychological, or moral, or social nature. But they insist nevertheless that at the
end of the day such items are either physical or supervene on the physical.

1. Terminology
179

2. A Framework for Discussion

In approaching the topic of physicalism, one may distinguish what I will call
the interpretation question from the truth question. The interpretation question
asks:

What does it mean to say that everything is physical?

The truth question asks:

Is it true to say that everything is physical?

3. Supervenience Physicalism: Introductory

One answer to the completeness question an answer suggested initially

in Davidson 1970 looks to the notion of supervenience. (This notion is
historically associated with meta-ethics, but it has received extensive
discussion in the general metaphysics and logic literature. For a survey,
see supervenience.) As we shall see as we proceed, supervenience is not
quite as popular an answer to the completeness question as it once was,
but it is nevertheless remains an attractive answer, and we may go a
considerable distance by concentrating on it.

The idea of supervenience might be introduced via an example due to

David Lewis of a dot-matrix picture:

A dot-matrix picture has global properties it is symmetrical, it is

cluttered, and whatnot and yet all there is to the picture is dots
and non-dots at each point of the matrix. The global properties are
nothing but patterns in the dots. They supervene: no two pictures
could differ in their global properties without differing,
somewhere, in whether there is or there isn't a dot (1986, p. 14).

4. Supervenience Physicalism: Further Issues

o 4.1 The lone ammonium molecule problem

o 4.2 The modal status problem

180

o 4.3 The epiphenomenal ectoplasm problem

o 4.4 The blockers problem

5. Supervenience Physicalism as Minimal Physicalism

6. Token and Type Physicalism

7. Reductive and Non-Reductive Physicalism

8. A Priori and A Posteriori Physicalism

9. Is Supervenience Sufficient for Physicalism?

10. Non-modal Definitions of Physicalism

o 10.1 Second-order properties

o 10.2 Subsets of causal powers

o 10.3 Grounding

11. Understanding Physical: Introductory

12. Understanding Physical: Further Issues

o 12.1 Circularity

o 12.2 Hempel's dilemma

o 12.3 The panpsychism problem

o 12.4 The via negativa

o 12.5 Physicalism as an Attitude

n view of the difficulties posed by Hempel's dilemma and related

problems, some philosophers have explored the interesting idea that to be
a physicalist is not to hold some thesis or belief that is, to hold
something that may be true or false but is rather to adopt a kind of
attitude or stance. As Alyssa Ney (2008, p. 9, see also Van Fraassen 2002)
develops this attitudinal view, for example, physicalism is an attitude
181

one takes to form ones ontology completely and solely according to what
physics says exists.
Now, as with the via negativa, there is certainly something right about the
attitudinal view. As we will see below, contemporary physicalists are
often methodological naturalists, and methodological naturalists may well
hold the attitude Ney describes. Nevertheless, there is a major problem
for the view, viz., that on the face of it holding this sort of attitude is
neither necessary nor sufficient for being a physicalist.

13. Physicalism and the Physicalist World Picture

Perhaps because of its connection to the physical sciences, physicalism is

sometimes construed as an entire package of views, which contains the
metaphysical thesis I have isolated for discussion as only one part. If we
want a name for the entire package of views including the metaphysical
claim we might call it the Physicalist World Picture. I will close our
discussion of the interpretation question by considering the relation
between physicalism (the metaphysical claim) and various other items
that at least sometimes have been thought to be a part of the Physicalist
World Picture.
(a) Methodological Naturalism: the idea that the mode of inquiry
typical of the physical sciences will provide theoretical
understanding of the world, to the extent that this sort of
understanding can be achieved. Physicalism is not methodological
naturalism because physicalism is a metaphysical thesis not a
methodological thesis.
(b) Epistemic Optimism: the idea that the mode of understanding
typical of the sciences can be used by us, i.e. by human beings, to
explain the world in total, to provide a final theory of the world.
Physicalism is not epistemic optimism because, since commitment
to physicalism does not commit you to methodological naturalism,
it clearly does not commit you to any optimism about the success
of that method in the long run.
(c) Final Theory: the idea that there is a final and complete theory
of the world, regardless of whether we can formulate it. One might
think it obvious that if physicalism is true, there is a final theory of
the world. However, because of some unclarity in the notion of a
theory, the issues here are not cut and dried. According to some
views, something is a theory only if it is finitely stateable in a
language we can understand. If that is so, clearly physicalism does
182

not entail the idea of a final theory. On a looser conception of a

theory, however, it is reasonable to say that physicalism entails that
there is a final theory.
(d) Objectivity: the idea that the final and complete theory of
world, if it exists, will not involve any essential reference to
particular points of view or experiences. It is reasonable to say that
physicalism entails objectivity. However, given the possibilities of
non-reductive or a posteriori physicalism even here the issues are
not settled. On those approaches, it seems possible to have
irreducible points of view or experiences supervening on
something physical, which compromises objectivity.
(e) Unity of Science: the idea that all the branches of sciences
developed by us will or should be unified into a single science,
usually (but not always) thought of as physics. This thesis is clearly
a methodological thesis about how science ought to proceed. As we
have seen, however, physicalism is a metaphysical thesis rather
than a methodological thesis about how science ought to proceed.
Hence it is not equivalent to the unity of science thesis.
(f) Explanatory Reductionism: the idea that all genuine
explanations must be couched in the terms of physics, and that
other explanations, while pragmatically useful, can or should be
discarded as knowledge develops. Physicalism is not explanatory
reductionism because, as we saw in our discussion of non-
reductive physicalism, physicalism is consistent with the idea that
special sciences are quite distinct from physics. One might say that
the special sciences are concerned with patterns in the physical that
physicists themselves are not concerned with. For that reason the
subject matter of the special sciences is distinct from the subject
matter of physics.
(g) Generality of Physics: the idea that every particular event or
process which falls under a law of the special sciences (i.e.
sciences other than physics) also falls under a law of physics. In
general, this view presupposes a view about laws and explanation
for example, it implies or seems to imply that special sciences
have laws. But physicalism does not entail any such thesis.
(h) Causal Closure of the Physical: the idea that every event has a
physical cause, assuming it has a cause at all. Strictly speaking,
physicalists are not committed to realism about causation, so they
are not committed to causal closure. (Of course, many physicalists
do think that causal closure is true, as we will see below, but their
position does not entail causal closure.)
183

(i) Empiricism: the idea that all knowledge (with the possible
exception of conceptual knowledge) is ultimately founded on
sensory or perceptual experience. Empiricism can be given a
descriptive or a normative reading. On its descriptive reading, it is
most likely false. Most of the information that normal humans
come to deploy seems to be caused by both experience and inborn
structure and maturation. On the normative reading, the claim is
that justification is, at the end of the day, based on experience. But
this epistemological thesis has nothing to do with physicalism.
(j) Nominalism: the idea that there are no abstract objects, i.e.,
entities not located in space and time, such as numbers, qualities or
propositions. If we assume that abstract objects, if they exist, exist
necessarily, i.e., exist in all possible worlds, then supervenience
physicalism is completely silent on the question of whether abstract
objects exist. All supervenience says is that if a world is a minimal
physical duplicate of the actual world, it is a duplicate simpliciter.
But if abstract objects exist then they clearly exist in both the
actual world and any duplicate of the actual world. What this
suggests is that nominalism is a distinct issue from physicalism
(Schiffer 1987, Stoljar 1996).
(k) Atheism: the idea that there is no God as traditionally
conceived. In the 17th and 18th century, physicalism (or
materialism, as it was then known) was widely but not universally
viewed as inconsistent with belief in God (Yolton 1983).
Nowadays, this issue is somewhat less discussed. Nevertheless, as
we noted previously, if God is thought of as essentially non-
physical, then Atheism does seem to be a consequence of
physicalism, at least on some interpretations of the background
modal notions.

14. The Case Against Physicalism I: Qualia and Consciousness

15. The Case Against Physicalism II: Meaning and Intentionality

16. The Case Against Physicalism III: Methodological Issues

17. The Case for Physicalism

18. Further Questions

Bibliography
184

Academic Tools

Other Internet Resources

Related Entries

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physicalism

In philosophy, physicalism is the ontological thesis that "everything is

physical", that there is "nothing over and above" the physical,[1] or that
everything supervenes on the physical.[2] Physicalism is a form of ontological
monisma "one substance" view of the nature of reality as opposed to a "two-
substance" (dualism) or "many-substance" (pluralism) view. Both the definition
of "physical" and the meaning of physicalism have been debated.

Physicalism is closely related to materialism. Physicalism grew out of

materialism with the success of the physical sciences in explaining observed
phenomena. The terms are often used interchangeably, although they are
sometimes distinguished, for example on the basis of physics describing more
than just matter (including energy and physical law). Common arguments
against physicalism include both the philosophical zombie argument[3] and the
multiple observers argument,[4] that the existence of a physical being may imply
zero or more distinct conscious entities.

1 Definition of physical

o 1.1 Supervenience-based definitions of physicalism

o 1.2 Realisation physicalism

o 1.3 Token physicalism

2 Reductionism and emergentism

o 2.1 Reductionism

o 2.2 Emergentism

3 A priori versus a posteriori physicalism

4 Other views
185

o 4.1 Strawsonian physicalism

5 Notes

6 References

7 External links

http://www.iep.utm.edu/know-arg/

The Knowledge Argument Against Physicalism

The knowledge argument is one of the main challenges to physicalism, the
doctrine that the world is entirely physical. The argument begins with the claim
that there are truths about consciousness that cannot be deduced from the
complete physical truth. For example, Frank Jacksons Mary learns all the
physical truths from within a black-and-white room. Then she leaves the room,
sees a red tomato for the first time, and learns new truthsnew phenomenal
truths about what it is like to see red. The arguer infers that, contrary to
physicalism, the complete physical truth is not the whole truth. The physical
truth does not determine or metaphysically necessitate the whole truth about the
world.

This article discusses that arguments structure, compares Jacksons version

with others, compares the knowledge argument with other anti-physicalist
arguments, and summarizes the main lines of response. Eight controversial
assumptions are identified. These are the assumptions that:

the notion of the physical is coherent;

the complete physical truth is accessible to the pre-release Mary;

upon leaving the room, she learns something;

the kind of knowledge she acquires upon leaving the room is

informational knowledge, rather than ability knowledge, acquaintance
knowledge, or something else;

she gains new information, rather than old information represented in a

new way;
186

if the complete-knowledge claim and the learning claim are true, then
what Mary learns when she leaves the room cannot be a priori deduced
(deduced by reason alone, without empirical investigation) from the
complete physical truth.

if there are phenomenal truths that cannot be a priori deduced from the
complete physical truth, then the complete physical truth does not
metaphysically necessitate those phenomenal truths;

the knowledge argument and epiphenomenalism are consistent.

Various criticisms and defenses of these assumptions are discussed.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. The knowledge argument aims to refute physicalism, the doctrine that the
world is entirely physical. Physicalism (also known as materialism) is
widely accepted in contemporary philosophy. But some doubt that
phenomenal consciousnessexperience, the subjective aspect of the
mindis physical. The knowledge argument articulates one of the main
forms this doubt has taken.

3. The Knowledge Intuition and the Inference to Physicalisms Falsity

4. Related Arguments

5. More Physicalist Responses

6. Non Physicalist Responses

7. Other Responses

8. Jacksons Retraction

9. Summary of Assumptions and Criticisms

10.References and Further Reading

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9780195396577/obo-9780195396577-0258.xml
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Physicalism and Metaphysical Naturalism

D. Gene Witmer

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Physicalism and Metaphysical Naturalism

D. Gene Witmer

LAST REVIEWED: 08 October 2015

LAST MODIFIED: 30 March 2015

DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195396577-0258

Introduction
Much of contemporary metaphysical work is motivated in some way by the
desire to accommodate what the natural sciences, especially physics, have
taught us about the world. This motivation has drawn many philosophers to
endorse doctrines variously described as physicalism, materialism, or
naturalism. Physicalism and materialism are often treated as
interchangeable names for a single doctrine that may be crudely expressed as
the claim that everything that exists is physical. By contrast, naturalism is
widely acknowledged to be ambiguous between at least two sorts of positions.
Epistemological naturalism is the view that knowledge is best gained (perhaps:
can only be gained) via the methods of science (perhaps: the methods of natural
science). Metaphysical naturalism is often thought of as making a global
ontological claim akin to physicalismperhaps the claim that everything that
exists is natural, where some explication of natural is evidently crucial.
(Naturalism without qualification shall here be understood as referring to the
metaphysical doctrine.) It is often suspected on the part of non-naturalists that a
self-declared naturalist is really just a physicalist under a different label. Both
doctrines are thought to have significant consequences for our understanding of
the world, especially human aspects of the world and the nature of mentality.
They may also have implications for our understanding of moral properties,
abstract objects, the possibility of knowledge, and other familiar items of
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philosophical investigation. A global metaphysical theory of this sort induces

what are known (following Frank Jackson in From Metaphysics to Ethics; see
Jackson 1998, cited under Central Monographs) as placement location
problems: the problem of locating in a wholly physical or natural world those
things that seem not to be wholly physical or natural. Debates about these
metaphysical doctrines often focus on the prospects for solving such placement
problems, where a failure may justify an elimination of the thing in question or
a rejection of the global doctrine. Other debates focus on the proper formulation
and understanding of the doctrines (e.g., what is meant by calling an entity
physical?), whether and how it might be justified (e.g., what in the development
of natural science could justify the claim that everything is natural?), and its
implications for science and the proper treatment of placement problems (e.g.,
does physicalism require all sciences to reduce to physics?).

General Overviews
While physicalism and naturalism influence an enormous amount of
philosophical work, general overviews are mostly confined either to portions of
larger works where the main focus lies elsewhere or entries in philosophical
companions or guides. There are many of the latter to be found in the recent
proliferation of handbooks, companions and similar volumes, especially those
focusing on mind, metaphysics, or philosophy of science. Three of those may be
spotlighted here. Stoljars Physicalism (Stoljar 2009) and David Papineaus
Naturalism (Papineau 2009) both appear as entries in the online Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and the Continuum Companion to Metaphysics
includes Witmer 2012 as a guide to both. By way of books, Stoljar 2010 is a
less ecumenical monograph that provides an excellent introduction and
overview, and Ritchie 2008 serves as a textbook addressing both epistemic and
metaphysical varieties of naturalism. It is also advisable to get a partial
overview of the issues surrounding physicalism by surveying the development
of the mind-body problem since the middle of the 20th century, as that
discussion has done much to influence the more general metaphysical
discussions.

Kim, Jaegwon. Philosophy of Mind. 3d ed. Boulder, CO: Westview, 2010.

E-mail Citation

An introductory text that focuses primarily on the mind-body problem,

especially good for its discussion of type identity and functionalist
accounts. May fruitfully be read with an eye toward physicalism as a
general thesis about all phenomena, not just the mind.
189

Papineau, David. Naturalism In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Edited by Edward N. Zalta. Stanford, CA: Stanford University, 2009.

E-mail Citation

A review of several positions associated with naturalism without an attempt to

provide a definition of naturalism itself. Metaphysical issues reviewed include
the status of normative, mathematical, and modal facts and whether they can
be located in a natural world.

Ritchie, Jack. Understanding Naturalism. Stocksfield, UK: Acumen, 2008.

E-mail Citation

A concise textbook on naturalism, covering both epistemic and metaphysical

varieties. The fourth and fifth chapters focus primarily on metaphysics,
including discussion of a non-physicalist metaphysical naturalism. A usefully
ecumenical, wide-ranging work.

Stoljar, Daniel. Physicalism In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Edited by Edward N. Zalta. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009.

E-mail Citation

A survey focused largely but not exclusively on questions of formulation,

including attention to supervenience, identity, a priori versus a posteriori
varieties of physicalism, and the key question as to how physical is to be
understood.

Stoljar, Daniel. Physicalism. New York: Routledge, 2010.

E-mail Citation

A systematic overview touching on all major issues regarding physicalism.

Suitable as an introduction while also making a signal contribution to the
literature, arguing that no formulation both makes sense of philosophical
debates about physicalism while being adequate to the intuitive understanding
of the doctrine.

Witmer, D. Gene. Naturalism and Physicalism. In The Continuum

Companion to Metaphysics. Edited by Neil A. Manson and Robert W. Barnard.
New York: Continuum, 2012.
190

E-mail Citation

A substantial guide providing an overview of both physicalism and

metaphysical naturalism, reviewing both questions of formulation and
justification for both doctrines. Includes a diagnostic strategy for understanding
talk of naturalism as a metaphysical thesis.

https://www.rit.edu/cla/philosophy/quine/physicalism.html

quine: terms in translation

quine home > physicalism

physicalism

Physicalism simply states that everything in this world is physical, or as

contemporary philosophers sometimes say, everything supervenes on the
physical. Physicalism implies that everything is made up of matter and therefore
takes up space. Physicalism directly leads you to ask questions like: What are
pain, fear, and happiness? Are these made of matter too? We can't image these
things in a physical form; intuitively, they seem to be mental and immaterial,
though for anyone who's experienced them, they're not abstract! Physicalism is
often a topic of discussion and debate in philosophy of mind. Physicalism also
implies that everything can be explained within the realm of physics, and thus is
a supporting tenet of reductionism.

Dualism is in contrast with physicalism. While the body is made of matter, the
mind is viewed as an unworldly type of non-material. Physicalists challenge this
view, arguing that all mental states and events can be reduced to matter and
energy. Physicalists often use an example of c-fibers firing. They say that when
you're in a particular mental state, such as a particular pain, it can be described
entirely in terms of the activities of the human brain on a neural basis. So the
physicalist view is that we can reduce any mental state so that it is completely
described as events in neurons that are made up entirely of matter and energy.

One of the most famous logical arguments against physicalism features "Mary
the master neuroscientist." This is a case that deals with qualia, the felt qualities
of experience. Mary is a master neuroscientist that was born in a black and
191

white room with everything in it being only black or white. She has never left
the room and has never seen a speck of color. She has spent her time learning all
there is to be known about neuroscience and physics. Mary has read all about
color and knows why and how we see color. If physicalism were true, then
Mary knows everything there is to know about the world. One day Mary is let
out and the first thing she sees is a ripe red tomato. So, what did Mary just learn
if she know everything there was to know about the world before? This thought
experiment supposedly negates the possibility of physicalism because Mary
learned something about the color red that she didn't know before being let out.
Therefore everything in the world cannot be explained by physics.

--Jesse Clayton

Sources:
Stoljar, Daniel, "Physicalism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
(Spring 2001 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL =
http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2001/entries/physicalism/.

https://sites.google.com/site/minddict/physicalism-non-reductive

physicalism, non-reductive

The claim that functional properties cannot be reduced to physical properties,

but that nevertheless all causality is physical. See physicalism, multiple
realizability, functionalism.

Details:

Kim Against Non-reductive Physicalism

Jaegwon Kim sees Donald Davidson's theory of anomalous monism to be a kind

of non-reductive physicalism, as well as Fred Dretske's distinction between
reasons and causes. Kim claims that one can be either a physicalist, or non-
reductive, but not both. In Kim 1993 (p. 351-2), he describes the problem using
the following diagram.

M causes M*
P causes P*
192

In this diagram, a single mental event M is seen as causing another mental event
M*. This mental event is physically realized (for example in a brain state) by a
physical event P, which causes P* i.e. the physical realization of M* . Kim's
argument against the existence of mental causation is that the top layer does no
real work. P can cause P* all by itself, with no help from M, and there is no
coherent way in which M can cause M* without P's help, or without causing P*.
Thus it seems that physical causality is all we've got, and mental descriptions
are somewhere between being shallow and being outright falsehoods. Kim
claims that the only coherent alternatives are:

1) Dualism, which says that M and M* are independent of P and P*;

2) Reductionism, which says that physical events are identical with mental
events; and
2a) Eliminativism, which says that mental events do not exist at all.

Clearly, position 1) is non-reductive, without being materialist and 2) and 2a)

are materialist, without being non-reductive.

There is also another alternative: Mental Epiphenomenalism, which says that M

exists but has no causal powers. Because Kim (1993, p. 348) accepts Samuel
Alexander's (1927) dictum that "to be is to have causal powers", he sees this
position as fundamentally self-contradictory.

Problems with Kim's Position

Kim's arguments against non-reductive materialism's attempt to have it both

ways are valid, and have had a profound impact. But he has been less successful
with his attempts at a positive account of the relationship between functional
properties and physical properties. Part of the reason his accounts are less
convincing is that he is not afraid to bite whatever bullets are necessary in order
to remain consistent. For example, he claims that a genuinely physical
explanation would have to deny causal powers not only to beliefs and desires,
but to everything except the elementary particles of physical theory.

"all causal relations involving observable phenomena-all causal relations from

daily experience--are cases of epiphenomenal causation" (ibid. p.96)

Kim defines epiphenomenal causation as a relationship between two events

which appears to be a cause and effect relationship, but in fact is merely a
reflection of some other underlying causal process. If we are to be consistent in
our denial of emergent processes, we must claim that strictly speaking the rock
thrown at the chair did not cause the chair to fall over. Rather the relationship
193

between the thrown rock and the chair is an epiphenomenon that supervenes on
the genuine causal processes of subatomic particles, in essentially the same way
that mental states supervene upon physical states. For if we granted the
existence of emergent macroscopic causal properties within physics, there
would be no reason to deny their existence in the mental realm.

Kim admits that the causality of tables and chairs is every bit as epiphenomenal
as that of mental states, because both are dependent on more fundamental laws
of physics. But strictly speaking, Kim's position would also require us to claim
that all of the laws of chemistry are epiphenomenal, because the behavior of the
elements is really causally dependent on the behavior of protons, neutrons and
electrons. The behavior of these subatomic particles would also be
epiphenomenal, because they are causally dependent on the behavior of quarks.
And now that we recognize that scientific revolutions are a natural part of the
growth of sciences, we cannot discount the possibility that further research
could reveal (if it hasn't already) that quarks have parts. If this happened, then
the behavior of quarks would be epiphenomenal. Paul Churchland (1989) also
suggests that metaphysically there is no reason to be certain that this reductive
process ever stops:

. . .consider the possibility that for any level of order discovered in the universe,
there always exists a deeper taxonomy of kinds and a deeper level of order in
terms of which the lawful order can be explained. It is, as far as I can see, a
wholly empirical question whether or not the universe is like this, like an
"explanatory onion" with an infinite number of explanatory skins. If it is like
this, then there are no basic or ultimate laws to which all investigators must
inevitably led (pp. 293-4).

If this suggestion turns out to be correct, then quarks would be as bereft of

causal powers as beliefs and desires. If every causal effect is dependent on the
behavior of its parts, and the division of parts into parts goes on forever, there
would be no principled reason to stop the regress at one place rather than
another. For Kim, this is true even if there is no multiple realizability involved.
The macroproperty would be epiphenomenal even if it constantly conjoined
with some microproperty, for the microproperty would be doing the real work,
and the macroproperty would be only an epiphenomenon of some set of
microproperties. But something like multiple realizability does emerge unless it
is possible to establish what are called "bridge laws" i.e. equivalencies between
terms used at both the macro and micro levels.

Kim also repeatedly asserts that the special sciences must be connected to
physics by bridge laws, and considers this to be the main reason for dismissing
the possibility of emergent causality (see especially chapter 6 of Kim, 1993).
194

For example, he claims: "each supervenient property necessarily has a

coextensive property in the base family" (Kim 1993 p.72); and "The reduction
of one theory to another is thought to be accomplished when the laws of the
reduced theory are shown to be derived from the laws of the reducer theory,
with the help of 'bridge principles'" (ibid. p. 150). Kim admits in an
accompanying footnote that "whether this is the most appropriate model. . .
could be debated." But apparently he feels that the bridge law model is good
enough for him, for he continues to work with it for the rest of the chapter (see
also p. 248 and p. 260).

Bridge Laws

Kim's arguments are consistent given the assumption that science produces
bridge laws. But they can also serve as a two-edged sword if we question that
assumption. If the sciences are not connected by bridge laws, then Kim's
arguments imply that there is no longer any reason to deny the existence of
emergent causality. And as it turns out, bridge laws are simply not to be found
when we look at the most successful reductions in the history of science. There
is clearly some relationship that is established when one theory reduces another,
but almost all modern philosophers of science acknowledge that in most cases
this relationship is more like an isomorphism or a similarity than an identity
(see Bickle 1998, Hooker 1981, Churchland 1975). And these kinds of loose
relationships will not yield necessary causal connections between the two
realms, only probable ones. If A = B, then one can infer from this that if A is F ,
then B is F. But if A is only similar to B, the only thing we can conclude from
"A is F" is that "B is probably F". The connection will only incline, not
necessitate -- to quote Leibniz. If there is any blurring at all between the entities
referred to in macrodiscourse and those referred to in microdiscourse, the laws
that govern the entities in one domain cannot necessitate the behavior of entities
in the other.

Kim (1993) considers the possibility that the macroscopic supervenes only
loosely on the microscopic in chapter 5, section 5 (Global Supervenience
Strengthened: Similarity vs. Indiscernability). Although he doesn't explain in
any detail what is meant by loose supervenience, he surprisingly seems quite
comfortable with this idea. However, for the reasons given above, any such
looseness would leave open the possibility of emergent macroscopic causality.

Pluralism

One alternative to both dualism and physicalism that Kim does not consider is
pluralism. Suppose that there were certain patterns that emerged in what we call
physical processes which had genuine causal powers? This kind of emergence
195

would not necessarily imply a dualistic universe, but rather a pluralistic one;
what Nancy Cartwright (1999) has called a "dappled world." There could be a
variety of macroscopic patterns having an impact on such a world, some of
which would be able to control the particles they were made of, rather than
exclusively the other way around. In such a pluralistic universe , there would be
no principled reason for denying the possibility of mental causality. Mental
processes could be one kind of emergent phenomenon, but not the only one.
One could flippantly say that when one asks a pluralist "are you a dualist" the
correct answer is "yes, at the very least". Such a view would save mental
causation from having to rely on finding something ontologically unique about
the mental, and from being tarred with the brush of Cartesian dualism. In a post-
Darwinian world, any attempt to grant special abilities to consciousness
(especially to human consciousness) is bound to look like special pleading
motivated by wishful thinking. If we can get the same result by seeing our
mental processes as one of many different kinds of emergent properties, then
mental properties would be much more plausible result of evolutionary
processes.

Conclusion

Kim admits that the claim that physical causality has no emergent properties is
an empirical one. He claims that "modern theoretical science treats
macrocausation as reducible epiphenomenal causation and . . . this has proven
to be an extremely successful explanatory and predictive research strategy." He
describes this claim as an "observation" (Kim 1993 p. 96). However, evidence
from the history of science shows that we have not discovered the bridge laws
that would be necessary to maintain deterministic links between micro and
macrocausation, and thus we have no real decisive evidence from science that
there is no emergent physical causality. Kim has shown us that if we are willing
to say that causal properties emerge anywhere between quarks and minds, we
have no reason to deny causal powers to minds. Perhaps Kim is biting the
wrong bullet.

Teed Rockwell

References:

Beckermann, A., Flor, H. and Kim, J. eds. (1992). Emergence or

Reduction? Berlin, De Gruyter.

Bickle, John (1998). Psychoneural Reduction: The New Wave. MIT

Press, Cambridge.
196

Cartwright (1999). The dappled world. Lecture delivered February 23,

1999, U.C. Berkeley Toll Room, Alumni House.

Churchland, Patricia (1983). Neurophilosophy. MIT Press, Cambridge.

Churchland, Paul (1975). Scientific Reason and the Plasticity of Mind.

Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Churchland, Paul (1989). A Neurocomputational Perspective. MIT Press,

Cambridge.

Davidson, D. (1980) "Mental Events" in Essays on Actions and Events.

Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Dretske, F. (1988). Explaining Behavior: Reasons in a World of Causes.

MIT Press, Cambridge.

Hooker, C.A. (1981). "Towards a General Theory of Reduction" in

Dialogue, XX #1-#3.

Kim, Jaegwon (1993). Supervenience and Mind. Cambridge University

Press, Cambridge.

Sosa, E., and Michael Tooley (1993) Causation. Oxford University Press.

http://www.digitalcounterrevolution.co.uk/2013/the-teacher-as-midwife-
socrates-rousseau-and-21st-century-pedagogy/

The teacher as midwife Socrates, Rousseau and 21st century

pedagogy
According to 21st century pedagogic sagacity, there is one overriding imperative for teachers:
Dont be the sage on the stage; be instead the guide at the side of your pupils. Instead of
towering over their students like Platonic philosopher kings imposing a monarchical model of
education, teachers must step down and stand alongside their students and humbly assist them
in finding their own way along the path of learning. The chief apostle of the new pedagogy is
Sugata Mitra, whose guidelines for teachers demand that they set the questions for their
students but refuse to answer them, leaving the students to decide for themselves what the
best answer is.

Among the shallows of 21st century online pedagogy one or two people think they see here
the ancient Socratic idea of the teacher as midwife. Let us point out to them how very
different the new view is both from the original ideas of Socrates and from those of his
modern successor: Rousseau, who gave a very elaborate description of modern pedagogic
midwifery in his 480-page book, Emile, published in 1760.
197

To really bring out the difference, we need to recall an idea that was even more important for
Socrates than that of the midwife: the cave. For both Socrates and Rousseau every child is
born with the ability to learn the ability to enquire and know but they are all born into a
society dominated by ignorance. The cave is Socratess metaphor for a society blighted by the
darkness of ignorance, and the role of the teacher-midwife is to help young people find their
way out of that cave.

The distinctive feature of the pedagogic midwifery of both Socrates and Rousseau is their
understanding of the truth that children leaving the cave of ignorance were to appreciate. In
both cases the truth concerned what Socrates called the good. Socratess great contribution to
philosophy was to insist that people spend less time arguing about the structure of the
universe, and more time arguing about the values that they are to live by. Without turning his
back on what we know as the sciences, it was obvious to him that the curriculum of the
academy had to give priority to the debate about our highest values. Although Rousseau was
a fierce critic of the academy (and of schooling in general), his pedagogy also gave priority to
values, and his Emile refers again and again to a term that has now become almost obsolete:
virtue. Despite their differences, both Socrates and Rousseau said the overriding aim of the
teacher-midwife was to help young people appreciate the truth about the highest values in
human life.

What makes 21st century pedagogy so massively different from the Socratic model is its
denial that there can be a truth about those highest values. Of course, the new pedagogy is not
blankly dismissive of the truth. The idolaters of digital technology show no skepticism
towards the truth of science or towards the authority of the facts that self-educating students
can find on Wikipedia. Their skepticism concerns only the truth of the values that we might
live by.

This is not something peculiar to pedagogy; rather the pedagogues are simply affirming the
dominant scientific view of where truth lies: Truth lies in the theoretical explanation of
observable facts. The truth conceived in this way is impersonal and discursive, and so is cut
off decisively from any personal experience of value. 21st century pedagogy simply takes this
economy of the truth for granted and rests its case on it, ignoring all the voices that, for
centuries now, have been raised against it.

The consequence of this is that 21st century pedagogy turns the Socratic method on its head.
Instead of helping young people leave the cave of social ignorance it ensures that they stay
inside. Our cave (very different from Athenian one, but a cave nevertheless) is one where the
prevailing dogma insists that we cannot know the good. Ignorance is now official policy.
Each of us can enjoy ourselves pursuing our ideas of the good, but none of us should presume
that there is any knowledge here a truth that might convince people that they would be right
to challenge the rule of the 21st century technocrats. If we look carefully at where the 21st
century pedagogic midwives are standing, we will see them guarding the exits of the cave.
Anyone who thinks there is a way out must be turned back; any children who get the idea into
their young heads that there might be a truth to live by is taught, with all the tenderness of the
post-modern midwife, to confess their ignorance.
198

The best example here is Sugata Mitras idea of outdoctrination. Education ought to
outdoctrinate, he says. To illustrate how that is supposed to work lets imagine the
following situation: A teenage boy is studying at a school in Salford in the UK with a teacher
who is assiduously following the guidelines Mitra laid down for his self-organising learning
environments. As the school year progresses the teacher notices that the boy is spending less
and less time in his allotted group and has drifted off on his own where he has become
immersed in something. In a quiet moment, the teacher manages to get him to explain. The
boy (who has read Platos Republic and has a taste for metaphors) says that he has slowly
come to see his class and the neighbourhood in Salford and the dark cacophony broadcast on
television as disturbingly cave-like. He says he has been googling desperately to find a way
out of this dark place, and he has come across the life and ideas of Yukio Mishima. He is
certain now that Mishima is showing him the way, the truth and the life. He has started going
regularly to the gym, and the once flabby Salford dreamer is becoming a lean self-taught
Samurai warrior.

What does the 21st century follower of Sugata Mitra do when she sees the local boy from
Salford turning Japanese? She might not be sure of the means to employ, but the objective
prescribed by 21st century pedagogy is clear: She must get the boy to see that although
Mishima had some interesting ideas, they were just interesting ideas things to be
entertained by, not reasons to turn Japanese. And she might hope the boy comes to see those
ideas as the ideas of a rather unpleasant and problematic character a man who could not
come to terms with the modern world a man we ought to criticise rather than follow. And so
the boy who had been looking for the light beyond the Salford cave is brought back to the
group huddled in the half-light around its tablet of silicon.

There is a strange dialectic of openness here (the one described by Allan Bloom back in the
1980s). If the discourse were able to use the word virtue, it would call openness the highest
virtue, and the completely outdoctrinated person is supposed to be a paragon of openness. But
openness at its best like the openness of the boy in Salford is an openness to the truth an
openness in which things experienced as being true can have a profound, life-changing effect.
Without at least the hope that there might be a truth out there, openness degenerates into a
new kind of closure the closure of the person who is content with his cave, believing that
there can be nothing of any great significance beyond it. It is immensely entertaining to watch
the flickering images of the outside projected onto the walls of the cave, but none of them can
possibly be taken seriously.

What sounds radical initially turns out to be utterly conservative something that Herbert
Marcuse would have called a one-dimensional pedagogy. Socrates, by contrast, was a
genuinely radical figure, and he paid for his radicalism with his life. Rousseau, too, was a
vehement critic of the anti-pedagogic Parisian culture (the culture of a city he said France
would have been better off without), and he insisted that the only place to give Emile the
education he deserves was somewhere far from the influences of the modern city.

Neither Sugata Mitra nor Ken Robinson need to worry about being forced to drink hemlock.
Behind the rousing talk of a learner revolution is a resounding affirmation of the dominant
199

trends in society (trends that rest on an epistemic dogmatism), and all their critical ire is
expended on things like brick and mortar schools that arent keeping up with the times.
Socrates was condemned for allegedly corrupting the youth for leading them to question the
prevailing untruth in the name of a new understanding of the truth. How very different things
are now. Sugata Mitra wants to see the children studying genetics, keeping them connected to
the internet (the 21st century equivalent of Rousseaus Paris) feverishly teaching themselves
about recombinant DNA. And Ken Robinson wants young people to slip effortlessly and
uncomplainingly into the economy, finding something to do there that combines talent and
passion (and here it is assumed that even the lucky ones need not be troubled by the rightness
or goodness of the life they are leading and the system they are lending their support to).

The problem here is not that the pedagogy of people like Sugata Mitra and Ken Robinson is
not radical enough (as if radicalism itself were an indicator of truth); nor is the problem that it
is insufficiently Socratic (as if the Platonic texts were sacred measures of what is right and
wrong); no, the problem, quite simply, is that it is bad midwifery.

The essence of a good educational midwife is a sensitivity to the most profound needs of the
students a sensitivity to something inchoate within them that needs some teacherly
guidance to help raise it to consciousness and become articulate. Allan Bloom puts it this
way: Attention to the young, knowing what their hungers are and what they can digest, is the
essence of the craft. One must spy out and elicit those hungers. For there is no real education
that does not respond to felt need; anything else acquired is trifling display.

Are there not intelligent hungers among the young that 21st century pedagogy dogmatically
dismisses? Among those who have not yet been sucked into a thoughtless and overly
commercialised culture are there not signs of a need for something that can be experienced as
true? If so, how can a 21st century educational midwife justify ignoring such hungers as
these? We hate to say it, but there is a risk here of midwives becoming abortionists.

A single example of the need being dismissed: At the time of writing over 33 million people
have watched one version of the Lilly Allen song Fear on YouTube. Its a song which, for
all its disposable and inarticulate poppiness, dances around the moral void of the modern
epistemic landscape. As the chorus puts it:

I dont know whats right and whats real anymore

And I dont know how Im meant to feel anymore
And when do you think it will all become clear?
Cause Im being taken over by the fear.

(The complete lyrics are here.)

Lilly sings about the fake usurping the real in a world where image is everything a world in
which it is impossible to know whats right and whats real anymore. When will it all
become clear? For sensitive midwives in the tradition of Rousseau and Socrates, these are
the big issues (bigger than anything going on in genetics), and Lilly is giving voice to an
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intelligent need that is ignored not only by current schooling but also by the unschooling
being proposed by 21st century pedagogy.

There is a need here for a better kind of educational midwifery. To the young people who are
searching for whats right and whats real, the most tweeted pedagogues say: There is
nothing to search for. Look at Gillian Lyne, for instance, she wasnt looking for the truth, she
was just developing her talent and becoming rich and famous in the process. Do the same,
and everything will be fine. But a better midwifery than this is possible one that takes the
deepest concerns of the young about the way we are living and helps them become as
thoughtful and reflective as possible, connecting them to the works and ideas of people from
the past who have been moved by precisely these concerns. In all probability the result will
not be the clarity that Lilly Allen imagines, but rather a better understanding of the lack of
clarity an understanding that has no blueprint for the future, but that nevertheless
understands the importance of finding a better way of life.

There is no question here of teachers copying either Socrates or Rousseau. There can be no
going back even if it were desirable. The landscape has changed. In Rousseaus day, for
instance, things seemed to be easier. You just had to ensure that the child was far from the
cultural clutches of Paris, and nature could more or less be left to take its course. Now the
city limits of Paris encompass the entire globe. There is no escape. And in such a situation
educational midwifery will inevitably be different and harder to accomplish. Rather than
following Rousseaus Emile, we need to completely rewrite it, but we need to do it in the
spirit of Rousseau, which was the spirit of a dedicated, undogmatic educational midwife who
is sensitive to the deepest intelligent needs of the young.

Although we dont yet have a new Emile (and there are huge obstacles to instituting a form of
education that questions the prevailing epistemic dogma), one feature of the new education
would seem to be clear: it will be more Delphic. The whole process of raising the young
persons most profound intelligent needs to consciousness reconnects with the ancient
Delphic imperative to know ourselves. Here, the new educational midwives will be correcting
the error described so well by Camille Paglia, who saw young people leaving school
technically skilled but drifting helplessly in a sea of unknowing, cut off from a living
tradition of self-enquiry and self-knowledge.

The need for an education like this is not just personal, in the depths of the individual student,
but also historical. Looking back at history, we see we have been living in a series of caves.
Our own society, where truth and meaning have parted company, is no exception. There is no
hope of leaving this cave if there is not a shared enquiry about who or what we are, about
where we have come from, and where we are going. At the moment that enquiry is thwarted
by its fragmentation into a science dogmatically cut off from experience and an art whose
claim to truth is being denied. A new, more thoughtful culture of enquiry is needed to
overcome that fragmentation. And if the new midwifery ever comes to pass it is to be hoped
that it will prepare the ground for that more thoughtful shared enquiry about those ultimate
questions.
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written by Torn Halves on December 23, 2013 in education and Ken Robinson and
pedagogy and Sugata Mitra with 3 comments
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tags: Rousseau Socrates

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3 Responses to The teacher as midwife Socrates, Rousseau and 21st

century pedagogy

1. Krishna Conscious
January 13, 2014 at 12:47 am

In both cases the truth concerned what Socrates called the good. Socratess great
contribution to philosophy was to insist that people spend less time arguing about the
structure of the universe, and more time arguing about the values that they are to live
by.

That was contributed long before Socrates by the Vedantists. Sankhya on the other
hand dealt with structure of the universe. The two schools combined form the basis of
the Yoga philosophy.

http://www2.phy.ilstu.edu/pte/209content/theaetetus.html

THE TEACHER AS MIDWIFE

One of the classic metaphors for the teacher is to be found in this short section from Plato's
Theaetetus (148e-151d, translated by F. N. Cornford). Socrates is questioning the young man
Theaetetus about what constitutes "knowledge." Theaetetus is not certain he can provide
sensible answers. The dialogue is set in the year 299 B.C., it was probably written about 257
B.C.

THEAETETUS: But I assure you Socrates, I have often set myself to study (the problem of
defining knowledge) when I heard reports of the questions you ask. But I cannot persuade
myself that I can give any satisfactory solution or that anyone has ever stated in my hearing
the sort of answer you require. And yet I cannot get the question out of my mind.

SOCRATES: My dear Theaetetus, that is because your mind is not empty or barren. You are
suffering the pains of travail.

THEAETETUS: I don't know about that, Socrates. I am only telling you how I feel.
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SOCRATES: How absurd of you, never to have heard that I am the son of a midwife, a fine
buxom woman called Phaenarete!

THEAETETUS: I have heard that.

SOCRATES: Have you also been told that I practice the same art?

THEAETETUS: No, never.

SOCRATES: It is true, though, only don't give away my secret. It is not known that I possess
this skill; so the ignorant world describes me in other terms as an eccentric person who
reduces people to hopeless perplexity. Have you been told that too?

THEAETETUS: I have.

SOCRATES: Shall I tell you the reason?

THEAETETUS: Please do.

SOCRATES: Consider, then, how it is with all midwives; that will help you to understand
what I mean. I dare say you know that they never attend other women in childbirth so long as
they themselves can conceive and bear children, but only when they are too old for that.

THEAETETUS: Of course.

SOCRATES: They say that is because Artemis, the patroness of childbirth, is herself
childless, and so, while she did not allow barren women to be midwives, because it is beyond
the power of human nature to achieve skill without any experience, she assigned the privilege
to women who were past childbearing, out of respect to their likeness to herself.

THEAETETUS: That sounds likely.

SOCRATES: And it is more likely, is it not, that no one can tell so well as a midwife whether
women are pregnant or not?

THEAETETUS: Assuredly.

SOCRATES: Moreover, with the drugs and incantations they administer, midwifes can either
bring on the pains of travail or allay them at their will, make a difficult labor easy and at an
early stage cause miscarriage if they so decide.

THEAETETUS: True.

SOCRATES: Have you also observed that they are the cleverest matchmakers, having an
unerring skill in selecting a pair whose marriage will produce the best children?

THEAETETUS: I was not aware of that.

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SOCRATES: Well, you may be sure they pride themselves on that more than on cutting the
umbilical cord. Consider the knowledge of the sort of plant of seed that should be sown in
any given soul. Does not that go together with skill in tending and harvesting the fruits of the
earth? They are not two different arts?

THEAETETUS: No, the same.

SOCRATES: And so with a woman; skill in the sowing is not be separated from skill in the
harvesting?

THEAETETUS: Probably not.

SOCRATES: No. Only because there is that wrong and ignorant way of bringing together
man and woman which they call pandering, midwives, out of self-respect, are shy even of
matchmaking, for fear of falling under the accusation of pandering. Yet the genuine midwife
is the only successful matchmaker.

THEAETETUS: That is clear.

SOCRATES: All this, then lies within the midwife's province, but her performance falls short
of mine. It is not the way of women sometimes to bring forth real children, sometimes mere
phantoms, such that it is hard to tell the one from the other. If it were so, the highest and
noblest task of the midwife would be to discern the real from the unreal, would it not?

THEAETETUS: I agree.

SOCRATES: My art of midwifery is in general like theirs; the only difference is that my
patients are men, not women, and my concern is not with the body but with the soul that is in
travail of birth. And the highest point of my art is the power to prove by every test whether
the offspring of a young man's thought is a false phantom, or instinct with life and truth. I am
so far like the midwife that I cannot myself give birth to wisdom, and the common reproach
is true, that, though I question others, I can myself bring nothing to light because there is no
wisdom in me.

The reason is this. Heaven constrains me to serve as a midwife, but has debarred me from
giving birth. So of myself I have no sort of wisdom, nor has any discovery ever been born to
me as the child unintelligent, but, as we go further with our discussions, all who are favored
by heaven make progress at a rate that seems surprising to others as well as to themselves,
although it is clear that they have never learned anything from me. The many admirable
truths they bring to birth have been discovered by themselves from within. But the delivery is
heaven's work and mine.

The proof of this is that many who have not been conscious of my assistance but have made
light of me, thinking it was all their own doing, have left me sooner than they should, whether
under others' influence or of their own motion, and thenceforward suffered miscarriage of
their thoughts through falling into bad company, and they have lost the children of whom I
had delivered them by bringing them up badly, caring more for false phantoms than for the
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true. And so at last their lack of understanding has become apparent to themselves and to
everyone else. Such a one was Aristides, son of Lysimachus, and there have been many more.
When they come back and beg for a renewal of our intercourse with extravagant
protestations, sometimes the divine warning that comes to me forbids it; with others it is
permitted, and these begin again to make progress.

In yet another way those who seek my company have the same experience as a woman with
child; they suffer the pains of labor and, by night and day, are full of distress far greater than a
woman's, and my art has power to bring on those pangs or to allay them. So it fares with
these, but there are some, Theaetetus, whose minds, as I judge, have never conceived at all. I
see that they have no need of me and with all good will I seek a match for them. Without
boasting unduly I can guess pretty well whose society will profit them. I have arranged many
of these matches with Prodicus, and with other men of inspired sagacity.

And now for the upshot of this long discourse of mine. I suspect that, as you yourself believe,
your mind is in labor with some thought it has conceived. Accept then, the ministration of a
midwife's son who himself practices his mother's art, and do the best you can to answer the
questions I ask. Perhaps when I examine your statements I may judge one or another of them
to be an unreal phantom.

If I then take the abortion from you and cast it away, do not be savage with me like a woman
robbed of her first child. People have often felt like that toward me and been positively ready
to bite me for taking away some foolish notion they have conceived. They do not see that I
am doing them a kindness. They have not learned that no divinity is ever ill-disposed toward
man, nor is such action on my part due to unkindness; it is only that I am not permitted to
acquiesce in falsehood and suppress the truth.

So, Theaetetus, start again and try to explain what knowledge is. Never say it is beyond your
power; it will not be so, if heaven wills and you take courage.

Return to Philosophical Background.

Return to PHY 310 Syllabus.

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The Philosopher as Midwife

Plato
SOCRATES: And is the discovery of the nature of knowledge so small a matter, as just
now said? Is
it not one which would task the powers of men perfect in every way?
THEAETETUS: By heaven, they should be the top of all perfection!
SOCRATES: Well, then, be of good cheer; do not say that Theodorus was mistaken about
you,
205

but do your best to ascertain the true nature of knowledge, as well as of other things.
THEAETETUS: I am eager enough, Socrates, if that would bring to light the truth.
SOCRATES: Come, you made a good beginning just now; let your own answer about
roots
be your model, and as you comprehended them all in one class, try and bring the many
sorts of
knowledge under one definition.
THEAETETUS: I can assure you, Socrates, that I have tried very often, when the report
of
questions asked by you was brought to me; but I can neither persuade myself that I have a
satisfactory
answer to give, nor hear of any one who answers as you would have him; and I cannot
shake off a
feeling of anxiety.
SOCRATES: These are the pangs of labour, my dear Theaetetus; you have something
within you
which you are bringing to the birth.
THEAETETUS: I do not know, Socrates; I only say what I feel.
SOCRATES: And have you never heard, simpleton, that I am the son of a midwife, brave
and
burly, whose name was Phaenarete?
THEAETETUS: Yes, I have.
SOCRATES: And that I myself practise midwifery?
THEAETETUS: No, never.
SOCRATES: Let me tell you that I do though, my friend: but you must not reveal the
secret, as
the world in general have not found me out; and therefore they only say of me, that I am
the strangest
of mortals and drive men to their wits end. Did you ever hear that too?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Shall I tell you the reason?
THEAETETUS: By all means.
SOCRATES: Bear in mind the whole business of the midwives, and then you will see my
meaning
better:No woman, as you are probably aware, who is still able to conceive and bear,
attends other
women, but only those who are past bearing.
THEAETETUS: Yes, I know.
SOCRATES: The reason of this is said to be that Artemisthe goddess of childbirthis
not
a mother, and she honours those who are like herself; but she could not allow the barren
to be
midwives, because human nature cannot know the mystery of an art without experience;
and
therefore she assigned this office to those who are too old to bear
.
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THEAETETUS: I dare say.
SOCRATES: And I dare say too, or rather I am absolutely certain, that the midwives
know better
than others who is pregnant and who is not?
THEAETETUS: Very true.
SOCRATES: And by the use of potions and incantations they are able to arouse the pangs
and to
soothe them at will; they can make those bear who have a difficulty in bearing, and if they
think fit
they can smother the embryo in the womb.
THEAETETUS: They can.
SOCRATES: Did you ever remark that they are also most cunning matchmakers, and
have a
thorough knowledge of what unions are likely to produce a brave brood?
THEAETETUS: No, never.
SOCRATES: Then let me tell you that this is their greatest pride, more than cutting the
umbilical
cord. And if you reflect, you will see that the same art which cultivates and gathers in the
fruits of
the earth, will be most likely to know in what soils the several plants or seeds should be
deposited.
THEAETETUS: Yes, the same art.
SOCRATES: And do you suppose that with women the case is otherwise?
THEAETETUS: I should think not.
SOCRATES: Certainly not; but midwives are respectable women who have a character to
lose, and they avoid this department of their profession, because they are afraid of being
called
procuresses, which is a name given to those who join together man and woman in an
unlawful and
unscientific way; and yet the true midwife is also the true and only matchmaker
.
THEAETETUS: Clearly.
SOCRATES: Such are the midwives, whose task is a very important one, but not so
important
as mine; for women do not bring into the world at one time real children, and at another
time
counterfeits which are with difficulty distinguished from them; if they did, then the
discernment
of the true and false birth would be the crowning achievement of the art of midwifery
you would
think so?
THEAETETUS: Indeed I should.
SOCRATES: Well, my art of midwifery is in most respects like theirs; but differs, in that I
attend
men and not women; and look after their souls when they are in labour, and not after their
bodies:
207

and the triumph of my art is in thoroughly examining whether the thought which the mind
of the
young man brings forth is a false idol or a noble and true birth. And like the midwives, I
am barren,
and the reproach which is often made against me, that I ask questions of others and have
not the wit
to answer them myself, is very justthe reason is, that the god compels me to be a
midwife, but
does not allow me to bring forth. And therefore I am not myself at all wise, nor have I
anything to
show which is the invention or birth of my own soul, but those who converse with me
profit. Some
of them appear dull enough at first, but afterwards, as our acquaintance ripens, if the god
is gracious
to them, they all make astonishing progress; and this in the opinion of others as well as in
their own.
It is quite dear that they never learned anything from me; the many fine discoveries to
which they
cling are of their own making.
But to me and the god they owe their delivery. And the proof of my words is, that many
of them
in their ignorance, either in their self-conceit despising me, or falling under the influence
of others,
have gone away too soon; and have not only lost the children of whom I had previously
delivered
them by an ill bringing up, but have stifled whatever else they had in them by evil
communications,
being fonder of lies and shams than of the truth; and they have at last ended by seeing
themselves,
as others see them, to be great fools. Aristeides, the son of Lysimachus, is one of them,
and there are
many others. The truants often return to me, and beg that I would consort with them again
they
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are ready to go to me on their kneesand then, if my familiar allows, which is not always
the case,
I receive them, and they begin to grow again. Dire are the pangs which my art is able to
arouse and
to allay in those who consort with me, just like the pangs of women in childbirth; night
and day they
are full of perplexity and travail which is even worse than that of the women. So much for
them.
And there are others, Theaetetus, who come to me apparently having nothing in them; and
as I
know that they have no need of my art, I coax them into marrying some one, and by the
grace of God
208

I can generally tell who is likely to do them good. Many of them I have given away to
Prodicus, and
many to other inspired sages.
I tell you this long story, friend Theaetetus, because I suspect, as indeed you seem to think
yourself, that you are in labourgreat with some conception. Come then to me, who am
a midwifes
son and myself a midwife, and do your best to answer the questions which I will ask you.
And if I
abstract and expose your first-born, because I discover upon inspection that the
conception which
you have formed is a vain shadow, do not quarrel with me on that account, as the manner
of women
is when their first children are taken from them. For I have actually known some who
were ready to
bite me when I deprived them of a darling folly; they did not perceive that I acted from
goodwill,
not knowing that no god is the enemy of manthat was not within the range of their
ideas; neither
am I their enemy in all this, but it would be wrong for me to admit falsehood, or to stifle
the truth.
Once more, then, Theaetetus, I repeat my old question, What is knowledge?and do
not say that
you cannot tell; but quit yourself like a man, and by the help of God you will be able to
tell.
Plato. Theaetetus 148c-151d.
The Dialogues of Plato
. Trans. Benjamin Jowett. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1892.
SophiaOmni, 2006. The specific electronic form of this text is copyright. Permission is granted
to print
out copies for educational purposes and for personal use only. No permission is granted for
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Socrates: Midwife to Our Souls

By W. T. S. Thackara
Part I

Although philosophy often conjures a picture of dry semantics and intellectual debate, it was
not so for Socrates or Plato. Their common goal was to help bring forth our innately human
and divine qualities in an everyday, wonderful, and inspiring quest they called philosophy.
For them philosophy was what the word literally denotes. It is about love and wisdom, and,
by extension, all else that is important and meaningful in life: truth, goodness, beauty, justice,
virtue, friendship, and -- not least of all -- happiness.

As with many of the world's great teachers, Socrates wrote little if anything; and it is
principally through Plato's Dialogues that the world knows him. Other far briefer and less
well-known accounts exist, such as those of Plato's contemporary, Xenophon and, some 600
209

years later, of Diogenes Laertius, whose biography attempted to synthesize all known
Socratic lore. There is also Aristophanes' parody in The Clouds which tells us little about
Socrates, except perhaps something of his early career, before the Oracle's famous utterance
which so profoundly changed his life. Plato's account, on the other hand, portrays a mentor
and friend -- by his own admission an idealized rendering, making it difficult to determine
what is uniquely Socrates' teaching and what is Plato's. But the problem is not so important,
for their aim was essentially the same.

When Plato writes of Socrates as a midwife, he tells a story about the relationship between
teacher and student, about education, and about the birth of spiritual-intellectual fire in the
soul. Plato's choice of the dialogue as his principal literary vehicle serves many purposes.
Besides illustrating Socrates' good-natured but persistently one-pointed method of inquiry, it
provides insight into the nature and goals of the teacher-student collaboration. At a deeper
level, the Dialogues themselves invite us to participate with Socrates in our own unfolding
search for truth.

According to Socrates, education is far more than instruction and mental discipline. It is also
about devotion to virtue and consideration for others which, when practiced in the affairs of
daily life, enables a progressively maturing vision of the highest reality. For example, in the
Republic or the ideal state, education includes a harmonious balance of music for the mind
and gymnastics for the body, recalling that music in Socrates' time had much wider
significance than it has for us. It encompassed reading, writing, history, astronomy, poetry,
dance, and music per se -- in other words, the arts and sciences inspired by the Muses.

Besides the regular curriculum, there is also a special lifelong training for those who show an
aptitude for philosophy, those who are truly "lovers of wisdom." Socrates indicates that the
philosopher's goal is a superior kind of knowledge, a gnosis that flowers in wisdom, justice,
and a deep caring for the welfare of all the citizens of the state, not an elect few. (1) Only thus
can true and enduring happiness be achieved. Yet neither Socrates nor Plato ever gave a
complete or exact description of this knowledge, only hints and allusions. Towards the end of
his life, Plato explained:

This knowledge is not something that can be put into words like other sciences;
but after long companionship with it, as between teacher and pupil in joint
pursuit of the subject, suddenly, like light flashing forth when a fire is kindled, it
is born in the soul and straightway nourishes itself. -- Seventh Letter, 341

To help us understand more fully what is implied here, Plato has given us a teacher in the
person of Socrates who, "reborn beautiful and new" in the Dialogues, (2) becomes our guide
into the philosophic life.

Socrates conversing with a Muse. (Musee du Louvre, Paris)

Perhaps our best introduction to Socrates is the two dialogues about his trial in Athens in 399
BC: the Euthyphro, named for the dialogue's principal character, and the Apology, the Greek
word apologia meaning "a speech in defense." The Euthyphro serves mainly as a preface to
210

the Apology, while providing keynotes which recur throughout the entirety of Plato's
dialogues: the nature of holiness, justice, duty, and moral integrity, as well as the importance
of having "knowledge about divine things." Socrates meets Euthyphro, a friendly
acquaintance, outside the magistrate's court, explaining that he has been called to defend
himself on charges of atheism and corrupting the youth: specifically, disbelief in the old gods
and inventing new ones --crimes in Athens punishable by death. Euthyphro replies that he
understands the indictment:

It is because you say that you always have a divine guide, Socrates. Your accuser
is prosecuting you for introducing religious reforms; and he is going into court to
slander you, knowing that slanders on such subjects are readily accepted by the
people.

"The Athenians," Socrates respectfully observes,

may think a man to be clever without paying him much attention, so long as they
do not think that he teaches his wisdom to others. But as soon as they think that
he makes other people clever, they get angry, whether it be from resentment, or
for some other reason. -- 3

In the Apology Socrates amplifies the thought before his judges: he believes the accusations
are actually shameless falsehoods trumped up by a few unhappy and politically influential
men who had been offended by his way of searching into himself and others -- the
philosopher's mission he called it.

Apollo, the god of Delphi, had commanded him to fulfill that mission -- a calling which
evidently began when a lifelong friend asked the Oracle if there were any man wiser than
Socrates. The Pythia replied there was none. This puzzled Socrates, for he knew he had no
wisdom. What could Apollo mean, for "he is a god and cannot lie." To understand the riddle,
he went to those with a reputation for wisdom and soon discovered that the "men most in
repute were all but the most foolish and that others less esteemed were really wiser and
better." At last Socrates concluded the Oracle meant that only God (theos) is wise. Being
"wisest" among men was simply to recognize that one "is, in truth, of no account in respect to
wisdom" (\p23). But Socrates had challenged conventional religious views, in particular the
stories of the gods' unholy quarrelings, murder, and mayhem. He had urged people to
question unthinking assumption in all matters, secular as well as religious, and his method of
examination clearly had left a trail of wounded vanity and prejudice bent on silencing him.
This misfortune troubled him deeply, for he had no ill-will, nor could he act in any other way.
To his judges and jurymen he appealed:

Men of Athens, I honor and love you; but I shall obey the god rather than you;
and while I have life and strength I shall never cease from the practice and
teaching of philosophy, exhorting . . . [and] persuading you all, old and young
alike, not to take thought for your persons or your properties, but first and chiefly
to care about the greatest improvement of the soul. I tell you that virtue is not
given by money, but that from virtue comes money and every other good of
man, public as well as private. This is my teaching, and if this is the doctrine
which corrupts the young, I am a mischievous person. -- 29-30
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He admitted he could be trying and perhaps even tiresome, comparing himself -- not to a
midwife -- but to a

sort of gadfly, given to the state by the god; and the state is a great and noble
steed who is tardy in his motions owing to his very size, and requires to be
stirred into life. I am that gadfly which the god has attached to the state, and all
day long and in all places am always fastening upon you, arousing and
persuading and reproaching you. You will not easily find another like me, and
therefore I would advise you to spare me. -- 30-1

Yet his counsel was always offered as a private citizen; never did Socrates venture to come
forward in the assembly and advise the state. It was his divine guide or daimon which
prevented him from doing so: "a kind of voice which, from childhood, always turns me back
from something which I was going to do, but never urges me to act. It is this which forbids
me to take part in politics."

Found guilty by about 280 to 220 votes -- 30 more in his favor would have freed him -- the
seventy-year-old Socrates tells the jury he is neither surprised nor indignant at the verdict. He
nevertheless remains firm in his belief that he "never wronged any man voluntarily, though I
cannot persuade you of that, since we have conversed together only a little time."
Anticipating the obvious question -- "Why not withdraw from Athens and hold your peace,
Socrates?" -- he replies that his inability to do so would be the most difficult thing in the
world to make them understand. How could he convince them it would be disobedient to the
god? Far more importantly,

If I say again that daily to discourse about virtue, and of those other things which
you hear me examining myself and others, is the greatest good of man, and that
the unexamined life is not worth living, you are still less likely to believe me. Yet
what I say is true, although a thing of which it is hard for me to persuade you. --
38

Even under sentence of death, the gadfly sought to fasten upon, arouse, persuade, and
reproach. Should a condemned man seek to escape his penalty by any and every means? "The
difficulty, my friends, is not to avoid death, but to avoid unrighteousness." If death were the
last and worst evil inflicted by life, then why did his inner monitor give no sign of opposition
either to the trial or his defense? Surely it would have opposed him had he been going to meet
something evil rather than something good.

Wherefore, O judges, be of good cheer about death, and know of a certainty that
no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death. He and his are not
neglected by the gods; nor has my own approaching end happened by mere
chance. But I see clearly that the time had arrived when it was better for me to
die and be released from trouble; wherefore the oracle gave no sign. For which
reason, also, I am not angry with my condemners, or with my accusers; they
have done me no harm, although they did not mean to do me any good; and for
this I may gently blame them. . . .
The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways -- I to die, and you to live.
Which is better only the Divine knows. -- 41-2
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Socrates' final days and hours with his friends are recorded in the Crito and Phaedo; but this
closing statement in the Apology was his last public utterance -- both fitting and typical of the
man -- leaving his countrymen, and posterity, with a legacy of hope and a thought-provoking
uncertainty. This he would have each of us answer for himself: a mystery touching the heart,
the method, and goal of his teaching.

Part II

Plato's Dialogues may be grouped naturally into early, middle, and late periods of
composition. They were most likely intended to be read in this approximate order, each group
serving as a preparation for the next. Otherwise much of what is imbedded in the later
Dialogues might remain hopelessly obscure. The early group thus forms a syllabus or
compendium of the philosopher's first lessons in soul education, being principally concerned
with the purpose of life and death, the nature of human obligations, and contemplation of the
virtues. Socrates' aim here is not to convert us to what he believes, but to encourage us to
think for ourselves, to arouse our innate desire to see through illusion and know things as
they are.

Echoing the commandment of the Delphic Apollo, Socrates' basic prescription for wisdom is
to "know thyself." Simple words -- but an immensely difficult task. Socrates, however,
understands human nature, and his first objective is to penetrate the greatest barriers to true
knowledge, presumption and false belief, to help us realize how profound is our ignorance.
As in the ancient Greek Mystery-schools, before one can be admitted to the precincts of truth,
one must first submit to purification -- a catharsis -- to purge the mind of false and degrading
thought.

The Meno introduces us to Socrates' purgative method and to his doctrine of learning. Meno
is a wealthy man who has purchased instruction from some of the best known Sophists
(teachers of rhetoric and a kind of political "wisdom" -- from whence the word sophistry (1))
and he prides himself on his learning. The dialogue begins with Meno asking Socrates if
virtue can be taught. The question seems appropriately directed, for does not Socrates, more
than any other man, constantly exhort us to virtue? Socrates, in his typical fashion, does not
answer yes or no. But he does astonish us -- and Meno, too -- by "confessing" that he knows
"literally nothing about virtue; much less whether it is acquired by teaching or not." If one is
to answer the question, one must first know what virtue is; and in Socrates' judgment,
although he readily admits he could be mistaken, he has never known anyone who did. The
"sophisticated" Meno, however, is pleased to inform Socrates that his teacher Gorgias had
taught him just exactly what virtue is:

There will be no difficulty, Socrates, in answering your question. Let us take first
the virtue of a man -- he should know how to administer the state, and in the
administration of it to benefit his friends and harm his enemies; he must also be
careful not to harm himself. A woman's virtue, if you wish to know about that,
may also be easily described: her duty is to order her house, and keep what is
indoors, and obey her husband. Every age, every condition of life, young or old,
male or female, bond or free, has a different virtue: there are virtues numberless,
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and no lack of definitions of them; for virtue is relative to the actions and ages of
each of us in all that we do. -- 71-2

From this "definition," we get a fairly good insight into the disastrous condition of Meno's
mind -- obscured by conventional prejudice and filled with the thoughts of other men. We
also begin to appreciate the enormous task faced by Socrates. He is patient, though, and
willing to press on with the inquiry; but not without poking a little fun at Meno: "How
fortunate I am, Meno! When I ask you for one virtue you present me with a swarm of
them, . . ."

Socrates points out that numerous illustrations do not define the quality that is common to
them all. Carefully guiding the conversation away from the purported virtues of men and
women, he introduces the thought that neither a state nor a home can be well ordered without
temperance and justice. Meno agrees, and suggests that if a definition is to be given, then
virtue is the power of governing justly, for justice is virtue. Socrates probes again: Should we
say that justice is virtue, or is it a virtue? Are there not other virtues as well, such as courage,
wisdom, and magnanimity?

And so the conversation continues, back and forth, Meno trying out new and better
definitions -- Socrates trying to help Meno in each attempt to form a more refined and
enlightened view. Nevertheless, all the definitions are found wanting; upon examination each
is seen to be an example and therefore only a part of virtue. The task is arduous, and Socrates
is persistent: "Meno, you have not yet delivered virtue into my hands whole and unbroken."
Reduced to exasperation, Meno replies,

O Socrates, I used to be told, before I knew you, that you were always doubting
yourself and making others doubt; and now you are casting your spells over me,
and I am simply getting bewitched and enchanted, and am at my wits' end. And
if I may venture to make a jest upon you, you seem to me both in your
appearance and in your power over others to be very like the flat torpedo fish
[an electric ray], who torpifies those who come near him and touch him, as you
have now torpified me, I think. For my soul and my tongue are really torpid, and I
do not know how to answer you; . . . at this moment I cannot even say what
virtue is. -- 80

Meno has reached a crucial point in his education, and Socrates has a ready reply. But he
astonishes us again: he admits he is the cause of torpor in others, not because he is clear, but
because he is utterly perplexed himself. He has said all along that he didn't know what virtue
is. And now, it would seem, Meno doesn't either. Having at long last recognized and admitted
his own ignorance, Meno may now be ready to begin a profitable inquiry into the real nature
of virtue. Or is he?

For ignorance, even when discovered, does not yield its stronghold easily. When one's dearest
illusions are challenged, the mind is capable of performing the most extraordinary feats of
rationalizing. So we see Meno futilely grasping at one last Sophist argument: In the search for
knowledge, how is it possible to discover what you want if you do not know it? Even if you
find what you want, how will you ever know that this is the thing which you did not know?
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It is here at the hard spot in the argument that we see Socrates' teaching skill at its best.
Simply exposing ignorance is a job half done; in fact to do so is potentially dangerous, for the
inquiring soul could perish in a sea of doubt, skeptical of everything whether true or not.
Socrates thus attempts to rescue Meno from the dilemma, not by providing a simple
intellectual solution, which would be contrary to his purpose, but by breaking away from
purely mental analysis and tossing Meno a lifeline in the form of a story. It is a technique that
Socrates often uses to help us intuit the real issues at stake, to elicit a deeper understanding
which intellectual argument alone can never yield. (2) In this instance, Socrates objects to the
Sophist doctrine that a man cannot inquire into that which he does not know, and he tells us
why:

I have heard from certain wise men and women who spoke of divine things -- . . .
mark, now, and see whether their words are true -- they say that the soul of man
is immortal, and at one time has an end, which is termed dying, and at another
time is born again, but is never destroyed. And the moral is, that a man ought to
live always in perfect holiness. . . . The soul then, as being immortal, and having
been born again many times, and having seen all things that exist, whether in
this world or in the world below, has knowledge of them all; and it is no wonder
that she should be able to call to remembrance all that she ever knew about
virtue, and about everything; for as all nature is akin, and the soul has learned all
things, there is no difficulty in her eliciting or, as men say, learning, out of a
single recollection all the rest, if a man is strenuous and does not faint; for all
inquiry and all learning is but recollection. And therefore we ought not to listen to
this sophistical argument about the impossibility of inquiry: for it will make us
idle and is sweet only to the sluggard; but the other saying will make us active
and inquisitive. In confiding that, I will gladly inquire with you into the nature of
virtue. -- 81

Nearly the whole of Socrates' -- and Plato's -- philosophy is packed into this one paragraph,
its chief feature being that real knowledge is "recollection," an anamnesis -- literally an "un-
amnesia" or "un-forgetting." To illustrate the principle, Socrates guides Meno's uneducated
slave-boy to the solution of a mathematical problem, suggesting that true learning is not the
acquisition of factual information from external sources, but a remembering of truths stored
in the immortal portion of the soul -- truths recoverable to those who live in harmony with
themselves, who "are strenuous and do not faint" in the effort.

Book 10 of the Republic resumes and elaborates this teaching in Socrates' story about the
soul's experience after death. (3) Nearing the end of its postmortem journey, and having
already chosen its future life, the soul is led through the scorching plain of Forgetfulness to
the River of Unmindfulness, from whose waters each soul, just before it reincarnates, is
obliged to drink a certain quantity. According to the tale, "those who are not saved by wisdom
drink more than is necessary and forget all things." We may infer that it is these "things"
which Socrates would help us remember -- hence his exhortation to Meno:

we shall be better and braver and less helpless if we think that we ought to
inquire, than we should have been if we indulged in the idle fancy that there was
no knowing and no use in seeking to know what we do not know; -- that is a
theme upon which I am ready to fight, in word and deed, to the utmost of my
power. -- 81
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Part III
Glaucon: Who then are the true philosophers?
Socrates: Those who are lovers of the vision of truth.
. . . the true lover of knowledge is always striving after Being -- that is his nature;
he will not rest in . . . appearances only, but will go on -- the keen edge will not
be blunted, nor the force of his desire abate until he have attained the
knowledge of the true nature of every essence by a sympathetic and kindred
power in the soul, and by that power drawing near and mingling and becoming
incorporate with very Being, having begotten mind and truth, he will have
knowledge and will live and grow truly, and then, and not till then, will he cease
from his travail. -- Republic, 475, 490

Although its authorship has been questioned, the Dialogue entitled the Alcibiades Major was
highly regarded by the Platonists of antiquity. Olympiodorus said it was the "entrance gate to
the works of Plato" and, according to Iamblichus, it contains all of Plato's wisdom "as in a
seed." Perhaps more than anything else, it illumines the sacred trust imposed on the teacher in
regard to his pupil's welfare.

The dialogue opens with Socrates explaining to Alcibiades his long and continuing affection
for him, even though for many years Socrates had not spoken to him:

I was hindered by a power more than human, of which I will some day explain to
you the nature; this impediment has now been removed; I therefore here present
myself before you, and I greatly hope that no similar hindrance will again occur.
-- 103

In the ensuing conversation, we learn the magnitude of the obstacles besetting Socrates.
Alcibiades, who has a widespread reputation for wealth, wit, and good looks, is also vain,
conceited, given to drink, and ambitious -- seeking to rule not only Athens, but the whole of
Europe, if not to include Asia in his projected empire. Left to himself, he would possibly
become the perfect tyrant, the kind of ruler most detested by Socrates. We might wonder why
Socrates would choose to associate with him. The answer emerges, in part, as we read on.
Alcibiades, like all men, is not irretrievably bad, although many Athenians thought so. He has
good qualities, and to these Socrates makes his appeal:

When you were young and your hopes were not yet matured, I should have
wasted my time, and therefore, as I conceive, the god forbade me to converse
with you; but now, having his permission, I will speak, for now you will listen to
me. -- 105

The willingness to listen is a necessary qualification, and forms a major turning point in
Socratic education -- the importance of which is underscored in the opening lines of the
Republic when Polemarchus asks Socrates, almost rhetorically, "But how can you persuade
us if we will not listen?" ( 327). In the Alcibiades, however, a more subtle, yet equally
necessary qualification is implied: not only must the student be willing to learn, he must also
be ready, a readiness which only a true teacher can know.
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After zeroing in on Alcibiades' imperial ambitions, Socrates begins to inquire about the
qualifications of a just statesman. In his usual congenial way, and without being judgmental
of Alcibiades' motives, Socrates helps him recognize that to know justice, he must first know
himself. In order to know oneself, Socrates explains, one must know that the self is not the
body, but rather the soul, especially that part in which occurs the virtue of the soul, which is
wisdom. This part houses "knowledge and insight" and is its most divine part ( 133). Since it
resembles deity, anyone looking into it will know all that is divine, and thus may also, in the
best possible way, know oneself. By the time the dialogue ends, Alcibiades has awakened to
the fact -- at least partially -- that he is enslaved by his own ignorance, and turns to Socrates
for help.

Alcibiades: From this day forward, I must and will follow you as you have followed
me; I will be the disciple and you shall be my master.
Socrates: O that is rare! My love breeds another love: and so like the stork I shall
be cherished by the bird whom I have hatched.
Alcibiades: Strange, but true; and henceforward I shall be attentive to justice.
Socrates: And I hope that you will persist; although I have fears, not because I
doubt you; but I see the power of the state, which may be too much for both of
us. -- 135

One of the major lessons about teaching in this dialogue is the gentle but persistent

manner in which Socrates tries to help Alcibiades transform his consuming ambition into
philosophic aspiration. It provides a glimpse into the nature of the teacher-student
relationship and the character qualities a true teacher must possess: patience, acceptance of
his student's shortcomings (as well as his strong points), trust, and above all a boundless love
-- a love which sustains both teacher and student through the ordeal of soul-birth. In
reflecting upon these qualities, we may begin to understand the enormous sacrifice a teacher
makes for his student -- and also the responsibility he tacitly assumes.

The dialogue also reveals a more esoteric aspect of Socrates' teaching role. For here he is
depicted as an outer representative of Alcibiades' own guiding genius or divinity, a
relationship which existed long before Alcibiades knew of it. Furthermore, the role of teacher
was unsought by Socrates; like the philosopher's mission, it descended upon him by divine
appointment, along with its rules and obligations. Nor were his instructions vague and
uncertain: he was forbidden to speak until Alcibiades had reached a certain readiness.

Looking back now on the ground thus far covered, we have seen Socrates as a pesky but
divinely-appointed gadfly, a torpedo-fish (electric ray) who stuns us with the truth of our own
ignorance, and now a stork who hatches a fledgling into the philosophic life -- a young bird
who has yet to grow wings, yet to begin in earnest the discipline which leads to genuine self-
knowledge.

Here begins the next stage of Socratic education: the steep and rugged ascent from ignorance
to wisdom, from the cave of flickering shadows (our world of illusory, ever-changing
appearances) into the noumenal sunlight of eternal reality, where Justice, Beauty, and the
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Good are beheld in their truth -- described with transcendent imagery in a number of Plato's
Dialogues, notably the Republic, the Symposium, and the Phaedrus.

But it is not until we reach the later, more technical dialogue, the Theaetetus, that Socrates
reveals his secret role as midwife. The conversation is between Socrates and Theaetetus, a
promising young mathematician, over the question "What is Knowledge?" When cross-
examined by Socrates, Theaetetus finds he cannot define knowledge per se and, like Meno
trying to define virtue, he can only enumerate its parts. Also like Meno, it is not long before
Theaetetus recognizes the difficulty of his task:

Theaetetus: I can assure you, Socrates, that I have tried very often, . . . but I
cannot persuade myself that I have a satisfactory answer to give, . . . . and I
cannot shake off a feeling of anxiety.
Socrates: These are the pangs of labor, my dear Theaetetus, you have something
within you which you are bringing to birth.
Theaetetus: I do not know, Socrates; I only say what I feel.
Socrates: And have you never heard, . . . that I am the son of a midwife ... and
that I myself practice midwifery?
Theaetetus: No, never.
Socrates: Let me tell you that I do, my friend: but you must not reveal the secret,
as the world in general has not found me out; and therefore they say only of me,
that I am the strangest of mortals and drive men to their wits' end. -- 148-9

Socrates proceeds to explain the work of midwives, and compares it with his own art. In all
the Dialogues I do not believe there is a finer summary of Socrates' mission, method, and
purpose. Nowhere does he reveal himself more fully than here, not even in the Apology. The
speech, too, is among those which show Plato at his literary best, giving us a vivid yet subtle
portrait of the "wisest and justest and best" man Athens ever knew (Phaedo 118). This is
Plato's estimation of the man whose great sacrifice and martyrdom turned Plato from
Athenian politics to philosophy, and to preserving for posterity a magnificently human
example of one who works not for his own salvation, but for the redemption of all.

Socrates: My concern is not with the body but with the soul that is in travail of
birth. And the highest point of my art is the power to prove by every test
whether the offspring of a young man's thought is a false phantom or instinct
with life and truth. I am so far like the midwife, that I cannot myself give birth to
wisdom; and the common reproach is true that, though I question others, I can
myself bring nothing to light because there is no wisdom in me. The reason is
this: heaven constrains me to serve as a midwife, but has debarred me from
giving birth. So of myself I have no sort of wisdom, nor has any discovery ever
been born to me as the child of my soul. Those who frequent my company at first
appear, some of them, quite unintelligent; but, as we go further with our
discussions, all who are favored by heaven make progress at a rate that seems
surprising to others as well as to themselves, although it is clear that they have
never learned anything from me; the many admirable truths they bring to birth
have been discovered by themselves from within. But the delivery is heaven's
work and mine.
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The proof of this is that many who have not been conscious of my assistance, but
have made light of me, thinking it was all their own doing, have left me sooner
than they should, whether under others' influence or of their own motion. And
thenceforward they suffered miscarriage of their thoughts through falling into
bad company; and they have lost the children of whom I had delivered them by
bringing them up badly, caring more for false phantoms than for the true; and so
at last their lack of understanding has become apparent to themselves and to
everyone else. . . . When they come back and beg for a renewal of our exchange
with extravagant protestations, sometimes the divine warning that comes to me
forbids it; with others it is permitted, and these begin again to make progress. In
yet another way, those who seek my company have the same experience as a
woman with child: they suffer the pains of labor and, by night and day, are full of
distress far greater than a woman's; and my art has power to bring on these
pangs or to allay them. So it fares with these; but there are some, Theaetetus,
whose minds, as I judge, have never conceived at all. I see that they have no
need of me and with all goodwill I seek a match for them. Without boasting
unduly, I can guess pretty well whose society will profit them.
And now for the upshot of this long discourse of mine. I suspect that, as you
yourself believe, your mind is in labor with some thought which it has conceived.
Accept, then, the ministration of a midwife's son who practices his mother's art,
and do the best you can to answer the questions I ask. Perhaps when I examine
your statements I may judge one or another of them to be an unreal phantom. If
I then take the abortion from you and cast it away, do not be savage with me like
a woman robbed of her first child. People have often felt like that towards me
and been positively ready to bite me for taking away some foolish notion they
have conceived. They do not see that I am doing them a kindness. They have not
learned that no divinity is ever ill-disposed towards man, nor is such action on
my part due to unkindness; it is only that I am not permitted to acquiesce to
falsehood and suppress the truth. -- 150

Clear about his mission and his abilities, Socrates shunned all pleas to provide easy answers
or to do another's thinking and intuiting. He likewise avoided the mantle of celebrity,
preferring -- in his words -- "a diviner and lowlier destiny" (Phaedrus, 230a). The care of
the soul was his vocation, his chosen calling, and if he had any wisdom at all, it was, as he
said, only a small body of knowledge about love. His prayer to the god of nature, and to the
God of All, was brief and simple:

Beloved Pan, and all ye other gods who dwell here, give me beauty in the inward
soul; and may the outward and inward man be at one. May I reckon the wise to
be the wealthy, and may I have such a quantity of gold as a temperate man and
he only can bear and carry. -- Anything more? The prayer, I think, is enough for
me. -- Phaedrus, 279
(From Sunrise magazine, October/November 1998; December
1998/January 1999; February/March 1999. Copyright 1998 by
Theosophical University Press.)

World Spiritual Traditions Menu

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FOOTNOTES:

1. See "The Gnosis according to Plato," Sunrise, August/September 1986. (return to text)

2. Second Letter, 314. Excerpts from the Dialogues are principally from Jowett's
translation; also from Church, Cornford, Fowler, and Morrow. (return to text)

******

1. Cf. Sophist 231b, 268e. (return to text)

2. See "Plato's Myths and the Mystery Tradition," Sunrise, December 1988/January 1989.
(return to text)

3. Cf. "The Vision of Er," Sunrise, June/July 1998. (return to text)

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