The "Strange Doctrines" Undercroft

What I'm Reading...

It's hard to eat or sleep well on the road, and not much time to practice either. Exercise? Forget it. Plus, professional responsibilities have me steeped in a certain, narrow strain of music to the exclusion of healthier listening fare.

So I might as well read well. My choice for this particular road trip, then: The Basic Writings of Nietzsche. The contents of which are, interestingly, at odds with nearly all of William Vollmann's substantive, philosophicalogical remarks in his New York Times review of Curtis Cate's new biography of Nietzsche. To wit, Vollmann says:

[Whether Nietzsche was an anti-Semite] depends on how one rotates the barrel of the kaleidoscope.

And:

Our semi-invalid of an ex-professor in his blue-lensed spectacles was obviously a great man, a constructive nihilist.

Both remarks lead me to wonder whether Vollmann ever actually read a book by Nietzsche. For, in fact, Nietzsche reserves some of his most scathing remarks for anti-Semitism; his criticism of Judaism (and  this was not criticism of contemporary Judaism, mind you) focussed on its role as the  progenitor of Christian ressentiment.

And Nietzsche's considerable commentary on nihilism is critical, not commendatory--Nietzsche pretty clearly deplored the nihilistic tendencies he witnessed in contemporary culture as the bad fruit of the Christian moral inversion.

I'm not a Nietzsche expert, but this stuff seems pretty basic. At best, Vollmann's remarks represent what would in philosophical circles be highly controversial interpretations of Nietzsche's views.

Mathematics 'is' Physics

Reuben Hersh reviews Roland Omnès' Converging Realities: Toward a Common Philosophy of Physics and Mathematics, in Scientific American. Omnès argues that Mathematics just is physics (he calls this view physism).

There isn't much to the review, but it gives me an excuse to spout off half-cocked about  the ontology of mathematics. The issue is the putative "mysteriousness" of mathematical objects--its "unreasonable" effectiveness in describing, and discovering aspects about, the world.

Maybe its my own mathematical naivete, but I have never understood the mystery. Take the number 4. What is it? I would say that it' an intuitively existent (or reified) abstractum that quantitatively can stand for any group of objects the members each of which can be paired off, say, with ones own thumb, index, middle, and ring fingers. There is no reason to suppose 4 has any existence apart from physical objects, or minds conceiving of, or “being in the possession of” 4.  I can say that I take my four fingers to represent four objects, and I can use the term ‘four’ to represent my four fingers’ representing the four objects, and then I can create formal rules that mirror the quantitative results when groups of various sizes are combined with, or separated from, various other groups; or when they are lined up in rows and columns with other groups.

What about mathematical properties? Consider the property of being an even number.  The corresponding proposition, ‘4 has the property of even-ness’, might be given an analysis as follows.  ‘Even’ means ‘divisible by two without any remainder’.  Suppose we are a collective of ancient Babylonian farmers, and we want to figure out better schemes of trading; so of course division will play an important role for us.  We “define” ‘divided by’ as follows: Line up any x number of objects, say, beads on an abacus, in rows of y; if at the end of this procedure there is a row of beads that cannot in its entirety be paired off with y other beads, that number of beads, say, z, will be the remainder; then, count the columns; the answer to x ¸ y is the number of bead columns, plus z.  Where x = 4 and y = 2, that x can be “evenly” divided by 2 is in this way easily demonstrated.  So 4, then, “has” the property of being an even number.  (And of course once we farmers memorize some of these operations and develop a reliable system of writing down marks that we take to represent numbers and mathematical operations, we will be able to formalize arithmetical operations, develop an abstract mathematics, and then become confused about what these things—numbers and their properties—are.)

Caveat: other, much smarter, far more mathematically sophisticated thinkers (including some in the blogosphere) think there is an authentic mystery in issue, so just because I don't see it doesn't mean it's not there.

David Gelernter's Historiography is Bunk

David Gelernter has this op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, in which he criticizes Woody Allen for offering a deficient view of history:

"The history of the world," [Allen] told Der Spiegel, "is like: He kills me, I kill him." (Of course [Allen]  was speaking casually, off the cuff.) "Only with different cosmetics and different castings.... Political questions, if you go back thousands of years, are ephemeral, not important. History is the same thing over and over again."

Such a view of history, Gelernter complains, makes history "meaningless," hardly a seasonable alternative to the views of, say, Natan Sharansky.

Did he say Natan Sharansky? Um, Woody Allen is a filmmaker. Sharansky is a former Soviet dissident and (until recently) deputy prime minister of Israel.

Sharansky isn't mentioned in the Spiegel interview, so I have no idea where Gelernter is coming from, here. But I'd sure take his historiography more seriously if he displayed the ability to distinguish apples and oranges: comparing the "off the cuff" remarks of a pop filmmaker to the written work of a committed political thinker seems like a pretty silly way to make sense of history.

SIDE NOTE: Gelernter says that Allen's view of historical iteration is just like the view of eternal recurrence that Nietzsche "held." This is wrong in three ways. First, Nietzsche didn't necessarily think eternal recurrence was a "view" (for Nietzsche, eternal recurrence is a logical possibility that has certain existential implications). Second, Nietzsche didn't necessarily "hold" that view. And third, eternal recurrence describes the repetition of events in particular, whereas Allen's "off the cuff" remark was about the repetition of events in kind.

Physics and Reductionism

Keay Davidson reviews Robert Laughlin's new book A Different Universe for the New York Times.

"It's the Stay-Puffed Marshmallow Man"

Eugene Volokh responds to Michael Shermer's blog item about evolution and "intelligent design" at the Huffington Post. In particular, Volokh argues:

[H]ow exactly do scientists come to the conclusion that “God had no part in this process [i.e., evolution]”? What’s their proof? That’s the sort of thing that can’t really be proved, it seems to me -- which makes it sound as if scientists, despite their protestations of requiring proof rather than faith, make assertions about God that they can’t prove.

Well, imagine the following exchange:

CHILD: Did the Stay-Puffed Marshmallow Man play a part in evolution?
BIOLOGIST: Er, no.

Would Volokh criticize our biologist for his answer in such a case? I suspect (and hope) not. But if not, then why does the question of God's hand deserve greater deference?

UPDATE: Pharyngula has more. (Via Brian Leiter.)

Science: It's All Just Theories

Be sure to visit the reDiscovery Institute, whose mission is to "Teach the Controversies [in science], all of them, each and every one."

Finally, a site that points up the theory-laden nature of all science and the importance of challenging glib scientific claims--debunking the supposed "facts" of chemical "periodicity," "germ" theory and the "solar" system (essays on the latter are "coming soon").

Good stuff, particularly the chemical periodicity material.

NOTE: The site is parody (in case you didn't realize it).

Give Me Prozac or Give Me Death

I have suffered major depression more than once in my life, and periodically have to fend off its recalcitrant attempts to recrudesce. So far, so good.

Because of my experience, though, I am chagrined when I see the disease identified (as it often is in this or that popular periodical, book or movie) as a font of creativity. Cf. Van Gogh, we are urged; if he had had access to SSRIs, why, we'd have been denied Starry Night!

Well, rest assured, dear readers--we really don't have to ask human beings to forfeit their minds to insanity so that we can look at pretty pictures. Did SSRIs actually inhibit Van Gogh's creativity, we'd still have Mona Lisa (inter caetera) to gander at, and Vincent's life wouldn't have been an existential nightmare besides.

In any case, as Peter Kramer's new book Against Depression shows, the whole premise underlying the above-criticized line of reason is completely misbegotten. As this New York Times review puts it:

Forget the persistent myth of depression as a source of artistry, soulfulness and rebellion. Depression doesn't fan creative flames. It is photophobic and anhedonic and would rather just drool in the dark.

In other words, if Van Gogh had had Prozac or some other suitable medication, we'd have had more than just Starry Night, and (what's more) Van Gogh's life would have been filled with meaning for him and not just for us.

Bleg on Modal Matters

Two questions regarding the literature on conceivability and possibility:

1. Is there any discussion in the literature as to the relationship between agent ability and possible action by the agent? Specifically, if agent x is able to R, does it follow that it is possible that x R?

2. Quinean fallibilism has it that even mathematical truths might turn out to be false. This idea (as stated, at least) is clearly modal, so it might seem that on a possible worlds analysis for a sentence S of mathematics, S is true at the actual world but (following Quine's dictum) false at some world w. Which seems weird. Just wondering if anyone has tried to (dis)solve this kind of puzzle.

If you have citations that are pertinent to either of these questions, please email them to me rather than comment. Thanks.

What, Me Worry?

If there is no meaning in the universe, than nothing matters--including the fact that nothing matters.

So you might as well do the things that matter to you.

Why We Should Hunt Nazis

By now you know that Eugene Volokh was persuaded by Mark Kleiman's argument (based on Brad DeLong's institutional observations here) that a just regime of intentionally painful execution is a political impossibility. (Volokh maintains that it is nonetheless a theoretical possibility.)

But a new issue arises, viz., whether retribution is a legitimate goal of justice. Both Kleiman and Volokh are in agreement that it is.

Kleiman lays down the gauntlet for nonretributivists like Yours Truly:

[V]indication of the victim and the expression of social disapproval of the act both strike me as perfectly sound reasons for punishment, independent of its function in controlling crime.

[I]f you disagree, then, when you're through explaining why you favor hate-crime laws, could you explain to me why we kept chasing Nazi war criminals well into the 1990s? Was the Third Reich likely to come back? Were we hoping to deter the next round of mass murderers?

Perhaps vindication is a sound reason for punishment, but I don't see why biting the nonretributivist bullet would require that we abandon hate-crime legislation or Nazi hunting. Consider our response to hate-crimes. We reckon that a person who batters a Jewish person because the person is Jewish is acting for particularly ignoble motives, so we enhance the punishment accordingly.

The standard deterrence justification for this enhancement applies: we specifically deter the criminals punished from engaging in the behavior (namely, by incarcerating them), and generally deter others from the same by lowering its expected benefits.

The additional justification that Kleiman points to is that by enhancing the sentence the community is announcing its sense that such behavior is unacceptable. Kleiman sees this reason as distinct from any deterrence goals accomplished by the enhancement. But I don't. I see it as a distinctive way of accomplishing deterrence: it advertises social norms and creates the expectation that they will be enforced with social pressure.¹

This multidimensional way of looking at deterrence also goes toward explaining why we might pursue evildoers whom (like the Nazi war criminals) time has rendered feckless. Here, it seems to me, we are sending a message that no one who commits crime can hope to evade the consequences of their actions, no matter how much time passes.² The deterrence value in that kind of conspicuous disapprobation seems clear.

In sum, then, I think deterrence is sufficient at least to justify and commend punishment in what Kleiman seems to think are its leading problem cases.

Still, Kleiman's vindication point may make biting the nonretributivist bullet a bit uncomfortable:

[Another] idea that goes by the name of "retribution" is that the punishment of the offender is in the interest of the victim, the victim's family and friends, and those who share characteristics with the victim. If you regard the satisfaction of someone's preferences as being in that person's interest, then this version of the retributive idea -- call it "vindication," as opposed to "just deserts" -- is obviously true. Most, though not all, victims and their intimates want the perpetrator punished, and punished severely. How much weight the satisfaction of that preference deserves in policy-making is a different question, but that vindictive punishment benefits the victim in this limited sense it would be hard to deny.

But vindication also serves the victim's interest in a more material sense: being the victim of a crime is a blow to self-esteem and a source of the loss of social standing, and the punishment of the perpetrator helps reverse those losses, with more severe punishment being more effective in that regard.

In other words, as a descriptive matter, it seems highly unrealistic to claim that in designing our penalogical scheme we completely discount the resentment of victims or of society at large. And as a normative matter, is it really clear that we should?

My thinking on this is embryonic, but let me outline three possible lines of response. First, one could maintain that retribution is an illegitimate penalogical goal, but still contend that the wanton generation of private and public resentment is itself a part of the wrong of the crime. If so, then that component of the wrongdoing should be reflected in (and prospectively deterred by) the punishment.

Second (and perhaps more plausibly), one could say that to the extent that the criminal justice system takes account of resentment, it should do so in order to foster the goal of rehabilitation (a goal that has been tellingly absent from the current discussion). The idea here is that part of the reason for "bringing the criminal to justice" is to particularize in the criminal's mind the personal suffering of those he's wronged. In many cases, he will be brought face to face with the victim(s), and at sentencing will have to sit as the victims tell their personal stories in their own voices. So a necessary part of this process is to give voice to private and public resentment. This kind of catharsis would provide the sense of vindication retributivists are looking for.

Third, we might appeal to a distinction between what I'll call first- and second-order justifications for imposing a particular sentence. Nonretributivist policymakers would be committed to the view that resentment is an illicit justification for punishment. But they also realize that resentment in response to criminal wrongdoing is a brute psychological fact--the kind of fact that good policymaking requires taking into account. Thus, such policymakers might opt to channel resentment through public trial and lengthy incarceration. On this view, incarceration isn't an expression of the duty owed to the victims in light of their (presumably justified, or at least understandable) resentment so much as it is a pragmatic accommodation of (or an accession to) their psychologically ineliminable resentment.

That all being said, I'm not at all sure that these lines of response are adequate to counter the powerful intuitions that justice should be fair, and that fairness seems to demand that justice explicitly address the felt wrongs of society as such. (E.g., I'm afraid that the third line of response above is utterly disingenuous: we want justice to be fair, and we want the public to view their justice system as genuinely fair, yet we're only doing what the public thinks is fair in this case as a therapeutic or public relations measure.) To be continued, then...

UPDATE: In the above I made an inchoate distinction between first- and second-order justifications. Let me try to state things more concretely. The reason we mete out "expressive punishment" (as I'll call it) isn't that victims deserve to have expressive punishment meted out on their behalf. Rather, it's that that's the only way we can assuage popular resentment and rehabilitate the victim.

If that's right, then what does the justifying work in this scheme of expressive punishment isn't the retributive idea itself, but some independent restorative or restitutional principle.

NOTES

¹ Absent that purpose, it seems to me, "community expression" is just an inert symbol, and completely inadequate to motivate imposing added pain on a criminal.

² There are other possible justifications in the particular case of the Nazis. For example, perhaps the history surrounding the Nazi war crimes is so important that we should expend extra effort to capture as many participants as we can so that the full story can be known.