godfry n. glad

Sure...

I think it begins: "These young men lost their lives defending democracy and liberating the Iraqis from the depredations of a bloodthirsty dictator. They were there as a support for the search of weapons of mass destruction which that dictator had amassed and stored against the eventuality of using it against western powers...."

The anti-realist position is presented every day in the news as the position of the Bush administration.

godfry

(...who has to self-administer anti-nausea medications to watch the news...)

Hugo Holbling

I'm sorry that you are unable to enter into the spirit of the OP, Vork.



There are many forms of anti-realism and you are conflating them all. Kicking a stone in this fashion is just beating up a straw man and avoiding the subtlety that characterizes the problem of realism these days, among both scientists and philosophers. In any case, Joel has made it quite clear how he intends to discuss anti-realism in the context of Biblical criticism and history generally, so - your efforts to the contrary not withstanding - perhaps you might care to actually answer Fuller's implicit question?

Vorkosigan

HH, I don't understand your remarks at all. I had originally intended to explore the issue of time and anti-realism in various levels or frameworks of explanation through yesterday's events rather than those of 2,000 years ago. I think you read way too much into my remarks. Waaaaayyy too much.

In any case, this raises the important point which likely distills what Joel was aiming at: is history (or Biblical criticism for that matter) as epistemologically sound as any other empirical inquiry? Is the question meaningful?

What Celsus said was:

Can a realist position of history still be salvaged when the methodological underpinnings are so undermined by the examination of the contexts in which the theories are formed?

These are two slightly different questions. Celsus wanted to know whether realism is salvageable in the face of interpretive frameworks that have clear political/theological origins. You want to know whether the epistemological foundations of history are as sound as "any other empirical inquiry" by which one must presume you mean "science." If you are going to lecture me on how to answer questions, by all means get the question right.

In any case, as you pointed out with your neat little quote, in order to take an anti-realist position you must first be a realist. In order to argue that (say) Strauss' inquiries into the NT were guided/subverted/distorted/created by his political and cultural background, you must first argue that you can accurately/reliably represent his background so that you can make that determination. To make anti-realist arguments you have to divorce some part of history from your own argument, and hold that one up as sufficiently epistemologically accurate. I do not see how any anti-realist argument can escape that basic paradox.

In any case, I do not come at this problem from a philosophical standpoint because, as we know, philosophy is a form of mental masturbation practiced by highly intelligent people in order to gain tenure. It is incapable of settling anything. If you really want to understand the "theory of history" people use when writing history, then you need to study the cognitive sciences and anthropology and psychology to learn what sorts of "folk" theories people carry in their heads as they analyze human behavior, past or present. Much of this apparatus is built-in and we are not even aware of it. In fact, Celsus' question about the theological/cultural/political origins of interpretative frameworks derives from those processors clicking away in his head on problems of teleology, self-interest and information presentation. It makes sense to us on the outside reading his comments because, as evolved social primates, we are inherent, teleologically-oriented realists who understand that a person's interests and background influence their presentation of information. Implicit in this understanding is a whole range of assumptions about the nature of reality. It is these innate assumptions that people like Derrida or Collingwood or Foucault or Vico or MacIntyre appeal to when making their arguments about the philosophy of history.

Vorkosigan

Hugo Holbling

I'll take you at your word, Vork, but your disdain for philosophy seems to be making you miss the point.

Quite obviously Joel's concerns are included in the general question of whether such difficulties as he notes undermine realism in history; nevertheless (and without meaning to appear facetious), i wouldn't expect you to know much about anti-realism given that it too is mere mental masturbation. In any case, the point is that we do not need to accurately determine the political and cultural background of Strauss to note that it seems impossible in principle to separate such influences from his work, whereas a similar problem does not obtain for the scientific realist (or so sayeth the latter).

As i said before, there are many forms of anti-realism and not all are held by tenured academics. I take your point about looking at the many other fields that may tell us what influenced an historian, but the philosophical point is at least as important. However, i accept that you do not think highly of philosophy so i will not be able to play at being a realist as i had hoped.

Would you care to explain your exploration of time and anti-realism in more depth so i will be less likely to read too much into it?

Clutch

It's by no means impossible to be a scientific realist and yet an antirealist towards history. If one conceives of history as devoted not simply to events, but to human actions -- as is fairly plausible -- and if one takes actions to be individuated by intention -- as is almost universal -- then the question largely reduces to whether one can be both a scientific realist and an intentional antirealist.

Many philosophers have taken themselves to hold this combination of positions: W.V. Quine, Paul Churchland, Patricia Churchland, Dan Dennett (sort of), Donald Davidson... even an old time-slice of Richard (insert Woody-Woodpecker laugh here) Rorty!

A challenging but stimulating paper from a different perspective is Michael Dummett's 'The Reality of the Past', in Truth and other enigmas.

Vorkosigan

The assumption here on both sides of this is that the effect of such influences is negative with respect to historical "truth." Is this a valid assumption? I think the question here is framed with the wrong underlying assumptions, and the real answer will emerge from the cognitive sciences, where people study how H. sapiens goes about constructing its world.

Gosh, imagine science answering a philosophical question about the world because philosophers can't. That just never happens.

Sorry to spoil your fun. Next time come equipped with a theory of mind, or don't come at all. I keep advising you to take in more reading in the cognitive sciences, but one of the most maddening thing about people who spend their time reading lots of philosophy is that they think other fields are inferior or unnecessary. Reminds me of my old philosophy teachers, whose haughtiness was in inverse proportion to their usefulness. See Giere's remarks here on his volume on the cognitive sciences and philosophy of science:

• In sum, the cognitive sciences, and particularly the explicit study of science by cognitive scientists, provide a useful, even necessary, resource for a naturalistic philosophy of science. The lack of unity in the cognitive sciences themselves places limitations on how unified a naturalistic philosophy of science might be, but does not detract from the overall project. And the results of a naturalistic philosophy of science incorporating resources from the cognitive sciences may be useful to others, including other scientists and science educators.

Of course, there are quite a lot of threads there from various scholars in the field. Take a look at Fuller's reply to Geire here which I am sure will curl your philosophical toes.

Would you care to explain your exploration of time and anti-realism in more depth so i will be less likely to read too much into it?

No. I have no wish to be patronized by someone who thinks that he can talk about analyzing human behavior without thinking about minds and how they go about constructing the world.

But to give a longer answer to your earlier question, yes, I believe that history could be in principle an empirical endeavor much like the sciences. But first the cognitive sciences need to have a much more detailed understanding of how humans go about constructing their worlds. Thus, conversations like this will eventually run aground on the lack of data from the cognitive sciences on how people actually think. Instead, we are left to grope at things using our innate "folk" modes of thinking plus whatever we can garner from the social and cognitive sciences and philosophy. Not good.

Vorkosigan

Hugo Holbling

I'm sorry you feel the need to insult me, Vork. I leave you to think what you will of me, since you appear to have me figured out just fine without my participation.

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

Sorry, Joel...

Clutch

Vorkosigan,As a professional philosopher of cognitive science, I'd like to think I appreciate the motivation for both these remarks. Still, the former is (to the nearest approximation) bullshit, while the latter has more to do with your personal history than some general property of philosophers. I know several hundred of them, and find them, in general, much more interested in and open to the relevance of data from other fields than are other academics (especially in the arts).

Maybe you have a Procrustean definition of philosophy doing all the work here: if it makes a difference, it isn't philosophy? But to take the subfield you discuss as an example, people like Jerry Fodor and Dan Dennett and Andy Clark have made real changes to our best ways of thinking about the mind. It would contrived and ideological to call them anything other than philosophers; their work anything other than philosophy.

Some philosophers are just wankers, to be sure. Like some historians, and some physicists, and some amateur biblical scholars. More importantly, there's a certain provincialism in failing to recognize that sometimes wanking is in the eye of the beholder -- though the Internet should have taught us that much...

Vorkosigan

The insults were handed out by you, HH. I still do not understand why you suddenly decided to insult me.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

Sorry to have spoiled this thread, Joel. For some reason Hugo brings out the worst in me. That remark about philosophers was unconscionable and I should not have posted it. In the future I shall abstain from threads of this nature.

Vorkosigan