Summer's almost gone ...

... but there's still time for one more Philosopher's Carnival! Thanks CK!

By the way, philosophers, CK says that there weren't too many entries this time. So let's get thinking!

Too many cooks spoil the brouhaha

Which is one reason why I didn't join in the Theory's Empire dustup (now in remission) over at The Valve and other related sites. (Another is that I didn't have the book.) I did follow along, though, and I was struck by how defensive some people were about the very idea of such a collection. Isn't it obvious that taking a critical view of Theory isn't the same as (in increasing order of horrificness) 1) embracing bad old theories of literary meaning; 2) duh, being a troglodyte; 3) voting Republican?

However, I recently picked up the volume, and I have to admit that my first impression of it was that such viscerally negative reactions are perfectly understandable (if not particularly constructive). Like many other defenses of culture against Theory, the overall tone here seems – so far, anyway – to be not of level-headed engagement with esteemed but misguided colleagues, but instead of pouring boiling oil onto the barbarians at the gates (or on those already inside, raping and pillaging defenseless literature). I have still only skimmed it, but I've already run across some seriously snarky rhetoric: words like "glut" and "parrot" and "gospel" and "otiose" and "pervasive" and "gurus" and "bizarre" and "labyrinthine" and "obsessive." (No naked emperors yet, though; could we really have seen the last of that one??) The introduction sets the tone to which I refer; I was struck, for example, by this poisonous patch of purple prose, the peroration of the piece:

[I]t is evident that today's theoretical vocabulary has led to an intellectual void at the core of our educational endeavors, scarcely masked by all the posturing, political zealotry, pretentiousness[,] general lack of seriousness, and the massive opportunism that is particularly glaring in the extraordinary indifference to or outright attacks on logic and consistency (p.13).

Holy smoke! Not surprisingly, the most common digs at Theorists, here as elsewhere, are the ones attributing to them not simply some intellectual failing, but also some moral vice, usually hypocrisy: they reject all dogmatism – except their own! They claim to be working for the downtrodden – but they're self-absorbed fatcats! They claim to be doing new and exciting things – but they're unoriginal conformists, just putting new labels on the same tired old crap! Et cetera!

Now I would be the last to deny that this old shoe can find plenty of feet to fill it. (I actually have no clue as to the extent of the problem, as described. I last took an English course in 1980 (which was perfectly fine), and I haven't really run into it that much myself. On the other hand, there is a vaguely analogous doctrinal divide in philosophy between "analytic" and "continental" philosophy; but it's not the same – even though Hegel, for example, is making a half-hearted comeback, no-one's getting rich and famous touting Hegelian Theory, and stacking whole departments with ambitious acolytes. It did get ugly a while back, though, I understand, with power grabs at the annual convention, etc. But nothing like the Theory wars, since no-one cares about philosophy anyway.) The more worthless the material in question, though, the less informative it is to hear that we need to rouse the troops to combat it. Politically motivated sophomoric-relativist nonsense? Sounds ghastly; let's get rid of it. But 700 pages of abuse is not going to get us there, so I sincerely hope this isn't all there is to the book.

Of course the editors are as concerned to deny personal animus as they are to disavow regressive tendencies (i.e., "the predictable charges hurled against critics of Theory"). No,

what is particularly noticeably in our authors' writings is the general lack of ad hominem attacks, even when confronting some of the more preposterous and unreadably convoluted theories. They concentrate not on personality—as central an issue as Theory's stars have made this in cultivating their public personae—but instead on logic, reason, and evidence, concepts without which [oh, thanks so much for pointing this out] it is impossible to have any sort of fruitful intellectual exchange. They are mindful [...] that the habit of many theorists to make claims without showing any awareness of the highly contentious nature of their premises and reasoning is a symptom of the poor standard of argumentation prevailing in modern literary theory (p.7).

Amazing. An ad hominem attack right in the middle of a passage trumpeting the virtuous lack of same. Not promising. However, Morris Dickstein, a contributor to the book and the editor of a decent anthology on pragmatism, assures us that "Theory’s Empire confines itself to serious academic critiques," so I suppose I should keep reading.

Of particular interest to me are the selections making up the section entitled "Restoring Reason," which discusses the science-wars aspect of the matter (with perhaps predictably heavy emphasis on the Sokal affair). I turned to these first, because that's where the stuff about truth and objectivity is (our barbarians are relativists, after all, when they're not being dogmatic). I have mixed feelings about the results, but that's a topic for another post.

Now that's acting

Olivier Gourmet (nice name) won the Best Actor award at Cannes in 2002 for his performance in the Dardennes' The Son, and having finished up viewing the film last night (I shouldn't watch movies in installments, and I'm sure this one lost a little impact because of it, but as it turned out there was plenty left), I can see why. He plays a carpentry instructor at a trade school, who for reasons I will not go into (we ourselves only find out half an hour in), is torn between two opposing emotions and corresponding courses of action, both compatible with what we actually see him do. In an interview included on the DVD, Gourmet (looking quite different) explains that it was very hard to play "I don't know" – a single motivation, even a complex one, can be signaled in any number of conventional ways, but how do you show one emotion "canceled out" (I would rather say "held in check") by another, so that neither is manifested overtly during the struggle? We find ourselves noticing any clue, however small – a tic, a frown, a snappy remark. Gourmet's control over his body is remarkable; check out his gait for example, or his brisk, efficient movements when washing his hands or doing carpentry. The camera, most if not all handheld, is in his face (or on the back of his neck) throughout – there's one shot where he sends a student to get something from across the room and the camera remains on Gourmet's staring face the whole time. There's also an amazing, apparently continuous shot where someone in the passenger seat of a car (shot from the back seat) steps into the back seat to lie down, which must have required some serious acrobatics by the cameraman (who of course ends up in the passenger seat). Very intense film. Now I have to see La Promesse (same actor, same directors, same Cannes result).

Duck days indeed

Some odds and ends for these hot summer days:

Here's a handsome lad.

And in other news, those philosophers are carnivaling again. Thanks Gracchi! I particularly liked the post from TAR about non-philosophers' ideas of what we do; some great stories there, plus some interesting reflections. Check it out!

Coincidentally, today's Dilbert addresses the same issue, believe it or not. Dilbert is out on a date, and addresses his companion thus:

Dilbert: No one ever wants to take more than half of what's left of the last doughnut. That's why I call it Xeno's [sic] doughnut. Hee hee!

Dinner companion drains glass.

Passing waitress, to dinner companion: I heard some of that. Do you want to switch to hard liquor?

Dinner companion, holding out glass: Hurry.

Sigh. Of course, that's Zeno of Elea he's talking about, not Zeno of Citium! Zeno of Citium's doughnut would remain untouched on the plate! Ha ha! (Oog.)

Cinema of war

The other night I watched a movie about a ragged but plucky band of comrades and their valiant resistance against the oppressive force occupying their country. I am of course perfectly capable of telling the difference between this and that; but I have to say it was a just a bit creepy being encouraged to cheer when our heroes carry out a roadside ambush against the occupying army's passing vehicles. The film was Roberto Rossellini's Roma, città aperta (a.k.a. Open City), made amazingly soon after the war (in 1945, in fact). It's a very effective example of its type (which of course was new at the time). Two things stood out for me: first, in the screen time she's allotted Anna Magnani is a force of nature (see her also, equally forceful if not more so, in Pasolini's Mamma Roma); and second, the gripping ending -- not only the final scene, but the scene before that, especially the spectacular shot of the tortured prisoner and the priest's reaction to it. You absolutely cannot get away with that kind of thing anymore, but in the days before our (in this sense) jaded age, it would have worked perfectly (exercise for the reader: how would Bresson have done it, or Renoir?). Oh, and another spectacular shot (of a different kind): when the Nazi soldier peers out the door and looks toward the camera, with a fleeing resistance fighter still visible, pausing, in the background behind him. Wow.

One problem, though: the subtitlers are frustratingly chary with their aid, sometimes rendering no more than every third line. Luckily my (operatic) Italian is serviceable, so I didn't miss too much, but be warned.

Body beautiful?

Maybe you heard about that museum in Vienna that let you in free to see their exhibit of early 1900's erotic art if you showed up (as the Times puts it in today's Arts section) "nude or scantily clad." My attitude: whatever. But they need to get their story straight. The Times quotes the museum's Elisabeth Leopold as explaining: "We find a naked body every bit as beautiful as a clothed one." Fair enough, depending perhaps on which body we're talking about (Henry Kissinger: keep your clothes on). But the museum isn't showing Raphael or even Bernini; they're showing Klimt and that twisted perv (and I mean that in a good way) Egon Schiele (one of my faves). This is presumably why director Peter Weinhaupt says that he hoped to (again in the Times's words) "create a mini-scandal reminiscent of the one that first surrounded the paintings." Again: whatever. But if "mini-scandal" is the point, the idea that nudity is no big deal makes no sense. And of course if you know Schiele at all, you know: it ain't the nudity. What is interesting about Schiele, and what makes him great, is that the self-portraits are just as twisted, and, seemingly, in the same way, as the erotic ones. And that's the scandal.

Probably guilty, probably guilty, probably guilty!

Here's what grand jury duty is like. First, a joke:

A physics professor is lecturing. At one point he points to a formula on the board and says "And now, it's obvious that from this formula, this one follows" (writing another one). Then he stops, and says "Hold on a minute," and covers the board with equations while the students wait in silence. Finally he nods, and says "Yes, I was right! It is obvious that this follows from that."

What does this have to do with grand jury duty? I'll tell you. I don't know how things are in other states, but in New Jersey whenever they want to try someone for a felony (or, in NJ-speak, an "indictable offense"), they have to bring their evidence to a grand jury to show they have a chance for a conviction, that they're not grasping at straws (or railroading some poor schmuck or political opponent). The idea is that if they can't get a) a simple majority of 23 people to agree, even when b) unopposed by defense lawyers, that c) there is a prima facie case for guilt, then they would just be wasting everyone's time at trial, where they need a) unanimity among 12 people, b) in the face of a vigorous defense, c) that the guy is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Makes sense, I guess. It's just weird when there are disagreements about whether there is a prima facie case for something. It's like you can't give too careful an argument or it's not prima facie anymore, like in the joke (tertia facie?). Plus it's weird using a term like prima facie in non-philosophical contexts (of course, everyone else says "probable cause").

It's also funny hearing them read the law, where legislators have tried to cover all the bases in their definition (often this means lots of disjunctions, which for some reason can confuse people). "Knowing" that P turns out to mean being "aware" that P; while to do something "purposefully" is to do it "consciously." Glad we cleared that up.

Oh boy, another list!

As you may already be aware (see here and here and here, and links therefrom), the BBC has polled us all, philosophers and laity alike, in order to elect the Greatest Philosopher of All Time (so far).

Here is the resulting ranking:

1. Karl Marx [in a walk, apparently]
2. David Hume
3. Ludwig Wittgenstein
4. Friedrich Nietzsche
5. Plato
6. Immanuel Kant
7. St. Thomas Aquinas
8. Socrates
9. Aristotle
10. Karl Popper

Except for #s 1 and 10, this is a decent list, better than one might expect. It's not particularly informative, though, given the vagueness of "greatest." In coming up with my own list, I used more specific, if also subjective, criteria: points were awarded for influence (on me, past or current), present usefulness (again, for me), general importance, and other assorted intangibles.

1. Wittgenstein
2. Donald Davidson
3. John McDowell
4. Kant
5. Nietzsche
6. Dewey
7. Gilles Deleuze
8. Aristotle
9. J. L. Austin
10. Stanley Cavell

Honorable mention [points awarded for: same as above, plus (if the philosopher is relatively new to me at present) estimated future usefulness]: Putnam, Rorty, Peirce, James, Isaac Levi, Robert Brandom, Dennett, Danto, Anscombe, Frege, Heraclitus, Zhuangzi, Kierkegaard, Hegel, Gadamer, Schleiermacher, Merleau-Ponty, Bergson, Jennifer Hornsby, Charles Taylor, John Haugeland, D. Z. Phillips. Okay, I'll stop now.

Bottom five [using analogously subjective criteria]:

1. Colin McGinn
2. Jerry Fodor
3. Ayn Rand [but see Dr. P's comments here]
4. David Stove
5. Jean Baudrillard

Also: Kripke, Husserl, Michael Devitt, Churchland(s)

Opponents; that is, very good philosophers who are, in some important way, wrong, wrong, wrong, and helpful despite/because of their errors (see my earlier post about this phenomenon):

1. Barry Stroud
2. John Searle
3. Roger Scruton
4. Crispin Sartwell
5. W. V. O. Quine
6. Philip Kitcher (or Dennett in his specifically naturalistic moods)
7. Plato et seq.
8. P. F. Strawson (on some subjects)
9, 10. Descartes and his contemporary minion Thomas Nagel

For Sartwell's own idiosyncratic likes and dislikes, see here.

Symposium alert

Blogging has been light here recently, and it may continue to be so for a bit, as other obligations become more pressing. Bear with us!

On the other hand, one of those obligations is to contribute to a bloggy roundtable about Wittgenstein and literature over at the Valve, some or all of which (my contributions, that is) may end up here too. Incidentally, that site is currently running a similar event about a book called Theory's Empire (link to an early post; see subsequent posts for more). Not being a Theoretical duck, I don't have much to add to this one....

In the meantime, word comes of yet another Philosopher's Carnival. Check it out here. That should hold you.

Okay, it's later now

I had jury duty again today (it's one day a week for 8 or 9 weeks). We spent the day hearing about all manner of (apparent) miscreants and their (presumably) naughty behavior, and we settled their hash but good, or at least made it a bit less unsettled (it is for the petit jury to settle it completely). Of course I can't tell you anything specific, as that would require your imminent death. But I can disclose some aspects of the particular hash-settling procedure we employed, which might be amusing. Or not.

Here's what I was going to say last week. They give you a written intro to grand jury procedure (and then show a video with a judge reading it out loud to you). At one point the intention is to impress upon you that you, the individual juror, lack the powers of the jury as a whole; but that's not exactly what it says:

You must bear in mind that a Grand Jury exists only as an entity, [...]

Well, I'm glad we cleared that up. But is it identical with its essence?

Maybe later

Today I got up at an ungodly pre-noon hour and took the bus to Hackensack, New Jersey, where I spent several hours serving on a Grand Jury. I had heard a few comments about London (in the context of increased security), but I thought the reference was to the Olympics; it wasn't until I got home and turned on Macneil-Lehrer (uh, I mean the Lehrer News Hour) that I heard about what they were really talking about.

I was going to blog about something funny that happened today, but now I don't feel like it.

A pledge to our readers

Word has reached us, via screaming headlines in the New York Times, among other sources, that there is a vacancy on the Supreme Court, which of course will lead to all sorts of breast-beating and other sorts of strenuous activity unsuitable for hot weather. Have no fear: we here at DR pledge to you, the reader, that during this time the only SCOTUS blogged about here will be the Subtle Doctor of legend. (If that.)

Truth in advertising

Following up a tip from a commenter on a new philblog (hat tip: Mormon Metaphysics sidebar), I went to cog sci heavyweight Andy Clark's page of downloadable papers, and I snagged a few of them, including one called "The Extended Mind," which sounds promisingly anti-Cartesian in a post-phenomenological vein (but I haven't read it yet). At first I was a bit worried, seeing as it was cowritten with someone who, well, does not inspire me with as much confidence in this specific sense, viz., D. Chalmers; but on the first page we see, after the authors' names, a big asterisk leading the eye to a helpful disclaimer:

Authors are listed in order of degree of belief in the central thesis.

Got it.

Empathy

Jon Pareles is a fairly standard-issue rock critic, but in Saturday's Times he shows that he has the ability to put himself in other people's shoes (or hear with their ears, or whatever). Reviewing Robert Fripp's recent Soundscapes show at the Society for Ethical Culture (which I did not see, but I've heard more than my share of Soundscapes), he says:

Symphonic as the soundscapes were, longtime Fripp fans may have missed the sound of his guitar itself, with its searing liquid-nitrogen chill.

This is exactly right. I hereby authorize Mr. Pareles to strike that "may have." And well said!

Brain teasers galore

First up: another of those Philosophers' Carnivals.

Also: a source of daily mental floss (hat tip: Emiratio).

Abe and Aaron

Here's a neat line from Primer, a clever little no-budget film I saw recently, a line which shows exactly, and I do mean exactly, what sort of movie we have here:

Are you hungry? I haven't eaten since later this afternoon.

Yes, boys and girls (girls?), Primer is a time-travel movie. As experienced chronocinephiles know, there are two strategies for making a TTM. First, you can wink at the audience and say, no, it doesn't make sense, but at least it's a different kind of big-screen peril for our hero to get into – will he make it back to the future or get stuck in the past (or eaten by prehistoric monsters), will he "change the past" (with whatever consequences this is stipulated to have) or fail to do so, etc. Or you can make it as realistic as possible, tantalizing us with the idea that it might (be intended to) make sense after all. (Or there's the glorious La Jetée, which we've already discussed.)

Primer, the title of which I still have never heard pronounced (prymer or primmer?) is a TTM of the second kind, which I generally prefer (you may keep The Time Machine, which I haven't seen). The setup (act I) is very well done: they walk the line very carefully between too much explanation and not enough, and it has a great lo-tech hi-tech look, if you know what I mean. The continuation (act II) proceeds naturally out of what came before (so to speak), with a few subtle hints that not all is, or will be, what it seems. Particularly effective are the unnerving, half-understood suggestions of what might be about to have already gone wrong (oh, stop it). The concluding act is a little rushed, as if they were worried about making it too easy to follow (no danger here) and thus ruining the enigmatic mood they've built up (total running time = 77 minutes). I really don't think it would have hurt too much to make it a little clearer and drawn out the tension at the same time; but maybe the idea is for later viewings to make the right amount of sense. I certainly would like to take another look – maybe that will help tie up some of the loose beginnings. Check it out!

P.S. Here's a review from the above-linked page at imdb.com:

Did you like Pi? If so, go see this one.

By the way, the attention to detail in the beginning is great. Often in thrillers with technical content, if you have a technical education you have consciously ignore all the stupid movie crud that they pull to make it into a good story. But this movie pulls off an incredibly believable technical story, with only a few distracting gaffs. That is, the tech jargon is good enough that you don't get distracted and can focus on the story line.

Final comment: Yes, it is very hard to follow the story line in this movie.

Obviously I'm not going to spoil it, but I think the following fact will help when the movie gets kind of hairy towards the end: Aaron is the dark-haired guy, Abe is the blond-haired guy.

I agree: that last fact is very important. And Pi is the natural comparison (only less techno on the soundtrack).

Strawson on totally awesome mistakes

An interesting feature at Mormon Metaphysics is the quotation appearing in a little box in the top right-hand corner of each page. It varies from page to page; I think they repeat, but I'm not sure how many there are, and I'm pretty sure it's random, in that there's no correlation between their content and the page they adorn. Maybe Clark will tell us someday.

I found the quotation below in the top right-hand corner of a page on which Clark discusses Taylor Carman's book on Heidegger. [In retrieving this url, I got a quote from Kafka this time; so I guess it is random.] A few years ago I sat in on the first half of Taylor's course on the Phenomenology of Spirit, until I got too far behind and I had to stop fooling around and finish up the damn dissertation. I have the book, and Clark says it's really good, so maybe I'll read it someday. Check back in 2013.

Anyway, here's the quotation, from P. F. Strawson:

One of the marks, though not a necessary mark, of a really great philosopher is to make a really great mistake: that is to say, to give a persuasive and lastingly influential form to one of those fundamental misconceptions to which the human intellect is prone when it concerns itself with the ultimate categories of thought.

I like that. For examples, my first thought was Descartes, then Plato (but something tells me Strawson's talking about Kant's "idealism"). People, like myself, who strive mightily against the all-too-pervasive misconceptions abounding in the wake of Plato and Descartes can forget the genius it requires to give these fundamental misconceptions a determinate form. Those who perpetuate the misconceptions -- our contemporary Cartesians and Platonists -- tend to see them (say, the conceptual self-sufficiency of subject and object) as the merest common sense, and the contribution of Descartes and Plato as on a par with other philosophers: i.e., as trying, and (ironically) failing, to establish their doctrines conclusively. The irony here, that is, is that it is on the basis of their (internalized) Cartesianism and Platonism that these people see the task of philosophy as trying to do what Descartes and Plato indeed failed to do, thus causing them to deny the label ("who, me? A Cartesian [Platonist]? But I reject skepticism [the Forms]!"). When we learn to see philosophy aright, though, we can see Plato's and Descartes's contributions, again ironically, as in line with Wittgenstein's ambition to (teach us to) "pass from a piece of disguised nonsense to something that is patent nonsense" (PI §464). In other words, this is the flip side (the negative side) of what he is more usually seen as urging on us: to pass from failing "to notice something—because it is always before one's eyes" (§129) to, well, noticing it, and thus "command[ing] a clear view of the use of our words" (§122).

Actually, we don't have to see things Wittgenstein's way in order to appreciate Strawson's idea, which of course isn't simply that it's great that people have made big whopping spectacular mistakes so that we will know, at least, not to do that. In Hegelian terms as well, we are best able to make progress (say via an Aufhebung) when the dualism to be aufgehoben is explicitly and firmly established, so that we can really see the difference (so to speak) when (if!) the Aufhebung is performed properly. (So would Hegel agree that "it's always darkest just before dawn"? Is this the "night in which all cows are black"? Discuss.) Now of course Hegel made his own whoppers...

And even this way of taking the idea has a less fancy variant (that is, which still says more than the simple version), which is perhaps all that Strawson had in mind (I like my two versions better though). Refuting a silly error is hardly progress; it's more like retying your shoes after tripping over your laces. If we refute a deep, perennial error, now -- then we've made some progress. But that's only possible if that error has been rigorously distilled into a philosophical doctrine which we can argue against directly; and for that we owe a profound debt to the distiller. My problem with this is that on this conception of what's going on, the beast is felled, necessarily, only by an even meaner beast. It would be a type of skepticism to which I do not subscribe to claim that the new doctrine must be just as bad -- I've been known to advance, or at least endorse, a few doctrines myself -- but when the shiny new doctrine loses its luster, it can be all too easy to keep it around on the basis of its giant-killing abilities alone: for what if the giant, or his brother, comes back?

The mind works in mysterious ways

Actually it doesn't. Or it may, but this isn't an instance of it really -- just normal association. But when you're mystified, things look mysterious. When I saw it, everything cleared up. What? I should get to the point? Okay, okay. Sheesh.

All day today I have found myself with "Bella figlia dell' amore," from Rigoletto, running through my head. What, you too? No? Okay, never mind. What? Get on with it? Right. Sorry. Anyway, I've been wondering: why should this be? I haven't heard Rigoletto lately, though I did read there's some reality show about would-be opera singers (American Diva? No? Well, that's what I'd call it), but I think they were women, so it would really be "Caro nome," then, not "Bella figlia dell' amore." Hmmmmmm.

The first line of "Bella figlia dell' amore," as you might have guessed, is:

Bella figlia dell' amore

which means "Beautiful child of love [or Cupid, anyway]". No help there. But the next line is:

Schiavo son de' vezzi tuoi

which means "I am a slave to your charms" -- but of course you don't care what it means, because your eyes are drawn, like mine were (metaphorically speaking) when I saw it (ditto), to that first word. Of course! There's been all this hoop-la in the last couple of days about the autopsy of that poor lady from Florida (you know the one I mean). Dr. P. posted on it here, and Ed B. here, with a follow-up here (Ed's comment: "Good Lord, what must it be to go through life thinking like these loonies?"). Apparently the wingnuts, instead of shutting up, given that the autopsy proves them wrong, are all atwitter because the doctors don't know what caused her brain damage in the first place (as if that mattered), except that it wasn't what the 'nuts had been darkly hinting that it might be (i.e., spousal abuse). At least they weren't making anything out of Michael's name meaning "slave" in Italian...

P. S. I just looked up the text in my handy copy of The Authentic Librettos of the Italian Operas (1939), because I wanted to make double darn sure it wasn't "dei vezzi tuoi," seeing as this is being posted on the Internet for everyone to see, but no, "de' vezzi tuoi" it is. But check out the translation! Instead of

Beautiful daughter of Eros
I am a slave to your charms;
With a single word
You can console my pains;
Come, and feel the rapid beating of my heart.

which is what I would say, they have:

Ah! of Venus the fairest daughter
The slave of your charms here behold;
One word from thy beautiful lips
My suffering alone can assuage;
Come, and my fond heart relieve
Of its anxious palpitations.

Yikes!

Philosophy in the schools?

One thing I can't get enough of in the blogosphere is the endless uproar about "intelligent design." There are various debates in there somewhere as well, but it's the uproar that I find particularly fascinating. Non-philosophers discussing philosophical issues are always good for a laugh (or fit of despair, as the mood strikes you), and even after the tears, of whichever sort, have been wiped away, there's always something to think about. I have a couple of posts (or papers, if they get that far) in the works about substantive issues, so stay tuned (or tune in again; you know what I mean).

Today's topic, however, is what we should teach the kiddies. You will probably have noticed that whenever someone objects to discussing, in public school classes, the existence, or not, of an intelligent non-human designer, they always say: not in science class! Save that stuff for philosophy class! My first reaction to this is: Philosophy class?? In public high school? Bwah hah hah hah hah! Where do think you are -- France?

Of course, I'm sure some school district somewhere has a philosophy elective, or even more than one (school district, that is, not philosophy elective). What's funny here is that this is the only time the idea of philosophy for high-schoolers ever comes up -- when it's a question of what's not appropriate material for some normal class like Science, where we teach proven facts instead of batting around unanswerable questions in a heady rap session to entertain the weird kids.

Related to this is the assumption that in philosophy class we would of course be discussing the Existence Of God, along with the other Central Questions of the discipline, such as the Meaning of Life, How Do You Know You're Not Dreaming Right Now and Whether, When a Tree Falls in the Forest and No-one Hears it, it Makes any Sound. (This being the modern era, philosophers have finally abandoned such earlier head-scratchers as Whether the World is Made of Fire or Water or Both and How Many Angels Can Dance on the Head of a Pin.) On the other hand, I have to admit that HDYKYNDRN, while not exactly a live philosophical question, can at least serve as a catchy intro to one if you do it right. But the EOG? Please. ("So you see, class, if God is defined as that most perfect entity, which instantiates all predicates essentially, then that God exists is a necessary truth!")

Of course it would be nice if there were philosophy classes in high school. But what should be discussed (that is, taught) in philosophy class, should there be one, are such things as what is an argument and what is it to believe something and what's the connection between agency and normativity and rationality and objectivity (okay, maybe that one's a little advanced, but we could make a start on it) and why "metaphysical" doesn't mean "supernatural" and why all non-philosophers, and most philosophers too for that matter, who say anything at all, pro or con, about "postmodernism" or "relativism" are hopelessly confused.

Some of this does intersect with the question of what counts as "science," and is thus relevant to the issue of evolution vs. design. But I don't see why addressing that issue in science classes would be inappropriate simply because it is not itself to be determined scientifically. (Of course, even some philosophers think every philosophical question should be reduced to empirical investigation. For some reason which I do not understand, this view is not known as "nihilism.") Why should it be irrelevant to the study of science to think about what science is? For that matter, and here we do approach a substantive issue I claimed to be putting off, I don't see what's wrong with addressing, again in science class of course, the particular issue of how, if life (or the cell, or the wombat, or whatever) had been the result of design, it would be possible to tell this.

Here's what's ironic. Biologists say: Intelligent Design isn't science, because it's just unverifiable speculation about ultimate origins, where what science is concerned with is verifiable facts about nature. One standard anti-evolution reply is: that's right, science can't tell us with certainty what really happened, or if there is anything beyond nature, so it's all a matter of blind faith, which means you can't teach naturalistic evolution as The Truth (indoctrinating those impressionable minds with atheism, etc.). Playing the "fairness" card, this reply invites us to see the "two sides" of the question as equally valid. But that's not enough for ID-ers, who after all, like the "Creation Scientists" before them, see naturalistic evolution as not merely "unprovable" but in fact provably false. That's why they take such pains to detach the question of design from the identity of the Designer (uh, better make that a small d): so that the idea of detecting design cannot be ruled out of court as essentially non-naturalistic and thus beyond the bounds of science.

Quite right; but now the argument for time in the classroom is no longer based on claims about the symmetry of unprovable assumptions about ultimate origins, but instead on the viability of the "design inference" as science. But (here's the irony, finally) the pro-evolution side is still arguing that ID isn't science, so we shouldn't discuss it (because to mention it at all, even to dismiss it, would give those people credibility). But if it is admitted that the issue is not one of unprovable assumptions after all, then we get to examine it scientifically. And although I won't argue the point here, I think it is indeed instructive for the young 'uns to see the result -- which includes places where we have to shrug and say, well, here we don't yet know exactly how it went; that's an issue for further research (something you might want to do, perhaps?). After all, that's true; and, as my own teacher liked to say, you shouldn't deny facts.

On the other hand, maybe I am simply a humorless clod

As you get older, there are more and more cultural phenomena that you are simply too old and out of it to understand. I'm not complaining, mind you; it's just a fact of life. So it was interesting to encounter one recently that I am apparently too young to understand. Here's how it happened. I've already mentioned here how impressed I've been with the work, especially w/r/t Wittgenstein, of Stanley Cavell. Cavell also writes on other things, of course, including cinema, and one of his books is about Hollywood comedies of a certain time, including Howard Hawks's Bringing Up Baby (1938), which features Cary Grant as a geeky paleontologist and Katharine Hepburn as what the back cover of the DVD calls "a scatterbrained heiress." Not only that, Dan at Doing Things With Words recently posted on this film (it's a paper on Kant, but his examples come from this film), so I thought I better check it out.

After having viewed the film, which btw ranks at #141 of imdb.com's viewer-selected top 250 films of all time, I am even more curious to know what Cavell (and Dan) have to say about it, seeing as I am utterly baffled as to how anyone could possibly have found it even remotely funny or charming. I know what they called "screwball comedies" are supposed to be silly and contrived, and this film certainly was that, but they're supposed to be funny too, and this film certainly was not. I smiled precisely once, when they're holding onto Baby (a leopard -- don't ask) by the tail to prevent him from escaping out the back seat of the car (I told you not to ask), and they burst into "I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby," because, as has already been established, he likes that song. The rest of it was painfully unfunny, annoying, and, yes, just stupid, worse than It Happened One Night (#119 at imdb). The scene in the jail is just excruciating (I keep telling you: don't ask). Of course there may still be interesting things to say about this film; but does this mean that the philosophers of the future will extract profound truths from 50 First Dates and Monster-in-Law?

[Update (9/3): In retrospect, I seem to have been a little harsh. The 50 First Dates line was uncalled for. However, to be honest, I must reluctantly stand by my recollection of this film as "painfully unfunny."]