Bourdieu and the Bloggernacle: Preliminaries
Pierre Bourdieu’s book, Distinction: A Social Critique of Judgement and Taste, is one of those exciting page-turners that transforms the very way that you look at the world around you. Over the next few weeks I plan on posting a small series dealing with a Bourdieuian (I think that’s the most vowels that I’ve ever typed in a row) perspective on the Bloggernacle as a form of cultural production and consumption. In this preliminary post, I only want to give a small feel for Bourdieu and his understanding of language use. To this end, I will (very briefly) describe his relationships with Marx, Foucault and Gouldner. Unfortunately, I will not attempt to draw any direct religious implications within this post.
Down to the present day, the English speaking world is still influenced by the Logical Positivists’ denunciation of all moral and aesthetic claims as nonsensical emotings of various kinds. (The opening chapters of Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue provide a very approachable account of this intellectual current.) Such a claim stands in opposition to Kant’s famous attempt to establish a firm foundation and standard for aesthetic judgments in his third Critique of Judgment.
What Bourdieu does in Distinction, then, is show that, contra the Logical Positivists, there is a logic which undergirds and regulates aesthetic judgments of taste. Furthermore, contra Kant, this logic is not philosophical in nature, but is instead socio-logical in nature. Indeed, his is an attempt to completely dethrone philosophy from its (rather French) position as “queen of the sciences” and replace it with his own reflexive sociology (more below). While I fully reject the idea that sociology – or any other academic discipline – deserves such a grand title, I am fully on board with replacing as much of philosophy as possible with sociological, and thus empirical/pragmatic analyses.
It is in this sense that Bourdieu is largely on the same page as Foucault in that both seek to replace the extent to which science is, in any sense, grounded in philosophy with a similar grounding in social actions and power relations. My own view on this endeavor is that all communication, both verbal and non-verbal, theoretical and pedestrian, is, always and everywhere, a form of signaling which transforms (for better or worse) the incentives faced by the audience. This is not all there is to be said about communication, but any account which is not compatible with this account can, I suggest, safely and rightly be ignored. Compare my sentiment with those of Foucault:
“Relationships of communication… by virtue of modifying the field of information between partners, produce effects of power. They can scarcely be dissociated from activities brought to their final term, be they those which permit the exercise of this power … or those which in order to develop their potential call upon relations of power.” Foucault, The Subject and Power)
While Foucault leaves things in terms of an ambiguous kind of “power” which we inevitably exercise upon each other, Bourdieu frames the issue, as a conflict theorist would, in terms of power struggles. Not only is communication always and everywhere an exercise of power, but is inevitably an activity which is in response to the invitations and threats of other agents rather than to the mechanical stimulations of the “natural” environment:
“[A]ll knowledge, and in particular all knowledge of the social world, is an act of construction implementing schemes of thought and expression, and that between conditions of existence and practices or representations there intervenes the structuring activity of the agents, who, far from reacting mechanically to mechanical stimulations, respond to the invitations or threats of a world whose meaning they have helped to produce. However, the principle of this structuring activity is … a system of internalized, embodied schemes which, having been constituted in the course of collective history, are acquired in the course of individual history and function in their practical state, for practice (and not for the sake of pure knowledge).” (Distinction, p. 467)
A second reason why Bourdieu’s work resonates with me is his insistence that our understanding of the social world must, at all times, be grounded in the idea of scarcity. The Marxist tradition (which is very influential in sociology departments) has tended to view “scarcity” with deep suspicion, sometimes going so far as to dismiss it as nothing more than an ideological underpinning to the neo-classical economic models by which the Bourgeois dominate the rest of society.
While Bourdieu (as I will soon argue) is very much influenced by Marxist thinking, and as such is not completely sold on the necessary existence of economic scarcity, he instead focuses attention on other forms of scarcity which traditional Marxists have tended to ignore. Even if, he might say, there is no scarcity of economic capital – indeed, within actually existing cultural fields that are almost entirely defined by and thus structured according to their autonomy from economic necessity – there is still a scarcity of social capital (interpersonal connections and coalitions), cultural capital (degrees, certifications, citations, eloquence, skills, etc.) and symbolic capital (the ability to prioritize and legitimize those other types of capital for others). Scarcity within these other realms also produce conflict and competition in which people seek to “distinguish” themselves from their competitors – hence the title of his book:
“Theories, methods and concepts in whatever realm are to be considered as strategies aimed at installing, restoring, strengthening, safeguarding or overthrowing a determinate structure of relationships of symbolic domination; that is, they constitute the means for obtaining or safeguarding the monopoly of the legitimate mode of practicing a literary, artistic or scientific activity…
“Scholastic codifications of the rules of scientific practice are inseparable from the project of building a kind of intellectual papacy, replete with its international corps of vicars, regularly visited or gathered together in concilium and charged with the exercise of rigorous and constant control over common practice.” (The Field of Cultural Production, p. 139)
It is the power struggles produced by this competition within the field of cultural production and consumption that is the Bloggernacle that I plan on exploring in this series.
While I strongly approve of Bourdieu’s replacement of philosophy with social analysis and with his non-negotiable emphasis upon scarcity and power struggles within cultural fields, these two points correspond directly to my biggest objections to his approach. Whereas I agree with Bourdieu that the stratification caused by scarcity within power relations are always a relevant issue (a necessary element of any social analysis), he often gives the impression that such stratifications are the only relevant issue (a sufficient element of any social analysis). While I fully agree that there is always some element of zero-sum-ness to every social interaction (thus making each interaction morally regulated), I strongly disagree when he insinuates that all such interactions are purely zero-sum in that each man’s gain is some other man’s equal loss – I can only move up the social hierarchy if others move down.
My second objection has to do with his exaggerated faith in his vision for sociology. Bourdieu thinks that so long as the sociologist is “reflexive” by way of an application of their (his) own theories to themselves, this makes their description of the social world uniquely “objective” and undistorted by ideological interests as all other such descriptions are. This is fully in line with the Marxist dismissal of all competing descriptions of the social world as “false consciousness.” Of course, it’s difficult to imagine a more ideological attempt at wielding symbolic authority than that.
I see Gouldner’s powerful critique of traditional Marxists’ lack of reflexivity as applying equally well to Bourdieu:
“Marxism resisted efforts to see itself as a speech produced by speakers, who may also be limited by their own social context… To view its own theories as a speech like other speeches, and its own theorists as speakers like other speakers, undermines Marxism’s (and any ideology’s) capacity to mobilize the action it seeks and to persuade men to pay the costs of their commitments…
“In this respect, Marxism like other ideologies is a rational mode of discourse that embodies a specific communication pathology—’objectivism.’ Objectivism is discourse lacking in reflexivity; it one-sidedly focuses on the ‘object’ but occludes the speaking ‘subject’ to whom it is an object; objectivism thus ignores the way in which the spoken object is contingent in part on the language in which it is spoken, and varies in character with the language—or theory—used.
“The analytic essence of ideology, common to all concrete ‘isms,’ is precisely that it is speech that does not does recognize or make problematic its own grounds, and rejects such reflexivity as unworldly ‘navel?gazing.’” (The Dialectic of Ideology and Technology: The Origins, Grammar, and Future of Ideology, p. 44-45)
The objectivism which both Bourdieu and Marx indulge in stands in stark contrast with my own view of communication stated above. To repeat, I insist that all communication – including all social theory, reflexive or not – is, if nothing else, a means by which a person transforms the incentives faced by their audience. The objectivism endorsed by traditional Marxists and (seemingly) Bourdieu amounts to the self-serving claim that they and they alone are able to transcend the power relations and scarcity which unavoidably structure our social interactions in this fallen world.
“all communication, both verbal and non-verbal, theoretical and pedestrian, is, always and everywhere, a form of signaling which transforms (for better or worse) the incentives faced by the audience”
it was a dark and stormy night and the rain came down in torrents…
Comment by Martin James — March 22, 2016 @ 4:46 pm
The cool thing about your theory is that the technology is very good at transforming our incentive structure so that we spend more time with the technology.
Comment by Martin James — March 22, 2016 @ 4:55 pm
1: Yeah, can you tell I’ve been reading a bit too much continental theory lately? ;)
2: I agree.
Comment by Jeff G — March 22, 2016 @ 6:39 pm
I really like the incentive structure model of communication. For me there is one part of communication that is all of this symbolic, social, context-dependent stuff going on and I actually agree with you on that a lot. But I’m very much interested in two other aspects of it that I think are important also. The signal to noise ratio in communication – how effective it is and even how it can have unintended consequences, and also how the incentive structure is biologically structured. I looked up incentive in wikipedia and it had a nice breakdown of incentives like remunerative, moral, coercive and natural.
You think I put the natural above the moral or that I’m invested in a particular scientific outlook that constrains morality. Some of that criticism applies to me, but I don’t think that is the big difference in perspective. To me it is just the experience of natural incentives “such as curiosity, mental or physical exercise, admiration, fear, anger, pain, joy, or the pursuit of truth, or the control over things in the world or people or oneself.”
You may be right that all of those are conditioned socially and that the understanding of them is conditioned socially, but I think it is all very messy and that the “chemical stuff” is important also and that process is very interesting as a person and as a theory.
Some substances, images, messages are just way easier to use as incentive modifiers than others. I don’t think that is scientism to be care about all the different types of experience. I haven’t been very effective in changing your perspective from one that I’m trying to refute your theory to one where I’m trying to push your theory in a comprehensive direction that incorporates as much of a person’s experience as possible. Again, you may be right that what I’m “really doing” is not what I think I’m doing, but from my perspective I have a really, really strong motivation for perspectives that are interdisciplinary. For me this isn’t scientism because I think science is very discipline bound. What I’m looking for may not be possible but I don’t think it is motivated by the types of motives you think because I’m not part of a particular disciplinary perspective despite some recurrent themes in my posts.
From the perspective of social power, I would say that I’m suffering from a false consciousness of wanting to watch the world rather than participate in it. That may be a form of control urge on my part or it may be that I’m just a slave to some one else’s power narrative.
Comment by Martin James — March 23, 2016 @ 9:18 am
I find it interesting that we are both skeptical of theology but apparently for different reasons. I think for you it is that theology operates to constrain authority in a way that is suspect, and for me it is more that theology interferes with the experience of the divine.
Comment by Martin James — March 23, 2016 @ 9:28 am
I tend to share your distrust of Marxism which always seems to have a dubious claim to objectivity, marginalizing what it can’t explain (or what might undermine its claims). I also tend to be deeply suspicious of sociology precisely because it often claims objectivity in processes where its presuppositions are intentionally obscured. While I’m a bit wary of Foucault’s reduction of everything to a vague and perhaps equivocal notion of power, I’m also much more wary of those who buy into that yet think they can transcend it.
At the end of the day though I think my dissatisfaction with all these moves are that they seem to be imposing arbitrary categories designed to privilege a certain kind of mastery. Science works largely because there are “natural kinds” out there that are determinate. The social sciences seem to have a much, much harder time latching onto such kinds whether they be things or structures. As such there often seems a move wherein a new structure is imposed as if it were objective when it’s really just a kind of new power relations that obscures it really is power at all.
Comment by Clark — March 23, 2016 @ 12:40 pm
“Science works largely because there are “natural kinds” out there that are determinate.”
Maybe. It seems like there are several different kinds in play. There are kinds of things, kinds of interactions, kinds of laws and kinds of theories. It is not clear what “works” means either in this context. In what sense does origin of life theory “work” or “not work”, for example. It doesn’t seem like the difficult in explaining the origin of cells, for example, is due to a lack of “natural kinds” that are determinate in principle. It seems cheating to take particular examples of science that work and then say that is the reason science works when there are many other ways science doesn’t work. I would tend to say that science works where we have discovered ways of observing and theorizing “natural kinds” rather than that there exist natural kinds for science and not for social science.
Comment by Martin James — March 23, 2016 @ 1:11 pm
What origin of life theory? Do you mean evolution? I ask as evolution is not a theory for the origin of life but a theory for how life changes to adapt to environments.
Whether there are natural kinds for sociology is a complex issue. I don’t feel too terribly confident debating that one. For a long time I thought there weren’t and was actually at times a tad skeptical of the field as a science at all. However I had an interesting discussion of the subject with a sociologist who argued there were stabilities that were natural kinds. Not knowing enough about the things he claimed I had to bow out. I’m still skeptical, but it may be that in at least parts there are natural structures (or at least a somewhat compelling argument that there are)
Comment by Clark — March 23, 2016 @ 1:49 pm
“Science works largely because there are “natural kinds” out there that are determinate.”
I don’t have much time, but I think Hume would have a field day with this one. “Natural kinds” are simply conceptual schemes in terms of which we feel very comfortable construing the natural world around us. To be sure, some conceptual schemes are clearly far more useful than others (in the same way that some flying machines work far better than others), but that doesn’t make any of them more “natural” than the others.
Comment by Jeff G — March 23, 2016 @ 2:01 pm
I meant origin of life rather than evolution.
Comment by Martin James — March 23, 2016 @ 4:46 pm
So far as I know there’s nothing like a tested theory for the origin of life. So it doesn’t work in the sense of providing testable claims.
Comment by Clark — March 23, 2016 @ 6:56 pm
Jeff I think the sophistication of natural kinds are more than Hume could deal with. If you’d prefer I can say they are structures that continue to persist despite continued testing and attempts at alternatives. As such they are selection by greater powers (reality itself)
Comment by Clark — March 23, 2016 @ 7:03 pm
“So far as I know there’s nothing like a tested theory for the origin of life. So it doesn’t work in the sense of providing testable claims.”
My point is that the reason that there isn’t a tested theory of the origin of life doesn’t appear to have anything to do with “natural kinds”. In other words, we understand the chemical composition of living things but we don’t understand what causes their formation. That is why I’m arguing that it isn’t the existence of natural kinds alone that determines whether science works.
I think the narrower point is true, that natural kinds are required for science to work but they aren’t sufficient for it to work.
Comment by Martin James — March 24, 2016 @ 9:19 am
I don’t think I’m saying natural kinds are sufficient just that they are necessary. The relationships between natural kinds is also a key part of science, such as in an future discoveries of how RNA might emerge.
Comment by Clark — March 25, 2016 @ 8:51 am
Sorry for the absence. Busy week last week.
“If you’d prefer I can say they are structures that continue to persist despite continued testing and attempts at alternatives.”
If all you’re saying is that the world pushes back against our desires and expectations in a seemingly systematic manner, I don’t think anybody would disagree too much. But this seems a pretty far stretch from “natural kinds” in any deep sense. I also strongly resist the idea that we have explored even a minute portion of the “alternatives.”
In Bourdieuian language, the natural world is what allows us to respond in any sense whatsoever to the invitations and threats that constitute any and all descriptive acts (including scientific ones). That said, however, all such threats and invitations are inevitably particular in nature. There is no such thing as a universal threat of invitations that all minds of all kinds must respond to – except, perhaps, in the most thin and abstract sense.
This bifurcation, however, into a “mechanical response to brute, disinterested nature” of traditional theory and a “constructive response to invitations and threats within our social world” of a reflexive/critical theory does hit upon a deep tension in my account that either of you (Clark or Martin) have adequately isolated:
On the one hand, I want to advocate a strong pluralism such that it is indeed possible and mostly consistent to adopt the perspective of traditional theory, it being one choice among several others. On the other hand, I find myself forced to actively deny traditional theory and expose its inconsistencies – by following the reflexive/critical theory – in order to open up the possibility for this pluralism. It thus seems that I’m trying to have it both ways…. and I’m not totally sure what my response to this problem is. Maybe my Bourdieu series will help me clear this up a bit.
Comment by Jeff G — March 28, 2016 @ 10:13 am
I think my argument against natural kinds is pretty straightforward:
p1 I reject any conception of “natural categories”.
p2 There is no experience, let alone description, that lies beyond our categories.
p3 A natural kind is that which lies beyond our perception and descriptions.
c Thus, any notion of natural kinds is, at best, irrelevant to our experience, descriptions and practice in general.
In other words, I don’t see what work “natural kinds” are supposed to perform in any sense. It just seems like metaphysical humbug.
Comment by Jeff G — March 28, 2016 @ 12:20 pm
“If all you’re saying is that the world pushes back against our desires and expectations in a seemingly systematic manner, I don’t think anybody would disagree too much. But this seems a pretty far stretch from “natural kinds” in any deep sense.”
How so? That seems inherently what I mean by natural kinds.
“…the natural world is what allows us to respond in any sense whatsoever to the invitations and threats that constitute any and all descriptive acts (including scientific ones). That said, however, all such threats and invitations are inevitably particular in nature.”
That seems to assume nominalism. i.e. that all such statements are particular and never general. Why should we think they are inevitably particular?
“….does hit upon a deep tension in my account that either of you…have adequately isolated:”
I think I’ve brought this up before. The opposition you set up between “mechanical” and “creative” seems itself problematic. If I have you right you want to talk about free/constrained in a manner that I’m not sure works. My sense is that this appears out of a kind of nominalism (only individuals exist and any patterns showing a common type are purely externally imposed by creative minds).
“On the one hand, I want to advocate a strong pluralism such that it is indeed possible and mostly consistent to adopt the perspective of traditional theory, it being one choice among several others.”
From my perspective the avenue you are taking is very similar to the debate about the “open text” and “closed text” we saw in semiotic debates in the 70’s and 80’s. That is if we have a pure open text (no external constraints) then anything goes which leads inexorably into extreme solipsism and relativism. However if we have a “closed text” that seems to lead to absolute narratives we have to discover and easily moves us to various foundationalist approaches.
However unless I’m very mistaken this has already been solved. Either by Peirce/Dewey in the early 20th century or again throughout the 20th century. You simply have selection by greater powers whether by a strife (polemos) between world of ideas and the earth of existence (Heidegger) or more outright selection by influence of an ambiguous Other (Derrida and others and perhaps even to a degree Foucalt).
The typical move is simply to note that the whole drive between open/closed tends to assume a clear agent. Throw that out and it’s just the evolution of the system with the agent just being one manifestation of that system. i.e. throw out the whole remnant of the Cartesian conception of self.
Comment by Clark — March 28, 2016 @ 2:20 pm
To add, to your final point (16). The positions you raise seem to depend upon a clear inside/outside of the agent. You say “our perception and descriptions,” for instance. My sense is your objection to “natural kinds” is because they aren’t ours.
Once you raise the question of the agent you seem to want everything interior to then I think a lot of your objections lose their strength.
Comment by Clark — March 28, 2016 @ 2:23 pm
“That seems inherently what I mean by natural kinds.”
But simply acknowledging that there is a world that exists independent of all interpretation is a far cry from the additional claim that it comes prepackaged into various “kinds” that also exist independent of all observation. I think everybody grants the first part. I strongly deny the second.
“Why should we think they are inevitably particular?”
Because, there is no such thing as a universal rewarder, punisher, inviter and threatener. All communicative acts are offered by particular people to a particular audience within a particular context. Indeed, it’s difficult to even imagine what a “universal” communicator, audience or act would even be since such things depend upon their distinction from the rest of the world.
Of course here we get a bit slippery, for there is a difference between universality and exclusivity. Lot’s of interpretive scheme might be universalizable while at the same time being mutually incompatible with each other. My rather Quinean approach is to grant that, given enough finagling, most of our conceptual schemes could be universalized…. but this alone, and for this very reason, does not make them true in any deep or meaningful sense. In other words we have an embarrassment of universal(izable) riches. The very fact that physics might be universalizable in scope carries exactly zero normative weight since this alone does not exclude any other description of the world.
I have little respect for any approach that sees the whole world in terms of “texts”. I feel little, if any guilt for ignoring such problems/theories.
You’re right that I do put a lot of weight on the internal external divide with regards to natural kinds. I guess I’m unclear what you think the relationship between categories and kinds is. I say that the latter just are a subset of the former which we project onto the world through a socially regulated process that is strongly constrained by human interests. Beyond that, I see no role for “natural kinds” whatsoever. Indeed, I see them as the gods of scientism – a means by which scientists act as priests and oracles to the rest of us.
Once, however, we reject the idea that “natural kind” has any relevance whatsoever to truth, then I see no interesting role for them to play socially or practically.
Comment by Jeff G — March 28, 2016 @ 3:07 pm
In other words, if we were going to say that natural kinds are the specific structures and functions which God intended the natural world to have (in other words, if we take God’s interpretive scheme as being authorial and thus authoritative) then that makes pretty good sense. Once we follow secularism by rejecting such appeals to God, however, the very idea of natural kinds becomes metaphysical mumbo jumbo.
Comment by Jeff G — March 28, 2016 @ 3:21 pm
Upon further reflection, I would be willing to grant the possibility that “natural kinds” might serve to organize and focus the behavior of practicing scientists is a way that might sometimes be useful. I mean this in the sense that evolutionary accounts of religion mean it – no more, no less: There are natural kinds, and if they are, they are totally impotent, BUT the language game surrounding natural kinds might still serve important purposes.
edit: Indeed, I think that evolutionary accounts of religion (especially that of David Wilson) are basically right all the way down. All metaphysical concepts and entities evolved and survive in the same manner as religious ones.
Comment by Jeff G — March 28, 2016 @ 6:17 pm
“But simply acknowledging that there is a world that exists independent of all interpretation is a far cry from the additional claim that it comes prepackaged into various “kinds” that also exist independent of all observation.”
Well one can certainly separate the two claims. However there are pretty big implications if there aren’t patterns to the world. (I’d add that I think “independent of all interpretation” again presupposes that “agent” notion that many would reject – especially the pragmatists)
“Because, there is no such thing as a universal rewarder, punisher, inviter and threatener. All communicative acts are offered by particular people to a particular audience within a particular context.”
But again, you’re presupposing there is nothing common to them. That all there is are the particulars. That’s fine. The nominalist position tends to be the dominant position. Especially since the rise of modernism (which ironically you seem most troubled by).
At a minimum you need a stronger argument than merely there are facets that are unique.
“My rather Quinean approach is to grant that, given enough finagling, most of our conceptual schemes could be universalized…. but this alone, and for this very reason, does not make them true in any deep or meaningful sense.”
I don’t follow the conclusion. First Quine, by accepting real sets and classes rejects a certain popular conception of nominalism. He does reject universals and so is nominalistic in that way but effectively classes do the same job IMO. Of course it’s not clear why we should follow Quine here. (And indeed I think it’s his analysis of mathematics which leads him to a realism due to being able to quantify over mathematical objects – but at that point why not take the logical next step?)
“The very fact that physics might be universalizable in scope carries exactly zero normative weight since this alone does not exclude any other description of the world.”
To say there might be some description that is unique is not to say much about what isn’t unique. Although I think there are arguments against such a position of unique description given the inherent requirements of communication to be shared. It’s worth asking whether an unique description can be a description at all.
“You’re right that I do put a lot of weight on the internal external divide with regards to natural kinds.”
Not just with regards to natural kinds. I think it ends up being the most problematic assumption in your view. It ends up affecting quite a few of your conclusions which is why I raise it again every now and then.
“Beyond that, I see no role for “natural kinds” whatsoever. Indeed, I see them as the gods of scientism – a means by which scientists act as priests and oracles to the rest of us.”
This almost sounds like you acknowledge how amazingly functional they are within the hard sciences and fear them precisely because of that. Because they may be misapplied with false claims to natural kinds. But of course if they are so functional in the hard sciences it’s worth asking why they are.
In other words it’s sounds like your argument is really with their counterfeits but are willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater to avoid the counterfeits. I confess that’s an odd argument from my perspective.
“In other words, if we were going to say that natural kinds are the specific structures and functions which God intended the natural world to have…”
I would never say that given what I take to be the metaphysical requirement with Mormonism of God and the universe be co-eternal. In such a case God can’t intend natural kinds in a way beyond what is naturally emergent out of the laws of the universe that he did not create.
“There are natural kinds, and if they are, they are totally impotent, BUT the language game surrounding natural kinds might still serve important purposes.”
I can’t see how they could be both impotent and useful simultaneously. Isn’t the metaphor of impotence to suggest that something doesn’t work?
Comment by Clark — March 29, 2016 @ 11:35 am
To simplify all the above, it just seems to me that if your foe is modernism the key characteristic of modernism is nominalism. I half wonder if most of your problems could be solved by rejecting nominalism and a certain modern conception of the self (and thereby inside/outside) that follows Descartes.
Comment by Clark — March 29, 2016 @ 11:36 am
Jeff,
Here is a fresh start at something that has been lurking in the background for me. Most of my comments have been about religion and truth. I’d like to switch to a different topic which is the organization of social groups.
It seems to me that because of the academic orientation of many of the influences you are describing the issue is framed in terms of competing elites contesting with each other for authority.
I’d like your comments on whether that perspective is somewhat dated and what we have now is more of an economic or anarchic process for attention where the goal is not so much authoritative control as just influence and mind share. Certainly the traditional elite structures are involved in this competition but there is competition from the bottom up also.
I don’t want to get into the issue of authority and legitimate authority other than to highlight that the scope of the issue is often not contested but merely relevance.
Even if one grants that top-down authority is morally correct, isn’t an open issue in terms of the reality of moral discourse and the bottom up and side to side nature of this conversation. It seems to me that the changing nature of social relationships puts traditional structures at a speed disadvantage which often leads them to need to spend authority capital more strongly in a way that creates social change even if the desire is to conserve a certain position.
An example would be the growth of PR and legal structures and personnel in communicating the positions of the church or the need to decentralize educational efforts in ways that don’t correspond to a particular stewardship under a top-down structure.
Yes, there are areas where this becomes a power struggle with dissident elements competing for moral authority but I find the everyday interactions across multiple relationships: social, political, economic, cultural, etc. to be much more in need of philosophical understanding than the power struggle at the top. You have a model of this interaction but it seems to narrow stewardship in a way that I find unrealistic to how people actually act. As you know, issues of scope are big for me. Any comments?
Comment by Martin James — March 29, 2016 @ 3:24 pm
“if there aren’t patterns to the world”
If all you’re saying is that there are regularities in the world that can be tracked, then I don’t object. The problem is, however, that almost anything CAN be construed as a pattern. What makes one pattern more “natural”, “true” or (to be really provocative) “real” than another? Indeed, what is it that separates a pattern from the non-pattern stuff? My position is that the answer to these questions is to be found exclusively within the observers and their practical/social interests. Modern physical science often suggests that mathematical tractability – in terms of which information is measured – is what separates pattern from non-pattern. If that is the definition that best suits their practical and social interests, that’s fine, but nature itself did not decide on any such definition.
“At a minimum you need a stronger argument than merely there are facets that are unique.”
I confess I lost the relevance here. A person is punished for a particular act. The same goes for speech acts. The idea of being punished, marginalized or stigmatized for anything universal just seems like a contradiction in terms to me.
“I don’t follow the conclusion.”
That’s a fair response, since I wasn’t particularly interested in Quine’s argument. I was merely using him for illustrative purposes. My point was that I see no reason why we couldn’t, at least in principle, universalize the scope of – to take a folksy example – what Dennett calls the design stance and intentional stance in the same way that physicalists do with the physical stance. Accepting that we could do this for all three stances (and I see no reason why we couldn’t), then we are left with little, if any reason to insist upon “reducing” any of these stances to another “more true” or “more real” stance or holding out for a logical consistency between any stance and the “more true” one. It is in this sense that I am an ontological relativist/pluralist: what exists depends upon which conceptual scheme and tracking devices that we bring to the world, and which scheme we bring is determined by our practical/social interests and incentives. Indeed, the degree to which we might want to reduce one scheme to another, take one to be more “real” than the others, or otherwise make different schemes “consistent” with each other is also determined by our practical/social interests in doing so. There is nothing natural about it, if by “natural” we mean outside of our practical/social interests.
“I think it ends up being the most problematic assumption in your view. It ends up affecting quite a few of your conclusions which is why I raise it again every now and then.”
I would be interested in hearing a bit of an elaboration. I’ve never said that the natural world plays no role at all, only that our conception of the role that it plays is inevitably colored by our practical/social interests and incentives (invitations and threats).
“This almost sounds like you acknowledge how amazingly functional they are within the hard sciences and fear them precisely because of that.”
Of course I am very suspicious of ways in which such metaphysical entities can be leveraged socially, since their social utility is the only utility that they can ever have. If scientists advocated an ironic stance to natural kinds by noting that they simply work well within their profession, I don’t think I would have any objection at all. But this is clearly not what they do.
“But of course if they are so functional in the hard sciences it’s worth asking why they are.”
This is exactly what I advocate, so long as this explanation is properly and entirely social in nature. And yet, physical scientists are the first ones to complain when the sociologists attempt to provide just such an account of the ways in which such metaphysical concepts organize and mobilize social support. Instead, they want to pretend that a non-social and “natural” answer is available so that they can keep up their facade of being entirely politically neutral, at least in principle.
“In such a case God can’t intend natural kinds”
I’m not so sure. Since trust just in an authoritative interpretation of some kind, and since authorship does not require creatio ex nihilo, I don’t see why Mormonism can’t be open to it on some level. If, however, by “natural kinds” you mean something more than an authoritative interpretation or creative authorship, then this is exactly why I reject the existence of natural kinds.
“I can’t see how they could be both impotent and useful simultaneously.”
The same way that D. S. Wilson believes that god is impotent (since He doesn’t exist) and yet god-talk can be very useful. The same goes for natural kinds along with any metaphysical entity, while we’re at it.
“the key characteristic of modernism is nominalism”
I see no reason to believe anything like this. But, in accordance with what I just said above, I would be very interested in cashing out the social consequences to nominalist-talk vs universalist-talk – these being clear examples of the metaphysical entities of which I am so suspicious. I see very little reason why nominalist-talk could ever be responsible for modernity in any meaningful sense. I would interested in hearing such an account, however.
Comment by Jeff G — March 29, 2016 @ 3:31 pm
Martin,
Your comment is very much related to Bourdieu’s account – which I hope to get too later on this week. That said, I’m not sure what you take to be the important difference between a struggle for authority and competition for influence and mind share. Aren’t these basically the same thing?
After Bourdieu, I will be discussing a lot of Nietzsche and then Weber, the latter of which has A LOT to say about the nature of authority. Both Bourdieu and Weber have a lot to say about how the “staff” of some authority figure inevitably dilute and eventually compete with the authority figure.
Hopefully, I’m be able to further focus your thoughts in the next post.
Comment by Jeff G — March 29, 2016 @ 3:36 pm
The strategies for influence and mind share of artists and consumer marketers are not the same as those of bureaucrats and academics.
Comment by Martin James — March 29, 2016 @ 3:57 pm
Okay, but aren’t you just saying that these different types of people seek and wield authority differently?
Again, Weber goes into a very fine grained analysis of authority and its different manifestations. The very fact that there are at least three (very informative, albeit overlapping) wikipedia entries on the subject are evidence on his influence:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripartite_classification_of_authority
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Types_of_Legitimate_Rule
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authority_(sociology)
Basically, he thought that authority was the probability that a person’s order would be obeyed without violent or physical coercion.
Bourdieu’s account elaborates upon this definition in a very useful way with his appeal to “symbolic capital” which basically positions itself above, in judgement of and thus able to grant or withhold legitimate status to economic, social and cultural capital, all of which are different kinds of mere influence. Symbolic capital says which kinds of influence are legitimate and which are not. It says that even if I am poor, a social outcast and unrefined in any cultured sense, I am still able to stand in judgement of such things. This, to me, perfectly describes Jesus and his 12 disciples.
More to your comment, Bourdieu is especially sensitive to the systematic relations and struggles for authority between the possessors of different kinds of influence and capital. His taxonomy essentially boils down to those who seek symbolic capital among the ruling class, the mass market, the “autonomous” disciplines (art for other artists, science to other scientists, etc.), and a bohemian counter-culture. (If anything, I probably fall into the last category.)
Anyways, future posts will definitely address the difference between authority and power, different kinds of authority, struggles over authority, etc.
Comment by Jeff G — March 29, 2016 @ 5:08 pm
“What makes one pattern more “natural”, “true” or (to be really provocative) “real” than another?”
Whether it persists through continued investigation. That is, whether it is actually selection by greater powers.
“My position is that the answer to these questions is to be found exclusively within the observers and their practical/social interests.”
Right, but my pragmatism doesn’t have a problem with that. It just doesn’t see this as leading to the conclusions you lead it to due to its adoption of an externalist epistemology and metaphysics.
To adopt the Peircean conception, objects act through signs to produce an interpretant. The final interpretant is what the ideal infinite community of investigators would agree upon.
“A person is punished for a particular act. The same goes for speech acts. The idea of being punished, marginalized or stigmatized for anything universal just seems like a contradiction in terms to me.”
They can’t be punished just for a particular act since acts have meaning only to the degree they are not particular. Rather their meaning us wrapped up with the ability to be repeated even if only potentially. This is especially true for speech acts where even Searle still buys into propositions. The very notion of speech acts is to tease out the generality in each act.
“I’ve never said that the natural world plays no role at all, only that our conception of the role that it plays is inevitably colored by our practical/social interests and incentives (invitations and threats).”
But you’ve said more than that if you adopt a thoroughgoing nominalism (as I think you do). There’s no doubt our judgements are colored by our situatedness. The question is how reality acts on us that escapes that situatedness.
“…then we are left with little, if any reason to insist upon “reducing” any of these stances to another “more true” or “more real” stance or holding out for a logical consistency between any stance and the “more true” one.”
Why?
Serious question. It seems to me that if continued inquiry leads us to reject our earlier position that is significant. To say that this is not “more true” tends to simply reject truth as a regulative concept at all. (I’m not sure it makes sense to say “more true” except as a short hand for a collection of claims having more of them be true)
It’s fine to say maybe with James that truth doesn’t matter beyond its psychological utility. In such a case we just don’t care about truth but rather the role of belief. However to make the stronger claim that there is no truth seems deeply problematic to me (if only because the claim itself claims to be true).
“If, however, by “natural kinds” you mean something more than an authoritative interpretation or creative authorship, then this is exactly why I reject the existence of natural kinds.”
Let us perhaps move from the objects of science to more general objects and simply say that there are structures there regardless of what we or any other finite group might think of them. If there are interactions between the object such that in a sign-like way they transform the sign into representing itself as an interpretant (however flawed) then given sufficient time we might say that some signs will lead to a stable interpretant.
You effectively are denying this.
“I would be very interested in cashing out the social consequences to nominalist-talk vs universalist-talk – these being clear examples of the metaphysical entities of which I am so suspicious. I see very little reason why nominalist-talk could ever be responsible for modernity in any meaningful sense. I would interested in hearing such an account, however.”
I prefer to say, following Peirce, generals instead of universals. To say these are metaphysical entities tends to presuppose a metaphysics I’m not quite sure I agree with. I just want to say they are structures independent of what any finite group would think of them given inquiry. I don’t think we need adopt Platonism to adopt that position. (Even if those in the medieval era arguing for realism were Platonists)
Comment by Clark — March 29, 2016 @ 7:46 pm
“Whether it persists through continued investigation.”
Okay, but this, again, is practice rather than principle that is doing the selection.
“its adoption of an externalist epistemology and metaphysics.”
I think I was a bit vague. I mean that such things are all determined by forces external to individual observers but fully internal to communities of observers. Your position, if I’m not mistaken, is to hold out for something that is external to the community while I insist that no such thing can ever have kind of normative content such that it could adjudicate such questions. (It’s probably no surprise that I’m pretty suspicious of all such talk of “signs” – it being yet another metaphysical concept that is dependent upon our interests. This is one of the main reasons why I will always side with James’ and Dewey’s pragmatism over Pierce’s pragmaticism.)
“The question is how reality acts on us that escapes that situatedness.”
And I say “who cares?” to that and the question of nominalism. I don’t see how such questions make any difference in practice.
“if continued inquiry leads us to reject our earlier position that is significant”
My point is that it can only ever do so in practice as a response to our practical interests, never in principle. In principle, we can carry on any inquiry if we are willing to make the proper adjustments.
Another way of making the point would be in terms of “bridge-law” definitions: I hate them. Oh sure, they might be nice every once in a while, in the same way that making windows compatible with macintosh might be nice. But to insist that they are good for everybody, let alone a binding norm upon everybody in our own community is utter hogwash. The intentional stance is related to and interacts with the physical stance on a piecemeal basis according to the practical interests of a person within a community, not through any transcendent rules of logic to which we all must supposed bow.
Once we throw out bridge laws, by what right do we say that the physical stance is more “real” or “fundamental” than the intentional stance? Sure, the former might be more useful, given the costs and incentives we face across a wider range of scenarios, but why should that matter?
“To say that this is not “more true” tends to simply reject truth as a regulative concept at all.”
This is right, but only so long as one is holding out for a notion of truth that is based in something external to the community. If truth is simply the morality of speech acts, then there is no need for either stance to be more “fundamental” than the other since the only thing that matters is the use of which stance is morally required within the community for the context in question.
“In such a case we just don’t care about truth but rather the role of belief.”
My account is based in but goes beyond that of James. Truth is not based in the role of belief, but in the role of communication. Truth is a category of communication, a belief which is socially shared. Private beliefs which merely and privately regulate action are only good or bad, not true or false. Since, by definition, nobody has ever seen anybody else’s unshared belief, there is, therefore, no publicly available counter-example to this claim.
“If there are interactions between the object such that in a sign-like way they transform the sign into representing itself as an interpretant (however flawed) then given sufficient time we might say that some signs will lead to a stable interpretant.”
Again, not going in for the whole “sign” business. On my account, different organisms track different regularities according to their practical interests, the most fundamental of which being their own replication. Conceptual schemes and the metaphysics which they entails are simply a subset of this process. Since there is no such thing as a universal replicator, there are no such things as universal interests, which means that all organisms will track a small subset of the possible regularities out there. In this way, no regularity is more fundamental or deep than any other.
“I just want to say they are structures independent of what any finite group would think of them given inquiry.”
I you can tell from above, I agree. But, so what? None of this places me under a normative responsibility to some regularities above others. Some regularities might be more in my interest to pay the costs of tracking them than others, but just being in my interest doesn’t equal truth or binding normativity.
In summary, James’ notion of useful regularities are the first step to my account. Some regularities are more worth tracking than others, but we are under no obligation to track some rather than others. The second step is intersubjective signaling within a community which inevitably brings a certain amount of enforcement with it an enforcement which is itself based in an evolutionarily stable equilibrium. A subset of the enforcement surrounding signaling (aka communication) within this community is what we call “truth”. Truth is about social interactions, not the nature of hte non-social world. Often times, the social regulation and enforcement of signals is informed by the regularities in the non-social world, but often not. The non-social, natural world is a very contingent aspect of truth, it being of secondary importance, at best.
Comment by Jeff G — March 29, 2016 @ 9:21 pm
Sociological concern number two. The adoption of a corporate form of organization undermines the distinction between secular and sacred in a way that erodes sacred authority. Furthermore, the more you are right that ancient authority operated differently from modern notions, then the more the similarity of a church to a modern business corporate form, the more its sacred nature will be undermined.
Comment by Martin James — March 30, 2016 @ 4:48 pm
I do worry about that. I don’t think it’s all that cut and dry, and I see no reason why God can’t use a modern bureaucracy to His own ends, but I do worry.
Comment by Jeff G — March 30, 2016 @ 5:32 pm
“Your position, if I’m not mistaken, is to hold out for something that is external to the community while I insist that no such thing can ever have kind of normative content such that it could adjudicate such questions.”
No my position is that the whole inside/outside divide breaks down and should be discarded. Everything is always already both internal and external. That is to draw a divide between social community and nature is to create the problem one is then trying to overcome. (This is Dewey as well)
“And I say “who cares?” to that and the question of nominalism. I don’t see how such questions make any difference in practice.”
I think it makes a huge difference whether structures are socially created or are there independent of the group to be discovered. If there are only particular things then that tends to suggest such structures are much more social creations and tends to incentivize a whole slew of approaches to such problems.
Now a lot of this is an inclination rather than a necessity since physics and chemistry still largely developed within a nominalistic culture but this then led to some problems figuring out how to deal with “objective” structures philosophically. I think Hume is the one who really starts grappling with the problems of this nominalism. That sort of skepticism that comes with Hume really leads directly to the problems you are raising though.
I’m not saying you have to become a scholastic realist. I’m just saying that if you do then most of the critiques you make fall apart.
Comment by Clark — March 30, 2016 @ 6:01 pm
“This is right, but only so long as one is holding out for a notion of truth that is based in something external to the community.”
Not at all. Peirce’s conception of truth is thoroughly tied to community. Just not a finite particular community. That is it is a regulative notion of what would be the case if inquiry were continued indefinitely. It tells what we mean by truth.
The problem in philosophy, and this is where I think your instincts are correct, is in wanting truth to be something present, attainable now while knowing in an absolute way we have the truth. That sort of truth found especially in various foundationalist schemes seems deeply problematic. But once you embrace fallibilism I see no problem with the notion of truth that is something beyond what my community says it is.
Comment by Clark — March 30, 2016 @ 6:05 pm
“No my position is that the whole inside/outside divide breaks down and should be discarded. Everything is always already both internal and external. ”
Well, I largely agree in one sense, but not another. I’m saying that you want to hold to some standard that is outside of any person’s actual community in which an audience is to be found. My holding out for particulars is that only particulars have the causal powers necessary to provide the enforcement that defines any norm. A “universal community” is causally inert and therefore irrelevant except, perhaps, for the role in plays within a non-universal language game.
“but this then led to some problems figuring out how to deal with “objective” structures philosophically.”
And this is exactly where I say “who cares?” Philosophers can keep playing their cute little games, but I see nothing that hangs on the outcome of this game other than, of course, political maneuvering. The constructionists want a more democratic approach while the objectivist want a more closed community. I can see merits to both sides of this, but at least the constructionists acknowledge what the debate is really about, while the objectivists try to mystify the practical/political issue at hand.
“Peirce’s conception of truth is thoroughly tied to community. Just not a finite particular community.”
Which is exactly the point at which he goes off the metaphysical deep end. Fallibilism finds almost all of its motivation from universalist and immutibilist assumptions which I completely reject.
Comment by Jeff G — March 31, 2016 @ 11:37 am
I can’t help but notice a strong parallel between my objections to Pierce and Tooby and Cosmides’ objections to the Standard Social Science Model.
Rather than seeing morality or freedom as targets which different communities and person converge upon more than others – depending upon how well they are able to overcome “obstacles”, I see them as varied constructions which historically diverge from our shared, amoral origin. Like cognition, morality is modular, particular and adapted to circumstance, and there are no more universal and necessary standards to inquiry than there is a universal adaptation module in the brain. Yes, we might be able to construct a world-wide, moral integration of sorts, but 1) this is a decision which must be made, rather than a given ideal which we might “discover” and 2) it’s not clear what the costs and benefits of such a world-wide, universal moral community would actually be.
Either way, until that actually happens, any talk of a universal community or morality or inquiry is either utopian or imperialism.
Comment by Jeff G — March 31, 2016 @ 12:13 pm
“Either way, until that actually happens, any talk of a universal community or morality or inquiry is either utopian or imperialism.”
How much does scale really matter here? Couldn’t we say the same thing at the family, group or city level?
Comment by Martin James — March 31, 2016 @ 12:50 pm
I would use feminism as an example. Has here ever been a community of any size that agreed on the proper role of the sexes?
Comment by Martin James — March 31, 2016 @ 12:53 pm
I think what matters most is social viscosity, a concept which totally evaporates if we hold out for universality. (Things get even worse once we note the gradual, non-essential nature of Darwinian evolution.) It’s not just a question of one vote for every person, however we define the boundaries. I am far more likely to receive pushback from my wife or my supervisor for a comment that offends one of them than I am from a white, heterosexual male in Norway. Thus, the opinion and enforcement provided by the latter is far less relevant than that of the former, even though I might have more in common with the latter. For a very similar reason the evaluations of one’s neighbors is FAR more relevant within a small town than in a big city.
It is for this reason that when people talk about feminism as a community, this is typically metaphorical in nature. I think most feminists would agree with this given how strongly they proclaim their own diversity. FMH is clearly a community. There is a specific community, even if the bourdaries are no totally clear. The same cannot be said for feminism in general – even if these differing feminists might have a lot in common.
Comment by Jeff G — March 31, 2016 @ 1:12 pm
“I’m saying that you want to hold to some standard that is outside of any person’s actual community in which an audience is to be found.”
To even talk about “standards” is to talk about something human created. That’s not in question. The question is more what grounds the standards epistemologically or are they largely ungrounded?
“My holding out for particulars is that only particulars have the causal powers necessary to provide the enforcement that defines any norm.”
Yeah, that’s not something I agree with. The laws of physics, whatever they ultimately are, seem to be something broader than any particular set of particles you look at. While I’m skeptical of formal ethics, who knows but what the natural law theorists are right and it turns out there is natural law. The only way to tell is to inquire.
I think when we limit ourselves to particulars it really shapes the nature of the debate in a distortive way.
Comment by Clark — March 31, 2016 @ 5:59 pm
“I think when we limit ourselves to particulars it really shapes the nature of the debate in a distortive way.”
I would say the same about bringing universals into the discussion.
“The question is more what grounds the standards epistemologically or are they largely ungrounded?”
The only grounding is a decentralized process in which individuals pursue their interests within a context of potential competition/cooperation.
Comment by Jeff G — March 31, 2016 @ 6:57 pm
Jeff, I think what’s funny is that a lot of the things you rail at modernism for are to my mind highly incentivized precisely because of the wholesale move towards nominalism combined with what I see as the internalist approach to nearly everything that followed Descartes.
Comment by Clark — April 1, 2016 @ 8:38 am
I would be interested in hearing more about that.
Comment by Jeff G — April 1, 2016 @ 8:41 am
I think I pointed out a few. But the very notion of privileging a certain authority of representations presupposes the privilege of representation above all else which only makes sense in a Cartesian scheme. To allow more pluralism is most easily done by simply breaking with the type of epistemology ushered in by Descartes that continued to Hume (with all his skepticism of the implications) and then attempted to be solved by Kant, Hegel, Husserl, the positivists and others.
Once you move to a different kind of scheme, whether it be the involvement with equipment and aims of Heidegger, the pragmatism of Dewey or Peirce (or Putnam), or even power relations of Foucault or others you fundamentally are shifting the discussion away from representations and knowledge into engagements of multiple entities.
Comment by Clark — April 1, 2016 @ 12:45 pm
Okay, but I still don’t see how any of those issues are practically relevant to anybody outside of the all-too-exclusive philosophical circles. If that is all modernity is, then it hardly seems worth mentioning at all.
Comment by Jeff G — April 1, 2016 @ 4:28 pm
Take my word .
Comment by more — June 23, 2016 @ 5:28 pm