Episode 281: Choose Your Fighter

[00:00:00] Very bad wizards is a podcast with a philosopher, my dad and psychologist, David Pizarro, having

[00:00:06] an informal discussion about issues in science and ethics. Please note that the discussion

[00:00:10] contains bad words that I'm out of allow to say and knowing my dad some very inappropriate jokes.

[00:00:17] We in comparison to that enormous articulation we only sound and look like badly pronounced

[00:00:26] and half-finished sentences out of a stupid suburban novel.

[00:00:56] Good man.

[00:01:00] They think he's lost and with no more brains than you have.

[00:01:04] They do our attention!

[00:01:06] Can I stand?

[00:01:10] Anybody can have a brain?

[00:01:14] You're a very bad man.

[00:01:16] That's a very good man, just a very bad wizard.

[00:01:21] Welcome to Very Bad Wizards. I'm Tamler Sommers from the University of Houston.

[00:01:25] Dave, my long national nightmare is finally over.

[00:01:29] My house once again has a dog in it.

[00:01:33] Holy shit!

[00:01:35] Yeah, I know.

[00:01:36] I didn't tell you yet.

[00:01:37] What the fuck?

[00:01:38] Yeah, this is like, I'm literally hearing this the first time.

[00:01:41] I interrupted your question though.

[00:01:42] Okay, what?

[00:01:42] Can you guess what her name is?

[00:01:44] That was the question.

[00:01:48] Anne Colter.

[00:01:49] I don't know.

[00:01:51] Really?

[00:01:52] That's...

[00:01:52] I don't know.

[00:01:53] It was just on my mind.

[00:01:54] What is this?

[00:01:55] She's gone for no.

[00:01:56] She's got nothing on her.

[00:01:57] She's got nothing on her.

[00:01:58] It was not in the eye.

[00:01:59] It was not in the eye.

[00:01:59] How about a little Kim?

[00:02:00] A little Kim.

[00:02:01] It's a little Kim.

[00:02:03] No, it's uh...

[00:02:05] It's Trixie.

[00:02:06] Oh, no way!

[00:02:07] Yeah.

[00:02:08] That's awesome.

[00:02:11] For our ambulators listeners,

[00:02:13] definitely played a role in it.

[00:02:15] So yeah, I haven't even said because I hadn't been ready

[00:02:20] to speak about it publicly but Charlie died a couple months ago.

[00:02:24] Soon after Omar did.

[00:02:25] And it was just like...

[00:02:26] I had already talked about Omar.

[00:02:28] I got an 11-nice, you know?

[00:02:30] Well wishes and I couldn't just do that all over again for Charlie.

[00:02:33] And it was honestly just horrible.

[00:02:35] Like to have him to go from a...

[00:02:36] Like I hadn't lived in a house without a dog in 25 years,

[00:02:40] 26 years or something like that.

[00:02:42] And then all of a sudden it's just gone empty.

[00:02:44] But no more.

[00:02:45] We went to the SPCA.

[00:02:46] I wasn't even the one that kind of drove it.

[00:02:49] Eliza was home for the weekend

[00:02:51] and just like her and Jen just said,

[00:02:55] let's go to the SPLESS just do this.

[00:02:57] You know? She's here.

[00:02:58] She'll have some kind of say in it

[00:02:59] and we just came back with Trixie.

[00:03:01] I was like, are we sure?

[00:03:02] We're ready.

[00:03:03] Like I mean...

[00:03:04] Oh!

[00:03:05] Yeah.

[00:03:06] That makes me so happy.

[00:03:07] That's the best news I've gotten all week.

[00:03:09] That's awesome man.

[00:03:10] I'm happy for you.

[00:03:11] So what does she look like?

[00:03:13] How old is she?

[00:03:13] Like what?

[00:03:14] She's like three and a half months.

[00:03:16] She's...

[00:03:17] They say like a shepherd mix.

[00:03:19] But she looks like a total mutt.

[00:03:21] Like a little bit of everything.

[00:03:25] A stew.

[00:03:26] But she's black.

[00:03:28] She's got big ears.

[00:03:30] I think she's going to be about 50 pounds.

[00:03:32] Hopefully I'm a little worried she's too small.

[00:03:34] But she's young and she's...

[00:03:37] She's fine.

[00:03:37] She had a little potty training issues

[00:03:39] that we're working out this week.

[00:03:40] We've just had her for a few days.

[00:03:42] But...

[00:03:42] I remember when I had my dog at first

[00:03:46] and I was having potty training issues.

[00:03:48] I remember you weren't very patient with me.

[00:03:49] You told me just keep them in the cage.

[00:03:52] Like, I don't know what's wrong.

[00:03:53] Like why?

[00:03:54] Why?

[00:03:55] So that's what I'm going to tell you.

[00:03:57] Yeah.

[00:03:57] Well she...

[00:03:58] Like one of our issues is that she just shits up.

[00:04:00] Oh, great.

[00:04:04] Tricks eight!

[00:04:05] Tricks eight!

[00:04:06] We gotta get ready to start listening to each other.

[00:04:09] She's a total sweet car man.

[00:04:11] Don't beat her.

[00:04:11] Hey, hey, don't.

[00:04:13] That's never a problem.

[00:04:14] It's always the other end of the spectrum.

[00:04:17] The worry with me and then dog.

[00:04:20] At least it's not gay now, you know?

[00:04:22] That's right.

[00:04:23] Yeah, you're normal.

[00:04:28] But I did feel a little bit like

[00:04:30] but are we being disloyal to Charlie and Omar?

[00:04:32] You know, this is Charlie of Shut the Fuck Up Charlie.

[00:04:35] But you got just got to move on.

[00:04:37] And it's just too depressing to come home

[00:04:39] and there's nobody in the house.

[00:04:41] You know, I like to picture Charlie and Omar

[00:04:44] like Darth Vader and Yoda

[00:04:46] when they were ghosts.

[00:04:48] Yeah, probably.

[00:04:52] All right, that's good.

[00:04:55] I was gonna use the technical term force ghosts

[00:04:58] but I didn't think you would get it.

[00:04:59] Yeah, that's...

[00:05:00] I'm glad you...

[00:05:02] Over explained or for me just explained.

[00:05:05] All right, what do we have on tap today

[00:05:07] enough of my life?

[00:05:10] In the second segment,

[00:05:11] we'll be digging into the differences,

[00:05:13] the often hostile differences between analytic

[00:05:16] and continental philosophy via a really good 2003 paper

[00:05:23] by Neil Levy, a veteran of the early 2000s

[00:05:28] free will and moral responsibility blogosphere.

[00:05:30] But first, the University of Austin.

[00:05:34] There's breaking news

[00:05:36] on the University of Austin, Texas.

[00:05:39] We had some fun talking about them back when

[00:05:42] Barry Weiss put out,

[00:05:44] was like three years ago or something.

[00:05:46] Like a kind of...

[00:05:47] Yeah, it was only two years ago.

[00:05:48] I was looking this up.

[00:05:48] It was like four years ago.

[00:05:50] Was it 2021?

[00:05:51] Yeah, yeah, November 2021.

[00:05:54] She put out this article on her substack

[00:05:57] introducing the University of Austin,

[00:06:00] the writer of that was Panneau Canelos

[00:06:03] who quit his job at, I don't know,

[00:06:05] some Catholic university in...

[00:06:07] St. John's.

[00:06:08] In the Napolis, yeah, St. John's.

[00:06:10] And it was like anti-woke university.

[00:06:14] We are going to have the conversations

[00:06:16] that don't happen in the woke academia right now.

[00:06:20] And they had like this coming up,

[00:06:22] and then when you go to their website

[00:06:24] it was like all of these people, right?

[00:06:25] It was like Steve Pinker, Leon Cass,

[00:06:28] John Height, Glenn Lowry, Tyler Cowan

[00:06:31] and it was like, whoa.

[00:06:32] Yeah, well...

[00:06:33] Maybe this is not just a grift, maybe this is...

[00:06:37] Right. But they all, almost immediately,

[00:06:41] just withdrew their association, whatever association they have.

[00:06:45] You know, and some of them...

[00:06:46] They baked back into that bush like cumbersome,

[00:06:48] and all of a sudden they were just...

[00:06:49] Disappear.

[00:06:50] It's removed from the website.

[00:06:51] Yeah, and I think it's because Panneau,

[00:06:54] whatever painted up this picture

[00:06:56] of modern universities as some kind of Stalinist

[00:07:00] or Maoist regime that runs those places.

[00:07:05] And it was so unreflective

[00:07:08] of the modern universities,

[00:07:10] like how it actually runs right now

[00:07:12] that even all those people who have a lot of sympathy

[00:07:15] with the general anti-social justice warriors

[00:07:20] and to use the parlance of that era,

[00:07:22] but they just couldn't support it.

[00:07:24] They had to get out because they know

[00:07:26] they actually do teach at these universities.

[00:07:29] And so they know.

[00:07:30] So anyway...

[00:07:31] One of the things we had fun

[00:07:34] like ridiculing them about was their idea

[00:07:37] of a summer school of forbidden courses, right?

[00:07:41] Well, especially because they announced immediately

[00:07:44] that they had plans to become a full-fledged university

[00:07:47] within like two years or whatever.

[00:07:48] You know, they were going to rapidly develop a curriculum

[00:07:51] and it just seemed ridiculous

[00:07:53] that they could get that up and running

[00:07:55] and that they announced these like...

[00:07:57] At first, it was like online for Bidden Courses

[00:08:00] two week sessions.

[00:08:02] And they had no address.

[00:08:03] It was kind of the peak of that time

[00:08:07] where a lot of the, you know,

[00:08:09] like actual big-time, centrist, anti-woke intellectuals

[00:08:13] like Pinker or Hyte,

[00:08:14] or you know, like this was something they would get behind

[00:08:17] and then they...

[00:08:18] I don't know why.

[00:08:20] It just landed with such a thought.

[00:08:22] Yeah, we didn't hear anything about it

[00:08:24] for like a long time.

[00:08:26] Not a peep for like two and a half years,

[00:08:29] blessed years.

[00:08:30] To be fair, not that we were checking regularly, I guess.

[00:08:32] I guess.

[00:08:33] Yeah, like I don't know where you would check.

[00:08:35] I feel like we read the things

[00:08:36] where they would be announced.

[00:08:38] Or anyway, we now...

[00:08:41] That has changed via an article

[00:08:45] that seems like it would be written only

[00:08:48] so we could talk about it.

[00:08:50] It's like an embedded reporter

[00:08:52] telling us about their experience

[00:08:55] in the scandalous summer series

[00:08:58] of hidden courses.

[00:08:59] Gone's Ojournalism at its finest.

[00:09:02] Absolutely.

[00:09:03] Yeah, so I was excited.

[00:09:04] We're going to get some fodder on update

[00:09:06] about what's been going on.

[00:09:08] This guy actually signed up for one of the...

[00:09:10] For hidden courses.

[00:09:11] He's going to tell us all about

[00:09:13] what it's like from the inside.

[00:09:15] It looks like they got some sort

[00:09:16] of Texas accreditation, you know?

[00:09:17] So that's an exciting update.

[00:09:19] Yeah, it's very light on those kinds of details

[00:09:22] which I would love to have known.

[00:09:24] But this is by no,

[00:09:26] no a Rawlings as the author's name

[00:09:28] and it's the journal New Inquiry

[00:09:30] which I'm not familiar with.

[00:09:32] Yeah, and you know one of us put it in the slack

[00:09:34] I honestly don't remember

[00:09:35] we both just probably read the opening paragraph

[00:09:38] and thought oh this is too easy

[00:09:41] but it's...

[00:09:42] This was a huge disappointment for us

[00:09:44] and we're going to make this

[00:09:46] in part about us

[00:09:48] and like our conflict

[00:09:50] but like

[00:09:51] imagine my surprise that this turns out

[00:09:54] to be a really hard thing

[00:09:57] to enjoy talking about

[00:10:00] because we have these two conflicting reactions

[00:10:03] two things going on internally

[00:10:06] that it's very hard to know what to do with it, you know?

[00:10:08] Like on the one hand

[00:10:10] who could be more insufferable

[00:10:12] and just awesome to make fun of

[00:10:15] than like the University of Austin

[00:10:17] and the poor suckers

[00:10:18] who like signed up for their forbidden courses

[00:10:21] summer camp.

[00:10:22] But on the other hand

[00:10:23] he's trying to do like a satire hatchet job

[00:10:29] and it's brutal

[00:10:30] it's like I feel like it's the opposite of how you should approach

[00:10:34] doing a piece like this.

[00:10:36] It was like a twist

[00:10:38] an emnight shy amolent twist for me

[00:10:40] by the end

[00:10:42] I was slightly more

[00:10:44] I wouldn't say in favor

[00:10:45] but the University of Austin

[00:10:48] exactly I was like buying their swag

[00:10:50] you know

[00:10:51] having a little flag

[00:10:53] you're writing like a cover letter

[00:10:54] to be one of their summer guest speakers

[00:10:57] I mean I was a little offended

[00:10:59] and they didn't ask me to be on the advisory board

[00:11:01] but whatever

[00:11:02] yeah

[00:11:02] I don't think they like anti-semites

[00:11:04] though that's the one you can't be

[00:11:06] that's true

[00:11:07] that's true

[00:11:08] you can be like anti-party

[00:11:10] pretty much anyone

[00:11:11] it's so hard

[00:11:12] hard to hear from him

[00:11:13] it's exactly

[00:11:15] so the first few lines are

[00:11:18] the University of Austin is not in Austin

[00:11:21] not yet

[00:11:22] it's 200 miles northeast in Dallas

[00:11:25] on an office complex owned by Mr. Harlan Crow

[00:11:29] of Clarence Thomas I give you gifts

[00:11:31] they're illegal

[00:11:32] like

[00:11:33] in hundreds of thousands of dollars

[00:11:35] whatever I read that name I feel like we should

[00:11:37] we should say Holland Crow

[00:11:39] like Holland Crow

[00:11:40] yeah

[00:11:41] right

[00:11:42] he does sound like

[00:11:44] like a noir villain

[00:11:45] who owns all the orange

[00:11:47] like groves or whatever

[00:11:49] but with with with foghorn like horn

[00:11:54] so it's kind of funny that it's

[00:11:55] we don't get any sense of when or even if they plan on

[00:11:59] actually locating in Austin do we

[00:12:02] yeah I don't think so

[00:12:04] I didn't get a sense

[00:12:05] yeah you know I didn't get did they say how much it costs

[00:12:07] to take these courses

[00:12:08] no

[00:12:09] but apparently they put out a call

[00:12:11] for students

[00:12:12] and to apply for their summer

[00:12:15] forbidden courses camp

[00:12:17] and he applied and got it

[00:12:20] cream of the crop cream of the crop as Peter Bogosian says

[00:12:23] so Peter Bogosian friend

[00:12:26] of a friend of the podcast

[00:12:28] that we had James Lindsay his co-author

[00:12:31] for that conceptual penis hoax on way back

[00:12:36] along with Helen Placros the the so-called squared

[00:12:39] yeah yeah

[00:12:41] yes go

[00:12:42] what was it the conceptual penis and something

[00:12:45] something like that yeah yeah in a paper published journal

[00:12:49] that was the that was the very like those were the days you know

[00:12:53] he quit his job at Portland state or wherever he was

[00:12:59] and I think like he was an instructional professor

[00:13:03] and he's now he's a central figure at the university of Austin

[00:13:07] and our author sat next to him on the bus

[00:13:10] to get to the complex and you know like it starts out

[00:13:15] it's a little annoying but they're you know you feel like oh my god this is

[00:13:18] gonna be good you know right like he starts talking to him about

[00:13:22] how you need to exercise as an intellectual

[00:13:24] and then it gets to you got to get into jujitsu

[00:13:29] Peter did jujitsu he says he could murder everybody on this bus and nobody could

[00:13:34] stop me it's a super power

[00:13:37] yeah which just do people talk that way

[00:13:42] is it literally say I could murder every single person on this bus

[00:13:46] it's like 50 50 for me whether like anything that is reported actually

[00:13:50] happened like some of it sounds right like I'm totally by that he does jujitsu

[00:13:55] like that is exactly what those kinds of people do

[00:13:58] but um you know right so yes I was on board at this point

[00:14:03] I was like yeah hot Peter percussion yeah maybe a little wary but on board

[00:14:07] yeah yeah so the author is taking of the for-for-bidden courses

[00:14:11] Katie Roy Fee's sexual politics course we can talk about some of the other

[00:14:15] courses that are on offer but a big chunk of the next

[00:14:21] section is on the opening dinner and the lectures

[00:14:25] and here's where I think both of us jump ship from this article and realized

[00:14:31] this is going to be tough to figure out what to do with

[00:14:35] do you have the very paragraph that you have it on yeah it's funny because we

[00:14:40] tried to record uh earlier on this and had to kind of

[00:14:44] abort we had to pull the maybe maybe we were gonna have to again but um

[00:14:49] no no we're we're gonna tackle this we're gonna get through it

[00:14:54] I hope the listeners can understand just the forces that are

[00:14:59] opposing each other in our breasts but an intra-psychic

[00:15:04] attention and yeah uh collision so here's where we just decided oh god

[00:15:12] like this guy is kind of insufferable too um we were served some kind of

[00:15:16] marinated chicken and left to mingle us the well-groomed top of the top

[00:15:22] us the forbidden just just don't do that just okay we'll talk about why

[00:15:29] this capital F capital F for the capital F for a bit and

[00:15:33] we numbered 50 or so we came from places like Harvard and Stanford and

[00:15:37] Chicago and MIT and UPEN there was James who studied computer science

[00:15:42] there was Cameron who also studied computer science

[00:15:45] David and Peter studied computer science while Luke and Albert studied

[00:15:49] computer science as for Mike and Jason the former study computer science

[00:15:53] whereas the latter studied computer science

[00:15:55] Ethan was not unlike Max in that both studied computer science

[00:16:00] some people studied business too okay I even dislike you a little bit

[00:16:06] just because you read it

[00:16:08] I want to buy the end like part of this is also just an open call to our listeners

[00:16:15] to do this piece the right way because the right way to do it isn't to try to

[00:16:20] you know indulge your satirical whimsie your sense of yourself is like

[00:16:25] HL Mankton Mankin or Ogden Nash or something like that

[00:16:29] no just report what's going on you have uh the university of

[00:16:35] this is the easiest thing to make fun of but you have to not put yourself into it

[00:16:40] you have to let them do it and this is all about

[00:16:42] this guy being clever and snide and smug to the point where

[00:16:48] I feel like not to like I want to defend the university of Austin people but

[00:16:54] I don't know if I had to describe like everything you're saying right

[00:16:59] is right about uh what he shouldn't be doing

[00:17:02] it seems to me that just subtlety just a little bit of subtlety it is

[00:17:07] yeah I was putting a hat on a hat on a hat and we're all

[00:17:11] yeah that's so then he talks about the student demographics

[00:17:14] and not surprisingly 80% of them are white 70% over our men i'm actually surprised

[00:17:20] there were so many women uh I know

[00:17:22] right yeah like what what what's going on with you if you're going to this in your

[00:17:27] woman uh there was no black people there zero um again not surprising

[00:17:34] there's a total of 50 people then we get like the opening kind of lectures

[00:17:40] the welcome uh to the the inaugural class of the university of Austin

[00:17:46] forbidden courses summer series and pano pollo or whoever uh

[00:17:53] you're so anti-greek you know don't let's agree

[00:17:56] I've never liked the Greeks the author writes that he says uh

[00:18:02] he told us we weren't starting a university we were a university

[00:18:07] in all but the the literal sense of actually being a university

[00:18:14] this is what a university looks like people coming together for conversations much

[00:18:18] like the ones we've been having over our complimentary chicken dinners

[00:18:22] dialogue he said from the Greek logos

[00:18:27] oh two lat two rational beings again this is like these two things like which can be more annoying

[00:18:34] two rational beings engaged in rational discourse he smiled we smiled

[00:18:39] and with a little further ado he introduced Peter

[00:18:42] whom the other students had not had the good fortune of meeting again don't fucking say that

[00:18:47] we get it if a guy is talking to you about jujitsu on the bus like obviously uh it's not good

[00:18:55] fortune to meet them you don't need to say that that's the problem with this piece um

[00:19:01] and and pano says the peter was kicking butt in the righteous name of freedom

[00:19:07] okay here and then okay and then here comes my second least favorite yes um

[00:19:11] um uh section yeah read this so he's describing peter because he's incoming

[00:19:16] onto stage he says peter springs to the center of the room the air pressure changes

[00:19:21] a buzz a hum a current about us he brims with a frenzied energy something is happening

[00:19:27] he's gonna give us a taste of what's to come he says this is the kind of intellectual activity

[00:19:31] we're going to experience at university of Austin we're going to grapple with big issues

[00:19:35] we're gonna be daring fearless undaunted we're going he says to do something called

[00:19:40] street epistemology now i keep going yeah peter bighazian talking about street epistemology should

[00:19:50] be the funniest thing you've ever read in your whole life this should have been a 500 word essay

[00:19:56] about peter bighazians street epistemology that's no or just a video of peter bighazian doing

[00:20:03] presented without comment yeah i we know there's no comment necessary for this stuff that's my point

[00:20:09] you know and i so yeah by the end of this i'm like is peter bighazian really that bad

[00:20:15] which again is a thought that i don't think i should be having but i'm like is that so fair

[00:20:19] i feel like you could describe you could say shit like that about my lecturing style like in a

[00:20:24] in a frantic uh spastic uh what man i was gonna say that because we got to a point where i think

[00:20:30] you're really right there so he says continuing what is street epistemology he'll demonstrate

[00:20:36] it's one of two things he does the other being jujitsu you know i'm sure he was very proud of that

[00:20:42] like little callback i don't have a life he says i talk to strangers and i wrestle strangers

[00:20:48] it's one of i'm sorry i'm laughing so hard at your proud of his little callback because it's

[00:20:53] yet i just picture picture to him and on this laptop looking up yeah into the left and he's like yeah

[00:21:02] exactly oh god they're gonna love this i'm gonna get so much pussy from this like

[00:21:11] first byline i don't have a life he says i talk to strangers and i wrestle strangers like i want to

[00:21:19] believe he really said that you know but yeah but we have to like and if he did uh you know it's

[00:21:25] funny because earlier he said that he had children i know seriously seriously it's serious divorce

[00:21:34] dad energy i think that this is why he's doing yes and apologies to peter bighosi and kids if

[00:21:41] you're listening and to divorce dad it's a divorce dad but before we do street epistemology peter needs

[00:21:48] to think of some questions he turns his back to the audience hunches slightly and strides stroking

[00:21:54] his chin he is rodans thinker set in manic motion he has a relentless legician in his study at midnight

[00:22:02] he has a frantically philosophical gremlin bam he wheels around and stalks forward and slings his

[00:22:08] index finger out towards the student demands of him whether climate change is real and how certain

[00:22:14] and why bob he turns to another student and asks whether gender is a social construct whether

[00:22:19] trans women are women uh question mark exclamation point yeah so it's just like bam bam and bob are

[00:22:27] in all caps it's like you were saying there's no comment necessary there's no like over the top

[00:22:34] trying you know mockery necessary you just have to let them let let him do it i want to i want to

[00:22:41] see this like i i think this could be the one of the most cringiest things you could imagine

[00:22:48] and then and he managed to make his write-up of it yeah even cringier even yeah or as cringy or as

[00:22:54] cringy yeah but the other thing is i don't trust any of this right like i know i know i feel like he picked

[00:23:00] he picked some examples that make it seem extra um i mean is peter bighosi really just is

[00:23:06] street epistemology just pointing at people and and yelling yeah while you ask a question i like i

[00:23:10] don't even think yeah i assume it's more than that and and also like cringier than that if you

[00:23:16] actually got it on its own un uh you know unremarkable he staggers and weaves as a boxer dances so

[00:23:25] peter lectures he's the professor you never had he's a squal of raw intellect he is robin Williams

[00:23:31] in the dead pro society but ripped he's putting a gun to the head of your most precious assumptions

[00:23:35] i'm done with this i don't even want to talk about it i know i know i know i just i'm done

[00:23:40] it's uh it's very frustrating where i'm very mad at you uh no wrongs um i i feel like this needs

[00:23:47] to be redeemed i don't want to feel like i have to defend peter bighosi and uh just a couple of

[00:23:55] other just facts about it we won't go down into the we're like not even a third of the way through

[00:24:01] the article yeah it's fair and it gets more political and i probably agree

[00:24:06] substantially with this author on most political issues definitely he seems like he's from

[00:24:14] a particularly annoying corner of the left but uh a couple other guest speakers that were there

[00:24:23] Seth Dylan of the Babylon B uh the the onion for like conservative so

[00:24:32] i went to the Babylon B today just uh so they were i guess his speech was about um

[00:24:41] you know how Elon Musk saved comedy by reinstating Babylon B to uh twitter

[00:24:47] here's the kind of comedy that you can get at the Babylon B um the uh the unwoke onion

[00:24:56] national guardsman being trampled by migrants glad to hear we're not being invaded

[00:25:02] that's their lead headline shrek prosecuted after trying to remove squatters from swamp i guess

[00:25:10] that's another immigration thing they've moved on from from uh new yorker style comics of

[00:25:18] uh bathrooms with 10 different gender markers on them and stuff like like that's that was the hilarity

[00:25:23] a few months ago yeah this is very actually immigrant focus this uh mexico begins constructing wall

[00:25:30] to keep illegal immigrants from coming back is one of them um that's got a little funny

[00:25:36] that's what you think we have different uh sensitive humor i always thought we had to see

[00:25:48] it's i'm telling you it's this article this article has made me start

[00:25:53] compared to this that was kind of a thing it's radicalized you yeah you're totally like

[00:25:58] you're you know your Nicholas kristakus now you're gonna be eric Weinstein in like two weeks

[00:26:04] like it's just it's just so enough let's just not funny right with women unable to distinguish between

[00:26:11] basketball and hockey about to smoke your march madness bracket again

[00:26:19] so the author is taking kate roefe's sexual politics of course i guess she's a

[00:26:26] a like my stepmother kind of zone of talking about feminism and uh but then the other three courses are

[00:26:36] the psychology the psychology of morality with rob henderson a would be jordan Peters and he says

[00:26:43] science in christianity with geophysicist and iq fetishist dorian abet whom you could hear say things

[00:26:50] like i hate feminism a grin twisting his face uh anglo american grand strategy is the third course

[00:26:57] taught by Walter russell need i mean oh my god it's what that's a that's a title that i would use

[00:27:03] if i didn't want people registered for my class so your whole family dies if you don't take one

[00:27:11] of these courses which one do you take it's such an easy answer for me yeah um it's science

[00:27:17] and christianny with geophysicist and iq fetishist dorian abet yeah i am uh i really want to hear what

[00:27:24] kind of christian apologetics uh like i would get in there i would i get some facts like when he

[00:27:30] talk about how how the how the flood was proven or something you would talk facts about race and iq

[00:27:36] it design and definitely already and iq fetishist obviously right sell oh iq fetishist

[00:27:43] um i want to be there for the i just want to see that a grin twisting his face as he says

[00:27:49] i hate feminism yeah uh eighth grade okay what's if that's off the table now which one do you take

[00:27:56] i don't know okay because uh the psychology of morality uh you know i i i've i know too much about

[00:28:03] it um and i don't i don't i think i would just get bored i think it's like probably like evo

[00:28:09] psych stuff like why is this a forbidden course i think there's got to be some evo's like

[00:28:14] yeah with uh like about the sortative mating and the ethics of sexuality or something because

[00:28:19] i yeah i don't know because talking about the prisoner's dilemma and cancelation doesn't

[00:28:23] mean to be too forbidden no should be forbidden but what about what about you i think so i don't

[00:28:30] think i'm doing that uh the like i agree science and christianity i want to see uh i want to see some iq

[00:28:37] fetishism but uh then i think i might go the sexual politics course like i think it sounds a

[00:28:44] little dreary and i'm sure it would be annoying to be with a bunch of dudes talking with like but

[00:28:49] i still think that i mean like anglo-american grand strategies off the table by this old you know

[00:28:55] like uh the political theorist or something like just sounds brutal i think i would go with the

[00:29:02] sexual politics but it's a role you're rolling the dice because it could be the worst course

[00:29:07] yeah right yeah i think we got the right answer science and christianity yeah we're always

[00:29:12] we're always flirting with uh christian apologetics anyway so yeah all right uh should we wrap this

[00:29:20] up then yeah yeah um we'll be right back to talk about another uh clash of uh equally opposing

[00:29:31] forces continental and analytic philosophy

[00:30:01] so

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[00:33:28] All right, let's get to our main topic.

[00:33:31] Analytic and Continental Philosophy explaining the differences.

[00:33:35] This is a 2003 article by Neil Levy who I've met maybe a couple times but no primarily

[00:33:43] from the golden age of free will, moral responsibility blogging at the Garden of the

[00:33:47] Forking Pads and flickers of freedom when actually blogs were a way to get yourself out

[00:33:54] there and meet people.

[00:33:57] He was very active there.

[00:33:58] I was pretty active there.

[00:34:00] I really look back fondly on those days.

[00:34:02] They seem innocent.

[00:34:06] It's pre-Twitter.

[00:34:07] It's pre-Facebook being more than just here's what I had for breakfast.

[00:34:12] Here's my new family.

[00:34:15] Anyway, so that's how I knew him.

[00:34:18] I guess he really is writing this at the beginning part of that period and I had thought

[00:34:25] he was very young.

[00:34:28] I don't know.

[00:34:29] This doesn't read a piece by a young philosopher to really have something interesting to say

[00:34:36] about this foundational difference right now in the way professional philosophy is practiced.

[00:34:42] It doesn't seem like something you could do if you were just starting out but I actually

[00:34:48] don't know what his history is.

[00:34:50] Well, so yeah, on his website it says that he got a PhD in Continental Philosophy in

[00:34:56] 95 and then a second PhD on the metaphysics of free will in 06.

[00:35:00] So I think you're reading it right.

[00:35:02] Neil Levy has the experience with both.

[00:35:05] Yeah, that's interesting.

[00:35:06] Qualifies him I think.

[00:35:08] And yeah, I think you're complimenting the article by saying that but if you're not,

[00:35:14] I think that's exactly how it reads to me.

[00:35:17] It has the wisdom of somebody who's worked in both of these.

[00:35:20] This definitely has something interesting to say about the differences and I think

[00:35:24] something maybe especially interesting to say about the way analytic philosophy operates

[00:35:30] and we'll talk about that too.

[00:35:32] So let me just give a little background for people who aren't philosophy grads or majors

[00:35:39] or who don't know the way professional philosophy works.

[00:35:44] So you quickly discover if you're applying for grad programs in philosophy that there

[00:35:50] are analytically oriented departments and there are continental oriented departments

[00:35:57] and that while a few universities have a handful of both, most of them lean very heavily

[00:36:07] in one direction.

[00:36:08] And some or a lot actually like my own at Houston are just analytic and some are just continental

[00:36:17] and the ones you associate with just continental or at least heavily continental are like

[00:36:22] Vanderbilt, Emory, BU at least in my memory although I think that's changed a little bit

[00:36:29] Boston University and then the analytic ones are like Rutgers and Michigan and Harvard

[00:36:36] and MIT.

[00:36:38] So like paradigmatically you have these two different kinds of departments, the ones that

[00:36:44] are focused on continental philosophy and the ones that are focused on analytic philosophy.

[00:36:48] I went to a place that was only analytic philosophy, there is no continental philosopher

[00:36:53] there.

[00:36:55] And as you get raised in this tradition, at least if you're being raised in an analytic

[00:37:00] department you feel like okay this is the one that's kind of co extensive with science

[00:37:06] and then there are these freaks over in the continental side like Derida and Foucault

[00:37:12] and Heidegger who write in extremely obscure prose, very German, very French in terms of

[00:37:22] the style of what they're doing and they're just kind of putting out gibberish and getting

[00:37:28] laid to be fair but like it's still mostly gibberish and we're doing precise rigorous thinking

[00:37:35] we're actually using logic and reason all the stuff that you love.

[00:37:39] And you don't really know because you're never exposed like I never read Foucault, I never

[00:37:43] read Derida, I never read Heidegger, I never read Hussurro, you would present me snippets

[00:37:50] of their work and yeah it did seem like godly book but certainly the trajectory of my career

[00:37:56] has taken me more towards continental philosophy and away from the analytic approach as thinking

[00:38:03] that that approach is fruitful but one thing that I've never really thought about is how

[00:38:10] to make a real kind of concrete distinction between these two approaches, these two schools

[00:38:16] beyond like the cliches and stereotypes that I've been offering and that's what Neil

[00:38:23] Levy tries to do in this paper and not only that he tries to come up with a kind of explanation

[00:38:29] for why these differences and the two approaches continues, why it exists and you are the one

[00:38:35] who I think put it in the slacks so yeah what made you want to talk about this?

[00:38:39] Yeah, of course I wasn't a philosophy grad student and the way that I came to even realize

[00:38:46] that this distinction existed I think was just purely back then because somebody who was doing

[00:38:51] a psychology major but nonetheless was interested in philosophy. What philosophy means

[00:38:57] what you think philosophy is turns out to probably be something that continental philosophers are

[00:39:02] interested in and that analytic philosophers aren't. So as somebody who was just like okay I like

[00:39:06] philosophy let me start reading some philosophy, it started with psychology professor who got me into

[00:39:12] reading existential stuff and you know I never read Heidegger, like I never read you know

[00:39:18] that hardcore German stuff because it was inscrutable to me but that's clearly like to me it was

[00:39:24] clearly linked. It was like a short step away from going to Kierkegaard to going to Heidegger

[00:39:29] right so I had a professor who loved Heidegger and so then it was weird that I was just never exposed

[00:39:36] to really the analytic, like I should say I never read stuff in the analytic tradition because again

[00:39:42] I was not told that this was stuff I should read until I got to graduate school and I started

[00:39:48] taking courses in the philosophy department at Yale because I was interested in just learning more

[00:39:54] about moral stuff because I want to do moral psychology and there all of a sudden I find myself

[00:39:58] in these classes where it's these puzzle cases and this here's premise one, premise two

[00:40:04] and yeah just as you would predict my brain gravitated toward that stuff.

[00:40:08] Fregegeach problem as like objection to non-cognitive things. Exactly yeah like okay but like this is

[00:40:15] another thing like how would you ever know right unless you're a philosophy student probably

[00:40:21] in grad school or maybe a serious major that there is like this distinction between

[00:40:25] metathics and normative ethics and that there's like these are all these these professional

[00:40:30] like terms of art that I had no idea and even then I think it only at some point dawned on me when

[00:40:37] somebody said oh that's continental philosophy. That oh there was a term for me it was vibes like I

[00:40:43] knew there were different vibes to reading Kierkegaard than there was to reading whatever G.E. Moore

[00:40:49] or something and there's where I think that I caught up with you that what I learned were cliches

[00:40:53] and serotypes and and learned that there was a good kind of philosophy and there was the Sloppy

[00:40:59] kind. The Sloppy kind was continental and yeah I associated it with French guys and black

[00:41:04] turtleneck smoking cigarettes or weird German idealists like not Jason. Not Jason but that's it.

[00:41:12] You bringing up Kierkegaard is interesting and maybe just before we get into Levy's argument or

[00:41:19] his way of trying to explain the difference I think one of the things that he doesn't address is

[00:41:26] the kind of 19th century crossover philosophers. Kierkegaard maybe is more on the continental side or

[00:41:37] at least more on the like analytic philosophers are going to ignore you side and probably with

[00:41:44] the continental is in that he's very much like a proto existentialist but Nietzsche and to maybe

[00:41:50] a lesser extent Schopenhauer and certainly Hago very much are in this kind of middle ground where

[00:41:58] both analytic philosophers and continental philosophers can kind of claim this person and

[00:42:04] and includes them in their work you know like in the way in the debate. Now that might be more

[00:42:10] recent in analytic philosophy with someone like Nietzsche than it was in the middle of last

[00:42:16] century you know the heyday of a certain kind of very narrowly defined analytic philosophy but

[00:42:23] these people who scorn continental philosophy they don't mean they scorn Kierkegaard Schopenhauer

[00:42:31] and Nietzsche. The contempt that they have is for like the people they think are charlatans like

[00:42:38] Derida. Right. Derida is a good example. Yeah and Foucault and like and then there people like

[00:42:43] Delus who would they just think okay like I don't know maybe there's something interesting here but I

[00:42:47] can't make heads or tails of it you know and then Hussurl is I think Hussurl is where the split

[00:42:56] is sometimes said to take place where the followers of Hussurl go to continental philosophers the most

[00:43:04] prominent one being Heidegger but Hussurl and Frega like the arch analytic philosophy super villain.

[00:43:11] You mean Frega the superhero? No I don't and I'm also being very loyal to my dad who hated

[00:43:19] Frega even though he my dad was very much an analytic philosopher in spirit and letter but anyway

[00:43:27] so like Hussurl and Frega didn't consider themselves doing different things right like they used to

[00:43:33] just correspond and like write let in the comment on each other's work but once you get past them

[00:43:38] it's like okay here's Bertrand Russell and here's logical positivist and here is you know this one

[00:43:44] way of approaching philosophy that's very much modeled after the sciences and then there's Heidegger

[00:43:50] and Sart and these other people who are just writing literary criticism in nonsense. Yeah which

[00:43:58] includes people who are doing like psychoanalytic stuff that's right I'm that got wrapped in into it

[00:44:04] yeah very much they into the continental tradition. Yeah and you know for our listeners who might be

[00:44:10] Patreon supporters who are currently voting on a topic that part of my introduction to all of

[00:44:16] that tradition really was from the denial of death that tries to tie together existentialism

[00:44:22] including Kiergarde and Freud and and you know an empirical psychology to well somewhat

[00:44:28] into this package so that that is I learned later I was reading a guest continent style philosophy.

[00:44:36] Wait so you've read the denial of death? Oh yeah I didn't know that so I'm really getting fucked

[00:44:43] but I read it in college. Okay so okay I took a class where we read it as as a text for the class

[00:44:51] no it was fun you know I'm curious to see whether I go back whether I'll think it's all like

[00:44:56] hogwash because I maybe because you're so analytically trained now. Exactly yeah no now I'm doing

[00:45:03] so so people who do history of philosophy or people in classics departments were trained as

[00:45:09] philosophers are those people it is it cut either way like are those people doing history of philosophy

[00:45:15] one or the other? So yeah just to add a little context to this question continental philosophers

[00:45:22] typically invoke history and embed their positions within a history of the tradition that they're

[00:45:29] writing in whereas you know like there are plenty of exceptions to this but analytic philosophers

[00:45:34] are like there's no point in going back to a tolamic astronomy like we've made progress and

[00:45:43] that stuff is only interesting sociologically you know maybe oh here's some Aristotle stuff that

[00:45:49] might still be relevant today but I'm going to talk about it not in the context of the historical

[00:45:54] circumstances that it emerged but rather to the extent that it can help my argument right.

[00:46:00] Is the argument true that Aristotle write in these two pages true or not? Yeah and in that way

[00:46:04] it's a very impoverished I think way of approaching philosophy and I think the continental philosophers

[00:46:10] it can be a little tedious sometimes to go through a whole history but I think they're right to

[00:46:16] recognize that historical context matters when you're discussing certain kinds of positions and certain ideas

[00:46:24] so your question then presumes that people who study like history would be

[00:46:30] continentally oriented and they're not so the real question is whether they're analytic philosophers

[00:46:37] or they're their own special weird historians yeah and I think it's that that's that's my

[00:46:43] understanding okay so let's go into Levy's argument here. Yeah I want to just give him credit for

[00:46:51] even trying because I just thought okay well the answer is just like there's two traditions

[00:46:56] it was like West Coast hip hop in East Coast but like I don't know you know it's just like

[00:47:00] is there really a need to answer this and as he was writing I got convinced that no

[00:47:05] there's something deeper to this. Yeah and he says I'm not going to try to find

[00:47:11] Neccerian's Fishing Conditions I get that this is family resemblance yes there are some people

[00:47:17] even today like Charles Taylor and Alistair McIntyre who kind of have one foot in both camps

[00:47:23] but that said I think we can come up with some way of describing the difference

[00:47:28] and some explanation for you know why that difference has persisted until today and what the causes

[00:47:37] of that are. He goes through a couple of different possible ways of distinguishing them one of

[00:47:45] them is that anti-scientism characterizes continental thought. The continental thinkers have often

[00:47:53] objected to the hegemonia of science in modern culture insisting that it represents neither the

[00:47:59] only kind of knowledge nor even the most basic kind. I think that's true a lot of the kind of

[00:48:07] paradigmatic continental philosophers believe that what they're doing is prior to science you know

[00:48:14] they're investigating deeper more fundamental epistemological and ontological questions

[00:48:21] and there's nothing that science can do that will I don't know undermine their approach because

[00:48:30] science is just already one level up from what they're doing you're already accepting a set of

[00:48:36] basic epistemological or ontological assumptions when you do science. That sounds right to me again

[00:48:43] like throughout I will have to like rely on what you say about a lot of this because I wasn't trained

[00:48:49] in either of them but I do that does sound right. Yeah, I don't know that I would have characterized it

[00:48:54] as deeper but it's definitely contextual like all knowledge is contextual and science the scientific

[00:49:00] way of understanding the world isn't really one way of many ways to understand the world and so yeah.

[00:49:07] But it's not just that it is that but it's not just that it's also that the continental

[00:49:12] philosophers think they are examining subjective experience like the thing that you even need before

[00:49:19] you could even contemplate doing science or understanding what science was they really think they're

[00:49:25] investigating like consciousness and being and these things that I don't know if they need to be

[00:49:32] settled before you do science but you're certainly already accepting certain assumptions about those

[00:49:39] questions once you start to do science. Yeah, I mean hence the phenomenological look. Yeah exactly

[00:49:45] that's why I think phenomenology is that's where you start to have a more clearly defined

[00:49:52] difference between the two. As an aside by the way, I remember being confused that some continental

[00:49:57] philosophers were like contents in the same way that some analytic philosophers were contents

[00:50:01] unlike so which is he but I guess it's just he's kind of such a new one. It gets very confusing when

[00:50:07] it's like content and he go because the questions they're addressing are at these are more like

[00:50:13] the questions that analytic philosophers address and I think actually this is where Neil Levy's

[00:50:19] explanation of this difference or his characterization of this difference is actually pretty helpful.

[00:50:24] My suggestion is this analytic philosophy has successfully modeled itself on the physical sciences

[00:50:31] work in it is thus guided by paradigms that function in the way that Thomas Kuhn sketches

[00:50:37] and the discipline is reproduced in something akin to the way in which sciences are reproduced.

[00:50:42] Continental philosophy has had a quite different approach to a subject matter quite different model

[00:50:47] of what philosophy is which guides its characteristics concerns and shapes its methods. And this is

[00:50:54] this analogy that I found actually really enlightening and insightful. The idea is that an analytic

[00:51:00] philosophy there is a paradigm that has been established and it was established according to Levy

[00:51:07] by Fraga and Russell. And it is this very logical analytical scientifically informed and

[00:51:16] scientifically modeled approach. Continental philosophy hasn't recognized any kind of paradigm

[00:51:23] and so because analytic philosophers have they think this is the way of doing philosophy

[00:51:29] whether it's through conceptual analysis or whether it's through some broader kind of naturalized

[00:51:35] epistemology that it's still going to be I am presenting you an argument to lead to a sound conclusion

[00:51:42] and you can get according to Levy progress through that along the lines and I have questions about

[00:51:49] this but you can get results and progress when you do normal philosophy puzzle cases and these counter

[00:51:58] examples to puzzle cases and these new theories that can handle those counter examples. You can kind

[00:52:05] of operate a whole research program because the basic assumptions of the foundation of what you're

[00:52:13] doing are accepted and shared. And it's funny because I think what he's saying seems to fall out

[00:52:20] from what I already believed about these two in a way that again I just never been reflective of it

[00:52:26] when when Levy says look if we think about this as a in this kvinian framework it totally makes

[00:52:33] sense that all of the things that we think and have been told that characterize analytic philosophy

[00:52:39] really do in the sense that they are background assumptions that have been agreed upon

[00:52:42] and because of that you can do kind of a historical a contextual sort of systematic

[00:52:50] work that builds on each other because people just accept that this is the method right this is

[00:52:55] the primary method by which we're going to achieve truth and so I can take your article this is

[00:53:01] another thing that I found fascinating he says that because of this analytic philosophers can

[00:53:06] primarily make their contributions in journal articles whereas quantum philosophers have to write books

[00:53:10] that was very totally true you could go your whole career as an analytic philosopher and only write

[00:53:16] journal articles right even right in Gettier's case only write one only write three page one

[00:53:22] right and a lot of analytic philosophy books are really a collection of articles or lectures

[00:53:28] whatever obviously a lot of exceptions you know some of the most famous like work in analytic

[00:53:34] philosophy is it's in book form theory of justice you know word an object this is not going to be

[00:53:40] an exhaustive way of describing these there are exceptions so yeah I loved it like I love it

[00:53:46] to think of continental philosophy is pre-paradigmatic and because of that when you have a pre-paradigmatic

[00:53:53] approach you can get a lot more originality and novelty in arguments and you can

[00:54:00] get people who work on bigger picture stuff that are completely outside of the paradigm of the

[00:54:05] analytic philosophical tradition stuff that doesn't neatly fit into any of the problem space

[00:54:12] that analytic philosophy has laid out for itself and stuff that might seem from from somebody

[00:54:17] within analytic philosophy to be gobbledy-gook but I think in part because you really have to work hard

[00:54:24] you have to work hard to try to understand Heidegger and what he's saying yeah there's a couple ironies

[00:54:29] in this characterization Levy says number one like you say that this allows continental

[00:54:35] philosopher to actually work on the stuff that people associate with philosophy like really big

[00:54:40] questions about the meaning of life in our place in the universe and all of that and he says

[00:54:45] like analytic philosophy writing is just boring and dry whereas like continental writing is fun

[00:54:52] and you know more and it's more accessible it's important yeah yeah that's more accessible

[00:54:58] and it's like I you know this part is the you know certainly the best of continental philosophy or at

[00:55:04] least the parts that I've been able to connect with are accessible but like if there's one thing

[00:55:09] that like at least according to the stereotypes they're not is accessible they're jargon filled

[00:55:16] and not technical jargon like that it feels like you could try to figure out if you cared to

[00:55:23] and maybe this is just my prejudice talking but I thought that was kind of interesting that you

[00:55:29] know that you don't get from Levy in this the kind of caricature of continental philosophy as being

[00:55:37] actually the quite the opposite of accessible just obscure even to people who are giving good faith

[00:55:44] efforts to trying to figure out what's going on yeah no I had the same note about the accessible part

[00:55:50] and I think Bernard Williams quote says this where he says that that one of the goals he thinks

[00:55:56] of analog philosophy where the characteristics is that it uses moderately plain speech right yeah as

[00:56:02] somebody who has really wanted to connect with continental philosophy because I've become so

[00:56:08] skeptical of the paradigm the analog philosophy is often working with that I it's hard to engage

[00:56:15] I have found it like very hard to access what it is that they're talking about even though I feel in

[00:56:23] my soul like this is going to be like if I can get if I can rock this as you would say yeah like

[00:56:30] I will agree with it or at the very least it will inspire me to like understand something about

[00:56:36] this problem that I'm thinking about so you know I do think there's some jargon in continental

[00:56:42] philosophy if we read Derrida or Delus it's not normal science though but a I don't know a set of

[00:56:50] terms and a set of ideas that you need to have down if you're going to figure out what's going on

[00:56:58] in in in some of that work right there is a comfort that comes from this paradigmatic nature

[00:57:05] of analytic philosophy where I can easily like turn to a philosopher in the analytic tradition and ask

[00:57:11] them to explain what is meant by internalism in moral philosophy and they they can just tell me

[00:57:18] well it's very clear what it means I think the problem with analytic philosophy in that respect

[00:57:26] is really the problem with normal science uh you know when they reach a certain point

[00:57:33] it is very comforting and it's nice and people can understand each other but when you start to have

[00:57:39] as I think it is easy to have real doubts about the paradigm you're working within then analytic

[00:57:46] philosophy has a hard time dealing with that right this is one of the characteristics of

[00:57:53] of normal science which is that when you start digging too deep into the foundational assumptions

[00:58:01] of their paradigm the normal science is very ill equipped to address that and often will have

[00:58:09] a lot of obstacles or barriers in the way of doing that and they won't all be obvious it's not like

[00:58:16] you're going to be kicked out of your university if you start asking these questions it'll just be

[00:58:22] much harder for people to figure out a way of launching these objections within that paradigm because

[00:58:29] the paradigm is in part defined by already accepting the assumptions that you're questioning and

[00:58:36] the methodology is built around those assumptions so it's very hard within that methodology to raise

[00:58:43] some of these questions we don't have a good way of evaluating the effectiveness of those critiques

[00:58:50] and we especially don't have a good way of evaluating alternative approaches to the paradigm

[00:58:58] I mean but yeah I guess by definition yeah so here's the part that I'm sure as I was reading it I was

[00:59:05] sure you're going to disagree with which is he says that what he worries about is that maybe it's

[00:59:12] the case that analytic philosophy actually just does better with novel ideas because when a novel idea

[00:59:18] does get proposed it pops out more clearly even though it might take time it might take

[00:59:23] effort to break through the paradigm he says continental philosophy maybe they're just basking

[00:59:29] in so much novelty that it's just hard to actually tell when something is that how you understand his

[00:59:34] concern I mean and it might be right like again I'm like not familiar enough with continental

[00:59:40] philosophy to know whether or not that's a good critique I mean my honestly my disagreements with

[00:59:47] the piece are more that he thinks analytic philosophy can be said to make progress in the way

[00:59:54] that like paradigmatic sciences normal science can say to make progress but what he says about

[01:00:00] continental philosophy is it's hard for me to judge because I just not familiar enough with it

[01:00:06] okay let's talk about the progress thing because I believe it or not had a similar concern about

[01:00:10] this which is I know I buy that analytic philosophy has modeled itself on natural science and I buy

[01:00:17] that there are these paradigms I buy that rustlin friggin all those people who were who started this

[01:00:21] whole approach laid the foundation is it progress or is it the illusion of progress or is it even an

[01:00:30] illusion of progress because it's a very different thing to say as scientists say we know more

[01:00:36] now than we did before whereas philosophers might say well by progress we just we just mean

[01:00:42] we clarify the questions or whatever yeah that's actually like I think a key question and I think

[01:00:50] so when it comes to real logical analysis like hardcore logic that was done in the beginning

[01:00:58] and middle of the 20th century they got results they weren't just bouncing ideas back and forth

[01:01:06] in a bankrupt pseudo problem kind of way they were I don't understand them I'm not sure I would

[01:01:12] like what the value of that progress is but it is actual results you know you have proofs

[01:01:19] in these proofs sometimes can have you know pretty serious implications for other fields and so I

[01:01:28] think it's fair to say that they have progress when it comes to something like metathics when it comes

[01:01:33] to something like even justice I don't see how you can say that we've made progress in a non-question

[01:01:44] begging way you can say you've made progress politically you can say the civil rights act was

[01:01:50] progress but that has nothing to do with like analytic philosophy progress and when it comes to

[01:01:55] like do we have a better understanding of motivational internalism I it's like

[01:02:03] but like is that progress or is that just we've been jerking ourselves off in new and different ways

[01:02:10] but we're not actually shedding light on the world and the human experience I don't know if you

[01:02:16] think it's pseudo problem like the concept of knowledge or something like that then there's no

[01:02:21] way to say that that's progress it's just progress in wasting people's time right so a couple things one

[01:02:28] I you know I totally agree with you about the progress that was made by those really guys but I feel

[01:02:34] I'm pretty sure that they hit a wall that they themselves that's right Russell himself was like

[01:02:40] fuck you know Kurt Gertel comes along and he's fucks me and he's right right yeah or Vidconstein comes

[01:02:46] along and he fucks everybody and he's right or whatever you know yeah and so then the remainder

[01:02:51] of analytic philosophy that was sort of built on that methodology has adopted the form of those

[01:02:57] methods without really I'm sort of speaking out of my ass so bear with me but it has adopted

[01:03:04] the form of that early work and you can see that in the way that they write their papers often

[01:03:11] but it's not come to terms with the sort of bankruptcy of that project as the authors of

[01:03:18] that project themselves admitted that's true the other thing I was going to say is when I think

[01:03:23] about progress and here's where I want to ask you directly about well but like gun to your head

[01:03:29] is the work on free will from 50 years ago can you say that the work on free will now hasn't made

[01:03:39] something that you would call progress and if that progress might just be that we're more precise

[01:03:43] in laying out the problem space yeah I know that's a good question I don't know so here's a thing

[01:03:50] this is where like my whole anti analytic philosophy stance which is only probably like 10

[01:03:59] percent stick and something that I've really had for a long time I've had like I've been skeptical

[01:04:06] of certainly a lot of the philosophical problems that are dominant within analytic philosophy

[01:04:12] but I think in the free will debate is so much better I don't know about now but I think it was so

[01:04:19] much better starting from the 70s to the early 2000s and it really was at any point in the history

[01:04:26] of philosophers talking about this I do think like you have someone like Strauss and come along

[01:04:33] and say something that nobody has ever said about the free will moral responsibility debate including

[01:04:39] like the you know the existentialists including my heroes like Deedaro and you know Spinoza on it

[01:04:47] like really came up with something that was truly original that I think is actually mostly right

[01:04:54] it's very interestingly unanalytic paper and then it doesn't lay out arguments in a precise way

[01:05:01] and nobody can totally agree upon what he was actually saying but yeah it's a dominant piece within

[01:05:08] analytic philosophy it's not a continental piece it's a work of analytic philosophy and it's been

[01:05:13] treated that way and I think a lot of the literature on it is misguided or misunderstands what

[01:05:19] Strauss and was getting at but a lot of the literature is really good you know you have the Gary

[01:05:24] Watson paper with the Robert Harris paper that's a great paper that adds its own little spin and so

[01:05:32] there is room you know it's funny to say make progress like yeah to understand the problem of

[01:05:40] freedom and responsibility if that's the goal then we understand it better I think because of the

[01:05:48] way analytic philosophers have approached it and I'm sure like Berkson also would give us a lot

[01:05:56] to think about if I could you know immerse myself in his view of freedom but like the free well

[01:06:04] moral responsibility debate for all my frustrations with you know the theorizing and the overly systematic

[01:06:11] approach in the like almost willful misunderstandings of what Strauss and was trying to tell everybody

[01:06:17] that whole literature is at the center of the analytic philosophy debate on freewill and moral

[01:06:25] responsibility and I think you know I certainly feel like my understanding of that problem is

[01:06:29] much richer because of that literature right and that way of putting it the understanding of the

[01:06:35] problem I guess must be the kind of progress that maybe must be talking about or that analytic

[01:06:41] philosophers are aiming to achieve right sometimes I think yeah sometimes I think they don't conceive

[01:06:46] of themselves that way they're like oh I just proved moral realism is true right because it's interesting

[01:06:51] like when when I hear you talk about your annoyance with the systematicity and all the other things

[01:06:57] the trappings of analytic philosophy I guess now I'm realizing sometimes it's not clear whether you think

[01:07:03] given what you just said about the freewill problem it seems as if those methods did yield something

[01:07:08] valuable and interesting so it's hard to tease apart what you might think are just dumb problems

[01:07:14] to begin with right like maybe we do know a lot more about how people use the term knowledge but

[01:07:19] what did we need to yeah no I think that's right I think there's two different issues with

[01:07:24] analytic philosophy sometimes it's just they're working on a pseudo problem sometimes it's that

[01:07:29] they're working on a potentially really interesting problem but in a overly dry or overly systematic

[01:07:35] way which is I think often my problem even with the freewill and moral responsibility debate this

[01:07:41] is where I'm very torn I think there are resources within analytic philosophy to express that kind of

[01:07:48] frustration that I have and maybe it's hard and but it's through doing that that I feel like I

[01:07:53] understand the issue better you know I always go back to this I remember I asked Susan Wolf who

[01:08:00] is I think a really good example of both an accessible analytic philosopher and one who typically

[01:08:06] writes on a lot of the big questions I asked her do you think we theorize too much in philosophy

[01:08:14] don't you think like that kind of overly theoretical approach is misguided and she said no I don't

[01:08:20] think it's a problem that we come up with theories I think the problem is thinking that your theories

[01:08:24] are true and so what I take from that is it's it's not the theorizing that the problem if you

[01:08:33] understand it in a certain way and that way is theories are a way of exploring the problem and

[01:08:40] trying to more clearly define the problem and understand the problem and understand the questions

[01:08:45] and enrich the questions they can't be solved though like the puzzle solving approach of analytic

[01:08:52] philosophy sometimes presumes that you're going to get at the truth and that's not something that

[01:08:59] philosophy can do well but the theorizing itself as long as it doesn't have that pretence can be

[01:09:06] pretty useful and illuminating yeah that's why I think we like Nagel's mortal questions essays so much

[01:09:14] it's it's really a case of doing philosophy in a way where it means very literally just asking the

[01:09:20] questions and not presuming to have an answer that he arrived at through those methods it's also

[01:09:27] interestingly not that analytical yeah I mean Tom's Nagle is so obviously an analytic philosopher

[01:09:34] you know what he's not doing is operating within normal science you know he's he's starting from scratch

[01:09:41] you know like in that way it's very it could be a lot more continental in that he's building from

[01:09:47] the ground up there you know he's talking about the absurd he may reference Camus he may reference

[01:09:54] a couple other people but really he's just writing about the problem not from an established paradigm

[01:10:00] yeah but I do get the sense that having come from the established paradigm makes him yeah

[01:10:05] clearer you know I agree one thing we haven't really talked about is the comparison that

[01:10:11] leaves you makes between continental philosophy and just art yeah which is another interesting one

[01:10:16] so yeah again it's like I think it's certainly continental philosophy eros are more interested in

[01:10:22] art and incorporate art and literature and film into their work in ways that analytic

[01:10:29] philosophers don't I think analytic philosophers can be Philistines about art and continental

[01:10:34] philosophers at least actually really engage with the literature it's just that sometimes again

[01:10:39] it can be fruitful and sometimes it can be really obscure and actually very theoretical you know

[01:10:47] like it's out of continental philosophy that a lot of the post structuralist approaches that are

[01:10:53] actually pretty reductive of art you know either reductive politically or reductive according to

[01:10:59] some new theory that they're working with for interpretation so it's complicated you know whereas

[01:11:07] then I feel like the analytic philosophers are at least using them as an example and maybe they

[01:11:12] oversimplify it and maybe they're just treating it as a thought experiment but at least they're not

[01:11:16] trying to drain it or explain it in the way that sometimes the continental philosopher is can try

[01:11:23] to do and maybe that's more literary theory than continental philosophy but there's a lot of overlap

[01:11:28] between those two yeah for sure I hear what the maybe we could close on this question do you think

[01:11:35] that there is a similar kind of distinction you could make in psychology and I'll give you the

[01:11:45] reasons for why I'm asking this question so in the one hand you have the social psychologist

[01:11:49] working within normal psychology you know with your methods and your hypothesis testing and your

[01:11:57] your metrics your forms of measurement and all of that it operates according to those rules

[01:12:04] and then you have parallel to this you have psychoanalysis you have Gestalt theory you have

[01:12:12] you know analytic psychology which is actually associated with young Ian views that just seem

[01:12:21] more off be more Marxist adjacent in the way that continental philosophy can kind of be Marxist adjacent

[01:12:30] and also to interact with literature at least to make that more central to their understanding of

[01:12:39] the human mind than social psychologists do which is usually just reduced to the opening line of

[01:12:45] a social psychology article in Westside story offers or crunchy you says you know

[01:12:54] crunky no I think that's exactly right so much Tamler to the point that when you were asking

[01:13:00] I was struggling to see what this might be and then when you brought up psychoanalytic stuff

[01:13:05] I was like oh I forgot that was psychology and there is there is something that I think is

[01:13:12] super interesting that happened in psychology where that huge divide kicked out those kinds of

[01:13:20] analysis like everything that you might say was birthed by psychoanalytic theory it got kicked out

[01:13:25] of psychology departments in a way that they found their home in in like whatever literary theory

[01:13:31] and all that stuff and to some extent in clinical psychology to a large extent right there's

[01:13:36] a big cycle of analytic yeah for sure as a method of treatment but but just a distinguish between

[01:13:41] like I guess clinical science which is what the kind of psychology that you would learn

[01:13:46] if you were to go to any university and take a course in clinical psychology you would very much

[01:13:52] be within the paradigm of psychological science you know social psychology right now is so built

[01:13:58] on the paradigm that really came out of cognitive psychology and all that stuff that came from

[01:14:05] everything from psychophysics to perception and all that stuff so much so that we call it social

[01:14:09] cognition nowadays and the other stuff just got squeezed out and this does I think illustrate a

[01:14:15] point that I was thinking about that that Levy makes which I think can sociologically help to explain

[01:14:21] why that happened and it's what he says about and I guess barred from Kuhn that paradigmatic

[01:14:26] normal science is self-reproducing yeah in a way that the other stuff really isn't and both

[01:14:33] in analytic philosophy and in psychology you can be a comic graduate student and just be introduced

[01:14:40] to this specific problem and then use all the methods to work on that problem right so you know when

[01:14:45] you come in and you start thinking about what you're going to do for your dissertation yeah you

[01:14:49] kind of already know what the problem space is and how you might go about doing it yeah in a way

[01:14:54] that lends itself really nicely to pumping out PhDs yeah and punching out articles yeah in a way

[01:15:00] that's like I don't know you know I guess in continental philosophy you learn how to make

[01:15:05] contributions that way but I suspect that that's probably why analytic philosophy took over philosophy

[01:15:11] so hardcore not because it was yielding more truth but because it's just like a reproduction

[01:15:18] machine in a way that the other kind can't be 100% yes because it gives people a way of like

[01:15:25] a set of somewhat objective criteria like is this argument good like did they provide enough evidence

[01:15:32] for this premise and I can evaluate like the work of a psychologist on a committee that doesn't do

[01:15:38] what I do but I can use my tools to evaluate whether their work is good or not like it's not too hard

[01:15:44] so long as I understand some of their specific methods or terms of art or whatever

[01:15:49] I can say whether it's good or bad in a way that I don't you know the one way I thought it might

[01:15:53] be disanalogous is that psychoanalytic theory is itself a pretty well-defined paradigm right and

[01:16:01] that there are people who work in that tradition who have kind of built on Freud's ideas maybe broke

[01:16:08] with him on a couple things but carried it forward and you know and there's a lot of psychoanalytic

[01:16:13] approaches to politics and art and it does feel like they are working with it in the paradigm even

[01:16:21] if it's not at all the paradigm that scientists are working with them yeah I don't know what that

[01:16:28] did the answer that the right answer is I was talking to Nikki about this article and she was

[01:16:33] saying something about conscious it's wrong to think the content philosophers aren't also working

[01:16:37] in a paradigm and in my defensive leavey I was saying well I think if you mean by paradigm a bunch

[01:16:44] of widely shared assumptions and methods then no but if you just mean like a knowledge base

[01:16:52] some shared beliefs then maybe but that's not I think what Kuhn or leavey mean by paradigm

[01:16:59] and I think leavey makes this point that I also found really interesting where he says that this

[01:17:03] is why continental philosophy talks more about individual authors so like the currency is to talk

[01:17:10] about what is Foucault think about this right not what is the finding in this domain and I think

[01:17:16] psychoanalytic stuff is somewhere in between where if you say you're a psychoanalytic theorist people

[01:17:22] might want to know right away are you a Freudian are you a union are you this or that like it's more

[01:17:29] acolyte kind of you know let's extend because obviously not everybody can reinvent the wheel right but

[01:17:35] they kind of will choose which school and by school it's really like this person's work is central

[01:17:42] or no yeah yeah markews yeah someone like that yeah yeah no that's right and that's very analogous in

[01:17:49] that way to continental philosophy I remember a jarring time where one of the only times I gave a

[01:17:55] talk in an interdisciplinary place where there were plenty of people from the continental tradition

[01:18:00] and from the psychoanalytic tradition even from like the kind of anthropology that's more humanity

[01:18:05] than it is the science and I gave my talk which was just very straightforwardly here's my studies

[01:18:12] yeah here's my measures and the questions were like what do you think a Foucaultian approach to this

[01:18:18] would be and I was like I was so confused I was like can you tell me what he what he thought about this

[01:18:24] and then maybe I can tell you what I would say I thought this was just name dropping yeah um

[01:18:31] I I went out in my fourth year I don't know why I thought I could get a job in my after my fourth

[01:18:36] year of PhD but I did get an interview with the University of Denver and that was a very

[01:18:43] continental oriented department and I was just doing my free will skepticism you know my just

[01:18:49] naive like yeah there's no free will it's all genetics and environment and I'm gonna do an

[01:18:57] error theory of why you believe there's free will be good like evolutionary explanation for that

[01:19:03] I don't know why they gave me an interview but I do remember that exact question coming from one

[01:19:08] of the committee members and he was not being a dick he was just like to lose say like you know

[01:19:15] you talk about Spinoza and what's Pinoza like have you read Delus on Spinoza and his whole analysis

[01:19:21] and I just I had never heard that name in my whole life that was the first time I'd ever heard

[01:19:27] that like the word Delus spoken right but that was considered to be a legitimate question because

[01:19:34] I guess it you know there are certain foundational figures even if there's no paradigm

[01:19:39] that people have to talk in the context of maybe that's part of their historically oriented approach

[01:19:44] I don't know yeah well do you think this article was continental or analytical it's pretty analytic

[01:19:50] here's where you can tell that it's analytic this essay will fall into two parts in the first

[01:19:55] I shall examine some recent attempts to characterize analytic and continental philosophy

[01:20:00] here after a AP and CP respectively that's not something you would see in a continental piece

[01:20:06] I shall suggest that all failed to state necessary and sufficient conditions that could function as

[01:20:13] criteria with which to count indeed there are no sites criteria or so I shall contend if like

[01:20:19] right there that sentence indeed there are no such criteria or so I shall contend you wouldn't find

[01:20:24] that in a continent no no it's true even you're right the AP and the CP in another way that is like

[01:20:31] he can't be bothered to write analytics so many times it is funny that you don't find that

[01:20:37] in continental they just don't do that you don't just start taking words away and putting letters

[01:20:43] in their place right the longer the word the better yeah that's the German influence

[01:20:52] all right that's the analytic continental tradition I want to be more into continental that I am

[01:21:00] well you know we just need to pick a text I agree yeah yeah well show pen hour

[01:21:07] I show pen hour is not going to win but I think we're going to get to show pen hour that can be

[01:21:11] like our little step you know one of the questions I had in my notes is like where do the pragmatist

[01:21:16] fit in this like James and Dewey and like or like her or somebody you know like they're they also seem

[01:21:24] like they have puts in both camps yeah both styling the kind of substance for sure because the divide

[01:21:29] came later like I could see both camps claiming some of them yeah and so both camps ignore

[01:21:35] them all like the actual fact is that they're both camps ignore them yeah social psychology uses James

[01:21:42] is opening lines all the time you have a non-infilosophy not that much yeah all right well that's

[01:21:49] it from us on philosophy and psychology bonus join us next time I'm very bad with

[01:22:05] who are you who are you I'm a very good man

[01:22:15] good man

[01:22:16] they think we lost and with no more brains than you have

[01:22:23] they know I'm

[01:22:29] anybody can have a brain

[01:22:33] you're a very bad man

[01:22:36] and a very good man just a very bad with it