There are a couple of really interesting discussions here and here about the blood sport aspect of philosophy and philosophical debates.
(Thanks, Feminist Philosophers!)
UPDATE: Over at Feminist Philosophers, JJ has started a follow-up post on the blood sport aspect of philosophy. Many people find the cut throat, attack style of some philosophical debate inappropriate and harmful in different ways. See the links above for more on this. But if these are things we should not do in philosophy, what should we do? JJ’s follow-up post lists some good ideas. If you have any of your own, or would like to comment on the blood sport aspect of philosophy, feel free to comment (here or at Feminist Philosophers).
ANOTHER UPDATE: I’ve just noticed that two other blogs take up the issues raised at Feminist Philosophers. See this post at Siris, in reply to this one at Kenny Pearce’s blog.
Interesting. My immediate intuition in response to this characterization (”blood sport”, adversarial, mean-spirited, sarcastic, etc.) of the state of philosophy as a discipline is to evaluate the antagonistic tone relative to the respective status of the players involved, i.e. I am inclined to view this style favorably if it is directed up the food chain and reject it if it is directed at a peer or subordinate….
I spend a lot of time browsing blogs and online cultural magazines and on that basis I would say yes. Particularly on the part of those on the “right” of the culture wars.
The level of sheer bad faith and sheer nastiness is quite extraordinary and getting worse over time. And the sheer dishonesty of much of their hype. Their straw-man arguments and the shallowness of their “philosophy” altogether.
Mark,
Does this mean I finally get to be rude to my profs? I’ve been looking for a justification!
(C’mon, profs, you know I’m joshin’!)
Seriously, though, this was one thing touched upon at Feminist Philosophers: That junior faculty and people in lower positions can be harmed by derisive attacks, especially from people in positions of power.
Sue,
I’m a little puzzled by your comment. I guess the adversarial attacks I’m thinking of are specifically within academic philosophy rather than within the broader culture wars. But culture wars problematic, too, and you are right to note the bad argumentation within those wars.
Jennifer,
I guess I disagree with the scope/tone of the critique insofar as the key focus here (in my opinion) should not be the harm suffered by the peers/subordinates (which is arguably regrettable in any case), but on the perceived authority that accompanies the practice of derision (as I see it, this “authority” is self-perpetuating in that it is both a motivating cause of derision and a consequence of the practice of derision)–and its (in my opinion) lack of justification.
In philosophy, it seems that to me that the practice of derision (in the top-down way that it appears to be practiced most frequently and “harmfully” as the Feminist blog points out) results from a particular disposition/attitude that manifests itself as a commitment to the authority of certain epistemic norms (as opposed to something like religion, which ostensibly relies on metaphysical norms for its authority).
Thus the practice of derision can be construed as merely a viciously visible symptom of a much deeper problem regarding the status and practice of philosophy in the academy.
I do think that commitment to the authority of epistemic norms is crucially distinguishable from the practice of recognition of and/or occasional (or frequent for that matter) reliance on (use of) said norms.
So are you thinking specifically of things like God and evolution arguments? Because I think I’ve seen derision all over the place, even among people who may have metaphysical and epistemic agreements.
Let me directly link to the essay that started it all, “Philosophy as a Blood Sport.”
And I’ll note that several philosophers have commented on the essay over the years. Their comments can be found at the end of the essay; click on the link ‘reader comments’.
http://www.sfu.ca/philosophy/swartz/blood_sport.htm
Mark,
I just looked over your comment again. It looks like you are making a number of claims and I want to try to sort some of them out to make sure I got ya.
1.) People gain philosophical authority by practicing blood sport tactics.
2.) People seek to be blood sport types because it will help them gain philosophical authority.
3.) Blood sporting isn’t justified. (Ever? Sometimes, when directed at a higher-up?)
4.) If blood sporting hurts some folks, that’s no good.
Are these claims you’d agree with?
1.) and 2.) are mostly empirical and would be worrisome if true.
My remark above was aimed at the latter part of your comment. I just wasn’t clear what you had in mind there.
Jennifer,
I do justify it (per #3) when it’s directed at a “higher up” insofar as the justification is directly proportional to the level of perceived authority projected by the recipient (in the sense that this has the effect of destabilizing the authority–a stultifying impediment to “philosophy” as I see it–and creating new opportunities for fresh, creative dialogue and new ideas).
4 is kind of a peripheral claim that I would agree with, but not invest much concern over.
I feel like 1 has some empirical evidence in the case of the tone of Anglo-American reception of post-structuralism or postmodernism. This is not a new thing. Consider Marx/Engels attack on Stirner. Or Plato/Aristotle and their mischaracterizations and attacks on the Sophists (and other presocratics).
I’m pretty sure 2 is accurate (though most would be loathe to admit it or realize it).
I see. I don’t especially want to get into debates over analytic/continental philosophy and that kind of thing. I just wanted to get clear on what you meant. Thanks for explaining.
I don’t really know about the current validity of the first two claims.
I am a little concerned about marking the fourth claim as a side issue, however.
As I mentioned, the folks who can be hurt can be people like junior faculty. And they can be denied tenure and so forth. That is pretty big. Further, even though it should be obvious that, eg, professors shouldn’t do this to students, being derided by someone over you can deter you or cause you to lose hope, leave the profession, be wary of publishing or presenting at conferences and so on.
These are the kinds of things I’d include in claim four. This is, in fact, one reason why people who are concerned with why there are so few women (people of color, etc) in philosophy look at the present culture of academic philosophy.