Eric Schliesser's Blog, page 30

Ernest Nagel���s Commemoration of Morris Raphael Cohen [Guest post by Joel Katzav]

[This is a guest post by Joel Katzav [University of Queensland].--ES]

Cohen did not think of philosophy as a discipline competing with the various sciences for obtaining authentic knowledge of the world about us. He did not believe that philosophy yields positive information about the primary subject-matters of the sciences, or that it possesses special sources of truth which enable it to pass judgment on the factual claims of science and to set bounds to the scope of its methods. As he conceived and practiced it, philosophy is the disciplined critical reflection upon the interpretations men place on the primary materials of their experience-interpretations which are codified in the bodies of knowledge we call the sciences, in the system of rules we designate as morals or positive law, or in the evaluations of art we label as literary and esthetic criticism. Philosophical reflection, as Cohen understood it, seeks to make explicit the logical articulation of claims to knowledge, the grounds of their credibility and validity, and the import of their content for an inclusive view of nature and man (Nagel 1957, p. 548).

Morris Raphael Cohen was one of the most prominent philosophers in America in the 1930s and 1940s. He died in 1947. Nagel, writing to commemorate Cohen, his teacher, notes that ���if frequency of references to him in the current literature is a safe basis for judgment, it must be admitted that few professional philosophers continue to read Cohen or to be influenced by his ideas��� (1957, p. 548). Nagel laments this situation and, after doing so, explains, in the excerpt given above, that Cohen was not a speculative philosopher. In 1950s speak, Cohen was kosher.

But Nagel is���and this equally applies to the rest of the commemoration text���misrepresenting Cohen. Cohen was a passionate proponent of a pluralistic form of speculative philosophy. 1910 saw the new realists calling for a philosophical platform���roughly, a party centred around consensual truths and rigorous, logical analysis���one that would guide philosophical research in America. Cohen, among many others, objected and argued that philosophy should be inherently pluralistic and speculative. Here is an excerpt from Cohen���s 1910 plea for speculative philosophy:

A philosophy which would recognize its kinship with literature and with the social sciences would be truly humanistic. It would aim to be scientific, but it would not be afraid to go beyond science just as life and conduct must go beyond knowledge. This, however, would be only a reassertion of the old ideal of philosophy as mediating between the lebenisantschauung of literature and the social sciences, and the weltanschauung of the natural sciences. We may laugh at system building as much as we please, but some such ideal must be held up by somebody if the present anarchic tendency to overspecialization is to be controlled in the interests of sanity (Cohen 1910, p. 409).

Cohen���s pluralism about philosophy, and indeed about science, was underpinned by a form of perspectival realism, one according to which there are a variety of alternative, insightful perspectives on reality. At the base of his perspectivism was a metaphysical principle, the principle of polarity:

 [The principle of polarity] is the principle, not of the identity, but of the necessary copresence and mutual dependence of opposite determinations. It warns us against the greatest bane of philosophizing, to wit: the easy artificial dilemma between unity and plurality, rest and motion, substance and function, actual and ideal, etc (Cohen 1927, p. 679).

For Cohen, the principle of polarity underpins the goal of understanding the substantial truth in the various philosophical systems, e.g., positivism, idealism and materialism.

Nagel, to be sure, had his own metaphysics, one that acknowledges that a ���manifest plurality and variety of things, of their qualities and their functions, are an irreducible feature of the cosmos��� (1956, p. 7). This metaphysics superficially resembles Cohen���s. But Nagel���s metaphysics is not intended to open the door to a plurality of legitimate metaphysical perspectives; Nagel was pushing for a philosophical platform, much as the new realists were. Nor is Nagel���s metaphysics supposed to embrace the need to go beyond science and thus to be speculative. His position supposedly ���articulates features of the world which, because they have become so obvious, are rarely mentioned in discussions of special subject matter��� and which are ���meagre in content��� (1956, pp. 6-7). While Cohen admits that, as a metaphysician, he must go beyond science, Nagel denies that he must and insists that he is just articulating what we already know.

One reason Nagel might have had for misrepresenting Cohen was to promote Cohen���s work to an audience of analytic philosophers. But it is hard to see Nagel���s intent as serious if this motivation is attributed to him. Nagel���s text includes nothing concrete about Cohen���s thought or achievements that might motivate one to read his work. A less obvious possible motivation is Nagel���s own reputation. For one thing, Cohen belonged to the first generation of professional American philosophers of science. Nagel���s reputation as a key source of American analytic philosophy of science may have benefited from a lack of knowledge of Cohen���s work in the field. Nagel does not do more than intimate that Cohen was a philosopher of science (Nagel does not do much better when, in his books, he mentions Cohen; Nagel���s own citations of Cohen���s work are very limited). For another thing, supporting one���s reputation in 1957 required, especially for those who, like Nagel, belonged to pre-1950s American philosophy, distancing oneself from speculative thought.

It would not have been hard to tempt some future readers into learning more about Cohen. Cohen taught quite a few of the second generation of American, professional philosophers of science, including, in addition to Nagel, Sidney Hook, Lewis Feuer, Milton Munitz, Joseph Ratner and Philip Wiener. Moreover, as Cohen���s Reason and Nature: An Essay on the Meaning of Scientific Method (1931) makes clear, his students will have found in his teaching and writing many of the issues, positions and modes of proceeding that later constituted analytic, which was perceived to be ���logical-empiricist���, philosophy of science. If we avert our gaze from some of the sections in Cohen���s book���especially to the critique of positivism, the chapter on speculative philosophy and the treatment of ethics���we find a template for analytic philosophy of science, including a familiar understanding of the role of logical analysis in philosophy of science, of the issues it faces, of the positions to be examined and much more. Indeed, it is striking how close the topics, and order of topics, in Cohen���s book are those of Nagel���s 1961 book The Structure of Science: a general discussion of the logic of science (laws of nature, explanation, confirmation), followed by the philosophy of physical science, the philosophy of biology, the philosophy of the social sciences and the philosophy of history). Nagel���s book, of course, was one of the key textbooks of early analytic philosophy of science. Cohen and Nagel���s joint book from 1934, An introduction to logic and scientific method, is a logic textbook rather than primarily a book in the philosophy of science, but here too the formative influence of Cohen���s 1931 book is clear, e.g., in the half of the book which does focus on applied logic and the philosophy of science and in the conception of logic, which is Cohen���s and which Nagel rejects in his later work.

Bibliography

Cahoone, L. (2017) ���The metaphysics of Morris R. Cohen: from realism to objective relativism,��� Journal of the History of Ideas, 78(3): 449-471.

Cohen, M. R. (1910) "The Conception of Philosophy in Recent Discussion." The Journal of Philosophy, 7(15): 401-410.

Cohen, M. R. (1927) ���Concepts and Twilight Zones.��� The Journal of Philosophy, 24(25), 673-683.

Cohen, M. R. (1931) An essay on the meaning of scientific method. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press.

Cohen, M. R. (1934) An introduction to logic and the scientific method. London: Routledge.

Nagel, E. (1956) Logic without metaphysics. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press.

Nagel, E. (1957) ���Morris R. Cohen in retrospect,��� Journal of the History of Ideas, 18(4): 548-551.

 

Cahoone (2017) also notes a dearth of citations of Cohen���s work.

Nor was Nagel really a pluralist about science. Immediately after articulating his metaphysics, he tells us (1956, p. 8) that his position is not incompatible with the existential primacy of matter. Moreover, he never closes the door to the idea that some ultimate physical theory might be able to explain all of natural science.

The People did not rush to defend Congress

We lower the boom. No civilized country can accept or allow what we saw Wednesday with the violent assault on the U.S. Capitol. This was an attack on democracy itself. That is not just a phrase. Rule by the people relies on adherence to law and process. The assault and siege was an attempt to stop the work of democracy by halting the peaceful transfer of presidential power, our crowning glory for more than two centuries.

This was a sin against history.

When something like this happens it tends to be repeated. It is our job to make sure it is not.

And so we should come down like a hammer on all those responsible, moving with brute dispatch against members of the mob and their instigators.--Peggy Noonan Wall Street Journal, January 7,

It has been much remarked during the last few days that during the attack on the US Capitol that law enforcement was, despite the great sacrifice and courage of some, not prepared to defend Congress.* By this I do not just mean the criminal lack of preparation in the light of stated and widely discussed plans of Trumpists to mass on Washington on January 6, and disrupt and overturn the tallying of the votes, but, perhaps, also not to prevent entry into the Capitol. We saw security services fraternize with the protestors who were left free to go. Presumably, as reports suggests, some of this is due to coordination. (For a nice overview that fits my own perception see Kieran Healy.) All of this fits a larger, documented pattern of law enforcement and security services being favorably disposed to Trumpism and white supremacy as distinct from the Constitution.

Less remarked are three frightful further facts about Wednesday.+ First, the people did not rush to US Capitol to defend their representatives. Perhaps this lackluster response is due to Covid or residue complacency about the stability of the constitutional order. But I suspect the deeper problem is the undoubtedly racialized disenfranchisement of the population of Washington DC reveals itself as a terrible Achilles heel of American politics. That is [updated], I am not criticizing any residents of the capital; rather, future Putschists will have noted this structural vulnerability that at the seat of American power, the people may leave the defense of Congress to the armed professionals and so cede power altogether.  

Second, and while some rose to the occasion, setting aside partisan tactics, Congress's complacency about the moment revealed itself in a time of mortal danger. By this I do not just mean the the optics of fleeing, which only emboldens the Putschists. There were no equivalents of General Guti��rrez Mellado, Adolfo Suarez, and Santiago Carrillo standing firm against the intruders. Nor do I just mean the opportunistic instigators (and I include a good chunk of the Republican membership of the House and especially Senators Cruz and Hawley here). But also, and most faithfully, rather, than seeking common cause against those that wish to undermine the experiment in self-government and government by discussion, party leaders of both sides (alas) continue to jockey for tactical advantage or to score rhetorical points against each other. If the Congressional leadership cannot work together now (see my next point) when the institution is under assault, it may be too late. And in a great perversion of language, "unity" now seems to mean, turn a blind eye toward the conspirators.

Third, the most shocking element of recent days is not the sedition in the White House, but that Speaker Pelosi revealed, publically that she called Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley, "to discuss available precautions for preventing an unstable president from initiating military hostilities or accessing the launch codes and ordering a nuclear strike." While I understand the Speaker's noble impulse to contact the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, she, thereby, continues the slide into an extra-constitutional order (as noted by Elizabeth Saunders) and reminds the military that, henceforth, it holds the keys to power.**

Even if we make it peacefully to a transition to a President Biden, nobody can be sanguine about the next year(s). What the events of the last few years, really decades (since Timothy McVeigh), have shown is an inability by American political leaders to imagine that the danger to liberal democracy comes not just from communism, but also from the violent forms of white nationalism, even fascism. This is, in fact, an effect of how the cold war "disordered" American conservatism (and exiles from various despotic countries that are understandably fearful of socialism). I am quoting from an insightful comment by Jonathan Ainslie on a longer post by Stephen Davies both worth reading.

It is tempting to focus on familiar debates (and fundraising) over the nature of free speech in light of Twitter's decision. And Biden's administration, in so far as it will be energetic at all, will be eager to focus on Covid and the economy, and project a back to normal aura. But these are not normal times. We should not let the clown-esque nature, and the comical costumes, of Wednesday lull us to the  danger.

What is not needed are new laws or new policing or surveillance powers. What is needed is rather  a swift willingness, as Ilya Somin argues, to impeach and convict the President and, thereby, not just deter future Presidents but also prevent future political office for Donald Trump whose actions clearly fit high treason. Start proceedings to expel Senators Hawley and Cruz from the Senate and cover their departure with disgrace. In both cases we can expect them to be replaced by Republicans. And, more painfully yet, what's required is to start a purge (even by way of full retirement with benefits) of law enforcement and security services in order to remove those that have expressed public sympathy for various forms of white nationalism and Trumpism. 

None of these actions would tackle the underlying causes of the rise of Trumpism (about which I speculate in my series on the crisis of liberalism). Back in December 2015, we saw a revolt within the Republican party against their own party-elites. And since 2016 it has been clear that Trump's rise represent a decaying constitutional order (recall). We have been lucky that since his 2016 victory, the cadres that worked for his Presidency were, by and large, willing to adhere to the rule of law and constitutionalism, (even if one can note that the law is often unjust and, as Timothy Snyder notes, game it for their own ends) or not repudiate it at decisive moments. And even critics of federalism must recognize that it, and the integrity of many secretaries of states and election workers (of both parties), saved election day. But if the evident weaknesses diagnosed above are not tackled, we can expect not just better organized putsches, but to see one succeed. 

I am myself not moved much generally by comparisons with Weimar (which really was a perfect storm). The focus on Weimar obscures that liberal democracies collapse more regularly. I think the comparisons with, as Richard Bellamy has noted, Italy in the 1920s, and, as Chris Bertram has noted, France in the 1930s (and 1851/2) are more apt.++ In all such cases the political right split between those that respected constitutional democracy and those that threw their lot in with plebiscite dictatorship (while underestimating the dangers of doing so). And while it is not obvious how to undo the deception of millions, we do know that fatally, in these cases, the forces that might have saved liberal democracy were unwilling to join forces and so fell together.

 

*The half-century (not entirely undeserved) mockery of Popper has meant that the person with most clarity about these matters goes largely unread (recall this post from last Fall). Bizarrely, well-meaning civil libertarians are attacking Twitter for banning Trump. We live in strange times when f0r-profit corporations are more awake to the present danger than our representatives and part of the intelligentsia.

+Political scientists have been warning about the possibility of a putsch for quite some time. Because of that, ahead of the election, I started to worry before the election, "that in defeat, which is by no means certain, he may encourage violence." After the election, I warned of his danger: "purposely undermining the credibility of the electoral process risks generating a non-peaceful transfer of power, or even civil war. As I write, he has not conceded the election yet." And by mid-November it was clear he was prepared to be an usurper.

**A discrete phone-call would have been defensible, perhaps. Much better either way, would have been to have Republican congressional leadership in the call.

++I also think we might enter a period not unlike the brief Kerenski era with a regime overwhelmed by challenges.

1. The updated sentence reflects discussion with Eric Winsberg and Martin Lenz.

On the Crisis of Liberalism (VIII): Do We Stand for Civic Republicanism?

So what, exactly, are we seeking to defend? What is the character of a liberal democracy? What does it mean for a society to be liberal, rather than for a person to subscribe to liberal principles, such as the ones Paul laid out almost four years ago?

To answer this question I will discuss five broad topics that make up the core of liberal democracy: liberty, democracy, rule of law, capability, and virtue. Liberty is often called ���negative liberty��� to emphasize that it is freedom from interference, but I think it is most usefully thought of as the specific freedoms���such as freedom of association, freedom of speech, and property rights���which give a liberal order its dynamism. Democracy under liberalism consists of using electoral systems and mass voting as tools for accountability rather than direct governance. Rule of law is a complicated topic but in practice often boils down to the existence, for ordinary citizens, of legal remedies and actions which will by and large be honored, especially by actors in the government. Finally, a liberal society���an actual liberal democracy in which voter sovereignty is given pride of place alongside other liberal characteristics���cannot survive unless liberal values are broadly held by the electorate. The tendency to live by these values on a relatively consistent basis entails what some have referred to as ���liberal virtues.���--Adam Gurri "What is Liberal Democracy?" Liberal Currents

This is the eight post (recall here (I);  here (II); here (III); here (IV); here (V); here (VI); here (VII) in an open-ended series (see also here, here, here,  here; and here) on the current crisis of liberalism (which I date to 2008/9).

One of the few glimmers of hope during the current crisis of liberalism, is that since the rise of Trump, to simplify greatly (spare me your outrage), property-loving classical liberals and  justice/redistribution-loving centrist (say, Rawlsian) liberals have rediscovered that liberalism is a lot more than meets the eye. And for a few years now, Liberal Currents has been leading the way in bringing youthful talent together to think through what liberalism might mean concretely, as worth living, into the future. (Let's hope that they fly a few years under the radar of The New Yorker and The New York Times Magazine as the next big thing; we need their insouciance to cashing in for a while longer!) 

Gurri is the 'Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Liberal Currents,' and it says something of the experimental and open spirit that after four years he revisits the principles he wishes to stand for. The first few paragraphs of the piece I quoted deserve your attention, even if you have no time for what follows (so go read it). As friend of Liberal Currents, I hope I am allowed to say, 'we wouldn't be liberals if we didn't disagree over the exact meaning of liberalism'. So, today, I would like to say something about the nature of liberal society, and the values or, in Gurri's  terms, virtues in it. 

In addition to the passage quoted above, there is another paragraph  (that partially repeats the one I quoted) that I disagree with:

A liberal state staffed by people uncommitted to liberalism or to the institutions they serve will not remain a liberal state for long. And a liberal democracy in which liberal values are not broadly shared by the electorate is unlikely to remain a liberal democracy for long, nor to retain its democracy much longer than that.

So, versions of Gurri's position are extremely popular in Europe among well meaning friends of liberal democracy. It is also popular among not-so-well-meaning islamo-phobes and xenophobes. And often it is not entirely easy to distinguish the two. But the position is associated with what is called 'civic republicanism,' or (in debates over immigration/refugees) ���civic integrationist discourse���* and so-called 'homo-nationalism'. (Gurri's position need not reduce to any of these.) Unfortunately, civic republicanism promotes, in practice, conformity and becomes a stick to make the vulnerable and inarticulate play by the rules of intolerant majorities.

Notice, too, that Gurri's position is much stronger than the Rawlsian overlapping consensus of political liberalism (and public reason), which is, at least in principle, compatible with many citizens holding many private illiberal positions.

My  view is that there is little empirical evidence for the two empirical presuppositions Gurri relies on, viz. (i) a liberal society (or, while not the same thing, liberal democracy) cannot survive unless liberal values are broadly held by the electorate; (ii) A liberal state staffed by people uncommitted to liberalism or to the institutions they serve will not remain a liberal state for long. (I call this the 'Athenian insight' -- not because Athens was liberal, it was not --, but because it trusted its citizens with education in right norms/values/virtues.) While I welcome the existence of widespread support for liberal values and virtues (broadly conceived), there is non-trivial historical experience against both. For example, in the early years of the German federal republic, there was little fondness for liberal democracy among the population, and, while there were a few ORDO, Christian Democratic and Social democratic anti-Nazis, the state was staffed by a generation of (largely unrepentant) ex-Nazi functionaries (see chapter 5 of The Denazification of Germany: A History 1945-1950).

Of the two, there is a grain of (conceptual) truth in (ii). For, on (ii) what BLM has revealed is that the liberal state, even in its core judicial/political function, is staffed by quite a few functionaries who are uncommitted to liberalism (even if we have just learned that federal judges are committed to legal principles and, perhaps, defending elections as a means of picking rulers). That's compatible with designing institutions in such a way that what these functionaries are committed to serves to protect lots of other things we care about in liberal society (property, adhering to traffic rules, etc.).+ Even in bread and butter liberal democracies a sizeable chunk of the electorate is attracted to authoritarian political practices. I first learned this from David Art's Radical Right: The Development of Anti-Immigrant Parties in Western Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2011), but I now work in a department where my comparative colleagues are world experts on this.** 

But leaving aside the empirical facts of the matter. I also think -- and this has a Mill-ian sensibility (J.S. Mill not the father), but I get it from Walter Lippmann -- the survival of a non-totalizing liberalism requires the regular confrontation with robust and thoughtful illiberal values and views within our political system, that is, in which illiberal parties and commitments/ideologies/forms of life are present to maintain, even enervate liberalism���s own vitality as a living creed and, thereby, the vitality of the whole political system. So, on my view of Lippmann (see here), in near defeat (ca 1938), liberalism simultaneously comes to endorse its own fundamental commitments and a commitment to a kind of unreasonable pluralism. 

For, the recurring challenge of both liberal emancipatory mass movements (some of which are not initially understood as liberal at all) and illiberal experiments, practices, and ideologies that helps us epistemically and politically, to figure out what we stand for, what we care about, what constitutively 'we' are (as society, polity, etc.). And this means that an open society will have to accommodate (as Kukathas has argued in Liberal Archipelago) many illiberal voluntary associations (and even parties).  

Obviously, Gurri and others are right that there is a tipping point beyond which the absence of commitment to liberalism among citizens and/or staffers makes it very vulnerable to putsches, usurpation, demagogues, and revolution (etc.). But where that point is is hard to foresee, and involves complex coordination, mobilization, and signaling among citizens. And I also do not deny that two-party duopolies (as the US is) become dangerously unstable if (a strategically important element of) one party rejects fundamentally or gradually the liberal experiment.

I do not deny (recall this post on Popper) that Liberalism, more than most other political ideologies, internalizes the idea that there are considerable uncertainties it ought not wish to eliminate. And, perhaps, we need providential hope that our liberal faith, which has been tested again this week (and may be tested the next few weeks again), will never be extinguished. But even amidst despair, we can strive while our enemies are emboldened to postpone and push back our possible defeat.

 

*My terrific PhD student Lea Klarenbeek has done excellent work on this

+I dislike arguments about Weimar. But I think this is a different kind of example (and not Weimar).

**Some of them may well agree with Gurri on what is needed!

On Governmental Honors for Academics

I���ve largely avoided the academic open letter trend (& not gonna make a habit of this!) so a thread to explain why I signed��� Substantial intellectual disputes should be settled by means of argumentation. So, e.g., with the open letter calling for the Case for Colonialism piece to be retracted, I encouraged people *not* to sign and wrote a critique of the substance��� [T]he case of Stock and the OBE is not that.

This is purely a matter of what in my field receives public honours and lauding. That is to say, it is a matter of sending out a signal on what we value, what we consider especially noteworthy and positive contributions���

[G]iven what���s morally and politically at stake here, it���s worth sending out a strong counter-signal to the suggestion that Dr. Stock���s recent concerted public campaign is an exceptional philosophical contribution to higher education. If you agree, please sign!

Stock���s career and public philosophising will go on quite unperturbed by this letter. In fact, she���s thriving. Besides the OBE, keynoting the Aristotelian Society, getting a book deal, and regular media appearances, 2020 seems to have been her most cited year. So it goes���. I say that to reassure: if you���re inclined to worry about Stock being silenced you needn���t.

Open letters don���t persuade, no one who didn���t already agree will be swayed. The value of the exercise is making clear to onlookers, especially trans people considering philosophy, that many of us don���t in fact agree that what she has contributed through our field and its public role in UK life should be lauded with the highest civilian honour. Again, if you think that���s something which trans people looking at philosophy might like to know, please sign.--Liam Kofi Bright quoted at Dailynous. [The original twitter thread is here.]

My original, instinctive response to the predictable controversy over Dr. Stock's OBE was to use it as evidence for the impropriety of liberal-democratic governments to offer/convey honors at all. For, first, it is, in fact, quite natural to see them as a atavistic left-over from the hierarchy-celebrating, feudal and imperial eras. An OBE is literally an order of the British Empire award. And, second, the pattern of such honors violates all kinds of neutrality or impartiality requirements that we have come reasonably expect from liberal democracies. Third, such honors can easily become a cover for cronyism or rents and the pay-off for political services rendered (see President Trump's pattern of Medal of Freedom Medals.) 

To be sure, the conferring of honors or recognition is compatible with egalitarian versions of liberalism. But I think the more natural, liberal position is to leave such honorifics to civil society and the variety of voluntary associations (and keep the state out of this business). So, I have no problem with universities conferring academic distinctions, awards/honorifics (although as regular readers know, I think these generate complex issues [recall this post on the letter against Derrida; this post on its relationship to no-platforming; this post on the Kalven report; and many more under the influence of Jacob Levy's essay).

Interestingly, neither the open letter/petition, which I like for the comments/distinctions it makes about the character of academic freedom, nor Bright's argument quoted at Dailynous (and above) make any mention of the tension between honorifics and democratic life. I return to this below.

One reason why it is worth looking at Bright's argument is that despite his entertaining twitter persona, he is, in fact one of the world's experts on the nature and complexities of the credit economy of science/intellectual communities. And it is quite clear that he conceives of the letter as a kind of counter-signal toward those outside the profession ("onlookers," which may call 'public opinion') and, in particular, those that might become insiders one day ("considering philosophy, ") in particular "trans people." So, we can see his position as a signal about how he and his fellow-signers wish to see the future of professional philosophy.

Here professional philosophy is conceived, in part, as a relatively autonomous professional discipline. It is not treated as wholly autonomous because part of the underlying issue being debated is about how universities (which employ many professional philosophers) should associate with Stonewall a prominent LGBTQ+ rights charity and its trans-inclusive stance in particular. 

This can't be the whole story. Such an open letter is, of course, also, and perhaps, primarily, a signal to fellow insiders within the profession. As the open letter puts it, "We are professional academic philosophers committed to the inclusion and acceptance of trans and gender non-conforming people, both in the public at large, and within philosophy in particular. We write to affirm our commitment to developing a more inclusive environment, disavowing the use of professional and cultural authority to further gendered oppression." While one need not deny the earnestness of such a letter's aims to reform/improve the "public at large," and public opinion, its practical impact is mostly felt within the profession as an act of solidarity and the attempt to create inclusive norms/practices/institutions of conduct, and, as Bright emphasizes, a signal toward would be professionals who wish to join. I do not mean to suggest this exhausts it significance; it's also a mechanism to reveal support for certain norms.* But underlying Bright's argument and the one of the open letter is the idea that the professional community is also in certain respects a moral ("inclusive") community. It is no surprise, given the pluralist society we live in, that this generates debate and disagreement.

As it happens, and now I return to the opening themes of this post, as the controversy broke I was reading Michael Sonenscher's (2007) fascinating Before the Deluge: Public Debt, Inequality, and the Intellectual Origins of the French Revolution. And one of the sub-themes in this dense and complex work is that the French Legion of Honor, which was instituted by Napoleon in 1802, can, in fact, be traced to the French Revolution itself! And, in particular, that this honor system was really the brainchild of the vision of Emmanuel-Joseph Siey��s, at the point where Siey��s helped shape some of the most egalitarian and democratic moments of the French revolution. In fact, Sonensher argues that the very idea for such a system of honors is lodged, or "first adumbrated" (78) in 1789, in What is the Third Estate?!

In Sonensher's presentation Siey��s argues, to simplify greatly, for a system of honors as a countervailing meritocratic, social hierarchy in an unequal society, where inequality of property and inequality of political power have a tendency to undermine political equality. And, interestingly, the meritocratic social hierarchy is supposed to shape and be shaped by civil service. In particular, it is also supposed to be a countervailing power to political centralization, and so ensure status and recognition (and influence) in the provinces. (It is not clear whether Siey��s would argue for a system of honors absent structural inequalities. But since he defends the right to inheritance, it is clear he does not expect equality in property/wealth.) 

Before I get to the upshot of this. Sonenscher's argument had me excited and I went back to Siey��s's seminal What is Third Estate. (which I read in an updated version of Blondel's 1963 translation).+ In one sense this was disappointing. Because I could not really find the argument I sketched in the previous paragraph (and derived from Sonenscher). What is abundantly clear is that indeed Siey��s does not call for the abolition of honors (which under feudalism generated all kind of privileges, including as Siey��s' notes different forms of public punishment).

But rather that Siey��s calls for a change in the character of honor.  In particular, he forcefully rejects the (aristocratic) idea that labor cannot be a source of honor (familiar from Greek philosophy), so he argued for widening of who may be considered for honors (nobility of birth should not be the source at all) and also the content of what should be honored. He thinks advocates for "principles of universal justice" definitely deserve public honor, once the system permits it. What this last point makes clear is that in addition to being a kind of countervailing power (in the spirit of Montesquieu as Sonenscher emphasizes), the function of public honor is as Siey��s argues "to serve the rights of citizenship." 

So, I think we now have the contours of a plausible argument why imperfect democracies may wish to promote public honors on individuals. And one can make a non-cynical, good faith argument that "services to higher education" may, in certain respects, at least indirectly, serve the rights of citizenship or principles of universal justice. (I am myself not tempted to do so.) This has to be judged on a case by honorific/honoree case basis.

Regular readers know I think scholarly activism is legitimate form of public philosophy (recall here; and here). I myself continue to think governments should not be in the business of dispensing honorifics. But given that such honorifics are compatible with a realistic interpretation of democratic life, I suspect my first two paragraphs above, even if properly spelled out and defended will convince few.

But I also think there is another (second-best) echt liberal response in the vicinity here. Rather than viewing the granting of honorifics as settling a social question. We can see it as an imperfect way of inviting debate over what society ought to honor in the name of universal justice and, more important, what the content of universal justice is.++ Even if one disagrees with Prof. Stock (as I do), her activism does speak to nature and rights of citizenship (and much more so than many other honorees). After all, in a liberal society the government's positions on a whole range of morally and ethically salient issues are contestable and (thankfully) contested. Disagreement over moral and political issues, including public recognition/honors, is the lifeblood of a free society, including philosophy. It is, in fact, a possible discovery mechanism of what we value all things considered, if there is a 'we' left after the dust has cleared.

 

*Regular readers know where I stand on the underlying issues (recall here) so should not be surprised that I signed the letter; but also that I publicly condemned without reserve the harassment directed Prof. Stock's way. 

+I thank David Gordon and Daniel Moerner for tracking down a copy.

++And this is also true of honors one finds unworthy of a democratic society.

28 March 1979: Foucault on Locke's World Historical Conceptual Shift (XXXVII)

To simplify things, and somewhat arbitrarily, I will start, as from a given, with English empiricism and the theory of the subject which is in fact put to work in English empiricist philosophy, with the view that���once again, I am making a somewhat arbitrary division���the theory of the subject in English empiricism probably represents one of the most important mutations, one of the most important theoretical transformations in Western thought since the Middle Ages.

What English empiricism introduces���let���s say, roughly, with Locke���and doubtless for the first time in Western philosophy, is a subject who is not so much defined by his freedom, or by the opposition of soul and body, or by the presence of a source or core of concupiscence marked to a greater or lesser degree by the Fall or sin, but who appears in the form of a subject of individual choices which are both irreducible and non-transferable. What do I mean by irreducible? I will take Hume���s very simple and frequently cited passage, which says: What type of question is it, and what irreducible element can you arrive at when you analyze an individual���s choices and ask why he did one thing rather than another? Well, he says: ���You ask someone, ���Why do you exercise?��� He will reply, ���I exercise because I desire health.��� You go on to ask him, ���Why do you desire health?��� He will reply, ���Because I prefer health to illness.��� Then you go on to ask him, ���Why do you prefer health to illness?��� He will reply, ���Because illness is painful and so I don���t want to fall ill.��� And if you ask him why is illness painful, then at that point he will have the right not to answer, because the question has no meaning.��� The painful or non-painful nature of the thing is in itself a reason for the choice beyond which you cannot go. The choice between painful and non-painful is a sort of irreducible that does not refer to any judgment, reasoning, or calculation. It is a sort of regressive end point in the analysis.
   Second, this type of choice is non-transferable. I do not mean that it is non-transferable in the sense that one choice could not be replaced by another. You could perfectly well say that if you prefer health to illness, you may also prefer illness to health, and then choose illness. It is also clear that you may perfectly well say: I prefer to be ill and that someone else is not. But, in any case, on what basis will this substitution of one choice for another be made? It will be made on the basis of my own preference and on the basis of the fact that I would find someone else being ill more painful, for example, than being ill myself. In the end the principle of my choice really will be my own feeling of painful or not painful, of pain and pleasure. There is Hume���s famous aphorism which says: If I am given the choice between cutting my little finger and the death of someone else, even if I am forced to cut my little finger, nothing can force me to think that cutting my little finger is preferable to the death of someone else.
    So, these are irreducible choices which are non-transferable in relation to the subject. This principle of an irreducible, non-transferable, atomistic individual choice which is unconditionally referred to the subject himself is what is called interest.

    What I think is fundamental in English empiricist philosophy���which I am treating completely superficially���is that it reveals something which absolutely did not exist before. This is the idea of a subject of interest, by which I mean a subject as the source of interest, the starting point of an interest, or the site of a mechanism of interests. For sure, there is a series of discussions on the mechanism of interest itself and what may activate it: is it self-preservation, is it the body or the soul, or is it sympathy? But this is not what is important. What is important is the appearance of interest for the first time as a form of both immediately and absolutely subjective will.--Michel Foucault, 28 March, 1979,  translated by Graham Burchell, Lecture 11, The Birth of Biopolitics, 271-273 

Because most of lecture 11 is a brilliant analysis of the history of criminology and the (sometimes overlapping) significance of Gary Becker's redefinition of homo oeconomicus, it is easy to miss how Foucault embeds his analysis in a narrative in which the least genius of the tradition, Locke, is a world-historical -- "one of the most important mutations, one of the most important theoretical transformations in Western thought since the Middle Ages"* -- figure (in Nietzsche's sense). In my last post (episode 36), I had already observed that lecture 11 is tied by Foucault to the start of the lecture series and Locke's conception of the liberal art of government.   

As an aside, it is striking how conventional Foucault's philosophical categories (e.g., 'Western thought;' 'British Empiricism;' 'Middle Ages' etc.") can be sometimes. But as we know, artistic genius in this convention is characterized by the virtuosity of playing with the given constraints. And as Foucault teaches in this very lecture (recall), that fits the definition of rational agency.

The way I understand Foucault's conceptual analysis of the empiricist agent, the subject of interest, is that he reveals the thin conceptual pre-conditions that ground the nature of homo oeconomicus that figure into the importantly different definitions of economics (say offered by Robbins ("the optimal allocation of scarce resources to alternative ends") and Becker (the "science of the systematic nature of responses to environmental variables")). Recall that inscribed in the Birth of Biopolitics, is a natural history of the changing conceptions of homo oeconomicus: (i) in the Smithian period he is the man of exchange (224); in the (ii) classical period starting with Ricardo he is man the consumer in terms of satisfaction/pursuit of needs (p. 225);+ (iii) in the neoliberal period, especially in the (recall) ORDO senses, "he is the man of enterprise and production." (147, lecture 6). And (iv) at Chicago he is also "an entrepreneur," but now, especially, "an entrepreneur of himself," who develops and produces/maintains his own human capital as a source of earnings (226), even a possible earning stream into the future (230). 

And what Foucault notices is that this agent has properties that in so far as there is agency at all, cannot conceptually be reduced to other properties (that's the irreducible element and that cannot be exchanged (or traded)--that's the non-transferable property. Now, I want to pause at this second feature. 

For, to be a subject with interest, one that at the start of liberalism is capable of trading commodities with others (and to be held accountable, etc.), requires that one is constituted by (I use Hume's phrase) elements that themselves are irreducible and that cannot be traded. (This raises interesting questions on the natural limits of economics as a totalizing science.) And so the liberal tradition is founded by a conceptual distinction between entities that can be traded (by subjects of interest) and entities that compose/constitute agents and (at least when they are doing such grounding) cannot be traded as such.* And this conceptual bifurcation between these two kinds of entities survives through the other transformations of the natural history of homo oeconomicus. What does happen is that the manner in which the subject capable of interest is conceptualized shifts. The agents of the contemporary prisoner dilemma or in an agent-based simulation do not need to have Humean impressions and ideas, etc. But they do have these two features that ground their irreducible interest.

As an aside, perhaps far from Foucault's thought, the Lockean/Humean subject of interest with its irreducible elements is a monster from the perspective of (principle of) sufficient explanation. Because in them explanation bottoms out without a proper ground. As Michael Della Rocca has shown, Hume was clearly aware of  this feature of his own theory. What this tells us is that well before the arbitrary initial conditions of natural science were treated as a standing problem for adherence to sufficient reason, the (liberal) subject with an interest was so.

Let me close with a critical observation. It is somewhat unfortunate that Foucault treats the subject of interest as 'atomistic individual.' Even leaving aside the conventional categories he is playing with, and Hume's "famous aphorism," it is kind of natural for him to use this terminology because it seems that the two elements that help constitute a subject of interest are, like Robinson Crusoe, isolatable (in modelling terms) from other subjects of interest. So, there is a sense in which what he says is unobjectionable. And, to be sure, in so far he is thinking, as he is, of Becker (and we would include the effective altruists) for whom the welfare of others (especially in the family) can contribute greatly to our individual utility, he is not unfair. 

But as is made transparent by Adam Smith, building on Hume's philosophy, our (social) feelings, even without "judgment, reasoning, or calculation" incorporate irreducibly and inescapably the (imagined or inherited) judgments or perspectives of others (in my book I call these "social feelings" or "derived passions").** That is, others are an in-eliminable part of, and help constitute, our identity. As we know (recall) J.S. Mill made this, perhaps somewhat too greedily (and without sufficient clarity), a firm foundation of his version of utilitarianism. To be sure this Smith-Mill tradition (revived by the humaneconomics of Vernon Smith and his students) is distinct from the Becker tradition. So, there is another sense in which Foucault reinforces a misleading trope about the possibilities of liberalism. It is unusual for him to do so. And it is worth keeping in mind as we explore Foucault's final arguments.

 

+At times (p. 147 & 175) Foucault conflates (i) & (ii). 

*To be sure, one can divide such agents temporally and model them as trading with future/past selves. 

**That this is so is no surprise because Locke, Hume, and Smith all wished to reject Hobbes' atomistic individual.

On Orphaned Papers: Haldane and the Fate of Scientific Eugenics

This paper was submitted to the Annals with an accompanying letter to the Editor, Professor Lionel Penrose, dated 17 February 1960. It has lain as item 136 of the Penrose Papers in the Manuscripts and Rare Books section of University College Library until recently brought to our notice by Dr K. R. Dronamraju, to whom we wish to express our thanks. We would also like to thank Naomi Mitchison for permission to publish this interesting manuscript of her brother���s. Lastly we gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Ms G. M. Furlong, curator of Manuscripts and Rare Books in the library of University College London. J.B.S. HALDANE (1996), "The negative heritability of neonatal jaundice,"Annals of Human Genetics, 60: 3-5. [HT: David Haig]

By an 'orphaned paper' I mean to refer to a paper accepted for publication in a volume quietly abandoned by the editor and, after years of ambiguity, it becomes unseemly to ask about its fate. Often there is no malice involved in such cases. Editors are humans, after all, and their professional activities may be interrupted for all kinds of (generally sad) reasons. Sometimes journals or presses fold or transition away from existing projects. A recent discussion on social media suggests that having some papers orphaned like this is not altogether unfamiliar to senior scholars.

My advice to younger scholars is not to show infinite patience and to pull your paper and resubmit it with an eye toward tenure clocks (and to archive it at a relevant site). And, this is why I use the language of 'orphan'; because orphans need not die still-born, and may get adopted and find all kinds of lovely homes and have lives that enrich us all. 

Haldane's paper was never orphaned in the technical sense.  For, there is no evidence it was accepted for publication when it was received by Penrose initially. (I return to this below.) Even so, I understand why Prof. Haig thought it a nice example of the phenomenon given the clear family resemblance to it. 

J.B.S. Haldane (1892 ���1964), was a famous scientist and public intellectual in his day. For example, as I noted a few months ago, he was one of Ernest Nagel's targets as an anti-exemplar of "malicious" (Marxist) philosophy of science. The quoted passage at the top of  this post is, as should be clear, an editorial note attached to the paper. The paper was submitted while Haldane was at the Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta (for background see here). Perhaps he thought the paper got lost in the mail or he moved on to other topics. 

The paper itself has been noticed after publication including by philosophers. So, for example, Peter Godfrey-Smith (65) cites it the make the important point that parents and off-spring may be "anti-correlated." (See also Sober, who credits learning about it from Godfrey-Smith.) More about this below.

An interesting fact about the recipient of the paper, Lionel Penrose, is that he changed the title of his chair from "Professor of Eugenics" (1945-1963) to "Professor of Human Heredity." The wikipedia entry also notes that "the "long delay" in changing this name was due to "legal problems" associated with the original donation from Francis Galton and described how Penrose simply ignored the "eugenics" element of his job title." This raises interesting questions about whether Penrose (who is the father of Roger Penrose) should have accepted the Chair in the first place (although he surely deserves our gratitude for his stance and the name change).* Be that as it may, it also tells us that UCL could have confronted its own entanglement with eugenics more forcefully already over half a century ago (rather than being shamed into incomplete and imperfect action (recall) by Dr. Nathaniel Adam Tobias Coleman, and others recently). 

Haldane himself clearly remained interested in eugenics. I won't attempt here to summarize seriously his views, in part because they seem to have shifted over time. He was a critic of racial eugenics of his age, because he clearly thought much of it unscientific. It is not entirely clear to me if he would have welcomed a scientifically sound racial eugenics.

And at the core of the posthumously published paper, he makes clear the connection between eugenics and his own paper:

This example will, I hope, act as a warning against the assumption that where a character is mainly determined genetically it will be more frequent in the progeny of those who manifest it than in the progeny of those who do not. This assumption is taken for granted in popular expositions of Darwinism and of eugenics. It is doubtless more often true than false. But the case here considered is not trivial. (5)

This made me wonder whether Penrose prevented publication because he wanted to downplay the association between Darwinism, human genetics, and eugenics in the mid 1960s. (One interesting fact is that no referee reports are mentioned; this makes me suspect the paper was not sent out to referees.)

So, I checked some of the works on Haldane by Dr K. R. Dronamraju, who found the paper in the archives (for more on him see here). According to him "Haldane and Penrose enjoyed a lifelong friendship that was both cordial and mutually beneficial" (Popularizing Science: The Life and Work of JBS Haldane (2017) Oxford: Oxford University Press, 249). He also emphasizes that they agreed on eugenics, "They were opposed to the sterilization of mentally defective individuals that was advocated by some eugenic groups. Both shared the belief that the science of human genetics was still in its infancy and could not justify such far-reaching decisions." (250) Oddly, he does not offer any evidence for this claim, so it is hard to say if this was always the case. Unfortunately, after an imperfect search, I have been unable to find discussion of the 1996 paper by Dronamraju anywhere. So, I view my speculation as ungrounded in evidence. 

Haldane's warning that such cases of anti-correlation are not trivial has not, as Hirsch notes by quoting the same posthumously published passage by Haldane I have just quoted, been heard by those who wish to turn eugenics into a mature science. Hirsch is scathing about the inability to confront the limitations of heritability analysis by even the most scientifically serious (and not racist) eugenicists. Hirsch's heart seems to be in the right place, but I have to admit that I feel decidedly ambivalent about the very project of improving scientific eugenics even when purged from its racialist tendencies.+

I wonder, not for the first time, if everything that advances science should be published while recognizing, with a shudder, that apparently I am willing to contemplate not treating the 'rights' of all 'orphans' alike.

 

*Dronamraju (2017: 249) suggests that Haldane engineered Penrose's appointment.

+In part because (i) I am doubtful it can be so purged; (ii) I am doubtful its application will ever be in accord with even minimal principles of humanity.

28 March 1979: Foucault's Rational Choice Analysis of Science (XXXVI)

In the end, is not economics the analysis of forms of rational conduct and does not all rational conduct, whatever it may be, fall under something like economic analysis? Is not a rational conduct, like that which consists in formal reasoning, an economic conduct in the sense we have just defined, that is to say, the optimal allocation of scarce resources to alternative ends, since formal reasoning consists in deploying certain scarce resources���a symbolic system, a set of axioms, rules of construction, and not just any symbolic system or any rules of construction, but just some���to be used to optimal effect for a determinate and alternative end, in this case a true rather than a false conclusion which we try to reach by the best possible allocation of scarce resources? So, if it comes to it, we do not see why we would not define any rational conduct or behavior whatsoever as the possible object of economic analysis.
   In truth, this already extremely extensive definition is not even the only one, and Becker, for example���the most radical of the American neoliberals, if you like���says that it is still not sufficient, that the object of economic analysis can be extended even beyond rational conduct as defined and understood in the way I have just described, and that economic laws and economic analysis can perfectly well be applied to non-rational conduct, that is to say, to conduct which does not seek at all, or, at any rate, not only to optimize the allocation of scarce resources to a determinate end. Becker says: Basically, economic analysis can perfectly well find its points of anchorage and effectiveness if an individual���s conduct answers to the single clause that the conduct in question reacts to reality in a nonrandom way. That is to say, any conduct which responds systematically to modifications in the variables of the environment, in other words, any conduct, as Becker says, which ���accepts reality,��� must be susceptible to economic analysis. Homo oeconomicus is someone who accepts reality. Rational conduct is any conduct which is sensitive to modifications in the variables of the environment and which responds to this in a non-random way, in a systematic way, and economics can therefore be defined as the science of the systematic nature of responses to environmental variables.
   This is a colossal definition, which obviously economists are far from endorsing, but it has a certain interest. It has a practical interest, if you like, inasmuch as if you define the object of economic analysis as the set of systematic responses to the variables of the environment, then you can see the possibility of integrating within economics a set of techniques, those called behavioral techniques, which are currently in fashion in the United States. You find these methods in their purest, most rigorous, strictest or aberrant forms, as you wish, in Skinner, and precisely they do not consist in analyzing the meaning of different kinds of conduct, but simply in seeing how, through mechanisms of reinforcement, a given play of stimuli entail responses whose systematic nature can be observed and on the basis of which other variables of behavior can be introduced. In fact, all these behavioral techniques show how psychology understood in these terms can enter the definition of economics given by Becker. There is little literature on these behavioral techniques in France. In Castel���s last book, The Psychiatric Society, there is a chapter on behavioral techniques and you will see how this is precisely the implementation, within a given situation���in this case, a hospital, a psychiatric clinic���of methods which are both experimental and involve a specifically economic analysis of behavior.
    Today though, I would like to emphasize a different aspect. This is that Becker���s definition, which, again, although it is not recognized by the average economist, or even by the majority of them, nonetheless, despite its isolated character, enables us to highlight a paradox, because homo oeconomicus as he appears in the eighteenth century���I will come back to this shortly���basically functions as what could be called an intangible element with regard to the exercise of power. Homo oeconomicus is someone who pursues his own interest, and whose interest is such that it converges spontaneously with the interest of others. From the point of view of a theory of government, homo oeconomicus is the person who must be let alone. With regard to homo oeconomicus, one must laisser-faire; he is the subject or object of laissez-faire. And now, in Becker���s definition which I have just given, homo oeconomicus, that is to say, the person who accepts reality or who responds systematically to modifications in the variables of the environment, appears precisely as someone manageable, someone who responds systematically to systematic modifications artificially introduced into the environment. Homo oeconomicus is someone who is eminently governable.--Michel Foucault, 28 March, 1979,  translated by Graham Burchell, Lecture 11, The Birth of Biopolitics,  269-270 (emphasis added)

At the start of the eleventh lecture, Foucault says he wants to go back to the starting point of the year, which (via Freud and Walpole) was (recall) on the liberal art of governing. This is a bit disappointing because he ended the tenth lecture with hints of a new kind of governmental practice. But before we have time to reflect on this, he turns, quickly, to the nature of (what I have been calling following Talcott Parsons) 'economic imperialism. This is odd because it is the topic (recall) he had introduced at the start of the previous lecture. Foucault quickly name-checks Mises Human Action (268) as the fount of neoliberalism, and then goes on to reveal that he has been reading back-issues of the Journal of Political Economy (hereafter: JPE) the house-organ of the The University of Chicago's economics department, from the years 1960���1970, and recommends a "series of articles" from 1962 by "Becker, Kirzner, and others." (268)*

It is by no means obvious what the liberal art of government and the shifting definitions of homo oeconomicus have in common. But, amazingly, by the end of the lecture it is completely clear. To give away the punchline (and to look ahead to some future posts), in Foucault's hands (and this is already clear in what I quote above), Becker's very redefinition of homo oeconimicus effectively betrays the original achievement of liberalism, which consists in not just "limiting the sovereign���s power," but "stripping the sovereign of power" by revealing an "essential, fundamental, and major incapacity of the sovereign, that is to say, an inability to master the totality of the economic field," (292); and the betrayal is, in a certain sense, as Foucault argues during the eleventh lecture, a return to physiocracy. In Foucault's telling Becker throws away the very achievement of Adam Smith, and creates a subject capable of being (to use the phrase Foucault had introduced in lecture 9) programmed, nudged, and shaped by a knowing sovereign.

But just before Foucault explains the significance of the shift from the Robbins definition of economics ("the optimal allocation of scarce resources to alternative ends") to the Becker definition (the "science of the systematic nature of responses to environmental variables"),** he (that is Foucault) inserts a new analysis of the nature of science. Foucault does this in the first paragraph in the passage quoted above this post.

Now critics of the Robbins definition (itself indebted to Max Weber) tend to notice that it turns economics into a kind of engineering; for the ends are given, and act as constraints on an optimization problem. And since the Robbins definition is topic neutral (neither the resources, nor the ends, nor the implied agent/allocators(s) have to be trading or using money, etc.) it is no surprise that economic analysis so constituted can be applied across many different domains (and economic imperialism is out of the gates). Of course, the critics will see in the Robbins definition a paradigmatic case of instrumental rationality.   

But if one looks at the Robbins definition, as it were, 'formally,' even the pinnacle of substantive rationality -- the inferring of true conclusions from, say, a set of axioms, can be treated, or, better yet, modelled as an instance of it. One is reminded here of Leibniz thinking of the "divine perfection" in terms of God as a perfect geometer in the Discourse of Metaphysics: "He who acts perfectly is like an excellent Geometer who knows how to find the best construction for a problem." (par. 5; Clarke is also tempted by this language.)+ 

So, economic analysis can be applied legitimately to God's choices and to scientific reasoning. Of course, and to be sure, while in God the context of construction/choice and context of justification coincide, one need not claim this about ordinary scientists. So, Foucault, is not here proposing to apply economic analysis to most scientific activity -- what I call 'public choice philosophy of science' of the sort Gordon Tullock and, at Chicago, George Stigler pioneered (and made mature by Sandra Peart and David Levy, now familiar within philosophy in the burgeoning Zollman school of philosophy of science [e.g., O'Connor Weatherall; Kofi Bright, etc.]). To be sure Foucault is not ruling it out. (I follows trivially from what he says.) 

But rather, he is making the more audacious point that economic analysis is a way of conceptualizing disciplined scientific speech speaking the truth (when its claims are justified). And this is a kind of existence proof for the claim that "any rational conduct or behavior whatsoever" is "the possible object of economic analysis" with economic analysis understood in the sense of Robbins' definition. So, economic analysis might be philosophical speech, that is, capable of analyzing itself if and only if it generates "true conclusions." 

I could close with the fate of that lovely sentence hanging in the balance. But I want to note two things here: first, there is a sense in which Foucault agrees with the Frankfurt's school's claim that under capitalism even science becomes conceived as a species of instrumental rationality. But he is not critical of it. He explicitly grants that all rational action can be modelled by economic analysis in this sense. And so, second, he rejects the distinction between instrumental and substantive rationality. For, while Foucault need not accept the much stronger claim that no other form of analysis, no other grid of intelligibility, is possible (he is clearly a pluralist about such matters [Robbins' definition "is not even the only one"]), he does not accept here the possibility that something is a species of rational agency and not capable of falling under the Robbins definition.++ 

And with that, I conclude my seventh full year of solo blogging and will take my customary winter break; I wish you happy holidays my dear reader!

*For the aficionados, JPE  was then edited by Harry G. Johnson and Robert Mundell. Interestingly, there were both Canadians and played central roles in international affairs. One doesn't tend to think of Mundell (who has an important role to play in the history of the Euro) as Chicago economist. Johnson, by contrast, is crucial to any serious account of Chicago economics and the fate of global neo-liberalism. For Kirzner, in the context of the passage quoted above (recall this post which kind of belongs to the present series.)

**Before I started this present series, I analyzed Foucault's treatment of the Becker definition twice before (here in 2014 (no XXXIV) and here (no XXXV).

+It is a bit surprising that Leibniz, Bernoulli and Euler go unmentioned by Foucault (since Bernoulli and Euler are so important to twentieth century mathematical economics; but Foucault clearly had little time for Paul Samuelson).

++That is not trivial because it would rule out, say, Al-Ghazali, Spinozistic or Deleuzian intuition.

28 March 1979: Foucault's Rational Choice Analysis of Science (XXXIV)

In the end, is not economics the analysis of forms of rational conduct and does not all rational conduct, whatever it may be, fall under something like economic analysis? Is not a rational conduct, like that which consists in formal reasoning, an economic conduct in the sense we have just defined, that is to say, the optimal allocation of scarce resources to alternative ends, since formal reasoning consists in deploying certain scarce resources���a symbolic system, a set of axioms, rules of construction, and not just any symbolic system or any rules of construction, but just some���to be used to optimal effect for a determinate and alternative end, in this case a true rather than a false conclusion which we try to reach by the best possible allocation of scarce resources? So, if it comes to it, we do not see why we would not define any rational conduct or behavior whatsoever as the possible object of economic analysis.
   In truth, this already extremely extensive definition is not even the only one, and Becker, for example���the most radical of the American neoliberals, if you like���says that it is still not sufficient, that the object of economic analysis can be extended even beyond rational conduct as defined and understood in the way I have just described, and that economic laws and economic analysis can perfectly well be applied to non-rational conduct, that is to say, to conduct which does not seek at all, or, at any rate, not only to optimize the allocation of scarce resources to a determinate end. Becker says: Basically, economic analysis can perfectly well find its points of anchorage and effectiveness if an individual���s conduct answers to the single clause that the conduct in question reacts to reality in a nonrandom way. That is to say, any conduct which responds systematically to modifications in the variables of the environment, in other words, any conduct, as Becker says, which ���accepts reality,��� must be susceptible to economic analysis. Homo oeconomicus is someone who accepts reality. Rational conduct is any conduct which is sensitive to modifications in the variables of the environment and which responds to this in a non-random way, in a systematic way, and economics can therefore be defined as the science of the systematic nature of responses to environmental variables.
   This is a colossal definition, which obviously economists are far from endorsing, but it has a certain interest. It has a practical interest, if you like, inasmuch as if you define the object of economic analysis as the set of systematic responses to the variables of the environment, then you can see the possibility of integrating within economics a set of techniques, those called behavioral techniques, which are currently in fashion in the United States. You find these methods in their purest, most rigorous, strictest or aberrant forms, as you wish, in Skinner, and precisely they do not consist in analyzing the meaning of different kinds of conduct, but simply in seeing how, through mechanisms of reinforcement, a given play of stimuli entail responses whose systematic nature can be observed and on the basis of which other variables of behavior can be introduced. In fact, all these behavioral techniques show how psychology understood in these terms can enter the definition of economics given by Becker. There is little literature on these behavioral techniques in France. In Castel���s last book, The Psychiatric Society, there is a chapter on behavioral techniques and you will see how this is precisely the implementation, within a given situation���in this case, a hospital, a psychiatric clinic���of methods which are both experimental and involve a specifically economic analysis of behavior.
    Today though, I would like to emphasize a different aspect. This is that Becker���s definition, which, again, although it is not recognized by the average economist, or even by the majority of them, nonetheless, despite its isolated character, enables us to highlight a paradox, because homo oeconomicus as he appears in the eighteenth century���I will come back to this shortly���basically functions as what could be called an intangible element with regard to the exercise of power. Homo oeconomicus is someone who pursues his own interest, and whose interest is such that it converges spontaneously with the interest of others. From the point of view of a theory of government, homo oeconomicus is the person who must be let alone. With regard to homo oeconomicus, one must laisser-faire; he is the subject or object of laissez-faire. And now, in Becker���s definition which I have just given, homo oeconomicus, that is to say, the person who accepts reality or who responds systematically to modifications in the variables of the environment, appears precisely as someone manageable, someone who responds systematically to systematic modifications artificially introduced into the environment. Homo oeconomicus is someone who is eminently governable.--Michel Foucault, 28 March, 1979,  translated by Graham Burchell, Lecture 11, The Birth of Biopolitics,  269-270 (emphasis added)

At the start of the eleventh lecture, Foucault says he wants to go back to the starting point of the year, which (via Freud and Walpole) was (recall) on the liberal art of governing. This is a bit disappointing because he ended the tenth lecture with hints of a new kind of governmental practice. But before we have time to reflect on this, he turns, quickly, to the nature of (what I have been calling following Talcott Parsons) 'economic imperialism. This is odd because it is the topic (recall) he had introduced at the start of the previous lecture. Foucault quickly name-checks Mises Human Action (268) as the fount of neoliberalism, and then goes on to reveal that he has been reading back-issues of the Journal of Political Economy (hereafter: JPE) the house-organ of the The University of Chicago's economics department, from the years 1960���1970, and recommends a "series of articles" from 1962 by "Becker, Kirzner, and others." (268)*

It is by no means obvious what the liberal art of government and the shifting definitions of homo oeconomicus have in common. But, amazingly, by the end of the lecture it is completely clear. To give away the punchline (and to look ahead to some future posts), in Foucault's hands (and this is already clear in what I quote above), Becker's very redefinition of homo oeconimicus effectively betrays the original achievement of liberalism, which consists in not just "limiting the sovereign���s power," but "stripping the sovereign of power" by revealing an "essential, fundamental, and major incapacity of the sovereign, that is to say, an inability to master the totality of the economic field," (292); and the betrayal is, in a certain sense, as Foucault argues during the eleventh lecture, a return to physiocracy. In Foucault's telling Becker throws away the very achievement of Adam Smith, and creates a subject capable of being (to use the phrase Foucault had introduced in lecture 9) programmed, nudged, and shaped by a knowing sovereign.

But just before Foucault explains the significance of the shift from the Robbins definition of economics ("the optimal allocation of scarce resources to alternative ends") to the Becker definition (the "science of the systematic nature of responses to environmental variables"),** he (that is Foucault) inserts a new analysis of the nature of science. Foucault does this in the first paragraph in the passage quoted above this post.

Now critics of the Robbins definition (itself indebted to Max Weber) tend to notice that it turns economics into a kind of engineering; for the ends are given, and act as constraints on an optimization problem. And since the Robbins definition is topic neutral (neither the resources, nor the ends, nor the implied agent/allocators(s) have to be trading or using money, etc.) it is no surprise that economic analysis so constituted can be applied across many different domains (and economic imperialism is out of the gates). Of course, the critics will see in the Robbins definition a paradigmatic case of instrumental rationality.   

But if one looks at the Robbins definition, as it were, 'formally,' even the pinnacle of substantive rationality -- the inferring of true conclusions from, say, a set of axioms, can be treated, or, better yet, modelled as an instance of it. One is reminded here of Leibniz thinking of the "divine perfection" in terms of God as a perfect geometer in the Discourse of Metaphysics: "He who acts perfectly is like an excellent Geometer who knows how to find the best construction for a problem." (par. 5; Clarke is also tempted by this language.)+ 

So, economic analysis can be applied legitimately to God's choices and to scientific reasoning. Of course, and to be sure, while in God the context of construction/choice and context of justification coincide, one need not claim this about ordinary scientists. So, Foucault, is not here proposing to apply economic analysis to most scientific activity -- what I call 'public choice philosophy of science' of the sort Gordon Tullock and, at Chicago, George Stigler pioneered (and made mature by Sandra Peart and David Levy, now familiar within philosophy in the burgeoning Zollman school of philosophy of science [e.g., O'Connor Weatherall; Kofi Bright, etc.]). To be sure Foucault is not ruling it out. (I follows trivially from what he says.) 

But rather, he is making the more audacious point that economic analysis is a way of conceptualizing disciplined scientific speech speaking the truth (when its claims are justified). And this is a kind of existence proof for the claim that "any rational conduct or behavior whatsoever" is "the possible object of economic analysis" with economic analysis understood in the sense of Robbins' definition. So, economic analysis might be philosophical speech, that is, capable of analyzing itself if and only if it generates "true conclusions." 

I could close with the fate of that lovely sentence hanging in the balance. But I want to note two things here: first, there is a sense in which Foucault agrees with the Frankfurt's school's claim that under capitalism even science becomes conceived as a species of instrumental rationality. But he is not critical of it. He explicitly grants that all rational action can be modelled by economic analysis in this sense. And so, second, he rejects the distinction between instrumental and substantive rationality. For, while Foucault need not accept the much stronger claim that no other form of analysis, no other grid of intelligibility, is possible (he is clearly a pluralist about such matters [Robbins' definition "is not even the only one"]), he does not accept here the possibility that something is a species of rational agency and not capable of falling under the Robbins definition.++ 

And with that, I conclude my seventh full year of solo blogging and will take my customary winter break; I wish you happy holidays my dear reader!

*For the aficionados, JPE  was then edited by Harry G. Johnson and Robert Mundell. Interestingly, there were both Canadians and played central roles in international affairs. One doesn't tend to think of Mundell (who has an important role to play in the history of the Euro) as Chicago economist. Johnson, by contrast, is crucial to any serious account of Chicago economics and the fate of global neo-liberalism. For Kirzner, in the context of the passage quoted above (recall this post which kind of belongs to the present series.)

**Before I started this present series, I analyzed Foucault's treatment of the Becker definition twice before (here in 2014 and here).

+It is a bit surprising that Leibniz, Bernoulli and Euler go unmentioned by Foucault (since Bernoulli and Euler are so important to twentieth century mathematical economics; but Foucault clearly had little time for Paul Samuelson).

++That is not trivial because it would rule out, say, Al-Ghazali, Spinozistic or Deleuzian intuition.

Three Kinds of Clarity in 'early' Analytic (Carnap, Quine, and Nagel)

Philosophers themselves are at variance as to the "proper" task of philosophy. Many students of the history of philosophy agree, however, that the great texts in philosophy are best understood when viewed as so many reflections upon issues raised by the scientific and social developments of their day. The practice, if not always the explicit intent, of a great deal of philosophy has been to function as a commentary on the intellectual life of man - a commentary whose object is to bring some order and clarity into the propositions certified by the sciences or sanctioned by social needs. The commentaries which philosophers have provided have often been confused and unintelligible: they have frequently proved obstacles to clear conceptions of nature and man and have turned out to be fresh occasions for wonder. Nonetheless, the historical fact that so much of philosophy has been a reflection upon science and society suggests that the business of philosophy is not that of adding to the sum of our knowledge of nature, in the sense in which the sciences add to that knowledge, but of clarifying such knowledge. The "wisdom" of Aristotle, accordingly, is not to be identified with his encyclopedic knowledge or with his speculative interpretation of the science and society of his day; it is to be found in the careful distinctions he drew between the meanings of terms current in his day, and in the light his analyses throw on the confusions that arise when the distinctions are not respected. The task of philosophy, on this point of view, is not to supply a cosmogony or cosmology: its task, which may be pursued by professional scientists no less than by professional philosophers, is to serve as a cathartic to men's beliefs and ideas. In other words, according to this conception of philosophy its aim is to perfect principles of logic and method and to exercise them upon the various statements
occurring in everyday discourse and the sciences.--Ernest Nagel (1938) "The Fight for Clarity: Logical Empiricism" The American Scholar 8.(1): 46

Recall that Carnap and Quine have distinct understandings of clarity. For Carnap clarity is a property or by-product of formal systems, of constructed languages. Clarity in the hands of Carnap means to capture a kind of demand for transparency in one's inferential practices, one's commitments, and the use of terms (it very much hopes to prevent equivocation and polysemous use).  Carnapian clarity is really a second-order property of an otherwise esoteric, expert practice.

By contrast, Quine had a tendency, as Greg Frost-Arnold has shown, (i) to associate clarity with more general forms of intelligibility. In later years, Quine might argue that (ii) his program (developed in Word & Object) of the philosopher regimenting scientific language to exhibit its ontological commitments, may also be aiming at a species of clarity (about the 'ontology' of science), alongside systematicity.  He also (iii) came to think of clarity as a more general theoretical virtue of a system. 

The earlier discussion of Carnap and Quine left me a bit puzzled about the to-me-intuitive notion of clarity I had picked up from my teachers as an undergraduate and PhD student. (I assume it is intuitive because of my teachers.) And while I certainly do not want to ignore the contribution of Cambridge (Russell, Moore, etc.) to my intuitive understanding, I think Ernest Nagel gives a sense of where that might have, in part, come from.

The 1938 essay by Nagel that I quote above is, as scholars of analytic philosophy have noted, an important moment in twentieth century philosophy for two reasons. First, the piece partially (re-)introduces logical empiricism to an American audience, while simultaneously defending them from (rather persistent) misrepresentation (in part based on describing the evolution away from strict verificationism). In fact, Nagel puts a kind of neo-Kantian and proto-Foucaultian spin on the mature/more recent version of logical empiricism: "Indeed the proper question is not "what does a statement mean?" but "what are the conditions which empiricists will acknowledge to be necessary for a statement to have meaning? " (51)

Second, the piece aims to contribute to a convergence between what I call the 'scientific wing of pragmatism' (as represented, especially, by Peirce in the essay) and logical empiricism, and so is a signal moment in the development of analytic philosophy. (Regular readers know I treat Nagel as the philosophical prophet of the sociological and conceptual construction, analytic philosophy.) Toward the end of the essay it becomes clear that Nagel sees himself as occupying a (mature) version of the intersection between these two movements.

Okay, while keeping in mind that there are polemical ("fight") purposes being served and that in some sense he is constructing an image of clarity that is to have wide uptake, it may be useful to look at Nagel's version of clarity. For Nagel, the search for clarity is an effect or byproduct from the advanced development and specialization and, so, esotericism of the special sciences. And this means that new criteria of intelligibility distinct from those used in ordinary language are required. As he puts it, "the increased abstractness and generality of modern science require a serious reconsideration and a recasting of those relatively simple canons of intelligibility and validity which are sufficient for the needs of every-day discourse and inquiry." (47-48) So, at a first approximation, Nagel's version of clarity involve the canons of intelligibility and validity apt for  (esoteric) special sciences.

But the reason why this effort at clarification is a philosophical task is, in part, due to a limitation on the professional scientist:

we cannot fall back upon every-day practices and habitual intuitions for aid, and most professional scientists are not sufficiently conscious of their own procedures to enlighten us; special studies must be undertaken by men sensitive to the logical issues involved. Recent methodological studies aim to supply appropriate answers and their main objectives are therefore the following: the careful analysis, formulation and expansion of those intellectual techniques which have been found reliable for controlling our conjectures about the world we inhabit; the appraisal of the import of science and of the conditions for its successful activity; the analysis of scientific concepts and the formulation of logical standards for distinguishing meaningful statements and questions from those which have no accredited meaning.
The movement known at present as "logical empiricism" is a loosely-organized group of philosophers and scientists interested in such problems of method. (48)

We see here (Nagel emphasizes it again later in the essay) the germ of Thomas Kuhn's idea that there is a sense in which ordinary scientists lack proper self-awareness about all there own practices. We might say that a lot of scientific activity (calibration, measurement practices, hidden assumption in the math) is 'black-boxed' and 'taken off-line,' say in the name of cognitive and operational efficiency. To be sure, Nagel is quick to emphasize (and nods to Mach's influence) that interest in the process of clarification, so not just the results, is widespread among "professional scientists" (47 & 58). So, it would be more apt to say that for Nagel clarification is not just developing the canons of intelligibility and validity apt for  (esoteric) special sciences, but also making transparent the methods and practices of science that generate warranted claims. 

What is nice about this notion of clarity, is  that we see in it the significance of normative epistemology and the philosophy of scientific practice ("One of the most valuable and promising tendencies of logical empiricism is the emphasis it places upon the analysis of ideas
employed in special fields of study, so that the procedures which are relevant to those ideas and which alone make them intelligible are made explicit." (57)) These are two areas of philosophy of science that (under the ongoing influence of Reichenbach) are often orthogonal to each other today. 

I don't mean to suggest this completes my analysis of what Nagel means by clarity. One question one may well ask is what he means by 'intelligibility.' And I hasten to add that Nagel is no friend of the PSR (in the same period he has a polemic against Blanshard's version of the PSR, internal relations, and monism.).  Rather, I think Nagel means by intelligibility something like showing how and the way terms/concepts (etc.) hang together (he's a holist) and function in a system of knowledge and bodies of ordinary practice. I think this because of remarks like this, "the task of philosophy lies in the clarification of terms occurring in scientific and everyday discourse, by exhibiting their interrelations and function in the contexts in which they occur." (59)*

So, finally, Nagel clarification is not just developing the canons of intelligibility and validity apt for (esoteric) special sciences, but also making transparent the methods and practices of science that generate warranted claims in part by showing how and the way terms/concepts  hang together and function in a system of knowledge and forms of ordinary practice. Now, one may think that Nagel here echoes a kind of underlaborer to the sciences conception of philosophy (but note those ordinary practices.) However, he also endorses some of the political aims for clarification by "some" logical empiricists:

Certainly the least one can say of logical empiricism is that even if it accomplished nothing else it is a powerful force that aims to introduce rational methods into all fields of inquiry. One of its functions, that of serving as a disinfectant to the thinking of men, would alone justify the continuance and spread of the movement. It rests its case not on an appeal to authority or the emotional needs of men but on an appeal to a persistent effort to think clearly. The movement is an important arm in the interminable warfare against obscurantism and for clarity. (59)+

As I noted before (recall), for Nagel government by discussion is not about achieving authoritative consensus, but rather, as his conception of science and democracy reveal, as the ongoing practice of being responsive to reasons and criticisms based on experimentally controlled facts. Our cognitive practices in science and political life are made possible, and developed and improved by, our socially embedded interactions with each other. For Nagel it is clear that "Perhaps no intellectual tendency is more dangerous than that accompanying the claim that knowledge of human affairs is the exclusive property of men endowed with a "higher insight" - which is not subject to the control of well established experimental methods."" (55) For Nagel, the cultivation of clarity is a contribution to a democratic ethos.

 

*Here is a exemplary passage:

The logical structure of the theory of relativity, the character and function of the laws in classical and contemporary physics, the r��le of pure mathematics in the positive sciences, the methodology of measurement, the meaning and function of probability statements, the character and basis of social predictions and the logic of classification in psychology and the social sciences are some of the topics discussed in greater or less detail by individual members of the movement. In this respect logical empiricism has continued the tradition of Ernst Mach, whose analysis of such concepts as mass, temperature, and space has contributed so greatly to the advancement and clarification of contemporary physics. In consequence the movement has attracted not only profess philosophers but also professional scientists who understand the importance and feel the need of analyzing the concrete issues of the sciences in terms of the procedures employed in them. The international congresses which have been held yearly by logical empiricists would be noteworthy if only for the fact that the major theoretical disciplines have been represented in them. These congresses, as well as the encyclopedia now under way, exhibit a spirit of cooperation among intellectual workers in all fields that is rarely manifested outside the natural sciences. Much remains to be done, especially in analyzing the concepts of the social sciences and above all of ethics. Indeed the
discussion of ethical terms by most professed logical empiricists has thus far been of a negative, even a superficial character. It has been directed primarily against obscurantist tendencies instead of contributing positively to their clarification and systematization. 57-58

+This provides some evidence for Martin Lenz's claim that 'clarity' is always a political concept.

21 March 1979: Foucault on Economic Imperialism (XXXIII)

I would like to talk a little about one aspect of American neo-liberalism, that is to say, the way in which they try to use (i) the market economy and (ii) the typical analyses of the market economy to (iii) decipher non-market relationships and phenomena which are not strictly and specifically economic but (iv) what we call social phenomena. In other words, this means that I want to talk about the application of the economic grid to a field which since the nineteenth century, and we can no doubt say already at the end of the eighteenth century, was defined in opposition to (v) the economy, or at any rate, as complementary to the economy, as that which in itself, in its own structure and processes, does not fall within the economy, even though the economy itself is situated within this domain. In other words again, what I think is at stake in this kind of analysis is the problem of the inversion of the relationships of the social to the economic.--Michel Foucault, 21 March, 1979,  translated by Graham Burchell, Lecture 10, The Birth of Biopolitics,  239-240.

The main point of the tenth lecture is introduced in the first paragraph (quoted above). As I have noted before, the phenomenon described by Foucault is usually called 'economic imperialism,' a phrase that goes back to Talcott Parson's analysis of the effect of Robbins' re-definition of economics back in 1934. 

Now before I get to the main point of Foucault's analysis -- the 'inversion' mentioned in the last quoted sentence --, I want to note explicitly that Foucault does not explain what an 'economic grid' is. It is immediately tempting to assume that the economic grid is the kind of thing studied by (ii) or, if we remember the language of 'programming' in lecture 9, partially constituted by (ii), perhaps in interaction with (i). And my reason for noticing this is that Foucault does not pause to reflect on the relationship between (i) and (ii).

For, as any informed observer can tell you, the relationship between (ii) the typical analyses (note the plural) of the market economy, presumably as typified now by Chicago economics (in particular Becker, Mincer, Stigler, Schultz, etc.), and (i) the market economy is by no means simple. For example, I often joke that the Black-Scholes-Merton formula for (rational) option pricing makes no reference to supply and demand. (While the formula is a product of Chicago economics this formula is far from what Foucault has in mind here.) There is a similar, more sophisticated joke to be made about the absence of money in the GE Arrow-Debreu model (manifestly not Chicago).

Another strange slippage occurs, when Foucault moves from (i) the 'market economy' to the (v) economy. Even nineteenth century laissez-faire economists noticed that not all activity which could be sensibly called 'economic' were within or facilitated by 'the market' (not the least because slavery existed for a good chunk of the nineteenth century). 

When a few pages down, Foucault returns to the theme he speaks, more precisely:

In comparison with the ambiguity, if you like, of German ordoliberalism, American neo-liberalism evidently appears much more radical or much more complete and exhaustive. American neo-liberalism still involves, in fact, the generalization of the economic form of the market. It involves generalizing it throughout the social body and including the whole of the social system not usually conducted through or sanctioned by monetary exchanges. This, as it were, absolute generalization, this unlimited generalization of the form of the market entails a number of consequences or includes a number of aspects and I would like to focus on two of these.
First, the generalization of the economic form of the market beyond monetary exchanges functions in American neo-liberalism as a principle of intelligibility and a principle of decipherment of social relationships and individual behavior. This means that analysis in terms of the market economy or, in other words, of supply and demand, can function as a schema which is applicable to non-economic domains. And, thanks to this analytical schema or grid of intelligibility, it will be possible to reveal in non-economic processes, relations, and behavior a number of intelligible relations which otherwise would not have appeared as such���a sort of economic analysis of the non-economic. (243)

Here it is pretty clear that what it means to be a market economy (i) involves 'monetary exchanges'. Now Foucault is saying that (ii) just is the canonical way of analyzing (i). And striking one can use (ii) to study activities (iii) that do not involve monetary exchange, but still can be made intelligible (by (ii)) as falling under an 'economic form.' Somewhat annoyingly Foucault does not say what  the content of the economic form is. But it is clear that form of the market economy seems to be constituted by 'supply and demand.'  So, the economic form can be materialized in monetized (market) exchanges and in non-monetized (non-market) exchanges and be studied with the same tool-kit (ii), which involves (inter alia) analysis of supply and demand.

Now, the initial pay-off of this is a new possibility: [A] "to reveal in non-economic processes, relations, and behavior a number of intelligible relations which otherwise would not have appeared as such."

Now the strong version of [A] suggests that without the tools of (ii) some human phenomena would simply remain unintelligible. This strong version presupposes that no other grids are possible or (if we weaken it a bit) available. Because Foucault does not explain the conditions he puts on the nature of intelligibility, it is hard to evaluate this claim (which rules out grids derived from, say, "demography, sociology, psychology, and social psychology," (245) etc.). But it seems to entail that Foucault thinks most of what passes for social science fails to generate intelligibility of what they study (that is the social phenomena). That's no reason to doubt that Foucault did not hold the strong version of [A].

As slightly weaker version of [A] I have hinted at before. And it presupposes the thought that in order to make phenomena involving human  behavior intelligible, we need to see them/us as agents. And, as Foucault notes (recall also lecture 9) it is the Chicago version of tools of (ii) to make it possible to see choice, and thus, agency in the patterns of social life. This weaker version still entails that there is a sense in which passes for social science fails to generate intelligibility of what they study, but they themselves might (legitimately even) think otherwise.

The weakest version of [A] is to make it relative to professional economists; such that non-economic processes, relations, and behavior become intelligible to them qua professional economist. 

When we turn to Foucault' description of  analysis of how (ii) is applied to (iii) and (iv), we see that supply and demand is just one element in a larger analytical tool-kit "of investment, capital costs, and profit���both economic and psychological profit," etc. As Foucault notes, quoting Jean-Luc Migu��, "the analytical framework traditionally reserved for the firm and the consumer" is applied to the ''household"...."This involves making the household a unit
of production in the same way as the classical firm." I don't mean to suggest this is exhaustive; I have already noticed (recall) the significance of the redefinition of  homo oeconomicus as utility maximizer in lecture 9.

In addition, among the 'social' are not just phenomena related to education, family, and crime, but also government (recall this post on the relevant passage in lecture 10). This matters because it turns that that if you deploy (ii) you don't just make phenomena intelligible, you can also criticize them, as noted, in light of an "economic tribunal." (247) As Foucault puts it, "these two aspects���the analysis of non-economic behavior through a grid of economic intelligibility, and the criticism and appraisal of the action of public authorities in market terms..." (248)

Now, Foucault does not really make an effort to explain how analysis slides into authoritative criticism. He mentions the use of cost-benefit analysis. But in a way this presupposes what needs to be explained. For, cost-benefit analysis presupposes a further standard. Either comparison with some reference class or the thought that beyond a certain baseline level/ratio some benefits are not worth the(se) cost(s). Now, the moment one writes this it is obvious that there will be contestation over the reference class or the baseline level.

I think a better understanding of the underlying idea of the move to analysis to normativity is also noticed by Foucault, but earlier in lecture 9. That is an effect of Robbins' definition (the one that prompted Parson's musing on economic imperialism), ���Economics is the science of human behavior as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have mutually exclusive uses.��� For the analysis of this relationship allows one to judge some courses of action objectively as ineffective, or with a lot of opportunity costs, or instrumentally irrational. 

And as Foucault notes, in his majestic treatment of the evolution of criminology from the eighteenth century to Chicago neoliberalism, this style of reasoning did not have to await Robbins' definition. In the eighteenth century Enlightenment reformers criticized "the ineffectiveness of the system of punishment, with reference to the fact, for example, that public torture and executions or banishment had no perceptible effect on lowering the rate of criminality, insofar as it was possible to measure this at the time...there was an economic grid underlying the critical reasoning of the eighteenth century reformer." (248) Foucault does not mention Grouchy, but we see such reasoning in her, too. He goes on to claim, that "this great concern of the law, the principle constantly recalled that for a penal system to function well a good law is necessary and almost sufficient, was nothing other than the desire for what could
be called, in economic terms, a reduction in the transaction cost." (248-249)

Somewhat amusingly, the otherwise diligent and excellent editors of the lectures, do not drop a note to Coase (or Commons) here. And so leave unexplained one of Foucault's jokes (one that Coase himself would appreciate, I think) that one strain of Chicago economics is a recovery of insights from the eighteenth century.*

The more important point left hanging now is the question what is distinctive about Chicago post-Robbins? One answer Foucault offers, in his treatment of the Chicago treatment of crime, can be discerned in his analysis of a point made by Stigler, "The regulatory principle of penal policy is a simple intervention in the market for crime and in relation to the supply of crime. It is an intervention which will limit the supply of crime solely by a negative demand, the cost of which must obviously never exceed the cost of the supply of the criminality in question." (256) Here we do see the spirit of Robbins. Because violations of this principle (which presupposes an idea of instrumental rationality) are now to be criticized. (Here, too, one can wonder about the relationship between the analysis and the phenomena analysed.)

I have noted before, and so won't repeat, that by taking the ends for granted, the analysis is weirdly un-transparent, even to itself, about its substantive normative commitments. But as usual Foucault is more interesting than me. He notes the following kind of implication, as a promissory note, we the idea "of a society in which there is an optimization of systems of difference, in which the field is left open to fluctuating processes, in which minority individuals and practices are tolerated, in which action is brought to bear on the rules of the game rather than on the players, and finally in which there is an environmental type of intervention instead of the internal subjugation of individuals." (259-260)

What Foucault is pointing to that if one sees/interprets the regulatory principle as providing one with or reflecting policy mechanisms that help determine different points on demand and supply curves (of crime, etc.), then one has levers by which to manipulate, say, (and I use Stigler's terminology) the "supply of offenses." (In Stigler, this is all articulated in terms of marginal costs/returns.)

For Stigler (who uses a lovely quote from Adam Smith), and Foucault tracks this, "offenses are in a sense demanded by the society." And so once one treats the regulatory principle as governing the (law) enforcement agency, one has a social/planning choice what range of offenses will exist (at what cost).

One may still wonder how one gets from Stigler to Foucault here. After noting that by Stigler's lights (of his economic analysis) much law enforcement is clearly irrational, Stigler offers the following thought: "a second and wholly different reason for the use of what appear to be inappropriate sanctions and inappropriate appropriations to enforcement bodies: the desire of the public not to enforce the laws....Variation in enforcement provides desirable flexibility in public policv," (Stigler 1970: 534-535)** 

*Foucault's treatment of the way in which the nineteenth century re-invents the criminal, who is to be punished, as opposed to the acts (which cannot be punished), is masterful. But discussion of it (and the paradox of punishment) is for another occasion.

**"Desirable" here is the public's revealed preference.