Philosophy 101 #3 – Internal and External Criticism

Philosophy is in the argument business. It constructs arguments that are supposed to give persuasive reasons for accepting one idea or another. Philosophy is also in the business of criticizing arguments, and revealing that in fact we don’t have any good reasons to accept a certain idea. One of the most powerful and useful tools for criticizing arguments is the distinction between external criticism and internal criticism.

1. External Criticism

Imagine two people are locked in a debate. Immanuel believes that women have the right to choose whether or not to continue with their pregnancy, and so holds  to a pro-choice position in political and ethical debates about abortion. Georg thinks that women do not possess this right, but rather that the life of an unborn child ought to be protected at all costs, and so holds to a pro-life position. Now for Immanuel to criticize Georg via external criticism, two things need to happen:

     i. Immanuel’s position must be incompatible with George’s.

     ii. Immanuel must claim that his position is better – that is has some superior claim to authority, acceptability or rationality (or some such thing).

This form of criticism holds that we have reason to reject one idea, because we ought to see that some other idea is better. In our case, Immanuel wants us to reject Georg’s idea by showing that his competing and incompatible view is in fact more worthy of our belief. One great advantage of this line of criticism is that it presents us with a viable alternative, rather then just asking us to abandon a belief. It tries to show us that the ground we stand on is shaky, but fear not because there is firm ground nearby. The disadvantage is that this kind of criticism tends towards dogmatism. It is a temptation for Immanuel to resort to rhetoric or insult, to simply shout at Georg that his view is wrong and no rational person should hold it, without ever proving this.

2. Internal Criticism

Imagine that Immanuel is convinced that Georg’s view is wrong, but he doesn’t have his own alternative worked out. He could then criticize Georg’s view internally. That is, he could work out the logical commitments of Georg’s idea in such a way that it shows that it is not really a coherent view at all. The first step to doing this is to think about the idea and consider whether holding it actually commits you to holding other ideas. For instance:

     i. Georg believes that unborn children have the right to be born. This involves (say) holding that all people have rights and dignities that shouldn’t be ignored by those in a greater place of power.

The next step is to show that these other logical commitments are in fact incompatible with the earlier commitments. So:

     ii. Georg’s initial belief that governments ought to be able to legislate to prevent abortions is incompatible with this other committment as worked out above - the idea that people have rights and dignities that shouldn’t be ignored by those in positions of power, e.g. the woman’s right to control her own body, or make health decisions free of state interference. How can Georg consistently hold that  a woman oughtn’t to interfere with her pregnancy because her unborn child has inalienable rights, but that the  woman’s rights can be ignored by the government?

This line of criticism has the advantage of being more rigorous, since it needs to get inside the logic of an idea and try to analyse it. However, it has the disadvantage of being a purely destructive way of proceeding, since it shows that a view ought to be abandoned, without necessarily offering an alternative, or a diagnosis of how to mend the idea.

This blog post has already been far too long, particularly for what is an attempt to make philosophy interesting and attractive to those who may not have studied it. But to recap: external criticism is the attempt to show that we oughtn’t to believe some idea because we have greater reason to believe some alternate view that is incompatible to the extent that we need to choose to be committed to one but not the other. Internal criticism is the attempt to show that we oughtn’t to believe some view because when you think about things, it actually isn’t internally coherent.

Philosophy 101 #2 – The Difference Between Abstraction and Idealization

Abstraction, taken straightforwardly, is a matter of bracketing, but not denying, predicates that are true of the matter under discussion…Idealization is another matter: it can easily lead to falsehood. An assumption, and derivatively a theory, idealizes when it ascribes predicates – often seen as enhanced, ‘ideal’ predicates – that are false of the case in hand, and so denies predicates that are true of that case. For example, if human beings are assumed to have capacities and capabilities for rational choice or self-sufficiency or independence from others that are evidently not achieved by many or even by any actual human beings, the result is not mere abstraction; it is idealization.

– Onora O’Neill, Towards Justice and Virtue (1996), pp.40-41.

Philosophy is often accused of falling prey to the vices of abstraction and idealization. Keeping these two notions separate is very important. Abstraction is a kind of thought that aims to say something true on a general level such that it could be true of many cases. Idealization is a kind of thought that proceeds in the abstract register, though involves premises that skew reality. The first should be the friend of the philosopher, and can be a very handy intellectual tool. The second can be deeply misleading.

Take the examples of milkshakes. An abstract sentence might run as follows, ‘A good milkshake is a milk and cream based drink.’ This sentence is abstract since it says nothing about flavour, temperature, total ingredients, size, deliciousness etc. If you had never seen or tasted a milkshake before, this sentence doesn’t give you that much of an idea of what milkshakes are like. But this in itself is, of course, no vice. In O’Neill’s language, this abstract sentence has simply put those issues to one side – those issues which may be more descriptive, but that can change from milkshake to milkshake – for the sake of achieving a helpful description that will apply to many things that we want  to call good milkshakes.

Compare this with this idealized sentence, ‘A good milkshake is a refreshing milk and cream based drink that leaves the drinker feeling youthful, energized, and like they can take on the world.’ This is still an abstract kind of sentence since you are talking at a level of generality that aspires to describe all milkshakes. The difference is that this last sentence builds what O’Neill calls ‘enhanced predicates’ into the abstraction. Is it really true that  all milkshakes will leave the drinker feeling empowered in such a way?

If you were a milkshake enthusiast, and wanted to come up with a theory of milkshakes, this first would be a helpful starting point, albeit abstract, the second would be a bad starting point since your theory is skewed from the outset, and worthy of the criticism of being ‘idealized’. As I see it, this is one basic job of philosophers working in all fields, and once basic contribution philosophy can make to other  discourses.

So next time when you hear a philosopher being criticized for being way too abstract and idealistic, remember that these are different things, and only one of them is a problem.

Philosophy 101 #1 – Philosophy is Not Doctrinal

We cannot learn philosophy;  for where is it, who is in possession of it, and how shall we recognize it? We can only learn to philosophize.

– Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (1781), A838/B866

I thought it would be a good idea to run a series of posts entitled ‘Philosophy 101′ – posts which are short and snappy, and will help you curious readers to learn (or be reminded of) the basics in philosophy. Or at least my take on what the basics of philosophy are.

The first basic lesson is that there are no basic lessons. Sheer profundity, I know!

If you were a physics student you would be required to learn certain basics. Force = Mass x Acceleration, E=MC2. If you were a medicine student you would be required to learn certain basics about the human body, surgery and pharmaceuticals. If you were even an English literature or social work student you would learn certain basics about grammar, composition, literary methods and psychological theories. These basic theories than become cemented in these disciplines as doctrines – groups of beliefs which you don’t really question if you want to get by in that discipline.

But here in philosophy 101, there are no basic lessons. Philosophy, more than any other discipline I can think of, is not a doctrinal enterprise. If you were to tell a philosopher: Plato believes such-and-such, or, it is a feature of our world that blah-blah, or, humans beings are essentially rah-rah-rah, than philosophers would unanimously reply: really?

This is a significant first lesson because it is very easy to approach philosophy with this orientation, that is, to find out what ethical theories people subscribe to, or what doctrines great philosophers like Hegel or Wittgenstein held to. Now whilst it is pretty important to get a few of these essentials under your belt, and it is certainly appropriate to deploy labels to get a handle on complex theories, these kinds of questions should never be pursued as if they were the main game in philosophy.

This first lesson also throws light on the tension between theology and philosophy. Theology wants to insist on doctrines in the strongest sense of the word, and so carving out a helpful relationship with another discipline that is always questioning and always being suspicious of doctrine asserting activities is going to be hard work.

p.s. The irony is not lost on me that in making this point I am adopting quite a doctrinaire and parochial tone. Perhaps philosophy is not that free of doctrines after all.

Philosophy 101

Part of the reason for my starting this blog was to attempt to make philosophy interesting, accessible, useful, and non-threatening to people who may not have studied philosophy at university or read many philosophy books. It occurs to me that I have probably been getting sidetracked from this goal. In order to correct this, I’ll be starting a new series of posts called: Philosophy 101. In each post I’ll explain basic philosophical ideas and questions, specifically focusing on foundational and basic concepts, and trying to make them interesting, relevant and useful. Stay tuned!