The Philosophers' Cocoon

Intuition pumps aren't arguments

Still on the topic of progress and methodology in philosophy, Dennett has a new book titled Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking. There is an interesting conversation about the book here, which begins with an excerpt on intuition pumps from Brockman’s The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution (1995). Dennett says something about intuition pumps that I think is worth discussing. Dennett writes:

If you look at the history of philosophy, you see that all the great and influential stuff has been technically full of holes but utterly memorable and vivid. They are what I call "intuition pumps" — lovely thought experiments. Like Plato's cave, and Descartes's evil demon, and Hobbes' vision of the state of nature and the social contract, and even Kant's idea of the categorical imperative. I don't know of any philosopher who thinks any one of those is a logically sound argument for anything. But they're wonderful imagination grabbers, jungle gyms for the imagination. They structure the way you think about a problem. These are the real legacy of the history of philosophy. A lot of philosophers have forgotten that, but I like to make intuition pumps.

I coined the term "intuition pump," and its first use was derogatory. I applied it to John Searle's "Chinese room," which I said was not a proper argument but just an intuition pump. I went on to say that intuition pumps are fine if they're used correctly, but they can also be misused. They're not arguments, they're stories. Instead of having a conclusion, they pump an intuition. They get you to say "Aha! Oh, I get it!"

What philosophers have forgotten, I take it, is that intuition pumps are not arguments. Intuition pumps are useful for getting the imagination juices flowing. But they do not provide support for claims. Perhaps another way to make the same point is this: intuition pumps can be a useful tool in the context of discovery, where creativity and imagination are important, but not in the context of justification. Do you agree?

Chalmers on Philosophical (Non-)Progress

Brian Leiter has begun a discussion over at his blog about David Chalmers' discussion of why there isn't more progress in philosophy (for those who don't want to listen to Chalmers' audio discussion, he has posted a related paper here).

Anyway, because I've long found this question interesting (and distressing), but also because I expect some members of our community might not want to make their opinions publicly known over at Leiter's site (as BL's site is much more well-trafficked than ours), I'd like to open up the issue for discussion here. In particular, I'd be interested to discuss the seven possible diagnoses Chalmers briefly investigates -- namely:

1. Philosophy has a powerless method (viz. "one person's modus ponens is another's modus tollens")
2. Antirealism: there are no objective philosophical truths in many domains (e.g. ethics, ontology, etc.)
3. Verbal disputes: many philosophical debates are merely terminological (viz. we have free will relative to a compatibilist concept of freedom, we don't relative to an incompatibilist concept).
4. Sociological factors: philsoophical truths are out there, and there may even be good arguments for many them, but professional philosophers are rewarded professionally for "new arguments", thus leading the discipline away from the truth.
5. Unknowability: many philosophical problems are unsolveable in principle.
6. Human inadequacy: there are philosophical truths, but we mere humans are incapable of grasping them.
7. Current nonideality: greater consensus in philosophy is possible, but only if we begin to reason better than we presently are.

I suspect myself that there is probably some truth to all seven diagnoses.

• Philosophy does have a weak method. Our profession permits -- and has long permitted -- people to argue on the basis of propositions that "seem un-/intuitive" to them. This permits people to reject otherwise good arguments because...well, they don't like the conclusion. (Diagnosis 1)
• We might be able to improve upon this if we stopped permitting so much intuition mongering, requiring people to, you know, actually argue from widely accepted foundational premises, not merely high-level premises that may or may not "seem intuitive" to some philosophers (Diagnosis 7 -- though correcting for this problem makes philosophy incredibly difficult, if not impossible).
• There probably are some problems which, given our cognitive abilities and reference-frame, can never be definitively solved, though we may have some evidence for some answers over others -- see e.g. section 4.8. of my recent paper "A New Theory of Free Will"). [Diagnoses 5&6].
• A person surely can make a career out of defending false views by way of clever arguments that exploit merely verbal disagreements (Diagnoses 3&4)
• There may be no objective philosophical truths in some areas (I'd say ontology, though I'm pretty sanguine about objective truths in most areas of philosophy). [Diagnosis 2]

What do you all think? Can anything be done to promote greater progress in philosophy, or is perhaps "progress", understood as convergence on particular philosophical views, not the real (or at least only) reason to do philosophy? Is understanding arguments all that philosophy is good for? If so, what's the purpose of understanding questions for which there are no answers? One wouldn't waste time understanding arguments about chmess, so why waste time on irresolvable arguments in philosophy? 

Who's gonna teach kids to think?

“A degree in philosophy? What are you going to do with that then?”

This is probably part of the motivation behind many philosophy departments’ attempts, such as this one, to emphasize the value of philosophy.

In an attempt to show students the value of philosophy, I have adopted a skills-based approach to my teaching. That is, I try to teach students how to think, not what to think. I not only tell but also show them why thinking critically and philosophically is one of the most important things they will ever learn in college. For an example of the kind of activities I do with my students in class, see this piece from the Fall 2011 issue of the APA Newsletter on Teaching Philosophy.

To gauge my success, I ask my students to fill out evaluation surveys throughout the semester and, at the end of the semester, I ask them the following question: Are you taking something of lasting value from this class? If so, what? If not, why not?

I have promised my students complete confidentiality, which is why I will not mention specific responses here. But the responses are overwhelmingly positive. Students frequently mention how their critical thinking skills have improved and that such skills are valuable and applicable in many domains other than philosophy.

All of this brings me to the questions I would like to ask you, my fellow pupae. First, do you take a similar approach to your teaching? If so, why? If not, why not?

Second, in these hard times, in which philosophy departments are threatened with cuts, why is it that philosophers (the APA, perhaps) are not actively making the case for philosophy as the major discipline that trains students to think? Or is it that they are making this case but nobody wants to listen?

On Being "Unbiased" in the Classroom

I gather -- from what I think is pretty strong anecdotal experience -- that a lot of philosophers refrain from divulging their views from students in the classroom. I'm not entirely sure what the supposed rationale for this is, but I expect it has something to do with attempting to appear "unbiased." 

For much of my career, both in grad school and during my first couple of years as an Assistant Professor, I (rather uncritically) adopted this practice just on account of what seemed to me to be the general belief that "it's what you're supposed to do."  Unfortunately, I felt it was stultifying. First, attempting to "hide" my views in the classroom not only struck me as fundamentally dishonest (you wouldn't expect a particle physicist to hide their views in the classroom). Second, it seemed to me to sap the classroom of "realness." Philosophy became -- and looked to my students -- more and more like a rote process of summarizing arguments and raising objections. How boring. Not only that: how unlike what philosophy really is!  When we do philosophy "for real" as philosophers -- in writing papers, giving talks, having discussions, etc. -- we don't approach it this way. We push as hard as we can for arguments we think are good and as hard as we can against arguments we think are bad.

Because it just felt wrong to me (and didn't seem to inspire my students), a couple of years ago I replaced my policy of "hiding" my views with quite a different one: I wrote in my syllabus that (A) I would not aim to be unbiased, (B) I would push as hard as I can in favor of arguments I think are good and as hard as I can against arguments I think are bad, and last but not least, (C) that I expect and encourage students to argue with me if they think I'm wrong.  And the entire feeling of my classes -- and the energy of my students -- changed in the best kind of way.  I feel inspired in the classroom. I get passionate. I really push things I feel strongly about. It feels real. My students get excited. They argue with me. They argue with each other. We are doing philosophy, not merely "studying" it.

I expect, as is usually the case with philosophers, that those of you out there who believe in "hiding" one's views in the classroom might be skeptical of my practice. For what it is worth, I expect there are some very bad ways of divulging one's views (i.e. coming across as dogmatic, etc.) -- but I don't think I make these mistakes. I'm not dogmatic in the classroom, in part because I don't think I'm a dogmatic philosopher (my philosophical views have changed dramatically over the years). I should probably also add that I always try to render all arguments and views in as charitable of a light as possible, and indeed, that I push a lot of arguments for a lot of very different views very hard (because, unlike some philosophers, who I've heard think "most arguments suck", I tend to believe that most arguments contain some important grain of truth to teach us!).

Anyway, I'm curious to hear what you all think of this. Am I right that most people "hide" their views? Do any of you have a similar policy to mine? Have you found that it "works" like I have? Looking forward to hear what you all have to say!

Oh ye of little faith

I've mentioned before how I think many people don't give undergraduate students enough credit. Undergrads are often dismissed as lazy, self-entitled, disengaged, stupid, and looking for nothing but classroom entertainment and a good grade for not much work.

For several years now, I have refused to give into this narrative as a matter of principle.  I expect a ton out of my students: I make them work incredibly hard (two assignments per class meeting), have draconian grading standards (I regularly hand out C's and D's on homework assignments and term-papers), give them pages of comments on their term-papers, which they have an option to rewrite, and have them read a ton (my philosophy of law class made its way through an entire 900 page textbook this semester).

One would expect, given the dominant narrative about students, that these practices would result in terrible student evaluations -- and, truth be told, every semester I'm deathly afraid that they will! But this just doesn't happen. I received my student review results today. As expected, my students rated my classes as far more difficult than the university averages, and as having far more work to boot. But did any of them complain? Not a single student did. On the contrary, many of them actually stated that they were thankful for how difficult it was.

I'm not going to go on and on about this. My aim isn't to be self-congratulatory. I merely want to convey the message that, in my experience at least, the dominant narrative about undergrads is false. My experience is that if you treat them like self-entitled, lazy children, then they'll live up to it. BUT, if you show some faith in them -- if you really challenge them, tell them why you're challenging them, and show them that you are putting in every effort to help them improve themselves as human beings -- they will, far more often than not, return the favor with hard work and appreciation.

Official CFP: First Annual Philosophers' Cocoon Conference

I am pleased to announce this call-for-papers for the first annual Philosophers' Cocoon Philosophy Conference (PCPC), which will be held at the University of Tampa from Friday October 18th-Sunday October 20th, 2013. This conference will be unique in several respects:

• Although attendance at the conference and participating as session chairs or commentators will be open to all members of the profession, paper presenters must be early-career philosophers -- basically, anyone who doesn't have tenure (e.g. graduate students, post-docs, VAP, TT Assistant Profs, independent scholars, etc.)

• Due to the kinds of travel-funding issues that early-career philosophers often face, several paper sessions (the exact number of which will be determined later) will be reserved for Skype presentations in which the author will be projected, and field audience questions, in real time over the internet.

• Although commentators and audience members are encouraged to present objections to papers, a guiding aim of the conference will beconstructive criticism, i.e. helping authors to improve problems (e.g. by not only raising objections, but offering and discussing possible solutions).

• Because successfully navigating the publishing world is one of the most difficult capacities for early-career philosophers to develop, and typical conference-length papers are too short (3,000 words) to publish, we will welcome submissions the length of any typical journal article (20-30 pages double-spaced) -- the aim being to help early-career philosophers develop full-length papers into publishable quality. As a rule of thumb, the longer the paper, the higher the standards for acceptance to the conference. Extremely long papers are discouraged.

• In order to defray costs of attendance (once again out of concern for the needs of early-career scholars), there will be no registration fee, and consequently no official banquet, snacks, etc. Tampa is awesome, and there are many affordable places to meet, eat, and congregate around the university.

• We hope to stream all talks live via the internet and, if time permits, take some audience questions from internet viewers by email. 

To submit a paper to present at the PCPC, please email the following to marvan@ut.edu by July 1, 2013: (1) a blinded (i.e. anonymized) paper, (2) a separate title page with the author's name, contract information, and brief paper abstract, and (3) a statement concerning whether you intend to attend the conference in person or only via Skype. Decision emails indicating whether your paper has been accepted will be sent out around August 1, 2013. Finally, please bear the following in mind:

1. In order to ensure that the conference is well-attended, there will be relatively few Skype sessions -- so the probability that your paper will be accepted is higher should you state in your submission email that you can attend in person. 
2. Submission of a paper comprises a tacit agreement to serve as a commentator or session chair should your paper be accepted and you accept the invitation to present.

On "What Made the Difference?"

I think I would be remiss if I didn't direct our readers to this post over at the Smoker asking people who got TT jobs this year what they think made the difference. The anecdotes shared so far strike me as compelling and important to read for anyone seeking an academic job.

Crazy News

I learned today that the math lecturer who taught my calculus course my freshman year at Tufts, Yitang (Tom) Zhang, is giving a talk at Harvard where he will present a proof of an astounding result in number theory: that there are infinitely many pairs of prime numbers p,q where p-q is less than 70,000,000. This is *big* news in the Math community, and it not only came from the guy who taught my calculus course. It comes from a guy who has been a non-tenured *lecturer* at the University of New Hampshire the past couple of decades with only two other publications to his name since 1985. Apparently word has already leaked out that the proof has survived multiple peer review and contains no errors (I would post links but am doing this on my IPhone, which can't do that). Anyway, my deepest congrats to Zhang. He took the road less traveled...and apparently now he's won. Awesome. Just awesome. And a reminder that dogged persistence can pay off.

A Positive Testimonial

I recently shared some research strategies of mine, which were also discussed over at the Smoker (where many people were, not surprisingly, quite skeptical of some of them). Anyway, one of of our readers, "Derek", recently posted in a comment here about his experience trying out some of the strategies I suggested. Here is what he wrote:

I actually did pick up the idea to write in the morning from here. Although, I have picked up quite a few things from this blog I found the posts titled "Research Strategies" and "More Research Strategies" *exorbitantly* helpful. Here are some of the more beneficial things that have happened since I have been writing every morning.

1.) Increased productivity -- Perhaps this one goes without saying, but the sheer increase has been mind-blowing. In the last couple of months I have pounded out five new papers, an outline for my book/dissertation (three of the papers will most likely be incorporated into the book, though I wrote them first) and a rather inordinate amount of outlines/notes of readings. The mind blowing part for me is that I struggled to even write one paper -- outside of class at least -- last year and I was not especially happy with the ones that I wrote for class. 

2.) I can see my ideas build on each other each day in a way that they never did before. I have always struggled with the thought that I have nothing to write and so have ended up just reading and reading and reading in hopes that an idea will strike me, fully formed and that I will then be able to just spit it out on the page. Of course, that never happens. The habit of writing everday has quelled this tendency and I have learned that If I just start writing I have plenty to say. Further, I have all afternoon to read and so I am able to read just as much as I was before. 

3.) I no longer "force" myself to write on one specific topic. Instead, I often work on several projects at once. Using this method I find that my ideas are able to breath a little, so to speak. For example, I often think of ideas for one project while working on another and, since I don't feel so much pressure to get a paper done as quickly as possible, the ideas in my paper seem to grow more organically and end up being better for it.

4.) I feel more productive and so I don't feel so much pressure to work nights and weekends. This allows me to spend more time with friends and family. Ironically, even though I work less now I feel that I get more done. I suspect that a large part of this is because I feel better emotionally and hence am always motivated to pick up where I left off the morning before. Research has also become enjoyable again and less like I'm running on a hamster wheel haha.

5.) Lastly, and this is a tip I picked up from Stephen Mumford -- check out the handout posted on his website "The Mumford Method" -- I write detailed outlines first and then, after I have done all of the creative/philosophical work, I write a draft. In my experience, this has a number of benefits. For one, I am not focused on trying to "follow the argument" while also trying to present the argument in a clear and focused manner -- which always seems to end up in a jumbled mess. Instead, once I commit to writing a draft I can focus solely on presenting my ideas in a clear and engaging manner. Another perk is that I am able to get feedback on my outlines quickly, as people are much more willing to comment on a three page outline than they are on a thirty page draft! I have just begun revising my papers using the "reverse outline" method, so I will let you know how that works out. This is where I picked it up --
http://getalifephd.blogspot.com/2011/08/easy-way-to-complete-major-revision.html

I don't know if the strategies work for everyone, but the most striking thing about Derek's experience is how it matched my own almost exactly.  And Kris McDaniel and Chris Stephens report similar experiences here (though they report having some of these strategies antecedently).

Anyway, although I wouldn't dare hold that the research strategies I've presented are "proven" by the experiences of a handful of people, I thought it might be relating these stories for a couple of reasons: first, to make the case for them a bit stronger to those who haven't given them a serious try, but also, second, to ask whether there have been any people who have seriously tried the strategies (not just halfway, but really tried them) for whom they didn't work.

Just to be clear: I'm not out to "prove my point" about the research strategies.  I didn't relate them in the first place for my own edification.  I've related them because I'd sincerely like to help people who are struggling as much as I once did, as I could have used the research strategies long before I stumbled across them as a result of dumb brute luck! So, with that said, I open up discussion: for all who have seriously tried some of the research strategies I've related,

1. Are there any other people out there that some of them have worked for?
2. Are there any people out there that some of them have not worked for?

Please do not chime in merely because you have your own research strategies that you think work for you.  For all I know, there may be other research strategies that work for people.  I would like for the discussion here to be one among people who have seriously changed their way of doing things to at least give some of the strategies I've mentioned a serious try (and not just for a couple of days, but at least several weeks, to give them a fair shot). I'd like to see whether people who have tried them have found that they worked (and, if not, then all well and good!).

Throw up, then clean up

I've written before a couple of times on research strategies, but my research the past couple of weeks since I began writing my book has made something crystal clear me: there is one research strategy I learned several years ago (in my final two years in graduate school) that "changed my life." Because it was such an unexpected but enormous change in strategy, one that has made the drafting of my new book go very well so far, I'd like to share it with all of, in the hope that perhaps it will make a similar difference in someone else's life.

One of the things I've mentioned before (which took some people aback) is just how fast I work. I tend to write up paper drafts in a matter of days, if not weeks. It wasn't always like this. For almost my entire philosophical career up until my last couple of years in grad school, I was very much the "slow burn" kind of worker. I would spend many, many months on end hammering out drafts, rewriting them, etc. It was hard, but I figured it was "the way" to do things.

I've made no secret that I endured some struggles as a grad student. It took me forever to come up with a good dissertation topic, but once I did, I finished the dissertation in about 8 months. How did it happen? Simple: I got a lucky break. I received an unsolicited book in my department mailbox on "how to write a dissertation." I'm usually not into self-help books, but I actually sat down and read this one. And what I read made so much sense that I had to try it. The first piece of advice, which I've recounted before, is to force oneself to write some small number of pages (say 3-5 pages) -- completely unedited -- every day you sit down to write. Although this might sound strange, every person I've passed the advice along to that has tried it has reported very positive results. I literally saw two other people I passed the book along to go from having nothing done on their dissertations to finishing in less than 9 months.

The key to this piece of advice -- as the book made clear -- is its psychological impact. One simply "feels good" when one has gotten 3-5 pages written on any given day. Once you've met that goal (if it, say, takes a couple of hours), you are then "free" to do whatever else you want that day: go back and edit, read journal articles, whatever. The point is that it gives you the feeling of moving forward every day. That feeling in turn increases your enthusiasm. You can't wait to wake up the next day to move forward more. This is exactly the opposite, in my experience, of what most grad students face (and why they often get stuck at ABD). Trying the "slow grind" style on big projects -- getting "everything right" -- leads to a negative mood feedback loop. You go home oftentimes frustrated that you didn't get much done, and it makes it that much harder to get up and do good work tomorrow. The 3-5 page a day thing creates a kind of snowball effect where you feel better and better every day, and work harder, edit better (after you finish), etc.

But I've said all of this before. What I haven't said much about is the general process it gives rise to in terms of writing: a process which (if I recall) the book I read called "Throw up, then clean up." I just can't begin to tell you how effective I think this process is.  During the past week-and-a-half, I have been writing 2,000-3,000 words on my book per day. Is it all good stuff? No! But, amongst the crap, I've gotten so much good stuff out of my head and onto paper that I can tell it's going to be pretty easy to cut out the bad stuff. And that's the thing: once you get your thoughts out there and onto paper, going back and cutting out all of the crap is *so* much easier than trying to get it all correct the first time around. Furthermore, the quicker you get it out onto paper, I find, the easier it is to discern the good and bad. I've found this way that a lot ideas I thought were good were not -- and I probably would have spend weeks or more thinking about them, whereas now I see which ideas aren't any good in a day or two. It works wonders.

So, I propose, try it out if you're having trouble getting things done. Throw up, then clean up!