Author: Bill Vallicella

Approaching Plato: A Guide to the Early and Middle Dialogues

This just over the transom from Mark Anderson, Department of Philosophy. Belmont University:

I have enjoyed your site, which I recently discovered. I, too, am something of a recovering academician, but I am still in the academy. I am trying to develop a means of teaching philosophy while still practicing philosophy, to be a professor of philosophy without ceasing to profess philosophy.

 I am writing because I think you will be interested in a book my colleague and I wrote and recently put online. You can find it here.

 Approaching Plato: A Guide to the Early and Middle Dialogues

We decided to put the book on line after a) the few publishers we sent it to could not understand that the work is appropriate for all levels of reader (a book addressed to everyone from Intro students to Professors who read Greek does not fit into their categories), and b) we realized that if it were online it might actually help more people, even if it doesn’t puff up our CVs.

 Keep up the good work.

Thanks, Mark.  I have posted your letter in the hope that it will bring some readers to your site, and in case anyone wants to comment on the problem of publishing philosophy for a wide audience.  It may be that we philosophers face a dilemma when we publish hard copy (as opposed to 'publishing' online):  Either one publishes high-quality material or one panders to the masses with jokes and gimmicks and simplifications.  If the former, then one is confined to the journals and academic presses with consequent low readership.  If the latter, one sells books but loses self-respect.  It can of course be argued that this is a false dilemma.  But I wonder: Would Bertrand Russell's popular book The Conquest of Happiness be accepted for publication by a major nonacademic press today if it were submitted by an unknown author?  In our trash culture only trash can turn a buck.  If I am exaggerating, by how much?  And if I am exaggerating am I not exaggerating 'in the right direction'?

The Trouble with Continental Philosophy: Badiou

I hereby begin a series of posts highlighting various examples of objectionable Continental verbiage. Today’s example is not the worst but lies ready to hand, so I start with it. I don’t criticize the Continentals because I am an ‘analyst’; one of the reasons the Maverick Philosopher is so-called is because he is neither. The ‘analysts’ have their own typical failings which will come under fire later. A pox on both houses!

Continue reading “The Trouble with Continental Philosophy: Badiou”

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Silver Threads and Golden Needles

Written by Jack Rhodes and Dick Reynolds and made popular by the Springfields in 1962, "Silver Threads and Golden Needles" was first recorded in 1956 by Wanda Jackson.  The Springfields' version features Dusty Springfield before she went solo and some very nice guitar work.  Wanda Jackson's is a country rendition with slightly different lyrics.  Most versions such as Linda Ronstadt's follow the Springfields' pattern. 

The late Dusty Springfield was part of the 'British Invasion' of 1964.  Here is her signature number.

The Dictionary Fallacy

What I will call the Dictionary Fallacy is the fallacy of thinking that certain philosophical questions can be answered by consulting dictionaries.  The philosophical questions I have in mind are those of the form What is X? or What is the nature of X?  High on the list:  What is justice?  Knowledge? Existence?  Goodness?  But also:  What is hypocrisy? Lying? Self-deception? Envy? Jealousy? Schadenfreude? Socialism?  Taxation?  And so on. The dictionaries I am referring to are ordinary dictionaries, not philosophical dictionaries. 

Continue reading “The Dictionary Fallacy”

We Annoy Ourselves

There are not a few situations in life in which we are tempted to say or think, 'Your behavior is annoying!' Thinking this, we only make ourselves more annoyed. Saying it is even worse. For then two are annoyed. Instead of saying or thinking of something external to oneself that he, she, or it is annoying, think to oneself: I am annoying myself, or I am allowing myself to become annnoyed.

Just as one enjoys oneself, one annoys oneself. Enjoyment of a thing external to oneself is enjoyment of oneself in relation to the thing. The same goes for annoyance. There is of course an objective stimulus, not in one's power. One's tablemate, for example, is slurping his soup. His slurping is not in one's power, or else not conveniently in one's power. (Shooting him only makes matters worse.) But how one responds to the slurping is within one's power.

Stoicism may not take us very far along the road to happiness, but where it takes us is worth visiting.

It goes without saying that adjusting one's attitude is the appropriate response only in some of life's difficult situations. One does not adjust one's attitude to the 'annoying' behavior of a terrorist: one literally shoots him, thereby inducing a radical attitude adjustment in him. If the shooting adversely affects one's ataraxia, too bad. Better a little less tranquillitas animi than death or submission to the religion of 'peace.' Better his being red than your being dead.

On Repetition

Anyone can see the need for repetition in physical training. One push-up is as good as none. But one hundred per day, every day, will do your upper body a world of good. People are less likely to appreciate the necessity of repetition in mental and spiritual training. Thus liberals often foolishly rail against 'rote memorization.'

So complaints about the repetitiveness of my more protreptic aphorisms and observations are out of place. The latter are spiritual exercises for the writer's and the reader's sake. Multiple 'reps' are as necessary for mental and spiritual development as they are for physical development.

Hypocrisy in Reverse

Hypocrites are those who will not practice what they preach. They espouse high standards of behavior — which is of course good — but they make little or no attempt to live in accordance with them. Hypocrisy is rightly considered to be a moral defect. But what are we to say about those people who will not preach what they practice? For want of a better term, I will call them hypocrites in reverse.

Suppose a person manifests in his behavior such virtues as honesty, frugality, willingness to take responsibility for his actions, ability to defer gratification, respect for others, self-control, and the like, but refuses to advocate or promote these virtues even though their practice has led to the person's success and well-being. Such a person is perhaps not as bad, morally speaking, as a hypocrite but evinces nonetheless a low-level moral defect akin to a lack of gratitude to the conditions of his own success.

These hypocrites-in-reverse owe much to the old virtues and to having been brought up in a climate where they were honored and instilled; but they won't do their share in promoting them. They will not preach what they themselves practice. And in some cases, they will preach against, or otherwise undermine, what they themselves practice.

The hypocrite will not honor in deeds what he honors in words. The reverse hypocrite will not honor in words what he honors in deeds.

I am thinking of certain liberals who have gotten where they are in life by the practice of the old-time virtues, some of which I just mentioned, but who never, or infrequently, promote the very virtues whose practice is responsible for their success. It is almost as if they are embarrassed by them. What's worse, of course, is the advocacy by some of these liberals of policies that positively undermine the practice of the traditional virtues. Think of welfare programs that militate against self-reliance or reward bad behavior or of tax policies that penalize such virtuous activities as saving and investing.

Other posts on this topic are filed under Hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy and Pope Benedict

Is the Pope a hypocrite for protesting Islamic violence when the church he heads engaged in violence itself? To answer this question, we need to consider the nature of hypocrisy.

I once heard a radio advertisement by a group promoting a "drug-free America." A male voice announces that he is a hypocrite because he demands that his children not do what he once did, namely, use illegal drugs. The idea is that it is sometimes good to be a hypocrite.

Surely this ad demonstrates a misunderstanding of the concept of hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is a moral defect. But one who preaches abstinence and is abstinent is morally praiseworthy regardless of what he did in his youth. Indeed, his change of behavior redounds to his moral credit.

A hypocrite is not someone who fails to live up to the ideals he espouses, but one who does not attempt to live up to the ideals he espouses. An adequate definition of hypocrisy must allow for moral failure, otherwise all who espouse ideals would be hypocrites. An adequate definition must also allow for moral change. One who did not attempt to live up to the ideals he now espouses cannot be called a hypocrite; the term applies to one who does not attempt to live up to the ideals he now espouses.

If you see my point, you will appreciate that Pope Benedict cannot be called a hypocrite for condemning Islamic violence. But Karen Armstrong in a piece in the Guardian Unlimited disagrees:

The Muslims who have objected so vociferously to the Pope's denigration of Islam have accused him of "hypocrisy", pointing out that the Catholic church is ill-placed to condemn violent jihad when it has itself been guilty of unholy violence in crusades, persecutions and inquisitions and, under Pope Pius XII, tacitly condoned the Nazi Holocaust.

The context shows that Armstrong credits the accusation of hypocrisy. But what Armstrong fails to realize is that what the Church did in the far-off past, but no longer does, is quite irrelevant to the question whether it is hypocritical in condemning present-day Islamic violence.

There is another incoherence in Armstrong's piece that Dennis Prager noted. Armstrong condemns the Pope for hypocrisy given the Church's alleged failure to help the Jews during the Nazi Holocaust. But she also condemns him for criticizing Islamic violence which also threatens Jews.

There is something wrong here. Not long ago Jews were under threat from Nazis, now they are under threat from militant Muslims. If Armstrong is right to criticize the Church of Pius XII — a question I leave undecided — then consistency would seem to demand that she praise Benedict XVI for speaking in defense of the Jews.

Two Ways to Avoid Being a Hypocrite

There are two ways to avoid being a hypocrite.  So as to have handy labels, I'll call them the liberal way and the conservative way.

Liberal Way:  Adjust your standards downwards to the point where there is no discrepancy between what you do and what you espouse. Take what you do and are inclined to do as your benchmark, and then make sure you never espouse any course of action inconsistent with it.  Espouse only what you live, and live all that you espouse. This approach guarantees that you will never be a hypocrite.

Deflect moral criticism of what you do and leave undone by pointing out the utter consistency of what you do and what you espouse, and by insisting that such consistency is the acme of moral accomplishment.

Conservative Way:  Espouse and defend lofty and choice-worthy standards of behavior and make a serious effort to live in accordance with them.  You will fall short from time to time.  But if you persevere in your striving with a sincere intention of realizing to the best of your ability high standards, you will never be a hypocrite. 

Obviously, only one of these ways can be recommended, and you don't need me to tell you which one it is.

Gore a Hypocrite, So No Global Warming?

Hypocrite This is another in a series on hypocrisy.  To understand this concept one must appreciate that the credibility of a person is not to be confused with the credibility of a proposition.

On Hannity and Colmes on the evening of 19 March 2007,  Al Gore was castigated for having an environmentally unfriendly zinc mine on some land he owns, the implication being that this makes him a hypocrite and undermines — pun intended — his credibility. Well, to some extent it does lessen his credibility. Why should we take seriously the bloviations of a rich liberal who consumes prodigious quantities of jet fuel and other resources in order to impose on others an environmental austerity from which he exempts himself?

But the credibility (in plain English, believability) of a person ought to be distinguished from the credibility of a proposition. The issue is whether or not there is global warming; the isssue is not Gore's hypocrisy, if hypocrite he be. He is not someone I wish to defend, and on the issue of global warming I take no stand at the moment.

My point is a logical one and a very simple one at that. If Gore's views have merit they have merit independently of any connection to his febrile psyche. And the same holds in the more likely case of their demerit. They cannot be refuted by tracing their origin from said psyche. If a hypocrite affirms that p, it may still be the case that p.

And if a hypocrite prescribes a course of action, it does not follow that the course prescribed is not well prescribed. Suppose a fat slob of an M.D. advises a couch potato to stop smoking, cut back on fatty foods, and exercise regularly.  The advice is excellent, and its quality is logically independent of whether or not its purveyor follows it.  Is that not self-evident?  The point extends, mutatis mutandis, to all manner of teachers and preachers.