Maverick Philosopher

What do these three have in common besides uncommon intellectual penetration and the courage to speak and write publicly on controversial topics?

Each has been viciously attacked by ideologues. Dershowitz and Nagel have been attacked from the Left and Benatar from the Right and the Left.

It is all over for the West if we don't punch back hard against the the forces of dogmatism and darkness in defense of free speech and open inquiry.

Alan Dershowitz

I have already said a bit in defense of the Harvard law professor. I now invite you to listen to his account of how a Martha's Vineyard woman wants to stab him through the heart, presumably because he has not aligned himself with the anti-Trump crowd. He speaks so well in his own defense that there is no need for me to say more.

Thomas Nagel

Another classical liberal who has ignited the rage of the Left is Thomas Nagel, the distinguished NYU philosopher.  He has impeccable liberal and atheist credentials and yet this does not save him from the wrath of ideologues who think his 2012 Mind and Cosmos (Oxford UP) and other of his works  give aid and comfort to theism.  Simon Blackburn attacks him in a New Statesman article that suggests that if there were a philosophical index librorum prohibitorum, then Nagel's 2012 book should be on it. The article ends as follows:

There is charm to reading a philosopher who confesses to finding things bewildering. But I regret the appearance of this book. It will only bring comfort to creationists and fans of “intelligent design”, who will not be too bothered about the difference between their divine architect and Nagel’s natural providence. It will give ammunition to those triumphalist scientists who pronounce that philosophy is best pensioned off. If there were a philosophical Vatican, the book would be a good candidate for going on to the Index [of prohibited books].

The problem with the book,  Blackburn states at the beginning of his piece, is that

. . . only a tiny proportion of its informed readers will find it anything other than profoundly wrong-headed. For, as the title suggests, Nagel’s central idea is that there are things that science, as it is presently conceived, cannot possibly explain.

Blackburn doesn't explicitly say that there ought to be a "philosophical Vatican," and an index of prohibited books, but he seems to be open to the deeply unphilosophical idea of censoring views that are "profoundly wrong-headed."  And why should such views be kept from impressionable minds?  Because they might lead them astray into doctrinal error.  For even though Nagel explicitly rejects God and divine providence, untutored intellects might confuse Nagel's teleological suggestion with divine providence.

Nagel's great sin, you see, is to point out the rather obvious problems with reductive materialism as he calls it.  This is intolerable to scientistic  ideologues since any criticism of the reigning orthodoxy, no matter how well-founded, gives aid and comfort to the enemy, theism — and this despite the fact that Nagel's approach is naturalistic and rejective of theism!

So what Nagel explicitly says doesn't matter.  His failing to toe the party line makes him an enemy  as bad as theists such as Alvin Plantinga.  (If Nagel's book is to be kept under lock and key, one can only wonder at the prophylactic measures necessary to keep infection from leaking out of Plantinga's tomes.)

Blackburn betrays himself as nothing but an ideologue in the above article.  For this is the way ideologues operate.  Never criticize your own, your fellow naturalists in this case.  Never concede anything to your opponents.  Never hesitate, admit doubt or puzzlement.  Keep your eyes on the prize.  Winning alone is what counts.  Never follow an argument where it leads if it leads away from the party line.

Treat the opponent's ideas with ridicule and contumely.  For example, Blackburn refers to consciousness as a purple haze to be dispelled.  ('Purple haze' a double allusion, to the eponymous Jimi Hendrix number and to a book by Joe Levine on the explanatory gap.) 

What is next Professor Blackburn? A Naturalist Syllabus of Errors?

Another philosophical ideologue who has attacked Nagel is Brian Leiter.  David Gordon lays into Leiter with justice, and Keith Burgess-Jackson has this to say about the Nagel bashers:

The viciousness with which this book [Mind and Cosmos] was received is, quite frankly, astonishing. I can understand why scientists don't like it; they're wary of philosophers trespassing on their terrain. But philosophers? What is philosophy except (1) the careful analysis of alternatives (i.e., logical possibilities), (2) the questioning of dogma, and (3) the patient distinguishing between what is known and what is not known (or known not to be) in a given area of human inquiry? Nagel's book is smack dab in the Socratic tradition. Socrates himself would admire it. That Nagel, a distinguished philosopher who has made important contributions to many branches of the discipline,  is vilified by his fellow philosophers (I use the term loosely for what are little more than academic thugs) shows how thoroughly politicized philosophy has become. I find it difficult to read any philosophy after, say, 1980, when political correctness, scientism, and dogmatic atheism took hold in academia. Philosophy has become a handmaiden to political progressivism, science, and atheism.  Nagel's "mistake" is to think that philosophy is an autonomous discipline. I fully expect that, 100 years from now, philosophers will look back on this era as the era of hacks, charlatans, and thugs. Philosophy is too important to be given over to such creeps.

Burgess-Jackson puts his finger on the really important point, namely, the politicization of philosophy. This is part and parcel of the Left's politicization of everything.

David Benatar

The Right too has its share of anti-inquiry ideologues, and Benatar's anti-natalist views have drawn their ire and fire. I come to his defense in the following entries:

A Defense of David Benatar Against a Scurrilous New Criterion Attack. The piece begins:

By a defense of Benatar, I do not mean a defense of his deeply pessimistic and anti-natalist views, views to which I do not subscribe. I mean a defense of the courageous practice of unrestrained philosophical inquiry, inquiry that follows the arguments where they lead, even if they issue in conclusions that make people extremely uncomfortable and are sure to bring obloquy upon the philosopher who proposes them.

Mindless Hostility to David Benatar 

Jordan Peterson Throws a Wild Punch at David Benatar

I end on a personal note. When I met Benatar in Prague in late May at the Anti-Natalism Under Fire conference, I found him to be a delightful man, friendly and chipper, receptive to criticism, open for dialog and not the least bit arrogant and self-important in the manner of some academics.  He said to me, "Are you the Maverick Philosopher?"  Apparently someone had informed him of the series of posts I have written on his work.  

Those posts are collected in the Benatar and Anti-Natalism categories. I focus on his The Human Predicament. 

My series of posts on Nagel's Mind and Cosmos can be found in the Nagel, Thomas category.