Belief and Resistance: Dynamics of Contemporary Intellectual Controversy

237 Pages·1997·29.37 MB·English

by  Barbara Herrnstein Smith

Belief and Resistance
of
Dynamics Contemporary
Intellectual Controversy
Barbara Herrnstein Smith
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
1997
Preface
This book is about the play of conviction and skepticism, ques
tioning and the resistance to questioning, in contemporary intel
lectual debate. The focus ofinterest here is not the substance or
logical structure, in the usual sense, of individual arguments
(though these are also c~nsidered), but the more general array of
forces-cogl1itive, rhetorIcal,psychological,andto some extentso
cial and institutional-that energize, shape, and sustain their op
position as such. What configuration offorces, for example, ce
ments the familiar, perhaps eternal, adversarial embrace ofskeptic
andbeliever?Oragain,whatishappeningwhenexchangesbetween
proponentsofrivalviewsleadrecurrendyto deadlockandimpasse?
"You can't argue with these people," says one. "Theydon't playby
the rules; they challenge everyword you say." "It's like talking to a
brickwall," says the other. "They don't hear aword you say; they
keep repeatingthesamearguments."Partofwhatinterests mehere
is what makes those "rules" work (or seem to) when they do and,
conversely(ifitis in fact converse),what holds the bricks in those
walls together.
These questions are evoked especiallyby current debates over a
cluster ofideas-truth, knowledge, meaning, reason, obJoectivity, and
justification among them-central to Western thought and, in the
viewofmanypeople(butnot all), to the conductofintellectuallife
as such. Onthe one side are argumentsbyscholars invarious fields
(academic philosophers, historians and sociologists ofscience, lit
erary, cultural, and social critics, and theorists across a range of
scientific disciplines) to the effect that traditional understandings
and invocations ofsuch ideas are conceptuallyproblematic (forex
ample, ambiguous,strained,unstable,basedonempiricallydubious
assumptions,overlyrigid,orfundamentallyarbitrary)andthattheir
Xll Preface
pragmatic operations, so understood and invoked, are confining,
unreliable, and atbestambivalent. Onthe otherside are arguments
to the effect that these challenges to, and related revisions of: tra
ditional thought are descriptively inadequate (for example, unable
to account for the explanatory, predictive, and technological suc
cesses ofscience), logically fallacious (for example, self-refuting),
and otherwise conceptually counterproductive (for example, de=
structiveofcrucialconceptsorwell-establisheddistinctions).These
more orless philosophicalobjections to the contemporarycritiques
are joined by the objections ofsocial critics and political activists,
who charge that rejections ofclassical ideas oftruth, reason, objec
tivity, and so forth are rhetorically or psychologically debilitating,
undermining the claims and convictions necessary for social criti
cism or effective politicalopposition and supportingbydefault the
status quo. And, to round out the array ofarguments and players
here, the latter set ofcharges is doubled or paralleled by those of
cultural commentators, legal and moral theorists, and other aca
demic andjournalisticwriters who see the rejections and revisions
inquestionasethicallyandsociallyirresponsible,makingprincipled
objectionsto evilandinjusticeimpossible,invitingthe tolerationof
manifestlyintolerablepractices, and openingthe door to fraud, su
perstition, and civil chaos.
As some of these examples suggest, the charges and anxieties
involved in these controversies often resonate with those familiar
in more overtly social and political conflicts. For this reason and
others to be mentioned below, the debates discussed in this book
have an interest not confined to the scholarlyarenas in which, for
the mostpart, theyare conducted.Thatinterestis attested, inpart,
by the more than usual attention these (largely) epistemological
controversies attract not only from the broader intellectual com
munity but also from popular journalists, religious leaders, and
sometimes even candidates for public office.
The exchanged charges ofmisunderstanding and incomprehensi
bility recurrent in these debates are not, I believe, incidental. Nor,
it appears, cansuch charges-orthe related sense ofmoraloutrage
or intellectual scandal often experienced by partisans and partici
pants-be readily eliminated by further elaboration ofpoints, due
Preface Xll1
clarification ofmotives, or even lengthy and painstaking rearticu
lationofdefinitions, claims,positions, andimplications.Itappears,
rather,thatthesense,commonamongrevisionists,ofbeingmisread
and misrepresented by their traditionalist critics, and the corre
spondingimpression,commonamongdefendersoftraditionalcon
victions, ofboththe absurdityofthe skeptics'denialsandthe opac
ityandirresponsibilityoftheiralternativeformulations,areintrinsic
to the debates themselves: products not only of the specific as
sumptions andexplicitclaimsthatdefine the divergingpositions as
such but of the very nature of the divergences that sustain their
conflictingrelation.
The perplexities just mentioned seem also, however, to reflect
more generalcognitive and rhetorical dynamics, common not only
to both or all (there are often and, in a sense, always more than
two) sides of these debates, but to all intellectual controversy as
such, including what we call "internal" controversy: that is, self
struggle,psychomachia, orwhatcanbeseenas the ongoingprocesses
ofstabilization, destabilization, restabilization, and transformation
that constitute the general dynamics of belief Accordingly, this
book is also about the play of belief and resistance in a second,
somewhatdifferentsense, namely, as the generaloperations ofcog
nition. In particular, I am concerned here to explore the broader
theoreticalimplications ofthe development, in fields such as theo
retical biology, neuroscience, and the history and sociology of
knowledge, ofsignificant new descriptions and understandings of
cognitive process, both at the level ofindividual cognition and as
reflected in the dynamics ofintellectual history, including the his
toryofscience.Moreover,becausehumancognitiveprocess,atboth
these levels, is seen here as profoundlyintertwined with the oper
ations oflanguage, I also outline alternatives to standardbutprob
lematic views ofverbal behavior and human communication. As
willbe clear,thesetwo aspects ofbeliefandresistance-thatis, the
dynamics of intellectual controversy and the nature of cognitive
process-bear a reflexive or reciprocal relation to each other, mu
tuallyillustrating and, in a sense, mutually constituting.
'Reflexivity and reciprocality themselves are recurrent themes in
this book. One ofthe most striking features ofthe debates exam
ined here, and centrally implicated in the kinds ofdifficulty they
XlV Preface
exemplify (mutual frustrations, recurrent charges, apparent dead
locks, and so forth), is the divergence ofviews among participants
regarding the character and status of the very terms and moves
through which the debates are conducted. For example, there are
crucial differences between traditional and revisionist conceptions
of the significance of logic and evidence in determining belief or
knowledge. Or, to put this another (itself significantly different)
way, theydiffermore orless sharplynotonlyonhowto understand
the relevant force ofthe terms "logic" and "evidence," but also on
howto understandthe nature and operations ofconceptsmore gen
erally, and, as it always turns out, the nature and operations of
language more generally. Similarly, disputes arise not only over
which, orwhatkinds of: criteria are properfor assessing the claims
and accountsbeingdebated,butalso overhowanyproprietyofthat
kindisdetermined,and, soonerorlater,overhowanydetermination
ofthat kind becomes established. The repeated eruption ofthese
dizzying regresses and related quandaries ofconceptualization and
argumentationarewhatIrefertointhebookasthe"microdynamics
ofincommensurability."AsI emphasizethroughout, however, cog
nitive transformations and intellectual reconfigurations are no less
inevitablethanmisconnections,collisions,andimpasses,evenifnot
so apparent as the latter and even if"resolutions" along classically
supposed lines are not available.
The dynamics explored here reflect, at many points, the familiar
but by no means simple phenomenon ofcognitive dissonance. The
experience itselfis common: an impression ofinescapable noise or
acute disorder, a rush ofadrenalin, sensations ofalarm, a sense of
unbalance or chaos, residual feelings ofnausea and anxiety. These
are the forms ofbodily distress that occur when one's ingrained,
taken-for-granted sense ofhow certain things are-and thus pre
sumablywillbe and in some sense shouldbe-is suddenlyor insis
tentlyconfrontedbysomethingverymuch atoddswithit. Percep
tually,itisthewaveofvertigoonemayexperienceattheunexpected
sightofhumandisfigurement(apersonwithone arm, for example,
or abadlyscarredface), or the distinctdiscomfortfelt at"clashing"
colors or dissonant tones. As well as sensoryor aesthetic, the per
ceptsthatelicitcognitivedissonancecanbemoreorlessintellectual
and, infact, textual.Thus asense ofintolerablewrongness in some
Preface xv
journalist's description or fellow academic's analysis can set the
mind's teeth on edge andproduce afrenzyofcorrective intellectual
and textual activity: letters to the editor, exposures, rebuttals, and
sometimes tomes and treatises. The corrective, restorative, "right
ing" impulse, here as elsewhere, is likely to be especiallyenergetic
when one experiences the wrongness as one's responsibility: not,
thatis, as one's faultbutas bearingonone's personalsafety, dignity,
or even identity (social, professional, and so forth), so that a re
sponse seems summoned and obligatory.
In all these cases, the tendency, understandably, is to end the
pain, to get things to be, feel, or look right (or "normal") again.
Thusoneturns awayone'shead,orremovesorcoversthedisturbing
thing, or strives to fix, adjust, or normalize it. Or, ofcourse, the
discordant percept may be incorporated (literally enough, that is,
bodily) into one's sense ofhow things generally are (and thus will
be and should be), so thatwhat the previously ab-normal element
must conform to or be consonant with-in effect, one's individual
cognitive norm with respect to that sort ofthing-is itselftrans
formed. How one responds to cognitive dissonance on any partic
ular occasionwill depend, ofcourse, on various features ofthe sit
uation itselfas well as on one's own relevant dispositions. While
thereis no singleorsimplepredictorofsuchreactions,itdoes seem
thatindividuals and entire communities or cultures have character
istic styles ofresponding to perceived anomaly, orwhat anthropol··
ogist Michael Thompson calls styles of"monster-handling." (See
MichaelThompson, Rubbish Theory: The Creation andDestruction
ofValue [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979], p. 90.) For ex
ample,somepeopleandcommunitiesseemcharacteristicallytolock
their gates to exclude monsters, others attempt to convert them,
yet others are prepared to enlarge or re-arrange their houses to
absorb them, and, ofcourse, some people and communities regu
larly go forth to slay them. This last point reminds us, not alto
getherirrelevantlyhere, oftheviolence-from domesticabuse and
vigilantejusticeto officialinquisitionsandinternationalcrusades
that may attend the attempted righting of what is perceived as
violentlywrong. Indeed,thepursuitofnormativerightness-truth,
health, morality, reason, or justice-mayhave its own corporeally
violent motivations and expressions, the sometimes dubious justi
fication ofwhich is a perennialproblem for moral theory.
XVI Preface
Ifwhat I believe is true, then how is the otherfellow's skepticism or
different beliefpossible? The stability ofevery contested beliefde
pends on a stable explanation for the resistance to that beliefand,
withit, amore orless coherentaccountofhowbeliefsgenerallyare
formed and validated, that is, an epistemology(though not neces
sarily a formal one). The two favored solutions to the puzzle just
posed seem to be demonologyand, so to speak, dernentology: that
is, the comforting and sometimes automatic conclusion that the
otherfellow (skeptic, atheist, heretic, pagan, and so forth) is either
a devil or a fool-or, in more (officially) enlightened terms, that
he or she suffers from defects or deficiencies ofcharacter and/or
intellect: ignorance, innate incapacity, delusion, poor training, cap
tivity to false doctrine, and so on. Both solutions reflect a more
generaltendencyofsomesignificancehere, namely,"epistemicself
pri~ilegiflg" or "epistemic asymmetry": that is, our inclination to
15elieve thatwe believe the true and sensible things we do because
they are true and sensible, while other people believe the foolish
and outrageous things they do because there is something the
matterwith those people. (I discuss this self-standardizing, other
pathologizing tendency elsewhere with particular regard to aes
theticjudgments: see ContingenciesofValue:AlternativePerspectives
for Critical Theory [Cambridge, Masso: Harvard University Press,
1988J, ppo 36-42.)
One of the most interesting aspects and key issues of current
epistemologicalcontroversyis,accordingly,theprogrammaticeffort
bycertain revisionist theorists-notably, constructivist sociologists
andhistoriansofscience-tomaintain"symmetry" intheiranalyses
and accounts ofscientific and other beliefs, those beliefs currently
seen as absurd orwrong as well as those nowgenerallyacceptedas
true. Contrary to widespread rr;tisunderstanding, this commitment
to methodological symmetryis'notJequivalent to maintaining that
all beliefsare equallyvalid(objectively? subjectively?). Such aclaim
would have to be, from a constructivistperspective, eithervacuous
(constructivism,bydefinition, rejects classicideasofobJoectivevalid
ity) or tautologous (to say all beliefs are equallysubJoectiveryvalid is
just to saythat people reallybelievewhattheybelieve). That com
mitment is equivalent, however, to maintaining that the credibility
ofallbeliefs, includingthose currentlyregardedas true, reasonable,
self-evident,andsoforth, is equallycontingent:equallytheproduct,
Preface XVll
inotherwords,ofconditions(experiential,contextual,institutional,
and so forth) that are fundamentally variable and always to some
extent unpredictable and uncontrollable. So understood, epistemic
symmetry, whether as an idea or a method, constitutes a strong
challenge to familiarWhiggishhistoryofscience, to the normative
project ofrationalistphilosophyofscience, and to rationalist epis
temology more generally.
Respect for the principle ofepistemic symmetry in the analyses
pursued in this bookleads to an important and perhaps surprising
observation, namely that some of the most notable, recurrent,
and, from a skeptical perspective, problematic features of classic
formulations and arguments (for example, their essentializing rei
fications and self-affirming circularities) seem to reflect cognitive
tendencies that are, in certain respects, valuable or indeed indis
pensable. Thus, the question-beggingorcircularityoftraditionalist
defenses that can be so frustrating for the revisionists disputing
them is seenhere as an inevitablefeature ofalltheory-construction
and, indeed, as afundamental aspectofthe dynamics ofcognition.
Similarly and relatedly, while cognitive conservatism, the tendency
ofour prior beliefs to persist in the face ofcontrary-seeming (to
other people) empirical evidence and credible-seeming (to other
people)logicalrefutation, can certainlyleadto stultification,it, too,
is seenhere as an ineradicableand, in somerespects, distinctlypos
itivetendency:crucialtoourday-to-dayoperationsascreatureswho
survive by learning, central to our individual sense ofintellectual
coherence, andimplicatedalso in thatsevereintellectualrigoroften
taken as the supreme virtue of academic philosophy, at least by
academic philosophers.
The ambivalence (or double-valuedness) just noted in the oper
ations oflogical circularity and cognitive conservatism emerges in
thebookas amore generalprinciple, reflectedin the logicaldilem
mas, rhetorical equivocations, and theoretical/pragmatic tradeoffs
recurrent in the controversies examinedhere. Attention to the am
bivalent operations of otherwise simply valorized, or simply re
jected,possibilitiesislinked to anotherimportantprincipleorcon
ceptualoperatorhere, namely"more-or-less,"meaning(indifferent
contexts) contingent variability, conditionally adequate approxi
mation, or gradient difference. Both principles (ambivalence and
more-or-less) figure in my efforts here to suggest or indicate pos-
Preface
XVlll
itive and viable alternatives to traditional absolutes, paralyzing di
lemmas, and supposed mutuallyexclusive possibilities. (For the re
cent development ofrelated concepts and conceptual operators in
logic and mathematicalsettheory-slidingscales,variable approx
imations, intersecting and overlapping classes, continua, spectra,
gradient versus digital quantification, matters ofdegree versus ei
ther/ordistinctions, and so on-seeDanielMcNeilandPaulFrei
berger,FuzzyLogic[NewYork: SimonandSchuster, 1993],pp. 12,
51-54. McNeilandFreibergeralso offeralivelyaccountanduseful
analysesoftheresistanceto suchdevelopmentsintherelevantphil
osophical, scientific, and engineering communities. See especially
pp. 44-64,73-77,176-181, and 269-70).
The positive alternativesjustmentionedare themselves different
from the best-of-both syntheses, between-extremes middle ways,
or beyond-X-and-Y transcendences frequently proposed as reso
lutions ofcurrent conflicts. Most (not all) ofthe formulations of
feredinsuchterms are, in myview, problematic: the synthesestend
to be superficial, the supposed middle ways commonly display a
distinctrightwardorbackwardtilt,andthe"beyonds" similarlytend
to fall earthward toward more familiar, establishedpositions. And,
in fact, most ofthese turn out to be highlyunstable as resolutions,
typically rejected by partisans ofthe more unorthodox side ofthe
relevant controversy, often by those on both sides. This is not to
say, however, thatintellectualconflicts are immutable. On the con
trary, new alliances, alignments, mergings, and mutual transfor
mations ofviews (none ofthese the same as "resolutions") are al
together to be expected. Though their importance is not always
announced, orevenrecognizedas suchbythe agentsinvolved,such
events are of considerable significance in intellectual history. In
deed, one could saythat, alongwith the playingout ofcontroversy
itself: they arejustwhat makes up intellectualhistory.
As will be evident throughout the book, my own intellectual
sympathies in the debates examined here are, for the most part,
with the skeptics and revisionists rather than with the defenders
andrehabilitatorsoftraditionalbeliefs-"forthemostpart"because
the array of positions on these issues is extensive and diverse,
and one could no more readily embrace all revisionist ("anti-
l£'.oundat·lona11·st,""constructi.v.Ist,""postmodern", and so l£'.orth) l£'.or-
Preface
XIX
mulations than reject all traditional ones. It is nevertheless signifi
cant that the analyses in this book reflect a particular set ofintel
lectualtastes and, insomecases, aparticipant'sinterestintheshape
and outcome ofthe debates discussed. The question may arise, of
course, as towhethermyrole as observerand analystis notthereby
compromised. At the least, it maybe supposed, I cannot describe
or represent the positions with which I disagree as well as those I
endorse.I amsurethatI cannot;nor,I think,couldanyone. Indeed,
this cognitive and rhetorical asymmetry seems to be an inevitable
feature and perhaps inescapable condition ofall theoreticaldebate:
for, of course, the moment the skeptic understood the believer's
position exactly as the believer did, or vice versa, then the differ
ence-anddispute-betweenthemwoulddissolve. Itmightseem,
then, that explorations oftheoretical controversies are best left to
future intellectual historians, who can compare and assess them
after all the feathers have settled and there are no longer any live
issues, or that they should be undertaken only by contemporary
observers with no intellectual investments in any ofthe positions.
I doubt, however, that eitherofthese conditions ofpresumedneu
tralitycould be attained. Any intellectual controversythat remains
interesting to later generations is likely to be connectable, along
some lines, to current issues and positions; anyone well enough
informed about a contemporary controversy to have something of
interest to say about it is, by the same token, likely also to have a
particular more orless partisanperspectiveon it. There is an alter
native, however, to sheerpolemicsorblithelyself-privilegingasym
metry, though it is not, to my mind, either transcendentallyguar
anteed objectivity or a self-conscious (and, I think, inevitably
strained) effort at rigorously symmetrical representation. It is,
rather, something more familiar and mundane (though perhaps
sublime enough in its way), namely, respect for the general prin
ciples and practices ofintellectual fairness that are acknowledged
in principle, ifnot always in practice, in the academic,journalistic,
and broader intellectual communities to which this book is ad
dressed: at the minimum, accurate citation, representative quota
tion, nontendentious summary, andforbearance from name-calling
and motive-mongering. I cannot lay claim to all these virtues all
the time in what follows, but I believe the descriptions and argu
ments offeredherewillbefound no morewantingin thoserespects