Harry Redner: Failings in the Social Sciences and Humanities

From H. Redner The Ends of Science, Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1987 - Chapter 6, "Pathologies of Science"

Philosophy is strictly speaking neither a science nor a humanity. It is an august subject of great antiquity, one that has only since the nineteenth century been professionalised in an academic setting. Such an abstruse and other-worldly subject might be expected to be little affected by the pressures of academic politics. In fact, the very opposite has proved to be the case, for precisely because philosophy is not bound by scientific criteria of utility or by humanistic ones of cultural interest and relevance, it has become all the more readily subject to the determinants of disciplinary authority. Since philosophy is relatively unconstrained by any need to be accountable to other interests and is free to pursue whatever aims it sets for itself in its departmental fastness as a minor academic backwater, it has in fact lent itself all the more easily to the free play of internal academic politics. Thus, Richard Rorty, a prominent philosopher and critic of philosophy, who because of his criticisms is being treated [c. 1988] as something of an outcast, explains that the subject matter of philosophy has largely been determined by the outcome of political struggles within the discipline: "the topics and authors which fall under the care of philosophy departments form a largely accidental and quite temporary hodgepodge - determined mostly by the accidents of power struggles within universities and by current fashions" (Rorty, Consequences of Pragmatism, p. 30). In his account of current academic philosophy Rorty stresses the struggles between the reigning paradigm of the discipline in Anglo-Saxon universities, analytic philosophy, and the other brands challenging its dominance, collectively called continental philosophy. The history of contemporary philosophy is largely "a story of academic politics. . . one of struggles between kinds of professors" (ibid, p. 228). Rorty tends to be rather nonchalant about this because he believes that "problems created by academic politics can be solved by more academic politics" (ibid). But, as we shall see, it is not easy to reform a disciplinary paradigm, no matter how empty it has become, or to introduce another elsewhere in the university system, since the struggle for academic survival ensures that only one subject-species can fill the available academic niche.

Elsewhere in his work Rorty (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, pp. 132 - 36) explains how philosophy became a Fach (academic subject) or professionalised discipline, beginning with neo-Kantianism in the nineteenth century German university. The process was completed after WW2 in the American university system where philosophy acquired a professional organisation with journals, a peer review system, grants, PhD training and all the other paraphenalia of the sciences. The earlier preponderance of patronal authority - which is still more or less the norm on the continent - gave way within the Anglo-Saxon system to formal-professional authority with a strong collegial elite of elderly eminences grises. [NB Previous chapters of The Ends of Science have given a detailed typology of disciplinary authority, the patronal and formal-professional types being two among many. CS] This authority rules with a very strong hand, excluding and outlawing any philosophic perspective other than that which falls within the analytic spectrum. Occasional open rebellions against this draconian rule attest to this fact. Thus at the 76th annual meeting of the American Philosophical Association in New York in December 1979, a group of rebels, among them such prominent figures as William Barret and John Smith, "charged that the APA has become a monolith and intolerant, that its programmes neglected philosophic issues and that its leadership has lost contact with other philosophers". The academic political reasons for the dominance of analytic philosophy are openly acknowledged, and the upshot was "that the APA was dominated by people espousing analytic philosophy, preventing those with other perspectives from having an effective say in the organisation." As John Lachs puts it, in philosophy "power is an important and lucrative matter". "It was made clear that differences between the European Continental, historical position and the Anglo-Saxon Analytic position were not merely an abstract matter but touched on such practical matters as grants, government support, endowments, publishing and the placing of students and friends in faculty positions." It remains to be seen how this particular insurrection will fare, though one cannot be sanguine about one that seeks openly to assault an entrenched organisational position.

Perhaps because of previous failures at open reform, there have been many attempts to infiltrate continental philosophy into Anglo-American university by the backdoor of other departments. Thus the so-called "deconstructive" movement in literary criticism is partly such an attempt to smuggle in continental thought - mainly that of Derrida and his predecessors such as Heidegger and Nietzsche - through departments of comparative literature, English, French and German. This tactic has caused an inordinate amount of confusion and bitterness among the older style literary critics who cannot understand how and why their theories are being outflanked by something that claims to be more sophisticated than mere criticism but which they see as less interested in literature than in literary philosophy. [one might add older style anthropologists, classicists, historians, political theorists and numerous others. CS]. The battle lines are being drawn, with the opposed literary camps organising in cliques and possibly to become rival professional bodies. [One sees a whole front of the contemporary culture wars opening out from this point. Sickening stuff. CS] If the deconstructionists succeed in taking over some departments completely, two kinds of philosophy will be taught in Anglo-Saxon universities which have nothing to do with each other. This is already the situation at Sydney University in Australia. Rorty's (1982, p.328) rather blase' view that all this is "not much more, in the long run, than a matter of what sort of professors come under which departmental budget" seems mistaken, because once departmental divisions are set up there is no way of breaking through them and the discipline becomes fragmented, narrowed and impoverished.

Analytic philosophy and continental philosophy are already narrow, puristic subjects, the one stemming largely from the ideas of Wittgenstein and his predecessors Russell and Frege, the other from those of Heidegger and his predecessor Husserl. Both versions have by now become highly abstruse and almost empty of substantive content. Both shun involvement with the sciences, the arts or politics or with any other extra-mural thought. Practitioners of analytic philosophy have even gone as far as to show a disinterest in history, including the history of philosophy itself, so that they have almost lost touch with the metaphysical traditions of philosophy. The younger practitioners are little interested in the classics and are almost solely preoccupied with the latest issues of the journals, as set out by the prestigious figures of the field. The result, as Rorty sees it, has been as follows:

"Analytic philosophy was thus left without a genealogy, a sense of mission, or a meta-philosophy. Training in philosophy turned into a sort of "casebook" procedure, of the sort found in law schools. Students' wits were sharpened by reading pre-prints of articles by current fashionable figures, and finding objections to them. The students so trained began to think of themselves neither as continuing a tradition nor as participating in the solution of the "outstanding problems" at the frontiers of science. Rather, they took their self-image from a style and quality of argumentation. They became quasi-lawyers rather than quasi-scientists - hoping an interesting new case would turn up (Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, p. 227)"

Like philosophy, politics is a subject of great antiquity which was transformed beyond recognition to become present political science. A brief sketch of this metamorphosis is offered by Habermas:

“In Aristotle’s opus the Politics is part of the practical philosophy. Its tradition reaches even into the nineteenth century, till it is finally broken off by the critique of Historicism. And its course dries up even more completely the more its currents are diverted into the channels of the specific sciences. Thus, since the end of the eighteenth century, the newly emerging social sciences and the disciplines of jurisprudence have drawn off the waters of classical politics. This process of separation from the body of practical philosophy has ended for the time with the establishment of political science on the model of the modern experimental sciences, having little more than the name in common with the old politics. Wherever we still encounter the latter, it seems hopelessly old fashioned to us.”

The discipline of politics has also experienced an insurrection against its current reduction to the “science of political behaviour”. As long ago as 1967 a Caucus for a New Political Science was founded to work within the instituted discipline appeared subsequently in a representative publication by members of this new caucus. Once again the main burden of the criticism is against the organized conformity of the discipline and its attempt to institute the behaviouralist paradigm as the sole intellectual content and method of politics. This disciplinary prescription was frequently buttressed by reference to Kuhn’s idea of a single paradigm per science. Peter Euben sums up this approach:

“A paradigm must be ‘enforced’. To achieve a science of politics, we need enforcers, we need those whose authority in a community of political scientists would function in ways comparable to that in the community of science. Tolerance for diversity within such a community, as within the “normal political science[‘ it would be there to defend, would necessarily be limited in order to guarantee cumulative knowledge.”

Euben predicts that such a paradigm community would soon cease to have much to do with real politics and become an ivory tower discipline: “the community of political science will be fairly small, embrace the concept of professionalism maintained by one or two core journals and the key textbooks, provide opportunities for closeness, common purpose etc.” This course, however, has not been followed since the pull of real politics is too strong to resist, especially by leading professors called to political office or advisory capacities. The converse danger is that the discipline will be staffed by ready apologists for the regime and its policies.

This evolution has been steadily taking place since the 1950’s, especially in American universities where politics is now frequently the study of what politicians are currently engaged in doing, mainly with the purpose of offering them acceptable academic advice and so making the scholars indispensable to the politicians – the example of Kissinger and Brzezinski looms large in the aspirations of political scientists. Long before he had assumed office, Brzezinski had already proffered such a programme for political studies:

“As engagement in the world is encouraging the appearance of a new breed of politicians-intellectuals, men who make it a point to mobilize and draw on the most expert, scientific, and academic advice in the development of political programmes . . . (so) the largely humanist-oriented, occasionally ideologically-minded intellectual-dissenter, who saw his role largely in terms of proffering social critiques, is rapidly being displaced either by experts and specialists, who become involved in special governmental undertakings, or by generalist-integrators, who become in effect house-ideologues for those in power, providing overall intellectual integration for disparate action.”

He has been as good as his word, both as academic and politician. Most other academic mandarins have followed suit. The result has been that foreign policy, diplomacy and international relations studied at present are mainly concerned with the balance of power in the period since the end of the war, with nuclear deterrence as a technical speciality and with the major power blocs as areas of specialization. The study of domestic policy, government and institutions has become focused on the current workings of corporatist representative democracy, concentrating on parties, pressure grops, administration, and the strategies and tactics of electioneering – the last even going to the ludicrous extreme of attempting to become established as a special science with the name of psephology. One-party systems are the preserve of specialists calling themselves Kremlinologists and China men. To this body of studies at the top of the status ladder are sometimes added bits and pieces derived from other sciences, such as political sociology or psychosocial politics, or the occasional subjects dealing with issues such as totalitarianism or Third World politics. An outline of the main modern ideologies is presented largely for undergraduate teaching purposes, though since the “end-of-ideology” thesis these are looked on more as historical curiosities. Only the ex-student radicals, with their influx of new Marxisms, have altered this development a little here and there. Political theory is frequently presented only for teaching purposes as a potted history of political philosophy. Political theorists have gone to the length of trying to establish a separate association called the Conference for the Study of Political Thought. But such secessions do not improve the discipline as a whole, which now suffers from an absence of integrating theories. There is usually nothing of what used to be considered the main staples of politics: no comprehensive theory of the State (Staatslehre), no theory of sovereignty, right or law, no ethical political philosophy or morality of power, no comprehensive theory of representation or power and authority, no utopian speculations, no comparative study of political systems in different countries and epochs, no political economy, no study of politics in relation to culture, no study of the “spirit” of politics, such as the classical concern with the civic virtue of citizens. In short, there is hardly anything left of what was thought worthy by classical political thinkers, as indeed Habermas declares.