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What are our dialectical obligations?

I took part yesterday in a very interesting methodological discussion with other philosophers on social media that got me thinking about some questions I have long wondered about as a reader and journal reviewer: namely, questions about what our dialectical obligations are when writing and publishing our work. Let me explain.

Sometimes when I read a paper in a journal or serve as a reviewer, I find that a paper seems to me in certain respects dialectically unfair. Here are a few examples of what I have in mind:

  1. The paper presents itself as refuting a particular view, but only by appealing to a premise that proponents of the view supposedly being refuted will clearly reject given their background commitments.
  2. The paper predicates its argument on a view that some people have defended previously, but which has been subject to numerous refutations (claiming to show in pretty clear terms that the view in question is not supported by any good arguments).

"Now", you might say, "I don't see anything dialectically unfair about that. We're entitled to base our work on premises and positions we find compelling, and as far as we can convince reviewers and editors of this, all is well and good!" And indeed, as I have thus far described the above cases, I would agree. The questions I have about dialectical fairness arise rather with how articles that adopt the above approaches sometimes appear to present themselves. For example, it would be one thing if in case (1) the paper recognized explicitly that proponents of the position being criticized would reject one of the author's central premises; and similarly if, in case (2), the paper recognized that the view they are taking as their starting point has been argued by others to be based on serious confusions. But, my sense is that sometimes this doesn't happen. Instead, sometimes case-(1) papers seem to present themselves as though they are based on premises that anyone (including proponents of the view being argued against) accept or should accept as true, even when (by hypothesis) it seems clear that that is precisely what proponents of the view being criticized would contest. Similarly, sometimes case-(2) papers don't even seem to recognize that the position they are adopting as their starting point has been the subject of multiple claimed refutations.

Now, you still may be wondering what the issue is. In case (1), if the paper in question is published, isn't it just open to proponents of the view being criticized to argue in follow-up papers that the initial paper was based on a premise they reject? Similarly, in case (2), isn't it possible for people to respond in the literature, pointing out the paper in question is based on a presupposition that others in the literature have claimed to definitively refute? My answer is that of course these things are possible–but I still think there is a problem, and here it is: In almost every philosophical field at any given point in time, there are dominant positions that seem to 'run the dialectic' to the exclusion of minority voices (see e.g. here, here, and here). Those in the minority position who think the dominant dialectic is badly mistaken in some way are already at a dialectical disadvantage. They may have already published claimed refutations of the dominant position, only to see the refutations never engaged with or mentioned in papers coming out in the dominant position. Then, when yet another paper is published defending the dominant dialectic but (in type-1 cases) ignores that those in the minority position reject a premise they are appealing to, or (in type-2 cases) ignores that the dialectic being assumed has been vigorously criticized, the result is another new contribution to the literature that makes the dominant dialectic look stronger than those in the minority position think the overall literature supports (since their favored premises and refutations are in effect being 'suppressed' in the paper's mode of presentation).

For my part, I think the answer to this issue is straightforward: when writing and publishing things, we have some real dialectical obligations–specifically, to be as perspicuous as possible about what we are and are not doing. If we write something appealing to a premise that those we are criticizing would reject (as in case 1), we should flag that, making it clear that we know they would have a problem with it. Similarly, when adopting a starting point that others have argued to be confused (as in case 2), we should recognize that our starting point has been argued to be confused, even we disagree with the supposed refutations (which we can also note). These, it seems to me, are ways to be dialectically fair to our readers and interlocutors. As an important final note, I do not claim myself to be beyond all reproach here–as it's entirely possible that readers of my work might find errors of the above as well (I'm not sure!). The epistemic difficulties we face in appreciating whether the dialectic we adopt seems fair to others in the above senses is, I think, exacerbated by our present approach to peer-review. In our present peer-review regime, it's standard to get 'feedback from your friends' (who may share your general outlook on things), and then submit for anonymized review. In this process, there is precious little opportunity to address potential cases of dialectical unfairness. In the kind of more public ArXiv-approach to pre-publication peer-review that some of us advocate, this might be less of an issue–as people in a more public setting could draw attention to these kinds of dialectical issues prior to journal review.

But these are just some of my thoughts, and may be totally off-base (I'm willing to listen!). What are yours?

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9 responses to “What are our dialectical obligations?”

  1. Peter Furlong

    Thanks for the post Marcus,
    I think you are clearly correct about #1. There are limits, I think, to how far we can go in guessing how people will respond to our arguments, but we ought to note if there are clear ways in which others in the dialogue will disagree with our approach.
    I think the spirit of #2 is correct, and we should be more careful about this than we currently are. Still, this one is more difficult, I think, to see what the ideal practice is. In large part, this is because it covers an enormous range. Some of these cases seem to obviously not call out for comment (but I would be really interested if some disagreed). For example, imagine a philosopher working on some interpretational difficulty in Aristotle. This philosopher might point to various reasons some have given for thinking that a text might not be reliable. Surely (right?), the philosopher need not mention that some argue that we might be boltzmann brains, and if so, we should reject the idea that Aristotle wrote the text we have in mind, since there is no such text to have been written.
    Another example of this might be methodological differences. Must every article that appeals to an intuition cite literature arguing that we shouldn’t do so? (An aside: we could hack our citation count by writing articles that challenge foundations for most future articles–they would need to cite us just to note that we disagree with them.) Must every article that partakes in armchair metaphysics cite all the lit against doing such a thing? Must every article arguing for the truth of some proposition cite work rejecting one’s conception of truth? Must all papers arguing for first order ethical claims cite Ayer’s claim “A strictly philosophical treatise on ethics should therefore make no ethical pronouncements”?
    These are meant to be extreme cases, but I wonder whether there is any clear line between when we should cite and when we shouldn’t concerning cases like #2. In many cases I think it is pretty obvious, but my own intuitions are shaped by the current practices of the discipline, and when these are called into doubt, I am not sure where to go. Here are three questions we might look to in guiding our practices:
    1) What would ordinary readers of this article think important to know in order to evaluate the argument?
    2) Given the restrictions we face (especially word counts, but also the time and attention of the reader), what additions does the author think would put the reader in a position to best evaluate the value of the argument in question?
    3) What practices would best shape the discipline as a whole?
    It isn’t clear to me that the answers to these three questions would all be the same. It might turn out that noting the many ways people would disagree with the foundations of our arguments would distract readers from the argument, or would not even be wanted by most readers. On the other hand, it might be helpful to the discipline as a whole, since it would bring to light some challenges to dominant views that might otherwise never be noticed.
    In any case, this is all to say that although I think we as a discipline should definitely do more to note where people disagree with the foundations of our arguments, this issue brings to light questions concerning our writing that are not easy (for me at least) to answer, since they involve weighing various goods against each other.

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  2. Mike

    I suspect something of a virtue ethics approach is more helpful here than one that seeks to articulate principles. Knowingly authoring a paper that does (1) or (2) seems to involve dishonesty or some other attempt to mislead readers. For example, say one develops their argument against P without realizing that it depends on premise Q widely rejected by P’s proponents. It comes out in their discussions of the paper with friends that they need Q, but at that point so much time and effort has been spent on the paper that the person conveniently “forgets” to articulate the dependence on Q, or mentions it only in a short footnote, never drawing attention to it or giving it its due within the dialectical context. While I think we all can see the psychological and developmental trajectory leading to cases like this, it doesn’t excuse the end result of someone trying to pull one over on the literature.
    In general, I think it’s much better to approach these scholarly questions from the perspective of whether or not one is acting like a decent person, or if one’s handling the material in a way they’d want their opponents to handle things. Even if we could agree on explicit standards (and I agree with Peter that these would be extremely hard to articulate), a lot of people would be tempted to follow their letter while ignoring their spirit, exploiting loopholes, etc.
    I also tend to think that these sorts of cases are fairly self directing. It’s not too hard to figure out if we’d accept dialectical moves we’re making from our opponents. It’s also not too hard to err on the side of caution. If you discover that you need a premise widely rejected by your opponents, just make that explicit and explain (in the introduction) why your argument still advances the discussion. If you are going to presume a view some minority of reasonable experts reject, it only takes a single additional line to acknowledge it and cite 2-3 of the central works of your opponents.
    shrugs I see Marcus’ proposals as pretty low hurdles, not high aspirational standards.

    Reply
  3. Marcus Arvan

    Peter and Mike: Thanks to both of you for your insightful comments.
    I agree with you, Peter, that these are complex issues and it is hard to see how to draw a hard and fast standard. Indeed, as the cases you give illustrate (viz. Aristotle and Ayer indicate) I think sorites style problems arise here (viz. if X is problematic, isn’t X+1 problematic too?, ad infinitum).
    So, I’m not sure we can draw up any clear standards to delineate exactly what our dialectical obligations here. But I think Mike has a really good reaction to that: namely, that in some of these cases, the papers in question don’t come anywhere close to meeting what seem like pretty clear requirements of intellectual integrity: namely, at least recognizing there is minority position in the contemporary literature contesting your starting points, citing a few representative examples, and moving on. As Mike points out, that seems like a pretty low hurdle–and one that a virtuous (or least decent) scholar should generally aim to cover.
    More generally, I think following Mike’s virtue-ethical point, I think simply recognizing that there is a problem here, trying to do better, encouraging authors to do better as referees, and teaching our students to recognize the issue and always try to do their best viz. 1 and 2, would all be feasible (if broad) steps in the right direction.

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  4. Amanda

    I agree with the virtue ethics point. I don’t think that there are general principles along the lines of 1 or 2 because it depends a lot on the details. For instance, re 1, I think it depends how obvious the author makes the rejection of the view. Maybe it is something they would obviously reject because of other commitments. But not everyone is great at connecting the dots. And even if the proponent of the view knows they would reject it, others might not. If so, the point of the paper would, in part, be pointing out that so and so is committed to rejecting this view. That might be a worthy project. On the other hand, if it is very obvious that this view would be rejected, then that kind of paper might not add anything. I still think the most important question to ask when evaluating a paper is, “Does this paper advance discussion on issues that are interesting and important, and does it do so in a way consistent with reasonable, critical, thought?

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  5. Steve

    I agree that both 1 and 2 are problematic. What upsets me even more, though, is when an author presents an objection to a position which, while technically correct, could easily be avoided by adopting some slight variant of the original position. Often, I read papers where I think, ‘sure, you’re right, given what she actually wrote A is committed to stupid conclusion B, but there’s clearly a simple move she could have made, in the spirit of her argument, which would avoid that’. I guess what annoys me about this move is that it seems to reduce philosophy to a kind of game-playing, as if what matters is catching your opponent out, rather than actually figuring out the best position.

    Reply
  6. Amanda

    I agree Steve. What I also think is really problematic about that is that it shows instead of writing a paper where they point out the problem and suggest a slight modification to improve the view, it is a paper where they point out the problem, ignore the obvious change, and use it as an opportunity to dishonestly suggest the view is worthless. The overall point that I can’t stand about philosophy these days is this: it is not a philosophy paper unless you are disagreeing with another philosopher and showing them how they are wrong. The idea that a philosophy paper could be about improving the views of someone else is just a laughable concept (unless you are doing that through the conduct of showing that another critic was wrong.)

    Reply
  7. Mike

    Steve and Amanda, I agree that this move is frustrating, but it’s also just a specific case of how most people argue (no?). Just browse Facebook or Twitter debates, or the messages implied by memes, and you’ll see lots of people raising easily answered objections to the letter of someone’s position. The only difference when philosophers do it in journals is that THeY DOnT “tyPE” LIKE ; tHIS or congratulate themselves for “dunking on” or OBLITERATING the other side. I just see it as another example of philosophers as having exactly the same epistemic vices and falling into the same cognitive traps as everyone else, but (probably) not realizing they’re doing it.
    I’m actually a bit torn over whether I agree with Amanda that this is a matter of socioinstitutional norms in philosophy. While some people (editors, referees, philosophers sitting in a Q&A) may think that “it is not a philosophy paper unless you are disagreeing with another philosopher and showing them how they are wrong”, I think there’s enough room within the philosophy publishing ecosystem for creative, constructive papers that are “about improving the views of someone else”.
    While I think the former attitude certainly contributes to the occurrence of shallow and (epistemically) vicious attacks, I suspect it’s just as much a matter of these sorts of papers being easier to write, plus cognitive traps keeping us from realizing that we’re doing it.
    Perhaps relatedly, if you put a drink or two in a lot of us, it often comes out that we think our opponents’ views are pretty stupid. So I’m not surprised that we often miss obvious responses to our own attacks, or miss that our attacks are merely technical “gotchas” that leave the spirit of the view intact. Or maybe we see these replies, but shrug them off because deep down we think the view is stupid.
    Anyway, I say all this just to emphasize that philosophers are human. Perhaps that’s another point in favor of the virtue ethical approach. Getting better dialogue (in journals and elsewhere) will probably take more self awareness on the part of philosophers and concerted effort to avoid these various vices. (Systemic external changes, like journal editors and faculty advisors rewarding constructive projects, is probably required too.)

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  8. Amanda

    If that were true Mike, I’d say after spending the time to get a PhD and do this professionally we should do much better that the average person on twitter. And other discipline do do much better. Philosophy is the most acrimonious, competitive, non-helpful, not collaborative, discipline in academia I know. That’s not to say there aren’t worse ones, but I am confident we are petty bad. I have been to other conferences outside of philosophy and the norms are so, so, much better.
    I don’t by the “we are human.” Being a jerk isn’t being human. It’s being a particular kind of human, namely,.a jerk.

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  9. Mike

    Amanda, my takeaway from your response is that the socioinstitutional norms of philosophy reward and enable philosophers to be jerks, and the combative jerkish approach we encourage invites people to fall into the cognitive traps. If you reward me for attacking the other side indiscriminately, in some sort of game, I’m likely to get lazy at some point and just do whatever comes naturally. Since I’m only human, that means I’ll fall into cognitive traps, like hiding that I’m relying on a premise my opponents reject or levelling objections that are easily answered from within the spirit of my opponent’s view.
    So I think I agree with you that there’s something special about philosophy that encourages this bad behavior in a way many disciplines don’t, but I still want to hold onto the idea that many of these bad behaviors are just special cases of ways average people argue on twitter. (That part just seems too clear to me: isn’t levelling objections easily answered from within the spirit of someone’s view, but which do succeed in refuting the precise form, something that happens all the time on social media?) I think the PhD training does two things: (1) it refines us all enough that we’re not as crass about it as the average twitter user, and (2) it gives us the tools needed to see and understand these bad argumentative manoeuvres. Despite having the tools, I suspect socioinstitutional norms often keep us from bothering to use them as we scramble for that next publication or to get off the best zinger in a Q&A.

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