As you all know, not that long ago Steven Pinker wrote a piece defending "scientism" as a general approach to intellectual matters, including those usually thought to be beyond the scope of science (e.g. the humanities). Leon Wieseltier responded, restating the standard view that the humanities are indeed beyond the scope of science, except around the edges, so to speak, and reaffirming the common use of "scientism" as a term of abuse, referring for example to a tendency to regard the method of the natural sciences as setting the standard for human inquiry generally, a view Wieseltier considers arrogant.
I'm going to try not to get into the back and forth of this today, as my interest is in Daniel Dennett's brief, testy defense of Pinker against Wieseltier in HuffPo a few weeks ago (and besides, I'm still reading the same book of Dennett's I wrote about last time). Dennett is usually secure enough in his views to avoid the scorched-earth rhetoric of (for example) the other "new atheists", but Wieseltier seems to have gotten his goat this time. I myself didn't see that much wrong with Wieseltier's essay. Most of the sentences were true, for example, but on the other hand a bunch of true sentences need not a good essay make. After all, there were a lot of true sentences in Pinker's essay too.
Dennett takes offense at what he sees as Wieseltier's blunt, ignorant rejection of Pinker's sincere offer of a friendly hand across the disciplinary divide. Thus he tells us that "Name-calling and sarcasm are typically the last refuge of somebody who can't think of anything else to say to fend off a challenge he doesn't understand and can't abide." Indeed, in Intuition Pumps Dennett lists and endorses (psychologist Anatol) Rapoport's Rules of successful criticism. I really like Dennett's version:
1) You should attempt to re-express your target's position so clearly, vividly, and fairly that your target says "Thanks, I wish I'd thought of putting it that way".Dennett admits to some difficulty in following these rules himself, even as in his piece he scolds Wieseltier for his lamentable lack of charity. Nor will I follow them here, as I wouldn't be able to finish (2) or (3), let alone (1) in this short space. But I certainly was struck by Dennett's claim, a mere seven sentences after the bit about "name-calling," that
2) You should list any points of agreement (especially if they are not matters of general or widespread agreement).
3) You should mention anything you learned from your target.
4) Only then are you permitted to say so much as a word of rebuttal or criticism.
Postmodernism, the school of "thought" that proclaimed "There are no truths, only interpretations" has largely played itself out in absurdity, but it has left behind a generation of academics in the humanities disabled by their distrust of the very idea of truth and their disrespect for evidence, settling for "conversations" in which nobody is wrong and nothing can be confirmed, only asserted with whatever style you can muster.Yikes! So much for charity!
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