By Lawrence Helm
A rather outraged response was posted by Donal:
Intriguing thread title. Swallowed bait. The post asks:- "Was Heidegger more culpable for sincerely supporting an ideology that later was responsible for heinous acts than Tarski for insincerely engaging in mathematical and logical work?" The answer is yes. Engaging in maths and logical work, as Tarski did, does not lead to the murder of millions or promote an inhuman fascistic social philosophy. It is also questionable how "_sincere_" is used here: it is usually taken as a term of approbation - but perhaps not when referring to a sometime Nazi supporter:-give me insincerity any day. That Tarski doubted the reality of mathematical objects, in whatever philosophical sense, would not make his work insincere either - no more than Berkeley was insincere when he looked for what he couldn't presently perceive. To even ask whether Tarski's nominalism leaves him "culpable", on the plane on which MH is culpable, is risible. It would be less fatuous to ask whether the risks of passive smoking from Einstein's pipe put Einstein in the same bracket of "culpable" as Hitler with his "sincere" use of death squads. Of course, if a strong argument can be made, by examining the history and impact of ideas, that Tarski's math and logic work helped produce murderous regimes and a senseless World War, then these peepers will be agog. |
Lawrence responds:
Donal's outrage would be valid only if something like the criticisms that Emmanuel Faye advanced were also valid, and I am have assumed they are not based on my own reading of Faye, Heidegger, and others -- and the further evidence of Albert Kissler (see http://www.lawrencehelm.com/2010/05/albert-kissler-examining-fayes-smoking.html ). His outrage is valid, in other words, only if he doesn't know or understand the evidence.
National Socialism (the "ideology" I referred to) was not in the 1933/34 time period equivalent to what it became later, say by 1940. No one, not even Emannuel Faye is suggesting that it is. What Faye argues is that Heidegger's beliefs were demonstrably the same as National Socialism at the later time. In his book he offered what he claimed was proof, but when the "smoking gun," the document Faye based his allegation upon was published and could be seen as not supporting Faye's argument, then we are back to the original claim that Heidegger made: that he believed in National Socialism as he conceived it. He thought with the right leader, Germany could become the "spiritual" leader of Germany.
Thus, the evidence that Heidegger was not culpable for what National Socialism became seems incontrovertible.
Now as to Tarski's culpability for practicing his whole life in a field he didn't believe related to reality, this is the more open question. Did Tarski treat his mathematics and logic like a chess game? If so, why does Tarski say what he says, that "People have asked me, 'How can you, a nominalist, do work in set theory and logic, which are theories about things you do not believe in?" One has only to be reminded of the comment by enowning that preceded my note:
"To my mind one needs to seperate Heidegger's actions with the Nazis and his culpability (or lack of prescience, if you will) from his works. Mathematicians, scientists, engineers, don't have this problem; if an equation is correct and useful, it is a good equation irrespective of the history of the person who thought it up.
"The notion that Heidegger's insights are wrong because of his acts, is a symptom of political correctness gone wild. "
"The notion that Heidegger's insights are wrong because of his acts, is a symptom of political correctness gone wild. "
Enowning, unlike Donal, has examined the evidence that refutes Faye's allegations; so he (or she) is clear about there being no valid argument that Heidegger was culpable for what German National Socialism became. Where I took issue with Enowning was in his assumption that "Mathematicians . . . don't have this problem, if an equation is correct and useful, it is a good equation irrespective of the history of the person who thought it up." Perhaps Enowning's terms "this problem" and "useful" are his out. The problems for Tarski was that many thought they were being mislead about what he had produced. But if Tarski's mathematics were as useless as he implies then he, and Enowning, could argue that Tarski was not being a hypocrite by practicing something that other people assumed related to reality, but that he did not. While that may be an out for Enowning, I'm not as sure, as Donal seems to be, that it is for Tarski.
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Larry, you have to grant here that we have TWO fields here:
ReplyDelete--- one is sort of ethic, ethic, moral, or moralistic. It involves people, people's actions, and people's actions towards other people. (Heidegger, Nazism, Grice, Conception of Value, whatever.
-- another field is abstract entities of the type that Tarski rejected! Who cares?! I mean, I do, and R. B. Jones does, and Tarski did. But surely this is not harmful to other people, etc. So, this is more of a 'theoretical' than a 'practical' concern.
I think Tarski is being funny, or amusing, or jocular. I never understood the man qua philosopher. I find his "Semantic Conception of Truth" rather a dreary read. I suppose it must be more charming in his native Polish. The English translation sort of leaves a some to be desired! -- Plus, the English translation was made out of the German, I understand! --.
Tarski has been revered in America, but my heart perhaps lies with Lukasiewicz, another Good Logical Pole. I think Geach loves Polish logicians, too.
---- Recall that Tarski was playing in the period of 'conventionalism', and Carnap's principle of tolerance, and anarcho-semanticist views! So he could have been a closet inscriptionalist (alla Scheffler) and yet engage in talk of Aristotelian realia! I know a LOT of philosophers who play like that.
Mind: Philosophy is a business too. Some look for it for their bread and butter, and it is part of the professional charm that you can defend whatever! You have to respect the student, and you have to ARGUE with the student. So suppose Tarski was teaching in an US college, as he did.
He has this student, let's call her Patricia. Patricia believes in abstract entities. Is Tarski going to INSULT her? No way. Possibly he would give her an A+. Philosophy can be a pretty easy business when it comes to teaching credentials! As long as Patricia can ARGUE for the importance of abstract entities, I wouldn't think Tarksi could care!
--- The matter with Heidegger is different. Because we are discussing practicalities. Practices. Political practices. Legitimacy. Harm to others. National interests. International interests. Life and death! --.
Anyway, thanks for the comment in the other post about Heidegger thinking he had not change over time.
I would think his problem then was an opaque one. It was a bit like R. B. Jones and me. Think 'anarchy'. Kramer said, "If so, the anarchist is a fool". I would say: "an optimist". There is the ideal type, anarchist. There is the ideal type, anarchism. It is an ideology. It does not necessarily transpire into an anarchic practice.
Similarly, one may think that Heidegger was enamoured, as I know many people who are, with a political ideology, regardless of how that ideology is transmuted into the practice. In fact, I would think a political philosopher NEED to think like that. If he is TOO concerned with the practical applications of a political philosophy, he ceases to be a philosoopher, and say, he may become the Prime Minister of Great Britain! (D. Cameron's tutor in Oxford, for example -- at Brasenose, to be more precise -- has said that Cameron was often inconsistent during the tutorials. But what gives? What makes a good theoretician is NOT what makes a good politician.
So, Heidegger's references to the 'hope' and his 'idea', and his forlorn hope, and his disappointment, and his whatever, has to do with how his ideas matched or failed to match reality. In a way, there is, indeed, at a deep level (that Enowing and Donal may not understand) a connection, as you point out.
Oddly, this is full circle against Enowing's criticism of the critics of Heidegger as "political correctness run wild". For what IS political correctness but the practicality of an idea? In the field of pure ideas there is no room for political correctness, is there?
(Or something!).
I know you said you didn't like fiction, but I have written a lot of poetry and fiction. It helps me think. When I become perplexed about explaining something to someone who refuses to consider the varying presuppositions we have (Donal and Geary in this case, not you), or the logical development that we each build from our presuppositions (ala Gadamer and Collingwood) I may sometimes resort to fiction. My "Tarkegger's Culpability" is but the briefest snippet, hardly worthy of the name. I note that by the end, I was far less sympathetic to Tarkegger than at the beginning; which needn't reflect upon Heidegger because as we know, no one followed his Spiritual Plans. So Tarkegger can as much as anything be considered Heidegger taken to the extreme of considering what would have happened had National Socialism developed the way he had hopped rather than the way of the Brown Shirts.
ReplyDeleteIn a way, it is I think like what Grice says about Anscombe, or something. S. R. Bayne was researching about Anscombe so I retrieved this brief ref. (among others) by Grice to Anscombe in "Intention and Uncertainty". It concerns direction of fit. It may apply to Heidegger. In a desire-to-world direction of fit, we criticise our unfeasible desires for not fitting with the world. In a world-to-desire direction of fit we criticise the world for not fitting with our desires!
ReplyDeleteSo, when it comes to Heidegger's IDEA of "Nazional Sozialismus" (as the German spelling goes?) and "Nazional Sozialismus", a similar thing may hold. We get the political CREED, but we get the political FACTS (?). We have the AGENDA (things to be done, of course, in Latin) and we get what it actually GETS done.
I enjoyed your Tarkegger's fiction. (I'm reconsidering my attitude towards fiction in general, and Kramer's ref. to LEGAL fictions may have to do with it!). I enjoyed your synthetising the names like that, the way Grice speaks of Kantotle or Ariskant, or I have elsehwere spoken of Plathegel!