American Philosophy as a Technototem
Author(s): Sandra Harding
Source: Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic
Tradition, Vol. 108, No. 1/2, Selected Papers Presented in 2001 at the 75th Annual Meeting of
the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association (Mar., 2002), pp. 195-201
Published by: Springer
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SANDRA HARDING
AMERICANPHILOSOPHYAS A TECHNOTOTEM
ABSTRACT. John McCumber's Time in the Ditch: American Philosophy and the
McCarthyEra provides a compelling accountof a repressedpartof philosophy's
historyandits tragicconsequencesfor subsequentdecadesof philosophicpractice
in the U.S. Political values and interestsoriginatingin McCarthyismgot encoded
within abstract conceptual frameworks,propelling analytic philosophy to an
undeservedposition of authoritywhile deprivingit of critical self-understanding.
This commentidentifiesresiduesof McCarthyismstill playing out in the 'Science
Wars',and the careerof criticalphilosophicprojectsin both otherdisciplines and
philosophy'sfeminist and multiculturalfringes.
John McCumberprovides a fascinatingand compelling analysis of
the effects of McCarthyismon Americanphilosophy (McCumber,
2000). He describes how it shaped the lives of both individual
philosophers and philosophic institutions. He explores how the
goals, methods, and contents of philosophy have to this day been
distorted and impoverishedby McCarthyism.Indeed, McCumber
delineates how and why the intellectualpower of Americanphilosophy has sufferedmore than did the goals, methodsand contentsof
otherdisciplines where similarwitch huntsoccurred.McCarthyism,
and the complicity with McCarthyismadopted by the APA and
the AAUP especially, has deflectedAmericanphilosophyfrom that
importantand distinctiveof philosophictasks: "knowthyself."
Accountsof McCarthyism'seffects in otherdisciplineshave been
availablefor some time. McCumberhas plungedin to help us begin
to think our way throughsuch issues for philosophy.We owe him
a debt not only for taking the plunge, but also for the way his
analysis expands the horizons of awareness about how political
values and interestsget encodedwithin apparentlyculturally-neutral
and abstractconceptualframeworksand practices.Philosophyturns
out to be another 'technototem', as scholars in science and technology studiesput the point, transportinghistorically-specificsocial
distinctions into our culture's most authoritativeand purportedly
LA Philosophical Studies 108: 195-201, 2002.
? 2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
EAl
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196
SANDRA HARDING
objective accounts of reality and the structureof human thought
(Hess, 1995).
1. MAKING SENSE OF OUR HISTORIES
Personally I felt a growing sense of, well, relief as I was drawn
throughMcCumber'snarrative.I had puzzled over the fact that the
'hot' new directions to which my professors in the 1950s and 60s
recruitedme seemed to share a project in such disparatefields as
literarycriticism, sociology, and philosophy.Was it purely an accident that all were preoccupiedwith the intellectualimportanceand
pleasures of walling off their purportedlyculturally-neutralgoals,
methods, and contents from considerationof the ways social, political, and economic relations shape abstract,formal elements of the
thoughtof an era?
As an undergraduateEnglish major in the 1950s, I had been
drawn into the "new criticism." This approach insisted that the
only legitimate meanings of a literary text were those that could
be found in the text's formal structure.To interpreta poem in light
of its historicalcontext was illicitly to importinto the text intellectually suspect informationthat was irrelevantto the true meaning
of the poem. A decade later,I startedgraduateschool in sociology
because I wanted to explore social theory.It turnedout there were
no graduatesocial theory course offered in the curriculumof the
respectedbut, nevertheless,only universityto which I could reasonably attend while tied to domestic duties. Moreover, my advisor
found my request for such a course intellectually suspect, lent me
his Cliff Notes to Weber, Durkheim,Marx, and Parsons with the
comment that this was more than I would ever need to know about
theory,and told me that it didn't materwhat I studied in sociology
as long as I learned how to quantify it properly. Fortunately,I
enjoyed both the statistics and methods courses I was requiredto
take. However,this pleasurealienatedmy fellow studentsfrom me.
This sojourn in sociology lasted a year (though I returnedin
the late 1970s to hold a joint appointmentin the graduatedivision
of a sociology departmentfor 17 years), and I then moved to a
philosophy graduateprogramwhere I had the dubiouspleasuresof
Sidney Hook's last class, courses by William Barrett,and ordinary
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AMERICANPHILOSOPHYAS A TECHNOTOTEM
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language courses of various sorts. Hook's and Barrett'sdefenses
of McCarthyism,and the rise of ordinarylanguage philosophy are
discussed by McCumberas part of McCarthyism'slife in philosophy. Fortunately,the pleasures of the formal led me to fill up my
course of study with logic and philosophyof science classes.
This is what I was doing in 1968 while many of my colleagues
today were then organizing the most influential political revolution in the North of the last 50 years. However, improbable as
such a possibility initially appearedto me, this disciplinarylocation
has proved a rewardingone from which to think about feminism,
postcolonialism, and, "the conceptual practices of power" that are
enabled by differentphilosophic frameworks1- that is for helping
Westernepistemology and philosophyof science to "knowitself."
McCumber'saccount has helped me to make sense of my own
intellectual history, especially as it explores whether it would be
more accurateto regardanalyticphilosophy as a politics more than
as a philosophy, as McCumberputs the point (12). I would want
to avoid two assumptionsone could attributeto McCumber'squery
here, however.One is that there can in principlebe any philosophy
which can escape cultural fingerprints.The second is that politics
can only be destructiveof philosophy. I think McCumber'sargument shows that the practices of analytic philosophy have been
co-constituted by different politics at different historic moments,
but that analytic philosophy's undeservedhigh status in American
philosophydepartmentsfor the last half-centuryreflectsits unfortunate resourcesboth from and for the politics McCumberdescribes.
Here, I want briefly to pursuethis point with respect to two issues
McCumberraises.
2. ANALYTICPHILOSOPHYAND THE "SCIENCEWARS"
McCumber shows how neither the APA nor the AAUP would
protect the philosophers whom McCarthyism was attacking at
Temple University, the University of Washington,and elsewhere.
Philosophersaccuratelyread this message about the limits of their
purportedacademic freedom.2In effect McCarthyismdrove them
into scientistic claims about the nature of philosophy - claims
that were ready and waiting for them from logical positivism's
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SANDRA HARDING
conceptual projects. As McCumber points out, such scientistic
philosophicstandardsdid not fade with the demise of McCarthyism,
but insteadhave steadily gained power and prestigein the discipline
in the subsequenthalf century such that political philosophy and,
especially, feminist philosophy are scarce in the leading graduate
institutions.3
However, a funny thing has happenedon analytic philosophy's
journeyto scientism.Firstpost-Kuhnian,andmorerecentlyfeminist
and postcolonial science and technology studies (STS), have undermined the notion of science upon which have dependedthe defenses
of McCarthyism and of the entitlements to unique authority of
analytic philosophy. This is too complex a matter to more than
gesture towardhere. However,in these accounts, including at least
some of the postpositivist philosophic ones, the nature and very
best practices of the natural sciences have been demonstratedto
have, in Kuhn'swords, "anintegritywith theirhistoriceras"(Kuhn,
1970, p. 1; Hacking, 1983; Harding, 1998; Longino, 1990; Rouse,
1987) It is this historic integrity that is responsible for science's
technototem effect that maps onto nature and research processes
in the form of fundamental distinctions - often, dichotomies
-
the
culturalvalues and interestsof sciences' creators,practitioners,and
beneficiaries.The cognitive, technical core of science is permeated
by economic, political, social, aesthetic, and cultural values and
interests.Thus no element of science, its institutionsor practicesis
immuneto culturalforces. This situationrequiresdrasticrevision in
mainstreamphilosophiesof science, to which an increasingnumber
of philosophersare turning.4My point here is that analytic philosophy remainsa welcoming home for understandingsof science that
no longer are state of the art in the fields responsiblefor producing
them.
Indeed,the so-called 'Science Wars',in which feminist andpostmodern tendencies in science studies have been demonized and
pilloried in the public media as the flight from reason, should be
understoodas a particularlylively residue of McCarthyism(Gross
and Levitt, 1994). Such philosophies,chargedwith importingpolitical agendasinto the practiceand study of science, are presentedas
threateningthe foundationsof Civilization. I think that the actual
target of these attacks is post-Kuhnian STS, on which feminist
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AMERICANPHILOSOPHYAS A TECHNOTOTEM
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science studies overtly draws, and which shares importantassumptions with poststructuralistapproachesto scientific practices and
culture.The post-Kuhnianstudies had remainedlargely invisible to
most practicing scientists and the general public until the Science
Warriorstargetedits assumptionsas they appearedin recentfeminist
and postmodemistSTS (Ross, 1996).
3.
THE EMPIRE PHILOSOPHIZES
BACK
The second point I want to make is that it is reasonable to
see contemporaryphilosophy as much livelier and hopeful than
McCumber suggests. Issues about the nature of philosophy and
aboutthe role of 'publicphilosophy'thatcould have been addressed
inside philosophy departmentsare being addressedin other disciplines and at the culturalperipheriesof philosophy itself. We could
say that the empires over which late TwentiethCenturyphilosophy
presumed it was the rightful ruler have revolted and absconded
with philosophic goals, methods, and topics that have become
immenselyinfluential,andthatarethreateningto displacethe reigns
of both analytic and old- style Continentalphilosophy everywhere
but in the major graduate programs in philosophy departments.
These philosophic tendencies have taken on the tasks of producing the 'public philosophy' and public intellectualsthat the leading
graduatephilosophydepartmentshave successfully avoided.
McCumber points out that Continental philosophy, which he
thinks of as the main alternativeto analytic philosophy in recent
decades and today, has been impoverished in some of the same
ways that have narrowedand distortedanalytic philosophy.But he
does not see as distinctivephilosophic movementsthe 'difference'
philosophies that have emerged in feminism, race- and ethnicitybased, and postcolonial movements,as well as their continuationin
older marxiananalyses.
Moreover,while McCumberdoes point out that the rise of some
philosophic topics and debates in other disciplines can directly be
attributedto their invisibility in philosophy departments,I think
this is a much more extensive phenomenonthan he suggests. We
can see such work not only in feminist studies, but also in Queer
and cultural studies, and in political theory, sociology of knowl-
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edge, the historyof science, andpoststructuralisttendenciesin many
otherdisciplines. Outsideacademia,such work is producedthrough
public policy,jurisprudence,and even now in internationalrelations
and developmentplanning.5
4. PHILOSOPHY FROM MARGINS TO CENTER?6
The effects of McCarthyismon the official discipline of philosophy have indeed been intellectuallyand institutionallyregressive,
as well as tragic for many individuals. Yet, it seems to me that a
confluence of social processes are arising that promises to change
for the better if not the currentlytop-rankedgraduateprogramsin
philosophy,at least the natureand statusof most philosophicpractice inside the rest of philosophy departmentsas well as in public
life more generally. I wonder if philosophy's travels throughother
disciplines and its own peripherieswill have enabledit to grow and
flex new muscles even morebeneficiallythanhadthe disciplinebeen
able to produce within its bordersthe kinds of 'doing philosophy'
McCarthyismled it to exile. Sometimesbad things have some good
effects. In particular,the exile of critical thoughtfrom the heart of
philosophy has encouragedexaminationof the way political codes
direct and infuse the apparentlymost abstractelements of thought,
for better as well as for worse, as these purportedlypurely abstract
elements in turndirect political beliefs and practices.In its sojourn
at the peripheriesof the discipline, philosophy's "Owl of Minerva"
has had to learn to perform a double- day of work, flying by day
as well as by night. I, for one, hope it never retreatsonly to night
flights.
NOTES
l This is Dorothy Smith's (1990) phrase. Identifying such practices is a main
goal of standpointepistemologies.
2 See Michael Root's
(1993, pp. 23-28) interestingaccountof the impossibility
of academicfreedomin institutionssuch as universitiesand disciplines that adopt
Liberalideals of value-neutrality.
3 McCumber's list of senior feminist philosophers who have been exiled to
primarypositions in non-philosophydepartmentscan at this point be expandedto
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AMERICANPHILOSOPHYAS A TECHNOTOTEM
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more thana dozen. I would add to this list of philosophicapproachesexiled from
philosophy departmentsAfrican American, Native American, and postcolonial
philosophies.
4 Indeed,the APA is currentlyrunninga NSF grant,managedby RobertFigueroa
and myself, which has generated some fifty APA presentationsand summer
researchgrants,and a forthcominganthology on the topic of exploring diversity
in the philosophy of science and technology.
5 See, for example, the philosophic themes (and many philosophers) on the
programof the recent InternationalStudies Association conference in Chicago
(February2001), which took as its topic global inequaity.
6 l borrowhere bell hooks (1983) famous phrase.
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Hacking, I. (1983): Representing and Intervening, Cambridge: Cambridge
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Hooks, B. (1983): FeiministTheory:FromMargin to Center,Boston: South End
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Universityof California
Los Angeles, CA, USA
E-mail: [email protected]
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