Sham Inquiry
A bit from an essay of Susan Haack’s in Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate, page 8.
And to inquire is to try to discover the truth of some question. But pseudo-inquiry is a phenomenon no less common than pseudo-belief…Peirce identifies one kind of pseudo-inquiry when he writes of ‘sham reasoning’ [Collected Papers, I. 57-58]: making a case for the truth of some proposition your commitment to which is already evidence- and argument-proof.
Yes. A neat summing-up. Also a neat expression of the basic, the as it were foundational principle of B&W – which could be called identification of and opposition to sham inquiry.
Also a neat, succint description of how Margaret Mead went wrong. I’ve just been re-reading Derek Freeman’s book on the subject, as well as a brilliant long article on Franz Boas in The New Yorker last year (not online, unfortunately) by Claudia Roth Pierpont. It’s an interesting and somewhat conflict-inducing subject – because Boas was so right, from a moral and political view; he was so admirable, and often so isolated. And yet. From an epistemic point of view, he did get things backward. And yet – what else can one do in a situation like that? When racist ‘eugenic’ ideas are sweeping the intellectual landscape and you’re convinced they’re both harmful and false, what can you do but look for evidence to back up your conviction? And yet – if you do that, you are getting things the wrong way around, and you are very likely – you may indeed be consciously determined – to ignore any evidence you don’t want. Politically, it’s a perfectly reasonable thing to do (and I’m sure I do it all the time); in terms of inquiry, it’s just not the way to go.
Haack goes on,
He has in mind philosophers who devise elaborate metaphysical underpinnings for theological propositions which no evidence or argument would induce them to give up. I think of Philip Gosse’s tortured efforts to reconcile the evidence Darwin adduced in favour of the theory of evolution with the literal truth of the book of Geneisis – and of the advocacy ‘research’ and politically motivated ‘scholarship’ of our own times. The characteristic feature of sham inquiry is the ‘inquirer’s’ prior and unbudgeable commitment to the proposition for which he tries to make a case.
Something to watch out for.
Ah! I love Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate. It reaffirms my faith in contemporary philosophy and feminism at times when there’s so much postmodern tripe being thrown about under those same appellations.
Unfortunately, I found at least a few of its essays nearly inaccessible because of my lack of familiarity with pragmatism and what passes for it nowadays. I ought to read some Peirce and James sometime.
Yes, isn’t it good?
I ought to read some Peirce sometime too…
I share the enhusiasm for Haack’s work -especially Defending Science Within Reason.
The Derek Freeman/Boas/Mead thing, though, is something I don’t yet fully understand. I read one of Freeman’s pieces on Mead many years ago in Skeptic, and not knowing anything else about Mead then, I found it convincing. But I’ve since read some cogent articles taking issue with Freeman’s portrayal of Mead…claiming his model of Mead is a straw man that doesn’t do justice to the real depth of her thought. The latter article also used quotes from Mead’s work that did indeed seem to indicate a belief in the reality of human nature. She also thought human nature is flexible, though, and would defend that flexibility when racist ideologies denied it. It seems possible that this defense became confused with a denial of human nature itself, which of course has been the main beef that people like Freeman have made against her.
Thus, I’m not sure that Freeman’s take on Mead holds up – it may be pushing an agenda of its own. I still don’t know nearly enough about Mead or anthropology to be able to reach a firm conclusion. But…I have some doubts about Freeman’s assertions.
Phil
Ophelia:
Very true about the possible methodological flaws in Mead’s work…I don’t recall how the other articles I read addressed that issue. I recall that the articles did challenge some of Freeman’s other claims, though. They seemed to take issue with the history of anthropology he presents and the importance of Mead’s Samoan study to her overall thought and/or the status of Boasian anrhropology.
It’s been a very long time since I’ve read those articles, or anything by Mead or Freeman, but it’s certainly true that the limitations of Mead’s Samoan work need to be recognized. I’d also say, though, that we need to recognize which conclusions ultimately can or cannot be drawn from Freeman’s criticisms, and that’s something I’d like to explore further.
Phil
I sense an article in the making.
Your assignment, should you choose to accept it…
Phil, Ophelia: Freeman’s point is straightforward: he demonstrates that Margaret Mead became a victim of her own nurturist ideology. She went to Samoa to find what she was looking for, not what was there. Hence she deceived herself, thus deceiving others. Whatever her intentions, ‘Coming of Age in Samoa’ was a major contribution to anti-knowledge.
But no well-informed person claims that Mead always got everything wrong.
After all, it was Mead who, in her review of Steven Goldberg’s controversial book ‘The Inevitability of Patriarchy’, wrote:
“[I]t is true, as Professor Goldberg points out, that all the claims so glibly made about societies ruled by women are nonsense. We have no reason to believe that they ever existed …men everywhere have been in charge of running the show … men have always been the leaders in public affairs and the final authorities at home.”
All is forgiven.
“She went to Samoa to find what she was looking for, not what was there.”
Well, that was the point about Peirce and Haack and sham inquiry. That does seem to be what happened, or at least one way of looking at it. She could have gone to Samoa to find what she was looking for (a “negative instance” as she put it) but then still have been able to perceive that she hadn’t in fact found it. (In fact it’s not really clear and perhaps in the nature of things can’t be clear, to what extent her mistakes were caused by her preconceptions and to what extent they were caused by much duller things like shortage of time and unwillingness to sleep among goats and eat starchy food.)
Ophelia:
Yes, I think I will take up that assignment. It’ll force me to finally look deeper into the Mead/Freeman controversy.
Cathal:
It does in fact seem that Mead went looking for what she already believed to be there, and then read her preconceptions into her findings. But what doesn’t yet seem entirely straightforward to me is the accuracy of Freeman’s general portrayal of Mead, his version of anthropological history, or the implications of Mead’s Samoan study for the validity of other areas of her thought.
As you note, Mead didn’t always get things wrong. She wrote a cultural study of the United States called Keep Your Powder Dry that many still hold up as a shrewd, insightful analysis of American culture. It was a major influence on other books such as David Potter’s People of Plenty or Riesman’s The Lonely Crowd.
Phil