The body of this book contributes an excellent new commentary on Hegel's conception of freedom, w... more The body of this book contributes an excellent new commentary on Hegel's conception of freedom, while in his footnotes Dudley offers a rich counterpoint to his own themes in frequently lengthy excurses on much of the relevant literature. However, although Dudley notes at the outset (10-11) that Hegel's and Nietzsche's styles are so different as to require a different style of interpretive treatment, he seems to have forgotten this promise by the time he reaches his discussion of Nietzsche. Instead, Dudley breaks arguments down into their various elements, revealing symmetries to obtain between and among these, in the service of a quasi-dialectical method that sees Nietzsche's thought advance by overcoming its own internal inadequacies. Such a method of analysis seems well suited to Hegel, but it is less persuasive in treating Nietzsche's much more amorphous work, especially as any chronological approach to Nietzsche, which might ground such a developmental claim, is explicitly eschewed. Frequent extended quotation of Nietzsche throughout makes that incongruity of styles particularly strident. Dudley's admittedly Hegelian reading (176) of Nietzsche describes an arc of development in strategies for obtaining freedom: from the enslavement to simple material needs in "disgregation" (a coinage of Werner Hamacher's, apparently, who is cited, but not as the source of this term), through the partial freedom of the moral will, to the self-determined noble will, which itself is aufgehoben by the tragic will. The dynamics of this process are complicated, and laying them out constitutes the lion's share of the analysis. One must forge one's own will, we read, by "giving birth to oneself as a living whole," something accomplished by "integrating the chaos that results from the destruction of the moral will." This feat of "integration" is itself first accomplished by giving oneself "customs" which, however, soon become a new form of unfreedom; what ultimately is needed is "a complementary combination of nobility and modernity, of setting oneself apart from and holding oneself open to the chaotic stimuli beyond one's measure" (177). These are just the barest bones on which Dudley hangs a lot of flesh-not all of which appears natural there. Dudley articulates Nietzsche's ideas in sentences like these: "Recall that the sovereign, noble will is the offspring of the genius of giving birth applied by the individual to herself. Now the transformative destruction of this will results from such a reflexive application of the genius of impregnation; the individual transgresses her own measure, going outside herself in search of new material with which she can be impregnated" (180). To my ear, this does not resonate with Nietzsche's discourse. Indeed, one might suppose from such a passage that Dudley engages the rhetoric of gender studies and, given the prevalence of "masculine" virtues in Nietzsche's attitude, his use of the feminine pronoun is certainly provocative. However, neither is this the case; Dudley's usage seems a mere gesture, despite the questions it raises. In sum, Hegel, Nietzsche and Philosophy provides a detailed map of Hegel's thinking about freedom, and a rich and rigorous reconstruction of Nietzsche's thoughts on the same theme, although Dudley's analytical style is better suited to the former than to the latter task. Nietzsche is a dangerous thinker, as history has repeatedly shown, only when he is taken to be offering arguments that must persuade by virtue of the "uncoercive coercion" of rationality. Thus, plausible reconstructions of Nietzsche's "teachings" run a great risk when they are insufficiently qualified by sensitive attention to his style
The concept of autonomy has had a central place in the German aesthetic tradition since the eight... more The concept of autonomy has had a central place in the German aesthetic tradition since the eighteenth century, specifically, after Kant's Critique of the Power of Judgment. Although Kant denied that aesthetic judgments yield cognitive truth, aesthetic judgments are autonomous in that they do not rely on or presuppose a concern with the object's purpose, utility, or even its actual existence. For Theodor Adorno, the autonomy of art lies in the work of art, in its production, not specifically in the aesthetic judgments of the subject. This article shows that by shifting autonomy from aesthetic judgments to art production, Adorno effectively makes art the reservoir for human freedom. Although this point is often eluded to in Adorno scholarship by individuals such as Tom Huhn and Lambert Zuidervaart, it is often passed over without additional explanation and discussion.
The body of this book contributes an excellent new commentary on Hegel's conception of freedom, w... more The body of this book contributes an excellent new commentary on Hegel's conception of freedom, while in his footnotes Dudley offers a rich counterpoint to his own themes in frequently lengthy excurses on much of the relevant literature. However, although Dudley notes at the outset (10-11) that Hegel's and Nietzsche's styles are so different as to require a different style of interpretive treatment, he seems to have forgotten this promise by the time he reaches his discussion of Nietzsche. Instead, Dudley breaks arguments down into their various elements, revealing symmetries to obtain between and among these, in the service of a quasi-dialectical method that sees Nietzsche's thought advance by overcoming its own internal inadequacies. Such a method of analysis seems well suited to Hegel, but it is less persuasive in treating Nietzsche's much more amorphous work, especially as any chronological approach to Nietzsche, which might ground such a developmental claim, is explicitly eschewed. Frequent extended quotation of Nietzsche throughout makes that incongruity of styles particularly strident. Dudley's admittedly Hegelian reading (176) of Nietzsche describes an arc of development in strategies for obtaining freedom: from the enslavement to simple material needs in "disgregation" (a coinage of Werner Hamacher's, apparently, who is cited, but not as the source of this term), through the partial freedom of the moral will, to the self-determined noble will, which itself is aufgehoben by the tragic will. The dynamics of this process are complicated, and laying them out constitutes the lion's share of the analysis. One must forge one's own will, we read, by "giving birth to oneself as a living whole," something accomplished by "integrating the chaos that results from the destruction of the moral will." This feat of "integration" is itself first accomplished by giving oneself "customs" which, however, soon become a new form of unfreedom; what ultimately is needed is "a complementary combination of nobility and modernity, of setting oneself apart from and holding oneself open to the chaotic stimuli beyond one's measure" (177). These are just the barest bones on which Dudley hangs a lot of flesh-not all of which appears natural there. Dudley articulates Nietzsche's ideas in sentences like these: "Recall that the sovereign, noble will is the offspring of the genius of giving birth applied by the individual to herself. Now the transformative destruction of this will results from such a reflexive application of the genius of impregnation; the individual transgresses her own measure, going outside herself in search of new material with which she can be impregnated" (180). To my ear, this does not resonate with Nietzsche's discourse. Indeed, one might suppose from such a passage that Dudley engages the rhetoric of gender studies and, given the prevalence of "masculine" virtues in Nietzsche's attitude, his use of the feminine pronoun is certainly provocative. However, neither is this the case; Dudley's usage seems a mere gesture, despite the questions it raises. In sum, Hegel, Nietzsche and Philosophy provides a detailed map of Hegel's thinking about freedom, and a rich and rigorous reconstruction of Nietzsche's thoughts on the same theme, although Dudley's analytical style is better suited to the former than to the latter task. Nietzsche is a dangerous thinker, as history has repeatedly shown, only when he is taken to be offering arguments that must persuade by virtue of the "uncoercive coercion" of rationality. Thus, plausible reconstructions of Nietzsche's "teachings" run a great risk when they are insufficiently qualified by sensitive attention to his style
Abstract Purpose This paper shows that the collector (like the flâneur) is a decisive character i... more Abstract Purpose This paper shows that the collector (like the flâneur) is a decisive character in Walter Benjamin’s philosophy of history, specifically in the manifestation of the historical materialist, yet the paper is not so much about the collector or collecting as it is about the commodity and the experience thereof in consumer society. Methodology/approach The section “The Dream World of Mass Culture” discusses mass culture and the central problem of commodity fetishism as Benjamin sees it. The section “A Physiognomist of ‘the World of Things’” discusses the critical task of the historical materialist actualized and made possible through an activity akin to collecting. The section “Collecting, Child’s Play, and Seeing Similarities” illuminates the central importance of the activity of collecting for Benjamin’s research regarding mass culture, historical materialism, and the experience of modernity itself. The final section explains and fleshes out the central concepts of the mimetic faculty and physiognomic perception for Benjamin. Findings I find that, ultimately, to understand the ability of the historical materialist to witness history critically, according to Benjamin, is to understand the historical materialist as a collector. To understand the revolutionary activity of collecting is to understand collecting as a manifestation of a fundamental activity of human nature, the inclination to become “like” or to become “similar.” But such an impulse grounds, for Benjamin, not only the activity of collecting but also collective experience, the collective conscious, mass culture, and the essence of the commodity itself as a sociocultural artifact. The paper demonstrates that the mimetic faculty is the primary human faculty Benjamin focused on in his theory of experience. Originality/value The originality of this paper lies in the fact that it illustrates the primary importance of the theory of the mimetic faculty, the notion of physiognomic perception, and the work of Heinz Werner to Walter Benjamin’s theory of commodity fetishism that to date has been largely underdeveloped. But, more importantly, the paper shows that Benjamin’s theory of experience could illuminate a path toward developing a theory of experience within a fundamental philosophical anthropology.
This paper investigates a contemporary flowering of flânerie similar to that which Walter Benjami... more This paper investigates a contemporary flowering of flânerie similar to that which Walter Benjamin analyzed in the first decades of the Parisian arcades. The flâneur has resurrected in a new space of the recent past as the computer hacker of digital culture. There is, however, a significant difference between the two figures' ways of relating to the world that gives the hacker an important socio-political agency -with which Benjamin tried, unsuccessfully, to imbue in the flâneur.
The concept of autonomy has had a central place in the German aesthetic tradition since the eight... more The concept of autonomy has had a central place in the German aesthetic tradition since the eighteenth century, specifically, after Kant's Critique of the Power of Judgment. Although Kant denied that aesthetic judgments yield cognitive truth, aesthetic judgments are autonomous in that they do not rely on or presuppose a concern with the object's purpose, utility, or even its actual existence. For Theodor Adorno, the autonomy of art lies in the work of art, in its production, not specifically in the aesthetic judgments of the subject. This article shows that by shifting autonomy from aesthetic judgments to art production, Adorno effectively makes art the reservoir for human freedom. Although this point is often eluded to in Adorno scholarship by individuals such as Tom Huhn and Lambert Zuidervaart, it is often passed over without additional explanation and discussion.
While Thomas argued that new paradigms in science arose when phenomena were unable to be explaine... more While Thomas argued that new paradigms in science arose when phenomena were unable to be explained by current ways of theorizing. Jim Gray, former technical fellow at the Microsoft Corporation, argued that there were also four broad historical paradigms in scientific research. Gray argued for paradigm shifts arising from new forms of data and methods of analysis. The first paradigm of scientific research occurred a thousand years ago; it was characterized by experimentation and the point was to describe natural phenomena. A few hundred years ago, we moved into the paradigm of theoretical science. This paradigm is marked by the research methodology of modeling (e.g., Kepler's laws of planetary motion, Newton's laws of motion, Maxwell's equations, etc.). The third paradigm arose in just the last few decades with advances in computer technology during the 20th century, which finally allowed us to simulate complex phenomena. This third paradigm was prebig data, however. Our current paradigm (the fourth in Gray's analysis) corresponds to the rise of eScience. It is data-intensive, marked by statistical exploration and data mining. The fourth paradigm is where "Information Technology meets science." Gray maintained, furthermore, that this advancement marks a radically new extension and development of the scientific method ). Yet others have argued that such data-intensive research methodology effectively constitutes a new type of empiricism, not just a remarkable extension of traditional methodology. Chris Anderson, former editor in chief of Wired magazine, published an article in June of 2008 arguing that we are in "a world where massive amounts of data and applied mathematics replace every other tool that might be brought to bear" when analyzing complex phenomena. When your datasets exist as petabytes of information, "correlation is enough." According to Anderson, we can now analyze data without hypotheses about what the data might show. Statistical algorithms find the patterns that scientists could not even have conceived of before collecting the data-regardless of how ingenious their hypothesis or theoretical model might have been. Subsequently, the age of big data marks the "end of theory" . Though Anderson's article is admittedly nonscholarly and even a tad polemic, Wolfgang Pietsch points out that it was "highly influential" , p. 908). Sabina Fulvio Mazzocchi (2015), all pushed back against the article's central point, arguing instead that theory is indispensable to datadriven science. Mazzochi (2015) challenged Anderson's notion that data-driven research constituted an actual mode of knowledge production, arguing that data-driven research really only constitutes a tool (albeit a very powerful one) for identifying useful information. And, in separate articles, and Pietsch (2015) each argued against the notion that data-driven science is, in some way, "theory independent." All of these individuals showed, in one way or the other, that the notion of data-driven science being "free of theory" is misguided. But Anderson's "end of theory"
Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology, 2019
My argument in this paper is given in two parts. In Part I, I review the ancient understanding of... more My argument in this paper is given in two parts. In Part I, I review the ancient understanding of aporia, focusing on works by Plato and Aristotle. I illustrate two ways of understanding aporia: “cathartic” and “zetetic.” Cathartic aporia refers to the experience of being purged of hubris and ignorance through the dialectic. Zetetic aporia, on the other hand, requires us to engage in, recognize, and work through certain philosophical puzzles or problems. In Part II, I discuss the idea of Big Data and then argue that in the “age of answers” neither conception of aporia appears to be necessarily cultivated by the average Internet user. Our experience of wonder suffers when we rely so heavily on the Internet as a “surrogate expert,” and when our social media use betrays the fact that we always seem to gravitate towards the like-minded.
This article argues that Fichte is correct in claiming, as he does in the Foundations of Natural ... more This article argues that Fichte is correct in claiming, as he does in the Foundations of Natural Right, that a derivation of the law of right from the moral law is impossible because the former relies on lex permissiva. I focus on Kant's deduction of the concept of merely intelligible possession in the Metaphysics of Morals precisely because Kant attempts what Fichte says is not possible. By illustrating the problems involved in the concept of the lex permissiva, one is then in a position to see why Fichte believes the derivations must remain separate and why Fichte stresses that the law of right must be argued for without reference to morality or the moral law.
The body of this book contributes an excellent new commentary on Hegel's conception of freedom, w... more The body of this book contributes an excellent new commentary on Hegel's conception of freedom, while in his footnotes Dudley offers a rich counterpoint to his own themes in frequently lengthy excurses on much of the relevant literature. However, although Dudley notes at the outset (10-11) that Hegel's and Nietzsche's styles are so different as to require a different style of interpretive treatment, he seems to have forgotten this promise by the time he reaches his discussion of Nietzsche. Instead, Dudley breaks arguments down into their various elements, revealing symmetries to obtain between and among these, in the service of a quasi-dialectical method that sees Nietzsche's thought advance by overcoming its own internal inadequacies. Such a method of analysis seems well suited to Hegel, but it is less persuasive in treating Nietzsche's much more amorphous work, especially as any chronological approach to Nietzsche, which might ground such a developmental claim, is explicitly eschewed. Frequent extended quotation of Nietzsche throughout makes that incongruity of styles particularly strident. Dudley's admittedly Hegelian reading (176) of Nietzsche describes an arc of development in strategies for obtaining freedom: from the enslavement to simple material needs in "disgregation" (a coinage of Werner Hamacher's, apparently, who is cited, but not as the source of this term), through the partial freedom of the moral will, to the self-determined noble will, which itself is aufgehoben by the tragic will. The dynamics of this process are complicated, and laying them out constitutes the lion's share of the analysis. One must forge one's own will, we read, by "giving birth to oneself as a living whole," something accomplished by "integrating the chaos that results from the destruction of the moral will." This feat of "integration" is itself first accomplished by giving oneself "customs" which, however, soon become a new form of unfreedom; what ultimately is needed is "a complementary combination of nobility and modernity, of setting oneself apart from and holding oneself open to the chaotic stimuli beyond one's measure" (177). These are just the barest bones on which Dudley hangs a lot of flesh-not all of which appears natural there. Dudley articulates Nietzsche's ideas in sentences like these: "Recall that the sovereign, noble will is the offspring of the genius of giving birth applied by the individual to herself. Now the transformative destruction of this will results from such a reflexive application of the genius of impregnation; the individual transgresses her own measure, going outside herself in search of new material with which she can be impregnated" (180). To my ear, this does not resonate with Nietzsche's discourse. Indeed, one might suppose from such a passage that Dudley engages the rhetoric of gender studies and, given the prevalence of "masculine" virtues in Nietzsche's attitude, his use of the feminine pronoun is certainly provocative. However, neither is this the case; Dudley's usage seems a mere gesture, despite the questions it raises. In sum, Hegel, Nietzsche and Philosophy provides a detailed map of Hegel's thinking about freedom, and a rich and rigorous reconstruction of Nietzsche's thoughts on the same theme, although Dudley's analytical style is better suited to the former than to the latter task. Nietzsche is a dangerous thinker, as history has repeatedly shown, only when he is taken to be offering arguments that must persuade by virtue of the "uncoercive coercion" of rationality. Thus, plausible reconstructions of Nietzsche's "teachings" run a great risk when they are insufficiently qualified by sensitive attention to his style
The concept of autonomy has had a central place in the German aesthetic tradition since the eight... more The concept of autonomy has had a central place in the German aesthetic tradition since the eighteenth century, specifically, after Kant's Critique of the Power of Judgment. Although Kant denied that aesthetic judgments yield cognitive truth, aesthetic judgments are autonomous in that they do not rely on or presuppose a concern with the object's purpose, utility, or even its actual existence. For Theodor Adorno, the autonomy of art lies in the work of art, in its production, not specifically in the aesthetic judgments of the subject. This article shows that by shifting autonomy from aesthetic judgments to art production, Adorno effectively makes art the reservoir for human freedom. Although this point is often eluded to in Adorno scholarship by individuals such as Tom Huhn and Lambert Zuidervaart, it is often passed over without additional explanation and discussion.
The body of this book contributes an excellent new commentary on Hegel's conception of freedom, w... more The body of this book contributes an excellent new commentary on Hegel's conception of freedom, while in his footnotes Dudley offers a rich counterpoint to his own themes in frequently lengthy excurses on much of the relevant literature. However, although Dudley notes at the outset (10-11) that Hegel's and Nietzsche's styles are so different as to require a different style of interpretive treatment, he seems to have forgotten this promise by the time he reaches his discussion of Nietzsche. Instead, Dudley breaks arguments down into their various elements, revealing symmetries to obtain between and among these, in the service of a quasi-dialectical method that sees Nietzsche's thought advance by overcoming its own internal inadequacies. Such a method of analysis seems well suited to Hegel, but it is less persuasive in treating Nietzsche's much more amorphous work, especially as any chronological approach to Nietzsche, which might ground such a developmental claim, is explicitly eschewed. Frequent extended quotation of Nietzsche throughout makes that incongruity of styles particularly strident. Dudley's admittedly Hegelian reading (176) of Nietzsche describes an arc of development in strategies for obtaining freedom: from the enslavement to simple material needs in "disgregation" (a coinage of Werner Hamacher's, apparently, who is cited, but not as the source of this term), through the partial freedom of the moral will, to the self-determined noble will, which itself is aufgehoben by the tragic will. The dynamics of this process are complicated, and laying them out constitutes the lion's share of the analysis. One must forge one's own will, we read, by "giving birth to oneself as a living whole," something accomplished by "integrating the chaos that results from the destruction of the moral will." This feat of "integration" is itself first accomplished by giving oneself "customs" which, however, soon become a new form of unfreedom; what ultimately is needed is "a complementary combination of nobility and modernity, of setting oneself apart from and holding oneself open to the chaotic stimuli beyond one's measure" (177). These are just the barest bones on which Dudley hangs a lot of flesh-not all of which appears natural there. Dudley articulates Nietzsche's ideas in sentences like these: "Recall that the sovereign, noble will is the offspring of the genius of giving birth applied by the individual to herself. Now the transformative destruction of this will results from such a reflexive application of the genius of impregnation; the individual transgresses her own measure, going outside herself in search of new material with which she can be impregnated" (180). To my ear, this does not resonate with Nietzsche's discourse. Indeed, one might suppose from such a passage that Dudley engages the rhetoric of gender studies and, given the prevalence of "masculine" virtues in Nietzsche's attitude, his use of the feminine pronoun is certainly provocative. However, neither is this the case; Dudley's usage seems a mere gesture, despite the questions it raises. In sum, Hegel, Nietzsche and Philosophy provides a detailed map of Hegel's thinking about freedom, and a rich and rigorous reconstruction of Nietzsche's thoughts on the same theme, although Dudley's analytical style is better suited to the former than to the latter task. Nietzsche is a dangerous thinker, as history has repeatedly shown, only when he is taken to be offering arguments that must persuade by virtue of the "uncoercive coercion" of rationality. Thus, plausible reconstructions of Nietzsche's "teachings" run a great risk when they are insufficiently qualified by sensitive attention to his style
Abstract Purpose This paper shows that the collector (like the flâneur) is a decisive character i... more Abstract Purpose This paper shows that the collector (like the flâneur) is a decisive character in Walter Benjamin’s philosophy of history, specifically in the manifestation of the historical materialist, yet the paper is not so much about the collector or collecting as it is about the commodity and the experience thereof in consumer society. Methodology/approach The section “The Dream World of Mass Culture” discusses mass culture and the central problem of commodity fetishism as Benjamin sees it. The section “A Physiognomist of ‘the World of Things’” discusses the critical task of the historical materialist actualized and made possible through an activity akin to collecting. The section “Collecting, Child’s Play, and Seeing Similarities” illuminates the central importance of the activity of collecting for Benjamin’s research regarding mass culture, historical materialism, and the experience of modernity itself. The final section explains and fleshes out the central concepts of the mimetic faculty and physiognomic perception for Benjamin. Findings I find that, ultimately, to understand the ability of the historical materialist to witness history critically, according to Benjamin, is to understand the historical materialist as a collector. To understand the revolutionary activity of collecting is to understand collecting as a manifestation of a fundamental activity of human nature, the inclination to become “like” or to become “similar.” But such an impulse grounds, for Benjamin, not only the activity of collecting but also collective experience, the collective conscious, mass culture, and the essence of the commodity itself as a sociocultural artifact. The paper demonstrates that the mimetic faculty is the primary human faculty Benjamin focused on in his theory of experience. Originality/value The originality of this paper lies in the fact that it illustrates the primary importance of the theory of the mimetic faculty, the notion of physiognomic perception, and the work of Heinz Werner to Walter Benjamin’s theory of commodity fetishism that to date has been largely underdeveloped. But, more importantly, the paper shows that Benjamin’s theory of experience could illuminate a path toward developing a theory of experience within a fundamental philosophical anthropology.
This paper investigates a contemporary flowering of flânerie similar to that which Walter Benjami... more This paper investigates a contemporary flowering of flânerie similar to that which Walter Benjamin analyzed in the first decades of the Parisian arcades. The flâneur has resurrected in a new space of the recent past as the computer hacker of digital culture. There is, however, a significant difference between the two figures' ways of relating to the world that gives the hacker an important socio-political agency -with which Benjamin tried, unsuccessfully, to imbue in the flâneur.
The concept of autonomy has had a central place in the German aesthetic tradition since the eight... more The concept of autonomy has had a central place in the German aesthetic tradition since the eighteenth century, specifically, after Kant's Critique of the Power of Judgment. Although Kant denied that aesthetic judgments yield cognitive truth, aesthetic judgments are autonomous in that they do not rely on or presuppose a concern with the object's purpose, utility, or even its actual existence. For Theodor Adorno, the autonomy of art lies in the work of art, in its production, not specifically in the aesthetic judgments of the subject. This article shows that by shifting autonomy from aesthetic judgments to art production, Adorno effectively makes art the reservoir for human freedom. Although this point is often eluded to in Adorno scholarship by individuals such as Tom Huhn and Lambert Zuidervaart, it is often passed over without additional explanation and discussion.
While Thomas argued that new paradigms in science arose when phenomena were unable to be explaine... more While Thomas argued that new paradigms in science arose when phenomena were unable to be explained by current ways of theorizing. Jim Gray, former technical fellow at the Microsoft Corporation, argued that there were also four broad historical paradigms in scientific research. Gray argued for paradigm shifts arising from new forms of data and methods of analysis. The first paradigm of scientific research occurred a thousand years ago; it was characterized by experimentation and the point was to describe natural phenomena. A few hundred years ago, we moved into the paradigm of theoretical science. This paradigm is marked by the research methodology of modeling (e.g., Kepler's laws of planetary motion, Newton's laws of motion, Maxwell's equations, etc.). The third paradigm arose in just the last few decades with advances in computer technology during the 20th century, which finally allowed us to simulate complex phenomena. This third paradigm was prebig data, however. Our current paradigm (the fourth in Gray's analysis) corresponds to the rise of eScience. It is data-intensive, marked by statistical exploration and data mining. The fourth paradigm is where "Information Technology meets science." Gray maintained, furthermore, that this advancement marks a radically new extension and development of the scientific method ). Yet others have argued that such data-intensive research methodology effectively constitutes a new type of empiricism, not just a remarkable extension of traditional methodology. Chris Anderson, former editor in chief of Wired magazine, published an article in June of 2008 arguing that we are in "a world where massive amounts of data and applied mathematics replace every other tool that might be brought to bear" when analyzing complex phenomena. When your datasets exist as petabytes of information, "correlation is enough." According to Anderson, we can now analyze data without hypotheses about what the data might show. Statistical algorithms find the patterns that scientists could not even have conceived of before collecting the data-regardless of how ingenious their hypothesis or theoretical model might have been. Subsequently, the age of big data marks the "end of theory" . Though Anderson's article is admittedly nonscholarly and even a tad polemic, Wolfgang Pietsch points out that it was "highly influential" , p. 908). Sabina Fulvio Mazzocchi (2015), all pushed back against the article's central point, arguing instead that theory is indispensable to datadriven science. Mazzochi (2015) challenged Anderson's notion that data-driven research constituted an actual mode of knowledge production, arguing that data-driven research really only constitutes a tool (albeit a very powerful one) for identifying useful information. And, in separate articles, and Pietsch (2015) each argued against the notion that data-driven science is, in some way, "theory independent." All of these individuals showed, in one way or the other, that the notion of data-driven science being "free of theory" is misguided. But Anderson's "end of theory"
Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology, 2019
My argument in this paper is given in two parts. In Part I, I review the ancient understanding of... more My argument in this paper is given in two parts. In Part I, I review the ancient understanding of aporia, focusing on works by Plato and Aristotle. I illustrate two ways of understanding aporia: “cathartic” and “zetetic.” Cathartic aporia refers to the experience of being purged of hubris and ignorance through the dialectic. Zetetic aporia, on the other hand, requires us to engage in, recognize, and work through certain philosophical puzzles or problems. In Part II, I discuss the idea of Big Data and then argue that in the “age of answers” neither conception of aporia appears to be necessarily cultivated by the average Internet user. Our experience of wonder suffers when we rely so heavily on the Internet as a “surrogate expert,” and when our social media use betrays the fact that we always seem to gravitate towards the like-minded.
This article argues that Fichte is correct in claiming, as he does in the Foundations of Natural ... more This article argues that Fichte is correct in claiming, as he does in the Foundations of Natural Right, that a derivation of the law of right from the moral law is impossible because the former relies on lex permissiva. I focus on Kant's deduction of the concept of merely intelligible possession in the Metaphysics of Morals precisely because Kant attempts what Fichte says is not possible. By illustrating the problems involved in the concept of the lex permissiva, one is then in a position to see why Fichte believes the derivations must remain separate and why Fichte stresses that the law of right must be argued for without reference to morality or the moral law.
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