Felix Oppenheim, Ernest Nagel, Anna Alexandrova, and Leo Strauss, part 3.
In the “post-script” to a (2001) festschrift, Freedom, Power and Political Morality, devoted to him, Felix Oppenheim (1913-2011) rhetorically asks if he is the “lone survivor of a movement by now of merely historical interest?” and distances himself from the suggestion that he was a logical positivist because he rejects “operationalism and radical empiricism.” (p. 218) Rather, he prefers to understand himself as committed to conceptual reconstruction, which provides concepts “with descriptive definitions in order to make them available for fruitful communication even among persons or groups with different normative views.” (p. 218)
Conceptual reconstruction is, thus, a species of conceptual engineering or conceptual articulation and has two goals: first, it is in the service of fruitful communication in the context of substantive normative and political pluralism. (As such, the project is not far removed from the spirit of the Rawlsian enterprise of conceptually constituting an overlapping consensus.) Of course, one may do conceptual reconstruction in a non-pluralist society, but there it would be less/not needed.
What is distinctive about Oppenheim’s program is that he thinks that a ‘descriptive’ definition does “without the use of valuational notions.” (p. 219) And this also makes clear that facilitating fruitful communication is not the only possible use of conceptual reconstruction: second, Oppenheim also intends to provide social scientists — he explicitly mentions political scientists (p. 221) — with concepts that can be used in their descriptive or empirical social science. The absence of valuational notions facilitates in the aim of avoiding the imposition of normative views on the social phenomena studied.*
Assuming that such conceptual reconstruction without valuational notions is possible, this entails that often Oppenheim offers explicative definition “which might diverge from ordinary language.” (219) To what degree such divergence makes the output of concept reconstruction less amenable to political life is ignored, but it seems safe to predict that conceptual reconstruction is more useful to those committed to value-free social science than to political agents in the middle of public contestation. Descriptive definitions so conceived “are not true or false, since they are linguistic stipulations.” (219) They are, rather, more or less useful. And this consequentialist understanding of success has a Carnapian flavor to it.
It is to be allowed, however, that in the context of mutual trust or elite bargaining, “political actors sometimes make some effort at ‘resolving those differences through argument and persuasion’” and then the presence of descriptively defined concepts may be very useful. (p. 221; Oppenheim is partially quoting Ball’s contribution to the festschrift.) I have in mind the role, say, of the budget projections of the Dutch planning agency (CPB) in Dutch political debates. So, Oppenheim’s program can work in a political culture in which technocratic tools (say a lexicon) are welcomed to reduce social friction or are used to reduce conflict over the terms of a bargain.
What this requires is “a lexicon be uncontestable, in the sense that its vocabulary be made up of definitions that are not valuationally tinted.” (221) Such a lexicon can be contested and contestable in the sense that an improved vocabulary might facilitate more efficient or consensual (etc.) bargaining. No lexicon is final.
Oppenheim allows that his conception of descriptive definition is dependent on an “idea” he “did take over from the logical positivists: the separability of ‘facts’ and ‘values’ on the conceptual level.” (219, emphasis in original) In context, he does not argue for the claim.
Oppenheim had defended the claim in a 1973 paper, "“Facts” and “Values” in Politics: Are They Separable?." Political Theory 1.1: 54-68. There he acknowledges that in the speech acts of ordinary or everyday life there is no such separability. (58) So, there is another sense in which Oppenheim echoes (Carnap’s) logical positivism: it relies on a relatively sharp distinction between a natural language of ordinary folk and a specialist language (which is often formal). And in the 1973 paper, it’s explicit that Oppenheim is more focused on designing a “the language of social and political inquiry.” (59)
Unfortunately, the 1973 paper argues by way of criticizing those who had either de facto or in practice denied such separability. So it is not really helpful in reconstructing Oppenheim’s positive argument in favor of the conceptual separability of facts and values thesis. However, it does point to a very important entailment of his position: “Definitions of value words in descriptive terms cannot be part of an effective language of political inquiry, no more so than explications of factual concepts with the help of value words.” (62) So, conceptual reconstruction cannot eliminate values from terms or notions that are intrinsically evaluative.
At this point, I realized that I probably needed to look at some of Oppenheim’s descriptive definitions in order to see if these provided further evidence for his views on the separability of facts and values. I looked at his list of references (in the 1973) article, and went to his (1970) piece on “Egalitarianism as a Descriptive Concept.” And there I caught a lucky break. He writes:
This terminology is indebted to Ernest Nagel’s (1961) The Structure of Science, which is cited in the accompanying footnote. In the very pages cited, Nagel had distinguished between two senses in which a value judgment may be used: first, “the sense in which a value judgment expresses approval or disapproval either of some moral (or social) ideal, or of some action (or institution) because of a commitment to such an ideal; and [second] the sense in which a value judgment expresses an estimate of the degree to which some commonly recognized (and more or less clearly defined) type of action, object, or institution is embodied in a given instance.” (492).
What makes this notable are three facts. First, Anna Alexandrova (BJPS, 2018) has given pointed reasons for denying the robustness of Nagel’s distinction. Second, as I and Alexandrova have noted, Nagel himself is explicitly responding to Leo Strauss’ arguments (recall here; here).
Third, recently a transcription was published of Strauss’ lecture course, “Introduction to Political Philosophy,” in 1965 at The University of Chicago. Strauss had assigned Nagel’s Structure in the course, and he prepared a response to some of Nagel’s criticism. In particular, while relying on Nagel’s admission that characterizing value judgments cannot be eliminated from the social (and bio-medical) sciences, Strauss went on to suggest (and here he partially anticipates Alexandrova) with the illustration of some examples that it is by no means obvious that characterizing value judgments can be really merely descriptive (pp. 105ff).[1] This is especially so for teleological entities (tools) and organisms that are the product of natural selection. That Nagel himself worried about the status of such examples can be inferred from the fact that how to characterize function statements remained an open problem for him throughout his subsequent career.
The existence and nature of this (1965) material suggests that Strauss also made an explicit decision not to engage directly publicly (anymore) with some of his analytic critics. As regular readers recall (here; and here), Oppenheim had also been one of his critics (although then not on the fact-value distinction as such).
I have not checked whether Oppenheim relies on Nagel’s distinction to justify all of his descriptive definitions. So, perhaps, he offers a distinct argument for the conceptual separability thesis elsewhere that is not vulnerable to the Strauss/Alexandrova critique. But this episode may be a rare instance where the historian of philosophy can point to an instance where more intellectual polemics between antagonists who were known to each other might have been fruitful.
[1] Strauss, Leo. Leo Strauss on political philosophy: responding to the challenge of positivism and historicism. Edited by Catherine Zuckert, University of Chicago Press, 2018, Chapter 5. The discussion is wide-ranging. (Strauss treats Nagel as a kind of ‘positivist’ who he compares to Reichenbach (p. 110).)
*See also Karl W. Deutsch and Leroy N. Rieselbach (1965) “Recent Trends in Political Theory and Political Philosophy” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Jul., 1Vol. 360, Latin America Tomorrow (Jul., 1965), pp. 153-154, where Oppenheim is mentioned. (Recall this post.)
This is wonderful and it is good to see it in print, too.
The 1962 Natural Right course engages Nagel even more extensively (though by the third session of Strauss's consideration, Strauss had had to return the book, The Structure of Science, to library).
The course begins with the observation that "the belief that the fundamental project which guided the West constitutes a progress beyond all earlier possibilities." Strauss gives "only one very innocent example, Zen Buddhism," to demonstrate this change of belief (session 1). And in a later session, Strauss repeats this example: "Why not Zen Buddhism? Without investigation, indeed why not?" (session 3). More precisely, however, the course is devoted to considering the possibility of science, including the possibility of establishing rationally principles of what is right and wrong, especially with a view to exploring the character of healthy human soul and of a good human life.
To that end, Strauss begins in the first two sessions with a masterpiece of a dialectical engagement with Ernest Nagel. Strauss meticulously considers Nagel's book, The Structure of Science: Problems in the Logic of Scientific Explanation (1961), insisting that Nagel's fundamental weaknesses, if there are any, be identified on the basis of Nagel's own concerns and considerations. As an example of this fair-minded yet trenchant spirit, in session 2, when Strauss questions Nagel's argument on behalf of the cognitive superiority of modern science, a student conjectures that Strauss would dispose of Nagel's view on the basis of Strauss's argument, and Strauss interjects: "Of his argument, no, of his argument. What is the pragmatic superiority [of modern science]?" (On Strauss and Nagel, see also Hilail Gildin’s Introduction to Introduction to Political Philosophy: Ten Essays by Leo Strauss [Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1989], xiv-xvii.) This exchange exemplifies Strauss's commitment to engaging Nagel's argument on its own terms.
Strauss calls attention to the fact that in discussing Nagel he is confronting the most up-to-date and respectable representative of positivism or analytic philosophy, of what stands for a most authoritative and scientific treatment of the weightiest subjects. (It would be a good exercise to think who the equivalent of Nagel would be today. Steven Pinker? Richard Dawkins? What would Strauss have thought, for example, of the recent debate between Steven Pinker and Leon Wieseltier on the relationship between science and the humanities, published in the New Republic, August-September 2013? Consider researching this debate for a contemporary perspective on the issues Strauss raises.) Strauss stresses that "positivism is indeed based on the old Western scientific tradition going back to Plato," and even that "somehow . . . positivism reminds one of Plato," though only in "rare moments." Positivism is, at any rate, an "absolutely decayed Platonism" (session 1). Because of this decay or confusion, Strauss needs to explain "more simply" than Nagel himself does what Nagel's fundamental concern is. Nagel "takes too many things for granted." Nagel starts from the fact that "man cannot live without seeking for causes." Strauss provides a concrete example of this need: "I believe if you look at yourself in your daily life, you don't have to be a scientist in any sense, but very frequently you are compelled to seek for a cause. For example, you have less money in your banking account than you hoped. Why? That is a cause. And even other, perhaps graver, things" (session 1). This sensible, if not yet developed, foundation gives way, however, in Nagel to doubts concerning the very foundations of science, including the principles of causality and of noncontradiction. Nagel then proceeds to try to disregard these doubts and to assert the superiority of modern science nonetheless.
This assessment by Strauss becomes especially clear during a very helpful exchange with a wonderfully pushy student in session 2, in which Strauss discusses again Nagel's stance toward what Nagel sees as the logical arbitrariness of the principle of causality. (On a few occasions, intelligent students put up a fight on behalf of Nagel, and Strauss responds with grace and lucidity.) Because of the inadequate treatment of these doubts on the part of positivism regarding the very foundations of science, Strauss says that "history [or historicism] is superior in dignity to science [understood as positivism]." A little later in the course, Strauss reports a personal experience of reading Heidegger's Being and Time: "I remember in his first book there occurs this sentence, and this set me aback: that the science of an age is dependent on the Weltanschauung of that age goes without saying. Fifty years before, no one would have said that" (session 4). On the other hand, here Strauss again agrees with something in positivism: "[T]here is a need for an ultimate unity of science. So this dualism of science can be accepted only as provisionally indispensable. But this comprehensive science is today only a pious wish, and therefore one cannot say more than it is to be desired" (session 2).