False Moves in Philosophy and Social Theory: Losing Public Purpose (Political Philosophy and Public Purpose)

This book considers diverse philosophical topics unified by the identification of false moves commonly found in modern philosophy, mainstream Anglo-American philosophy, and social theory. The authors expose the sources of fundamental problems that recur in philosophy―basic problems with what the authors call "factoring philosophy." Factoring philosophy fails to attend to the phenomenological task of determining when what is distinguishable is separable and when not. Consequently, factoring philosophy makes phenomenological mistakes―false moves―when it treats as separable what is only distinguishable. Analytic philosophy is prone to false moves when it fails to recognize that phenomenology is the necessary complement to analysis. There is nothing wrong with analysis―we might as well give up thinking as give up analysis―and nothing is wrong with the values prized by analytic philosophy. As Hegel observed, “philosophizing requires, above all, that each thought should be grasped in its full precision and that nothing should remain vague and indeterminate.” Ultimately, this book contends that false moves prevail in philosophical analysis and social theory when they neglect their phenomenological foundations. Preface: Conceptual Healing Factoring Philosophy Confounds Common Sense and Sidelines Philosophy Developing Good Fundamental Concepts Philosophical Phrases that Realign Discourse Historical Materialism and Factoring Philosophy Acknowledgments Contents About the Authors 1 Introduction: How Factoring Puts Philosophy on the Sidelines Four Views of Concepts The Horizon of Human Existence Phenomenology, Factoring, and False Moves The Skeptical Drama and the Midas Touch Pure Concepts or Worldly Concepts? Purist Concepts and the Pure, Featureless Self More False Moves: Winnowing and Flip-Flops The False Philosopher’s Critique of False Philosophy Thinking Tethered to the World Recovery of the World: Then and Now Capitalism and False Moves The Essay Form: Two Sources of Inspiration Notes References 2 Is Life Absurd? Albert Camus: Our Futile Desire for Knowledge Richard Taylor: Repugnance at Life Thomas Nagel: The Absurd Two-In-One of Human Existence A Phenomenology of Reflection Why Global Absurdity Does not Fit Our Lives The Importance of the Question of Life’s Meaning The Absurd that Matters Notes References 3 Being Mortal Customary Views of Death Dismissive Philosophies of Death A Better Phenomenology of Death The Death of Others How a Life Comes to an End Mortality as Being Toward the End Anxiety Over Existing and Fear of Death Why We Should Fear Death Fear of Living Notes References 4 Reinventing Humans: The Strange Allure of Stoicism The Promise of Stoicism Mirroring Nature Conceals Judgment The Deceptiveness of Stoic Advice Faulty Phenomenology and Its Fallout The Emptiness of Stoic Virtue Passions on the Procrustean Bed No Room for Action Reinventing Temporality One Big Desire—Many Preferences Missing Measures and Rudderless Actions “a Refined System of Selfishness” vs. Virtue Engaged in the World Notes References 5 Beyond the Illusion of Philosophical Egoism: Recovering Self-Love and Selfishness Egoism and Capitalism Responding to Egoism: Socrates Faces Thrasymachus How Untethered Analysis Engenders Egoism Another Contrived Dilemma: The “Paradox of Hedonism” A Deeper Case Against Descriptive Egoism Self-Interest is a Pseudo-Concept Recovering the Virtue of Self-Love and the Vice of Selfishness Notes References 6 Moral Luck, Responsibility, and This Worldly Life Luck Happens How False Philosophy Makes the Familiar Disappear Sliding from Moral Luck to the Vanishing of Responsibility How Kant Excludes Moral Luck The Dualism That Engenders Moral Luck Cases of Moral Luck: Gauguin and Lt. Calley Kant’s Skeptical Legacy A Skeptical View of Judgment and “Objective Engagement” An Alternative Phenomenology: Recovering Judgment and Action The Importance of Objective Determinants for Judging Well Notes References 7 The Pure Self in Political Life: Reconsidering the Primacy of the Right Over the Good The Task of Political Philosophy Rawls’ Project: The Right, or Justice, Takes Priority Over the Good Markets and Liberal Neutrality Demarcation and Skepticism in Locke Utility—A Pseudo-Concept Reversing the Order of Good and Right While Upholding Utilitarianism Reconsidering the Separation of the Right and the Good Distributive Justice and the Pure Self The Phenomenology of Acting and Choosing Markets and the Illusions of Neutrality Notes References 8 Values as Purely Subjective: Against the Idea of “A New Creation” David Hume’s Account of the Subjectivity of Values Barry Stroud’s Criticism of Projection Theory John Mackie’s Criticism of Objective Values John McDowell on Values as Relational and Objective Thomas Nagel’s Defense of Objective Values Pleasures and the Myth of the Given Reviving the Discourse of Goods Notes References 9 Setting Aside the Purely Subjective: Reclaiming the Discourse of Truth and Error Two Forms of Doubt Skepticism Departs from Ordinary Discourse The Corrosive Effects of Global Doubt The Original Bifurcation Mind and World as Separable Three Strategies for the Purely Subjective to Grasp Its Object Nagel’s Defense of the Dualism Between the Objective and Subjective Achieving Objectivity: The View from Nowhere A Better Strategy to Avoid Reductionism: Stop Factoring Mind in the World Notes References 10 Why Wealth Is a Poor Concept Why Bother with the Third Question About Wealth? The Narrowing of Western Discourse About Wealth Historical Materialism’s Breakthrough What Historical Materialism Offers to Heidegger’s Phenomenology Uses and Hazards of the Concept of Wealth Wealthism and Productivism: Shadows of Capital’s Boundless Accumulation Greed and Abstract Hedonism: Expressions of Capital’s Indifference Productive Labor and Productivity in General: Failing to Ask the Third Question Devastating Consequences Notes References 11 Capital, the Truth About Utility What Makes Commodities Commensurable? On Utility Theory or “the Science of Measurement” for Practical Philosophy Distinguishing Utility from Usefulness Utility’s Twofold Masquerade Marx’s Solution to the Puzzle of the Commensurability of Commodities Objections to Marx’s Solution The Bourgeois Horizon The Appeal of Utility to a Liberal Society Notes References 12 The Myth of Instrumental Reason and Action W. V. O. Quine’s Animalistic Path to Instrumental Reason Jürgen Habermas’s Asocial Path to Instrumental Reason and Action Marx’s Phenomenology of Labor A Historical Materialist Account of Instrumental Reason and Action McDonaldization: Disguising Real Subsumption Under Capital A Critique of the Notion of Instrumental Action Notes References 13 Conclusion: Just Enough Phenomenology Why Phenomenology? Just Enough Phenomenology7 Defective Phenomenology and False Moves Real Concepts and Imposters Hegel on the Dogma of Pure Immediacy From Pure Immediacy to the Recovery of Truth and Subjectivity The False Philosopher’s Critique of False Philosophy Philosophy Freed of False Moves Capital as a Peculiar Form of Sociality Notes References Appendix A: Dogmas of Factoring Philosophy Appendix B: Symptoms of Factoring Philosophy Index