Discover Top Posts Tagged with #deepities

Norman Geras and "Deepities"

Norman Geras has a short post up on his blog on “deepities,” a term developed by the philosopher Daniel Dennett in the recently-released book, Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking. According to Dennett, a “deepity” is:

…a proposition that seems both important and true—and profound—but that achieves this effect by being ambiguous. On one reading, it is manifestly false, but it would be earth-shaking if it were true; on the other reading, it is true but trivial. The unwary listener picks up the glimmer of truth from the second reading, and the devastating importance from the first reading, and thinks, Wow! That's a deepity.

It’s an interesting concept, and I’m glad that Geras brought it to my attention. However, Geras’ subsequent attempt to provide some examples of deepities seems to miss the mark. He writes:

Some deepities I have grown to love and laugh at are these. There's no such thing as an enduring human nature. Oh, you reply, so human beings don't need to eat or rest? There aren't common abilities like the use of language and such? Comes back the reply: we didn't mean that by human nature; we meant that not all humans are greedy, or power-loving, or interested in unlimited wealth. So it turns out that the denial of an enduring human nature amounts to some changeable or non-universal features of the human character not being unchangeable. What else is new?

In a tutorial I used to run on the Modern Political Thought course at Manchester, I would sometimes ask students if there are any biologically-based differences between men and women. You'd be surprised how many of them answered 'No'. What?! How about the ability to bear children? Oh... we thought you meant differences like being cleverer or more fit to govern. So there are possible differences then? Yes, perhaps.

It’s some good fun at the expense of his students, but are the claims presented really “deepities” in Dennett’s sense of the term? Recall that Dennett presents two conditions that must be met for a claim to count as a “deepity.” First, there must be a reading by which the claim is “manifestly false, but it would be earth-shaking if it were true.” Second, there must be another reading by which the claim is “true but trivial.”

Consider first the supposed deepity that “there’s no such thing as an enduring human nature.” Such a claim certainly seems to meet Dennet’s first condition: it would be amazing were it true, and, as per Geras’ explanation in the block quote, is manifestly false. Yet it is not clear at all that the claim meets Dennet’s second condition. For the reading according to which the claim is true, Geras suggests, is one where what is meant by “there is no enduring human nature” is that people aren’t necessarily selfish of dominance-seeking. This does seem true, but is it really trivial? As someone who has written an entire book relevant to the subject, Geras must be aware of the widely-held view that people are inevitably self-interested and power-loving. Why, then, does he think it so trivial that these elements of the human character are changeable?

Similarly, consider Geras’ example of biological gender differences. Here, again, Geras shows that there is a reading by which the claim in question would be earth-shattering if true but is manifestly false. Were men and women physiologically identical, that would be astounding, but one set has ovaries while the other has testes and so the claim is obviously untrue. (Or perhaps not so obviously. My impression is that Judith Butler has done some interesting work to cast doubt on this claim by noting many cases that trouble such neat biological divisions, e.g., syndromes where individuals have a combination of male and female sex characteristics). But what about the other reading where the claim is supposedly trivially true? According to Geras, what the students mean by “no biologically-based differences between men and women” is that there are no biologically-based differences that are of political consequence. Again, this claim appears to be true, but is it trivial? Perhaps we should ask Erick Erickson or a few of the other pundits and activists who represent the socially-conservative right. Such individuals frequently express some variant of the view that innate biological sex differences justify some form of patriarchal culture, whether that involves men acting as economic providers and head of the household, or the major discrepancies in the gender-makeup of powerful institutions.

For a claim to be “trivial,” it must be one so obvious that no rational (and reasonably informed) party could deny its truth. Or, if this definition is too strong, it seems that, at the very least, a “trivial” claim isn’t one subject to the sort of broad debate where one’s political affiliation will often correspond to whether one believes the claim to be true or false. Given that it is exactly this sort of debate that surrounds both of the claims that Geras considers to be true but trivial, it is not clear that either of his examples actually meet Dennett’s criteria for what counts as a deepity.

Given the non-triviality of the students’ claims, it seems that the true deepities would, in fact, be the inverses of the examples Geras presents. Thus, the idea that “there is an enduring human nature” is true but trivial if one counts things such as “using language” and “eating” as human nature, as Geras does, and it is false but of great consequence if taken in the more limited sense to mean that people are unchangeably power-seeking and greedy. Likewise, the claim that “there are biologically-based differences between men and women” is true but trivial if one counts things like reproductive organs, but consequential and false if one takes it to mean that there are biological differences that are of political significance.

I understand Geras’ frustration with certain leftist shibboleths that lack specificity and rigor, as they tend to make the left look naïve and simple-minded. However, it is not clear that the attitudes he wants to refine can be shoehorned into this particular philosophical fallacy. Moreover, I wonder if Geras is not guilty of a trick similar that criticized by Dennett. Just as deepities bait thinkers into accepting false claims with their aura of (trivial) truth, Geras’ selection of exclusively social-constructivist views to serve as examples of deepities can’t help but cast a shade of philosophical fallacy over social constructivist views as a whole. Perhaps this is not Geras’ intention in choosing his examples, but that is the undeniable effect.

#deepities

Trending Tags

Recently Viewed Tags

#deepities