Philo Spot | Life Interests and Observations

Reporting

March 30, 2019 by Douglas Jimenez

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Here is my response to the actual charge of “failing to report a consensual relationship”, written in December 2012. I have redacted the student’s name and other potentially identifying information.

Non-reporting of relationship

I will here set out the reasons I had for not reporting the relationship that I had with X to the Chair and thereby severing any evaluative relationship with her.

1. Reporting the relationship would have been against her expressed wishes, because perception of a personal relationship would (she believed and stated) likely devalue my positive academic assessment of her in the eyes of other people, being assigned to purely personal feelings.

2. Removing myself from any evaluative relationship with her could have had unfortunate consequences for her future academic career, since I would no longer be able to work with her and express my support of her. This would apply to such matters as being her thesis supervisor, being on her dissertation committee, examining her qualifying exams, and writing a recommendation for her for future employment. Given her interests this would have deprived her of the support of the person in the department best suited to support her. (Note: this is a point purely about no longer having me as an academic support—it has nothing whatever to do with “retaliation”, real or imagined.) She greatly valued my academic assistance and support and to lose it would have been a blow.

3. Not being in an evaluative relationship with her would raise questions in the minds of potential academic employers, since I was the natural person in the department for her to work closely with, given my interests. Her main interest is philosophy of Y and she was extremely interested in the topics covered in a seminar I gave on Y that she attended. Employers would naturally wonder why there was no letter of recommendation from me, and may suppose that I did not have a good opinion of her.

4. She believed and I agreed that it would not be easy to find another member of the department to replace me in these various roles, because of the closeness of her interests to mine and the smallness of the department. Indeed, her future work would likely be partly about my work (especially on Y).

5. Reporting the relationship would inevitably give rise to the impression that the relationship involved more than it actually did, because it would be assumed that it was sexual in nature. It was not. This would have been detrimental to both her and me, and would be very difficult to combat. Nor would it be possible to keep the severance of the evaluative relationship confidential, as it would be evident to all in the natural course of events. It would certainly lead to harmful prurient speculation about our relationship, both within the department and the wider philosophical community (which is the position in which we now find ourselves).

6. It would be difficult for me to keep all positive opinion of her academic abilities quiet, since I arrived at a very strong assessment of her abilities and people would inevitably consult me about her, even if only informally. Given this, it would be difficult to avoid giving a positive evaluation, because the lack of any evaluation might be misinterpreted. I might then be deemed to have broken the rules about non-evaluation (as well as lost an opportunity to support her).

7. My previous support of her would have been retrospectively questioned (though groundlessly).

8. I did not feel that my objectivity as to her academic abilities had been …

Letter from Ed Erwin

March 30, 2019 by Douglas Jimenez

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Here is a letter from my colleague Ed Erwin, who knows about the case inside out. He gave me permission to post it here. Expect to hear more from Professor Erwin.

Colin:

Seth Zweifler asked me to comment on his article in the Chronicle of Higher Education (7/1). I believe that his piece was generally fair, but in discussing sexual harassment in philosophy departments, he unwittingly left the impression that your case is an example, when in fact it is not. Here is my letter to him.

Seth:

Most of your article is very fair to Colin, but it is entirely one-sided on a very central issue. The ‘ignominious conclusion” to Colin’s career at Miami, you write, has fueled a continuing conversation about sexual harassment in philosophy departments. Are you not suggesting here that the Miami case is a story of sexual harassment and its consequences for a tenured professor? Readers who might have doubts about your meaning will likely stifle them when they go on to read that “stories of harassment of women have longed plagued the discipline”; that “It is almost unheard- of, however, to see one of these accounts end as it did at Miami: with the departure of a tenured professor”; that women at a British University are now considering making their own complaints of sexual harassment after learning of McGinn’s case; and that, according to another philosopher, McGinn’s resignation will likely embolden administrators to take a harder line on sexual harassment.

Your article is likely to be widely discussed, but except for people interested in real estate, the talk will not be about his penthouse apartment. It will be about Colin McGinn and sexual harassment. Did you have some reason for not telling the reader that this was not a case of sexual harassment? Even if you were uncertain of the charges, did you not think it worth mentioning that you had no evidence that sexual harassment was even alleged let alone proven?

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Strictly Said

March 30, 2019 by Douglas Jimenez

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Suppose I say to you “I went into a bar and I got drunk”. You reply: “How many drinks did you have in the bar?” I say “None—I was drunk before I went in there”. You retort: “Then why did you say you got drunk in the bar?” I say “I never said that; I merely said that I went into a bar and I got drunk—I never said I got drunk in the bar”. This illustrates the distinction between what is strictly said in an utterance—what proposition is literally expressed by the words uttered—and what is conversationally implied by the utterance. Grice used this distinction to argue that “and” is always semantically a truth-functional connective, with the temporal element assigned to pragmatic factors. He argued that we can see this from the fact that the implication of temporal succession in the events reported can be canceled without contradiction, as by saying “I went into a bar and I got drunk, but I bought coffee at the bar having got drunk at a wedding previously”. A careful report of what I strictly said would limit itself to semantic content, but an audience might naturally assume that I meant I got drunk in the bar; maybe I did, but Grice’s point is that I never actually said that.

Irony depends on this Gricean distinction—meaning the opposite of what you say. This is why reporting an ironic speech act can be tricky. Philosophers who know their Grice are constantly aware of this distinction and often exploit it to make clever remarks to other philosophers—gleefully canceling the “implicature” without contradiction. This is how we amuse ourselves on a Saturday night. Outsiders don’t get it, unless they have been schooled in Gricean philosophy of language. This can cause misunderstandings. Maybe Grice should be taught in high school, along with Darwin.

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Some Basic Facts

March 30, 2019 by Douglas Jimenez

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I have not been fired from the university.

I have never been charged by the university with sexual harassment; nor did the student accuse me of that. The lack of such charges can be attributed to the simple fact that I have not been guilty of sexual harassment (which I deplore).

There are no findings of any kind against me by the university.

The only charge the university considered that involved a (putative) violation of university rules was that of failing to report a consensual (though nonsexual) relationship.

The student’s accusation was made many months after the alleged offenses (as much as seven months).

The student’s complaint occurred soon after a dispute between her and me over research work she was supposed to do over the summer (for which she was paid $4000) that she failed to do.

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The Prehensionalist Manifesto

March 29, 2019 by Douglas Jimenez

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The Prehensionist Manifesto

(This document states the main tenets of the Cult of the Hand. All members of the cult are expected to conform to these principles. Formally, the cult is referred to as the Gripparian Order.)

We seek to promote greater hand consciousness

We advocate manual cultivation, arboreal therapy, and brachiation training

We believe in prehension science and are strict evolutionists

We preach hand reverence

We encourage hand intimacy, but not hand promiscuity

We are in the grip of the grip

We deplore hand neglect and hand repression

We thank nature for the gift of the hand

The thumb and forefinger are objects of special reverence

Our prophets are Charles Darwin, Charles Bell, and John Napier

We foster hand virtue

We think the hand is a thing of beauty

All hands are created equal

We contemplate the hand every day

We never take our hands for granted

We observe the hands of others

We prefer writing to speaking

We support an active hand life-style

All fingers are important

Hand communication is encouraged

We practice special secret hand greetings

We think the hand jive was cool

We leave casts of our hands after death

We worry about the decline of the hand in the modern world

We view tools as extensions of the hand

We classify species according to their prehensive profile

We regard the brain as secondary to the hand

We have intense hand discussions

We teach our children hand anatomy

We believe that pointing is profound

Hand exercise is mandatory

We do everything to avoid cold, numb hands

We believe that a flexible hand is a flexible mind

We regard the intellect as an extension of the hand

We tolerate pan-prehensionists but this is not official doctrine

We admire gibbons greatly

We sing praises to the hand

We favor eating with the hands

We esteem the feet because they are the platform of the hands

The muscles of the forearm are fascinating to us

We believe that anatomy is destiny

We regard the body as essentially prehensile

We regard speech as a fall from grace

We reserve a special compassion for those who have lost their hands

We are entranced by trees

We abhor “glad-handing”

We find hand holding extremely romantic

For us the hand has a halo around it

We view the mouth with some suspicion

We see nature as the Great Chain of Prehensive Being

We feel the foot is misunderstood

We collect hand trivia

We admire hand erudition

We disapprove of hand exhibitionism

Our central metaphor is the grip

At wedding ceremonies we say, “You may now hold the bride’s hand”

We have private hand gripping sessions

Shaking hands is taken very seriously

We feel a kinship with apes

Kissing the hand is permitted but not encouraged

Calling someone “handy” is a great compliment

We see no distinction of status between the power grip and the precision grip

We think philosophers have wrongly ignored the hand

In the beginning was the hand-deed

We despise the phrase “hand job”

We believe that capitalism has led to proletarian hand alienation

We think it is bad manners to grab things

We have long arguments about hand etiquette

We regard the hand as corruptible but not corrupt

We are ambivalent about gloves

We are a secular organization but we applaud hand worship in moderation

We support hand pride initiatives, but deplore hand vanity

We feel that musicians are basically good but at risk of hand abuse

We accept that man is nothing without his opposable thumb

We oppose hand oversimplification

We give out hand achievement prizes,

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Brenin, Nina, and Memory

March 29, 2019 by Douglas Jimenez

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Here’s a photo I’m going to talk about in my next few posts (which I’ll hopefully get to over the weekend). It’s of Brenin, my wolf (or wolf dog), and Nina, my GSD/malamute mix, taken at Inchydoney Beach in County Cork, Ireland sometime (I believe) in the autumn of ’97.

I love this picture for so many reasons. But in the posts to follow, I’ll (seemingly miraculously) connect it up with the question I asked about about Rilke in my previous post. (At least I hope I will – if you don’t hear any more about this, then you’ll know the idea didn’t work out). Hint: the connection lies in something the picture does not contain.

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Postscript

March 29, 2019 by Douglas Jimenez

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Postscript

A point that tends to get lost in all the furor is that I am not the only one negatively affected by public defamatory statements made against me. I have a wife, a family, grandchildren, past and present students, friends, supporters—all are affected. I thus have not just a right but also a duty to defend my good name (not to mention financial prospects). This necessarily involves casting doubt (based on reason and evidence) on the allegations made, and hence on those making the allegations. There is no way around this.

If a student makes a confidential allegation against a professor, this can be handled within the confines of the institution. There is no need to get into the public realm. But in the present case the student and her representative voluntarily went to the national press some nine months after the initial confidential allegation, for reasons that elude me. This made the matter public and so I had to make a public response, given the world in which we live. I did not make a public response to a confidential allegation; I made a public response to a public allegation that I deemed defamatory and without merit. I think anyone else would have done the same. What was I to do—say nothing? I owed it to my grandchildren to clear my name. But isn’t this all painfully obvious?

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Relativism and Democracy

March 29, 2019 by Douglas Jimenez

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I am struck by this passage from Tocqueville: “I have previously stated that the principle of the sovereignty of the people hovers over the whole political system of the Anglo-Americans. Every page of this book will reflect certain fresh instances of this doctrine. In nations were it exists, every individual takes an equal share in sovereign power and participates equally in the government of the state. Thus he is considered as enlightened, virtuous, strong as any of his fellow men.” Toqueville’s point is that democracy presupposes that each person is as competent and virtuous as any other. But of course this is false: people differ widely in intelligence and virtue. Note that he says “considered” not “really”. So democracy rests on a lie. How, then, to defend democracy? Well, if truth, reason, virtue, etc are not objective qualities that people exemplify to varying degrees, but are rather relative to each person, we have a way out: everyone is as smart and good as anyone else to himself. Then democracy rests on no lie, since everyone really is cognitively and morally equal. Relativism steps in to save democracy from its noble lie. Thus relativism finds a foothold. But relativism is rubbish; so where does that leave democracy?

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The Last Entry

March 29, 2019 by Douglas Jimenez

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I wrote that essay about atheism after taking part in a panel discussion about religion at CUNY in December 2009. I am always being asked why I’m an atheist and not an agnostic, as if I were some sort of dogmatist. Instead of explaining it over and over again, I thought it would be useful to write it out. I hope it helps clarify people’s thoughts. I don’t expect it to convince theists, but it may help atheists formulate their views.

Astute readers will notice that I misspelled “lava” as “larva”.

Last Sunday I saw on TV the best women’s tennis match I’ve ever seen, between two Belgians, Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin–goddesses both.

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Reply to Letter

March 29, 2019 by Douglas Jimenez

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Letter

I have read the “Letter From Concerned Philosophers” that has appeared on the Feminist Philosophers website. Let me clarify a few things. First, I fully endorse the spirit of the letter: students who make legitimate complaints against professors should not be retaliated against. I would sign a letter to this effect myself. However, second, and crucially, there have been reports in the press (the Chronicle of Higher Education) that have been attributed to the student and that negatively characterize me. I have no way of knowing how accurate these attributions are: press reports can be highly unreliable and the attributions have been mediated by another student. The allegations thus made against me (repeated and magnified on the internet) are extremely damaging to my reputation and future career. Moreover, they are inaccurate at best, parsimonious with the truth, and highly misleading. Again, I do not know how accurately these allegations reflect any statement made by the student herself (I have read the university’s official letter in which a record of the student’s statement contains far milder claims). I have a right to reply to these public allegations; so do others who are familiar with the facts. To do so involves casting doubt on their veracity, supplying context, correcting misinterpretations, and so on. This I have done, as have others. There is nothing “retaliatory” here, just a reasoned and careful attempt to state the truth. If this undermines the plausibility of what has been publicly alleged, and of the glosses and interpretations put upon it by others, then so be it. The truth is the truth. People must be accountable for their public statements. Had the student and her representative declined to make their allegations to the Chronicle, it would not have been necessary for me to respond; but they did, and so I responded. Quite what would motivate them to do this I do not know, since I had already resigned, but once the allegations were out there I had little choice than to state my case.

Two other points: The phrase “de facto retaliation” used in the Letter From Concerned Philosophers strikes me as mumbo jumbo—a verbal trick to make non-retaliation sound like retaliation. Are we to suppose that whenever an accused person defends herself against her accusers that she is guilty of “de facto retaliation”? Of course, if she defends herself successfully, according to standards of reason and evidence, the accusers will not come off looking so good; but is this an argument for preventing her from defending herself? Second point: I am described in the Letter as a “powerful philosopher”, the suggestion being that I could damage the career prospects of the student and her supporters. This is pure fantasy: how in the current state of things could I have such an influence? Any negative evaluation I might offer would be immediately suspect and ignored by any reasonable person, and would of course make me look extremely bad. Furthermore, the power here does not lie with me: I have had to resign my job, be elbowed out of my profession, had my reputation trampled, etc. I have no power at all as things stand. All I can do is state my case as clearly and convincingly as possible. Do the signatories of the Letter want to deny me this elementary right? Indeed, isn’t the Letter itself an example of “de facto retaliation”?

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