Michael Della Rocca is a Professor of Philosophy at Yale University who has written extensively on early modern philosophy and contemporary metaphysics. He spoke with Charlie Taben about his new book The Parmenidean Ascent in preparation for Taben’s new blog series “Philosophy and the Mirror of Technology“.
What is your book about?
The Parmenidean Ascent is about the destructive and creative power of rationalism as expressed by a commitment to the Principle of Sufficient Reason (the PSR), according to which—in one of its formulations—each fact has an explanation. As I argue, such a rationalism leads to a very uncompromising version of monism in which there are absolutely no distinctions and there is no multiplicity whatsoever. In seeing this connection between the PSR and radical monism, I am in the very good company of Parmenides, Spinoza, Hume, Bradley, Russell, and others. Finally, the book expresses a deep skepticism not only in the sense that it denies that there are differentiated objects as we ordinarily think we conceive them, but also in the sense that it rejects the view that we can coherently conceive of such distinctions. For me, distinctions not only do not and cannot exist, but they cannot even be thought or conceived.
In reaching these claims, I get my hands dirty, as it were, by examining the contours of historical and contemporary debates in metaphysics, philosophy of action, epistemology, and philosophy of language. I show, in each case, how an explanatory demand that drives these philosophical endeavors—a demand expressed by questions such as “What is substance or being?”, “What is action?”, “What is knowledge?”, and “What is meaning?”—leads to the implosion of all or almost all leading philosophical theories in these domains. The culprit, on my telling, is the appeal to relations or to differentiated versions of substance, action, knowledge, and meaning. I present arguments against the intelligibility of relations in general—here I am indebted to Bradley in particular—as well as arguments targeted directly against the relations that philosophers typically appeal to in each of these central areas of philosophy.
Although there are some explicit signs of a contemporary appreciation of this Parmenidean way of thinking, especially in recent philosophy of language, philosophers have sought and will seek to resist these rationalist, monistic, and skeptical arguments. This resistance takes the form either of attempts to limit the scope of the PSR—what I call the strategy of trying to “tame” the PSR—or of appeals to common sense or to intuitions as a way of showing that my conclusions must be wrong. I argue that both of these strategies fail and are ultimately incoherent. The book then explores the prospects for continuing to practice philosophy in the light of this Parmenidean, rationalist, skeptical critique.
Which conclusions do you find most exciting?
For me, one of the most exciting features of the book is the new way of arguing, in a Bradleyan vein, for the non-reality of relations and for the rejection of all distinctions. The argument is presented in detail in chapter 3 along with responses to challenges that have been raised against Bradley and against me. This argument is invoked throughout the rest of the book.
In applying this strategy to issues in meaning in the philosophy of language, I develop an argument that the distinction between philosophy and the study of its history should be rejected. I think that the implications of this conclusion for the pursuit and practice of philosophy are potentially enormous.
Similarly, I think that the arguments by which philosophers try—and have tried—to resist my conclusions turn upon an inherently conservative methodology. I argue that we have every reason to abandon this methodology.
Finally, I am forthright in embracing the ways in which my radical rationalist position may undermine itself. However, as the example of my book shows, this position may undermine itself but not before taking down much of contemporary and historical philosophy with it. In this way, my arguments are like a Wittgensteinian ladder that we climb and throw away. To embrace this strategy is to embrace not knowing how or whether philosophy is possible. The book is, in many ways, a cry for help as much as it is a critique of contemporary philosophy, and as much as it is a call for a renewed focus on rationalism, monism, and skepticism.
How have readers responded?
Judging from initial reactions to the book as well as from responses to my earlier presentations of work in this vein, I would say that reactions will often be in the spirit of the incredulous stare that David Lewis reported as a reaction to his modal realism. Some have tried and, I am confident, will try to restrict or tame the PSR, and others have tried or will try to show how I go wrong in some other ways. I am genuinely open to such challenges and, more than anything else, my hope is for philosophers to engage with the arguments I advance. I have no illusion that people will wind up agreeing with me—and sometimes even I find my conclusions hard to accept. What I want most is the engagement, and what I am most disappointed by is the dismissal of my arguments or conclusions merely because they are counterintuitive or implausible. Bare appeals to plausibility or intuitions are no substitute for the work of philosophy and for the joy of philosophy. I should mention also that a reaction that I find most welcome and deeply illuminating is one that invokes certain themes from non-western philosophy as providing a response to or an appreciation of the kinds of claims that I make.
How does this book fit in with your larger project?
Obviously, the kind of rationalism-infused monism that I advance in the book owes a great deal to my interest in Spinoza. Apart from one or two passing references, however, I don’t invoke Spinoza in the book. His spirit is still present in the book though, even if I don’t think he would be willing to follow me in all respects. Now that the book is finished, I plan to keep working on Spinoza (a second edition of my 2008 book is in the works) and other historical figures in philosophy. Working on the history of philosophy, as I mention in the book, is one way of combating the taming of philosophy. I also aim to extend the approach in The Parmenidean Ascent to the realm of ethics, something I only touched on in the book. I am convinced that just as a Parmenidean, monistic theme is at work, perhaps implicitly, in some of the best recent work in philosophy of language, so too an implicit Parmenideanism guides some of the most insightful recent work in ethics. I am thinking here especially of the kind of critique of moral philosophy that we find in the work of Bernard Williams. In the most general terms, my ongoing project is to reveal the power and challenges of rationalist, monistic, and skeptical ways of thinking both in contemporary philosophy and in the history of philosophy.
What’s next for you?
In the hope that philosophy is possible, I’m interested in exploring and developing the ethical implications of the Parmenidean Ascent. I plan to deepen my engagement with Spinoza and other historical figures. And I want to look more closely at the role of – or the denial of – the PSR in the origins of analytical philosophy. I also have a new argument for a strong version of the PSR that I would like to try out and develop. This argument is simpler than and complements the defenses I have offered in my 2010 paper, “PSR” (in Philosophers’ Imprint) and in the chapter in my book in which I critique attempts to tame the PSR.
You can engage with Charlie Taben or Michael Della Rocca about their conversation and philosophical work in the comments section below. Comments must conform to our community guidelines and comment policy.
Michael Della Rocca
Michael Della Rocca grew up in Brooklyn, New York in an Italian-American family. After being educated at Harvard University and at U.C. Berkeley, he began teaching at Yale University where he has been on the faculty since 1991. He has written extensively on early modern philosophy and in contemporary metaphysics. In addition to The Parmenidean Ascent, he is the author of Representation and the Mind-Body Problem in Spinoza (1996), Spinoza (2008). He is the editor of The Oxford Handbook of Spinoza (2017) and the co-editor, with Fatema Amijee, of the forthcoming volume, The Principle of Sufficient Reason, which is part of the Oxford Philosophical Concepts series.
Charlie Taben
Charlie Taben graduated from Middlebury College in 1983 with a BA in philosophy and has been a financial services executive for nearly 40 years. He studied at Harvard University during his junior year and says one of the highlights of his life was taking John Rawls’ class. Today, Charlie remains engaged with the discipline, focusing on Spinoza, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard and Schopenhauer. He also performs volunteer work for the Philosophical Society of England and is currently seeking to incorporate practical philosophical digital content into US corporate wellness programs. You can find Charlie on Twitter @gbglax.
Thanks for this post, Charlie, and welcome to the Blog of the APA. I look forward to your series.
I have good memories of Prof. Delle Rocca from his first early year at Yale when I took his Spinoza seminar. It’s the only class I ever withdrew from – and out of involvement with it, not disinterest. When I began to write my final paper, I had too many notes and no clear entry point into what I wanted to write about. I felt that I had to write everything or nothing. So I withdrew during finals period. Prof. Delle Rocca was kind about this, and my memory is that he was generally a kind person and a professional with a nuanced mind.
I say this, because having experienced a little of the person, I don’t doubt that he knows how to live well enough. But the philosophy you discussed here doesn’t make intuitive sense to me as a guide to living. To say this, and to deliberately reference intuitiveness, is not to thump on the table and beg the question of method. Generally speaking, it makes sense to suppose that everything has a reason and, when thinking, to wonder what that is.
But we have to make decisions in life for the sake of those we love, to do our jobs well, and as a matter of justice, among other moral reasons. These are the real deal, and often keep us up at night or involve us in the most important meaning of our lives. In light of such decisions – and the perspective on the world that they involve, centering moral relations – Bradley’s paradox as it is reported here is not helpful on the face of it. To show that there is an infinite regress when it comes to thinking about the reality of our relationships with each other doesn’t leave us with good relationships or good decisions.
None of this is an argument. It’s a plea for a perspective as you go forward with your series. I like how, in your previous interview introducing your series, you make a virtue (and it is) out of not being overly technical, of being a philosophically trained non-academic who wants to help make philosophy intelligible. It would help to ask the paradox-makers who wield great logic how they handle something as simple as good relationships with others, say, in moments of personally and morally important decisions.
Funny thing: I asked this of a Continental philosopher on this blog too – of Thomas Nail in Chris Rawls’s interview with him for her series on time.
Thanks for reading!
Jeremy
Hi Jeremy,
Nice to hear from you and thanks for these observations which are insightful, just as your thoughts during the seminar at Yale so many years ago!
A few brief and relevant points about the book: The overall character of the book is, as I note at various places, skeptical (as well as rationalist and Parmenidean). As skeptical, the book is meant to be challenging and even unsettling. Also, one of the main themes of the book is a critique of analytical philosophy itself as excessively narrow and perhaps even conservative in its methodology. I am, in this respect, a renegade analytical philosopher. Finally, as I mention in this interview and in the next interview in Charlie’s series, the next step of my project is to explore the ethical implications of the Parmenidean Ascent. Thanks! Michael
Thanks, Michael. I look forward to reading more of your book. Seeing Bradley discussed was already a pleasant surprise!
Thanks very much for your engagement Jeremy. Indeed, my authored pieces, which will follow additional Q&A on The Parmenidean Ascent, are more personal and simple. The 2nd essay, about the limits of objectivity, is one you may enjoy. It’s a plea for subjectivity, drawing on Kierkegaard. I essentially make the case we need to remember that science is fundamentally descriptive, and that abstraction/objectivity is inexhaustive in the search for personal truth. Thank you again for your response, and I look forward to your thoughts on upcoming modules.
Sure thing, Charlie. I look forward to it.
If we reject all distinctions, do we disbelieve that any particular person wrote “I reject all distinctions” or “I argue X”?
This seems self-refuting, AFAICT.
No?
Yes, Buck, this is where I’m going. See my book’s chapter nine, “Paradox and the Joy of Self-Undermining.” Here I am in the good company of Sextus Empiricus and Wittgenstein (at least the Wittgenstein of the Tractatus).