Subject: PKF: New Book - History of philosophy in Australia
Date: Sun, 21 Dec 2003 00:52:23 +1100


Comments on James Franklin, "Corrupting the Youth: A History of Philosophy
in Australia", Macleay Press, Sydney, 465 pages, hardback, illustrated,
index.

Sometimes people need to be reminded of the scholarly purpose of
universities which is to provide the milieu for writing books like his. One
would hope that a university press would have justified its existence by
publishing the book, however it was taken up and then dropped by two of the
leading university presses in Australia (Melbourne and UNSW).

Jim Franklin, Associate Professor of Mathematics at the University of New
South Wales, has pursued a monumental research project and  provided the
fruits of his labours in good humoured, somewhat understated and very
readable form. David Armstrong suggested in his launching speech that such a
book could probably never be written again. That was a surprising thing to
hear until the truth was revealed in the massive bulk of the footnotes. It
clearly took a very effort undertake this work that has gone into this book.

Another reason why this book could never be written again is that Professor
John Anderson will cast a shorter shadow in future histories because his
influence was almost entirely exerted by personal contact and he retired in
1958 which means that the youngest students who remember him would now be on
the verge of retirement themselves.

The story is told in three parts. First an overview under the heading "John
Anderson's Sydney and Alternatives". This signals that Australian philosophy
assumed its most distinctive (and corrupting ) form in the critical realism
and materialism that was expounded by Anderson from 1927 to 1957.  Some fine
philosophers passed emerged from Anderson's department (John Passmore,
Mackie, Perc Partridge, David Armstrong) but they had to leave Sydney to
blossom. Anderson established a record of appointing and promoting
mediocrities while discouraging people from publishing or from assimilating
influences from abroad. He never tried to swim in a bigger pond and he disco
uraged his associates from doing so. The result
is that Andersonian philosophy rated only  a footnote in Passmore's "Hundred
Years of Western Philosophy".

More on Anderson can be found at this link.
http://setis.library.usyd.edu.au/oztexts/andersback.html

Anderson's critical/skeptical way of thinking is sometimes described as
giving rise to a distinctive "Sydney Line" which is promulgated by a web
site. The Macleay Press, house journal of the Sydney Line, published
Franklin's book.

http://www.sydneyline.com/About.htm

Philosophy at the University of Melbourne (the second university in
Australia) did not assume such a distinctive form, allowing more diversity,
albeit as an outpost of overseas trends such as positivism, linguistic
philosophy and Marxism, in various combinations. Tasmania, the third
university in the nation but now one of the smallest, gets a mention on
account of Sydney Sparkes Orr, a mediocre scholar who
fluked a chair in Hobart and was dismissed after alleged sexual involvement
with a student. He attracted support from the academic community worldwide
and the Tasmanian chair was declared "black" for some years until the late
1960s.

The role of the Catholic Scholastics receives generous attention in the role
that they played in the (Roman) Catholic education system as does the
activity of Archbishop Gough, the Anglican Primate of Australia, in
challenging the alleged corrupting influence of Professor Anderson from the
pulpit of the Cathedral. This provided the basis for a lot of sensational
press cover in the early 1960s.

The second part treats the wider sphere of philosophy. A chapter on the
Sydney Push depicts the Andersonians downtown as "critical drinkers". They
branched in two directions when the conservative Andersonians enlisted on
the correct side in the Cold War and the radicals took on Marxism and
Anarchism, an unlikely combination.

Another chapter describes the local contribution to the materialist theory
of mind which became known as "Australian  materialism" due to the work of
Place, Smart and Armstrong . The third chapter in this section is the
longest in the book and it is not concerned with the corruption of youth,
quite the reverse, it describes various ways that were explored to inspire
youth in the pursuit of virtue - school lessons in civics, Boy Scouts,
cadets, team sports, surf lifesaving, the Empire, the heroes of ancient Rome
(Horatius on the bridge), the Anzac legend, the Romantic poets (my spirits
bark is driven...), improving literature and F R Leavis. Singly and
collectively these are likely to arouse mirth in progressive circles but
Franklin is correct to write "The story of the spread of restraint in the
first half of the twentieth century, when great sections of society pulled
themselves out of the cycle of poverty, violence and alcohol addiction
through intense effort devoted to temperance, thrift, self-control and hard
work, has yet to be told".

The third part is devoted to special interests including the travails of the
philosophy school at the University of  Sydney which at one stage had to be
split in two to accommodate traditionals and radicals, David Stove's
counter-attack on the idols of progressivism in the philosohy of science,
environmentalism, the invasion of  French fashions, the various liberation
movements and the emergence of Peter Singer as Australia's best known
philosopher. The part of the book which I find most in need of criticism is
that on David Sove and his criticism of Popper's views on the methods of
science and the theory of conjectural knowledge  but  this disagreement has
been treated elsewhere.
http://www.the-rathouse.com/AnythingGoes.html

Does philosophy have to be a corrupter of youth? Plato dreaded independent
thought and his philosopher kings  had to undertake a long and rigorous
training. The British idealistic movement of the late 1800s had potential
but it was recruited to justify the expansion of State power. R G
Collingwood considered that the "minute philosophy" which replaced idealism
emptied moral philosophy of content and paved the way for the disasters of
the Thirties.  Logical positivism discarded discourse on morals as literally
meaningless, existentialism - a matter of taste, Marxism - a tool of class
interest, Freudianism and Andersonianism - the prejudices of prudes.

Maybe there is an answer along the lines of critical rationalism in science
and ethics, not a cut and dried answer to any particular problem, but an
answer in terms of method and procedure. Perhaps scientific theories and
moral/political principles can be subjected to appraisal in terms of their
capacity to solve problems and stand up to criticism. Theories and
principles alike are human constructs but they are not arbitrary, they can
be regarded as objective and subjected to rational criticism, held as a
matter of critical preference
(in favour of other theories and principles) and they can be modified or
discarded on the basis of evidence and arguments. As it happens, Franklin
himself favours an objectivist approach to ethics, though this is not
spelled out in the book and he should not be expected to defend the
aforementioned views.

In conclusion, this is equally admirable as a work as scholarship and a fine
piece of writing. It deserves a wide readership in Australia and overseas as
well, for those with an interest in the history of ideas and the interaction
of town and gown.

Rafe Champion
Sydney, Australia
Critical Preference in science and ethics
http://www.the-rathouse.com/popcritpref.html




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